Catching up, with some changes

I've hesitated writing for a while. I had a blip where, again, I was thinking, why do I need to have an opinion about everything, why do I have to (for a very limited, or very anonymous audience) share, share, share my glorious (smirk) thoughts and feelings? Who cares? Maybe I should be more private. Not air any dirty laundry. Change privacy settings. Change them back.

But, I feel like I need an outlet.

Hand-writing in a journal seems so...slow...and closed. I guess I am more used to this by now. Here I have a somewhat continuous tale of life over the past several years, while throughout my house, amongst my things, I have scattered notebooks with a few pages written here and there in fits and starts.

So here I am again.

We just got back last Saturday from a nice trip to St. John for Spring Break. Here, I thought I'd worked through my internet addiction, food addiction and lack of motivation to exercise, but it looks like I have not actually conquered these things completely. Still working on them. I think I could say I am a little better than I was before I left.

The big news is I've accepted a job offer from my big client/former employer to come back and work for them full-time. So, now my off-ramp/on-ramp story will have a nice little full circle thing going on—except for the reality that nothing is really ever settled is it? The whole thing has gone so well, so easy, relatively, that I keep thinking there must be some impending disaster I will face.

It's just not supposed to be this easy. (They are even paying me a significant amount more than when I left—and, riding high on the Sandbergian Lean In ethos, I negotiated for a bit more leave time.)

On the other hand, I have been working really hard for the past six years doing the consulting thing, pretty much being there for them whenever they needed me, staying up late to get things done, feeling, sometimes, like all I ever did was work and take care of my kid. I guess I didn't know how hard I was working, or it didn't hit me, or something...because I was doing exactly what I wanted.

I feel so fortunate to have been able to take the time to be with my daughter when she was a baby, toddler and preschooler.

This year, with her in school most the day, though, it's been really really hard for me. My feelings of missing her overtook any motivation I would have had to do much more than work that I was accountable to others for completing (that would be clients). Marathon training, making art, working out like a madwoman, doing major house-cleaning or repair projects—just really could not find it in me to do them. (Though I did some painting and gardening last year...) Something about work-work, though, writing, designing, organizing, managing, I can do.

As I see my time at home come to a close, I kind of lament the things I had in mind to do these years that I did not accomplish. These things that were not just to be with my child and watch her grow (I can say I feel like I did a good job doing activities with her, setting her up in good stead educationally and emotionally, bonding with her). But things like learning to play guitar, learning Portuguese, getting certified as a personal trainer. I feel, sometimes, guilty for "squandering" my time. But then I think more on it (or rationalize, you might say) and realize all that time I was working a lot for my clients, and that kept me pretty busy, and of course, doing what I was supposed to be doing, just being with my kid. And then there was all the reading and writing I did not for clients over these years, from which I feel as though I nearly completed some independent Women's Studies program! So, overall, not too bad.

I'm excited and nervous about what's to come, but I have a couple months til I start. That time, I don't know if it's good or bad. I am more of a let's-jump-in-right-now-and-do-this kind of person. I don't like being in limbo. But, two months goes by quickly. I want to say I am going to make the most of this time, but I probably won't do that either, as I still have my big client as a client and now of course I won't want to do anything to piss them off so will have to remain very much on. Still, it will allow me to take my child to soccer practice (which starts at 5 pm, so working-parent unfriendly) through the rest of her season.  Next year, the practices are later for older kids, I think, and my husband is going to be on P.M. afterschool duty so it won't be my problem anyway!

He's really going to be stepping up to the plate to make this all work and we are fortunate that he has so much tenure at his job and such a flexible schedule that he will be able to fill in the gaps for me. For example, our child will still have that lazy summer experience instead of a whole summer of camp (she'll just do that for the last couple weeks of June and then in July) because after our trip to Montreal the first week of August for his conference, he will be able to take the rest of the month off and hang out with her at home (popping in to the office on Fridays, my teleworking day). So I think that's the perfect balance. Then when school begins, she'll go to Tae Kwon Do after school for lessons and then hang out in their program til he picks her up. My flexible schedule, with a 10 am start time, will let me have relatively relaxed mornings with her and get her to school without having to use a morning care program.

I couldn't even really go back to work if it wasn't for my husband's flexible schedule, the flexible schedule my job is giving me, and my husband's willingness to help. I read an article recently that told of a woman who asked her husband to go in late one day a week to help her out and he waffled. It's not clear whether the situation at his job was really such that it would be detrimental to him to accommodate her schedule or if he was just not being a team player at home. In any case, I recognize how fortunate I am!


