Twenty-Five

I may stop marking the years it’s been since we sang you to sleep and said our goodbyes, but this is a big one – 25 years. That’s a silver anniversary. I‘ve been here longer without you now, and though it doesn’t hurt like it did, I can’t help but think of all the things you’ve missed, that we’ve all missed, so it’s a different kind of grief tonight.

You left when I was just one year out of college, but most of my memories with you were from before high school graduation. I never got to be an actual grown-up, grown-ass woman with you. After college, all of those conversations about the future, my future, and my firsts – beyond my first new car, my first job, first (crappy) apartment in Seattle – were tempered by the gravity of knowing you’d never see how I came out on the other end of it, and that you’d never be a part of it. I know, it’s natural, it happens. But it sucks. And here I am, on the other end of it (or middle of it, if I’m feeling optimistic), missing you like it’s still all brown lipstick and 1997 because I lived the next 25 years in what, tonight, feels like a heartbeat.

I was thrown for a while there — I retreated inward, so no roaring 20s for me — but I taught music, as planned, for several years. And then… I traded my teaching certificate for a license in speech-language pathology, a career/life decision you might have understood but never would have seen coming. I met and married your son-in-law, someone who walked these streets the same time as you, who shopped at the same stores, whose neighborhood you’d driven through, who you might have even bumped shoulders with (well, your shoulder, his elbow) at my high school graduation. He was there too, but for his sister, my friend. It’s possible you even spoke to him but obviously without having any idea it would be him. You’d have loved him, especially his hair. And we have these kids – only three, but the laundry of a thousand – who would have made you proud, and laugh, and wince, and wonder… They’d have loved learning about photography with you, fishing with you, and learning your art of locking everything down with bungee cords. They’re all scouts, just like you, but NONE of them tie their shoe laces. I guess that’s a knot they don’t need to learn anymore (like cursive). They’re so damn lucky with who they have in their lives, but damn, they were robbed. They ask for Grandpa George stories, and I get sad when I run out of material. Thankfully they never tire of hearing how you took out the garage door with the boat canopy. That’s always a good one.

This year was a particularly hard year for me. Lots of rubbernecking, searching for the sights, sounds and smells of when life felt less complicated, more certain, and certainly more gentle. It’s there in the memory of inky fingers from Sunday comics while perched on heating vents; power saws and warm sawdust; popcorn, orange juice and Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau; eating doughnuts with you after you cleaned our teeth; riding with you in Uncle Everett’s yellow Chevy Luv truck. All your dad jokes. Most especially your “What you’ll find in life is…” lectures in Mom’s Volvo, because what I found in life this year scared the shit out of me. I got bad news, Dad, more than just a scare, but I’m fine and I’ll be finding out I’m fine every six months for the next several years. It’s just that the fear isn’t going away anytime soon, and I’m so sorry you had to feel it, live it, and eventually make friends with it. I wish I could ask you how you did that. Calming reassurance was always your superpower. I’d really like to flex that muscle the next time your granddaughter, caught up in laughter, stops and exhales “Is it coming back?” She’s a thinker and a worrier. They all are. And sometimes it makes me angry because their adolescent years should be filled with organic/gluten-free/vegan doughnuts after dental appointments, Snapstreaks and *awesome* life lectures from my Honda Pilot, not managing their insecurity if anyone will be around to see how they come out on the other end of all this.

Damn. I meant to finish this on your 25th anniversary, but you know I’m verbose. It’s now November 10th, so I failed. But everyone gave me time and space tonight, so I took advantage and got long-winded. It was so nice being able to sit and think about you somewhere other than behind the steering wheel in the dark of my car.

Thanksgiving is soon. I don’t generally love Thanksgiving. It’s so much work for one dinner but this year I feel differently. Karl, Toni and the “kids” are coming down, and I’m excited. Of course, we’ll make our stuffing, the smell of which takes me back to when you had to make multiple Thanksgiving day trips to Safeway or Wizer’s while the bird was in the oven. Every year, always in a hurry, so many trips, back and forth. Smart phones would have been a game-changer. But you did it, sometimes calling impatiently from the pay phone, “Are you *absolutely* sure we don’t need anything else?” You’ve had 25 years of not having to run to Safeway or Wizer’s (it’s gone anyway, sad). A well-deserved break. But also maybe twenty-five years of looking down on us, watching the chaos unfold, and futilely shouting to us, “There’s more butter in the freezer downstairs! The FREEZER! DOWNSTAIRS!” Enjoy the show. I hope it makes you laugh, because it’s going to happen. You know it.

So thankful for the 24 years I had you. It just wasn’t nearly enough. I miss you, Dad, I really do. I love you. Thanks.

And also, thanks for my teeth. I still get compliments from dentists.

XOXO

P.S. You used to call me ‘mugwump.’ I just looked that up (never too late to learn something new). Really, Dad? I was like, 3 years old. And also, spot-on.

Screw You, Kevin.

THE FACTS

On Christmas Eve Day, I was lying on my back poking my fingers into my abdomen, as one does during the holiday baking season, and I knew something was not right. In addition to feeling full after a few bites, I had to pee all the time, my pants were too tight, and I couldn’t bend over to tie my shoes. A few days later – also the day before my middle son’s 13^th birthday – while in a paper gown and on a bed in what used to be Fuddruckers (burger joint) and is now a Super Zoom Care, my fears were confirmed: I had a large pelvic mass. Ten days and two different doctors’ appointments later, I was scheduled for surgery, and exactly one month to the day of knowing something was wrong, I had a large, grapefruit-sized ovarian tumor removed, which we’d named Kevin because a.) why not? and b.) all the Kevins I’ve ever known were either very nice or at worst, harmless. (I had several other parts removed too, but they already had names.) We went with Kevin, because we were hoping for the best.

All dressed up and nowhere else to go but surgery.

The pathology report came back yesterday confirming my oncologist’s suspicions: contrary to what the tumor markers test indicated, Kevin was in fact, an asshole. Cancerous, and a rare bastard at that: a granulosa cell tumor, which occurs in only 1-2% of women with ovarian cancer. Happily, he was a bit of a recluse and to my understanding he hadn’t moved into any other parts. I have an appointment on Friday to review the pathologist’s report with my oncologist, consider any additional treatment, which is unlikely, and to remove the staples that have me trussed up like a Thanksgiving bird still on the shelf in January: sad, flappy, and missing her bag of giblets.

THE REST OF IT…

Not surprisingly, for four days after first hearing the words, “large pelvic mass,” I was untethered. Four days of sitting in my bedroom, the driveway or the Albertson’s parking lot silently – or not – losing my shit by hurling all the Duck Yous from my driver’s seat to the sky as I could during The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. All I could think was, if I had cancer, fought it and lost, it would ruin my family. Literally. Emotionally, financially, everythingly. My husband has MS and although he is absolutely fine right now, he will need me in the coming years. And my three kids need me now. One son who is loudly (so. effing. loud.) embracing his teenage years and is on the cusp of dating (everyone, according to him); my middle, who is a sweet, shy homebody who loves art, animals and Halo, and still holds my hand in public; and my daughter especially, who is in that heartbreaking, uncertain transition phase between friendships and needs acceptance, gentle guidance, and reminders to shower or brush her hair. They all still want me to kiss them goodnight and turn out their lights, and it wrecks me, every time I think about the alternative to being here (which is funny, since being present was my point in starting this blog years ago). That’s a dark spiral I’ve never navigated before and it’s a hard one to pull out of once you peek inside, especially when it’s saying to you, “Hey, so like, there’s this very real possibility…” Thankfully my tumor markers test came back that Kevin was likely benign, and I kept repeating that to myself as a mantra right up until surgery. In fact, I’m just beginning to wrap my head around the fact that he wasn’t.

