the half truth of a whole life

Christians love Sundays and that makes sense to me. If I worshiped cake and someone told me that every Sunday for the rest of my natural born life (and the not-so-natural one, come to think of it) I’d be able to get up and spend time with cake, I’d be all like, “Fuck yeah, I’ll totally wake up at 7AM to go hang out with a bunch of people and give cake the attention it so deserves.”

But since that’s not the situation ’round these parts, Sundays are days of silent suffering.

Side note: I generally don’t believe in qualifying on the blog, after all, if you don’t want to hear my thoughts on something, I’d suggest you not come to my blog and read them at will, but I also understand that until I’m validated by some higher writing authority (say a publication), I do, from time to time, feel it’s appropriate to… clarify.

So, before I get all Chief from One Flew Over, let me say that I do not dread my life or my job for any other reason than that I have low self esteem and am CERTAIN that at any moment someone is going to figure out that I’m useless and my life will spin into a pit of irrevocable despair. Some of you are thinking to yourself, “wow. I think she needs to get on a little something.” To which I’ll let you know that I am on something, while others of you might be thinking, “get a grip” To which I cannot more emphatically tell you that I am trying. Seriously. I am.

So, Sundays.

Sundays are “put your ill-fitting High Functioning hat on” days. I intentionally remove the hat around 4:30 on Friday because I’ve been wearing it since the Sunday before and it gives me a psychosomatic headache just like those cheap plastic headbands that you can buy in three packs at the CVS. For 1.25 blissful days I get to swim in my personal pool of low expectations, sleeping late and answering simple questions like what kind of beer I’d like, or which place to order pizza from at 2AM. Plus, living with a quiet husband and a cat with no ability to communicate save playing in the toilet when he’s stressed, I don’t have to do much explaining. They know I’m useless. And that’s okay.

But come Sunday, it’s time to get serious. All that flitting around and pretending to be carefree is over. It’s not a weekend. IT’S A SCHOOL NIGHT. And that means you get your shit together, you get ready for the week ahead, and you try to get in bed by midnight.

So here’s how that translates for me:

Sometime between 9 – 11 AM: The subconscious dread. As the clock marches towards wake up time, my subconscious seizes the opportunity to torture me. Dreams about me being president suddenly turn into dreams about an obstacle course through quickly hardening cement. And my partner (the one I have to finish with in order to win the $50,000 prize) is a 650lb black woman in a HoverRound.

At that point there is no reason to embrace the morning and sleep in. It’s best to get up. Whatever additional sleep is possible will be fitful and plagued. How the hell am I going to win $50, 000 when my partner cannot see her own vagina?

The late morning and mid afternoon: These moments are filled with hope and inspiration. What will be in my future? A jog perhaps? A trip to the grocery store followed by a few hours of prepping meals for the week and cleaning the apartment? Maybe a good vacuuming or dusting would help us start off on the right foot.

No. None of those things will happen. Here’s is what will: paralyzing captivation with whatever bullshit is on Lifetime or USA. Followed, obviously, by at least an hour and a half of guilt and remorse for wasting the most productive hours of the afternoon on stories about babies who were switched at birth or some girl named Nancy who would rather be dead than eat a bagel. (Not judging. I love an eating disorder as much as the next person.)

So then I decide to jog. Because when you’ve wasted your final day of rest watching reruns of L&O:SVU and Facebook stalking your high school friends, there is only one thing that can right the wrong. Exercise. I usually make it to the bridge before either my asthma takes over or the leftovers I had for breakfast reach the staging area and I make a panicked, waddling, beeline back to my house.

By then it’s probably at least 4PM and my zest for the day is fading as the reality of my future sets in. What detail of my personal or work life did I blatantly overlook during the weekend that will likely cause everything to go boom? Why haven’t I made it to the grocery store? WHY DOESN’T STUART LOVE ME AS MUCH AS HE LOVES THE HUBS?

It’s at this point that I’ll probably stress eat something. And turn the TV back on to see if whomever is being showcased on Lifetime has it worse than me.

And then it’s evening. Oh evening.

There is always at least 2.5 hours of work. Unbillable, as it usually requires me going obsessively over my emails and creating little charts to make myself feel better. I always realize that what I thought was plenty of time on a project is in fact not enough time at all and what I should have been doing ALL WEEKEND LONG was buckling down and being an adult. There is always an internal monologue that sounds like something like the one you heard in that video they played in 8th grade Health class, right before the teacher gave you the speech about reaching out when you needed help.

By now the hubs realizes that his wife is gone and has been replaced by the transition woman. She’s the one who stays over while Saturday Caroline is being replaced by Monday Caroline. The transition woman is a hot mess. For starters, she’s a killjoy. Not only does she have the power to kill joy, she actually has the power to keep joy from being born. And she has rules. Very, very strict rules. And she’s manic. Between 7-9 PM all creatures of man and fur need to be helpful or get the hell out of the way. Things need to get done and if they don’t get done they are going to be blamed on everyone but Monday Caroline. Food needs to be planned for the week. Bedroom needs to be picked up to ensure a good start. The kitchen needs to be cleaned. The living room organized. And there is dinner. And bedtime. And ambitions for the week.

Cue Jessie Spano from Saved by the Bell.

As midnight approaches– the outlined bedtime for optimal week startage– the panic sets in.