 

Newest 'final words' on the blog

I've started and stopped this blog many times, frustratingly proclaiming a last post, but always coming back. But this would definitely be a great post to end with, even though I know it might not be my last. Definitely something I need to work on, and the reason why a few posts I had in the works will never see the light of day.

Life in limbo

So last week, I heard from a colleague at my big client, in  my old department, that he's leaving to go to Sao Paulo and get his MBA—some guys have all the luck! Which meant, for me, an opening to get back in to a full-time, in-office position. I didn't think too, too much of it the first couple days after I'd heard his news, though it did cross my mind. Then, my boss/client lead called me, from her home, while out sick, to tell me they were looking at this opening as an opportunity to bring me back, pending budget and staff need factors. I was pretty stoked. While I'd stated that my ideal would be to go back this fall, at the beginning of the 2013-14 school year (so I could spend "one last summer" with my kid), I'd let them know in no uncertain terms that I'd be willing, at this point, to jump back in whenever they needed me.

After the call, I immediately started figuring out childcare options for after school and summer (both readily available) and sorting out with my husband how we'd manage our schedule, how much they'd need to make in an offer for it to be worth our while, and we were ready. (The boss confirmed they could pay at least what I was making before I'd opted for part-time consulting when my kid was born five years ago, and as an on-ramping mom in a shitty economy, that was good enough for me. She seemed very concerned, too, with not "insulting" me with a lousy offer. Imagine that!)

My heart had been so heavy (for quite a while, weeks...months...) not knowing "my place in the world," having this big empty hole six hours a day when my child's at school, not feeling motivated to do much more than whatever paid work I have (which does not take six hours, and often comes at the wrong time of day, when she is around and I'd rather be focusing on her, but can't)...and then I feel so guilty and lame that I don't make better use of all the free time I have during the days. I was really looking forward to diving into the "back-to-the-office" job, if only as a means to shake me out of this place I'm in.

But, I talked to the boss Friday and she said that they are not going to fill the position right away and that she's just going to send me a contract for another year of the work I've been doing in the mean time (with a "raise" commensurate to the raises other people there got, so that's nice...) She said the soonest they'd have me, or anyone else, in the position is May. Now, I know that if they were going to have someone else, they'd need to put an ad out and start looking, like, now, probably (to find a quality person) and she said they weren't advertising, so....

I don't think they're messing with me, trying to be sneaky, lie about what they're doing. I'm aware of a big budget hit they took recently and I think they are trying to save money by having the position vacant for a while. It's unfortunate because things in the department are already so backlogged, but, it is what it is. The boss tells me they are still very interested in having me back, that "nobody does what you do" and that she's told the president that I want a full-time job and may look elsewhere, with them running the risk of "losing" me...

So, I guess I am in a good place because I really didn't want to, ideally, with regard to my kid, do full-time til after summer and any amount of putting it off while still remaining an option is good, for a while (though they might want me in May, or June, or July...who even knows!) but, at the same time, I am disappointed because I was ready to dive in, like now (as in March, April...) and now I really need to find a new lease on life to shake things up for me because the long days of reading the internet and doing nothing are really, deeply wearing on my soul. I will do it, though...

That funny feeling...again...

So I have that funny stomach-buzzing, tight-chest/heart anxiety feeling again. It's not a physical problem like I am going to have a heart attack or be sick or anything. I know what it is. It's anxiety. I can't pinpoint what caused it (causes it) but I can give some details on a bunch of little things that I think contribute to it...maybe.

I think it's at it's height right now because I need to run or do some exercise to burn off a bit of the frustration I've been feeling—except I can't because I have a client call in about 35 minutes (well, I did, til she postponed it another 15 minutes, and will probably then also be late, which means I could have ran or done some exercise and alleviated myself somewhat of this feeling, but now I can't because I'm on to writing to fill the time til the client call...ugh).

It may have started yesterday when I took my kid to this fancy-pants playground. She'd been there before and then she's been seeing it in a video she has and she kept asking to go. School was out yesterday, it was unseasonably warm, and so, we went. I was glad to take her somewhere special that she wanted to go, but I myself am not super crazy about the place. It's nice that it is 100% handicapped accessible, that's great. But it's, like, a 30-minute drive away and it's kind of in a shi-shi "neighborhood" (you can't really call it a "neighborhood" exactly because it's in a suburb with rolling hills and multi-acre lots, but anyway...) and there is always this weird mix of "the beautiful people"—moms with $700 riding boots, Chanel sunglasses, blown out hair and makeup—and then the nannies. Of course, there are "tourists" like me who go there, too, sometimes...and like this mom of a kid from my kid's old preschool who I saw and was trying to avoid.

