Tag: relationships

so.good.

so.good.

It’s not a particularly happy song, but it has one of my favorite lyrics hidden towards the end of it. You get through the angst and sorrow of Flyleaf’s song I’m Sorry and there is the line, “This story ends so good.”

It’s not a clever lyric. It isn’t deep or existential. It isn’t even grammatically correct. But fifteen years after the first time hearing it, it sticks out in my mind.

This. Story. Ends. So. Good.

It’s important to understand, if you aren’t familiar with the song I’m talking about, that no other parts of this song lead the listener to believe that anything about this story could be good, let alone the ending. And aren’t we programmed to believe that bad and broken things will always be that way these days? Aren’t we prepared to hear that a story which starts out with lines like, “I’m not ashamed, Of that long December, Your hands coming down again, I close my eyes and brace myself…” ends tragically?

Have we forgotten that stories can end so good?

Or do we just write the end and forget it before we get to the good part? Maybe we’re too impatient. Maybe we stop the tape before we let it play all the way through.

My daughter will be fifteen tomorrow. I remember her birth as if it were yesterday, I remember not being able to see her because she wouldn’t cry, I remember her cord being in a knot, I remember a crash cart and yelling nurses and frantic people everywhere. I remember me asking everyone to stop stop stop, for someone to let me see my baby. I remember finally seeing her and feeling nothing but exhaustion and shame and pain. No euphoria, none of that New Mom Glow.

Just, nothing.

I remember people telling me how lucky I was. I remember people being more excited about my new baby than I was. I remember not sleeping. The crying. The colick that only Daddy could quell. Thoughts of throwing her off the roof. Thoughts of, “There is no way I can freaking do this, no wonder single moms or poor moms or moms with no support system drive their vans into rivers. I can’t even do this with a husband and other family members nearby. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME?!?”

I remember when she was a toddler, screaming for no reason I could discern, while I sat on the front porch and cried. I remember hearing about all these other new moms feeling so fulfilled and light and wonderful after giving birth. I remember thinking they must be lying. I remember hating myself for thinking that. I remember wondering what was wrong with me, if I was missing some integral part of my brain and I should be studied for science.

But, this story ends so good.

And I know it’s not really the end of this story, but it IS the end of the torment and the shame and the worrying about if I should have ever become a mother in the first place. Because my daughter will be fifteen tomorrow. And she is the coolest person I know. She speaks up even when her voice shakes. She likes Rage Against the Machine and Taylor Swift. She crawls into bed with me when she’s had a bad day, and she tells me all about her hopes and dreams for the future. Every day she is finding herself, and every day she lets me watch. She challenges me at every turn and still makes me cry sometimes, but I no longer wonder if I should have been a mother. I never wonder if I was wrong. I don’t worry about those first few minutes together and how they didn’t go the way we wanted them to, the way we expected them to. I try to tell other mothers who feel like they’re broken those first few days or weeks or even months and years… Just wait. This story ends so good.

no.roots.

no.roots.

Traditions are held up as the gold standard of society. People described as traditional often evoke images of stoic, genuine, pure people. Immune to corruption. Immune to the progression of society. Or at least, the unsavory parts of it.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there is anything wrong with any of this. I come from a long line of traditionalists. Family on all branches of my tree have shaped and molded me through traditions that I’d never trade for anything else in the world.

But there’s something seductive and freeing about the thought of having no roots, isn’t there? Something that says, “You can do whatever you want and no one will care.” It plucks free the guilt like a popcorn kernel stuck in your teeth. If you want to go on a cruise for Christmas, you can do that. If you want to bake cookies and go caroling through your neighborhood, you can do that. No one expects any certain behavior from you if you have no roots.

So I’d be lying if I said I never thought about what it would be like to not have such tethered roots, especially during the holidays. The bustle and busyness of it all, the way we’re expected to do too much with too little, the unrealistic bar to which we’re all held by others or maybe only by ourselves, can get exhausting year after year. Sometimes we need a break. Sometimes we need to say, “Yes, Tradition. We see you. But we’re going to sit this one out so we don’t hurt ourselves irreparably for what’s to come later.”

For some of us, the exhaustion builds over time. We know it’s coming. We know that it’s been years since the last breakdown and we’re due for another. We know that the memories of those who are no longer with us are too heavy this year and are bound to break our thread-bare sanity when they’re dropped, one-by-one, throughout the holiday season.

