I did not have a happy Thanksgiving. It's making me feel like a total heel. While everyone else gets into the Holiday Spirit and decks their halls and still happily waxes about gratitude, I am sort of bah humbugging through my days and fixating on the fact that last weekend pretty much sucked.
I am writing about it not to garner sympathy, because as I am well aware, I am inordinately blessed. I am not fishing for pity or flattery or, most of all, criticism, thanks much. I am writing to process, because I want to do better. You know, preferably at this next small holiday coming up in just about 26 days.
Holidays are hard for everyone in some way, and I am no different. My family and I have a love/hate thing going on, wherein I love them but, you know, they drive me completely insane in a way only someone's family can and they push every button on my personal emotional keyboard with alarming dexterity and expertise. Starting out the holiday, I am already at DEFCON 3 knowing that it is going to involve all the interaction with the different personalities in my family members and their particular ways of rubbing against the grain of my own.
I love to bake, I am not so hot on cooking. But I have learned a lot in the past few years (thank you, Pioneer Woman!) out of necessity, because my grandmother -- who used to do every single bit of our holiday cooking -- is finally too old to continue, and my mother does not cook. Like, at all. Not exaggerating here. At. All. A lot of Domino's and Taco Bell in my childhood, people.
So Husband and I cook or bake the majority of all holiday meals now, sometimes supplemented by my sister-in-law. Thursday was a work day for us, then, as we scurried around the kitchen mixing, baking, sauteing, folding, kneading. As we worked, our children, no doubt ramped up on holiday hormones and cousin excitement, trashed our house and broke out into frequent, loud, screaming, wrestling, I'm-going-to-kill-you fights. This led to me and Husband fighting over who needed to abandon his food to go Deal With the Children. One child, you know, still had stitches holding his arm together. Another is still growing back his fingernails. We couldn't afford a Thanksgiving Day trip to the ER.
By the time we were heading to my mother's house that afternoon, I was completely broken. I had screamed, threatened, ruined a batch of Parker House rolls, thought many mean thoughts about my brother and his lack of help watching my children while he decidedly did NOT cook, and tried on thirty different items of clothing in my bathroom mirror, cursing my fat cheeks and the way everything I own does not fit right AT ALL.
I let Firstborn out of the car and he ran into my mother's house. I sat in the car and cried, my forehead on my steering wheel, for twenty minutes before heading into the house. I struggled not to convey my mood to the entire family, but I don't think I was very successful. I felt detached, as if I was slipping into a dark hole and watching my family from below, the entire day.
I need to figure out a way to make holidays work. Whether it is lack of strategic planning, time management, patience, tolerance, or acknowledgment of my own limitations, this is just simply not working for me, or anyone else in my family. I didn't enjoy my dinner, I didn't gaze lovingly at my children, I didn't enjoy my extended family. The simple truth is that there are no do-overs for this time. As stressful as holidays can be, my parents will not be in this age at which they are young enough to enjoy us and old enough to appreciate us for much longer. My children will not be young and excited forever. And Husband and I are watching our thirties slip through our fingers like so much sand.
I need to find the sweet spot -- the place where holidays are special and substantial, but not so much work and chaos that they leave me feeling like a blob of nerves.
For Christmas, I'm thinking pizza. Pizza and black yoga pants. At my own home. On paper plates.
Thankful
Monday, November 22, 2010
Tonight, I am thankful for this blog, the people who read it and share in my days, the people I write about near and far, and all my blessings big and small. This time last year, I had no idea I would find a new home, place my children in new schools, or embark on new adventures in 2010. It truly is amazing the difference a year can make.
With Thanksgiving upon us and a dinner to cook, I am not certain I'll get to sit down again until the weekend. I am wishing you and yours a fabulous holiday and many full tummies.
With Thanksgiving upon us and a dinner to cook, I am not certain I'll get to sit down again until the weekend. I am wishing you and yours a fabulous holiday and many full tummies.
This is the reason why.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Yesterday, a commenter -- Alexicographer -- noted:
Why indeed. Even my local friends have questioned my commitment to volunteering in my children's school. Why don't I take advantage of my child-free time? they ask. How could I give up going to the gym or spending time alone or with my friends to check out books with the first graders or spend time working on reading with the third graders? Don't I have enough to do, and couldn't I even use that time to maybe work on my house? Work on myself? Work?
They're not wrong, of course. I do spend a good bit of my time when all three of my children are in school volunteering. I did when my children were in private school, and I do now. In part, I am enjoying the opportunity to get to know the faculty and staff at the school and my children's new classmates and friends. I am also truly enjoying working with children -- I enjoy being in the educational setting and I miss my work with kids. I'm good at school (so much better than I am at housework!), and I like it there. But yes, it is a lot.
I am on the PTA Board this year, and my position is to co-chair American Education Week. The premise of AEW is to celebrate the country's public schools and the people who make them great. Yes, American public schools are struggling. Yes, they are very, very flawed. Oh yes, I would change so very much about them if I could. But there is no denying that there are also very special people working in our schools.
Sometimes I wonder why anyone would still grow up dreaming to be a teacher. The pay is crappy, the working environment stressful, the students unsupported at home in many instances. It's freaking depressing. But even mired in all this bad, there is still good. No, there is still great. I have been so heartened this year to see that my children's teachers are excited about what they do. They know these kids. They work very hard. In a broken school system, they are making it work.
Tonight I baked my beloved Pioneer Woman's pumpkin gingersnap caramel cheesecake for the luncheon tomorrow. While it was in the oven, I sorted out the slips of paper we gave the children at the beginning of the week. On the slips, there are blanks for the children to write a faculty or staff member's name and then, below, tell why the student thinks that person makes our school special.