The kids knew something was up in that stretch between Christmas and New Years. Other than my glassy staring, the fact I neither got mad nor raised my voice, not once, over break made them suspicious, but we held off telling them until after a surgery date was scheduled. Obviously there is never a good time for these discussions, but my stellar timing gifted my oldest son a spectacular two-for-one deal, as he called it the “Best Day Ever/Worst Day of My Life”, since later that the evening after we told the kids, I found out that day was *also* his first day of having an official girlfriend. For the record, he wouldn’t tell me why it was his best day ever and was stunned that I immediately guessed it. Silly boy. (First love is a shooting star. They’ve since broken up. He’s fine, but I’m not. GIRLFRIEND?!?). They agreed Kevin was a fine name for a tumor since they didn’t have any friends by that name. I asked the kids, “Do you wanna feel Kevin?” which isn’t a question you’d typically ask children unless Kevin is say, a snake (and he IS), but I did, and they did, and it was an icebreaker that got them talking. They asked if it was okay to talk to friends about it, which I encouraged as long as they were able to stick to facts and their feelings. We had a countdown, and two weeks later, on the eve of my surgery, we had a goodbye party for Kevin. And because I can’t help myself, I even baked him a goddamn cake.

Yeah, he didn’t even deserve this. But, cake.

I’ve really only had 24 hours to digest that the bullet I dodged wasn’t from a cap gun. It was a live round and I don’t run so fast so it hit me, but what I’m walking away with is just a flesh wound, 6 weeks off from work, and a lifetime of renewed gratitude. Not everyone gets to walk away from a grapefruit-sized Kevin. I’ll have a 6-inch scar to remind me of that every day for the rest of what I hope to God is a long, healthy life.

Last night, Mia asked me if I’m a cancer survivor. I didn’t know how to answer that. As most people I know, I’ve lost too many friends and family to cancer, people who fought long, wretched battles – for some, it continues to be a part of their lives. The irony is not lost on me that the day after I had surgery was the 4^th anniversary of losing a best friend from high school to ovarian cancer. So, me? Cancer survivor? No. I don’t know. But I’ve got a healthy dose of survivor’s guilt.

Portland Providence had a room with a view.

I haven’t felt gratitude like this until now. The kind that shakes you, makes you weep. Gratitude that I poked and squashed around my belly that day; that the timing worked the way it did, even though it decimated my hard-earned winter break. I couldn’t be more grateful for the family, friends and co-workers who have stepped in and supported us – feeding us, transporting kids, offering to take them if and for however long was needed, keeping us in their prayers, or sending me the funny, irreverent stuff I so adore. I thought I was onto “dry January” because I cried myself out in December, but lately I’ve got tears of gratitude for all of you. And Oxy. Thank you for being there. It means the world to me.

All The Wine

I’m having a recurring dream. I’m at a bus stop waiting and waiting and the bus never comes. It’s always a little disorienting, waking up and not knowing at first if it’s real. Kind of like my other dreams where I’m in an early 20th century one-room schoolhouse and in an English accent, no less, I ask the creepy, veiny-headed, bulgy-eyed headmaster if I may go to the bathroom and he angrily points to the only option: the toilet centered on an exposed platform in the middle of the room, in plain view of the entire school with no offer of privacy. And each time I have the dream, I get closer and closer to actually using it. (But I haven’t. Yet.)

“Damn, I missed it!” Heart pounding panic because I missed the bus. But in my dream it feels bigger than panic should because missing the bus really shouldn’t be that big a deal – so I missed it, wah-wah-waaah. If I just put on my thinking cap, I could… get my mom to drive me! Or walk! Or ride my bike or my dog, or fly on my unicorn or power jet, or just FLY because it’s a DREAM!

But it’s not. Not really.

Anyway. “Damn, I missed it!”

Blink.

When I woke up, I knew it wasn’t the bus I missed.

It was summer.

Don’t get me wrong, summer was (merely TEN DAYS AGO) good! I knocked some things off the list, a few but not all of the fun-filled family things I intended (I’m looking at you, fossil dig). Emphasis on easy. And low-key. And easy. We traveled, we vacated, we were outside, we stayed in, we were e a s y. Because last summer? It started out the same as this year, best of intentions to relax and embrace all that this gorgeous corner of the world has to offer. But it didn’t end that way. Suffice to say that a sh*tstorming thunderhead rolled in mid-July and continued to rain down stress, disappointment, death, illnesses, hospitalizations, MORE EFFING CANCER, broken bones, and hey, WHY NOT LICE, until it felt like it became the new normal. But I won’t digress, because I’m trying my damnedest to not perseverate on the bad in life (though impressive and at times kind of funny, in an “I lived!” kind of way), which I tend to do when left unchecked to my own devices, and I really dislike drama. Unless it stars Colin Firth.

For the most part I kept it to myself. I didn’t get out, didn’t see people, didn’t want to saddle anyone with it except for my husband, who got to hear about it and watch me engage in awesome stress-management practices (reading until 2 AM). And did I always handle it? With grace and aplomb? Nope. But coming out the other end of it gave me a healthy dose of perspective, and the silver lining was it helped crystallize three daily goals to check off my daily chore chart:

It’s kinda dumb in its simplicity, but just like my daughter’s last birthday cake (cakes – I have a problem), its beauty is all in how you interpret it:

Interpretation #1: Become a raging, aging, entitled, alcoholic, b*tchy driver.

Nope. There’s plenty of that going around this town.

Interpretation #2: Queso and chips for breakfast. Show up to volunteer at the kids’ school wearing pajama bottoms and a bathrobe. Join the ranks of the People of Walmart. Give up life entirely.

Nope nope. But the Queso…

Interpretation #3: Have a glass of wine while you make dinner, breathe in the good, breathe out the bad, and celebrate being unadorned, unadulterated you!

Yeah, but it sounds so… healthy. And smug.

Interpretation #4: Literally drink more and stop giving a sh*t about everything. Remind yourself it’s really not as big a deal as you think. (And recognize that yes, sometimes it is, so wine.). Stop pretending you’re not getting older. Let’s be real – you can only spackle the cracks so much. SHOW YOUR CRACK! Cracks, I meant cracks. Sweet baby jeebus, your cracks.

Yeah, that sounds like me.

This mug is the size of a Big Gulp. As are the bags under my eyes.

Ultimately, embracing my bare-faced, badass gray-haired self swirling a glass of wine was taking the path of least resistance because it required nothing more than rolling out of bed, throwing on the same sports bra and clothes as yesterday and popping the cork at 4:00 PM. With a whole lot of cooking, cleaning, yard work, driving to camps, mommying, making music videos, refereeing, playing and hollering to get off all screens in between. (Also, being bare-faced and badass gray-haired freed up quite a bit of time for my quiet-morning-in-enormous-cups-of-coffee without sacrificing sleep, saving me time, money and sanity. And who wouldn’t want that?)

