SoCS — Break

Posted on May 21, 2016 by joey

I asked my family to help me think of something to do with ‘break’ and Sassy suggested, “How about the time I broke that plate and I cried and cried and you kept tellin me it was okay but I just kept cryin?”
“Oh yes!”

 
Hi, my name is Joey and I break things.

You may recall this from other blogs.
You may recall my beautiful porcelain floors are trying to ruin every vintage piece in my kitchen? How I yearn to have a bouncy linoleum floor?
I have previously written I am exactly the kind of person who would be involved in one of those unfortunate firearm incidents, self-inflicted injury of course — accidentally shoot my knife rack down, impale myself, get punctured by ricochet — great physical comedy. Watch as I try to stop the bleeding with an odd sock.
I also mentioned how I admire the Royal Albert Old Country Roses pattern, but would never own a piece because I am the kind of person who seems to forget that my china cabinet has glass doors, and one of these days I just know Imma slam em to shards while trying to remove my specifically non-china teapot.

teapot

So yeah. My mother? She IS elegant and graceful and deft and all that crap.

When my parents downsized the first time, she redecorated. White sofa. Glass tables. Crystal. Glass oil-burning doojis. Wrought-iron and glass candle thingies. Glass and brass tabletop clock. Lots of glass. Lots and lots of glass. If anyone can live in a glass house, it’s my mother.

I couldn’t even use a plastic comb without breaking it. I remember the day I broke the comb. It was yellow. I was eight. I was terrified to show her. My mother was not mean, you understand, she never punished me for breaking things.
She didn’t have to. I was one of those annoyingly sensitive children who cried at everything. You know the type, the ones that always have snotty noses and more feeeeeeelings than kleenexes.

I cannot tell you what all I broke. I remember a constant barrage of “Please be careful,” lotsa breath sharply sucked through her teeth, tons of disappointment, and fear. Fear of upsetting her. Again.

I vowed to tell my kids It’s okay. Accidents happen. Good thing, too, because two of them are clumsy, three of them are Highly Sensitive Persons, and one of them is part monkey. They’ve broken so many things, I couldn’t even begin to tell you. Things I forget I ever owned. Some of the broken things I still own. It helps that I’m a casual living sorta person.

It’s been a big help to live with a man who is in total control of his body. Sometimes I’ll say to him, “I want to ____ the ____, but I know if I try, I’ll break it, and so I wondered if maybe you could–”
“Yup.”
Cause he knows.
And when I break, he fixes.

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SoCS brake/break is brought to you by LindaGHill

About joey

Neurotic Bitch, Mother, Wife, Writer, Word Whore, Foodie and General Go-To-Girl
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51 Responses to SoCS — Break

  1. Judy E Martin says:
    May 21, 2016 at 7:09 AM

    Ha! Yes, we have gone in the same direction this week Joey. I can relate to all of this, right down to having a husband that fixes things! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Benson says:
    May 21, 2016 at 7:15 AM

    Is that what you call a symbiotic relationship? One breaks the other fixes. I don’t think of myself as an overly clumsy guy I don’t break a bunch of stuff but I could never live in a house full of glass objects. Lord think of all of the effort it would take to keep clean.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. orbthefirst says:
    May 21, 2016 at 7:17 AM

    “..elegant and graceful and deft and all that crap.” Hahaha!! You crack me up joey 😀

    Liked by 1 person

  4. jacquelineobyikocha says:
    May 21, 2016 at 7:38 AM

    You mother sounds quite the lady. I do less glass more acrylic, for now, I grew tired of trying to pick shards of glass broken by one child or the other.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Dan Antion says:
    May 21, 2016 at 7:38 AM

    Fun response to the prompt. I’m glad that I’ve been following you long enough to understand the references, it made it more fun, especially the odd sock. We don’t have many hard surfaces here, and most are covered with throw rugs (actually throw-up rugs, ‘cuz we have cats). I don’t think we would do well with hard floors or glass objects. Fortunately, I no longer need a comb. At least I don’t have enough hair to break one.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. vanbytheriver says:
    May 21, 2016 at 7:43 AM

    Ha…I saw Judy’s post earlier. You seem to be sisters in “breakage”. ☺ Your mom’s house would have been frightening to me. All that pretty stuff…I can’t even. I love the line “more feeeeeeelings than kleenexes.” We all get it.

    I seem to break body parts more often than “stuff”. Worrisome.

    Liked by 1 person

    • joey says:
      May 21, 2016 at 7:48 AM

      Yes, Judy and I are often commiserating in our clumsiness! At least my mother is a minimalist. My MIL is a gatherer of pretties…So many pretties…I am truly a bull in her china cabinet…always bumping and knocking…Ugh.

      Breaking body parts more than stuff probably leads to its own pile of tears. That’s unfortunate and must be difficult to deal with.

      Liked by 1 person

  7. Pistachios says:
    May 21, 2016 at 8:16 AM

    I was an annoyingly sensitive kid too. Definitely broke a few cups/glasses in my time, and even remember crying over spilt milk… Thank goodness my mum was also very forgiving!

    Liked by 2 people

  8. mltrautz@yahoo.com says:
    May 21, 2016 at 9:40 AM

    Love this, especially more feeelings than tissues. I have china that I never use because of the children, but I really wonder why I have it if we don’t use it.