So, I was having some fun walking around, following my kid around as she played "Froggy Fairytale Land," pretending she was a frog and leading me on a tour of her homeland, avoiding some bad guys here and there, achieving some little adventure goals along the way. Being with her lights up my heart I love to watch her facial expressions when she talks, love to hear her voice, her ideas.

I have to admit sometime I grow weary of her fantasy play, though, and I have to tell her so, now that she is getting older. She had woken up wanting to play mommy and baby animal, so we were hyenas. Then she wanted to be a pet cat that I was adopting. In the car ride to the playground, she was a dog who was going to marry our real dog. I couldn't take it anymore. It takes a lot of effort for the adult mind to engage in imaginative play like this while at the same time being grounded in the real world, taking care of the adult things that need to be taken care of like making and cleaning up breakfast, responding to emails, and...driving! I told her I feel kind of lonely sometimes and really would rather just talk to her as her real self. I told her I like her, I don't want to talk to a bunch of different pretend animals all day, that I want to talk to her. She seemed a little disappointed, but she "got" it and then I engaged her in a real-life conversation.

Back to the playground. After indulging in some fantasy frog play, she wanted me to play hide-and-seek. I generally don't like to play hide-and-seek at playground (or places other than our own yard) because after all, it's my job to watch my kid and know where she is and it makes me nervous to not know where she is. But, I gave in. The first couple hides I cheated and watched her, doing that thing all parents do where they pretend not to be able to find the kid and then they pop out and laugh and it is all so cute. The final hide, though, I actually lost track of her. It's a sprawling playground with lots of structures. So, I was wandering around looking for her for what felt like quite a while. I was a little panicky, but not extremely so. She's not a baby or toddler anymore. When I was her age, I probably went to the corner playground all by myself, so was it really a big deal that I couldn't find her for a few minutes? But, then I started to get a little panicky and mad. And to boot, the children of that mom from the preschool that I was trying to avoid were following me around. I don't know if they recognized me or my kid. I do know that they know I was looking for my child and they were tailing me, in a way I felt pretty sure was mocking or making fun of me. Maybe I am too sensitive or reading too much into it, but to me, it is rude and disrespectful to follow someone around this way. I never did like this mom (or her friend who was there with here awful kids too). It was so infuriating. I told the kids after several pauses and dirty looks to stop following me and that it was rude what they were doing. The friend of the mom collected them shortly after that, not acknowledging me, and it's not clear whether they noticed me or not. And shortly after that, I found my child. I scolded her mildly, but didn't want to take my frustration out on her. I just told her we weren't going to play hide-and-seek at playgrounds anymore and I told her about the awful children following me and she said "I'll protect you from them!" She is the best.

So, that caused me anxiety. Then, coming home, I had to make sure the child did her homework —which I'd lost cleaning off my desk of the gazillion papers the school sends home. Since I lost her homework, I had her make her own little booklet. All they do is color pictures and identify words with certain letters in them, a task which is far beneath my kid's level anyway, and I always make her do some element of extra work, like actually writing out the sentences in her own hand on lined paper, or something like that. While supervising her homework, I have to field a bunch of emails from an annoying person about issues that are really beyond my purview. But, I have this thing where I try to please and look like I am doing all I can to help. Still, when asked about things I don't really understand or control, it makes me very anxious.

Now, though, today, I am also feeling anxious because I miss her. Days when it is just me and her are even better sometimes than weekends with all three of us because they are like the golden baby days of..."just us"... I love having my husband home, too, and the time for myself that having him also parenting allows, but there is a different dynamic when he's home that's sometimes more chaotic (read, less under my control) than when it's just me and her. Now it's just me, alone, with my work and I miss her face and her words.

Kind of comforting, but not really

I recently finished Comfort, by Ann Hood, that I'd set out to read as maybe a bit of a lesson on how not to be so anxious about my own child—losing her, either through death (kind of an irrational fear for every day) or through just her simply doing what kids do and growing up.

I learned about Hood through an essay she wrote following the Newtown, Connecticut, tragedy in December where young schoolchildren were gunned down and killed.

Hood writes really well. She captures the love of a mother in beautiful detail. I felt like I could really identify with all the things she notices and loves about her daughter. Many of her daughter's quirky qualities reminded me of my own child. I found myself sobbing in the beginning, wondering whether it was really a good idea to read the book, as I was getting really emotional. I thought of my parents. They'd lost a child, just a little baby. She was not even one year old. I don't remember her at all.  I just remember getting swept up by some friendly paramedics as they rushed us...somewhere. Really, that's all I remember. I thought that any shortcomings they had as parents are just totally forgiven because they'd lost a child.