However, most importantly, a glass or bottle(s) of wine is best shared, which is the point (BECAUSE I HAVE ONE!) of this post, which I will circuitously get to in a mo.

So I blinked, and summer was over.

While I spent many evenings outside, on a prettily-lit deck (another thing I checked off my summer to-do list), soaking in the summer evensong with a short, reasonably poured glass of wine, I was pretty far up in my head too. By myself. And I needed that solitude – craved it for a while, actually. But similar to that tub of dirty socks in the laundry room – soaking, water cloudy and gray – things tend to stagnate, pickle or shrivel up entirely when left unchecked in tepid water for too long.

My waters ran tepid. (Kind of proud at how gross that came out.). And I saw virtually no one.

Service for one.

All the wine I meant to drink with all the friends I meant to see.

That had been on the list.

Damn, I missed it.

But this can be rectified, and it’s still a pretty deck. Though the leaves are starting to fall, summer might give us the finger and tenaciously last through October. And I need to stay connected because we all are going through things at times – some really happy occasions that call for celebration; lows not nearly as big as we think; some things need extra shoulders because they’re too big for us to carry alone; and some require only an evening of good music, or an ear, or honesty, or Kleenex, or bawdy humor, or teen vampire movies, or endless boxes bottles of wine… Sometimes a little cabin fever is all I need to crawl out from under my rock, get on the phone or text a friend to ask if we’re staying in or going out. “Sports bra or underwire tonight?”

Please, please say sports bra.

Jeez, I’m thirsty.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow my kids will be cranky.  Part of me believes they’ve chosen tonight’s family movie as payback for the existence of green vegetables, and for the many recent lectures they’ve endured on the merits of limiting screen time and not throwing their underpants in each others’ faces.  So The Emoji Movie it is.  Halfway through and I’m still searching for its redeeming qualities.  But there is hope.  Movie credits are surprisingly funny.  And if not, movies will end.

Tomorrow my three will be tired before and after their early Saturday morning karate class.  When they come home they’ll argue about who has to shower first, and then beg to get on a screen.  I’ll send them outside with snacks and walkie-talkies while I sit cozy in hypocrisy, working away on my computer and occasionally checking Facebook as an involuntary reflex.  They’ll come back inside after having had the best day ever, ask to get on a screen, and I’ll wonder how it ever got to be 5:00 pm.  I won’t know where the time has gone.  We’ve done this day before, and I’m sure we’ll do it again.

But tomorrow will be different.

Tomorrow you will be laid to rest.  Knowing it was grim from the start; not having the capacity to respond  with anything other than “SH*T!” when you messaged that the cancer was back; then when you were running out of options; ultimately when you decided you were done with treatment, even still…  It’s still a shock to the system.  None of us were ready for this.

You’d been brave for two and a half years.  Having cancer is like having a part-time job with all the appointments.  It went away once, it will go away again.  And then, I just got my wig.  How are your kids?  Finally, I really need another miracle.  Then three months ago you let us know you were in hospice, and you were done:  done with sickness, with being unable to embrace the people you loved in the finite time you had left, and done with wishing it was over.  So you grew braver still.  This is what it is and I’m not wasting it.  So soon after, we hopped on a plane to see you, not knowing what we were flying in to – it didn’t sound good.  God must have been shining down on us for those 24 hours, because your nausea and pain were under control by then, you could sleep, and felt good enough to see people.  In our 24 hours with you, and you were the Hostess with the Mostest.  

I don’t know how you did it, but as always, you made everything easy — even in talking about the time you had left.  Was it weeks?  Months?  There was no way of telling.  You just wanted to make it through the holidays.  And if you could have a last meal, it would be really good Mexican food.  And then: did your g-tube accommodate margaritas?  Should we try?  How did if feel to be a little high all the time, and will you share?  We all laughed.  And some point for reasons unknown, I got down on all fours with my a**-end pointed up to the sky, like I normally would I guess, right when your dad walked in the room behind me.  At first a bit awkward at 44, but also comfortingly familiar, because that’s what I remember from so long ago – your smile, and the side-splitting laughter that accompanied it.  I’m just sorry that it made your g-tube hurt.

We hugged and kissed you good bye with only the words, “We’ll talk soon.”

And thankfully, for the next three months, we did.

Last week, I had one last chance to tell you I love you, and I took it.  I’ll admit I felt panicked and desperate.  It’s not that I didn’t want the last conversation we’d had via text — how my son pulls off dressing like Don Draper yet smelling like a belly button — to be our last words.  I value the authenticity and beauty in everyday, shoot-the-sh*t banter, but I just wanted one last time to tell you that I love you. I don’t know if you could hear me.  My God, I half-hoped you couldn’t because I was a wreck.  Am a wreck. I haven’t thrown up on Facetime with anyone yet, but you were almost my first.   I’ve just never said that kind of good bye to a friend before.  So I didn’t.  I couldn’t say those words.

Instead.  I just called to say I love you.

Sweet Jesus, Tara.  You’ve got me quoting Stevie Wonder.

But I do.  I love you, and I miss you.  Already. I miss that we won’t see you at our 30  year reunion, and our real reunion following the lame over-priced pasta dinner and exquisitely-awkward evening of playing Name That Face.  I will miss your sharp wit, and how you remember every word spoken in ping-pong group conversations; your gentleness and kindness; your faith; your graciousness in understanding that I wasn’t being insensitive when you texted that you were permanently on a g-tube and I responded with an emoji of a cat eating a freaking doughnut – you knew I was just technologically impaired.  Most of all, I will miss your place at our table of friends, when we gather to celebrate your life some 2,000 miles north of where you will be laid to rest.  And I know all about the freaking circle of life, that stupid Lion King song that sends me into a full-blown anxiety attack when my daughter plays it, but I can’t help myself from pointing out the obvious, you should be at the table with us, damn it, you are only 45.  Were 45.  Sh*t.

But this is what it is, so don’t waste it.

So tomorrow.  It will wash over me.  I’m going to lose it a little – hopefully not more than just now.  I might watch Shag, in your honor, and remember the times you yelled, “I’m WILD!” just like Carson did.   I could eat frozen yogurt  and drive around listening to 80’s music, in February, with the windows down and heater on, but if That’s What Friends Are For or Never Say Goodbye came on I’d likely hit a tree.  I certainly won’t be watching The Emoji Movie with my kids ever again, because halfway through I realized they were trying to escape being deleted from their existence. Horrible movie, horrifying timing.

So most likely, I’ll check in with a friend or three — you know who they are.  Because they feel the same.  Because this sucks. Because I’ve got a tomorrow.

But mostly, because that’s what you would do.

Rest well, my friend.  I love you.

The Day I Went Emily Postal

I keep the 1937 copy (5th ed.) of Etiquette by Emily Post by the kitchen table.  Within its 877 pages of good breeding, I’ve come to rely on its celebrated chapters, Teas & Afternoon Parties, Modern Man and Girl, and Growth of Good Taste in America to provide my children with endless instruction on how to be.  It also effectively pressure washes out the nasal cavities with water, milk, or most effectively, wine when read during the dinner hour.