There were many, many, "You teached me everything I know," statements, sure to incite some chuckles and probably more than a few groans. There were many, many "You are nies," statements. But two of the slips stood out to me, even though I didn't have time to read all of the hundreds of slips as I sorted them into piles to wrap in ribbon and present to the teachers and staff at tomorrow's luncheon:
"You put up with me even though I am a handful," scrawled one first grader. He's a first grader I happen to know, and he is a handful. But somehow the self awareness and the acknowledgement, written in his small, block-print handwriting, felt so vulnerable it nearly made me cry.
"You didn't give up on me," wrote a fourth grader to his third grade teacher on another slip.
And that, my friends, is the reason why: the reason why I spend my child-free time helping my children's teachers accomplish all they need to in their classrooms, the reason why I am spending my nights organizing a luncheon for the entire faculty and staff, the reason why I baked a cheesecake tonight despite being thoroughly exhausted from a week of injuries and sleep deprivation. I'm so, so grateful that my children have teachers they love. Apparently, I'm not alone, as I have had emails and phone calls all week from parents asking to contribute as well. I'm lucky enough not to be waiting for Superman and I am lucky enough to be able to volunteer my time. This is the kind of work that keeps me sane, not the other way around.
Next year, though, my co-chair and I will likely NOT plan both the breakfast and the luncheon on the same day. That was crazy talk, I agree!
Pushing back to the "why" question you raised, a breakfast for ten crossing guards and bus drivers and a luncheon for 80 school staff members and faculty: are you kidding me (obviously you are not)? I haven't read enough of your blog to know whether your kids are in public or private school but goodness gracious great balls of fire! No offense to the guards, drivers, or staff members, who I'm sure very much deserve it, but that is nuts. Your kids' school decided to do this ... why? You decided to do this ... why?
Why indeed. Even my local friends have questioned my commitment to volunteering in my children's school. Why don't I take advantage of my child-free time? they ask. How could I give up going to the gym or spending time alone or with my friends to check out books with the first graders or spend time working on reading with the third graders? Don't I have enough to do, and couldn't I even use that time to maybe work on my house? Work on myself? Work?
They're not wrong, of course. I do spend a good bit of my time when all three of my children are in school volunteering. I did when my children were in private school, and I do now. In part, I am enjoying the opportunity to get to know the faculty and staff at the school and my children's new classmates and friends. I am also truly enjoying working with children -- I enjoy being in the educational setting and I miss my work with kids. I'm good at school (so much better than I am at housework!), and I like it there. But yes, it is a lot.
I am on the PTA Board this year, and my position is to co-chair American Education Week. The premise of AEW is to celebrate the country's public schools and the people who make them great. Yes, American public schools are struggling. Yes, they are very, very flawed. Oh yes, I would change so very much about them if I could. But there is no denying that there are also very special people working in our schools.
Sometimes I wonder why anyone would still grow up dreaming to be a teacher. The pay is crappy, the working environment stressful, the students unsupported at home in many instances. It's freaking depressing. But even mired in all this bad, there is still good. No, there is still great. I have been so heartened this year to see that my children's teachers are excited about what they do. They know these kids. They work very hard. In a broken school system, they are making it work.
Tonight I baked my beloved Pioneer Woman's pumpkin gingersnap caramel cheesecake for the luncheon tomorrow. While it was in the oven, I sorted out the slips of paper we gave the children at the beginning of the week. On the slips, there are blanks for the children to write a faculty or staff member's name and then, below, tell why the student thinks that person makes our school special.
There were many, many, "You teached me everything I know," statements, sure to incite some chuckles and probably more than a few groans. There were many, many "You are nies," statements. But two of the slips stood out to me, even though I didn't have time to read all of the hundreds of slips as I sorted them into piles to wrap in ribbon and present to the teachers and staff at tomorrow's luncheon:
"You put up with me even though I am a handful," scrawled one first grader. He's a first grader I happen to know, and he is a handful. But somehow the self awareness and the acknowledgement, written in his small, block-print handwriting, felt so vulnerable it nearly made me cry.
"You didn't give up on me," wrote a fourth grader to his third grade teacher on another slip.
And that, my friends, is the reason why: the reason why I spend my child-free time helping my children's teachers accomplish all they need to in their classrooms, the reason why I am spending my nights organizing a luncheon for the entire faculty and staff, the reason why I baked a cheesecake tonight despite being thoroughly exhausted from a week of injuries and sleep deprivation. I'm so, so grateful that my children have teachers they love. Apparently, I'm not alone, as I have had emails and phone calls all week from parents asking to contribute as well. I'm lucky enough not to be waiting for Superman and I am lucky enough to be able to volunteer my time. This is the kind of work that keeps me sane, not the other way around.
Next year, though, my co-chair and I will likely NOT plan both the breakfast and the luncheon on the same day. That was crazy talk, I agree!
Oh, the irony!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
So, yesterday, I had the honor of reaching out in a national way on Lisa Belkin's NY Times blog "The Motherlode," asking about why so many of the mothers I know (including myself) have needed or do need anti-anxiety or antidepressant medication.
Yesterday was a big day for many reasons, not the least of which was that blog post. I was nervous about the Motherlode readers' potential reactions. As it turns out, I have been really pleasantly surprised at the resulting thoughtful discussion.
Around lunchtime yesterday, though, I was still really nervous. That's when I arrived at my first grader's classroom to escort groups of his classmates to the media center to check out library books. It's one of the jobs I do as a volunteer since the school had to eliminate assistants this year due to budget cuts.
Herding six children to the media center to check out books is much like herding proverbial cats, but we were getting it done. Then, when I was walking back to the classroom with the first group, I stepped off the sidewalk with my right foot and tripped over my left foot. Because it is still in the 80s here, I was wearing flip-flops, and my exposed big toe was sliced open on the concrete.
