Dear Diary,
I am starting this post like a diary entry, perhaps inspired by the terrifying character of Amy in Gone Girl, who writes seven years of fake entries to fool the police. Tell me I didn't just ruin the book for you. The book does its own work for me there.
Perhaps because anytime a woman begins writing about her relationship there is something at once secretive, nostalgic, and confessional about it.
When faced with the subject of "our husband/partner/wife" we all get a little dreamy. You know, when we're not picking them apart at the seams.
I am making many assumptions, but let's soldier on.
I am in a long distance relationship after all, and there are miles to go before i sleep.
Beard and I met when I was a never-been-kissed nineteen year old.
We spent two and a half days killing time while our best friends
(who had met on the internet back in 2000. This was a BIG DEAL. I came along mostly to ensure that whoever this boy was who was coming all the way from Virginia to meet my gal pal wasn't going to chop her up and bury her in a camp site. I'm pretty sure my future Beard came along with his best buddy as the ultimate wingman), flirted obnoxiously, and we rolled our eyes.
A few years, and Myspace comments, later, found me living in an apartment in San Francisco, trying to figure out my life as a twenty three year old with a liberal arts degree and some encroaching idea as to my own irrelevance. It found my Beard newly single and lonely in his apartment in Virginia.
We began sending idle emails, that turned into phone calls, then visits, and after about four months, I moved away from the Pacific to "see where this was headed."
We've been together ten years now, married for seven, and we've been apart no longer than a week since.
Let's be honest, Long Distance Relationships work because we know the climate is temporary. There is an element of excitement and urgency to pining away like some kind of teeny-bopper, composing emails at two in the morning, or falling asleep with their voice on the phone at night. The giddy stomach dropping sensation of getting a text from across the miles that says, thinking of you takes on more meaning, because you aren't there to fan the flames. You actually have to pop into their head at random, as though they genuinely like you or something.
LDR's are the romantic ideal really. You listen to songs apart that have meaning for you together. You take yourself on long walks and wish they were there to slip their hand into yours. You look in the mirror and make faces, or talk out loud about the future you want to have with them. You're constantly on the lookout for little items and trinkets you can mail to them. After visits, you pull out the swiped hoodie or t-shirt you stole from their laundry, and you sleep with it, because it smells like them.
You do a lot of swanning about as they say.
And it's all SO FRAUGHT with emotion because you're figuring out, based on these phone calls, these visits, these little amuse-bouches of love, whether you want to buy the whole goddamn restaurant. It's tricky and scary and so very bittersweet. Eventually one of you has to make the plunge of moving to the other, and you have to put the relationship to the test.
Can we actually stand each other now that we have to be around each other all the time?
A lot of relationships get this far, and then collapse in on themselves because after all the build up, the real thing just can't compete.
It's one thing to be dying on the end of the phone line, sexting your brains out, and crying into your morning latte because they aren't there to share it with you, and it is entirely different to be with that illusory magical romantic human when he/she farts, gets food poisoning, doesn't take the trash out for weeks on end, forgets your birthday, picks a fight with you or horribly all of that at once.
Somehow, Beard and I survived the transition.
The first year we were still kind of in LDR mode. We hid all our ugly habits from one another. We never fought. We cuddled a lot and watched "Oh I don't care, whatever you want is fine, baby" for hours. I put make up on every morning, threw away my ugly pajamas and underwear with the elastic band all stretched out, and made his coffee first every morning.
He dressed the gothy way that had hooked me, kept his hand permanently glued to my lower back, and constantly asked if I was okay. He texted me "I miss you" while we were at work. He sent flowers to the coffee shop where I slung espresso on our anniversary.
We generally swanned about a lot still, but all over each other. I'm sure it was revolting for anyone to watch.
Then we moved to Massachusetts.
We had trouble finding jobs and blew through our savings pretty quickly.
I was surprised at how living in New England made me feel as though I hadn't done anything since high school, and when the best job I could find was making bread at a local bakery, I had the quarter life crisis I'd been putting off for a year to be stupidly smitten.
Beard had more trouble finding work, and when he finally did it was a corporate retail job that treated him like garbage. We had to move to a cheaper apartment on the shittier side of town. We had to put off getting married because we couldn't afford a wedding. We both started cracking, and showing our cracks, and it was hard.
We had some ugly fights.
We both said things that made the other person look at them like they were a stranger.
We left the room sometimes and didn't come back for a few hours so we could get our heads on straight.
Some nights we went to bed so angry we couldn't even touch feet in the bed.
Some mornings, we opened the fight back up again, and didn't know how to close it.
But we also learned.
We adapted.
We didn't give up.
I think that's part of the LDR turning into the LTR*. You know you're both in it for the long run, so you don't try to "win" at fights. You wait until the inferno blows over and you try to approach the shitty situation rationally. You have a safe word.
That's right, a safe word.
When we are having a fight, and one of us realizes it's getting out of control, or it might be about the fact that one of us is really stressed or tired, or we just know that this is going to be the time we say something so hurtful there's no apology in the world that makes it better, one of us says,
banana
Yes. That's right.
One of us invokes the rule of Banana. And no matter what it is we are fighting about, we both have to drop it. We both have to walk away.
I don't attribute my marriage lasting seven years to the Banana Rule, but I attribute a lot to that development, let me tell you.
If you are in an LTR and you don't have an anger safeword, make one. Make one now. You'll thank me later.
Anyway,
so what's the point?
Why does it matter that my LDR turned into an LTR?
Because we've come full circle my friends.
And having a baby has put me and my husband back into the same situation that started it all.
The night feeds and wakings are typically my jam because I don't have to go to a 9-5 and make pretty with actual humans. In fact, if I feel particularly shitty after a bad night with the were-baby, I don't even have to shower, but Beard has to clean up, nut up, and show up every day, so I get those night hazards.
Typically, we have about ten minutes in the morning, while he fills his travel mug from the dregs of the coffee pot I have already crushed because I've been up for two hours. The baby is in his high chair cooing and eating puffs or bits of banana, and I get in a decent hug before the gent heads out the door. We sort of look at each other filled with a deep sense of melancholy knowing that this is the most coherent we're going to be around one another for another twenty four hours, and then off he goes.
Most nights he gets home by 6pm, which is about an hour before Baby bedtime. In fact, we have eaten, bathed, and possibly even read a book by the time Daddy walks through the door. Our final bedtime moments are spent watching Daddy eat dinner (which he does while attempting to visit with the baby, and I slide in any important things I need to say like: hey we have a doctor's appointment on Saturday or I picked up your prescriptions here they are et cetera).
By seven, I am attempting to rock and nurse the baby to sleep. We trade off for the hour it takes to actually accomplish this, and then I am confined to the bed, where I sometimes indulge in an hour of looking at instagram and being disgusted by how beautiful everyone else's life looks in comparison to my milk-soaked, nonsense existence.