*Emily Post says, No books at the table.*

We may know the differences between a Courteous Hostess and the Perfect Hostess, and which one we need to be.  We know how to Enter the Drawing Room, and may adeptly dine as the Perfect Guest at the White House, or any other such state affair which utilizes more than two forks at the dinner table.  And when we travel abroad, we know what to expect when we are Presented At Court.  Nay, nay!  N’er shall we represent as ugly American tourists!

I’m telling you, this book is just precious.  And lovely.  And yet, though it seems she had her finger on the pulse of every social situation under the civilized sun, the 1937 Ms. Post cannot accommodate for the collision of temperament, Starbucks, and use of communicative appendages.  She may be your essential friend on how to etiquette, but when faced with unpleasatries, she turns her back on you and offers no tools.

Yes, Emily.  When I turned to you, you left me dangling like the participle about which we were warned.  (Lord, there are so many other things that dangle, but one does not wax on about bouncing, jostling skin-covered dangly parts in the same reverent breath that udders the name Emily Post.). Like my wit and words, you failed me.

But work yourself not into a lather, dear Emily.  Do no distress yourself so.  Because early on, my other friend, Fred Rogers, taught me to look for the helpers in life.  And where you left me dangling, Ms. Post, I found someone else who got on her ladder and helpfully batted me down and out of my misery with a sledgehammer.  Kathy Bates.  She delivered.  And when she did, on this day, I went full Towanda.

*Emily Post says, Always consider the rights of other highway companions.*

I took my little seven-year-old sweetheart to meet some chums from her former preschool.  On the way to the park, we turned off of the main thoroughfare and down a side street that is notorious for traffic jams.  Starbucks is located right there on the corner with its parking lot entrance on the side street.  Its minuscule parking lot and super-short drive-thru lane creates back-ups like you wouldn’t believe.  Experienced patrons know to pull off to the side to let traffic behind them coming off the main street get through because if they don’t, it becomes freaking dangerous.  But this was Saturday morning, and there was relatively little traffic.

I turned down the side street and immediately found myself sniffing the tailpipe of a black SUV, which was planted in the middle of the lane directly across from Starbucks.  The drive-thru lane was empty.  I waited, figuring it would turn into the parking lot.

It didn’t.

*Emily Post says, Signal.  Even if she never actually said it.*

I waited a moment longer.  I was in no hurry, but if a car turned down the street behind me, I was the first thing they would plow into, and frankly that wasn’t on my to-do list that day.  So then I used the only communication tool I had in the car to alert another driver that I was behind them (because reader boards mounted on the hood of your car are not allowed, the pity).  I honked.

*Emily Post says, Horn blowing is annoying. Clearly Emily was not a city girl.*

Believe me, I’m fairly confident that auto manufacturers don’t install horns so they won’t be used.  And I’m certain I didn’t put mine to use with the intent to annoy anyone.  It certainly wasn’t meant to be a bitchy honk, but even with valiant effort, I couldn’t make a Honda Pilot’s horn sound like, “Hello!  Sorry to bother!  Would you kindly decide if you’re staying or going?”  So unfortunately I’m sure it sounded more like the annoying, fruitless, judgmental and pissy “WONK!” that it seemed.  There is no making a WONK into a lilting, friendly BEEP-BEEP-CHEERIO!

The car pulled straight ahead by about three feet, still sitting in the middle of the lane.  Still not pulling over to the right.  Or pulling left into the parking lot.  Or turning it’s hazard lights on.  Or waving me forward to go around it.  Just.  In the middle of the lane.

*Emily says, Why did the chicken cross the road?  Because the SUV in front wouldn’t move!*

Okay.

It wasn’t a big deal.  I started to go around the SUV, hoping that it didn’t choose that same moment to pull forward, pitting me against oncoming traffic on the wrong side of the road.  That sort of thing has happened before.  You pull around to pass someone, then they decide to go, and before you realize it you’re playing Chicken with an oncoming Recycling truck…  Sure, I was annoyed, and when I passed the SUV, I did look at the driver.  Who wouldn’t?  I didn’t mouth anything.  I didn’t shake my hands in frustration.  I just looked over, annnnnd…

That’s when she flipped me off.

*To be clear, Ms. Post has no chapter dedicated to the graceful way a lady takes the finger.  But there are puh-lenty of notes on how she handles balls.*

*The ballroom dancing kind.*

I interpreted the extension of her middle finger as a type of sign language.  Therefore, she spoke.

 

*Emily says, When you are at fault, flip people off if you find it agreeable to others.*

“That wasn’t very nice of her, Mom.  Why did she do that?”  My daughter’s voice, which usually fills stadiums, was quite small.  Seated in the backseat on the passenger side of the car, she had a front row seat for the finger.  A face full of finger.  I won’t say it scarred or scared her, but yeah.  She totally noticed.  And she also found it disagreeable.  While we haven’t engaged in much discourse on the use that finger at home, we have thus relied on the education provided by the playground and public school transportation to fill in the blanks for our kids.  So she got it.  She knew what it meant.  And she didn’t like it either.

*Emily says, Make lists of the things you don’t like in other people.  Emily is 13 years old.*

Thanks for flipping off my seven year old daughter!  BEEP-BEEP-Cheerio!

Here’s the thing.  I can get mad.  It’s how my kids first learned the word “moron.”  I will lay on the horn when I am nearly broadsided weekly in the roundabout close to home.  And I yell, but with the windows up because it’s almost always raining.  But I don’t pull a pin from a grenade and throw it in someone’s lap and run away yelling, “Your problem now, sucka!”  When I’m the person who’s at fault, even though I may feel super defensive, I might make crazy “OMG I’M SORRY!” flappy hands, but I have yet to tell the other guy to go eff himself when I’ve screwed up behind the wheel.

*Ms. Post is twirling, in the manner of a rotisserie bird, in her grave at me.*

In the heat of the moment, I’m rarely ever witty, nor terribly calm, cool and collected.  I’m cut more from the sweaty, blotchy and blustery cloth.  I might even spit a little when I talk.  And when it comes to confrontation, I’m not experienced enough to act sweet, smooth and smiley.  Thanks for blocking traffic and flipping off my seven year old daughter!  Cheerio!  Or offer snarky assistance.  Can I help?  Are both your turn signal and manners broken?  The truth is, in that moment, I didn’t want to give her a piece of my mind (because I had only one piece left).  What I really wanted – was impassioned to do, actually – was let her know that that was NOT okay.  Be decent.  Be considerate.  And if you screw up like we all do – even if you’re just in your own world and inconvenience others – just own it, pretty please.  You don’t get a pass for being an ass.

So back to my painfully long-winded story.  No doubt a bore to Ms. Post.

“That wasn’t very nice of her, Mom.  Why did she do that?”

“Well, she…  I…  You know what?”

That’s when it hit me.  And that’s when I pulled over.

Towanda.

Hazards on, keys out, out of the car, doors locked, and before you could say, “Butt out,  Emily!” I was standing in front of her driver’s side door.

Her window was rolled up.  But the backseat driver’s side window was open, so I accommodated by using my stadium voice and made sure that she, along with the three other adult passengers in her car, could hear me loud and clear.