I was immediately in a world of pain, but I tried to keep it together. By the time we reached the classroom, though, I was failing miserably. My toe was open and bleeding -- all over the classroom floor. One little girl started to cry. Little boys had their hands over their mouths. The entire class of eighteen children leaped from their desks and encircled my toe. "Mrs. S, Mrs. S, she's bleeding all over your floor! You don't allow blood in the classroom!" they cried. Incredibly embarrassed, I wrapped the toe in tiny band-aids and somehow muddled through two more groups of first graders.
Last night, I was exhausted. I am in charge of American Education Week at my children's school this week, and it includes a breakfast for ten crossing guards and bus drivers and a luncheon for 80 school staff members and faculty, among other duties. This is my Big Week. I took a hot bath with my toe, now wrapped in gauze and Neosporin and still throbbing, in the air. I planned to go to bed very early.
Just after I emerged from the bath, Husband left the room to gather the two youngest boys and take them up to bed. That's when I heard scurrying from the kitchen, then a crash. Broken glass. I imagined that someone had knocked a picture off the kitchen wall. I heard Firstborn say, "You are so dead." Then I heard Husband.
There are a few sounds that strike fear in my heart: the phone call from the school nurse. The phone call from my mother, choking out words through tears to tell me someone has been hurt or someone is sick. The sound that strikes deepest in my heart, though, is when my husband -- usually infuriatingly calm and slow-moving -- yells my name from another room of the house, loudly and urgently.
That's what he did last night. When I rounded the corner and looked in the kitchen, he was holding C.'s arm, and there was a long gash on it. And blood. C. had run through the kitchen, tripped on a chair, and flown straight through a windowpane in our kitchen, hand and arm first.
Husband later criticized me for wigging out [*Note: Husband has since written in indignantly that he was simply noting that I had to throw gauze at him from twenty feet away lest I faint at the sight of the wound close up and what's me to explain he is not a total jerk. Duly noted.], but while I do admit to freaking out and not being at all good around blood, I got the three of us to the ER pretty quickly and effectively. The result: at 1 AM, one nurse was wrapping up C.'s newly-stitched up arm (the sight of which I might never get over) and applying ointment to his myriad cuts and scrapes, and one nurse was irrigating my still throbbing toe, which apparently had chunks of gravel inside it.
C. was very, very lucky. He could have easily cut an artery, a tendon, a nerve. He managed to avoid all of it, but I will tell you what: the mental image of my child's arm folding open really might be my best diet weapon ever.
So I can wonder why mothers like me need anti-anxiety medication. I think I have my personal answer.
Yesterday was a big day for many reasons, not the least of which was that blog post. I was nervous about the Motherlode readers' potential reactions. As it turns out, I have been really pleasantly surprised at the resulting thoughtful discussion.
Around lunchtime yesterday, though, I was still really nervous. That's when I arrived at my first grader's classroom to escort groups of his classmates to the media center to check out library books. It's one of the jobs I do as a volunteer since the school had to eliminate assistants this year due to budget cuts.
Herding six children to the media center to check out books is much like herding proverbial cats, but we were getting it done. Then, when I was walking back to the classroom with the first group, I stepped off the sidewalk with my right foot and tripped over my left foot. Because it is still in the 80s here, I was wearing flip-flops, and my exposed big toe was sliced open on the concrete.
I was immediately in a world of pain, but I tried to keep it together. By the time we reached the classroom, though, I was failing miserably. My toe was open and bleeding -- all over the classroom floor. One little girl started to cry. Little boys had their hands over their mouths. The entire class of eighteen children leaped from their desks and encircled my toe. "Mrs. S, Mrs. S, she's bleeding all over your floor! You don't allow blood in the classroom!" they cried. Incredibly embarrassed, I wrapped the toe in tiny band-aids and somehow muddled through two more groups of first graders.
Last night, I was exhausted. I am in charge of American Education Week at my children's school this week, and it includes a breakfast for ten crossing guards and bus drivers and a luncheon for 80 school staff members and faculty, among other duties. This is my Big Week. I took a hot bath with my toe, now wrapped in gauze and Neosporin and still throbbing, in the air. I planned to go to bed very early.
Just after I emerged from the bath, Husband left the room to gather the two youngest boys and take them up to bed. That's when I heard scurrying from the kitchen, then a crash. Broken glass. I imagined that someone had knocked a picture off the kitchen wall. I heard Firstborn say, "You are so dead." Then I heard Husband.
There are a few sounds that strike fear in my heart: the phone call from the school nurse. The phone call from my mother, choking out words through tears to tell me someone has been hurt or someone is sick. The sound that strikes deepest in my heart, though, is when my husband -- usually infuriatingly calm and slow-moving -- yells my name from another room of the house, loudly and urgently.
That's what he did last night. When I rounded the corner and looked in the kitchen, he was holding C.'s arm, and there was a long gash on it. And blood. C. had run through the kitchen, tripped on a chair, and flown straight through a windowpane in our kitchen, hand and arm first.
Husband later criticized me for wigging out [*Note: Husband has since written in indignantly that he was simply noting that I had to throw gauze at him from twenty feet away lest I faint at the sight of the wound close up and what's me to explain he is not a total jerk. Duly noted.], but while I do admit to freaking out and not being at all good around blood, I got the three of us to the ER pretty quickly and effectively. The result: at 1 AM, one nurse was wrapping up C.'s newly-stitched up arm (the sight of which I might never get over) and applying ointment to his myriad cuts and scrapes, and one nurse was irrigating my still throbbing toe, which apparently had chunks of gravel inside it.
C. was very, very lucky. He could have easily cut an artery, a tendon, a nerve. He managed to avoid all of it, but I will tell you what: the mental image of my child's arm folding open really might be my best diet weapon ever.