Beard comes to bed after the first hour of the day that he's had to himself, which i assume he spends either crying into the toilet, speed eating turkey jerky, or watches the vilest horror movie he can possibly find to make himself feel better about his life in comparison to being chained to a radiator by a demon infested hooker who keeps eating pieces of his genitalia.
We saw each other more often when we lived on opposite sides of the country.
We are in a long distance relationship.
Somehow, over the last ten months of me staying home with baby (and contributing a meager bit of moolah from the writing classes), and Beard going forth into the world and bringing home the old school bacon, we have devolved back from our advanced degree in commitment directly into the weirdness of the LDR.
Exhibit A.
We text.
Yes, this is 2016, everyone bloody texts, but we text each other shit like
I miss you.
or
It was hard to say goodbye this morning.
and
I miss feeling your hand on my lower back.
Exhibit B.
He sent me flowers on our anniversary.
To the house.
Then he texted me to go outside and check if an amazon package had arrived for him. It was a genuine surprise. Red roses. Yeah, that's right. Fucking red roses.
I loved them.
He also got me a Halloween present, which he hasn't done since we first moved to New England some eight years ago. A whole host of very spooky Hocus Pocus paraphernalia. Just out of the blue!
Delightful.
Exhibit C.
We send each other bits and bobs on social media.
Last week, my husband, who balks when I use the word feminist and constantly argues with me about the fact that while white, middle class men are the bane of human existence, white middle class women are pure evil (and he's not wrong), sent me an incredibly cool article from The New Yorker about Shirley Jackson's life as a domestically abused housewife and her genuinely creepy response to oppression through writing.
Seriously, it's an amazing article. Here's the link:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/the-haunted-mind-of-shirley-jackson
I also send him links to things like the scariest amusement parks in the world, or Halloweentowns that actually exist in Middle America, or they just discovered a new room in the fucking Winchester house! No, really they did...
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/10/09/new-room-discovered-winchester-mystery-house/
Anyway.
The trick of the LDR is to moon a bit.
Be a little romantic, and if that means being dumb, be dumb too.
Because it won't be long before the kid is sleeping in his own room, and we're forced to spend all the time together again and remember how human, fallible, and annoying we are, so in the meantime, being goofy kids who are sighing over their window sills because they don't get to spend every night asleep in a treehouse together is pretty nice, and it reminds me what's waiting for me on the other side of this strange haze of new parenthood, and what's waiting for me is a pretty great guy that I might like to see more of.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Monday, October 10, 2016
Perspective is Nine Tenths of The Law
There's a lot of crazy in the world right now.
A while back I had to cut my facebook feed down so that I wasn't constantly being barraged by horrific and disturbing images and news stories.
This doesn't mean that I unplugged from the world completely. In fact, I still read a number of news sources every day, however, I like to be able to filter how much I am beaten over the head by a story.
I do not need to be convinced of wars, climate change, natural and man made disasters, terrible events, and a siege of clowns.
Yup. A siege of menacing clowns.
Sigh.
I am convinced. I am an educated adult who has been living in the real world long enough to know that all that stands between me and abject poverty is a series of poor decisions and some bad luck. I know the only thing that stands between me and a natural disaster is luck, and a little geography, but mostly luck. I know that the only thing that stands between me and the millions of people staring into a the barrel of a news camera after losing someone, or recovering from an attack, or any of the things that happen to everybody in the world in their life at any given moment is pure goddamn luck.
This is why I am grateful for a lot of shit.
Yes, #grateful makes me gag almost as much as #pumpkinspice, but practicing "mindful thanks" is part of the psychotic optimist way I live my life, and it's how I keep the rolling tide of bone crushing depression from eating my will to live. LOL. WE HAVE A LOT OF FUN HERE GUYS.
Yesterday it poured rain.
Like from about halfway through Saturday night until early Monday morning fucking pooooooouuuuuuring. I, like a lot of psychotic optimists, need sunlight. I really really do. I know I'm ruining any chance at goth girl cred I ever had in my entire life by saying this, but I cannot stay stuck inside in the dark all the time. It was fine when I was seventeen and devouring novels set in the 1700's, 1800's, and early 1900's. Sure I could wrap my long tresses around me and gaze forlorn out the window as I lifted my cup of tea to my lips and pretend that I was "otherworldly" and "born in the wrong decade" and whatnot, but I also didn't have a lot of friends, rarely spent time doing anything other than reading or listening to music in the dark (actually miss that part quite a bit), and I was miserable.
I kept waiting to be older so I could get to the good part of my life.
You know, the part where I run through a deserted castle in a gossamer nightgown holding an inexplicably light iron candelabra as my twisted, yet devilishly handsome, beloved grapples with some awful secret he's only just revealed to me, and I simply must dash to the moors to come to grips with who and what I love.
Just the average notebook dreams of a teenage girl really.
Jess & Dr. Jekyll 4-EVA.
Well, I'm here.
If you're a weirdo like me and you read a lot about the dying, you find out that most people have these very important thoughts during their last days on earth.
1. They wish they'd taken more chances.
2. They wish they'd slowed down a little and not worried so much about "what was going to happen tomorrow" instead of the loveliness of "what was happening right then".
3. They pinpointed their thirties and their forties as their happiest decades.
After reading many articles where these three things came up again and again, I decided (being that I am thirty four), I had better get to observing the joy in the here and now.
This is more easily said than done, am I right?
We're so programmed by society, culture, school, workforce, all of it to constantly be worrying if we're hot enough, rich enough, cool enough, informed enough, cultured enough, enough of a mother, enough of a partner, enough of an employee, etc etc etc.
With all that going on inside our heads is it any wonder that we can't focus on the moment and spend all our free time roaming around on our stupid phones either trying to find invisible creatures so we can feel something akin to instant gratification and satisfaction in our autonomous lives? Is it any wonder that people are freaking out about celebrities instead of climate change? It's all distraction. It's all there designed to make us feel less than and reach for the nearest quick fix that with just the easiest click of a mouse or swipe of a card allows us to pay someone else to give us a glimpse at satisfaction.
We constantly seek escape from our lives because dwelling in the moment means taking the moment for everything it contains. Yes, there will be fear, inadequacy, that nagging dread that somehow, you are doing this life thing wrong, but you also might be surprised by how alive you feel by allowing yourself to feel all of these things and then letting them pass. What comes in their wake? What happens if you embrace that momentary weakness, let yourself feel like you aren't something? Perhaps what comes next is the feeling of what you in fact are.
I was on the train on Saturday morning headed into Boston to teach my current writing class.
I was given a six week long course in which I am supposed to inspire and help my students manufacture a new, fresh story every single week.
My joy at teaching this class during this period of time is abundant.
Whether my students like it or not they have been bombarded with writing prompts about ghosts, haunted houses, ghouls, and general spookiness.
YOU CAN'T JUST GIVE ME A CANDY BAR AND NOT EXPECT ME TO EAT IT PEOPLE!
So I go into work on Saturdays with about eight short scary stories under my arm. I ride the train with a nice hot coffee in my hand, and I purposefully use this baby-free time to go through all the things I like about my life and generally wallow in them. That's right, wallow like a pig in my blessings.
