mental health

grumpy about lady bodies (thank goodness for women’s soccer)

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How cool that the US women won the world cup?? Not that I’m super nationalistic, but every time women athletes get a lot of airplay, it’s good for our girls. Athletes don’t have chicken legs. Real women shouldn’t have chicken legs. Our little girls shouldn’t dream of having chicken legs.

Jesse and I recently watched a PBS show on the history of the ABT, the American Ballet Theater. We loved watching the incredible athleticism of classical dancers. They are ridiculously strong and flexible. They do things that are impossible, holding their legs out at angles that would land me in the hospital. The women, who are otherwise tiny, have relatively enormous calves and thighs. They could never be hired by a modern modeling agency. They don’t have chicken legs. Their muscles are real, not ‘scaped. I know the dance world has issues with asking its women to be too skinny, but at least it allows them to have real muscles. 

Watching the show reminded us of Misty Copeland, whose career Jesse and I have followed for a year or two. Now she’s the first black female principal at the ABT. Beautiful athleticism and artistry, sweet intense face, historical significance — what’s not to love?

Some time ago we watched the UnderArmour ad that she starred in.

Jesse was captivated by Misty’s musculature, her strength and balance, her determination, her story. One day recently, Jesse wanted to see that ad again so we went hunting on YouTube. We watched it, and then we looked for some different ads by UnderArmour. We found this one of tough female athletes working hard. They have big thick muscles where they’re needed. There’s nothing delicate about them. 

We continued our browsing and came across an UnderArmour ad with Giselle Bundchen.

Sigh. I know, I know. Don’t hate on models. But let’s face it. Giselle ain’t got the chops.  I mean, I’m sure she works hard, but her motivation is modeling. No matter how much screaming there is about it, modeling. is. not. an. athletic. venture. There is no air-brushing on an athletic field of play. 

The thing about athletes is, they come in all shapes and sizes, even within a particular sport. Think about Venus and Serena Williams – could two world-class athletes in a single sport be any more different physically? Who could ever claim that there’s an optimal body type for tennis after those two?

Models all have to be the same skinny and tall. What matters is appearance, not strength or speed or a particular physical skill or tactical sense. I’m not able to grasp how there’s even a debate about this. 

I tried not to say anything though, as the Giselle ad ran. And I was pleased by Jesse’s reaction. In the ad, Giselle takes some roundhouse kicks at a punching bag, and then she rapid-jabs it. Jesse, who’s actually shown real talent in tae kwon do, offered up a real-time critique as the ad ran. “Those are pretty bad roundhouse kicks, mom. How come she’s only taking one at a time? Why is she waiting so long between kicks? Is she supposed to be good? She doesn’t have good snap. Wow, those are bad punches. She looks weak. Why is she so sweaty?” Jesse was making “WTF?” faces. 

Sorry, Giselle, you’re not motivating my daughter. Women’s World Cup soccer? That’s some serious motivation! Speed, snap, strength, endurance, grit. Congratulations to all the women who played in the World Cup, and an extra congratulations to team USA. 

If you love athleticism and dream of a strong, healthy life for your daughters, and if you dream of a world where your daughters can market their strength instead of their skinny to potential mates (even if they happen to be skinny), check out these awesome photos of World Cup athletes and their muscle-ripped thighs.  http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7732670

Awesome. As for underArmour, well… I’ve been a fan of their products since their beginning, but now I’m going to be looking around for a replacement. I guess they’re looking for another market niche, but I wish they would try to win that niche without turning to a runway model. They have the power to empower (and pay) real athletes in the sale of their athletic gear. I’m disappointed they moved in a different direction. 

grumpy about the construction project (transition time)

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We are still waiting and waiting and waiting for all the technical paperwork and details to be completed for our construction loan. The bank is screwing up things in little ways, like when their “employment verification department” contacted the wrong person at Anthony’s job — i.e., not the person he told them to contact but someone else — and then when he found out, the right person was out for the day, and then it’s the weekend, and shit shit shit more delays.  I’m truly astonished by how long it’s taking, and also on the edge of a nervous breakdown because of it.

The children are also anxious about the situation, which so far has included a dumpster (which we filled ourselves) and now a PODS container sitting on our front lawn. But no wall has come tumbling down yet.

Jesse’s therapist, the able and thoughtful Dr. Abrams, suggested to me that I put together a sort of photo memory book of our house the way it looks now, before our massive renovation begins. He says it will help with Jesse’s transitional anxiety. He says she may miss the old house and the way things were. Sure thing! I said, as I cheerfully jotted in my calendar the free hours when I would do it.

I went home and, that very night, I carefully photographed all of Jesse’s special places and put together a scrap book. I used a variety of decals, ribbons, and pressed flowers to decorate the scrap book, and also I printed out special labels and names to identify places in the house so that 20 years from now, when Jesse is feeling really unsettled, she can turn back to this scrap book and find soothing comfort in deep memories of the home of her early childhood.

* * * * * * * *

I think I just fell asleep and had a bad dream, almost like a nightmare. Or someone else was typing a fantasy about something I did. Where was I? Oh right. Dr. Abrams said make a photo book of the house as it is. Here’s how that conversation went:

Abrams [looking kind and thoughtful]: Blah blah blah you could make a photo book of the house to help Jesse transition blah blah blah.

