Tag: anxiety

I ruined you before 3.

Hey, kid. One day you’re going to learn stuff about your childhood that I’m sure you’re going to insist I explain to you. Things you’re certain ruined you, and you’ll probably be right, and I’ll have lost the sharp clarity of my reasoning over the years. So I figure I should write it all down now. Save us both the heartache.

Ruining you didn’t take long. By all accounts, I’d completely fucked you up by three. I didn’t wait until you were a vulnerable teen. I did it young, when you were still too young to ever have a chance.

This morning I read an article about how screen time is going to turn you into a homicidal junkie. Those hours I let you watch Finding Nemo and play that bug game that keeps you happy and quiet while I have a glass of wine and try to connect with my husband, it’s ruined you. You’re going to turn into an antisocial dick with no interaction skills. You’ll never date. You most certainly won’t ever have sex. Your father and I will house you and your collection of black socks and vintage Nintendo sets in our basement until you are imprisoned for life for a crime that could have been avoided if I just didn’t give you that screen. So I’m sorry about that.

Also, you have a TV in your room. You probably don’t want to hear the speech about how our house isn’t huge and there is only so much kid space and we wanted your room to be a place that kids could hang out, play, watch movies, AND STAY OUT OF THE ADULTS WAY WHILE WE TRIED TO TALK, but I can see how that doesn’t matter. We never should have put that TV in your room. If I’d have known it would keep you from getting your first job out of college, I’d obviously have made a different decision.

I stopped breastfeeding at nine months. You wont get into medical school because of it. I tried to make it okay by buying your formula direct from Germany, but I can understand how that seems like a cop out. What I should have done was continue to pump. Which I did. After that first 4-day-stay in the hospital with 5 clogged ducts, I kept after it. I hooked myself up to that machine for another six months, but in the end I couldn’t take it much longer. I was working these insane 12 hour days and commuting and you were spending so much time with the nanny. When I got home, I had to go straight to pumping instead of hanging out with you, so I stopped. Obviously I’ll write whatever letters to admissions offices on your behalf, but in the end, the damage is done. You’ll likely amount to nothing because of my selfish decision.

Let’s talk about your blanket. I read a study the other day about how kids with blankets after infancy are actually just emotionally crippled. They lack internal coping skills and can’t fully develop into productive adults. Women find these kind of men repulsive, which leads to feelings of sexual inadequacy. That wasn’t my intention. You love that damn blanket and its gotten you through some tough times. That blanket had you sleeping through the night at 3 weeks old. And when your dad and I had to leave you with strangers for 12-hours-a-day, your daycare report always said that you were happy and social as long as blanket was there. It may be hard to understand, but at the time we wanted you to feel safe and happy. We weren’t thinking about you as a sexually frustrated and socially ostracized adult. And that was short sighted. We should have taken away your blanket and left you there alone. What dumb, naive, first-time parents we were.

I don’t allow your toys out of your room. You’re not allowed to drag endless amounts of kid shit around the house, marking our whole house as yours. I’ve heard a lot of parents and therapists talk about how this will stifle your creativity. Your inability to adequately spread your thoughts around the house will lead you to be a CPA. God knows I didn’t want to raise a financial planner, but I needed to maintain something for myself. When you’re chained to your desk at tax season, cursing my name, I’ll understand. I should have known better. I should have given you more.

On your first birthday, I gave you real cake. It wasn’t made with applesauce or mashed potatoes. It was cake. Out of a box. I sprinkled it with cancer and type two diabetes and set it in front of you like the lousy parent that I am. I wanted to see you smash it and taste it and get super excited about the sugar rush. (Which you did.) But that was a silly memory. A moment in time that wasn’t worth poisoning you against beets and steamed broccoli. I never should have done it. But I did. And it’s done.

I let you drink a lot of juice. Not from concentrate or with sugar added, but juice nonetheless. In the morning I let you have green juice and after school I even let you drink chocolate milk. You eat about 16lbs of green vegetables a day, but those don’t matter. This isn’t about moderation, it’s about the shame and guilt I should feel for giving you juice. So let’s stay focused on that.

I bought you stuff and said yes when I was too tired to say no. So you won’t have a healthy relationship with material goods.

I was honest with you about money from the time you could talk. So you’ll obviously have a childhood riddled with anxiety and concern over the cost burden you add. Then be a hoarder.

I put you in timeout a lot. And let you cry. One time I even shut the bathroom door so I wouldn’t have to listen to your INSANE screaming. But I’ve since read that it causes you shame and you’ll never be able to express yourself emotionally. So, again, I’m sorry.

I referred to you by your gender. A boy. You had a penis so we went with it. You’re welcome to change your mind later, but frankly it was too confusing to try to wait it out and it seemed cruel to call you “it.” I can see now how narrow minded and confining that choice can seem, but yellow is my least favorite color and, at the time, you seemed just fine being a boy.

The list of things I did to ruin you is so long that I could go on forever. And anything I’ve forgotten will pop up in my inbox or newsfeed. Tomorrow I’ll get an article about what I did wrong or how I ruined you in a new way. I know we’re using the wrong sunscreen, bath products, toothpaste. We don’t eat enough organic and I think you had something with red dye in it last week. I’ve let your shoes get too tight, I once used real detergent instead of the eco-shit (that doesn’t work) because I’d just spent $36 on a shirt and you immediately got watermelon on it. I drank beer while I was pregnant. I ate sushi. I yelled loudly while I was pushing, so your entrance wasn’t the silent sanctuary that many psychologist believe is best.