It would be easy to spend the forty minute train ride checking facebook and instagram. It would be easy to spend it checking my lipstick and wondering if my coffee cup is smudging it. And you know what, sometimes I do that. Sometimes I spend ten or fifteen minutes doing those things exactly.
But then I force myself to turn off my phone and stare out the window.
I allow myself to space out, and if I start worrying about bills, belly rolls, or baby futures, I force my brain to start a list of good things that happened this week, and I just add whatever the hell I want to the list.
As I was making this list on Saturday morning, I was staring at the salt marshes, watching as their edges were slowly eaten up by more and more urban sprawl, when I happened to glance up at a plane in the sky, and a tiny little chunk of rainbow caught my attention.
I looked more intently, and I realized that this perfect little hunk of rainbow was just sitting there. It wasn't a trick of the light, or a crack in my sunglasses. It was a perfect little prism suspended between two clouds and with the sun shining through it right then and there, I got to see it.
Stuff like that, my friends, is what I call a present.
I wondered if anyone else could see it. I thought about glancing back at all the people on the train. Was anybody else staring raptly out the window, or were they all going to be diddling their phones and fixing their hair, impatiently tapping their feet and waiting to get into the city?
I decided not to.
It didn't matter if the tiny rainbow was seen by every single person, or if it was experienced solely by me.
That's the glory of perspective.
It's yours. Maybe the rainbow was only visible from the exact place I was sitting at that exact moment. Maybe it was there all day. Maybe it was only for me. Maybe everyone who rode the train saw it.
It doesn't matter.
Because I saw it, and it made my heart feel a little lighter. It reminded me of magic, existing everywhere all the time, and how it really is observable if you pay attention, and actively push back against the darkness.
Saturday, October 8, 2016
She's a Pistol.
Okay, I know I'm anxious.
I know I come across a wee bit fearful, neurotic, cautious, or what have you, but my biggest fear isn't random masked intruders, possessed crib mobiles, or razor blades in apples.
It's pissing myself.
Let's shoo all the twenty somethings out of the room a minute, because the odds are good that if you're in your twenties (and you haven't either had a child or a serious drinking problem) wetting your chonies is something you've left far behind. It's a distant memory of that humiliating night when you were eight and had to get out of bed and wake up your parent-you know, the one who was least likely to shame you-and hushedly explain that you needed new pajamas. Maybe you were on a really long car trip, and you tried to tell them to pull over so you could go at the Burger King, but Mom wanted to push on to the next exit, and you had "an emergency" involving six thousand baby wipes, and a car seat that would never smell quite the same again.
Regardless, it was a while ago. You can tell it as a funny story at parties now and laugh.
For me, that story was when I was about seven years old.
My family used to go on little walkabouts on Sunday afternoons.
We'd pull on our sneakers, pile in the car, and Dad would get us to some pretty beach or trail or national park. We'd hike around for an hour or two and then split a large Cadbury's Fruit and Nut at the picnic tables.
Quite droll really.
On this particular Sunday, it was a bit chilly and raining, but not so heavily as to deter our patriarch. So we pulled on wellies and sweaters, and off we went.
I should mention that at seven, I was the eldest of the three children. My younger sister was 5 and the baby of the family was a little over a year.
We ventured out of the car at a little clearing with some pretty cliffs and forest to explore. I had a suspicion that I needed a bathroom, but I was a little too nervous to ask my parents to load us all back in the car and find one. I had very little experience peeing in the woods, but I was tenacious, and so I scoped out a copse of trees where I wouldn't be seen, pulled down my pants and attempted to squat.
This was the first time I became aware of a peculiarity particular to my anatomy. The piss stream, rather than adhering to those plebeian laws of gravity and going straight down onto the ground, shot out of my body in a magnificent, steaming arc right onto the wadded up jeans and undies around my ankles.
I watched in horror as the treacherous piss soaked my supposedly safe garments, feebly swiveling my hips to lessen the tragedy, only to find the motion more efficiently drenched every last inch of dry material on the ground.
By the time my bladder was empty, I was staring down the choice of either emerging from the woods naked from the waist down and drawing every human in my family's attention (and any unlucky hikers' to boot). Even at the tender age of seven, the humiliation was too much to bear, not to mention the wrath of my Dad, who blessed (cursed?) with an unmatched sense of smell had managed to convince my young mind that he could smell my farts when I was just thinking about letting one go, and that I would be left by the side of the road should I ever release one in his presence.
I'm still not entirely sure that was an idle threat.
So I did what anyone would do in this situation.
I tugged my saturated clothing back up my legs, feeling the already cold pee soaked denim rashing up my legs and around my hindquarters.
I swaggered out of woods like John Wayne to confront everyone with a lie and pray that I could walk until I dried (impossible since it was raining...remember? ah the incorrigible hope of youth...).
Luckily, my parents and youngest sibling were on the other side of a large rock face and it was Alex, who looked up from poking some fungus with a stick to see her elder sister red faced and soaked to the bone scuttle out of the trees like a demented, emotionally vulnerable crab.
"Jessie?" Her brow knit quizzically.
I immediately confessed.
"Daddy's going to kill me!" I blubbered after revealing my shame.
She reached out her little hand and took mine, looked me deep in the eyes, and committed an act of solidarity I have never seen matched in my life.
"No, no he won't," she said, and I watched, as my perfectly dry little sister, pissed her pants on purpose.
I watched the growing wet spot on her jeans with a growing glow in my heart.
"But-" I whispered. "You'll-"
She cut me off with a wave of her hand.
"He can't be mad at both of us," she said.
Perfect kid logic.
At this moment, my mother came around the side of the rock to see what was keeping us.
She took in the situation. Both her daughters soaked to the bone in piss, holding hands and smiling at her while valiantly fighting back tears.
I might be applying this look in hindsight, but I'm pretty sure we saw something like horror dawn on her face, but before she could react, my father came around the rock with our youngest sibling in his arms.
"What the?"
And all hell broke loose.
There was no chocolate to be had on this day. The pissing day.
Instead, we were unceremoniously lashed back into our car seats. I was made to put my raincoat on my seat so my shame would not soak into the fabric of the car. Alex stuck out her chin defiantly, but stayed stoically silent.
I wept openly, hot tears of mortification.
My father was still releasing his own stream of unrelenting curses, oaths, and slights about disgusting children and filthy habits and a good day ruined, as my mother tried in vain to smooth his mood and smile encouragingly at all of us.
She is a spectacular woman who knows piss, like everything else, dries and disappears eventually.
It was at this pivotal moment, when I truly wonder if my father was contemplating leaving his family on the side of the road rather than drive in a piss flavored air pocket the hour back to our house, that the youngest member of my family decided to completely fill her shorts.
A sound akin to time itself being ripped apart with a box cutter, tore through the car, and suddenly the vaporous, ephemeral scent of piss was replaced, actually, obliterated by the warm fragrance of baby poo.
We drove home in silence.
As an adult, I see both sides of the story.