So I can wonder why mothers like me need anti-anxiety medication. I think I have my personal answer.
Thirty Days of Truth: Something For Which You Have to Forgive Yourself
Sunday, November 14, 2010
[I admit I changed the meme title. It was "Something You Have to Forgive Yourself For." The grammar dork in me couldn't take it.]
One goal that has remained constant in my life is to live with as few regrets as possible. In general, I do my best with the resources and information I have at the time, and therefore I try to be gentle with myself about the decisions I make.
I regret moving myself and my family back to the East Coast from California when I did, and I need to forgive myself for the decision.
At the time we decided to move, I had not slept through a night in over a year thanks to a colicky, stubborn, crazy nursing toddler. I was unexpectedly pregnant again despite the Mini-Pill (PSA: It doesn't work), co-sleeping, and breastfeeding (PSA 2: Breastfeeding does NOT inhibit fertility). I was, in short, Freaking Out.
Husband had a job he loved and I was in a good place too. We had a house in a city we loved, nestled in the hills and fifteen minutes from the Pacific Ocean. Our closest friends were nearby and we seriously loved where we lived.
I panicked. I was afraid we wouldn't make enough money. I wanted my children to have grandparents in their lives. I felt like we couldn't have the family life we wanted if we stayed in Los Angeles. So I pushed us to move.
Honestly, the reasons I had were pretty valid. Now that we live back East, we have my parents down the street, and my children have a great relationship with them. The children have cousins nearby and they are growing up with them in their lives. We can afford a bigger house with a huge, flat yard (Los Angelenos just fainted from jealousy -- flat yards are the Holy Grail in L.A. **). Living back East definitely does have benefits. We have a good life here, and our kids are happy.
It's just that our hearts? Are back in Los Angeles.
I wonder not infrequently how things would have gone if we had stayed in L.A. As much as the East Coast is home to us now, the West Coast is where we are most ourselves, where we feel alive. Husband has not yet forgiven me for moving us here, and if I am honest, I have not either. It's a bit too late for woulda-coulda-shouldas, because buying back in to L.A. is a lot harder than buying out of it, but I will admit that I haven't yet given up hope that we will one day decide to chuck it all and go back, even if it means living in a tiny bungalow and sleeping in one big (BIG) bed.
For me, this was a huge lesson to realize that sometimes even though I have all good and practical and even emotionally valid reasons to do something, I need to listen to my heart. And my heart wears black pants and shops at Gelson's and eats at Baja Fresh and knows alternate routes over Mulholland to avoid traffic on the 405.
But what is best for me and my marriage and my children, now, is to forgive myself and move forward. Limbo does no one any good. As they say, life is what happens when you are making other plans: we live here, we have friends here, we have jobs here, and our children are growing up here. So I have to forgive myself, and I have to put my eyes forward instead of behind me, and I need to start saving up for a little weekend away to get my California fix sometime soon.
** Edited to add: I have been receiving a lot of comments about this sentence. I lived on both the Westside and the Valley when I lived in L.A. My experience was that a flat backyard was coveted and more rare. Obviously, I am just one person and I bought exactly one house in L.A., and perhaps I overstepped my rhetorical bounds with that assessment. Many apologies. Perhaps it was just the area I was buying in: the West Valley, south of Ventura. We bought there not to be snobby and elitist, but for the schools and the commute to the Westside. So, amend my thoughts in your head to say that I was extremely grateful and lucky to live where I did in L.A. and I LOVED it there, but I also feel lucky to live in an affordable house now with an expansive, flat backyard where three little boys can run around and play soccer or football easily. My point was one of counting my blessings, not of putting down L.A. (or the Valley, which was my home). I am sorry if that did not come across.
One goal that has remained constant in my life is to live with as few regrets as possible. In general, I do my best with the resources and information I have at the time, and therefore I try to be gentle with myself about the decisions I make.
I regret moving myself and my family back to the East Coast from California when I did, and I need to forgive myself for the decision.
At the time we decided to move, I had not slept through a night in over a year thanks to a colicky, stubborn, crazy nursing toddler. I was unexpectedly pregnant again despite the Mini-Pill (PSA: It doesn't work), co-sleeping, and breastfeeding (PSA 2: Breastfeeding does NOT inhibit fertility). I was, in short, Freaking Out.
Husband had a job he loved and I was in a good place too. We had a house in a city we loved, nestled in the hills and fifteen minutes from the Pacific Ocean. Our closest friends were nearby and we seriously loved where we lived.
I panicked. I was afraid we wouldn't make enough money. I wanted my children to have grandparents in their lives. I felt like we couldn't have the family life we wanted if we stayed in Los Angeles. So I pushed us to move.
Honestly, the reasons I had were pretty valid. Now that we live back East, we have my parents down the street, and my children have a great relationship with them. The children have cousins nearby and they are growing up with them in their lives. We can afford a bigger house with a huge, flat yard (Los Angelenos just fainted from jealousy -- flat yards are the Holy Grail in L.A. **). Living back East definitely does have benefits. We have a good life here, and our kids are happy.
It's just that our hearts? Are back in Los Angeles.
I wonder not infrequently how things would have gone if we had stayed in L.A. As much as the East Coast is home to us now, the West Coast is where we are most ourselves, where we feel alive. Husband has not yet forgiven me for moving us here, and if I am honest, I have not either. It's a bit too late for woulda-coulda-shouldas, because buying back in to L.A. is a lot harder than buying out of it, but I will admit that I haven't yet given up hope that we will one day decide to chuck it all and go back, even if it means living in a tiny bungalow and sleeping in one big (BIG) bed.