My connection to Hood kind of ended, though, in her coping. I guess that is OK. We all have to find our own ways to cope and of course hers would be different from mine and, of course, I don't really know what mine would be til it would happen. I do know with a good amount of certainty, though, that I wouldn't adopt another child, and I don't already have that other, other child (her older son) that Hood had.  Aside from the other children, Hood seemed to be quite comfortable financially. Writer job. Big house. Ability to take really great vacations. She'd had a nanny before for her children (including the daughter who'd died), too. I think having other children probably makes a big (the biggest) difference and is something I would not have.  This scares me, and so my takeaway is that I just have to be present and savor life as it is and try not to worry. I'm not a huge worrier, compared to other women, based on things I hear from people and things I read, but still, it's easier to tie that concept up in a little concluding sentence than to actually live it...

A great week!

Just wanted to take a minute to note how good I am feeling right now.

I've been doing pretty clean eating this week, sticking to my 30-40 minute, but intense, workouts and I actually lost a few pounds this week.

But that's not all. I had a really good week work-wise and kid-raising wise.

An annual report  I did for a client has gone in draft from the VP to the president and he said: "Haven’t read the Annual Report carefully yet, just flipped through it for “look” and “feel.” The verdict?  I LOVE the look and feel this year. It’s unique and creative and seems to give off a lot of energy – like we’ve really been busy doing something. Can’t wait to get the hard copy and read it more carefully."

The VP said: “I agree it's an amazing look. And I think the print version that [me] envisioned will be very unique and very classy. So glad you like it. [Me] did a great job.”

I suck up praise like a sponge and live for it. (LOL? Need to read and re-read my last post? Or maybe that is just how I am going to be...) So I was really glad to get these comments. And I did all this work (well, not all of it, the design ideas have been several weeks coming, but the crunch work) at the end of this week amidst shortened school days because of snow. And concurrently with my biweekly newsletter writing and publishing for this client.

Meanwhile, my kid had many happy times and fun activities as I juggled snow play amidst my consulting work. She is so happy, healthy and smart and I wake up regularly to her saying "Love you!" I don’t pat myself on the back often (I don’t think) but I’m going to say it: I rocked this week!

(And I'm writing it so I can look back and remember...)

In a mood

Posted this on Facebook yesterday—made it myself : ) Yesterday I actually also made myself that kind of smoothie, departing from the usual, based on stuff I've been reading in the Conscious Cleanse book (I am taking the book with a grain of salt, as a whole, but there are some useful points). I felt amazing after drinking it, for real. I got a flash of sun and air when I took out the trash, too, and was immediately compelled to go for a run, when minutes before I'd been kind of lumbering around expecting to do yoga in the basement. It was powerful.

(Hold on, being interrupted by kid now who wants to show me a book she just made and feel like I do actually have to stop what I am doing and pay attention. This is my life...)

Anyway, the day yesterday had its ups and downs, but overall was OK. I did my run, I ate healthy the whole day. I took my kid to the library and the nature center (which included a mini-hike in the woods). I made a perfectly lovely and healthy meal for my family—ginger-garlic wild salmon and veggies with brown rice. Read lots of stories to my kid and fell right to sleep with her.

Then, I was supposed to wake up and go spend some time with my husband. But I just didn't want to get up. We were supposed to have sex. It's been a while—over a week. He's been sick. But last night I was just flooded with such exhaustion, I didn't really know why. I tried to figure out why, in addition to being so physically tired I felt awkward and weird about having sex (I sometimes feel this way other times) and gravitated toward the fact that so many women and raped, bullied, abused—in the U.S as well as all over the world. And that in television, movies, even music, sex is portrayed as something I can't really say I like. Lots of domination, violence, women made to look very typecast either as just pretty and empty or sexy and dangerous, I can't pinpoint it, but it goes on and on (my husband, I think, thinks I am crazy, as I tried to explain this to him yesterday and he thinks maybe I consume too much media—and he may be right, but his focus was on the serious rape media, not the cheesy mainstream media that might actually be the problem).

(Hold on—just ran outside twice. The first time to ask my husband why he was taking the crappy car on his outing today when he could be taking the nice car, with heat and a decent stereo—me and the kid weren't going anywhere this morning. Whatever. Then, after coming back inside and noticing he left his credit card on the table, I ran back outside AGAIN, I ran all the way down the block in the street screaming at him, hoping he would notice so he would have his card. If we were normal people who BOTH had cell phones, I could just call him up—I guess that's another story. But, yeah, this is my life...)