*Emily and I part ways here over many, MANY things…*

“That was OVER. THE. TOP.  Pull OVER.  Put your hazard lights ON.  You are BLOCKING TRAFFIC.”

I must have been interesting, because didn’t even have to search for my words.

It was practically over before it happened.  I said it and was back in my car.  I didn’t wait for her to respond, which to be fair I probably should have but I didn’t want an argument.  I simply wanted to say THAT IS NOT OKAY just maybe leave a delicate, fine spray of spittle on her window.

I may not have been witty, but I was instinctive.  My words flowed like a brook made of hot lava.  I puffed gloriously.  And the only thing that rippled was the vein in my forehead.  Screw decorum.  I gave myself bonus points for being DIRECT.  And using my hands for emphasis, which my daughter noticed.

What I was, was giddy. A little light-headed.

Towanda.  Hell.  Yeah.

“What did you say to her, Momma?  And what were you doing with your hands?”

*Emily, I would say this to your face:  Quit pretending.  Be mad. More than the eat-your-feelings, suffer -in-silence Emily Post-mad.  Be mad, and then be HONEST.  You can call one out if it’s needed.  Take off your girdle, girl.  Just let it all out.  It’s okay.  We all have those creepy things called feelings.  *

I wasn’t worried about appearing dull because I indulged in the rank habit of expressing a critical attitude that day.  I was absolutely not resolved to make friends, and I was most certainly not opposed to saying something anyone found disagreeable, even if polite society requires it (although I dare Ms. Post to agree The Vulgar Finger belongs in Polite Society).  Apparently Ms. Post covers only How To Be.  Not How To Be When situations.  Not helpful.

Society, if it is supposed to be a pleasant place, has either stretched the margins of what is pleasant quite thin or has redefined “pleasant” altogether.  It rather seems society thrives on a lot less humility and a lot more finger.

My daughter, the sponge, took this all in.  She was worried I’d be mad.  Sometimes (a lot of times) I hold on to things and it takes a long while to blow over.  Don’t address the issue.  Don’t say anything unpleasant.  Steep in it for a while.  You’ve got time to stay angry.

But we don’t have time.  We have less time than we think we do. And we certainly didn’t have time because were supposed to be at park to have fun with her first friends, the kids who learned with her how to share, say please, thank you, and I’M SORRY, and mean it.  Which Ms. Post would most certainly condone.

“What did you say to her, Momma?”

“I told her that what she did with her finger was not okay.  And she wasn’t being safe.  Everything is alright.  Ready to go?”

And so we went.  And had a grand time.

 

 

 

Working It

She stood in front of me, edecked out in a turtleneck shirt, arctic-grade leggings, yards of billowing layers of fairy tale-spun tulle, and a cowboy hat.  Obviously dressed to go play outside in the July’s 85+ degree weather, something I wouldn’t typically be okay with, but at that moment I was being  Mom of Yes.  Yes to almost anything she and her brothers asked for, so long as they were perfectly well-behaved, loving, and in lieu of removing each others’ limbs, chose alternative methods for working out sibling angst.  Or were at least quiet about it while they did it.  Which they weren’t.  (Quiet, not removing limbs.)  

Yet there she stood, in all her neon, flammable glory, just pissed at me.

“Momma, I DON’T like the ignoring.  I DON’T LIKE it!”  And off she stomped, madder than hell, to the backyard to swing her feelings out.

This went on for a few hours – the more her fabulous attire changed, the more her stormy stare remained the same.

Man, was I being selfish.

I was filling out a job application.

And it was in my best interest to fill it out during daylight hours, because I can get all sorts of “creative” when I write when I’m tired.  “Creative” on the scale of that acquaintance from college who used to throw her arms around you and tell you how much she loved you after downing too many Zimas.  I write so descriptively and EMPHATICALLY!!! and  dramatically when I’m exhausted, I’d probably dot my i’s with big fat circles like a lovesick 13-year-old if I could.

Thank God Microsoft Word doesn’t support that.  (Looking into it,  nonetheless.)

Also, I tend to think I’m super-funny past 1 AM.  As in, “On the professional level, I am not one to shy away from getting my hands dirty.  Believe me, I changed a classroom full of two-year-olds’ diapers for  two years solid.  Hands, absolutely dirty.”  I actually considered writing this.  Wouldn’t future employers appreciate something a little eye-opening, rather than the standard, “I bring expertise and perspective that enable me to fully integrate with any staff and professional community, blah blah blahgitty-blah…”

And still, no one should ever attempt humor – literal potty humor, most especially – on a job application.

Thus, I shunned – yes, shunned – my children for almost 4 days straight.  I paid plenty of attention to them in their early years, and all of my parenting books say the early years count the most, so  I helpfully called out, “Remember, if it won’t stop bleeding just apply direct pressure!”, shut my bedroom door, strapped myself down to the desk chair, and…

*crickets*

I had no idea what to say.

Maybe it’s been 10 year since I last worked in my given field, but I didn’t forget it all.  I remember what I did.  I’ve done this before, many times over, so writing and requesting important things like the cover letter, resume, essay question responses, official transcripts, reference contacts (who I had to contact first), letters of rec requests, and actual application should be easy.  The job posting closed in five days, so no pressure.  Everyone loves a deadline.  Getting started is always the hardest part.  So I started, and…

*crickets*

But the thing you could hear above the crickets was the din of my children, on the other side of the door.  Or in the backyard.  Or below me in the basement, where they always think I can’t hear every poke, smack, stage whisper, jab, and door slam (obv).

Thing is, I do hear them.  It’s the same super-power that Cavemom had in detecting stealth danger, like Sabercat, or King Kong swinging a 50-foot python.  Now I may not be Cavemom (body hair suggests a link), but I am Suburbanmom, and even though my kids aren’t stealth in the common, Sabercat-Kong predatory way, my super-power is just as powerful as my predecessors.  I hear things.  And I feel the vibrations of something bad before it happens, like kids microwaving a bag of marshmallows.  Or zip-lining across the power grid, which is why I appear to randomly shout, “Get offa that thing!” on the street and in the house.  I’m saving lives.  But it’s a near-constant feed into my senses, which is probably why I’m stark-raving mad all the time because I just. Want. Silence.

Yet somehow, through that vortex of chaos outside my bedroom door – the PB & J wraps they made and licked off the counter tops hours earlier, the Clif Bars they waged war over, and the unfairness of three kids having to take turns playing two-person Battleship – I summoned near-Herculean concentration (coffee), finished my application and submitted it with time to spare.  No last minute rush, no near misses, and with the exception of using a resume building website that had a #!%?*# glitch in their system (which was fortunately resolved in 22 very long hours), and praying that a few of my professional references were still alive/remembered me, I had it finished.  Relief.  Game over, man.  I was done.

I opened the door, exhausted.  Before me, flapping on the floor making carpet-angels lay the Color Ninja, in ensemble variation #9.  In addition to the tulle and tights, she now sported Super Girl boot coverings over flip flops and a plastic samurai sword shoved under the waistband of her hot-pink tutu.  I plonked down on the floor next to her, and in turn, she wormed her way over and put her head in my lap.  I played with the sweaty strands of her hair that poked through the black balaclava she now wore, shielding her identity.  I was wrong – she really is stealth, after all.