Just a few more hours. Okay, okay, okay. One more. Just one more. Maybe just one more episode. Or maybe I’ll read. Or maybe if I could just get this one thing organized I’d sleep better. OH! Maybe I’ll do some crafts! I love crafts!

:::This is usually around the time that I start telling myself how I only need 4-5 hours of sleep. A stark contrast from morning Caroline, who vows to go to bed at 9:30 for the rest of her life.” :::

This is ridiculous, Caroline. What do you think happens in the Army? Do you think those men and women fighting for your safety get to sleep for 9 hours a night? NO! No they don’t! And don’t you think that if they were home safe in their beds they would embrace the opportunity to enjoy one of life’s little pleasures and stay up and watch a little more TV and do some crafts? Yes. Yes they would. That’s exactly what our service men and women would do. Crafts. At midnight on a Sunday. Besides, you obviously need to do work for a few more hours or you won’t be ready for the week. And you know what happens then… YOUR WHOLE LIFE WILL BE OVER! Mwhahahahahaha.

And that was  just a sample monologue. I’m sitting here at 12:07 and I’m already worried about my Thursday workout. And what the weather is going to be on Saturday. And whether or not I should be worried about my nails chipping and make a proactive appointment for midweek or wait and see what happens. And what happens if the hubs comes home tonight and eats the leftovers in the fridge and I don’t have anything for lunch tomorrow and I don’t wake up early enough to make something? And are my bananas at the optimal ripedness for my oatmeal tomorrow morning? I hate it when they are too green. The flavor isn’t deep enough.

And then. And then. And then. And then.

I just need Monday to get here so Monday Caroline can take over and worry about this stuff.

Preface:

I believe I’ve talked about it before, but I can’t find the post and it’s way easier to just tell you again than go back through five years of posts just to show you the last time I mentioned my first mental breakdown. The summer after my freshman year of college was a toughie. My life went kerplunk when I learned I wasn’t Asian and then failed organic chemistry. I wasn’t going to be a doctor and my chem professor suggested I be an English major or something “nice” and I just kind of stood there and next thing I knew I was drinking beer in a frat house listening to a bunch of Phys Ed majors tell me about their life plans. So, I went back to Texas and did what any overachieving failure would do: tried to live in a one bedroom apartment with three other girls. Anyway, the point of all this is to tell you that two things stand out about that summer: my mental breakdown in my closet, amongst my beloved shoes, and my chosen method for coping with the loss of my identity: reading.

No, no. Not leisurely reading of New York Times Bestsellers, but panicked, manic reading. Day and night I would read. If I started a book in the morning I was certain I had to finish it before I went to bed. I would read through the night and into the next day. I read War & Peace and Anna Karenina over a four day bender. In a matter of 30 days I read nearly 50 books. Loser doesn’t even scratch the surface.

It was then that I met Mr. Vonnegut. And every book he ever wrote. All these years later, I continue to believe that Mr. Vonnegut and I could have be the best of friends should things have worked out differently. (And, for starters, he not died.) Moreover, I believe that he and I could connect on a deeply spiritual level whilst conversing about WTF is going on with the universe and who is behind the madness. A favored quote from Breakfast of Champions, ” The Creator of the Universe had put a rattle on its tail. The Creator had also given it front teeth which were hypodermic syringes filled with deadly poison. Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe.”

Kurt, I too want to know what the fuck is going on with The Creator of the Universe.

************

Today was an interesting day. For starters, I had to make the hubs really, really anxious right before his Big Interview by telling him not to do that “awkward handshake thing he does” and then not be able to adequately explain it so he could not do it. I would have offered him a Xantex or something, but the hubs is clean. He doesn’t like drugs. Or herbal laxatives, as I learned last week.

Then, to ensure that his confidence was wasted, I blamed the demise of my entire future on his inability to remember to buy ink for our home printer. Something I like to do every few months at a time when it’s completely ridiculous to believe that he can do anything about it. (“What do you need to print?” he asks. “EVERYTHING I’VE EVER NEEDED TO PRINT. THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN THE WORLD. RIGHT NOW. BABY ELEPHANTS WILL BE SLAUGHTERED IN SIX MINUTES.” I say. Or something equally as rational and compelling.)

Oh, also. I woke up at 7AM ready to start the week and felt like a reheated shit casserole. I was nauseated, hot, and I’d managed to sweat all over my new feather bed. I felt really sorry for myself because I was really counting on this morning being the one that would restore my faith in my ability to function as a normal adult. Fail.

I did decide to get out of bed and do the things I had planned for the morning. I made some wheat berry and lentil soup for the week, did some work that I neglected to do over the weekend, read some emails, and sneezed a remarkable twelve times in a row. (I also emailed work to let them know that my pansy ass would not be coming in. Who needs job security in a recession? Obviously not me.)

By 9:45 I was exhausted. I told the hubs that I was going to get into bed and take and nap and that he was to wake me up in an hour and a half. At which time I would assess whether or not I wanted to get out of bed. It was the best plan that I’d had all day. And it was still early.

Almost exactly an hour and a half later, the hubs comes in to tell me that it’s time for me to get out of bed, both because it’s time and because he’s sort of disgusted with me and needs me to get up in order to keep on loving me. While we were debating whether I really was going to get out of bed, we heard Stuart avidly engaged with something in the hall. These few years of parenting Stuart have taught us that anything that Stuart’s excited about is likely breakable and probably valuable. So, the hubs, doing his due diligence, goes into the hall to see what fuckerface is up to.