So I woke up this morning generally OK. I woke up in bed with my kid. I started in the bed I share with my husband, but I went to bed before him (remember, I was exhausted) but my kid woke up sometime around an hour after I'd drifted to sleep (and it was a really, nice relaxing sleep I'd been in) to pee and I don't know, when she wakes up to pee, I guess I am programmed from when she woke as a baby to go lay down in her room with her, so I did. So we woke up together and we cuddled and she took me through the multiple "I love you mommys" and "You're the best mom evers" and I returned her admiration, sincerely, looking at her beautiful, beautiful face with its big green yellow eyes (almost the same as mine, but darker), marred only by one slightly pink eye from a little cold. She tells me she "just wishes we could get a cat now" (we cannot, my husband is allergic, she will have to wait til she is on her own)..."I wish I could make a big dinosaur" and she means like a larger-than-human-size structure she can go in, replacing her previous desire for a large, walk-in, "hippo robot" she wanted to make before, this new idea prompted by one of the books we read last night.

(Hold on another interruption..."I wish I had glitter..." said in a long, wistful whine...to which I reply, "No. I am not getting you anything or doing anything for you now. I am writing and having my coffee, then doing my exercises and making my breakfast and then, only then, will I do things with you, get things for you or play with you. You have a house full of toys. Go play with your dollhouse, build with your legos, play with your tiles, your k'nex...anything. I am not getting you anything right now... She had now moved on to playing with some tangrams blocks repeating 'Theo, Theo, pumpkin Leo' again and again, then asks me if I like what she is building...)

As I was saying, I woke up generally OK. Most always happy cuddling with my child and seeing her beauty, being grateful for her health, my health, the warm house. But there is that pink eye of hers. I will have to put drops in it from the last time she had it back in November. It's always a struggle. Who likes having something put in their eye? I like doing it even less than she likes getting it, though. And the struggle marks the bad turn for the day.

As I get up to get the medicine and face the day, and the tasks ahead—make breakfast, hope she will eat it, continue to hear and try to follow a barrage of demands for play and supplies, maybe get some client work done, while my husband lumbers around, hopefully playing with her a little bit, as he often nicely does, but leaving messes and getting in the way, too...and I just become overwhelmed with the sense that I don't really get to have a lot of fun or freedom in my life. I bitch and moan. I slip into a really bad mood really quickly.

But now, of course, typing this, I feel like an ass. "I don't get to have a lot of fun or freedom...? Really?" Asshole! Seriously.

(Mommy! I thought we were going to play dress-up dolls!—I am not making this up...)

Seriously, though? This is what I tell myself: "Bitch, you have a motherfucking DAY OFF. And every day is kind of a day off for you right now since you work in yoga pants and each nachos at all hours of the day (that latter bit is changing) watching Girls (or Cosmos, as your intellectual level fluctuates). Anyway, you have a day off today because your big client is off and so they won't be emailing you with stuff. You basically can do what you want all day everyday and so if, intermittently, you have to answer your child's request or pick up after your husband and then suck his cock at night, you better just do it and like it. You know, some women have to walk five miles dodging militant rapists just to get murky water for their starving children to drink? So, STFU."

OK, going to play dress-up dolls now. Hopefully I will get that workout in shortly after. I will, too, be interested to see my husband's reaction when he comes home from his errand and I tell him (and child corroborates) how I ran down the street waving his credit card and screaming.

Identifying feelings

Part of my meditation and mindfulness training involves recognizing a feeling you may be having and letting yourself feel it. I am doing that, but the feeling I have right now is so intense, I'm compelled to record and try to analyze it, at least just a bit.

I just dropped my kid off at school. I have the "nice car" today, so I should feel a little happier. I suppose I do, but I still feel a strong sense of anxiety. I feel a tightening in my chest and a seed of sadness right above my belly. I have this awful sense of loss I have most days when I drop my child off at school. I've cuddled her upon waking, talked to her, cuddled her some more. All this cuddling might sound weird, but I assure you, it's not, just basic mom cuddling, a hug, a squeeze. But I notice things. I smell her hair, my face feels the softness of it. I am very aware of the feel of her small, soft-skinned, so new hand in mine. This hand that draws so much, plays so much. Always with marker inks on them.

I am so scared of moving on. I am so scared of the days where I drop her off then have to rush off to an office, not seeing her at 1:20 or 3:50 (still so long), but maybe by 6:30. I know that is ridiculous. I know it would probably be better for me to rush off to an office than sit around here all day doing just little bits of work amidst my emptiness. I know it would be good to fill my day with someone else's bullshit and get paid for it. I have to let go of the fear. I'm afraid of work becoming untenable. Taking over. I want to post this article about the need for flexible work schedules, on Facebook, but I am afraid of future employers seeing it and seeing me as a less than dedicated worker—even though I do think the job I potentially have lined up (several months away) will probably be fairly flexible.