But, kid, I swear to God we love you. I promise you that every day we wake up wanting to make you better, even if that means doing the hard work of making ourselves better. We are human, and we’ve fucked up many, many times, but the road is long. Someday you’ll love someone so much you’ll ruin them too. And I only hope I’m still around so we can have a beer and laugh about how hard it is to love someone so much.

 

My kid was a nightmare. And other true stories.

Happy 4th. (Yesterday.) I was on social media channels a few times. I saw a bunch of adorable kids in gingham and stripes watching parades and looking American and perfect.

My kid was awful. Just terrible. He made a three-day-weekend seem like a prison sentence. By Saturday afternoon things were fragile. Sunday evening my marriage was starting to fray. And when we finally reached Monday night, everyone had to retreat to their respective corners so there was no bloodshed. It is a wonder to behold how a single 37 inch person can fuck things up so thoroughly.

The good news (if that’s how we want to categorize it) is that this appears to be age associated and completely predictable. Late two/early threes are notorious for their shittiness. Unfortunately, no amount of warning can adequately prepare you for the psychological and emotional damage that a toddler can exact over a three-day-weekend.

What I struggle with the most is actually how much I struggle. I’m 32 years old. I am a fully grown human being. I have pretty well developed coping skills. I’m good with conflict resolution. I have sound logic and reasoning skills. And my toddler gives ZERO fucks. If my husband and I had a dollar for every time the phrase “walk away. just walk away.” was uttered in our house, we could both retire. And yet for all our chanting walkawaywalkawaywalkawaywalkawaywalkawaywalkaway we can’t actually walk away. We’re locked in some intellectual death match with a tot. I’ve experience more logical and redemptive communication with cats.

And the stubbornness. Oh sweet lord the stubbornness. This is why people of the olden days resorted to physical acts of violence. Because it takes an incredibly well controlled and evolved human being to get to the brink of sanity and not be overcome with the urge to exert physical force over a lesser being. And I’m not even talking about beatings. Even just a well placed flick. Because when your child tells you for the 2736974120382039 time that they WILL NOT CLEAN UP their blocks and you’ve wasted 682 minutes of your day asking, and you’ve taken away everything you thought they held dear, and you’ve reasoned, begged, yelled, threatened and there are still mother fucking blocks all over the floor… your ability to keep your shit together is questionable. Worse than that, when you’ve sacrificed your plans, your desires, your activities in order to do the activity that should most appeal to your child and then they act like a domestic terrorist, you begin to question the very meaning of life.

We’re currently in the stage whereby all perceived offenses are of equal weight in his eyes. Not having the right color juice is as egregious an offense as refusing to allow him to play in the hose or trying to give him away. (Just listing the kinds of things that brought our weekend to its proverbial knees is giving me PTSD.) There’s usually a light whimper, followed by the introduction of a baby voice, which then becomes a fake machine gun cry, that then devolves into a full on melt down. (And then usually one of us walking swiftly out of a public place while our child confirms to single people within earshot that they are the superior species.) The single most terrifying thing about three year olds is that the truest and quickest way to incite a meltdown is to give them EXACTLY what they want. What? What is this you say? Yes. Exactly. Give them exactly what they want and they will most certainly meltdown. Because they hate you.

For example. Aut has been totally into bike riding recently. (We got one of those bike seats that you get when you have a child under 4 and you no longer care about how uncool your life is.) Generally speaking, he loves riding around on the back of the bike, going fun places, seeing new things. So we planned on an awesome bike ride on Monday. We were going to bike up to Marblehead and stare through the gates of yacht clubs at rich people. We told him… and he melted down. He didn’t want to bike ride. Turns out, he’d found a long-forgotten set of paints in his cubby and all he wanted to do in the whole world was paint. (Painting is a cruel invention by people who hate parents.) After much hmming and hawing, we consented. He could paint outside. In his underwear.

We went outside. It was beautiful out. We set up a drop cloth, staple gunned a canvas to the fence, got out the paints and brushes, slathered sunscreen on him. And feeling like THE BEST PARENTS IN THE WHOLE WORLD we set him loose on his artistic endeavors. Which lasted about 14 seconds.

The sun is too sunny and it’s on my head. We got him a baseball cap.

I need something different for my eyes. (Because THE BRIM OF THE HAT WAS NOT SUFFICIENT.) We got him his sunglasses.

I’m thirsty. We made him hold out but eventually realized this was not the one to nail him on when it was 90 degrees outside. Got him water.

I need different paints. Go fuck yourself.

I want to paint on the fence. Not on your life.

I need to wipe my hands. Shouldn’t have stuck both hands in the paint.

I want to do yoga with Mups. No, you’re painting.

I want to cut all my fingers off in the air conditioner compressor. Nope. [wailing]

I don’t like painting. Well, too bad. We got this all set up. You’re gonna paint. [more wailing]

I need a snack. We just had breakfast. You’re fine. [repeated slower and screaming I. NEED. A. SNACK.]

The sun is too hot. Sorry, we’ll talk to the solar system about that.

I need Buzz Lightyear. Buzz is napping upstairs. [whimpering, but surprisingly no wailing]

I really want to stick my entire hand into the A/C compressor. Ask me again and I’ll probably let you.

I need to go into the basement to get something. No you don’t. [full-on, mind blowing meltdown]

I want to go for a bike ride. You’re dead to me.

I don’t want to exaggerate, so I’ll say this was all within the span of about 11 minutes. Conservatively I’d say six tantrums and one meltdown in 11 minutes. Because we were doing exactly what he begged us to let him do.