Scrubbing piss and poo out of three sets of clothes sounds pretty miserable, being trapped in a vehicle with the zoo of odors we must have been emanating sounds just as awful, but now I have other things to worry about.
Over time, I learned to live with my strangely angled urethra. There were one or two mishaps after a night of one too many glasses of wine where I forgot to angle down properly, and I paid for those lapses in wadded up kleenex.
It is only since I gave birth to my son that I have noticed things have gotten somewhat...
how shall i say?
Dire?
Now my piss arc not only goes out, but it veers severely to the left, a fact I discovered during the incredibly sleep deprived early months of motherhood every time I went to the bathroom, if I didn't lean forward far enough, I actually shot over the seat and hit the floor.
I have only just recently gotten used to having to sit on the toilet side saddle like women in the early 1900's rode horses.
On top of this, if I do forget, and my arc streaks far and true, I find myself in the identical situation of my seven year old self, watching in horror as my pee soaks the pants around my ankles and forsakes the perfectly decent toilet I am perched upon.
All this to say, karma, my friends, means something entirely different when you become a parent.
I know I come across a wee bit fearful, neurotic, cautious, or what have you, but my biggest fear isn't random masked intruders, possessed crib mobiles, or razor blades in apples.
It's pissing myself.
Let's shoo all the twenty somethings out of the room a minute, because the odds are good that if you're in your twenties (and you haven't either had a child or a serious drinking problem) wetting your chonies is something you've left far behind. It's a distant memory of that humiliating night when you were eight and had to get out of bed and wake up your parent-you know, the one who was least likely to shame you-and hushedly explain that you needed new pajamas. Maybe you were on a really long car trip, and you tried to tell them to pull over so you could go at the Burger King, but Mom wanted to push on to the next exit, and you had "an emergency" involving six thousand baby wipes, and a car seat that would never smell quite the same again.
Regardless, it was a while ago. You can tell it as a funny story at parties now and laugh.
For me, that story was when I was about seven years old.
My family used to go on little walkabouts on Sunday afternoons.
We'd pull on our sneakers, pile in the car, and Dad would get us to some pretty beach or trail or national park. We'd hike around for an hour or two and then split a large Cadbury's Fruit and Nut at the picnic tables.
Quite droll really.
On this particular Sunday, it was a bit chilly and raining, but not so heavily as to deter our patriarch. So we pulled on wellies and sweaters, and off we went.
I should mention that at seven, I was the eldest of the three children. My younger sister was 5 and the baby of the family was a little over a year.
We ventured out of the car at a little clearing with some pretty cliffs and forest to explore. I had a suspicion that I needed a bathroom, but I was a little too nervous to ask my parents to load us all back in the car and find one. I had very little experience peeing in the woods, but I was tenacious, and so I scoped out a copse of trees where I wouldn't be seen, pulled down my pants and attempted to squat.
This was the first time I became aware of a peculiarity particular to my anatomy. The piss stream, rather than adhering to those plebeian laws of gravity and going straight down onto the ground, shot out of my body in a magnificent, steaming arc right onto the wadded up jeans and undies around my ankles.
I watched in horror as the treacherous piss soaked my supposedly safe garments, feebly swiveling my hips to lessen the tragedy, only to find the motion more efficiently drenched every last inch of dry material on the ground.
By the time my bladder was empty, I was staring down the choice of either emerging from the woods naked from the waist down and drawing every human in my family's attention (and any unlucky hikers' to boot). Even at the tender age of seven, the humiliation was too much to bear, not to mention the wrath of my Dad, who blessed (cursed?) with an unmatched sense of smell had managed to convince my young mind that he could smell my farts when I was just thinking about letting one go, and that I would be left by the side of the road should I ever release one in his presence.
I'm still not entirely sure that was an idle threat.
So I did what anyone would do in this situation.
I tugged my saturated clothing back up my legs, feeling the already cold pee soaked denim rashing up my legs and around my hindquarters.
I swaggered out of woods like John Wayne to confront everyone with a lie and pray that I could walk until I dried (impossible since it was raining...remember? ah the incorrigible hope of youth...).
Luckily, my parents and youngest sibling were on the other side of a large rock face and it was Alex, who looked up from poking some fungus with a stick to see her elder sister red faced and soaked to the bone scuttle out of the trees like a demented, emotionally vulnerable crab.
"Jessie?" Her brow knit quizzically.
I immediately confessed.
"Daddy's going to kill me!" I blubbered after revealing my shame.
She reached out her little hand and took mine, looked me deep in the eyes, and committed an act of solidarity I have never seen matched in my life.
"No, no he won't," she said, and I watched, as my perfectly dry little sister, pissed her pants on purpose.
I watched the growing wet spot on her jeans with a growing glow in my heart.
"But-" I whispered. "You'll-"
She cut me off with a wave of her hand.
"He can't be mad at both of us," she said.
Perfect kid logic.
At this moment, my mother came around the side of the rock to see what was keeping us.
She took in the situation. Both her daughters soaked to the bone in piss, holding hands and smiling at her while valiantly fighting back tears.
I might be applying this look in hindsight, but I'm pretty sure we saw something like horror dawn on her face, but before she could react, my father came around the rock with our youngest sibling in his arms.
"What the?"
And all hell broke loose.
There was no chocolate to be had on this day. The pissing day.
Instead, we were unceremoniously lashed back into our car seats. I was made to put my raincoat on my seat so my shame would not soak into the fabric of the car. Alex stuck out her chin defiantly, but stayed stoically silent.
I wept openly, hot tears of mortification.
My father was still releasing his own stream of unrelenting curses, oaths, and slights about disgusting children and filthy habits and a good day ruined, as my mother tried in vain to smooth his mood and smile encouragingly at all of us.
She is a spectacular woman who knows piss, like everything else, dries and disappears eventually.
It was at this pivotal moment, when I truly wonder if my father was contemplating leaving his family on the side of the road rather than drive in a piss flavored air pocket the hour back to our house, that the youngest member of my family decided to completely fill her shorts.
A sound akin to time itself being ripped apart with a box cutter, tore through the car, and suddenly the vaporous, ephemeral scent of piss was replaced, actually, obliterated by the warm fragrance of baby poo.
We drove home in silence.
As an adult, I see both sides of the story.
Scrubbing piss and poo out of three sets of clothes sounds pretty miserable, being trapped in a vehicle with the zoo of odors we must have been emanating sounds just as awful, but now I have other things to worry about.
Over time, I learned to live with my strangely angled urethra. There were one or two mishaps after a night of one too many glasses of wine where I forgot to angle down properly, and I paid for those lapses in wadded up kleenex.
It is only since I gave birth to my son that I have noticed things have gotten somewhat...
how shall i say?
Dire?
Now my piss arc not only goes out, but it veers severely to the left, a fact I discovered during the incredibly sleep deprived early months of motherhood every time I went to the bathroom, if I didn't lean forward far enough, I actually shot over the seat and hit the floor.