A moment later he pops back into the bedroom with something in his hand.

“What’s this?”

“What’s what?”

“This thing I’m holding right in front of your face.”

“Looks like a pill. Why? Where did you get it.”

“Stuart.”

“Let me see it.”

<SILENCE. DEAFENING SILENCE.>

“OMFG. It’s a birth control pill.”

I know what you’re thinking. Did your cat get into your birth control? Did he eat it? Is is bad for him? Is this about you having to take him to the cat hospital to have estrogen pumped from his tummy before he sprouted tits and dropped some octaves from his voice?

No. I wish that was what this story was about.

This story is about two people standing (well, I was still lying) in their bedroom rapidly retracing the last four weeks to get a grip on what this little teensy tinsy white pill could possibly mean for the future. Our eyes locked and there seemed to be agreement. It meant nothing. We would move on. We’d know if there was a problem.

So the hubs went on his merry little way, preppy for his interview and stressing about his unexplained, but guaranteed queer handshake thing and I began the slow decent into madness. As the minutes ticked on I grew more panic stricken. My internal monologue went from a lulled, self pitying stream to a tsunami of crazy.

“Oh god. Oh god. You are fine. This is silly. Women know. You can’t grow a human-fucking-being without knowing. That’s a rule of nature. But, oh my god, oh my god. I woke up nauseated. Oh my god. I have morning sickness. Why didn’t I see it? And I didn’t want oatmeal for breakfast this morning and I ALWAYS want oatmeal for breakfast. My palate is changing. Oh shit. I ate a leftover piece of pizza on Friday and I didn’t like it. But I had the same pizza the day before and loved it. My breasts. They are tender. Oh shit. Am I going to start lactating? Do I crave pickles? Oh fuck. I think I want a pickle. PICKLES PICKLES PICKLES. I got a zit last week. I never get zits. Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. This is terrible. I’m pregnant. OMFG. Julie is going to get a kick out of this. What about the Santa Speedo Run? I guess that’s out. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We’re going to St. Thomas in THREE WEEKS. Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. I’ve been drinking. I SMOKED POT OUT OF A SINK. My baby is retarded. I can’t raise a retarded child. I’m not a good enough person. I’m hungry. I just ate breakfast and I’m hungry. THAT’S WHY I WAS EATING ALL THOSE CUPCAKES OVER MY BIRTHDAY! OMG. My birthday. My birthday. I drank so much. I played DARTS. The fetus is scuba diving in Rapscallion Honey Brew. I can’t believe we didn’t see this. What am I going to do? I’m pregnant with a mentally disabled child. I think we have to move to Texas.”

The hubs walked in from his office to see what I was up to.

“Nothing.” I managed. “Just doing some work.”

“Oh my god. How am  going to tell him? What am I going to tell him? He’s going for an interview an he has no idea what’s riding on it. YOU HAVE TO SUPPORT A CHILD NOW. Oh my god. I can’t have sushi. And we’re supposed to have fish tacos for dinner. Oh my god. Oh shit. Oh my god. I think I need some tea. Can I have tea in my condition?”

I managed to keep my melting psyche to myself so that the hubs could get to his interview without the burden of his nameless, unborn child weighing upon his every answer, but it was clear that I was weekday TLC programming away from a hysterical phone call to my mother to tell her how I’d gotten knocked up and nothing was ever going to be right again.

So I sat there. Silently. Flicking my abdomen and noticing how obvious it was that I was pregnant.

Eventually hubs texted to let me know that he had gotten ink for the printer. Calculating where in the city that meant he was, I quickly texted him back. “Woo! How about a baby test just to ease our minds?”

“Fine.” he replied. “But you’re getting the cheapest one.”

I told him it didn’t matter, but to please make sure it was passably reputable.

About a half an hour later I was using a perfectly good juice glass to confirm the existence of our mentally deficient triplets.

As I sat on the couch trying to busy myself for three minutes I started wondering what the hell The Creator of the Universe was doing to me. What kind of sicko orchestrates a pregnancy notification via cat?

I walked into the bathroom with lead feet. I thought I was going to fall over. And there is was. Just the one line. The “don’t you worry, little lady, we know you’re not capable of hosting another human being” line.

The hubs popped his head in to see how things had turned out.

“One line. As expected. We’re in the clear.”

“See. I told you. And you made me waste $11.”

No, I’m not coming out of retirement. Nor am I having a baby. But I happened by the blog today (the domain is about to expire and I needed to update my credit card information) and saw that I’m getting about three readers a day at this point. I know that Jesus says that one matters, but in blogland, anything less than 1,000 and you’re a loser. No matter what Jesus says.

Turns out, semen is in the water these days. Everyone is getting knocked up. And those who aren’t knocked up just haven’t had the chance because they’re too busy planning their weddings so that they can get knocked up. It’s insane. I know that it’s not unnatural, but it is hard to come to terms with the fact that the next chapter of your life is nipping at your heels. Or, in this case, a Doberman with rabies who is chasing you around a small, fenced-in space, reminding you that no matter how fast you run, you’re going to get tired and that doggy is going to eat. you. alive.

This weekend the hubs and I took a trip out to the Newton Wellesley Hospital to visit our dear friend (and fellow, though legit, blogger) Julie Q. In the two hours spanning the before during and after, the hubs and I became closer than either of us thought possible.