And like I said, the very worst part is how ill prepared we are to cope. It’s impossible to ignore, but equally as impossible to correct. Stupidly I allow myself to imagine these scenarios whereby we’re doing these things happily and peacefully as a family. The hubs is drinking coffee on the porch, I’m doing yoga on the driveway, Aut is painting like the gifted painter we will joyfully discover he is. But it’s never anything like that. It’s screaming and whining and trying not to lose our shit at how unbelievably insufferable he can make 15 minutes in the sunshine. And then the guilt when he says something like “why do you always yell?” And I feel so terrible but I also want to be like “why do you always try to make me insane?” But I know he’s 3 and he doesn’t know why he does it. He just does. And my job as his mother is to cope. And get through it.

And I don’t want to wish his life away. I don’t want him to grow up too fast. And inevitably there’s some gray haired woman (as there was this weekend) who says “enjoy every moment” at exactly the wrong time. And I get it. I know she’s wistful and hindsight is rosey. But these moments are not enjoyable. They’re trying and terrible. They make you question yourself. They push you to dark places where you have to look hard at yourself. And that’s an unexpectedly difficult part of parenting– seeing yourself through your child’s eyes. Because every now and then, you won’t like the person you see. But this too shall pass. And tantrums about paints and Buzz Lightyear will be replaced by heartbreak and humiliation and things that will make us long for the days that the absence of Buzz was the most meltdown-worth part of the day.

But for now, we cope. We parent. We continue onward. Knowing they won’t be 3 forever… for better or worse.

Author Paints
A brief moment of happiness and reprieve. 

 

 

Real life shit: Underwear

I paid $320 for a concert ticket to a sold out Beyonce stadium show tonight. Face value. There’s a 30% chance I am going to be standing in the rain. There’s a 100% chance of hair-ruining humidity. There’s a 150% chance that I’ve spend the last 15 hours being an 80-year-old woman about this entire thing.

Let’s rewind. Ten years ago (hell, five years ago) a very different gal would be going to this concert. I’d spend the whole morning rocking out to Beyonce. I’d probably take off the day from work, go buy a new, slightly skanky outfit, and start drinking at noon. Beyonce concert day would be a national holiday. Instead, I spend the last four days googling parking, weather maps, rain policies, and how the fuck you do your hair if you have to go to work and then go to a Bey show and you have thin, frizzy hair and it’s probably going to rain.

This morning, I spent over an hour mulling over my footwear– not because I wanted to find the sexiest, most Bey-worthy pair, but because I wanted to make sure that my footwear was comfortable and cute, but not so cute that a deluge of rain was going to make me sad and ruin my shoes. (Landed on Tom’s. I’m 100% certain Beyonce does not endorse Tom’s.) I meticulously packed a bag with a towel (in case I’m wet and get cold in the car), a change of footwear (flip flops, obviously), a change of clothes, a toothbrush (in case I get stranded somewhere south of Boston and have to sleep), my Kindle (because, traffic), two bottles of Fever Tree Ginger Beer and a child’s Thermos of Tito’s. I set two alarms to remember the tickets, took out a budgeted amount of cash from the ATM, and texted everyone going with me the purse policy at the stadium.

In the last few years, I have become the most uncool person I know. And we’re not even to the worst part.

Underwear.

About the time I gave up trying to find anything concert-worthy in my Birkenstock-laden, flowy-mom-top stuffed, sad sack of a closet, I realized that I needed to put on the right pair of underwear. Because at this stage of my life, underwear and make or break pretty much anything.

For many, many years I exclusively wore lycra blended, slightly sexy, lacy hipster undies. They were permanently half way up my ass, but I hardly noticed. My ass was so tight and shapely that a little lace in my crack didn’t affect my day. I looked so cute shimmying out of my jeans that I wouldn’t have cared if I had a front and back wedgie. When I got pregnant, I learned the hard, sweaty way that you should never, ever have anything that is not 100% cotton near your vagina in the summer. Domestic terrorism was a smaller threat than my summer-crotch in synthetic fabrics. Lesson learned.

As I got older (and heavier), I started to dip my toe in fuller coverage undies. Having your entire ass covered (especially when it’s a little squishy), is a mother fucking revelation. The amount of brain power that I was subconsciously wasting trying to ignore my half wedgie was staggering. Not to mention, once your ass is not 25, getting a wedgie out is not a simple tug. It’s a full on dig. You have to search for your underwear between your cheeks. You absolutely cannot attempt to get your panties out in a hallway because your hand can get lost and before you know it, people are streaming out of a meeting and there you are fisting yourself.

Once my whole ass was covered, I started playing around with higher waistlines. Suddenly underwear went from “the thing that keeps me from humping my pants” to a tool. Depending on how high you’re willing to go, your undies can serve a purpose. They can tuck and suck and shape. More importantly, they can give you a little hug and tell you you’re good enough.

Which is exactly what I need my undies to do today. I need them to tuck in my tummy, lift me up, and smooth out the lumps so that my DvF mom top looks like it fits. I need them to hug me during the concert and make me feel safe and confident when it starts raining and I immediately wish I was at home in my bed watching new episodes of Orphan Black onDemand. So while my 22-year-old self would have been delighted in some lacy, scant panties and a pair of fuck me heels, my 32-year-old self disagrees. I found an amazing pair of spandex and cotton miracle undies with a high waist and firm grip. And they’re black, so sexy by default. (Because duh.) I did hold up a pair of black Hankie Pankies, though, and smiled at how cute and useless they are.

With my undies on, my bag packed, and my hair styled in a low bun with $26 worth of anti-frizz product in it, I left my house an hour late for work today. As I was walking out the door, toting a toddler, trying to find my keys, and wondering how much battery was left on my Kindle, I felt pretty good. At the last minute, I reached in the door to grab Aut’s vitamins and I knocked something on the floor. It was a bottle of Xanax.