Let's see. What else am I afraid of? I am afraid of doing the workout I know I have to do. I am afraid of feeling the pain. Afraid of facing that I am not what I once was, while being nagged by the idea that I could be what I once was, and better, if I only pushed myself. This one's easier—just do it, as they say. Maybe the exertion will push out the anxiety—the endorphins Jackie Warner will talk about at the end of it. Then I go get my haircut. Then I volunteer at the school. I will just take it one step at a time.

Fucking off, just one more day

So yesterday and today I was a total lazy fucking loser. I ate a lot for pleasure and watched lots of TV. I've been doing a Girls marathon. After seeing (being reminded of...I'd heard of her before, certainly) Lena Dunham on the Golden Globes and thinking, ugh, she is so awful, what is the appeal?, and then finding out I could get season one on Amazon instant, I bit. Thing is, I actually like the show. I feel like since I am so old, so removed from these people, I don't really have to relate to them, I can just be entertained. I do actually like some of the characters (not so much the Lena Dunham character, she just seems so desperate and wrong). It feels not wholesome to watch it, somehow, maybe it is because the characters themselves don't seem particularly healthy, and I will say, I felt better when I was watching Cosmos.

Anyway, I can only do this one more day (today) before I worry about myself. I worked a lot last week and had this hard thing with the husband this weekend and so I feel like it's OK if I fuck off a day or two, but yeah, halfway through day two I start to worry. Why isn't my boss/client emailing me with shit to do? (So I email her.) Am I ever going to be able to go back to work full-time in an office and survive after all this lazy hanging around at home? (Even when I log a lot of hours, I am still at home.) Will I ever get over missing my daughter? Will I ever get my act together and lose those last 20 pounds?

Well, I have to. I want to be one of those really fit older women. And I have to get my act together on the other stuff. And I will. Tomorrow. (I will actually work out today, though, even if it is just a walk in the woods I've still got that.)

Also, I love the Grumpy Cat. It exemplifies how I feel about many things. Yes, I am overall a happy person, but that cat says it straight, things I can't say.

Sorting out conflict

All day long I have to look out the window at this car. The 17-year-old car that I consider "my husband's." The car with the ceiling cloth torn down with the foamy black bits of chemically-infested whatever crumbling. The car, that, though I consider my husband's, I am the only one who ever cleans and organizes. I have a certain admiration for this car. It's still running after all these years. He drove me places in it when we were dating. We drove to New Jersey together, to the beach. We drove to New York City together. It should mean something nice. It should be a happy thing to see. Right now, though, it's a sign of meanness, a trick, a hard lesson someone wants to teach someone they're mad at. It hurts to see the car.

I'm not a big airing-your-dirty-laundry kind of person, but I'm writing about  a recent conflict to try to make myself move on, feel better...somehow sort it out for myself. Laying out the details of the most recent incidents will create something that may sound petty and ridiculous, but I am going to do it anyway.

I think my husband is controlling, dominating and manipulative—though not a bad guy. I know that sounds very funny. There are all kinds of statistics showing overall what total dicks men are to women. I've been hit by my dad and hit by an ex-husband. So, that fact that my husband tends to get what he wants and does what he wants and I end up feeling like what I want is just really not that important, well, intellectually I understand it's just not something to end an marriage (with a child) over, or get too worked up about. Once in a while, though, I do get worked up. I act out. I can't take one more instance of feeling like I don't matter that much and I blow. Then I feel bad, I apologize, saying "Well, there was a lot of truth to what I said about you controlling everything and making me feel like I don't matter, but I shouldn't have called you those names and yelled at you like that..." and things just move on...and don't really change.

I had plans to go to a "girls night out" (GNO) on Saturday. Meanwhile, we also caught wind and got the idea of a beer I had liked being on tap at the local Whole Foods that has taps and a grill and I had the craving and idea that this beer would go really great with a sandwich they serve, and couldn't we go there for lunch? He agreed and acknowledged, well, we don't do what you want or your ideas that much, sure, let's go. But then he got wind of a beer he wanted that would be tapped later, once a certain other one (not the one I wanted) was kicked. So, he wanted to wait til the beer guy posted on Facebook that the other beer was tapped too. I was a little thrown because I didn't want to go too late and have the nice lunch be right on top of the GNO dinner (which was early).