I have only just recently gotten used to having to sit on the toilet side saddle like women in the early 1900's rode horses.
On top of this, if I do forget, and my arc streaks far and true, I find myself in the identical situation of my seven year old self, watching in horror as my pee soaks the pants around my ankles and forsakes the perfectly decent toilet I am perched upon.
All this to say, karma, my friends, means something entirely different when you become a parent.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
Getting What You Want
I've been thinking a lot about how my postpartum body differs from my pre-baby body as of late.
Specifically the fact that my post baby body weighs a great deal less than my body did before.
Now, i am not here to fake complain about the weight loss and compare myself to mothers whose bodies react more typically to pregnancy and breastfeeding, which is to hold on more readily to their weight. I am here to discuss how this situation i am in is affecting my recovery from fifteen years of disordered eating.
And it brought me to the following realization:
In the past. I have liked my body the most, when it looked the least like my mental image of myself.
Take a minute and think about that.
Do you look at pictures of yourself on fb or ig and un-tag yourself from them if they are unflattering?
Do you use umpteen filters on any selfies you take?
Do you look at your female friends and relatives and compare yourself to them? Or worse, do you convince yourself that you cannot be as happy as they are because your body does not look like theirs?
I have done all of the above, and i was doing it long before my behavior became what would be defined as textbook ED.
I am currently twenty lbs less than i was two years ago before getting pregnant with my son.
Back then in 2014, i was convinced I would be happier if i was the weight i am now. I associated this lower weight with success, stability, control over myself and therefore control over what other people thought of me. I aligned this concept of my lighter self with a better version, a more fulfilled and balanced person who did not obsess about food. I was certain that if i could just get out of my cycle of binging and restricting and putging, i would magically be not just lighter in my worries and cares but lighter physically as well. One did not come with the other.
When i thought i was getting my shit together, all it tookwas a badly lit photo that highlighted my poochy belly or a moment in the mirror where i realized my cheeks made my head look "too wide". And i would go spiralling into a sea of self loathing, where i ate because it didn't matter what i did, i was never going to look in the mirror and see Giselle or Beyonce. I was only ever going to see me.
Here i am. I look in the mirror and i see what I thought i wanted so badly two years ago. And you know what?
It's still me looking put from the mirror.
I lost the weight, and i still have wide cheeks and a belly roll, they're just a bit smaller. I didn't magically grow a luscious booty or clearer skin. My distribution of fat is exactly the same, just slightly less than.
My disordered brain knows that most of my weight loss is due to breastfeeding, and that when my baby weans, not only will some (if not all) the weight come back, but so will all the hormones that have kept most of my cravings in suspended animation for the past year and a half.
This state my body is in is temporary.
Epiphany:
The state of your body and its shape is always temporary.
We are constantly fighting to be the healthiest version of ourselves.
For me, that may mean i gain those twent pounds back.
My job is not to fight it.
My job is to continue to listen to my body when it tells me what and how i should eat and move and rest it.
My job is not to get on the scale every Tuesday, a bad habit i picked up while pregnant. My job is to be proud of the belly that grew my baby and which continues to care for me by housing my organs and yes, some extra fat that is there for me to stay warm and fed.
I could lose another twenty pounds. I did it before, and i know what happens.
I am cold and cranky all the time.
I stop menstruating.
I don't sleep properly, my skin turns to garbage, and i get lightheaded easily.
I will never grow a defined jawline no matter how little i weigh. I will always have big cheeks.
I will never have six pack abs. That's just not what my body is designed to look like.
I am not happier or more in control at this weight than i was twenty pounds heavier.
I am just as insecure, just as emotional, and just as neurotic.
I am not more successful or magically jetsetting into the next phase of my career.
You know what else?
I still enjoy sunsets.
My mouth still loves the bittersweet residue dark chocolate leaves behind.
My legs are strong, and i love walking by the ocean feeling my wide cheeks getting rosy from the salt wind.
My arms are so good at picking up my son and holding onto him as he wriggles like hell.
My lips are fantastic as kissing his perfect round cheeks that are Just. Like. Mine.
My body
Your body
They don't magically get better at doing their jobs when they weigh less or more.
In the same way that a car is still going to get you somewhere no matter what shape it is or what color.
As long as its parts still work it doesn't matter what it looks like. It's still a great car!
So look in the mirror.
Take the unfiltered selfie.
Buy the dress.
Eat the cake.
Kiss the human.
And treasure everything about your glorious body as it is, in this moment, that it allows you to experience all of this whether it is twenty pounds (or thirty! Or forty!) more or less than it is now.
Stop looking for someone else to look back at you. You're perfect, bloody beautiful, just as you are.
Specifically the fact that my post baby body weighs a great deal less than my body did before.
Now, i am not here to fake complain about the weight loss and compare myself to mothers whose bodies react more typically to pregnancy and breastfeeding, which is to hold on more readily to their weight. I am here to discuss how this situation i am in is affecting my recovery from fifteen years of disordered eating.
And it brought me to the following realization:
In the past. I have liked my body the most, when it looked the least like my mental image of myself.
Take a minute and think about that.
Do you look at pictures of yourself on fb or ig and un-tag yourself from them if they are unflattering?
Do you use umpteen filters on any selfies you take?
Do you look at your female friends and relatives and compare yourself to them? Or worse, do you convince yourself that you cannot be as happy as they are because your body does not look like theirs?
I have done all of the above, and i was doing it long before my behavior became what would be defined as textbook ED.
I am currently twenty lbs less than i was two years ago before getting pregnant with my son.
Back then in 2014, i was convinced I would be happier if i was the weight i am now. I associated this lower weight with success, stability, control over myself and therefore control over what other people thought of me. I aligned this concept of my lighter self with a better version, a more fulfilled and balanced person who did not obsess about food. I was certain that if i could just get out of my cycle of binging and restricting and putging, i would magically be not just lighter in my worries and cares but lighter physically as well. One did not come with the other.
When i thought i was getting my shit together, all it tookwas a badly lit photo that highlighted my poochy belly or a moment in the mirror where i realized my cheeks made my head look "too wide". And i would go spiralling into a sea of self loathing, where i ate because it didn't matter what i did, i was never going to look in the mirror and see Giselle or Beyonce. I was only ever going to see me.
Here i am. I look in the mirror and i see what I thought i wanted so badly two years ago. And you know what?
It's still me looking put from the mirror.
I lost the weight, and i still have wide cheeks and a belly roll, they're just a bit smaller. I didn't magically grow a luscious booty or clearer skin. My distribution of fat is exactly the same, just slightly less than.
My disordered brain knows that most of my weight loss is due to breastfeeding, and that when my baby weans, not only will some (if not all) the weight come back, but so will all the hormones that have kept most of my cravings in suspended animation for the past year and a half.
This state my body is in is temporary.
Epiphany:
The state of your body and its shape is always temporary.
We are constantly fighting to be the healthiest version of ourselves.
For me, that may mean i gain those twent pounds back.
My job is not to fight it.