I went ahead and threw that in my bag. Because who am I to ignore a sign from God?

 

 

 

Find the happy, goddammit.

I went to spin yesterday. I hate spinning. There is not a moment– from the time I start pedaling until the last stretch on that godforsaken bike– that I am not miserable and angry. It’s just one of those things. I’ve tried the FlyWheels and the SoulCycles, the local places, and the classes at fancy gyms and shitty gyms. It’s not a class issue, it’s a sitting on a bike issue. It uses all the parts of my body that I try to keep still. I hate it so much. Just talking about it makes me more hateful. But I go. (Occasionally.) I went yesterday.

For a couple of weeks now, maybe bleeding into months, I’ve been… unsettled. I’ve been impatient and frustrated. I feel angry and constricted by simple things. I’m easily overwhelmed and anxious. I’ve gone from taking a Xanax once a month to taking one just to get into the car and make the drive to work. Traffic makes me insane. I keep thinking I need to do something, but I don’t know what. Maybe my medication needs to be looked at, maybe the weather needs to start behaving, maybe I need to change my diet– I’ve gone through all the possibilities in my head, and I keep coming back to the same thing. This is life. This is what it’s like (for me) to be 32, a mother, a full-time employee, a wife, a person who recently really hates cooking dinner. The older I get, the more knowledge I have and instead of being set free by all the knowledge, I’m crippled by it. I know too much about savings and retirement, interest rates, education, natural disasters (NEVER MOVING TO OREGON), job security, the vague possibility that my child will be killed by 100,000,000 random and statistically insignificant incidences. I spend so much time trying to look breezy and carefree when what I want to do is crawl in bed and eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch out of the box. (Because THAT is a fucking life plan.)

Don’t even get me started on getting old. I see the writing on the wall. Our society does not care about old people. We are scared and burdened by old people. Unless you have a private– fully paid for– private island or a couple million dollars in the bank, good luck getting old. I could stay in bed for six weeks just obsessing about how terrible it is going to be to be 65-years-old and still working full time because there is no way I can ever retire. EVER. (Cue screaming.) I could depend on my son to care for me in my old age, except for two things. 1. I don’t believe in burdening your children with your winter years 2. There’s just no guarantee I’m going to want to spend my last good years in the basement of my son’s house. What if he lives in a hovel and I hate his wife? (Or husband.)

But what now? How do you take a deep breath, close your eyes, and tell all your knowledge-based anxiety to fuck off? How do you live in the moment and not allow the creeping weight of death and responsibility to give you a panic attack in the shower? Being present is so fucking hard. It’s scary. But it’s also the only thing there actually is. Aut is only 2.75. He is not 3 or 7 or 35. He is only 2.75. And that will pass, but it will pass as quickly and as slowly as everything else. Because time only has one pace. Time is a bitch, but she’s fair. Almost to a fault.

So we’re back at spin. I forgot my shoes and there was a sub and because I’ve turned into an anxious time bomb, those things were enough to put me into a tailspin. The teacher was talking about beach bodies and pedaling so we can eat whatever we want and I’m getting angrier and angrier. I’m anxious and angry and annoyed and my shoes are wrong and this woman will not stop talking about bikini bodies, which is so far from my reality that I want to throw my $4 Starbucks bottled water at her face. But I keep pedaling. And I try to “find the happy.” (I’m actually on my bike, my body vibrating because the music is SO LOUD, and saying aloud “find the happy, Caroline. Find the fucking happy.”) And then it hit a boiling point. I looked at the clock and it wasn’t even halfway through class. I was going to die and explode and I hadn’t even made it halfway through class.

I slowed my pedaling and took a deep breath and asked myself (again, outloud), “what, Caroline? What is the big problem?” And the tiny voice in my head was sad and scared and she said “I don’t know. That’s the problem. I don’t know.” And then I started to cry. And cry. And cry.

I pedaled and cried and pedaled and cried. I climbed the hills and cried a little harder (because it was both self pity crying and just general crying). I cried because I felt so relieved and so silly and so annoyed and free. And then class ended.

If this story were about a different person, I’d be like “and then I walked outside and the sun was shining and I took a deep breath and felt completely renewed.” But it’s not. And when I walked outside it was raining and the barista at Starbucks fucked up my tea. So there was that reality. (Which I realize is nothing like, say, a third world or Syrian refugee reality.)

Here’s what did happen, though. I went to spin. And I finished. And I cried. And then I drove home and I started dinner. (I even cared enough to text a friend about how to cook my fish properly.) I still wanted to go to bed at 8PM, but I didn’t. (I waited until like 10:30.) I got out of my own way and my own head for a few hours and tried to enjoy myself. I made an effort. It wasn’t an overwhelming success, but, like spin class, it was an effort. Which is a start.

And nothing can begin that was never begun. Or something to that effect.

 

 

Successfully Failing at Motherhood

A few years ago I wrote a post called “But what’s it really like to have a baby?” It ended up getting picked up by the Huffington Post (front page) and for 24 hours I was the most equally lauded and hated woman on the planet. Mothers and childless women from across our great country gathered their spatulas and absurdly limited legal knowledge and campaigned (anonymously, online) to have my child removed from me. Why? Because I just didn’t think being a mom was the super greatest time ever. In equal contrast were the others– the mothers and childless women who were relieved to hear a version of the truth that, in some small measure, mirrored their own feelings. The feeling that children, while chock full of charm and adorable (sometimes), are also a full contact, full time sport. There’s no beginning and end to parenting. It’s not just a sacrifice of your vagina and lower abdomen (which becomes a sideshow), but your actual life.