For me, this was a huge lesson to realize that sometimes even though I have all good and practical and even emotionally valid reasons to do something, I need to listen to my heart. And my heart wears black pants and shops at Gelson's and eats at Baja Fresh and knows alternate routes over Mulholland to avoid traffic on the 405.
But what is best for me and my marriage and my children, now, is to forgive myself and move forward. Limbo does no one any good. As they say, life is what happens when you are making other plans: we live here, we have friends here, we have jobs here, and our children are growing up here. So I have to forgive myself, and I have to put my eyes forward instead of behind me, and I need to start saving up for a little weekend away to get my California fix sometime soon.
** Edited to add: I have been receiving a lot of comments about this sentence. I lived on both the Westside and the Valley when I lived in L.A. My experience was that a flat backyard was coveted and more rare. Obviously, I am just one person and I bought exactly one house in L.A., and perhaps I overstepped my rhetorical bounds with that assessment. Many apologies. Perhaps it was just the area I was buying in: the West Valley, south of Ventura. We bought there not to be snobby and elitist, but for the schools and the commute to the Westside. So, amend my thoughts in your head to say that I was extremely grateful and lucky to live where I did in L.A. and I LOVED it there, but I also feel lucky to live in an affordable house now with an expansive, flat backyard where three little boys can run around and play soccer or football easily. My point was one of counting my blessings, not of putting down L.A. (or the Valley, which was my home). I am sorry if that did not come across.
What's going on?
Friday, November 12, 2010
I have wanted to write this post for a long time, but I didn't know how to write it. I want to do it right, and I am afraid that I won't have the right words, that I will be inelegant in my articulation. But I cannot ignore it anymore, this post. It bangs around in my head and troubles me in my sleep. It wants to be written.
Sometime in the summer of 2008, I went to my doctor and asked her for medication.
I wasn't depressed. I have been through periods of depression before -- "situational," my therapist called it, because it hinged upon certain events and phases in my life. I know what depression is, and I am not a chronic sufferer (and I feel damn lucky about that).
I also know what anxiety is. I have watched friends and family members struggle under its heft. I wondered, from time to time, if I had a problem with anxiety. But eventually I, and even my therapist at the time, decided I did not have an anxiety disorder. I was stressed out for sure, but I always came back to the conclusion that I was not more stressed than my situation called for, and I had adequate coping mechanisms in place.
That summer, the summer that my baby was turning one year old and my older children were four and six, I decided that wasn't good enough. Even though I was "appropriately" stressed, in my opinion, what with three crazy boys and a household to run and summer's unstructured days swirling around my head, I was struggling. I yelled. A lot. Maybe I wasn't unjustified in my yelling, but all the same, it made me miserable. I felt like my shoulders were hung up on a clothes hanger every single day from the moment I woke up until the moment my children were in bed. Once they were there, asleep or at least safe in their beds and crib, not falling down staircases or eating or stuffing Legos up their noses or pummeling each other, I slumped. Visibly, physically, emotionally slumped. I was exhausted, and I was anxious. The anxiety made me a miserable person and a miserable mother.
The medication helped me. It gave me a pause button. I didn't yell as much, but I could still yell if I needed to yell. I didn't cry as much, but I could still cry. I felt like a stronger, more competent mother and wife. I felt like I could survive. I didn't slump at the end of the day. I felt more capable.
Last year, I weaned off the medication. Since then, I will admit that I think about returning to it. I'm not as anxious or as stressed as I was then. I feel a lot more in control. But when I yell, I always wonder... should I go back on the medication? Will my children remember me as an angry, yelling mother? Could the medication keep me from being that way? Would my life simply be more enjoyable with the help of a little anti-anxiety medication?
But even more, I wonder what the hell is going on in this country that so, so, so many of my friends, so many of my fellow mothers, also have medication. I am a huge advocate of medication for short-term or long-term use if it is warranted and if it is the best thing for someone. I know that the best, most effective mode of treatment is usually a combination of medication and talk therapy, so that a person can develop coping strategies beyond the drugs. I don't want any mother to struggle more than she needs to, and if you even have a tiny inkling that it might help you, I encourage you to try it. If it doesn't work well for you, under the supervision of a competent doctor, you should have no problem weaning off successfully, no harm done. I am glad I asked for medication, and I would and will do it again in a heartbeat if I feel I need it.
But that doesn't mean I don't wonder why so many women in our society do, in fact, need it.
What is going on here? Why are women and mothers so stressed out, or depressed, or anxious? Is it the nature of the job? Is it the inhumane way our country doles out puny maternity leave or non-existent paternity leave? Is it because we feel alone? Exhausted and overwhelmed? Hormones? I realize that motherhood, that parenthood, is not easy. I am just not sure that it is supposed to be debilitating. I will honestly tell you that when I asked for the medication, and many times since, I have felt debilitated, whether by parenthood or by life's demands or by the combination. I can also honestly tell you I do not believe I am a person inherently anxious or depressed.
I believe I know more mothers on medication or that have been on medication than I do mothers who have never used it. And those are just the ones I know about. And those are just the mothers.
So what's the matter here? I think there has to be something going on. We need to talk about it.
Sometime in the summer of 2008, I went to my doctor and asked her for medication.
I wasn't depressed. I have been through periods of depression before -- "situational," my therapist called it, because it hinged upon certain events and phases in my life. I know what depression is, and I am not a chronic sufferer (and I feel damn lucky about that).
I also know what anxiety is. I have watched friends and family members struggle under its heft. I wondered, from time to time, if I had a problem with anxiety. But eventually I, and even my therapist at the time, decided I did not have an anxiety disorder. I was stressed out for sure, but I always came back to the conclusion that I was not more stressed than my situation called for, and I had adequate coping mechanisms in place.