It started on Saturday night when I told him that I had rented a Zipcar for the following morning. He responded with his perfunctory “why?” the one that has been my constant companion these seven years. It wouldn’t matter if Obama gave me a signed note, allowing me to do whatever my heart desired, the husband would trample on it with that one word, “why?” The power it wields over me is other wordly. In a word, he manages to bring my ridiculous existence into question, force me to identify the least functioning parts of myself, and second guess everything I believe to be true. Rather than answer like an adult, I usually go straight to my sassy cheerleader. WHY? WHY DO YOU THINK? DO I LIKE HAVE TO HAVE A REASON FOR EVERYTHING? YOURE SO OPPRESSIVE. YOURE LIKE ONE OF THOSE HUSBANDS ON DR.PHIL. JUST LET ME BE! LET ME DO WANT I WANT.

Yep, Caroline, you totally won that one.

I digress. He “why’d” me and I responded like a child that I had told him like a million times that we were going to the hospital to visit the new baby. You know what he did then? Why’d me a second time. I nearly broke a bottle of Pretty Things Babytree over his head and left him unconscious at the bar.

“Because. These are the types of things that people our age do. We go see babies.”

He said something about how I made up rules and made him follow them, which is likely true, but it was too late the cancel the Zipcar and frankly I thought it would be good for us to go and do it. Babies, yay!

The car was reserved for 11:30, but after smoking pot out of a sink at 2AM in Dorchester and then falling asleep on the porch during my two hour wait for a taxi, the earliest I was able to get up was noon. Which I did. I put on clothes, decided not to say anything to the hubs about looking like a homeless college student since I was about to use Trident as toothpaste and was on my second round of trying to rub the Merlot off my lips. I asked him to figure out how to get there and off we went. To the Maternity Ward.

Oh man. You would have thought that we stumbled upon the floor fr infectious diseases. In route to the room, we got very, very lost. In an effort to get back on track we wove through every beaming baby room on the floor. With each “It’s a Boy” balloon it got creepier. I made the mistake of making some sideways comment about pregnancy that incited a father to point at his 34687 weeks pregnant wife and give me the “you have no respect for human life” look. I felt bad. I did.

We arrived at the room and proceeded to stand there awkwardly, waving off any attempts by the proud new parents to have us hold the wee babe. I think the hubs was holding his breath, both because he didn’t know what to do and because he thought the whole thing might be catching.  (In the car, his questions had turned technical as he wondered whether she had “moaned and pushed or just cut it out.”) We also didn’t bring a gift of any kind, so we were basically intrusive statues. We may as well have been medical observers. No gifts, no help with the baby. Just standing there. Panic stricken.

When it was time to go, we walked through the halls like frightened sheep. The hubs looked over at me right as we were about to exit the floor and said, “I just need to leave. I thought we were going to come here and see a bunch of older people and grown ups with babies. The only thing here is a bunch of people our age with babies. And it’s fucked up.”

Noted. We were on our way out.

The conversation on the ride home was sparse at best. Occasioinally one of us would make a comment like, “wow. their lives are totally about to change.” or “man, can you believe that, they are parents.” all the while staring ahead, ignoring the conversation that was inevitably to take place.

When, young Beaulieus, do you plan on becoming parents?

I wasn’t going to breech the topic because, if you’ve ever met the hubs you know, he does not like surprise attacks. The vision of a friend with a baby was enough to push him over the edge and if I so much as HINTED to wanting to have a baby he would likely roll out of the car… on the highway.

The day continued with no mention of the 800lb baby in the room. When we crawled into bed, I thought maybe we’d have a profound regroup, make some decisions and go to sleep thinking about what the future held. But before the words could even come out of my mouth, he spoke.

“Don’t even tell me you want one of those.”

I hope no one under the age of twelve is reading this. I’m not going to talk about anything lewd, but what I am going to reveal is worse than Santa not being real. (Oof, hope no one under six is reading this…)

To be completely honest with you, I have not enjoyed growing up. I’ve enjoyed the idea of growing up. I remember sitting in the front of a blue Isuzu Trooper when I was fourteen with my friend Mary. My brother was about to turn sixteen, and from the front seat of that never-to-be-owned-by-him SUV, there was nothing so long as the years it would take me to go from fourteen to sixteen. Having studied philosophy and grown up with crazy people, I can look back on that scene and make somewhat heartbreaking assumptions. At fourteen I saw sixteen as something wholly different. There would be a new me, and I think I hoped that she would be better, different, maybe less scared. I didn’t want to drive, I wanted the freedom and “cool” of sitting behind the wheel of a car. I imagined friends piled in, headed nowhere with the radio on and warm sun for miles.

What’s heartbreaking is that those things did happen. My friends did pile in and we did head nowhere with the radio on. But I didn’t notice it. I wanted to be 18. I wanted to be in college, out from under my parents, away from my oppressive school, catty social scene, and mind numbing academics. When I was 18 I knew that things would be different. I’d be different. I’d go off to college, be carefree, go to football games, drink on weeknights. College would look good on me. Suddenly I would have the freedom to learn what I wanted– to be treated like an adult. And all those things did happen. But, again, I didn’t notice.

And so on. And so on. And so on.

