Annoyed Into Awareness

for the witch who knows the path is paved with eye-rolls and breadcrumbs

Not all awakenings arrive in dreams or silence.
Some show up mid-sigh, mid-mess, mid-scroll.
Some arrive when the toddler spills their cup again,
or the same rooster crows just as the quote about “irritation being a teacher” flashes across your screen.

You roll your eyes.
You clench your jaw.
You think, God, not this again.

And maybe, if you’re paying attention,
that’s the spell beginning to work.

Because magic doesn’t always whisper.
Sometimes it’s loud.
Grating.
Repeating itself until it finally breaks through your resistance.

Your mother said the same things.
Again and again.
Things you swore you’d never say.

And now?
You catch yourself repeating them
—to your own kids,
—into the air,
—maybe even to yourself
with the quiet humility that only time and motherhood and heartbreak can deliver.

They roll their eyes at you, of course.
Just like you did at her.
You’ve become the seed-planter now,
the voice they’ll resist until one day—maybe—they hear it again in a moment that matters.

It’s easy to dismiss this.
To think irritation is just noise.
But what if it’s a flare?
A little pressure under the ribcage pointing toward a boundary, a buried truth, or a part of yourself still waiting to be seen?

What if the thing that annoys you is simply the thing you’ve outgrown but haven’t yet integrated?

The people who bother you.
The rules that restrict you.
The advice you once followed until it hollowed you out.

They aren’t just irritants.
They’re mirrors.
They’re old spells cracking.
They’re thresholds.

Even the rooster.

Maybe he’s not just a nuisance.
Maybe he’s the trickster, the messenger.
Crow’s cousin, cloaked in feathers and noise.
Reminding you—over and over—that you’re not asleep anymore.

Because irritation is friction.
And friction lights fires.
And fires illuminate.

So the next time you feel yourself tense up
in the kitchen, on the screen, mid-sentence,
ask:

What part of me is trying to wake up right now?

You don’t have to be grateful for the rooster.
But maybe you can nod to the fact that he’s on time.