Other times the exhaustion comes out of nowhere, blindsiding us with its strength, the way it so effortlessly and viciously knocks us off-balance. We have to stop. Catch our breaths. Remember that traditions are important, but they’re not everything. Sometimes, we have to be okay with the knowledge that others are carrying the traditions on in our stead, holding the torch until we can catch up again.

And that’s okay.

Last year, for me, was a no-roots type of holiday season. Everything was wrong. I wished we could go for a cruise and never come back. I wished no one expected anything of me at all. Even this past Thanksgiving, I still felt it. That hole where tradition should be. A hole that wouldn’t be there at all if no one had started the traditions in the first place.

Then yesterday was another Christmas. And some parts of the day were missing major players. Some sections of my day would’ve been made infinitely better by a brother or cousin or nephew. Some parts of my day could’ve been cheerier or lighter. I could’ve been cheerier or lighter. I could’ve gotten more done, baked more cookies, addressed Christmas cards, made more homemade gifts, been more thoughtful and present.

But I didn’t.

Not gonna lie, I wasn’t feeling much like hitting our last stop of the Christmas Day. I was tired. I was missing people. I felt like I hadn’t done enough, hadn’t settled into tradition enough this year. I had decided that maybe this was just going to be my new normal, and that decision covered me in a sadness I thought unshakeable.

And then I got to “the hall.”

The hall for those who aren’t aware, is a VFW Hall where my mom’s side of the family meets for Christmas. It’s tradition, since I was little. I have fond memories of running around the VFW with my cousins, singing Christmas songs and opening presents. Watching my uncle balance chairs and canes and books and anything we could find on his chin. Being able to skate or bike inside. The hall was a Christmas haven for us kids. We could do anything, it seemd.

Eighty of us were there this year. I know, because my aunt makes us count off before we can eat. Tradition. There were so many of my cousins present, cousins I see only once a year. We sang the Hallelujah Chorus, something we’ve done in the past, but had neglected to do last year. At the end of the night we went through old treasures of our grandma’s, on a table marked “Grab-Bag.” Another tradition that had died out, but recently came roaring back. This year we had an entire jar of old buttons and pins on the table. My grandmother’s. We went through them all, my cousins and me–the cousins who used to skate and bike and build with me but who now have kids of their own to do these things in their stead–laughing and remarking about the significance of each of the buttons. Demanding someone take a pin that suited them even if we wanted it too. Running our fingers over the sayings that were our roots. These ideas and sayings that belonged to the head Root-Planter who helped start it all.

I read each one. And I thought, “You know what? Maybe having roots isn’t such a bad thing, after all.”

purple.socks.

purplesocks (2)

 

When your husband–the one who used to willingly get into a cage and fight other grown men for fun, and who, when cut or sliced or otherwise maimed at work usually just tapes up his wound with whatever is closest–calls you at work and says, “I did something stupid. I cut myself and I need you to come get me and take me to the hospital,” you don’t ask questions. You flee your office, barely explaining why to your boss, and go home to see what in the hell kind of stupid thing your husband did that necessitated him calling you in the first place.

In case you’re curious whether or not I actually fled or if I’m just using that term for dramatic effect, I will tell you this: I left a full 24 oz. cup of piping hot coffee on my desk.

Yeah, that’s some serious shit.

On the way home, which, luckily for him, is only about half a mile away, I wondered what I might walk in on at home. I’m not what you’d call steel-nerved when it comes to things like blood or vomit or other bodily fluids. He hadn’t told me where he cut himself, what if he was passed out by the time I got home? What if he couldn’t walk? What if his finger was in a plastic bag full of ice? What kind of stupid thing was he even doing?

There was little time to worry about a lot of these hypotheticals because as soon as I pulled up to the house, he was opening the front door and hobbling out, a towel wrapped tight around his lower leg. I know I have an over-active imagination, but it was a huge relief to immediately know he wasn’t passed out in a pool of his own blood in the living room.

He had no shoes on but there was no time to get him any, because he was bleeding everywhere and let’s be honest, I don’t even think there are clean matching socks anywhere in my house right now, so barefoot seemed like the easier/better option. Who wants to be the wife who tells a eulogy that starts thusly, “It was a real shame that I spent fifteen minutes trying to find two matching socks in the fourteen laundry baskets of clean clothes we keep in the basement. If I hadn’t had to do that, he may not have bled out.”