As it turns out, we don’t change as we grow older. We simply age. Eventually some things rise to the top and other things float out of existence, but inside of us– inside of me– we are the same. We gather tools for coping and engaging; we work hard to develop patience and kindness, but we still have soft spots that no matter how old we get, they remain. Five, ten, fifty years after our wounds have healed over, they still sting when someone mentions them. We forget our fragility because in the face of the complexity and complications that overwhelm our lives, we assume that we are strong and mature. We build an aura of age and wisdom that fools another generation into believing that with age comes answers. It’s only by living that we all come to discover that with age comes hard and painfully won understanding that this fear and vulnerability could possibly last a lifetime. We too will one day look through wrinkled eyes and wonder, “where did I go? I am here.” And nothing, and everything will have changed.

And so it is that great writers, thinkers, and ponderers before me have implored the listening masses to do but one thing: stop. It’s the lesson we all know, but fail to comprehend. There is nothing waiting tomorrow that is not possible today. There is nothing about the future that is not tied to the past. We are the beauty of our choices and the consequence of their destruction, and that gives us great power. We have the opportunity to cultivate humanity within ourselves and towards ourselves. We can not only forgive others, but forgive ourselves. It is okay to be afraid. It is okay to be unsure. It’s okay to walk away.

After weeks of  anticipation,  my psych evaluation finally came. I know for the poo eaters out there this isn’t such a big deal, but I’ve been waiting the better part of 26 years to have an adult conversation with a medical professional who has the power to save me from myself. Every MF person I know is on some cocktail of joy and patience that makes life easier to handle and I couldnotwait to get me a cocktail to get this crazy out of my head.

No one in the history of the world has ever been better prepared for a psych eval than I was. Not only did I fill out the twenty page form, detailing my most intimate thoughts for the benefit of science, I began keeping a notebook two weeks before the appointment. I would write down things that I thought we should chat about, things that made me anxious (everything), nervous (everything), unhappy (most things), or bored (everything). I brought my paperwork and notebook to the meeting, ready to have a conversation and get the healing ball rolling.

In hindsight, my first mistake was made a few weeks prior, when I called to make the appointment. They asked if I had a preference between a male or a female.  I said I didn’t. That was a complete lie. I hate women. I guess I was trying to play all gender neutral in hopes that my choice wouldn’t be documented in a file that would later be used to determine whether or not I deserved to get my meds. Right, well, mistake. What I should have said was, “put me in a room with one of those Chaco-wearing, pseudo lesbian types and I’ll just pay off Juan in maintenance to ask his brother to ship my pills direct from Juarez.” Instead I played it cool and said whoever was available would be fine with me.

I don’t even believe in women gynecologists. I tried for about a year to change my spots by going to see some big shot OBGYN at the Fresh Pond Women’s Health Plaza or some such nonsense and what I ended up getting was some spiteful woman who didn’t care about my ovaries since I wasn’t going to give her a new picture for the wall of babies. FINE. I don’t need you to give me my tune up. I’LL FIND SOMEONE ELSE. And I did. And I now have the most gangbusters gyno EVER. (There’s actually a post somewhere on this blog about him and the conversation we had about whether or not I should wax before coming to see him. Awe.some.)

Moving on. So I didn’t get a man. I got a lady.  A lady therapist. (We’re not even into medical school graduates. The eval is to determine whether you’re worthy of seeing a man with a script pad.) So I show up looking as high functioning as I could manage. I changed shoes twice and made sure to get there early so I wouldn’t be all sweaty and panty and “oh, fuck, I’m so sorry! I had all day to get here by four PM and still couldn’t manage it.” I know that they write everything down. This isn’t my first rodeo.

There I am with Emily, which happens to be my mother’s name, a name that I’m just now getting okay with as an option for one of my yet-to-be-confirmed children, trying not to cross my arms subconsciously because I don’t want her to put a note in my file about how I start off defensive and haughty. I end up fidgeting instead–which definitely wasn’t part of my plan. I almost told her I was sexually frustrated to explain away the ticking, but I was scared she’d take that to mean I liked ladies and then we’d have a whole new issue that would distract from my mission: prove functioning incompetence and graduate to a psychiatrist.

The whole thing was supposed to be 45-50 minutes and Emily couldn’t help but look at the clock obsessively, which made me wonder if I was being so entertaining that she was sorry to see the time go, or if she was wondering how much longer she had to be in the room with me. Or worse, that we weren’t going to be able to cover everything in the allotted time because I got hung up on my family psychiatric background. Which is so fucked up to begin with, BTW.  I don’t have enough time in a 45 minute session to cover my family. You want to know about them? Make four additional 45 minutes sessions and we’ll begin to crack that egg. She keeps doing this obnoxious nodding thing, which leads me to eventually tell her she doesn’t have to make awkward facial expressions and nod with encouragement, I know she just has to listen and I don’t need her to pretend that what I’m saying is normal. If it were, we wouldn’t be spending the afternoon together.

Bad move. She immediately wants to explore that. Why do I care what facial expressions she is making? What I want to do is tell her that as far as I am concerned she is like the backstage body guard at a live taping of Oprah. You think you matter, but no one else thinks you matter. I’m only entertaining your presence because I know if I fuck things up with you, there is NO CHANCE I am getting to see Oprah. So quit making this so hard. We both know our places. You want out of this room and I want to see your boss. Let’s do this thing.

But no. Emily is young and helpful. She wants to give me tools. She wants to get to the heart of the problem and then help me work through it. I can feel myself getting annoyed and I’m doing my very best to remain attentive to the questions and ignore her textbook discoveries about my personality. “Oh. You had a brother with a serious medical condition? It must have been very hard for you to get the attention you needed. How do you think that’s effected you?” “I don’t know, Emily, I guess it gave me this immaculate sense of style and ridiculously great job, super husband and personality that people are flocking to. Or perhaps it was responsible for my resiliency and sense of humor. Or maybe you have picked up on the one thing I’ve said in the last forty five minutes that means absolutely nothing. The one and only thing I haven’t lost sleep over. Maybe.”