My job is to continue to listen to my body when it tells me what and how i should eat and move and rest it.
My job is not to get on the scale every Tuesday, a bad habit i picked up while pregnant. My job is to be proud of the belly that grew my baby and which continues to care for me by housing my organs and yes, some extra fat that is there for me to stay warm and fed.
I could lose another twenty pounds. I did it before, and i know what happens.
I am cold and cranky all the time.
I stop menstruating.
I don't sleep properly, my skin turns to garbage, and i get lightheaded easily.
I will never grow a defined jawline no matter how little i weigh. I will always have big cheeks.
I will never have six pack abs. That's just not what my body is designed to look like.
I am not happier or more in control at this weight than i was twenty pounds heavier.
I am just as insecure, just as emotional, and just as neurotic.
I am not more successful or magically jetsetting into the next phase of my career.
You know what else?
I still enjoy sunsets.
My mouth still loves the bittersweet residue dark chocolate leaves behind.
My legs are strong, and i love walking by the ocean feeling my wide cheeks getting rosy from the salt wind.
My arms are so good at picking up my son and holding onto him as he wriggles like hell.
My lips are fantastic as kissing his perfect round cheeks that are Just. Like. Mine.
My body
Your body
They don't magically get better at doing their jobs when they weigh less or more.
In the same way that a car is still going to get you somewhere no matter what shape it is or what color.
As long as its parts still work it doesn't matter what it looks like. It's still a great car!
So look in the mirror.
Take the unfiltered selfie.
Buy the dress.
Eat the cake.
Kiss the human.
And treasure everything about your glorious body as it is, in this moment, that it allows you to experience all of this whether it is twenty pounds (or thirty! Or forty!) more or less than it is now.
Stop looking for someone else to look back at you. You're perfect, bloody beautiful, just as you are.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Getting Back to it.
September flipped the switch on Fall weather this weekend.
We went from three weeks of (I know I hate the phrase too) Indian summer, with sultry days and thick, humid nights that had me completely confused when Halloween stuff started showing up in the stores (albeit DELIGHTED).
Then it was as though someone drafted a memo on the 22nd and Mother Nature adjusted her adorable little pince nez and said something to the effect of "Oh goodness me! It's Autumn! Oh I am running behind!" and with a whooooooooooosh! Those thick swaths of humid air were shucked out to sea, and our neck of the woods got dressed up in proper Fall garb. Cool, crisp mornings; low, gloomy sunsets and drawn out twilights; freshly laundered air that smells ever so slightly of decay and bitter wood smoke.
All this to say, I feel you Mama Nature, I feel like I can't catch up these days either, but when I do, I'm going to remind everyone I still know what I'm doing.
We went from three weeks of (I know I hate the phrase too) Indian summer, with sultry days and thick, humid nights that had me completely confused when Halloween stuff started showing up in the stores (albeit DELIGHTED).
Then it was as though someone drafted a memo on the 22nd and Mother Nature adjusted her adorable little pince nez and said something to the effect of "Oh goodness me! It's Autumn! Oh I am running behind!" and with a whooooooooooosh! Those thick swaths of humid air were shucked out to sea, and our neck of the woods got dressed up in proper Fall garb. Cool, crisp mornings; low, gloomy sunsets and drawn out twilights; freshly laundered air that smells ever so slightly of decay and bitter wood smoke.
All this to say, I feel you Mama Nature, I feel like I can't catch up these days either, but when I do, I'm going to remind everyone I still know what I'm doing.
Friday, September 23, 2016
Equinox
For all those of you out there who balanced brooms, hung wreaths, or lit candles yesterday, I envy you.
It is here. My absolute favorite time of the year.
And I'm already doing it wrong.
I remember this time last year as I waddled on my daily three mile walk, I would place my hands on my belly, finally visibly pregnant after almost six months of looking like I'd just overdone it at lunch, and I would whisper to the fishmonster within about the changing colors of the landscape, the rolling moods of the ocean, the smells and sounds and wonderful magic of Fall. I would wonder about how I would feel a year later, with a baby during this most delicious time.
Here I am.
Yesterday was the first true day of Autumn, and I spent it walking the baby to sleep mostly. His sleep schedule is...well...we'll use the word "erratic" right now, as it's the kindest version of what I want to say. We've been sharing the family bed for almost two weeks now, and last night was by far the worst since we got off the floor of the tv room.
All the elements were in their correct positions...
He was full. He was clean. He'd done some serious diaper business earlier in the day. He'd even had two very long, very effective naps.
We went to bed around 7:45pm. The sweet spot.
We slept pretty well uninterrupted until around ten thirty or eleven when Beard came to bed.
And then the flailing began.
I have never known The Baby as flailer. He's usually curled up or spread out, and neither the twixt shall meet, but last night, every thirty minutes, his limbs began circling like an electrocuted frog's. He even tried sitting up, and the whole time, faaaaaast asleep.
Usually I can nurse him back down to a nice calm position, but there was nothing for it last night. I got up at midnight and hung out in the tv room for a bit, watching terrible BBC shows. Did the baby flail on my lap? No. He slept on, still as a stone. We came back to bed at one. I hoped the atmosphere had changed.
Nope.
Four hours later, the twice hourly flail-fest continued, and I finally bundled up the babe and brought him out to the rocking chair, where he and I both dozed (ish for him, not at all for me) until six, when I thought it acceptable to get up and start the day like normal (HA!) people.
Last night, before we went to bed, Beard was gently dancing Baz down in the other room, so I lit my Autumn candle. I looked at it, placed my hands around its warmth and took a deep breath. I prepared to think about all the things I wanted to project for the season, the things I wanted to put away for the winter months that no longer served me, the projects I wanted to begin, the creative vein I wanted to dig into for the darker months. I didn't even get that far. As soon as I took the breath, in came the herrband with the baby. I hurriedly blew out the candle and as the wisp of smoke dissipated in the air, I took the baby into bed.
Such is life right now.
Everyone everywhere tells me to be grateful, to cherish these moments because at some point I will miss them. Someday far too soon, Bastian will be annoyed when I try to kiss him goodnight; long gone will be the days we curl around and into one another and feel safe and so deeply loved.
I know.
I know.
I know.
But there is something to be said for just being a damn person too.
Maybe I didn't get to write my wishes down on individual pieces of essential oil soaked paper and burn them in a bonfire while Beard romantically strums a lyre in the backyard.
Maybe I didn't get a wink of sleep last night because the baby was busy trying to communicate, in his best, non-verbal fashion, that his bones are growing, and his skin is stretching, and his fucking teeth hurts.
Maybe today, at the grocery store, I bought the pre-made pumpkin cookie dough that I can't eat* for my husband, and then I bought three reese's pumpkins that he can't eat*, and as I walked back to my house, the baby nodded to sleep on my chest in the carrier, and I hauled the groceries, and him, and myself home in a bedraggled mess.
*various dietary ailments. Hurray aging!
Here's the thing.
LIFE IS NEVER AS GOOD WHEN IT'S HAPPENING AS WE REMEMBER IT TO BE.