“Momma, are you DONE yet?”

“Yes, baby girl.  I’m done.”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too.  Why is your head sticky?”

“I made my own lunch.  Can we play now?”

“Yes.  I’d love to.”

“Promise?”

“Pinky-swear promise.”

“You’re done working?”

Oh, sweet girl.  I haven’t even started working.  But when I do, and it had better be soon, I will try my best to not shut you out and I will always, always make time and room for this.  Ten years since I last worked, and it stills feels like the day I brought your brother home from the hospital, then your other brother too, and then, finally, you.  Ten years ago, when I knew not the black hole of Facebook or smartphones or how fast this would all go.  Ten years from now she’ll be teleporting herself to school through her smart phone and I will forever be chasing after her but will never, ever keep up.

I gave her a kiss on her salty-and-sweet forehead.  “I’m done working.”

“Good.”  She snuggled into me for a moment, and we sat there, connected.  She, rub-patting the top of my hand like she used to as a toddler before falling asleep, and me, sniffing her temple, alternately wondering how I could ever miss these moment and when was the last time she showered.

A few minutes later we heard the neighbor kids outside, calling her name.  She bolted to her feet and scrambled out the door, shedding her sword and calling to her friends, her brothers trailing after her.  Not a kiss, not a wave, and as usual, not shutting the door behind them.

Then she came back.  “Bye, Mom!  Love you!”

Off she scampered.

And for the first time,

in four days,

the house.

Was.

Quiet.

 

 

 

I Would Move Sofas For You

I was at Target the other night, happily breezing on down to the Seasonal section, in pursuit of the sweet little outdoor lights for which I pined and intended to hang on the front porch with my dream-like hopes of scaring off the crazy baby squirrels that have taken it over, and transforming the space into an every night celebration of summer. Sweet warm breeze and evening cocktails…  Summer!  When every night is a night to celebrate!  Because you don’t have anywhere to be in the morning!  I love summer!  Not baby squirrels!  All things summer!  Hooray for summer!

Only Target is a jerk and removed almost all sweet, celebratory seasonal summer items from their shelves and replaced it all with…  back-to-school.  Because I forgot that three weeks into summer vacation, we’re already gearing up for the season of back-to:  back to getting up at the a$$ crack of dawn, back to bleary-eyes, back to reading logs, back to weekly planners, back to sick kids, back to packing or totally fogetting lunches…  [insert weeping and wailing] Back to pining for summer break.

So I went home, deflated, and remembered  that this summer isn’t only about celebrating the open-ended calendar I’m devoted to keeping.  It’s also about cleaning out the crap in the garage.  Or my dinosaur of a computer (9 years old!),which is equally messy, but contains no actual mice living within.  So cleaning out my computer (not on the celebratory, squirrel-free deck), I found this from (criminey) a year or two ago.

*  *  *

I marred the year.  I ruined everything.  Again.

*Sigh*

It’s not like I’d forced son no. 2 into a corner and gave him zero choices.  I’d given him freedom to choose from a mother-approved range of options – and yet he would not yield.

“Do I never say ‘yes’?  Have you really heard ‘no’ all your life?”

I fell off my patience cliff and got mad about it, which is unfortunately very easy for me some (many) days.  At that particular moment, I was too far into it with him.  I picked this battle, and now I had to win.  In the end, it was do-or-die for both of us, a real two-men-enter-one-man-leaves Thunderdome-type situation.  Losing was a concept that didn’t even exist in my mad-addled brain.  There simply could be no other way than my way.  And seriously, his independence had 364 other days to choose from – why this day, of all days?!?  This was a day that mattered.  Augh.

Ultimately, the cage-fight was over before it had ever begun by my lowering the all-powerful because I said so hammer, and he found himself sulkily NOT wearing his much-loved, oft-worn, too small, filthy, frayed and faded skeleton t-shirt for Picture Day.

Helpfully, I narrowed down his options:  Option A was a very nice dress shirt that would bring out the blue eyes he inherited from me.  It was an easy choice – he admitted he liked the shirt.  Option B was a very nice, pristine, timeless rolled collar, v-neck sweater that had been worn exactly never.  He opted for Option B, a  pleasant surprise.  Option B, which, I also might add, when pulled from his closet, he wadded into the tightest of balls and shoved underneath the living room couch, with just a teensiest smidge of sweater elbow sticking out, as if making his last stand, getting the last word, surreptitiously giving the finger.

Tell me how you really feel, kid.

In the end, we (I) had (gave) a great (lengthy) conversation (lecture) about why taking a “no” is good.  And also why when he gets older – much, much older – challenging a “no” can be very good, and with the exception of Picture Day, it can even be life-saving, rather than life-threatening.  It’s a conversation we’ve had before, and I’m sure we’ll come back to it time and again.  Because we are parents who say “no,” and because when we say “yes”, we want our “yes” to mean something.  And we say “no” because it’s good for you.  And the ever inarguable logic, it’s because we said so.  

Off he went, in a super-nova grade huff, and I started counting.  The thing that drives me absolutely crazy about my kids, and the thing that also makes me absolutely crazy about them, is that they are prolific talkers.  They will get mad, and they may stomp out of the room (and are subsequently invited to stomp their way into their room) but we usually talk it out.  Less than six minutes later, he’s back in the living room with me.  His sweater still tragically crumpled under the couch.  Begging for release.

“Mom, I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“Thank you, buddy.  I’m sorry that sweater upsets you so much.”

“This sweater is really upsetting.  The elbow patches itch.”

“Sweetheart, those patches are on the outside of the sweater.  You can’t feel them.”

“Fine.  I don’t like it.  It’s a grandpa sweater.”

“Hey, you could wear the shirt.  And no, it’s a strapping Professor sweater.”

“What does strapping mean?”

“It means you’ll wear it.”

“But it’s stuck under the sofa.”

“Just pull.”

“I might have to wear something else.”

“Let me help.”  Moments later, “Geez, it really is stuck.  Here, I’ll lift, you pull.”

“It’s stuck.  It’s stretching.  Don’t ruin my sweater, Mom.”

“Hustle up, this is heavy.  Do you have it?”

“Yeah.  It was stuck.  Got it.  Sorry you had to do that.  Sorry I shoved it under there.”

“It’s okay, love.  I would move sofas for you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I would.  I just did.”

“Don’t you mean mountains?  Mountains would be bigger.”

And then, “Fine, I’ll wear it.”  He puts it on.

“Will you smile?”

“Maybe kind of.”

“Show me.”

[Bares his teeth.]

“That’s not so bad.”

“Do I look strapping?  In my sweater?”

“Yes.  You look like an adorable, strapping mad panda.”

“Maaaw-aaawm!”

He climbed into my lap and snuggled in to me.  I was kind of glad he was pissed at me, because there was a payoff in the end.  It didn’t take long befor the real conversation began, and we snuggled for a little bit more and re-established the connection.  After all was made right, he gave me the sweetest of kisses, he went into the kitchen and made his breakfast.  Which he promptly spilled. All. Over. Himself.  And wiped up with his ever-loving itchy elbow-patched strapping grandpa sweater sleeves.

And still, he wore it for picture day.

And the day after that.

And the day after that.

And almost every day after that for the next several weeks.  He wore it until it was two sizes too small.  He really, really loved that sweater.