In those two years, my baby has become a toddler. And frankly, my feelings about motherhood haven’t changed much. In the same way that I love cake and hate baking, I love my child, but I really don’t love motherhood. And as hard as it is for some people to reconcile this, or even accept it, I don’t really feel much guilt about it. My journey now has been about how to balance the choice to have a child and catapult myself into a role that neither comes naturally to me, nor gives me much satisfaction, and maintain my sanity as a human being who craves a life less consumed by the unending demands of motherhood.

For many, there’s a simple, vilifying argument. “You chose to have children. Your selfishness is disgusting.”  To those people, I say “fuck you.” If you truly believe that our society pays even the slightest of lip service to the reality of motherhood in a modern age, you are naive. We’re still taking a page out of a book that has men bringing home all the bacon, women who were groomed from a young age to become mothers and accept the role that was offered, and zero social media pressure or scrutiny. In a day in age where maternity leave is a luxury, leaving early to pick up a child from daycare causes both personal and professional duress, and the choice between children and a career is only possible if your career affords you incredible flexibility or cash, the “reality” of motherhood has been rewritten, but never published. (For example, on top of childcare, which can run about $1600/month [down from $2400 in Boston], I pay nearly $800/month to have someone pick up my child from daycare because I simply cannot leave work early enough to fetch him. I get home between 7:00/7:30 and begin the one hour sprint through bath, dinner, books, and bed.)

I was chatting with my mother on the phone the other day, relaying the plight of the modern mother– the guilt and balance and dissatisfaction. Thinking she’d have some insight (she did have THREE children), she replied, “I don’t really understand that. I was just so happy.”

Welp, there you have it. Thanks, Mother.

But then I got to thinking about it. When she comes to visit, she relishes all the stuff that makes me want to poke my eyes out. She’s on all fours, pretending she’s a pony, coloring Elsa, watching Mickey Mouse. She thinks letting him pick out ridiculous, mismatched outfits is hilarious and cute. (No. Just no.) She can build Lego towers and knock them down for HOURS. I approach Legos with a mind for building something elaborate. A color-coordinated palace with symmetry and functional exits. To A, that’s sacrilege. We build it high and then we knock it to the ground. Then we repeat that… for the rest of the week. I don’t want to be sitting there thinking about being anywhere else, but that’s what happens.

I hate that on weekends, I look forward to time to recharge, relax, and get things organized, and instead we are held captive by the whims of a 37 inch person. Rain strikes fear into the core of my being. I want to eat at a restaurant, but I’m gripped with anxiety about whether it will be a fun and worthwhile meal or an ill-fated nightmare that leaves me feeling like I wasted $100 and 2 hours of my day. Keep them indoors and they bottle up so much energy you will live to regret your decision for days. Take them outside and they’re hot, cold, hungry, wish you brought the bike and not the scooter, need to pee, don’t like the way the sun is shining, think the slide is too green, the other kids are looking at them, or want to be pushed on the swing. For the rest of the day.

And I fucking hate “mommy friends.” I don’t mean my friends who are mommies. I mean people in the world who are supposed to be my friends because we both have kids. What the fuck kind of sense does that make? I don’t like you, your husband, your politics, or your approach to life, but since we both have children born in 2013, let’s hang out and have some wine. I’D RATHER DO ANYTHING ELSE.

And mostly I hate that I’m always fighting with my husband about nothing. We aren’t even fighting with each other, we’re fighting with the invisible blob that is parenthood. The intangible piece of shit that is blameless and evasive, so you have to yell at your physical spouse. Because obviously the husband deserves to take the entire blame for the fact that I’m wound like a top because my child thinks it’s absurd that we don’t kick people in the tits, I haven’t been able to eat lunch without a chopstick flying at my face since 2013, every dollar we make is assigned to childcare, college funds, savings, mortgage and alcohol, and every time my kid finishes a bag of ANYTHING, he flings the crumbs around the backseat of the car. (WHATTHEFUCKISWRONGWITHYOU?! JUSTPUTTHEBAGDOWNLIKEACIVILIZEDGENTLEMAN!)

I miss energy and free time. I miss the gym. I miss extra cash flow. I miss investing in stupid shit like absurdly expensive sushi and shoes. Because as terrible as that sounds to other people, I love both of those things.

But the very, very worst part is that I know I will miss this. Because as much as I don’t love motherhood, I love him. I love his tiny face and his absurd lexicon. I love watching him learn things and his enthusiasm about damn near everything. I love that he thinks we are the absolutely greatest. (Though frankly he far prefers my husband to me. I’m sure you’re shocked.) I love that he wakes up first thing in the morning and asks if today is the day we get to spend the whole day together (weekends). I even love that he tells his entire swimming class that his Mups’ boobies are falling out of her bathing suit. (They weren’t.)

I know that there will come a time when motherhood does become me. At some point, some age, the winds will shift and motherhood will too. What my child needs and wants will be something I can offer. The sacrifices will become less physical and more emotional. And I’m sure that hindsight, that bastard, will be 20/20. I’ll laugh at what seems like petty, long-ago misery and cry as he walks across a stage or down an aisle.

This idea that we as humans are expected to sacrifice our lives for the lives of others isn’t sustainable. I want for “motherhood” to be a parallel journey to the bigger one that I am on, the journey of life. I don’t want to feel that choosing to have a child means choosing to jump track from continuing to become the person I should be to dedicating everything I have to someone else’s journey. I want to set him up. I want to help him find his path, but I want to stay on mine too. I don’t want to be consumed by motherhood. I just want to be a woman whose journey includes a child.

And I think that should be okay.

 

good. but not worth dying for.

images

I voted for Obama.