Emily decides that I don’t need medication. I need therapy. Group therapy. I try to explain to Emily that I don’t do well in groups because I have a hard time connecting. Really? she says. Yes, really. I once tried OA and all I could think while I was there was how those people were a bunch of losers and if being well meant being friends with them… I’d rather be sick. Emily didn’t understand. I imagined that her boss would, but it wasn’t the right time.

So Emily reached into her Masters degree and pulled out some more assessments. Why did I think I ran when I didn’t like running? Why did I feel that clothing and shoes mattered? I took a second to try to figure out how to explain it to her in a way that made it clear that she was not touching on my psychoses, she was touching on the fundamental differences between us. The ideal response would have pointed out that, unlike her, I don’t feel it’s appropriate to air dry one’s hair and wear Chacos to work. I don’t feel that every female figure is beautiful, in fact I’m quite horrified at the majority of them and therefore feel very strongly that exercising is imperative, whether or not I like it. Instead I told Emily that I thought it had something to do with depression, anxiety, OCD– a host of things that could be easily cured with a nice mood stabilizer, a relaxer, and a little something to take the edge off flying.

She gave me the number for the group leader for the CBT Group that meets TWICE A WEEK.

I left her office wondering how the hell every person I know is on something so delightful and I can’t seem to get a rec for Advil out of my doctor. I can already tell that this is going to lead to to Munchausen by Proxy or something and Emily will be to blame. Perhaps if she wouldn’t have blocked the door to real, chemical healing my whole life could have changed. Then I would have remembered her fondly, maybe even referred people to her. Not going to happen now.

First there was the foot incident. Six weeks of no exercise, lots of doing nothing, not to mention that it overlapped with a Hawaii vacation that didn’t exactly encourage healthy, slim living. Follow that up with ten days in Texas and a two week battle with bronchitis that included a four star popped eardrum bonus and you’ve got a hell of a two months. My body composition is tapioca.

I’ve been working on being Zen about the whole thing. My body is clearly trying to tell me something. As a dear friend pointed out, I’ve been particularly “sickly” this year and there’s got to be a reason for it. It could be bad karma, as I havent exactly been inoculating orphaned babies from Haiti in 2010. (I don’t know why I chose to type it like that, in a way that suggests that I was actually doing that in 2009, or 2008.) I know that this body is temporary. I’ve got a half marathon coming up in October which will surely give this fat kid some motivation to sweat off the extra lbs, but in the moment, doing the naked mirror dance, temporary doesn’t seem to matter. It shakes like it’s gonna be there for a looooong time.

I’ve done my best to avoid direct contact with my body. I play a game where I pretend that my body is like Medusa. If I stare at it directly it will blind me. So I don’t. I look myself in the eye as I pass the mirror on the way into the shower. Sometimes I have to face the wall because the temptation is too great. (I was the girl who couldn’t help but clench my teeth when I’d just gotten my braces tightened. It just hurt so… good. There’s a similar psychology here. I dont want to see it, per say, but this sick, twisted, dark part of myself really does.) I also haven’t weighed myself. Actually, that isn’t entirely truthful. About a week and a half ago I did it just to torture myself. I have problems.

But that all changed yesterday. I finally decided to go to the doctor about this killer disease that had the nerve to fuck with my eardrum and wouldn’t you know that they feel as though in order to find out what is wrong with my lungs they need to weigh me. Now, there are two paths to take. The first is just to get on the scale like a normal person. The second is to get into an argument with the GED VoTech nurse about why on earth she needs to know how much you weigh to give you antibiotics. From experience I can tell you that the second is inadvisable. Super inadvisable. Not only does it make you sound crazy, nothing goes to shit quicker than an argument with a person whose job requires that they fill out a form. Their one and only purpose is to fill out that form. If you dare to get in the way of the form filling out, you’re going to get bitch slapped. Ever told one of those ladies (or gents) that you’re “not sure” of the answer to the question they’ve asked? There is a slight twitch that creeps over their faces. You may not even realize the power it has over you, but suddenly you just pick a medication to be allergic to so that you don’t have to endure the uncomfortable stare. Allergies? Err. Umm. Penicillin? Sure.

So then you find yourself at another cross roads. You have to get on the scale, but how much clothing can you subtly remove on your way to the platform? If you’re wearing slip ons, awesome. Done. Kick ‘em off. If you’re wearing boots, you’re going to spend the rest of the day agonizing over how much a pair of riding boots can possibly weight. Ten pounds? Twelve? The truth is they probably weigh less than three pounds and it’s that knowledge that picks at you all day long. The best course of action is usually to just take off all excessive clothing the minute they put you in the room. If you know you have to have your blood pressure taken, go ahead and make a fuss about making it easier for them by removing your jacket. You can try to get your belt off, but be cautious. You don’t want the nurse to think you’ve got the wrong idea about her. If you’ve never been beaten with a clipboard, it’s an experience you won’t soon forget.