Picture Day the next year was so much easier.  I learned my lesson.

The morning of, we just pulled dirty shirts out of the laundry basket.

No sofas to move.  Except to find his socks.

 

 

 

 

I Can Do (Nothing) This Summer

My kids are out of school tomorrow morning, so today, being the dedicated planner that I am not, I contemplated working myself up to a great, foamy lather to ready my house and my head for summer.  I made a list, a get-ready-for-summer to-do list, by category and goals.  Because everybody categorizes their goals…

This is what I came up with:

1. Garden (the verb): nurture your soul by nurturing nature!
2. Decorate: put summer into play in your surroundings!  Live what you love!  Hang outdoor lights to create festive dining locales!  Revitalize your heart and your home by drenching it in a summer palate!  Make cozy and inviting spaces to reflect what is in your heart!
3. Reorganize: pare down on essentials and prioritize your everyday living space!
4. Meal Plan: food at your leisure, leisurely food!

Twenty-five minutes and… I was done.  Done!  It’s enviable and true, all that I accomplished.  I, for one, was blown away that I managed to meet all of my goals within record time (including a phone call to my mother).  This is precisely what I’ve accomplished, in case you want to take notes:

1. Garden (the verb): nurtured a rose bush I hate by throwing coffee grounds at it from the upper deck
2. Decorate: artfully displayed a Sangria picture recipe book on the kitchen counter
3. Reorganize: prioritized living space by moving the everyday wine glasses out of the crystal cabinet and into the kitchen for instant, everyday access.
4. Meal Plan: I ate potato chips.  For lunch.  I planned to use a bowl, and I did.  This was (not) planned really well (at all).

Clearly I’m out-Martha Stewarting/out-Dwelling the sh*t out of  summer, and school isn’t even out yet.  I’m totally ahead of the game.  It’s invigorating!  It’s energizing!  When my kids walk in through that door two hours after breakfast tomorrow morning (WHY DO THEY EVEN HAVE SCHOOL?!?), not only will they be standing on the cusp of the Best Summer Ever!, they will also be standing next to a mom holding three virgin strawberry Daiquiris and wearing the Chip & Dip Sombrero, singing Did Somebody Say Summer?!?!  It’ll be 10 weeks of Summer Dreamin’ with me.  They can hardly wait.  I’m sure.

I certainly hope admitting this doesn’t leave anyone feeling inadequate.  (I’m  talking to you, Martha and Dwell.)  Heaven only knows, no one wants to start out their summer feeling inadequate and ill-prepared.  And as we all we’ll know, no one feels inadequate or ill-prepared, thanks to social media…

Ha.

You know how they say exercise is addictive?  Work out enough and you’ll be a gym junkie?  I think I’m on to something.  Because you know what else is highly addictive? Nothing.  I’ve never done drugs, but this morning I got high on nothing.  Doing absolutely nothing is addictive.  I looked at my list, and then I did nothing so hard this morning, I might have to keep doing nothing with this same feverish intensity for the remaining 9 minutes I have left before my kids come home today, and continue to do nothing on through the night.

Hit with inspiration, I decided that this summer, I’m taking a stand.  I stand for Nothing.  No themes.  No thought.  No sweat!  And as always, no underwires or makeup.  No big, lofty goals (unless creating employment for myself is considered a “goal” – but that’s another post entirely), crazy plans, schedule or agenda beyond “encouraging” my kids to do their chores, and remember how to shower, read, type, do their times tables, and GO OUTSIDE.  I might eliminate a few things on that list, but the first and last will forever remain.  If all they do is make their beds and go outside, it’s a win.  Whether or not they are clothed is irrelevant.

I can feel it…  It’s on.  This summer I am going to make it happen.  We are ALL IN. Super excited!  I love spontaneity!  Hooray for not planning!!  Not just not planning, but super-not planning.  Woo-hoo!

And the bus is here.  Yay! 

Crap.  

Dinner.  

Dinner?!?

Filler

It’s a Monday night, and being the obsessive-compulsive, on-again, off-again, hyper-productive person I am, I’m fighting the good fight and tearing down the imprisoning excesses, by decluttering the house.  Well maybe not the house.  Perhaps just the pantry.  Maybe just one shelf, to be exact.

The weather is finally behaving like it’s spring, so I’ve been putting on a big (sham) show of adding zen and flow to our daily lives by ridding the house of dust and… everything.  Spring Clean 2017!  Science fair posters shredded.  Closets purged.  Art bins gutted.  It all sounds rather Game of Thrones-y, this blood-lust for clean counter tops.  It’s been grueling, but there is a payoff.  After excavating the stack of crap on my bedside table, I unearthed a life-changing book – an impulsive buy from Costco – which was buried under a telling stack of other life-changing books on financial freedom, raising boys, rough housing, raising calm children, accepting imperfection, and Martha Stewart magazines.

It’s the simple, cute, and very trendy book on the art of being a tidy person.  I found my bookmark on the chapter detailing the method on how to successfully choose what stays and what goes.  I merely hold up each item and ask, Does this bring me joy?  If it does, then a home must be found for it, for everything must have its place.  If it does not, then the joy-sucking item (perhaps a pair of suddenly and surprisingly tight pants you bought – at Costco –  9 years ago that you’ve never worn) gets thrown on the discard pile.  Straight to Goodwill.  This part of the method is important, because one must be in possession of only things that bring one joy.  Makes sense.

So, we still have leftover Easter candy.  A crap-ton – as in, all of the candies that didn’t fit into the plastic eggs the Easter bunny left strewn all over the yard (dude’s a total litter-bug), and strategically shoved on the shelf in front of last year’s Easter candy, all of which was cleverly hidden behind a sack of prunes so the kids couldn’t find them but I could.   Anyway, the jelly bean bag.  It was HUGE.  And I’m totally into spring cleaning now.  So…

Green jelly bean, do you bring me joy?  Eats it…  Yes!

Orange jelly bean, do you bring me joy?  …  Yes!

Red jelly bean, do you bring me joy?  …  Yes!

White jelly bean, do you bring me joy?  …  No answer.

White jelly bean…   Still no answer.

White jelly bean, what the he-  Jeeze, what flavor ARE you?  

The answer: filler.  White jelly beans are filler-flavored.  No-flavor sweet flavored – they taste the same and different to everybody. They’re pineapple/pina colada/cloud/ flavored.  No one knows how to describe them.  The ones who were eaten or not, but not remembered; the last to leave the party; the responsible ones who make sure no kid goes home empty-handed.  They’re the unacknowledged jelly bean – the supporting cast, the crew, the pep band of jelly beans.  The leftovers, in dozens, at the bottom of the bag.  They exist only to offset the flavor of the pinks, purples, and blues, and make them stand out in the crowd of pale, second-string plain jelly beans. White jelly beans get to rub bellies with the stars of the show – the cherry reds and lime greens and grape purples – but they are never, ever the star.  White jelly beans, they make the stars shine.

No one ever says the white jelly bean is their favorite.

Because fatigue helps me make connections that aren’t there, I start thinking about my own three darling little jelly beans, showered and tucked in their beds, and begin to wonder if they’re going to be grow up to be purple-hued jelly beans.  Or sunny, lemony yellow jelly beans.  Or my all-time favorite, zesty orange jelly beans.  Are my jelly beans going to be stand-out jelly beans?  Or the jelly beans in the back row?