I say that so that we all understand that while I may not be the picture of fastidious devotion to equality and racial standards, I am not knowingly and willingly denying the plight of the black man. I think we fucked it up good and plenty and have a ways to go before anyone can say that we have righted the wrongs.

Ironically, however, I thought we (and I) were a lot further along. And then I went to Chicago.

Also, I love my husband.

I say that so that we can all have a good hearted chuckle at his role in this story, whilst acknowledging what an amazing, intelligent, and kind-hearted person he is.

Earlier this year, I called the hubs to let him know that I had bought tickets for us to go to Chicago. As a part of us testing out the theory that we do not want children (like, ever), it makes sense that we get used to traveling, eating out, and lavishing ourselves with an insanely selfish lifestyle that ensures that even the passing thought of a child would be cause for therapy and a tequila-based cocktail. The way I see it there are too many terrible things that we are at risk to passing on to a child, plus there is the even bigger risk that this is not a passing phase, I really do just hate children. If that’s the case, I should go ahead and get used to giving myself everything I want without so much as a brain fart about someone else’s needs.

The decision to go to Chicago in particular was multi-fold. First of all, the tickets on JetBlue were practically free and the failing economy meant that hotels were practically giving away rooms. The hubs is a student of architecture and it made sense (lame sense, albeit) that we should go there. It it, as everyone and their fucking dog will tell you, a magnificent architectural city. What they mean by that is that if you care about buildings and love tours you should certainly go to Chicago.

Truthfully, work had pretty much pushed me to the brink and if I didn’t get a few days away I was going to go Columbine on at least three people. Chicago? Sure.

What we didn’t consider about Chicago (being Boston-dwellers) is how big real cities are. New York is a majestic city. The first time you see it, you are certain you will never see the other side. Fortunately, the first time you find yourself wasted and cash-less in Morningside Heights you realize that twelve miles is a remarkably manageable distance. You can make it to the East Village before sun up. It’s downright quaint.

Living in Boston, the dead center of it at that, I have slowly but up barriers. In my youth, I would willingly attend parties in all sorts of places: Allston, Brighton, Brookline. I would even go to Cambridge. Over the years, the periphery of our great city narrowed. Now, Cambridge might as well be Cambodia. The thought of gaining the stamina needed to cross a river and endure the culture shock is almost too much. I have a hard time crossing Mass Ave. There are things that will encourage me to cross: Indian, Mexican, the occasional hamburger. In general, however, I have been reduced to a one mile radius. It is my radius. And people respect it.

The interesting thing about Chicago is that despite its charade as one of the great Metropoli (made that word up) of our planet, it cannot help itself. It is still plopped down in the middle of nowhere. Every time you let your guard town, begin casual conversation about the possibility of someday putting down roots in Chi Town, you are somehow reminded that you are not in New York, San Fran, or Boston. You are, in fact, in the middle of America. The middle. For every great building there is a strip mall. For every Renoir on collection, there is a Thomas Kinkade Gallery. (He is, after all, the painter of light. And for every block of burgeoning culture there is a ghetto so expansive and frightening that you wonder if the war on terror is not in the wrong country.

The size of Chicago means that it is necessary to plan accordingly. Maps, plans, routes, ideas– you must arrive with everything planned. Otherwise you will eat breakfast in the same place every morning and walk aimlessly from Starbucks to Starbucks, stopping only occasionally to see if their Banana Republic looks the same as yours. (It does look similar.) Googling where to find a falafel on your first day doesn’t count as planning.

In my own defense, the hubs did no such planning. At the very least I had guaranteed that we would have one meal in Chicago. Worst case scenario we could always return again and again to Taza falafel and eat. The hubs had googled some buildings and tile mural. What the fuck good was that going to do for us? What solace would we be seeking from a goddamned mural? As it turns out: none. As predicted.

What we did have going for us is our knowledge of every restaurant that has ever been on the Food Network. And we knew that Chicago has deep dish pizza. And we knew that Bobby Flay got his ass kicked by Malnati’s Pizza in Chicago. So we googled it.

We saved our trip to Malnati’s for our last night in Chicago. It was to be our swan song. After days of pounding pavement, going to museums to waste time before meals, and justifying our repeated trips to the same restaurants, we would finally go do something touristy. We were going to Malnatis. We even had a map.

When we got into the cab, our cab driver did have some objections to our destination. We assumed he didn’t want to drive so far out of the city. (Which seemed ridiculous, but cabbies are not exactly known for their calm and collected manner.) We asked him if he knew of another Malnati’s Pizza that we could go to. He did not. Or at least we have breached the commonalities in our languages and he simply shut us out.

Off we went. Deep dish pizza. WOO!

We left the bright lights of the big city in the rear view as we settled in for our drive to the burbs. (Since our only experience with Malnati’s was via the tube, we assumed it was a suburban establishment. The kind of place where families gathered after little league games– not the kind of place you find on Michigan Ave.)

One thing I have learned in my life is to always, always, always, always, always be weary of any destination that takes you in the direction of the airport. Now, if you’re reading this and you disagree or are angered by that statement, you and I are nothing alike. You may be just a smidge more rough and tumble. Girls like me aren’t welcome in neighborhoods near airports. Too pale. Too blue eyed. Too stupid.

As it turns out, there were definitely last call Delta Shuttle flights taking off in my panorama. We were headed to one of those neighborhoods.

After exiting the freeway, I started to get a little worried. Liquor store. Gun store. Liquor store. Gun store. House on wheels. Car on blocks. And then there was nothing. Just an expanse of sadness.