That summer, the summer that my baby was turning one year old and my older children were four and six, I decided that wasn't good enough. Even though I was "appropriately" stressed, in my opinion, what with three crazy boys and a household to run and summer's unstructured days swirling around my head, I was struggling. I yelled. A lot. Maybe I wasn't unjustified in my yelling, but all the same, it made me miserable. I felt like my shoulders were hung up on a clothes hanger every single day from the moment I woke up until the moment my children were in bed. Once they were there, asleep or at least safe in their beds and crib, not falling down staircases or eating or stuffing Legos up their noses or pummeling each other, I slumped. Visibly, physically, emotionally slumped. I was exhausted, and I was anxious. The anxiety made me a miserable person and a miserable mother.
The medication helped me. It gave me a pause button. I didn't yell as much, but I could still yell if I needed to yell. I didn't cry as much, but I could still cry. I felt like a stronger, more competent mother and wife. I felt like I could survive. I didn't slump at the end of the day. I felt more capable.
Last year, I weaned off the medication. Since then, I will admit that I think about returning to it. I'm not as anxious or as stressed as I was then. I feel a lot more in control. But when I yell, I always wonder... should I go back on the medication? Will my children remember me as an angry, yelling mother? Could the medication keep me from being that way? Would my life simply be more enjoyable with the help of a little anti-anxiety medication?
But even more, I wonder what the hell is going on in this country that so, so, so many of my friends, so many of my fellow mothers, also have medication. I am a huge advocate of medication for short-term or long-term use if it is warranted and if it is the best thing for someone. I know that the best, most effective mode of treatment is usually a combination of medication and talk therapy, so that a person can develop coping strategies beyond the drugs. I don't want any mother to struggle more than she needs to, and if you even have a tiny inkling that it might help you, I encourage you to try it. If it doesn't work well for you, under the supervision of a competent doctor, you should have no problem weaning off successfully, no harm done. I am glad I asked for medication, and I would and will do it again in a heartbeat if I feel I need it.
But that doesn't mean I don't wonder why so many women in our society do, in fact, need it.
What is going on here? Why are women and mothers so stressed out, or depressed, or anxious? Is it the nature of the job? Is it the inhumane way our country doles out puny maternity leave or non-existent paternity leave? Is it because we feel alone? Exhausted and overwhelmed? Hormones? I realize that motherhood, that parenthood, is not easy. I am just not sure that it is supposed to be debilitating. I will honestly tell you that when I asked for the medication, and many times since, I have felt debilitated, whether by parenthood or by life's demands or by the combination. I can also honestly tell you I do not believe I am a person inherently anxious or depressed.
I believe I know more mothers on medication or that have been on medication than I do mothers who have never used it. And those are just the ones I know about. And those are just the mothers.
So what's the matter here? I think there has to be something going on. We need to talk about it.
Thirty Days of Truth: Something You Love About Yourself
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
When I was in third grade, one of my teachers wrote a comment in my report card:
"Mama is a great student, but she tends to be too cautious. She doesn't like to take risks."
It was true. I was pretty shy in elementary school and even more shy in middle school. It wasn't until around the age of 14 that I broke out of my shell and decided to go balls out into the world, little by little.
I was a little girl who was afraid to take risks, afraid to fail. I was afraid to be disliked. Afraid to be wrong. Afraid to be scolded for not following directions. I was a pleaser, and pleasers don't color outside the lines.
Somewhere along the way, I changed.
I grew into a fiercely independent, confident woman, and I can't even put my finger on the turning point. There was no one profound moment, no watershed when I saw the truth for myself. The only factor that stands out is that I can say very surely that with all their quirks and all their flaws, my parents never once doubted that I could do anything and always, always, always supported me no matter what crazy idea I came up with next. They had to have something to do with the change in me.
And so, I ran -- and won -- student body president out of a high school of 2500 students. I flew to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., the summer before my senior year in high school, attending programs at UCLA and Georgetown and navigating the airports and cities alone. I went away to college many states away from home. I applied for internships in the entertainment industry even though I had zero contacts there, and I ended up moving to New York City for the summer I turned 19 and lived and worked alone in one of the biggest cities in the world. I took on projects including managing hundreds of people for a national television show before my sophomore year in college. I moved to New York by myself after graduation and landed a job at a network. I later moved to L.A. with few friends to greet me, but only after requesting and receiving an interview with a legendary television producer who pledged to help me find a new job.
In my career after my career, I have finished both a triathlon and a half-marathon. I have returned a rental car and flown home with a three-year-old and a baby in tow and both their Britax carseats and a diaper bag and all our luggage. I have taken three kids to Disney by myself. I have guest blogged for the New York Times and lived to tell the tale. I have attended BlogHer on a whim and thrown myself into a sea of blogging strangers.
I am independent, confident, and brave. I can talk to anyone. I take risks. I am not afraid to fail. I am not afraid to put myself out there.
I love that about myself.
One of my biggest goals as a parent is to give the same to my children. I want to support them and have confidence in them until they can fly for themselves. I can honestly say that I look at the world and see what I can do, not what I can't. I want the same for my children. Because even when I am floundering or trudging through a dark place, I never stop believing that I will overcome, that I will make whatever is troubling me work out. It has been an incredible, invaluable gift.
"Mama is a great student, but she tends to be too cautious. She doesn't like to take risks."
It was true. I was pretty shy in elementary school and even more shy in middle school. It wasn't until around the age of 14 that I broke out of my shell and decided to go balls out into the world, little by little.
I was a little girl who was afraid to take risks, afraid to fail. I was afraid to be disliked. Afraid to be wrong. Afraid to be scolded for not following directions. I was a pleaser, and pleasers don't color outside the lines.
Somewhere along the way, I changed.