Jesse [nodding appreciatively while staring unblinking at me, radiating the betrayal she feels because soon we’re expanding the kitchen, adding a bathroom and mudroom, and giving her a bedroom twice as big as Nick’s.]

Me [staring blankly at Abrams and then Jesse as I cop attitude]: Well… Uh… Jesse’s got an iPad mini. She knows how to use it. She can take photos of whatever she wants before demolition starts.

Abrams [practically glaring at me and then speaking verrrry slowly]:  I.  think. you. should make. a book.

Well okay then. It’s not every day that Dr. Abrams is so directive with me.

In the weeks since that encounter, I’ve received two more reminders from Dr. Abrams, but the photo book hasn’t happened yet. Sadly, I have a very strong anti-authoritarian streak. Maybe if and when we finally schedule a closing date, and the Big Trucks are rolling into our driveway, I’ll get around to it. Until then, somebody hand me the Mommy-Fail stamp.

Grumpy about my daughter (Good lord, she’s ten)

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I don’t understand how ten years have passed since Jesse was born. I’ve looked at photos. I’ve aged at least 20 years in that time. Maybe it’s because I’ve lost so much sleep; maybe I’ve been awake during the gone decade as much as normal people are awake in 20 years.

Motherhood has been a challenging, emotionally exhausting journey with Jesse, a climb made tougher by our mutual self-loathing and cynicism, her developmental quirks and tics. Some days it feels hopeless, what with the keening and whining issuing from both our mouths. I wonder sometimes if she’ll ever be happy. 

Jesse struggled through her green belt testing for tae kwon do last night; it was preceded by hours of extreme performance anxiety, expressed in pretty extreme  ways. Anthony reported that after Jesse messed up some moves a little during testing, she started crying. She kept crying, and she kept going. So I was proud. But I wish she could have had more fun, like most other kids, and felt more pride.

When this tae kwon do studio gives a child their new belt, the instructor always asks: now that you’re a higher belt, what do you plan to change and improve in yourself? I asked Jesse to consider this answer for when she receives her green belt and has to announce to the class what she wants to change: “cry less, have more fun, and take things less seriously.” She looked at me sidelong with a  contemplative green eye and said nothing.

On Jesse’s birthday, after she and Nick went to sleep, I pulled out the external hard drive and rummaged through a decade of photographs. They tell a different story of Jesse than I tend to remember, one filled less with sadness and more with joy. Maybe I’m the one who needs to cry less, have more fun, and take things less seriously. (I’m looking at myself sidelong right now, with a contemplative brown eye.) Maybe all the unhappiness Jesse experiences is just on the surface. Maybe under it is something deeper and stronger than the bitter pills of Jesse’s anxiety and miserable self-esteem, something more abiding.

Jesse was born just 5 pounds and 14 ounces, a diminutive doll with porcelain skin, eyes of violet and a passionate temperament that could move her from raw rage to uncontrolled glee in a blink of her enormous puddly eyes.

one hour into life

one hour into life

Dang, she was a cute wee thing.

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Her eyes eventually turned to green

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but not much else has changed.

The photos I looked at showed me a little girl with an abiding love of the outdoors.

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A little girl with loving and connected relationships with her parents.

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A little girl who’s sweet on her baby brother.

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A little girl who’s not afraid of a little magic.

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A little girl comfortable with silliness and individuality.

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A little girl made of strength and sass.

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A little girl who experiences stress, to be sure.

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But who also has courage enough to take risks and partake of triumphs.

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A little girl who knows how to revel in simple happiness.

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And in recent pictures, I can see shadows of the woman she’ll someday be.

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I love so much about Jesse. She has courage without boundaries, and I know this because she soldiers on despite her endless parade of fears and anxieties. She’s passionately altruistic, generous, introspective, intuitive, critical. She has an artist’s eye and soul. She sees what’s beautiful as readily as she sees what’s ugly. She strives. It’s practically trite to say that I’m blessed to have her as my daughter, that she embodies so many qualities that I cherish.

But I can also say this. Even if Jesse was a coward, selfish, shallow, emotionally blind, vapid, unkind, lazy, ugly — even if she was all those things, I would still love her. Because I’m her mother. And that’s good enough for me in this life.

Grumpy about the bad days 

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It’s been 21 days since I posted up a blog. I’ve been busy with other shit, as you may have guessed if you read my last couple posts. Anthony and I have been ripping out old wall-to-wall carpet in a room, and we sanded the floor and refinished it.

It looks pretty good. Here’s  the progression. What it looked like right after we lifted the carpet:

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Then after we sanded (with a 130-pound buff sander so unhinged that managing it was like dragging an unbalanced washing machine around the room):

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And then this:

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Oh. Wait. That’s the Spam I fried for Jesse that day. Hold on while I find the right photo.

Okay, here’s what it looked like after the first coat of varnish:

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And after two more coats:

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Anyway, there’s been other stuff to do as well the past several weeks, like feeding minions and trying to remember to have them bathe at least once a week. Also school lunches. Also tae kwon do shit. Also finishing pants and shorts that I’m sewing for Jesse and Nick. Also sitting on the sofa slothfully in a mild depression, staring blankly at dust bunnies floating in the sun, which I have to do every day for a little while after I take Nick to school.