That's why we live in a "live in the moment" culture obsessed with instant nostalgia.
All those instagram filters and retro throwback bullshit things we do to "capture the essence of a feeling" are all because we want to escape how shitty the current moment is.
Ready to have your mind blown?
THE WHOLE REASON OUR PRIVILEGED CULTURE IS OBSESSED WITH AUTUMN IS BECAUSE IT IS AN ENTIRE SEASON DESIGNED AROUND CHILDHOOD MILESTONES WE MISS.
Pumpkin Spice Latte?
It should be marketed as "First do it yourself Halloween Costume" or "First Hayride with Your Crush" Flavor.
Apple Cider Donut Candle?
It might as well be New Backpack or Clean Locker scent because of how heavily we associate the back to school vibes with reinvention and the chance to prove that this year, this year will be different...
If we all experienced childhoods of hard labor with scarce food and long days spent farming or logging or whatever else our ancestors did to preserve our dna strain, we'd still look back on those times fondly. It's part of why we carry on. It's why we have children, to give them those memories and maybe relive our own in the process.
Anyway, this wasn't meant to degrade into a whole rail against why millenials dig Autumn like psychopaths rant, because boy do I dig the third season. Do I ever.
I just want to experience and remember that it is pain too. The whole reason for those beautiful leaves, those ripe pumpkins and sweet cornbread, bushels of apples, and jars of preserves is because this is the dying time. It's the northern hemisphere's beauty ritual before she goes to bed. Essentially all the trees losing their leaves is the world washing the dirt of the summer from its face.
The fires, the woodsmoke, the harvesting and hoarding, the slowing down, that's what I miss most right now, because all of it is so hard with a baby screaming, clawing, climbing, and flailing you away from sleep.
Still, there are moments to be treasured.
I am going to put this child in a pile of leaves the size on an elephant in about two weeks.
And yes, there will be pictures, so he can feel nostalgic for this time too someday.
It is here. My absolute favorite time of the year.
And I'm already doing it wrong.
I remember this time last year as I waddled on my daily three mile walk, I would place my hands on my belly, finally visibly pregnant after almost six months of looking like I'd just overdone it at lunch, and I would whisper to the fishmonster within about the changing colors of the landscape, the rolling moods of the ocean, the smells and sounds and wonderful magic of Fall. I would wonder about how I would feel a year later, with a baby during this most delicious time.
Here I am.
Yesterday was the first true day of Autumn, and I spent it walking the baby to sleep mostly. His sleep schedule is...well...we'll use the word "erratic" right now, as it's the kindest version of what I want to say. We've been sharing the family bed for almost two weeks now, and last night was by far the worst since we got off the floor of the tv room.
All the elements were in their correct positions...
He was full. He was clean. He'd done some serious diaper business earlier in the day. He'd even had two very long, very effective naps.
We went to bed around 7:45pm. The sweet spot.
We slept pretty well uninterrupted until around ten thirty or eleven when Beard came to bed.
And then the flailing began.
I have never known The Baby as flailer. He's usually curled up or spread out, and neither the twixt shall meet, but last night, every thirty minutes, his limbs began circling like an electrocuted frog's. He even tried sitting up, and the whole time, faaaaaast asleep.
Usually I can nurse him back down to a nice calm position, but there was nothing for it last night. I got up at midnight and hung out in the tv room for a bit, watching terrible BBC shows. Did the baby flail on my lap? No. He slept on, still as a stone. We came back to bed at one. I hoped the atmosphere had changed.
Nope.
Four hours later, the twice hourly flail-fest continued, and I finally bundled up the babe and brought him out to the rocking chair, where he and I both dozed (ish for him, not at all for me) until six, when I thought it acceptable to get up and start the day like normal (HA!) people.
Last night, before we went to bed, Beard was gently dancing Baz down in the other room, so I lit my Autumn candle. I looked at it, placed my hands around its warmth and took a deep breath. I prepared to think about all the things I wanted to project for the season, the things I wanted to put away for the winter months that no longer served me, the projects I wanted to begin, the creative vein I wanted to dig into for the darker months. I didn't even get that far. As soon as I took the breath, in came the herrband with the baby. I hurriedly blew out the candle and as the wisp of smoke dissipated in the air, I took the baby into bed.
Such is life right now.
Everyone everywhere tells me to be grateful, to cherish these moments because at some point I will miss them. Someday far too soon, Bastian will be annoyed when I try to kiss him goodnight; long gone will be the days we curl around and into one another and feel safe and so deeply loved.
I know.
I know.
I know.
But there is something to be said for just being a damn person too.
Maybe I didn't get to write my wishes down on individual pieces of essential oil soaked paper and burn them in a bonfire while Beard romantically strums a lyre in the backyard.
Maybe I didn't get a wink of sleep last night because the baby was busy trying to communicate, in his best, non-verbal fashion, that his bones are growing, and his skin is stretching, and his fucking teeth hurts.
Maybe today, at the grocery store, I bought the pre-made pumpkin cookie dough that I can't eat* for my husband, and then I bought three reese's pumpkins that he can't eat*, and as I walked back to my house, the baby nodded to sleep on my chest in the carrier, and I hauled the groceries, and him, and myself home in a bedraggled mess.
*various dietary ailments. Hurray aging!
Here's the thing.
LIFE IS NEVER AS GOOD WHEN IT'S HAPPENING AS WE REMEMBER IT TO BE.
That's why we live in a "live in the moment" culture obsessed with instant nostalgia.
All those instagram filters and retro throwback bullshit things we do to "capture the essence of a feeling" are all because we want to escape how shitty the current moment is.
Ready to have your mind blown?
THE WHOLE REASON OUR PRIVILEGED CULTURE IS OBSESSED WITH AUTUMN IS BECAUSE IT IS AN ENTIRE SEASON DESIGNED AROUND CHILDHOOD MILESTONES WE MISS.
Pumpkin Spice Latte?
It should be marketed as "First do it yourself Halloween Costume" or "First Hayride with Your Crush" Flavor.
Apple Cider Donut Candle?
It might as well be New Backpack or Clean Locker scent because of how heavily we associate the back to school vibes with reinvention and the chance to prove that this year, this year will be different...
If we all experienced childhoods of hard labor with scarce food and long days spent farming or logging or whatever else our ancestors did to preserve our dna strain, we'd still look back on those times fondly. It's part of why we carry on. It's why we have children, to give them those memories and maybe relive our own in the process.
Anyway, this wasn't meant to degrade into a whole rail against why millenials dig Autumn like psychopaths rant, because boy do I dig the third season. Do I ever.
I just want to experience and remember that it is pain too. The whole reason for those beautiful leaves, those ripe pumpkins and sweet cornbread, bushels of apples, and jars of preserves is because this is the dying time. It's the northern hemisphere's beauty ritual before she goes to bed. Essentially all the trees losing their leaves is the world washing the dirt of the summer from its face.