In my experience you’re stuck with your pants and shirt. Even if you manage the shoes, belt, and jacket you’d have to be a pro to be able to get down to your skivvies without the nurse freaking out on you. I’ve been doing this for years and I’m lucky if I even get to take of my blazer. Yesterday I was so panicked about the experience I went into a trance for a solid thirty seconds after she asked me to “hop up on the scale.” I lost valuable time and didn’t even have a chance to kick of my ballet flats. Even worse, the appointment was at 1:30 but I hadn’t eaten breakfast so there was no way to psyche myself into thinking those extra lbs were my breakfast. I hadn’t even had a sip of water.

I tried to do a tricky belt-removing maneuver using one hand, but I ended up just twisting it around awkwardly. In the end I just sat there calculating how much a pair of skinny jeans and a cotton shirt weigh. Nine pounds?

The nurse told me that the doctor “could be a minute” and then closed the doors. It occurred to me that I could quickly remove all my clothes, jump on the scale, reweigh myself, and change the chart all before she returned. I would have done it too, but then I remembered that I wanted to ask her for a psychiatric referral and I was concerned that after a stunt like that she’d give me one unsolicited.

The experience has left me feeling really sorry for myself. My pants, which fit fine yesterday, suddenly don’t fit. (In my mind, of course.) In mourning for my skinny self I decided to dress in a circus tent today and sip somberly on soy berry smoothies. I’m hoping that I’ll have an opportunity for a naked weigh in before I have to go to Chicago. Nothing ruins a vacation quite like starting it feeling like an orca.

If this is your first trip to The Half Truth, you’ll need to have read this post before continuing. Otherwise you won’t be able to achieve the appropriate level of moral outrage.

The other day I was listening to an audio book on my new speakers that the hubs bought me while playing dusting ninja on the shelves that I’m certain are responsible for my inability to breathe anywhere in my apartment. (That or Stuart, but the kid can fetch and play catch so getting rid of him is out of the question.) The book was David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day, which is one of the finest pieces of literature–audio or otherwise– ever published. It’s a cruel joke that people often compare my style of writing to his because the truth is that he is such a rich and captivating story tellerm, able to do exactly what I cannot, keep people engaged for more than 1200 words. But I was reminded while listening to him tell stories of his family that I need to work harder at improving my writing style… and finding ways to talk about my family so that they laugh too. (Currently not the case.)

During the course of one the stories he tells, he talks about a conversation with his sister where she asks him to please not exploit her current strife in one of his stories. His response, and I am paraphrasing, is, “Why? You’re not going to do anything with it.” The narrative continues expounding upon the idea that as a writer, you watch the pain and humor of others march off into the abyss because no one captures it. To a writer it begs the question “why waste a perfectly good story of humiliation and personal tragedy?”  Why not share it? Why be so wasteful? Of course to our friends and family it seems so clear, “because, you asshole, it makes me feel stupid and vulnerable.”

But there is more to it than that. Imagine if a painter was told not to paint certain things, a photographer not to photograph certain things. (Well, I guess then you’d just have American media. Pretty pictures of the things they want you to see, not the things that are actually happening.) I was always under the impression that to be written about was the highest human achievement. You enter the ranks of Oprah, Kennedy, Jesus. You are immortalized in ink. Despite your misgivings about the judgments of others, imagine for a moment a picture bigger than you. Someday all the people you know will be dead, but you’ll still have your name in a work of literature. You will, quite literally, have the last word. What’s better than that? Nothing I can think of.

The obstacle is being a good enough writer to write about people in a way that makes their grating personality attributes seem charming and enduring. Some of the great characters of our time were likely based on someone who was painful to be around for more than 15 minutes, but the way that they were crafted in prose made them seem lovable, even a little vulnerable. (For example, the great Elizabeth Bennett. As a woman it is my duty to claim her as my literary heroine, a woman of such great character and morality that I aspire, daily, to be a living homage to her. In truth, I wouldn’t invite the pious bitch out for a cocktail . Plus the fact that she likely doesn’t drink, which would only make her more socially awkward and harder to be around, and then you factor in her obscenely wealthy husband and there’s a girl I don’t want at my birthday party.)

The final layer is that of truth and transparency. The blog is such a tattletale. We live in a world where honesty is confined to passive aggressive non-verbal, non-confrontational electronic means. You don’t tell someone you don’t like them, you simply defriend them on Facebook and then wait to see how long it takes them to figure it out. Mad at a boyfriend or husband? Don’t tell them in the moment. Wait til they leave for work and then send a text. It stands to reason that the blog is going to tell a slightly more colorful story than the one that really happened. It pains me to not have written about Hawaii, but the truth is that I’m no Sedaris. My mother in law would be outraged, my grandmother in law would think I was an ungrateful bitch, and my sister in law would cut me out of family photos. It’s a lose, lose. The fans want funny, but no one wants to be the subject of funny.

Fortunately for all of us, there will always be my mother. A woman who values infamy almost as much as fame. To her, to be mentioned in any capacity contributes to her notoriety amongst a select group of blog enthusiasts. You have to be careful though, there are a few taboo subjects, things that therapy hasn’t sorted out and time hasn’t scarred. Those are the things I will write about when she is dead. (After I’ve given her 2-4 months to come back from the dead. I’m sure that if there is a way to get back from the otherside, she will figure it out. I’m also no fool. If she can’t do it in four months, it can’t be done. It’s not like she’s got a lot of body matter to lug around.)

Other than those things, though, it’s open season. Including continuing the tale of my mother, The Kitty Killer.