Because Jesse has had a few ba-a-a-a-ad weeks and Nick is in the midst of a five-year-old’s equivalent of a mid-life crisis.

So it got under my skin when I saw that there were two new comments today on my most recent blog post and this is what they said:

“When will the next post come?” (Anonymous)

“Really how long do you expect me to wait for your witty and emotionally draning [sic] commentary?” (Anonymous)

I don’t get a lot of comment action on my blog because WordPress’s default is to require commenters to leave their email address and I haven’t figured out yet how to change it. Who has time for that shit? So most of the comments I get are like these — slightly off-kilter, weird things written by what I assume is some sort of translator spam machine, along the lines of “thank you for your insightful insights into the operations of things. I am look forward to reading much more helpful and useful iterations of your creativity.”

Still, it got under my skin. I read the comments and shook my head, thinking, “Listen, joker, it’s not my commentary that’s emotionally draining, it’s my LIFE.”

Nick is totally out of control right now. He’s going through the terrible twos, three years late. (My kids are late bloomers.) He screams frequently and at random moments, throws tantrums and hard toys at me, doesn’t do anything I ask, refuses to share anything with Jesse, beats her up and follows her around the house attacking her with imaginary weapons and then falls into bawling tears when she pokes him with a feather. He’s driving all of us crazy.

But who is Jesse to judge? She’s been throwing her own tantrums, and she’s turning 10 next week. It’s been day after day of horrifying, emotionally numbing outbursts and melt-downs. She’s a tornado when she gets like this, hurling random insults at others and herself, making threats to hurt others and herself, and unable to gather the reins in.

But who am I to judge? I’ve been following Jesse and Nick down the path of crazies. Instead of offering useful, mature parental guidance, I’ve been yelling at the kids every day for all their fighting and insanity. After nearly a decade, I still have limited reserves for dealing with Jesse when she detours into emotional oblivion. And Nick hurts too because I don’t have any reserves left for him. His sister uses them all up. I can’t tolerate his normal five-year-old shit with any equanimity lately. So I yell, I stomp and have hissy fits, and I complain about everything. I hate myself.

Rationally I know there are lots of reasons why Jesse’s negative behavior, which is rooted in her anxiety and self-loathing, is ratcheting up a million notches. Our house is a wreck because of the carpet ripping and floor refinishing; shit is in all the wrong places. We’re trying to get an even bigger renovation project going as well, and this is making Jesse feel very unsettled. Badger tests are next week. These standardized state-wide tests have no meaning to Jesse in terms of her development and potential, but they sure matter to public schools and their teachers, who make a big deal out of them. I keep telling Jesse they don’t matter, but she’s not buying my line; she’s totally stressed out about the testing. Last week we competed in tae kwon do tournaments, and Jesse (and I) sparred for the first time without adequate preparation. Major stressor. Next week is testing to advance to the next belt. Jesse’s birthday is next week, and for some reason she has a lot of anxiety about her birthdays. I think she’s expecting some sort of transmogrification to occur. “I’m ten today, Mommy! Look, I have wings now!” Or maybe she’s wishing, and preparing herself for the emptiness of another ordinary day. A teacher told her class that if it doesn’t rain soon, California is going to run out of water. She came home filled with trepidation about what’s going to happen to Grandma and Uncle Mark and Uncle Ted. Will they have water to drink?

So I get it. I understand why Jesse is emotionally in the red zone. But knowing that with my brain doesn’t make it any easier for my body and emotions to cope. Because Jesse is a terror when she gets like this, and our family is coming unhinged.

This morning Jesse woke up and started right in. She came to my bed and head butted me on the nose. When I told her to go back to her own room, the whining, ululating, and rage bursts started. Before I even made it to the bathroom to pee she had thrown her first real punches at me and screamed at me about (a) what an awful parent I am, and (b) what an awful child she is. She hit a clean emotional blow when she screeched that all I’ve been doing is yelling and screaming at her every day.

“Huh,” I thought to myself as I brushed my teeth. “That’s pretty accurate.” I made myself a promise, one I’ve made hundreds and hundreds of times before. I didn’t yell.

Eventually Jesse made it downstairs in a quieter mood, but instead of coming to breakfast she decided first she needed to finish her homework. I asked her to eat breakfast first, but she settled into her work instead with weird humming and moaning noises, which continued helplessly as Anthony tried to say good bye to her.

I dug deep and kept trying not to yell at the kids as the morning progressed. I snapped to be sure, but I didn’t descend into the crazies. I sent Jesse to her room a couple times for screaming insanely and picking on Nick. I ignored her best I could. And after she cleared her plates from breakfast (assisted by some snapping from me because she was definitely going to break something with all the slamming going on), she disappeared for a good long while.

After washing dishes and pouring another cup of coffee, I settled on the sofa and stared glumly out the window into the spectacularly beautiful woods in our back yard. Nick, who was in pacifist mode, played quietly by himself. A few minutes passed, and then Jesse came tip-toeing down the stairs, dressed and ready for school. She settled silently onto my lap for a snuggle, without a word. There we sat, an emotionally broken woman and her equally lost daughter, holding each other like lifelines. I continued to stare out the window, preparing myself for whatever Jesse might throw at me. But all she threw was a glance up at my face. I could tell out of my peripheral vision that there were question marks and longing in it.