The fires, the woodsmoke, the harvesting and hoarding, the slowing down, that's what I miss most right now, because all of it is so hard with a baby screaming, clawing, climbing, and flailing you away from sleep.
Still, there are moments to be treasured.
I am going to put this child in a pile of leaves the size on an elephant in about two weeks.
And yes, there will be pictures, so he can feel nostalgic for this time too someday.
Friday, September 9, 2016
Is That All There Is?
Being a mother and working from home were never on my shortlist.
Beard and I have a wedding anniversary on Monday.
We'll be married for seven years that day.
It's strange, like my birthday, I remember counting down the days until the supposed day of celebration, and then when it arrived, nothing about my life was suspended in excitement. The baby was still colicky. The sleep was still very hard to come by. The boobs were still on call, and the plans to go out for one drink with my friends ended getting pitched out the window because of said colicky baby. I ended up nursing him to sleep while sitting on our porch with two girlfriends at hand. I drank a thumb's worth of wine, and I didn't even finish it, because I was too tired.
Usually, on our anniversary, I get Beard something horror related and nerdy, like tickets to Rock and Shock (sssshhhhh), and he gets me flowers, and something weird (like a ring that looks like a giant silver book), and we go out to dinner somewhere nearby, have one or two drinks, talk about how much we like each other, and then come home and well...have a respectable evening.
Ahem.
As we approach our anniversary this year, there's a lot about it that feels different. Not only have we been married for 7 years, but we've been together for a grand total of 10, which feels pretty momentous. Also, we have a baby, who fortuitously will be 9 months old exactly on the date of our anniversary which, whomp whomp is a Monday.
In view of my super embarrassing mama meltdown two weeks ago, I don't think it's wise to plan some extravagant event, like a party, a night at a hotel in Boston, or any of the other super rad ideas I could come up with. But I don't want the date to come and go with zero fanfare because I have this deep dark fear that when you become a parent you stop celebrating your life and your achievements and only celebrate your child's. It's one of the many reasons I didn't want kids for so long, that inevitable loss of self, and with it all of the pleasures for which I (hedonist extraordinaire) live.
I know it's taboo. As parents, we aren't supposed to say things like, "I miss the old me", or "A Saturday night where I don't have to worry about a baby would sure be a relief". Even more verboten is the expression of such ideas as, "I don't want my kid to stop me from feeling good about myself as a writer, artist, lover, partner, friend, etc" "I don't want parenting to stop me from being the best version of myself and then expect me to bargain that it's okay because I'm living vicariously through my child." No thank you. Also, that way madness lies. That's where retired ballerinas nurture injury and eating disorders in their own progeny or former career women place unrealistic expectations on their own children's performances in school and sport to live out their competitive instincts.
I don't want that.
I want pixie dust and education and nature and curiosity and joy.
But I want that for me and for Baz.
I'd also really like to spend an evening with my husband by ourselves instead of playing,
"Hold the baby while I do the dishes."
"Okay now you hold the baby while I go pee"
"Okay now you hold the baby while I go outside and summon godzilla".
I don't have the right answer yet, and that's what kills me.
All the things I worry about, the stuff I cheat myself out of or simply find too hard, I hate the idea that I'll look back on it all in the not so distant future and think, "Why was I such a wuss? I should have just gone ahead and done the thing!"
Except that when I tried to do the thing two weeks ago, I folded like a card table.
Unfortunately, I think I'm not going to come up with the right answer. The smart money says, Beard will say, "It's no big deal sweetie. Let's just get some Chinese food, and hang out as a family."
And I will say "Sure."
Because it is the easy answer. Because I am too tired, too hungry, too worn out from trying to work while a 9 month old gnaws on my shoulder, or tears out my hair, or screams for hours on end, and I just don't have it in me to fight.
Even if I would be fighting for myself.
Beard and I have a wedding anniversary on Monday.
We'll be married for seven years that day.
It's strange, like my birthday, I remember counting down the days until the supposed day of celebration, and then when it arrived, nothing about my life was suspended in excitement. The baby was still colicky. The sleep was still very hard to come by. The boobs were still on call, and the plans to go out for one drink with my friends ended getting pitched out the window because of said colicky baby. I ended up nursing him to sleep while sitting on our porch with two girlfriends at hand. I drank a thumb's worth of wine, and I didn't even finish it, because I was too tired.
Usually, on our anniversary, I get Beard something horror related and nerdy, like tickets to Rock and Shock (sssshhhhh), and he gets me flowers, and something weird (like a ring that looks like a giant silver book), and we go out to dinner somewhere nearby, have one or two drinks, talk about how much we like each other, and then come home and well...have a respectable evening.
Ahem.
As we approach our anniversary this year, there's a lot about it that feels different. Not only have we been married for 7 years, but we've been together for a grand total of 10, which feels pretty momentous. Also, we have a baby, who fortuitously will be 9 months old exactly on the date of our anniversary which, whomp whomp is a Monday.
In view of my super embarrassing mama meltdown two weeks ago, I don't think it's wise to plan some extravagant event, like a party, a night at a hotel in Boston, or any of the other super rad ideas I could come up with. But I don't want the date to come and go with zero fanfare because I have this deep dark fear that when you become a parent you stop celebrating your life and your achievements and only celebrate your child's. It's one of the many reasons I didn't want kids for so long, that inevitable loss of self, and with it all of the pleasures for which I (hedonist extraordinaire) live.
I know it's taboo. As parents, we aren't supposed to say things like, "I miss the old me", or "A Saturday night where I don't have to worry about a baby would sure be a relief". Even more verboten is the expression of such ideas as, "I don't want my kid to stop me from feeling good about myself as a writer, artist, lover, partner, friend, etc" "I don't want parenting to stop me from being the best version of myself and then expect me to bargain that it's okay because I'm living vicariously through my child." No thank you. Also, that way madness lies. That's where retired ballerinas nurture injury and eating disorders in their own progeny or former career women place unrealistic expectations on their own children's performances in school and sport to live out their competitive instincts.
I don't want that.
I want pixie dust and education and nature and curiosity and joy.
But I want that for me and for Baz.
I'd also really like to spend an evening with my husband by ourselves instead of playing,
"Hold the baby while I do the dishes."
"Okay now you hold the baby while I go pee"
"Okay now you hold the baby while I go outside and summon godzilla".
I don't have the right answer yet, and that's what kills me.
All the things I worry about, the stuff I cheat myself out of or simply find too hard, I hate the idea that I'll look back on it all in the not so distant future and think, "Why was I such a wuss? I should have just gone ahead and done the thing!"
Except that when I tried to do the thing two weeks ago, I folded like a card table.
Unfortunately, I think I'm not going to come up with the right answer. The smart money says, Beard will say, "It's no big deal sweetie. Let's just get some Chinese food, and hang out as a family."
And I will say "Sure."
Because it is the easy answer. Because I am too tired, too hungry, too worn out from trying to work while a 9 month old gnaws on my shoulder, or tears out my hair, or screams for hours on end, and I just don't have it in me to fight.
Even if I would be fighting for myself.
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