So off we went, him barefoot, me trying not to look anywhere in the general vicinity of the source of the blood. We were on the road before he told me what had happened, which was this: The remote control airplane he’d been building with our son had turned on while he was, ironically, trying to set the safety for the throttle, and the propeller turned into his calf, slicing it. In case you were wondering, this plane isn’t some tiny little drone thing that can fit in your hand. It’s a plane with a five-foot wingspan.

On the way to the hospital, my loving husband told me details I didn’t need to know. Like how, when it happened, and before he’d really processed that he’d just been cut, it sounded like he’d spilled a cup of water on the floor. And how now there was so much blood all over the living room it looked like a crime scene. And how he maybe thought he had even seen a few chunks of flesh (I think he just threw that detail in to gross me out. He likes to do that). But then he started to feel dizzy and in pain, which probably wasn’t helped by the fact that I was driving in a way that could maybe be described as a sorta cautious maniac.

When we pulled up, I told him to get out and I’d run in to see if they’d let me bring a wheelchair out, instead of making him hobble barefoot up the walk. In the ER lobby, I told the receptionist that my husband had cut himself and I needed a wheelchair. She pointed to where the wheelchairs were and asked if I needed help. After I said I could handle it, she asked what he cut himself on. I panicked, not wanting to go into some long-ass story while he was waiting for me, and just said, “Airplane propeller!” on my way out the door.

This seemed to cause some confusion, but it did end in nurses being called immediately to come inspect his leg.

“So uh, what exactly did this?” was the question of the day. We quickly clarified that the airplane propeller was attached to a remote control plane, and not a real airplane. To which one nurse said, “Ahhh okay. I was wondering how he’d even have a leg left…”

So let that be a lesson to you kids. Clarity is important, but sometimes being vague gets you seen faster in an emergency.

They got him back into a room and I still refused to look directly at the leg because, you know, I’m a giant baby. The doctor saying, “Ooooh no, I need to go get more supplies” was enough to evoke certain images in my brain that I didn’t want to see. Nurses kept coming in and asking questions. One winked at me and said, “Mine’s a big kid, too.” But mostly I think they were just disappointed that an actual airplane hadn’t cut my husband’s leg.

My husband was just embarrassed and kept saying so. But everyone assured him that they’d seen much more embarrassing things in the ER. I reminded him that we’d been in the ER for more embarrassing reasons. But he was just concerned with the state of his toenails and the fact that he wasn’t wearing any socks or shoes, and hadn’t had a shower yet.

Eighteen stitches later, he was all fixed up and ready to go. The nurse who had confided that her husband also loved giant toys came back and laughingly asked (as we were getting ready to leave), “Do you want me to bring you some of the socks with the grippy bottoms so you don’t have to be barefoot?” And he said yes. When she came back, she had giant purple socks, which isn’t a thing I’d ever be able to get my husband to wear, but this nurse had the magic touch, I guess. He put those suckers on, and I walked my maimed husband out to the car. And that is the story of how my husband got his very first pair of purple socks.

 

Convinced.

I am convinced that the universe needs me to be at a certain level of desperation on a daily basis in order for the galaxies to remain harmoniously aligned.

I am convinced that if I hadn’t recently freed myself of self-inflicted guilt about giving up on relationships that I clearly can’t salvage without divine intervention, I wouldn’t have old relationships seeping stealthily back into my days, bleeding guilt right back into the scrubbed-clean parts of my psyche.

I am convinced that if I hadn’t gotten so close to being caught up at work, we wouldn’t have had a surprise audit last week.

I am convinced that there are people in my life I need to spend more time with, and that if I hadn’t had the luxury of spending time with those very people recently, I wouldn’t be feeling so badly about the people I haven’t spent much time with.

I am convinced that if I hadn’t started cleaning my house as soon as I got home today– doing the dishes from last night, washing towels we used over the weekend, and scrubbing the shower that was still fairly clean from its last scrubbing–the sewer would not have backed up an hour ago and ruined a bunch of our laundry.

I am convinced that I’m cursed by a God of hilarity, humility, and all things in between.

 

 

adult.friends.

