i hate that song

i heard a song on the radio today that wrecked my whole afternoon. i don't often listen to country music, but it's on one of my presets and get's pushed 4th, if my top 3 aren't playing anything good. so it was that i pushed the country button, and heard a song called 'tough', where the husband is celebrating the virtues of his wife - last one to bed, first one up, making breakfast, driving kids all over, working out, stopping at the store, meeting him at the door with a smile, never showing it if she feels a wreck, overcoming breast cancer without ever complaining or worrying - and by the time the song was done, i was, too.

i am a wife. and i do those things... sometimes. but more often that not, my husband gets up with the girls to make breakfast, because i am not a morning person. i get up once all the toast is on the table, and sit with The Girls, but i have a hard time figuring out the toaster before school. there are days i do not greet my husband at the door with a smile. from time to time, i feel like a wreck, and Curtis usually knows when i do. so does the bagger at the grocery store. i would worry and cry, with occasional bouts of courage and strength, if i were to be diagnosed with breast cancer. that song made me wonder why anyone would love me, if those were the standards to which wives & mothers are held.

how can i compete with that idea of what a wife/woman should be? where are the songs celebrating a woman who is like me? warm & funny, mercurial & head strong, vibrant & curious - a girl who falls apart sometimes, gets scared sometimes, laughs til she cries but has been known to just cry, feels overwhelmed, loves her friends and family but sometimes just wants them to leave her alone? a girl who can be very brave, but only when she tries really hard. who lives that stepford life? who is that stepford wife?

i hate that song.