Now, I'm not super big on the GNOs anyway. I like the people well enough, but we're not super close. Sometimes I even feel a little awkward, but I like to go out in this way now and then because I feel like it's a normal and healthy thing to do. Even if I'd rather just stay home with my family because it's easier and I like them, I push myself to do these GNOs. I have to say my husband doesn't really encourage me to do them, either, while he doesn't explicitly discourage them, he never says "Oh, yeah, go out and have a great time! You deserve some fun!" Never would say that. He'd rather I didn't do anything. He doesn't feel like he "needs" friends outside our relationship, but he goes out now and then, I think for the same reasons I try to. I don't think he really feels its as important to psychological health as I do, though. And I don't really feel like the dynamic of our relationship holds him back the way I feel held back.

Anyway, he just insisted we wait and wait and wait for his beer to come up. I decided to bail on the GNO. I really wanted my beer and sandwich combo and felt like just hanging out with my family would be fun, too. But we waited and waited and waited til finally we couldn't wait anymore and it became an early dinner instead of lunch—and the beer I wanted was no longer on tap. I got screwed. He was only sorry because I bitched and moaned and he made a bunch of excuses of how it wasn't his fault, blah blah blah. If we could have just gone at a normal time like we were supposed to and he didn't put his desires over mine, I would have gotten what I liked (which he had previously acknowledged would have been special and rare...) So I was miffed. But we carried on.

Another piece of the conflict was that had I gone on the GNO, he'd brought up wanted to go to this Whole Foods maybe just with our daughter. I didn't want him to do this. I didn't want him to take the crappier car on the highway with her not in her best carseat and I didn't want him to be minding her and driving even having had just one drink because the beer can be strong and I believe he is a less adept caregiver and driver than I am sober or slightly buzzed. I've always been "the primary" with our daughter. I haven't minded, really. I love her to the extreme. I loved breastfeeding her, sleeping with her (still do when I can). I loved being home with her. There is a whole now in my life I am trying to fill with her in school all day. Still, I think there are many ways he could have contribute that he chooses not to. I am 99 percent of the time the disciplinarian. I am the one who registered her for school. Who makes sure the homework gets done. Who makes her special meals when she won't eat what we're eating. I am the gift shopper. I am the doctor appointment maker. I am the one who knows where the lost toys are. These, of course, are natural things that might fall to the stay-at-home or work-at-home mother, but as the child gets older, someone who wanted to do more to help could take it upon themselves to do it. He's not all bad, just not as "on" as I am to the point where I'm not super comfortable with him going lots of places with her. (OK, as I type this, I am realizing I am sounding maybe like the controlling one, so that's maybe something I need to explore...)

I wanted to take the nice car to the GNO so I could feel more special. It's a newer car and it makes me feel nice to drive it. The nice car kind of has defaulted to "mine." I know it's both of our cars, but he usually takes the crappy one, since he only drives a couple miles to the train station each morning. Also, he chooses to take the crappy one when he goes out to rock shows in the city because he thinks it's so much smaller than the nice one and so much easier to park. He even insists on taking the smaller, crappy car when we go on dates to the city—again, so much easier to park, allegedly. So he never seems to mind driving this crappy car...until I express a strong desire to drive it, or he comes upon a way to make it some kid of bargaining chip.

We've argued about the car before. He knows that I love the car and feel special driving it. (By the way, it's not some super luxury car, it's a 2006 RAV-4, but compared to the other car, it's just lovely.)

So, I'd bailed on this week's GNO, I'd missed the beer and sandwich combo that I wanted, and I get an email about the next GNO so mention that to my husband. I tell him I'd really feel better if he just stayed home with our daughter or only went somewhere close by with her in the crappy car. I wouldn't be able to relax and have fun worrying about them. He'd previously said I was weird and had irrational fears about this and I told him that he is weird in his own way and I have to accept it, I do accept it and so he was to accept little ways I am weird too. But he pushed back and pushed back and pushed back.

He wanted to be able to do what he wanted to do. He doesn't see that he's not as good and on-the-ball taking care of her as I am. When I try to explain to him, he just thinks he's right. I tell him that it's part his way, part that I'm not comfortable with them driving the rickety, old car with the second-rate car seat that far. I'd be OK with it just going a couple miles. I know that scientifically those opinions may not be valid, but its how I feel and I feel like I ask for so little, he should accept and respect it. He was fairly obstinate, though. We dropped it. He took a shower. I thought about it. I'd swallow my pride and not be so materialistic and I'd just drive the crappy car to the next GNO—a dinner party at the million-dollar home of one of them. I'd previously thought I'd feel bad, showing up in the jalopy, but then thought, who would actually see me in the car? And, I care more about my kid's safety than my looking cool in a cool(er) car. So I told him, you know what, I'll just take the crappy car to the GNO. But he cut me off and said, no, no, you can take the nice car on your night out, but I'm going to take it every day to work.