There should be a dating app for adult friendship. Like Tinder but with no inappropriate exchanging of pics. Finding friends as an adult is hard. Harder than hard. Because even if you find a person you really like and want to hang out with, they probably already have a group of awesome friends to work around. Or their kids are in a totally different developmental age than yours, or maybe they don’t even have kids so their idea of a night out is something like, going out for appetizers at 9pm and not getting home until 4am. And how many times can you do that before your husband divorces you?

I don’t want to find out really. My husband’s pretty cool.

So what if you could design an app with different categories such as:

Stay-At-Home Mom (SAHM) looking for other SAHM’s to commiserate with about how to get home-made slime out of my carpet, hair, the dog’s hair, etc. and who also won’t judge me for drinking wine at 10am.

OR:

Full-time Working Mom (FTWM) looking for other FTWM’s to make up after-work meetings with and really go to Happy Hour or Karaoke Night before heading home. Must enjoy singing in the car, fart jokes, and random movie quotes hidden in everyday conversation.

OR:

FTWM looking for crazy-ass single friend who will remind me that I haven’t always been an uptight bitch and can still hang with women a decade younger than me as long as they go out before midnight. (Disclaimer: I probably cannot actually still hang with women a decade younger than me, so this person needs to be cool with having to cart my drunk ass to her car and carrying up my front stairs and leaving me on my porch).

Or you know, other descriptions that other women can probably come up with that are more relevant to their own lives.

Remember when it was easy? Remember when you would just catch sight of someone across the playground wearing green shoes, and you’d run over to them and hit them with a rock and proclaim, “Green is my favorite color! Wanna be my best friend?” and they were just like, “Um yeah, just don’t throw another rock at me, okay?” and then you were best friends?

I miss those days. Adulting is hard. And sorta lonely. Let’s buck the system and make 2018 the friendliest year ever. Now can one of my readers make some sort of Friendship app?

topsy.turvy.

topsy.turvy.

In two short weeks, I will have been with my husband for fifteen years.

Fifteen years.

That doesn’t even sound right. That’s a lot of freaking years. But, it’s true. We have jammed quite a lot of living into those fifteen years. We’ve had two kids, we’ve mourned together, we’ve fought, we’ve laughed our asses off, we’ve travelled, we’ve created… but I’m not going to talk about any of that sappy crap right now. Right now, I’m going to talk about that phenomenon which seems to happen while you move.

You know that strange thing that happens when you’re moving house, right? When, for some reason, the person for which your heart swells with pride and admiration every single other day in your life, becomes the proxy victim of homicide in all of your short stories while you are trying to pack, rearrange, and shove your entire life into boxes, only for them to spring out accordion-like out of those same boxes in the most frustrating manner imaginable at your new house?

No? That’s just me?

Please tell me it isn’t just me. Well, I’m sure it isn’t. In fact, I’m pretty sure my dearest, darling, smoopsy-poo has similar feelings towards me while all these packing and organizational disasters are going on. After all, I am the world’s least organized person. I will suggest a way to accomplish a goal, and invariably, he will suggest an alternative route. And not just an alternative route, but one in total opposition to mine. Then we will shake our hands at each other in desperate wonder. Because honestly, how the hell can we be so compatible and so completely at odds with each other over the simplest. freaking. tasks?!? It makes my head spin to think of all of the idiotic arguments we have had in the last decade and a half. Seriously, sometimes in the middle of a heated, hand-wringing, head-shaking, foot-stomping argument, there will be this little moment of clarity for both of us, as if someone has rung the Dumbest-Shit-Ever bell, and we will look at each other, at ourselves, and laugh our asses off at how freaking moronic we are being. I can’t even tell you how one of those arguments starts. And I guess, that’s the point.

We have moved now, four times since we were married. We have done extensive remodeling projects. We have given each other various opportunities to bludgeon each other to death with power tools, and we haven’t, yet. So, I guess this whole marriage thing is going to work out, after all.

I’m tired from moving and all of this is rambling nonsense, but I guess what I wanted to say, is don’t choose a partner who is perfect when everything in life is. Turn your whole world upside down, shake the drawers out all over the floor, cut a hole in your ceiling, and push yourself to the point of exhaustion. If you still feel like crawling into the same bed together while all that is going on, you might have a keeper.

Now excuse me, but I have to go have an argument over where this stupid freaking bookshelf is going to go.