After posting about my mother’s inability to keep dogs, cats, gerbils, guinnea pigs, small birds, and squirrels alive, I did spend some time pondering whether or not the SPCA could have grounds for throwing her in prison. It’s not like they were all poisoned at her hand or drank funky Kool-Aid, but the mortality rate near my mother is alarming, not to mention suspicious. It’s almost like Munchhausen by Proxy with dead pets. Which is creepy. I realized, though, that if the SPCA decided to take interest in any part of my mother’s theater of animal cruelty, they would first have to wade through the six or seven thousand rednecks selling un-vaccinated hybrid puppies out of shoe boxes outside the Fiesta mart before they could worry about a little old lady whose pets “accidentally” die.  By the time that investigation was over, my mother would have commissioned portraits and albums of each dead pet to showcase her love. She would flip through the albums with unsteady hands, pausing occasionally to sip from a chipped tea cup of hot water with lemon, and then look down and take a deep breath– the only way to fight back the inevitable tears. To endure such loss–and in such abundance–would break a lesser woman. Not my mother. She was of pioneer stock. To love is to lose. The happiness always comes with heartbreak.

I also decided to keep it from everyone that she procured another kitten just weeks after the death of number 11. I hung up on her when she called and later refused to participate in any conversation about the kitty. (For all I know the SPCA and the CIA are after my mother and her phones are tapped. This could go all Michael Vick on me and I am not going to be standing there with my proverbial pants down. Let me be clear: I DO NOT CONDONE THIS.) I didn’t hear much about the cat, but that she had eventually decided that it couldnt make a life for itself on her farm. She gave it to a neighbor, who promptly returned it on account of it being evil.

Later that same day (the day of the return, which happens to be today), I get a call from my mother.

Mother: “Well, I have to call the doctor to tell him I’m going to be late on account of my dead pussycat.”

Me: You’re a terrible person. I can’t even have this conversation.

Mother: I know. So tragic. So tiny and cute.

Me: How old?

Mother: Oh, you know, about ten weeks.

(I could tell from her tone that this one had died too soon. It still showed signs of needing her and it was for that loss that she was mourning.)

Me: How ?

Mother: I backed over it.

It’s a bathroom-tastic week here at The Half Truth.

Dear Caroline,

What is your opinion about talking and socializing while in the bathroom? It happens a lot but …what if it continues while you both go to your respective stalls?

Or what if it is taking place while you are in the stall and others are all around you chatting up their outfits while grooming and hand washing?

Love,

No Chatter in the Shatter

Dear Chatter,

How nice for you that this is your biggest concern in your bathroom life. My more immediate concern is what do you do if you need to doo and someone walks into the bathroom with you? Is the courtesy flush passe? But, hey, if chit chat is your big concern, chit chat we will discuss.

What I really wonder is whether the gents are chatting it up while holding their members and standing like criminals in a lineup. There is nary a story I’ve been told from the male perspective that doesn’t have something about “my buddy and I were in the bathroom, talking about tits”– or some variation and it does give me pause to think that us women folk feel so awkward about talking and tinkling. (Then again, there is something that the closed door brings to the the situation. It’s another thing entirely if we were all sitting on stall-less potties, I imagine that then it would feel awkward not to talk. You’d just be staring at your fellow coworker sitting there… doing whatever she is doing…)

My first response? No. No talking in the toilet room. But then I think to myself, “self, you talk while flossing, brushing your teeth, you’ve likely talked while passing gas, or thinking about random sweaty sex with a stranger. When, then, does it seem so taboo to talk while tinkling?” And then I remember. It’s about poo.

Sure, if every girl was simply having some tinkle time, I’d say talk away. But there’s no telling. You have to pretend that anyone, at anytime, needs some personal time. There could be poo in the equation and as long as there is that chance, you need to shut the fuck up and get out of the bathroom. Quit your gossiping and hair primping and leave the potential pooers in peace.

Think of it… the men have an automatic silent signal. If there is an open urinal and a man chooses the stall, he’s either got a stream issue or a poo sitch. There’s no conversation about it amongst the masses, simply a silent reverie. A man is having a moment. Leave him and speak not of this to anyone.

Not so with the ladies. There is a Victorian-era hangover that assumes ladies don’t use the toilet. We simply enter the stall to think about fairies and butterflies and take deep breaths. We gather, clump even. We chat about the weather (or each other) without considering even for a moment that the shoes under the stall door, the ones that havent moved the entire time we’ve been there, belong to someone who is breaking out in a cold sweat waiting for us to leave to they can have some peace and quiet.

My advice to you (and everyone else) is to keep the porcelain palace sacred. There exists no greater concentration of karma in the entire universe then right there between those tiles. If you choose to talk, do it only with the full and binding knowledge that someday its going to be you in there, listening to girls twirl their hair and talk about white wine while your fight back the sweet water and full body chills, bartering with God to please, please, please make them leave. Please.

To a peaceful…

Caroline

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… of things that can ruin your Monday (and maybe the whole week):

1. having to use water in your cereal.

me: on a scale of one to ten drunkness, you’re at least a seven.

the hubs: well, yeah. but it wasnt all the drinking.

me: and your eyes are super blood shot

the hubs: the pot was a super bad idea

me: i bet

the hubs: yeah, i was kind of looking to you to be all bitchy and say, “no!”

me: well, what can i say, I let you make your own decisions.

the hubs: well, in the future i’d appreciate it if you wouldnt do that.