I actually started to feel relief. Naturally we were nowhere near a little league field and therefore we would realize shortly that we had the directions wrong and then we’d turn around go back to our hotel and then eat someplace else. Our cab driver would laugh at our silliness and we’d be done with the whole mess. But then something strange happened: quite literally out of nowhere a Malnati’s appeared. Not only did it appear out of nowhere, but to add to the bizarre and quasi-immaculate conception nature of the appearance, it was attached to a church.

No, seriously.

From the barren expanse of fear and poverty had sprung a fountain of pizza. Good sign. I felt certain. And then the cab driver left us. More accurately, our cab driver drove away before I had really even closed the door.

Side note: For those of you who do not know the hubs or myself, I should explain that we have the capacity to appear yuppy enough to be featured in a Bank of America ad. Skinny jeans, mod glasses, fauxhawks, gay man shoes, forearm tattoos. It’s a yuppy trainwreck. We’re both a little splayfooted. The hubs is modelish thin and has a beard-framed jaw line. I am pale. I have a face that just looked like it watches Army Wives. We don’t “blend” in the traditional sense.

And there we were. About to learn just how stupid white people can be.

Imagine for a moment if the Klumps (nutty professor) opened a well-intentioned restaurant “project” on the set of Boyz in the Hood and employed Suge Knight as head pizza maker. You’d be close to what we’d walked into.

This wasn’t actually a Malnati’s in the traditional sense. This was a Malnati’s that had been donated to the neighborhood and the church to help rehabilitate the neighborhood– to help bring local business back to the area. Recovering drug addicts working through the church to get back on their feet. Semi-reformed gangbangers scrubbing dishes. And there we were. Because we watched Throwdown with Bobby Flay.

The hubs was nice enough to tell them that. You know, that two upper middle class yuppies were watching The Food Network on our flat screen one night and decided we had to visit Malnatis.

Our server was nice enough to let us know that there was actually a Malnati’s around the corner from our cozy four star back in the city.

Oh, yes. We knew. (No we didn’t.) We just wanted to get out and see new parts of the city. (No, we didn’t.)

The menu wasn’t a full menu, just some simple options pulled from the main Malnati’s menu. Samplings that kept food overhead low and didn’t require anyone to operate any heavy machinery. Or a fryer.

We were actually starting to feel some camaraderie with the kind folks in Lawndale. The hubs had managed to dodge the obvious bullets and I was doing my best to seem chill. Relative to the situation.

The turning point was when Jermaine (our server) dropped the bomb. He liked us. Really. But he didn’t know how the fuck we were going to get home. All kidding aside, not only were there no little league fields, there were no businesses and no cabs. He didn’t know how we got a cab to bring us there, but there was no cab in Chicago that would come back out and get us.

The good news? He was pretty sure he had a friend. He would call him. If we were lucky, Errand Boy would be able to come get us and take us safely back to Chicago. In the meantime, it was important that we sit tight and not try to do anything stupid like go outside or walk by the windows.

If you’ve ever been in a small New York apartment and seen a large roach land on your bed and disappear, you may have some idea of the kind of sickening fear I was experiencing. If you’ve ever had someone tell you that they were going to hunt you down in your sleep and kill you and you’d better sleep with one eye open… you’re getting closer.

I sipped my soda dutifully and made “I want a Savignon Blanc eyes” to the hubs. For over an hour I sat there and sipped.

And then Errand Boy arrived. In a Chevy Equinox.

Cynthia (Ms. Klump) held me tight against her ample breast. I’d only seen embraces like this in movies… right before a child is slaughtered in battle. The hubs was locked in an similar embrace. And then we were whisked into the car. Doors locked. Windows up. Tension mounting.

We didn’t have time to explain. We couldnt explain our mistake, our anxiety, our fear as we drove through Lawndale, hearing tales of the Black Disciples and the repeated taxi murders that finally ended any chance of a relationship to the city. So we didn’t.

We told him we from out of town. And he knew.

the bathroom ninja

I’m constantly mortified by my apartment. In my mind, I’m a delicate cleaning flower. I hang my clothes up after work, open drawers and place thing neatly inside, clean up after myself as I cook a meal. But in reality, I’m a whirling tornado of horrifying mess, never understanding where everything came from. How did I end up with 26 loads of laundry? Why are there eight empty water glasses next to my bed? And where the fuck is my other shoe?

The worst part is that I fear if left to my own, I may not ever clean. Would I seriously bask in the filth of my own lifestyle for eternity? No. No, I tell myself, I wouldnt. My mother once told me that a friend of her’s husband left her because she was a mess. I know it was partly untrue because my mother told me, and because she has always lacked the reasoning skills to understand that not everything can be traced back to an Electrolux, but it really got me thinking. I don’t mind if I think I’m a mess, but I certainly don’t want other people thinking it. And the last thing I want is to try to explain to people that my marriage ended because I couldnt get my shit together– literally.

About a year ago, I was preparing for a dinner party. A friend of mine was over at the house watching me tidy (Swifer, vacuum, blow dusk off of picture frames, and Fantastic the counters) when she suddenly looked up and asked me if I wanted her to Windex. Windex what? She explained that she would Windex the mirrors in the bathroom, and the glass panes on our French doors (they are indoors, not out). Apparently she Windexed her mirrors and crystal every Sunday. I was torn between whether to be fascinated by her, panicked that it had never, ever occurred to me to do any such thing, or simply kicked her out. And uninvite her to my party. Who the hell spent her Sunday Windexing the bathroom mirrors, let alone those teensie glass squares in the picture frames? She did.

I blew it off, but later on it started to get at me. Was something wrong with me? Why didn’t I hop out of bed on Sundays, ready to right the wrongs, make things shine, and prepare my abode for the week ahead? Here is what I came up with: Thresholds. Everyones got a Threshold.