So we sat a moment, and then Nick came over and snuggled in. And there we sat in silence, Jesse on my lap with her head on my left shoulder, and Nick pushed in against me with my right arm wrapped around his still-tiny body.

So we sat a moment, and then our diminutive dog came down the stairs and joined us. Madeline sat her fluffy six-pound self down on my tummy, and still we sat quietly, enjoying our mutual company in silence. Love blossomed up around us. In that moment, it was enough to crowd out those awful weeds of anxiety and self-loathing, the stupid bickering and fighting that inevitably accompany a life shared in minutiae.

If you saw us then, you would have said we were a picture-book family, a vision of joy and happiness. (Unless you had seen us about 45 minutes earlier as well. Whatever.)

So an ordinary day passed, and many good things happened. Anthony decided to come home early to be with Nick while I worked out. I realized later that he was just being excessively nice to me because he gets it — the kids have flayed me. After I picked the kids up from school, I dropped Nick off with Anthony and headed to the gym. Jesse’s swim team worked for an hour and a half and I worked out too. Jesse wanted to have dinner with just me at a park, so we picked up some carry-out and did that, enjoying a quiet meal under some trees without the noisome energy of Nick drowning us. I could tell Jesse was just trying to reconnect with me, trying to show me she deserves my love. I realized I was doing the same thing. It was all good, and we didn’t have to debrief any of the big issues that haunt us.

We got home and the peacefulness continued, except we saw that slightly depraved look in Anthony’s eyes that told us he had been alone with Nick for more than three hours. As we snuggled down in bed to watch an episode of Odd Squad, Anthony spoke out of the blue, with a sly smile on his face. “So Carla… Did you like my comments on your blog today?”

Grumpy transference

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I’ve been really busy with practicalities for several weeks. I realized all of Nick’s pants have become culotte length, so I started sewing him a new batch, plus some shorts. Since I was doing that for him, I decided I may as well do it for Jesse. 

Sewing in bulk gives good returns but it requires focused time, which is in short supply. Also unfortunately, the sewing machine has to sit in front of the computer, so that’s a small barrier to blogging. 

What a mess.   

Last week was spring break, so I had the kids with me all week. Woot woot. We had loads of fun but it meant no time to sew, launder, cook, or bathe, let alone write anything. 

Over the past weekend, Anthony had a carpet epiphany. We’re at the tail end of planning an outrageous renovation, but it’s taking forever to get bids and every passing day makes us feel cheaper and cheaper… So we decided to pull out the wall-to-wall upstairs where our bedrooms are. We’ll refinish the original wood floor in one bedroom for now, and that’ll be the haven room where our beds go during the renovation. 

That’s what I’ve been doing with my spare time since Saturday. The twelve pants and shorts will have to wait a bit, and no time to write. Ripping out carpet is dirty work, and when a staple or tack hits a finger, YOOOOOWWCH! This job just has to get done fast. 

Here’s an example of before. Hideous carpet. I hate it. Can you say dust mite hell? 

And after. Floors from the 1940’s, desperate for air and a good sanding.    

 What a mess. 

Last night Jesse and I made kimchi anyway. It was fun, but working with this stuff makes skin burn and eyes water. These jars contain about eight pounds of cabbages, the juice of an onion and a couple bunches of chopped green onions, three heads of garlic, and almost four cups of red pepper flakes. No typo on that last bit.  

 

Ferment and eat. Mmmm. 

We swirled water in the bowl where we made the spice mix and poured it into a measuring/pouring glass. Jesse then poured that into the jars. Everything got washed well, no worries. 

This morning I used that measuring glass to heat a cup of water for my neti pot. Once I started hosing my nose, I realized my mistake. After I stopped crying, I tried not to wonder for too long about whether running extremely  diluted kimchi juice through my sinuses will do any permanent damage. 

Gah. Anyway, so busy! And I didn’t think I was feeling that grumpy anyway. No grumpy, no blog. I started to wonder if a year of blogging has accomplished one possible therapeutic goal: a grumpy-free life? 

I mentioned this in passing to Anthony. He looked at me in his quiet stink-eye way and muttered, “Please, blog. Keep blogging.”  

Ah. So writing isn’t curing my grumpies. I just transfer them to this blog. My family needs me to keep doing that. 

I guess there are worse crutches to have. 

Grumpy at the swim meet (another hour gone and I’m still a moron)

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Yes, it RHYMES. I have TIMES for that. 

I whined to the swim team coach about why Jesse was only in one heat. I determined that fact by poring carefully (no really, I did) through 12 pages that look like this:



Uuuugh. 

Coach said gee let me see if I can get her in a breast stroke heat.

He came back a few minutes later. “She’s already in two heats.” He showed me the line item I missed.

So we only have to wait two more hours until Jesse swims, not three.  Excellent news. 

Now I’m bored AND embarrassed. I hate when I whine for no reason. 