I grew into a fiercely independent, confident woman, and I can't even put my finger on the turning point. There was no one profound moment, no watershed when I saw the truth for myself. The only factor that stands out is that I can say very surely that with all their quirks and all their flaws, my parents never once doubted that I could do anything and always, always, always supported me no matter what crazy idea I came up with next. They had to have something to do with the change in me.
And so, I ran -- and won -- student body president out of a high school of 2500 students. I flew to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., the summer before my senior year in high school, attending programs at UCLA and Georgetown and navigating the airports and cities alone. I went away to college many states away from home. I applied for internships in the entertainment industry even though I had zero contacts there, and I ended up moving to New York City for the summer I turned 19 and lived and worked alone in one of the biggest cities in the world. I took on projects including managing hundreds of people for a national television show before my sophomore year in college. I moved to New York by myself after graduation and landed a job at a network. I later moved to L.A. with few friends to greet me, but only after requesting and receiving an interview with a legendary television producer who pledged to help me find a new job.
In my career after my career, I have finished both a triathlon and a half-marathon. I have returned a rental car and flown home with a three-year-old and a baby in tow and both their Britax carseats and a diaper bag and all our luggage. I have taken three kids to Disney by myself. I have guest blogged for the New York Times and lived to tell the tale. I have attended BlogHer on a whim and thrown myself into a sea of blogging strangers.
I am independent, confident, and brave. I can talk to anyone. I take risks. I am not afraid to fail. I am not afraid to put myself out there.
I love that about myself.
One of my biggest goals as a parent is to give the same to my children. I want to support them and have confidence in them until they can fly for themselves. I can honestly say that I look at the world and see what I can do, not what I can't. I want the same for my children. Because even when I am floundering or trudging through a dark place, I never stop believing that I will overcome, that I will make whatever is troubling me work out. It has been an incredible, invaluable gift.
Ezra is gone.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Little Ezra Matthews, whose family I wrote about earlier this month, died this morning.
As I often do, I find myself mourning in spirit with his mother. This mother of three boys has lost two of them in the past year. It's incredibly unfair. It's cruel. It sucks. It's unimaginable.
Hug your little ones today, and, as Ezra's father implores, help those who need it when you are able.
Cancer sucks.
As I often do, I find myself mourning in spirit with his mother. This mother of three boys has lost two of them in the past year. It's incredibly unfair. It's cruel. It sucks. It's unimaginable.
Hug your little ones today, and, as Ezra's father implores, help those who need it when you are able.
Cancer sucks.
Explain yourselves.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
So, there's a cool new little Stats button on Blogger dashboards, and through it I can see which posts are getting the most page views, referral sites, the lowdown.
Blogger has been tracking my stats since May 2010, and in that time, the post with the most hits of all time is by far my post entitled "No Comment," about the comments I get about having three boys.
Uh, it has 797 page views since May. That is more than 500 more page views than any other post tracked by Blogger in that time frame.
So... where are all of you people reading that post coming from? I am dying of curiosity. My stat tracker isn't giving up the goods.
Blogger has been tracking my stats since May 2010, and in that time, the post with the most hits of all time is by far my post entitled "No Comment," about the comments I get about having three boys.
Uh, it has 797 page views since May. That is more than 500 more page views than any other post tracked by Blogger in that time frame.
So... where are all of you people reading that post coming from? I am dying of curiosity. My stat tracker isn't giving up the goods.
Thirty Days of Truth: Something You Hate About Yourself
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
(Well now, this isn't a very positive way to start out the challenge, is it? But I suppose that is why they call it a challenge about truth.)
When I was in fifth grade, my mother took me to the department store.
It seemed that I needed a bra.
In all honesty, I had likely needed a bra for a little while, but my mother is a big believer in that lovely oasis called Denial. In any case, when she decided to finally bite that particularly bitter bullet for a mother, I wasn't quite sure what to make of the whole situation. I was ten, after all.
I didn't need a training bra. I needed a bra bra. This puppy wasn't just for show; from the get-go, I needed a working machine. Little did I know how large the role these garments would have in my life as a woman.
By the end of high school, I was sporting somewhere between double Ds and triple Ds, depending on my weight fluctuations. My mother, who would probably prefer to live in a country where burkhas are prevalent, encouraged me never to wear anything form-fitting. Showing the curve of a breast, you see, would be the equivalent of passing out to my classmates engraved invitations to an orgy starring ME. Eager to please and earn As at home as well as school, I complied: my wardrobe consisted of oversized shirts and hoodies courtesy of the Gap. I even wore a T-shirt over my bathing suit, much to the confusion of my friends. I successfully managed to hide my femininity though high school, and I am sure my mother was relieved.
The sense of shame about my breasts that was cultivated in puberty has never left me. Mine are too big and way too real for the adorable bras they sell at Victoria's Secret or Gap Body. Instead of matching lingerie sets or sexy bras with designs or ruffles or quirky prints, I am best friends with Wacoal. Don't get me wrong; Wacoal is a wonderful company with a wonderful product. But let's be honest: Wacoal sounds like your hefty German aunt who wears comfortable shoes. Cosabella, Felina, La Perla, Natori -- now those are the Italian and exotic cousins with perky breasts wearing stilettos. They ooze sex. Wacoal never gets laid. Wacoal is not perky.
My breasts managed to feed three children for a combined total of forty-two months, and that is nothing to dismiss lightly. In that amount of time, they never succumbed to mastitis and barely even acknowledged a plugged duct. That is pretty cool of them. On the other hand, they had a tendency to produce enough milk for, I don't know, the population of Los Angeles? And so I was able to do many party tricks during that time, including nearly blinding my children with close-range lasers of hot milk and hitting walls on the other side of the room -- often in public places -- after releasing the clip on the nursing bra. Good times, friends.