To my poor friend, a low Threshold. The slightest sign of dust, the vision of one glass awaiting its turn in the dishwasher, was enough to send her to the other side… the dark place. She needed to know that at a moments notice there would be no doubt in her separate-sponges-for-counters-and-dishes mind that a guest could arrive unannounced, a neighbor could drop in for tea and cookies. As for me? Practically no Threshold at all. The amount of work required to make those things happen doesn’t begin to compare to the mental relaxation of not doing them at all. It’s not like I leave things rotting and festering around my house, but I have been using the same disposable dusting cloth for 2 + years.

But there in the distant future is a Threshold. It doesn’t inspire me to oil the floors on Thursdays, or organize DVDs alphabetically on Saturday afternoons, but it does pick holes in my conscience until I feel an enormous amount of guilt. And guilt is as good a motivator as torture.

I’m generally on a six to eight week cycle. Every six to eight weeks I have a push that is equal-to, if not greater-than, the sum total of what others do during that entire period of time. The hubs often complains that when I take on “cleaning” I generally start by making an insane mess beforehand. I can’t just pick up the various and sundries around the apartment, rehang coats, and wash dishes (which I do on a MUCH more regular basis), I have to first reinvent the wheel. Before I hang up coats, I need to take everything out of the closet. I have to visualize how the coats are going to fit, what the hierarchy of needs will be, so that I can rearrange the closet accordingly. It’s sick, and very time consuming, but if I’ve learned anything from the hubs, it’s whole ass or no ass.

Unfortunately, sometimes I get tired midway through. Then I’m left with a half organized closet and twice as much shit laying around on the floor. To this point, there is the method by which I tackle more aggressive cleaning issues– anything involving a product. If I’m going to get out the Comet, there better be an entire afternoon and some yellow rubber gloves. And someone sequester the cat.

As of yesterday, it had been approximately 6.5 weeks since I last attempted laundry. It’s due in part to a self-diagnosed anxiety disorder that keeps me from gearing up to do laundry for fear that I will get everything together, lug it down to the basement, and then discover that there is a line until Tuesday. When it comes to doing laundry in a community setting, everyone is your enemy. Fuck your neighbors. In addition, our family penchant for Aqua Net aerosol extra hold means that everything that dares to enter the bathroom will eventually become shellacked to the tile beneath a generous layer of the Secret of the South. That, and Stuart loves to roll his body in anything liquid. It’s a miracle he isn’t shellacked to the floor. I had gone to yoga in my pajamas, which I took to be a sign that I needed to get my domesticity in check, so I decided that I was going to take care of it. Tired of being embarrassed that our bathroom showed signs of use, I got out the Soft Scrub, the Tilex with Bleach, the Clorox, and a spong. I went in and surveyed the area. I locked Stuart in the bedroom. And then I remembered that the last time I cleaned the bathroom I got so high that I nearly passed out on my couch. (Which does beg the question of what said products are doing to the ozone, but I’ll tell you, I haven’t had much success with the greener, less abrasive versions of my favorite cleansers.)

So there I was, standing in the bathroom, a black silk-blend cocktail napkin tied over my nose and mouth, the tip pointing downward towards my breasts, looking exactly like an extra from the latest Al Quaida hostage video. To complete my outfit, I stripped down to my black boy short pannies and black sports bra. I was the bathroom ninja.

Outfitted in my nimble gear, I was able to tackle soap scum in a way that few can attest to. The stains cried out in consternation. As if they thought, after four to six weeks, that I would not be back. When I finished with the bathroom, after I had polished the grout, gathered the fur and hair from every corner, rearranged the products in the cabinet to better reflect their usage, the hubs stepped upon the gleaming floors with city coated shoes. His body will not be found, nor his cause of death discovered. I am, after all, a ninja.

As I continued down the list of things to do, albeit with less fervor than what I exhibited with the bathroom, I couldn’t bring myself to take off the napkin. It had become an alter ego. I was not only the bathroom ninja but the laundry ninja. I sat on my couch, my neck sweating beneath what was now my ninja necklace (I had to pull it down from my nose and mouth in order for the hubs to understand what I was saying), folding clothes like a mad woman. Hiyah!

When it was finally time to go to bed, the hubs worked to untie the knot keeping my ninja mask on. As it came off, the cool air finally giving my neck some respite from the chemically charged poly blend, I felt like my old self again. I walked by the bathroom on my way to bed, not stopping to brush my teeth, because it would only mar the sink.

When I crawled into bed I took some time to think about all that I had accomplished. I was sure that waking up, going to yoga, cleaning the bathroom, doing the laundry– that it would all give me an amazing sense of accomplishment. Instead I felt defeated. I kicked my yoga pants off, leaving them on the floor, and realized that none of it made a bit of difference. By the time the next person comes to visit I will be between cycles. My living room will be scattered with boots, shoes, models of loft apartments, books, bills, cat toys and scarves. My kitchen will have empty bottles of wine on the counter, pepper under the mill, and dishes in the sink. The $80 diffuser in the foyer will be ineffective because my fuck face cat will relieve himself moments before I bring a guest into the house, sabotaging my efforts to appear clean and neat.

So this bathroom ninja is putting away her expectations. There are too many opponents, too many walls to scale, in order to feel like I am keeping up with the status quo. I’ll try to remember to vacuum if I spill something. I’ll Swifter when Stuart starts to sneeze at his own overwhelming contribution, and I’ll attempt to keep the odor to a manageable foul. But other than that, kids, I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

If you don’t like dirt, you shouldn’t walk around barefoot.