Grumpy about separation anxiety

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My kids were born with terrible cases of separation anxiety. All they wanted to do as babies was hang onto Anthony or me 24-7 like little monkeys. What’s up with that? I read everywhere that my babies would sleep through the night for 14 hours by the time they were three months old, and also they’d enjoy hanging out by themselves in bassinets and face down on carpets, staring blankly at bright red-and-black plastic toys that make analog noises. Obviously, my children have some significant disorder that caused their reality to veer hard from the life of ease that’s allegedly available to all other parents and babies. Or I have a parenting disorder.

Jesse used to have terrible, terrible separation issues when she was a really wee one, and of course eventually we learned that she does have a disorder in the form of general anxiety. So it’s a good thing we ignored all the books and refused to make her scream her way alone through the nights. Even Grand Sleep Master Ferber acknowledged that a child with anxiety and separation issues shouldn’t be subjected to cry-it-out sleep-training, but he never offered a lick of advice on how a parent goes about determining if a 6-month-old infant has such issues. I found Ferber’s omission outrageous and irresponsible. What was I supposed to do — ask the baby? “Hi sweet pea, woo-joo-boo-jooooo. Do you feel abnormal anxiety about things, my little peanut? Tell me about your deepest fears and nightmares. Woo-joo-boo-jooo.”

Jesse used to cling to me desperately when I dropped her off at school. Sometimes she still does. The only time she consistently didn’t turn back to reach for me was during the 7 months she spent in a Montessori prison, at the tender age of 5. She would get out of the car and never look back as she walked away, her body set, her step resigned as she prepared to face 3.5 hours of emotional abuse from the nasty piece of work who called herself a teacher and pretended to care about Jesse. I still look back on all that with shame, and I’m grateful the memories finally seem to be fading from Jesse’s mind. Why did it take me so long to see that Jesse’s behavior was an indictment of my failure to protect her from something terrible? I suppose I could look back on it with pride. At least I didn’t mistake her depressed walk-away as something positive, hey-look-at-how-independent-she-is-now!

Hm. Nah. Better to feel guilty about it.

Anyway, on the rare occasions when Jesse still needs to cling to me at the schoolhouse doors, I let her cling. I’d rather fill her cup than put another crack in it. Plus it leaves me less grumpy.

Nick also has a lot of separation anxiety, but the last couple months it’s gotten all wacky. He can be sitting in a room with me, not five feet away, wrapped up in some form of play or staring into his iPad. Suddenly he’ll cry out in terror. “MOMMY?? WHERE ARE YOU???”

Every time he screams out like this, I feel goosed. He does it when I’m on the can. He does it when I walk out of the room to get a kleenex. He does it when I go downstairs to do some laundry. Frequently when I head out with a bag of garbage, he’ll race out the kitchen door after me. “MOMMY?? WHERE ARE YOU GOING???” Sometimes he’ll let me walk the dog down the street by myself while he stays in the house. I have to promise to stay without eye-shot of the driveway. Even so, at least half the time he’ll come out to the street in his bare feet to hunt me down. Announcing where I’m going and what I’m about to do makes no difference, because he apparently has the short-term memory of a small-brained dog.

One day he did it while I was playing the piano loudly and badly. Nick was sitting on the floor just a few feet away while I generated some serious decibels. A Chopin ballade, I think. “MOMMY??? WHERE ARE YOU????” I was irate, and I chewed him out. “WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING?? I’M RIGHT HERE! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU???”

He was visibly relieved as he answered sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders. “Oh. I forgot.”

My kids follow me around the house like little comet trails. Last week we were snuggling in bed in the morning, and then I decided to get up. I made the mistake of announcing my intent. Suddenly Nick and Jesse were on top of me. I struggled for a full five minutes, in a quiet and desperate battle to get them off me without hurting them or myself. It was like having two tiny zombies after me. They were relentless and unbelievably strong. They wanted a piece of me. I suppose one could argue it was sweet and loving and all that, and I confess it was… but on a demented level. I was exhausted when I finally broke free, and thankful to make a break for the bathroom. I need some space from my kids’ separation issues.

* * * * *

Today we did something new. Jesse is nine now. Notwithstanding social norms that appear to require that I not leave my kids alone until they’re 19 or 20, I feel that she’s old enough and responsible enough to be home alone for short periods of time, like if I have to run out for 15 minutes. With the doors locked and a phone and the dog by her side, she’s fine until I return. I’ve proposed this to her on many occasions to no avail. Her separation anxiety kicks in, and she always follows me out the door. But today she was home sick (again), and I needed to pick Nick up from school, and she was tired out from running errands with me. She decided to stay home for the 15 minutes it took me to retrieve Nick.

I wasn’t sure how it would go. I showed her again how to call my cell phone. We practiced. She said she was fine. I headed out the door. Sure enough, her anxiety acted right up. I was still in the garage when the first telephone call came through.

Oh wait, that was me calling her. I just wanted to make sure she was okay and wasn’t going to run out behind the car as I backed out so that I could run her over.

Jesse was fine. So I drove off. My stomach was feeling kind of funny so I thought I might need to run back home to go to the bathroom and check in on Jesse, but I decided to wait it out. The second call came as I pulled into the school parking lot. Now I was really worried I would have to run back home to grab Jesse.