    Liked by 1 person

    • joey says:
      May 21, 2016 at 1:05 PM

      They will grow up and leave…Then you should use them every day. I dunno, I’m not all about saving special things for special occasions — have you seen that poem on a meme or whatnot? It’s rather inspiring!

      Liked by 1 person

  9. coldhandboyack says:
    May 21, 2016 at 9:48 AM

    I get that waterfall of errors all the time. Drop something, bend down, split pants, bump it with my toe, follow it bend down, whack head on cabinet, repeat. I get it, I really do.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. JoAnna says:
    May 21, 2016 at 10:03 AM

    “…and one of them is part monkey.” Thanks for the lol after the highly sensitive persons. Yay for casual living sorta!

    Liked by 1 person

  11. bikerchick57 says:
    May 21, 2016 at 10:13 AM

    I have the Royal Albert Old Country Rose…in a glass hutch…with many other breakable items given to me by my parents. I gave mom the round butter dish for Christmas one year.

    I hear you about breaking things, although my forte is more about spilling things and tripping over my own two feet. As for your sensitive children, I believe you’d rather have that than showing little to no emotion. There’s nothing wrong with crying over the Star Spangled Banner or a broken toy or a fictional character on TV. It’s good for the soul.

    Liked by 1 person

    • joey says:
      May 21, 2016 at 1:09 PM

      I am HSP too, so I get it. It’s easier for me to deal with than for The Mister, that’s fersure. But society hates a HSP, there is no doubt about that.
      I too spill and trip. I’m a wreck.

      Liked by 1 person

  12. John W. Howell says:
    May 21, 2016 at 10:56 AM

    I loved this. I am the same way. My wife is always catching the fall out from my two left feet and mittened hands. My crowning achievement happened when I was a guest in a very important, comfortable, and pompous advertising executives home. I accidentally backed into a pedistal holding a priceless (I was told after) vase (pronounced vaz). It teetered and tottered and I caught it like a football in its downward arc. Okay so no harm done, right? The guy had to go on to explain that if that vaz had hit the floor, the cost would have been more than my home. (presumably assuming “you don’t live in a trailer.”) He didn’t know it,(since we had not met as yet) but I was in charge of the company planning to spend $100 million with his firm.(now who is being pompous?) We hired his rival.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. startswithmyra says:
    May 21, 2016 at 1:20 PM

    I have this same issue. This is why I don’t have a full set of dishes, or a coffee table. My one month old electric skillet no longer has it’s glass cover, we all know why!

    Liked by 1 person

  14. eschudel says:
    May 21, 2016 at 2:05 PM

    Forget the glass house – who has a white sofa?? That I will never understand… 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    • joey says:
      May 21, 2016 at 4:21 PM

      SO pretty. Makes a room look bigger. Makes me a nervous wreck! I have a friend who has a white office chair. She’s very attached to it. She has to regularly clean the denim stain from it. lol I could never.

      Like

  15. freyathewriter says:
    May 21, 2016 at 2:37 PM

    When I was little I used to go into a now long-gone department store in Birmingham called ‘Lewis’s’ with my mum. It was a fascinating shop (to me), but the part of the shop that I hated was having to walk through the area where delicate (and therefore breakable) chinaware was displayed. I crept through that part, so scared was I of it all crashing down around me!

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Chez Shea says:
    May 21, 2016 at 4:06 PM

    Glass tables make me nervous and edgy…I hate the sound when you put cups down on them….

    Liked by 1 person

  17. Anxious Mom says:
    May 21, 2016 at 11:39 PM

    Between Little Man and myself, who are both clumsy as hell and HSPs, we don’t do nice stuff, either. Thank god for break-proof plates and plastic take-out glasses from restaurants.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Britt Skrabanek says:
    May 22, 2016 at 12:55 PM

    I’m certain we’ve talked about clumsiness before, so I can totally relate! As much as I love antiques, going into those stores terrifies me. I swear I hold my breath the whole time I’m inside, and keep my body at a weird angle to make myself smaller to avoid mishaps. I imagine antique shopping is actually relaxing for other people.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. Luanne says:
    May 22, 2016 at 5:01 PM

    Bless him for being there. One thing you don’t break is your humor writing. It’s reliably wonderful. HILARIOUS. I have glass cabinets, too, and I can so imagine turning around, teapot in hand, and slamming it into the glass door I thought was open.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. roughwighting says:
    May 23, 2016 at 6:58 AM

    Fun post. I can relate – I had one child who was a ‘breaker.’ The other child was like me: a ‘spiller.’ As a child no matter how hard I’d try, I’d spill whatever I was holding: milk, my cereal bowl, the water bowl for the dog. Now, it’s worse: wine, beer, the water bowl for the dog. 🙂 Nice to connect with you here.

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Judy @ NewEnglandGardenAndThread says:
    May 26, 2016 at 6:59 PM

    I have a couple of antique thingies that came from people I love that I broke into a million pieces each. Hubby kindly superglued them back together but they just kind of sit in the cabinet. They aren’t in the trash but they might as well be because I think if I ever picked them up they’d just fall apart. It’s good to know your limits. I’ve asked hubby to get stuff down just because I have this gut feeling it is about to hit the deck.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. joannesisco says:
    May 27, 2016 at 5:48 PM

    I’m another HSP. I think I spent most of my childhood feeling like I’d let my mother down in one way or another. One of my sons is also a HSP and he likely feels the same way.
    Coincidentally, my other son is a monkey too 😉

    Liked by 1 person

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