Between babies two and three, I lost my baby weight and my breasts were very much akin to long tube socks filled with uncooked rice. They hung, National Geographic-style, due south. I rolled them up in the mornings and tucked them into my Wacoals, still size 36DD or DDD, and heaved a long sigh of depression that never in my life did I ever actually sport breasts that ever pointed anywhere close to north, and now I never would without the help of a whole lot of painful surgery.
Since the birth of number three, however, I haven't lost all my baby weight. My breasts have remained very full. That sounds like a good thing, but it's really not. At the age of thirty-six, I might as well be back in tenth grade. My breasts make me look even bigger than I actually am. They demand larger sized shirts that don't pinch back in at what remains of my waist. They are impossible to lug around at the gym and, when forced to chase a certain threenager in public, they bounce ponderously and threaten to throw me terminally off balance. They don't make me feel feminine; they make me feel like a heifer. Even in normal clothes, they give me such cleavage that I have to worry about wearing normal, everyday clothes to my sons' elementary school. They make me feel like a slutty heifer. They make me hot, they are heavy, they can hold several pencils under their heft.
I hate my breasts.
I'm not a fan of elective surgery because I am afraid of pain and, well, surgery. I don't have back issues because of my breasts that I can claim. Really, I need to lose my baby weight and then see what remains when the dust settles and the fog clears. It's a pretty safe bet, though, that my breasts and I are never going to be on great terms.
It could be worse.
When I was in fifth grade, my mother took me to the department store.
It seemed that I needed a bra.
In all honesty, I had likely needed a bra for a little while, but my mother is a big believer in that lovely oasis called Denial. In any case, when she decided to finally bite that particularly bitter bullet for a mother, I wasn't quite sure what to make of the whole situation. I was ten, after all.
I didn't need a training bra. I needed a bra bra. This puppy wasn't just for show; from the get-go, I needed a working machine. Little did I know how large the role these garments would have in my life as a woman.
By the end of high school, I was sporting somewhere between double Ds and triple Ds, depending on my weight fluctuations. My mother, who would probably prefer to live in a country where burkhas are prevalent, encouraged me never to wear anything form-fitting. Showing the curve of a breast, you see, would be the equivalent of passing out to my classmates engraved invitations to an orgy starring ME. Eager to please and earn As at home as well as school, I complied: my wardrobe consisted of oversized shirts and hoodies courtesy of the Gap. I even wore a T-shirt over my bathing suit, much to the confusion of my friends. I successfully managed to hide my femininity though high school, and I am sure my mother was relieved.
The sense of shame about my breasts that was cultivated in puberty has never left me. Mine are too big and way too real for the adorable bras they sell at Victoria's Secret or Gap Body. Instead of matching lingerie sets or sexy bras with designs or ruffles or quirky prints, I am best friends with Wacoal. Don't get me wrong; Wacoal is a wonderful company with a wonderful product. But let's be honest: Wacoal sounds like your hefty German aunt who wears comfortable shoes. Cosabella, Felina, La Perla, Natori -- now those are the Italian and exotic cousins with perky breasts wearing stilettos. They ooze sex. Wacoal never gets laid. Wacoal is not perky.
My breasts managed to feed three children for a combined total of forty-two months, and that is nothing to dismiss lightly. In that amount of time, they never succumbed to mastitis and barely even acknowledged a plugged duct. That is pretty cool of them. On the other hand, they had a tendency to produce enough milk for, I don't know, the population of Los Angeles? And so I was able to do many party tricks during that time, including nearly blinding my children with close-range lasers of hot milk and hitting walls on the other side of the room -- often in public places -- after releasing the clip on the nursing bra. Good times, friends.
Between babies two and three, I lost my baby weight and my breasts were very much akin to long tube socks filled with uncooked rice. They hung, National Geographic-style, due south. I rolled them up in the mornings and tucked them into my Wacoals, still size 36DD or DDD, and heaved a long sigh of depression that never in my life did I ever actually sport breasts that ever pointed anywhere close to north, and now I never would without the help of a whole lot of painful surgery.
Since the birth of number three, however, I haven't lost all my baby weight. My breasts have remained very full. That sounds like a good thing, but it's really not. At the age of thirty-six, I might as well be back in tenth grade. My breasts make me look even bigger than I actually am. They demand larger sized shirts that don't pinch back in at what remains of my waist. They are impossible to lug around at the gym and, when forced to chase a certain threenager in public, they bounce ponderously and threaten to throw me terminally off balance. They don't make me feel feminine; they make me feel like a heifer. Even in normal clothes, they give me such cleavage that I have to worry about wearing normal, everyday clothes to my sons' elementary school. They make me feel like a slutty heifer. They make me hot, they are heavy, they can hold several pencils under their heft.
I hate my breasts.
I'm not a fan of elective surgery because I am afraid of pain and, well, surgery. I don't have back issues because of my breasts that I can claim. Really, I need to lose my baby weight and then see what remains when the dust settles and the fog clears. It's a pretty safe bet, though, that my breasts and I are never going to be on great terms.
It could be worse.
Thirty Days of Truth
Monday, November 1, 2010
After reading the amazing Faiqa's posts for the Thirty Days of Truth challenge, I am excited to embark on this adventure myself. Yes, I will have to talk about myself an awful lot. But I am hoping to a) not bore you with all that, b) find it stimulating and motivating for my writing, and c) find some insight along the way. Let's see how it goes.
It's the month of November, the month when many bloggers will be writing a post every day. Maybe this will help me keep up?
I'm also hoping to get my first post up tonight. We'll see how much progress I make on the Halloween wrapper clean-up. Fingers crossed.
It's the month of November, the month when many bloggers will be writing a post every day. Maybe this will help me keep up?
I'm also hoping to get my first post up tonight. We'll see how much progress I make on the Halloween wrapper clean-up. Fingers crossed.
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