Will my three little jelly beans be the favorite, first eaten jelly beans?  Or the jelly beans left at the bottom of the bag?  The jelly beans nobody… wants?

Hang on, do I really want anyone to eat my sweet little jelly beans?

And then suddenly, I’m emotionally drained and I’m identifying with a white jelly bean.  Am I not noticeable?  Not memorable?  Are my contributions not valued, not seen?  Am I the white jelly bean?  Am I just FILLER?

What the hell?!  Why am I asking myself this?

Ah.  Yes.  I sat for a moment on the psychiatrists couch in my head.  I am tired.  And I am stressed.  Following the breadcrumb ( or jellybean) trail back to the start of this post, I am starting over, again, and there are growing pains involved.  When I decided to go back to work…  And claw my way out of a decade-long professional dormancy…  When I approached a former colleague – someone with whom I worked closely –  to ask for a recommendation… And they said the didn’t remember me well enough…  That nothing stands out… It hurts.  It makes you want better, for you and those you love who also might be forgotten or overlooked.  Sometimes it hurts enough to make you eat your feelings in a bag of really sub-rate jelly beans.  And sometimes, when you realize you aren’t choosing the ones that stand in the background – the nameless, flavorless, filler jelly beans – you anthropomorphize a bit, and then eat the white ones out of pity.  Out of mercy.

White jelly bean, do you bring me joy?

Sadly, but honestly no – but you bring heartburn.

The white jelly bean also gave me the strong desire to purge my bottle of Tums.  Shit.

I went through my wardrobe instead.

Pleated khakis, do you bring me joy?  

Goodwill is going to make a killing this spring.

Firsts

I feel as if, in my 43 years, I’ve made great strides in handling this thing we call “living.”  I brush twice and floss once daily, without fail.  I take a probiotic that makes *things* happen like creepy clockwork.  I offer vegetables at the dinner table at least once a week.  I do my best to send my kids off to sleep with happy thoughts and messages of love, and greet them the same way the next morning.   I try.  And when I fall or fail, I pick myself up, dust myself off, and (after considerable swearing) start all over again.  I want my kids see that I am 100% fallible.  Perfectly human.  Not, in fact, a superhero, (my own mother is, but for some reason I didn’t get those genes) even though what I cleverly present is a woman racing around, putting out fires (or starting them) in tights (yoga pants) and a cape (poncho, actually  – they hide everything!), who occasionally yells with her hands and mutters “pisses me off” when driving.  And drinks coffee.  Maybe too much.  But these strides…  They are much smoother and easier to make with coffee.

Original artwork by The Girl

However, what I have found is that even now, after having three children who can walk, talk, and wipe themselves (the last proving debatable, with each passing load of laundry), I still feel I lack experience with pretty much… everything.  Yes, I can figure it out (4th grade math).  But sometimes I feel like this learning curve is still insurmountably vertical.  Like the sweaty blur that was grad school, some days I’m squashed by the weight of knowing I will never know all I need to know.  Only I’m not in grad school anymore (although debt says, “Kinda the same!”) and yet I’m still crushed by what I still need to know, and bonus, there are LIVES at stake here.  Well, there *will* be lives at stake here if they don’t start picking up their *!&$%#* Legos.  Or Minecraft.  It feels all the same, really, barefoot, in the dark.

But these firsts…  These deer-in-the-headlights moments, the ones you really can’t prepare for?  Emily Post dedicated her life to educating people – ahem, ladies  and gentlemen – on proper etiquette.  Manners.  How to handle unique situations.  The What To Do When…  Well, I went to etiquette school at the age of 10 and was successfully taught how to not sit like a man, so that must mean I’m qualified to cobble together some helpful suggestions on how to handle some unique situations.  With grace and aplomb.  And if not, then just a big, fat cocktail.

HOW TO HOST A KIDS’ BIRTHDAY PARTY & THE NEXT DAY TELL ALL THE PARENTS YOUR KIDS HAVE LICE

1. Swallow pride.  All of it.
2. Immediately text all of the kids’ parents.
3. Move.  There is no alternative.

WHEN THAT “WHITE BUMP” IS A PEDIATRIC PENILE PUSTULE

1. Call your pediatrician.
2. Do NOT Google it.
3. You will nearly pass out.
4. YOU WILL NEARLY PASS OUT.
5. Glass. Of. Wine.
6. Say, “Popping pediatric penile pustules” five times really quickly.
7. Roll up your shirtsleeves and take care of the problem because THAT’S WHAT MOMS DO.

WHEN TO LAUGH-CRY AT THE GYM

1. Jump rope:  Choose the rope worn so the vinyl coating is bare at the middle, revealing a metal, corded wire.
2. Jump once and swiftly nail yourself in the a$$.
3. Cry out to the mirrored wall, “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned!”  The trainer takes pity and let you skip doing the required 5 push-ups for each time you nail yourself.
4. With each subsequent direct hit, laugh-cry and say to yourself, “This is better than popping a penile pustule!”
5. Say that last part in your head.
6. After 2 minutes, realize you can just get a different jump rope.

WHEN YOUR SON ASKS WHAT “HUMPING” MEANS AT THE GROCERY STORE

1. “Humping” is a word that still makes 43-year-old you laugh.  And you want to play this cooler than you’re feeling, which is on par with the maturity of a 13-year-old, technically still way more mature than your son, who is only nine, so you still have a 4-year advantage.  Also, the produce manager is standing there, wide-eyed, watching you consider the birds and the bees while handling a bunch of overripe, over-priced -hell, yes – bananas.
2. Humping?  Quite right.  Set the bananas down before you completely lose it.
3. Answer the question head-on, without delay, “Humming birds – amazing!  So tiny!  So fast!”   Produce manager shakes his head.  No respect.  You didn’t even swing.
4. Boy clarifies:  “Humping.  I said HUMM-PIIIING.”  You reply, “Oh, sorry!  Humpback whales – magnificent beasts!”  The manager scoffs at you, all Pshaw, grow a pair, softie.
5. The boy’s annoyance is clear, and asks one last time.  The manager nods, encouraging you to swing.  Swing hard!  You can do this!  Get your grit on!  Wind up!  There is only one answer – then you’ll never have to talk about this again!  No pressure.
6. “Mom, what does HUM-“
7. “Ask your father.”
8. Boom.  Outta the park.

WHEN YOUR DAUGHTER GETS IN TROUBLE FOR BEING CHATTY AT SCHOOL

1. Quickly compose an email to the teacher.
2. Reread your email for 90 minutes, questioning its length.  Is 5 paragraphs too long?
3. Delete email.
4. Carefully compose a second lengthy email, attempting brevity.  Laugh yourself silly.
5. Delete email.
6. Compose a third lengthy email, suggesting the use of a “chat chart” so her teacher can send home a daily report on her excessive talking in class.  Make sure to mention that all three of your children are talkers, and given 8 minutes with all three talking simultaneously they could crack a confession out of the most hardened criminal.
7. Delete email.
8. Fire off one email:  “Hmm.  No idea where she gets it.  Thx 4 info.”
9. Hit send.