Wait. I actually think I made that call too.

After I got Nick, we hustled back to the car. He was in a real hurry to get back to Jesse, I tell you, probably because he wanted to make sure she wasn’t losing her mind to fear. In fact, he almost fell over from rushing back to the car so fast, so it was a good thing I had him by the shoulder of his coat to help drag him in the right direction.

Okay okay, I’ll just go ahead and admit that I placed the third call too, as Nick and I drove back home. By then, Jesse was completely exasperated with me. I was obviously interrupting something.

I started to worry on a whole different level. Would the house still be standing when I got home? Would Jesse still be inside? Was she planning to take the dog on a walk without me? What if she got lost?

Meanwhile, my stomach kept churning. It was probably from all the pickles I ate at lunch. Also I was feeling a little short of breath. Sometimes that happens when the days are really, really cold like today.

When Nick and I got home, Jesse was running around the living room taking photos of Madeline with her iPad. There was a kitchen chair next to the fridge. Huh. Jesse explained that she had gotten some treats for Madeline. I think she might have also snuck some treats for herself. Jesse was relaxed and cheerful, completely at ease, and a little disappointed we got back so quickly.

I was so happy for her. It’s a good thing I don’t have separation anxiety. I’m obviously helping Jesse get over her own anxiety by being a great role model.

Grumpy about pool pee

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Jesse has a swim meet tomorrow. She’s been having an anxiety attack about it for about a week. Yesterday and today she woke up making noises that were somewhere between yodeling, whining and keening.

This morning she flopped into bed with me and Nick, and as she wheedled I finally remembered an old lesson from therapy: the unknown danger is more debilitating than the one you can see and understand. That’s what makes an anxiety disorder so disruptive sometimes. Your body says something terrible is going to happen, but you just don’t know what — it’s a shadow lurking around every bend, and you can never really name it. Accepting that it’s only in your imagination sometimes just makes it worse, because then you feel bat-shit crazy.

I asked Jesse, “What exactly is making you so anxious about the swim meet?”

“I dunnooooo.”

So we set about putting a face on the monster in the closet.

Jesse has the ordinary fears — I’ll suck at the meet, I’ll let the team down, I’ll swim the wrong stroke. And also one more. She worries she’ll pee in the pool while she’s competing because when she’s nervous she feels like she needs to pee. This is what she’s most afraid of today.

I said aloud what none of us really wants to think about: every competitive swimmer pees in the pool at some point. I guarantee it. It’s the dirty secret. Pool pee. It’s not something Jesse needs to worry about. If she pees, she pees. No one ever has to know.

Jesse’s swim coach went there with me today. “I see maybe 400 people in this pool every day. I PROMISE you, at least a hundred of them pee in the pool.”

Uuuugh. Head. Spinning.

Jesse is having trouble finding a balance between her anxiety about the swim meet and her OCD reaction to pool pee.

As for me, I find that knowing the face of this particular monster has made things worse. I was fine before. Now all I’ll be thinking about at the swim meet tomorrow is pool pee.

grumpy about the pick-me-up card

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My last post was about how annoyed I am about misdirected inspirational one-liners. So it goes without saying that Anthony and the kids reacted to my grumpy by giving me feel-good cards.

Last week Anthony had to go to Florida for a few days, to a conference where he didn’t have to present or discuss anything. He had to spend his days socializing and eating well and working out instead. Without Jesse or Nick or me. Poor, poor fellow. While he was gone, Nick came down suddenly with a bad fever late Friday night, which left him acting lethargic and miserable like he had the flu. And Jesse seemed to be developing a new cough. I took them to the doctor first thing Saturday morning, and then Nick and Jesse and I were trapped in the house for 24 hours as we waited to see if his flu test came back positive. (I take quarantine seriously for infectious diseases and viruses. I don’t want to be responsible for infecting somebody who has compromised immunities. You probably don’t want to get me started on the anti-vaccination movement.)

It turned out Nick just had a really bad ear infection. Still, being trapped in the house for a couple days with one sick child and one stir-crazy child is always emotionally exhausting for me. I don’t get all “la la la let’s do some crafts!” I get all “stop coughing in my face! Stop whining! Stop playing with the dog’s butthole! Stop touching me!” I’ll never know if the kids really are jackasses or if it’s all in my grumpy, irritable head.

Okay, I do know, but I don’t feel like saying it out loud right now.

So Anthony took the kids away for lunch and a matinee when he got back in town. After 5 sweet, silent hours by myself, the minions came back bearing cards for me.

Here was Jesse’s:

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Dang that’s a cute little round thing. Hedgehog, right? The message inside:

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Aaaw. And Jesse wrote this note:

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“Sometimes when I’m a little prickly you still love me. You still are nice to me. You’re the best!”

Wishful thinking on Jesse’s part, I think, but sweet. I felt like I was the prickly one, but Anthony quietly chewed me out when I said that out loud, pointing out that Jesse was saying she was the one being prickly. Check.

Nick also gave me a card.

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Okay then, tell me. What do you see? A giant blue peacock? Are those feathers a romanticized depiction of my enormous ass? (Shrinking, by the way, thanks to the bipolar diet I’m on.) This is apparently what Nick sees:

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Really. I’m amazing. Amazingly stinky when I forget to shower, amazingly prickly when I’m overwhelmed by the kids, amazingly under-achieving? I know I know I know, head slap that grumpy out of me! The best part was Nick’s special message to me, dictated to Daddy, who wrote it in his best handwriting:

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Perfect. Nick loves me 69. Just last week he loved me 15, so the vector is moving in the right direction. Someday he might even catch up to me:  I love my family infinity.

grumpy about inspiring inspirational inspirations

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Thank goodness all the hubbub of New Year’s resolutions has finally died down. The worst thing about the New Year celebration is the vague inspirational one-liners that float ’round the web as people make implausible resolutions. That fluff is always present, but it surges hard for a couple weeks in January, pushing itself into my consciousness like a properly aimed gust of wind bringing me the foul, pestilential stench of an out-of-sight port-a-potty from down the street. I should just plug my nose and go on about my business, but I can’t stop myself from sniffing, spurred on by the unanswered question in my mind: does this shit really help anybody?

This year I spent way too much time on Facebook, scrolling through screen after screen of upbeat one-liners pasted onto images of cute animals and back-lit tree-scapes. And sometimes psychedelic images, which is even better. I eventually managed to get a handle on my dry-heaving and hari-kari-miming, and then I remembered that Marci Shimoff inspired me to own my grumpy by trying to fill my soul with chicken shit so that I could be happy for no reason.

Sorry, slip of the tongue — it was chicken soup she was selling, wasn’t it. Catchy.

Anyway, Marci’s an uber-master of irritating and meaningless one-liners.”Plug into presence.” “Forget the coffee, try a morning cup of connection.” “Feel your feelings.”

Just… Bite me. There’s an inspiring one-liner for you.

It is hard to top Marci’s mastery of the vacuous uplifting quote, but that’s not stopping humanity from trying. Here are some of the lines that crossed my path this year and got my grumpy aura glowing wildly.

Wait. An apologetic before I continue: I know what’s coming is going to sound and seem hostile and, well… It is. Sometimes I have a lot of hostility toward peeps who pour on the random upbeat, positive, can-do crap. I’m too cynical for that. I can’t look at the miseries of life and say, gee, this isn’t so bad, it’s all in my head, blah blah blah. I guess that helps some people. Not me. I’d rather look at the fire I’m walking through and scream “THIS SUUUUUCKS” and come out the other side thankful to be alive, relieved my burns aren’t so bad (i.e., I’m not dead), and grateful if there’s anyone there to help me. See? I’m optimistic and upbeat. I just want my upbeat a certain way. Reality-based and very specific.

Right, so here’s my grumpy list of useless inspiring inspirational inspirations:

ACCEPT YOURSELF. (flowers and sunrises)

But what if I’m an asshole? I don’t think I should accept that at all. In fact, I think the root of change is exactly the opposite of acceptance. DON’T accept yourself. Maybe forgive yourself for being an asshole, and then stop being an asshole by whatever means are available to you — therapy, self-flagellation, confession, meditation, charitable work, whatever it takes.

I get it. Don’t beat yourself up for those extra pounds, don’t look in the mirror and hate on yourself, and so on. But if that’s what the one-liner is getting at, then it should say so. “Accept the things about yourself that are acceptable.”

Dr. Abrams, Jesse’s therapist, has this incredible approach to her self-loathing. When she tells him she’s hating on herself for something she’s done, he typically answers, “Well why don’t you change the things that are making you dislike yourself?” Aha, and duh, and why didn’t I think of that. You want to make a new year’s resolution that matters? Don’t accept yourself. Identify the ways you suck, and then try to fix them.

LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE. (rainbows and trees)

I have an admission to make. I bought a box at Michaels that said these three words on the cover, even though this alliterative word string drives me crazy. In my defense, I bought the box because it was on super-sale and just the right size I needed for some Christmas ornaments and it wasn’t a totally hideous color. Otherwise, honestly. Please don’t ever tell me to live, laugh, love and expect me to be moved in any way. I DO live. I’m doing it RIGHT NOW. Still doing it.

Still. Living.

Miraculously, living just happens to us while we’re alive.

If you mean to tell me to live a certain way, to experience life more fully or something like that, then say so. Jeez. Why be so cryptic?

As for laughing and loving — well, shit, that’s a pretty big directive. If a person is having trouble laughing and loving, there might be some significant problems going on, like maybe her life sucks, or maybe she’s depressed or has some issues. Maybe she isn’t well served by a superficial directive that says, in essence, go stop sucking.

But I guess it’s not as inspiring to put this quote on a picture of a sunrise. “If you’re unhappy and lonely, and you have trouble connecting to people, seek help. Therapy is a good option.”

MAKE IT GREAT.

Make WHAT great, asshole? I know, I know, whatever I’m doing. Well what if I’m taking a dump, or wiping my 5-year-old son’s ass after he takes a dump? Do I really need to make that great? Can’t I just survive it and move on?

I INSPIRE.

I followed a silly-looking link one day to a website whose tag line was “I inspire.” Wow. You INSPIRE? That’s hubris. And very broad. The person who wrote that inspired me to leave his website immediately.

I’ll tell you what inspires me. When people DO inspirational things. Yes, MLK Jr said many inspiring things, but they would have been empty tripe if he hadn’t acted. He inspires me by virtue of what he did, not because he told me he’s going to inspire me. I have a friend who just ran her first marathon and she’s almost 50. I’m inspired. And she didn’t even tell me she was inspiring me. Oh wait. She wasn’t trying to inspire me, in her own mind. She was just running a marathon! Still totally inspiring.

And now I’ve written and said that word enough times that it looks and sounds funny. Inspire. Inspired. Inspiring. Inspiration.

LIVE EACH DAY LIKE IT WAS YOUR LAST.

Worst. Advice. Ever. As Anthony-the-economist put it, this advice tells you to discount the future by exactly 100%. That’s just stupid.

If I lived each day like it was my last, I would never do any of the following things. Wash clothes or dishes. Clean the house. Take my kids to school or the dentist. Make healthy meals. Take a shower. Read a book. Exercise. Take my blood pressure meds. Care about anything. Instead I’d spend every day fighting off bitter, angry tears over my imminent demise. I’d cling desperately to my children (I’m talking physically) until they got freaked out and ran away from me. I would live a raw, insane existence.

Come to think of it, sometimes I do live like this. Huh.

(Extended awkward moment of silence while I think about what the hell I’m doing with my life.)

I’m back. Sorry about that. Anyway, I beg you, DO NOT live each day like it was your last, even if this inspiring phrase and the beautiful sunset photo accompanying it come through your Facebook feed. I don’t think it’ll turn out well.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Awww, come ON. This stupid one-liner was in a list of things you allegedly need to do before you turn 50, or something like that. It’s just empty nonsense. Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Charles Manson and Timothy McVeigh made a difference.

You want me to make a difference? Point me in the right direction. I’d rather make NO difference than an evil, life-destroying difference. Incomplete advice like this might just create the next Darth Vader.

DONE IS THE ENGINE OF MORE.

Uuuuuugh. My head just flopped backwards at a 90-degree angle. My tongue fell out of my mouth. And nooo, it’s not because of the margarita I’m drinking. Here’s all I need to say to the person who tells me “Done is the engine of more”:  fuck you.

TRUTHS ABOUT SUFFERING.

This isn’t a one-liner but an inspire-you list someone posted to Facebook, so I’m going a little off-message — but bear with me. A fellow named Jeff Foster apparently wrote some “truths” about suffering. He says things like this. “Circumstances cannot make us suffer… You could probably boil all of your suffering down to this: ‘I want to control this moment but I cannot.'”

Yeah. Tell that to victims of violence, of torture, of war, of famine, of cancer, of all manner of disasters and vicious diseases. I bet most of them disagree.

This guy also talks about “innocent energy clouds.” Oooooh (eyebrows up). I’m crossing the street when I see Jeff Foster walking down the sidewalk toward me, because otherwise I will want to sock him square in the face and tell him this. Jeff, my friend, you are a complete asshole and a thoughtless lout. Circumstances CAN make us suffer, even when we know we can’t control the shit that’s happening. I have a neighbor whose young son was in the ICU for days with whole-body staph-like infections. There were question marks. It was horrible and scary, and those circumstances made her family suffer. I have a friend suffering from a brutal auto-immune skin condition that makes him experience pain like a burn victim, and the treatments have been awful and it’s all very difficult. His suffering is circumstantial and REAL. Even if he accepts that he can’t control the moment, he will continue to suffer until his condition is brought under control.

Can these folks survive what’s going on with grace and acceptance? Of course, and they are. But not with platitudes and false one-liners. They are struggling, fighting to find a path that brings light and hope into their lives. I love them for it. I love them for sharing their suffering and their needs and their journeys, without faking like they’re okie-dokie.

I mean, I get it. If you’re talking to first-worlders who bitch and moan about their opulent lives without having any real trouble to speak of — say, first-worlders who are, I don’t know, grumpy for no reason — then making the point that we, I mean, they shouldn’t be “suffering” is great, because really, we have it good. And I guess it doesn’t work to paste the following one-liner over a picture of a happy polar bear mommy rolling in a snowy bank with her two cubs: “Get over it. Your life doesn’t suck.”

* * * * *

I understand that I’m probably outside the mainstream. Some people need these one-liners to cope with tough moments. But it doesn’t work for me. If you want to inspire this grumpy girl, you’ll need to get really specific and really plain-spoken. Like this:

Have you looked in the mirror lately? (motivation) Get a haircut.  (inspirational directive)

You smell bad. (motivation) Go take a shower right now. (inspirational directive) (Anthony uses this one on me regularly. It works every time – I go straight to the shower.)

You don’t help other people enough. Go volunteer some time for a charitable cause.

You’re really grumpy.  But it’s okay, I still like you. (See? I told you I was an optimist.)

* * * *

Now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest, I’m realizing what a downer I am. I need to change. I need to see myself a new way. I will imagine a different me. This year, I’m going to start over. Because every day is a new day. Every day is the beginning of the rest of my life. And I have the power. I am the master of my feelings. Love can lift me up. Acceptance can bring me closer to happiness. I can make a difference. I just need to smile a little more, because everyone smiles in the same language.