What?!? He then reiterated to me all the concerns I'd laid out for him about the crappy car on the highway with my small child but he spoke of them with regard to his safety having to make a left turn coming out the train station in the dark. He claimed this new insistence on him taking the nice car to work every day was for his safety. He claimed he'd worried about it now and then before, but it was my concerns now that really hit him. I do not believe him. I think he is using the nice car, the fact that it is something that makes me feel special and "taking it away from me" as a punishment. He actually said, that he paid for most of it and it was his car and he'd take it if he wanted. I just saw it as a hugely un-gallant power play. A way to hurt me. He knows the car means a lot to me. But what means more, and hurts more, is him being mean and manipulative.

When I really think about it, I can let go of the car. When I really think about it, I understand that he might want to drive the "nice" car sometimes. In fact, I have actually felt sorry for him for having to drive the crappy car. But for him to use it this way just really hurt. If he would have asked, if he would have asked to take the nice car at another time—not immediately after I laid out issues about the car. I feel like he's using it to punish me. I feel like he's trying to teach me I better not bring up any concerns, I better just shut up and let him do what he wants or else he'll take away something I like.

Our fight escalated. I screamed so much my chest hurt. I still feel anxiety and stress the day later, even though on the surface we "made up." I screamed again and again that it wasn't about the car but about the manipulation and the domination. He complained that I didn't care about him and he was just a paycheck. Later, I explained to him that if he is just a paycheck it's because that's what he's set himself up to be. When asked to help around the house (I usually have to ask specifically, he won't just do) it's often with a mild gripiness or he does a poor job. I feel he is a bare minimum around the home kind of person. He answers always with a spotlight on the fact that I "only work part time from home"—something I chose to do that I thought was best for our kid.

One of the most hurtful things—or I should say hurtful themes—is the lack of valuing of my staying home. He brings it up whenever he can. He says he'll do more around the house when I go back to work full time. He makes me feel devalued. It's as simple as that. He says I make him feel devalued too because I complain he's not ambitious enough and doesn't do enough around the house.

I feel like my "attacks" on him are only ever in response to his either making me feel devalued or not doing enough—so really, they are counter-attacks. I am not dumb enough to miss the bad cycle here, though, and not see that is is me who has to change the dynamic. So I always do. I always apologize and try to be nice after. He accepts, probably just glad he's off the hook and can have the opportunity to try and place nice for a little while, but eventually slide back into his domineering ways, and we move on.

I guess the only progress is me becoming more mindful of the fact that I am the one who has to change. I let go of my attachment to that car. I walked the child to school, I walked to my store errands. We'll walk home from school and walk to and from tae kwon do, probably. I could drive the crappy car if I needed to, but that might make me feel worse, I don't know. At least all this walking could be a boon to my health. That's what I try to do, look on the bright side. He says that when spring comes and it's lighter out later, he'll take the crappy car again because he won't feel unsafe making those left turns in the light. I think, he's trying to lend some validity to his "safety" scheme. Or, maybe it's legit. I don't know. I do know I am left feeling uncared for and manipulated and bullied into not voicing concerns or grievances. But, that is fine. It's better that I deal with them internally anyway, because after all, I can only change myself.


We'd gone hiking earlier that day. I was happy about it. We had a nice, low key time as a family. I posted pretty photos of it on Facebook. My happy family. But by the time I posted, there was already the pain of our fight. I tried to choose a good quote to keep it just this side of being phony. Some indication that my life is not so picture-perfect, but with the hope that I will be OK, that we will be OK. So I chose this, from John Muir: Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts...

New year, new me?

It's been a looong time since I've blogged. I kind of gave up on the arguing over parenting articles vibe and went in search of a new identity. It's been a long time coming. Longer, certainly than the September to January lull of the blog. Now, as the mother of a school-age child, now 40, everything looks different. I'm forced to confront getting old and my life maybe not becoming much of anything more than what it is and being OK with that. Some ways I'm dealing with that is grooving on the cosmos and science, studying Buddhism and mindfulness and trying to get fit again, but in new ways. So if I continue blogging, I anticipate the posts will fall into those areas.

I recently came across this article on a study showing that people rarely imagine correctly what their future selves will be like. Basically, we can look back and retell in good detail how much we've changed over the past ten years, but when asked how we expect to change in the next ten years, we don't expect to much.

In the last ten years, I've gotten married and had a child, which changed me a lot from what I saw was a kind of rambly hedonistic comfort seeker to someone striving for a purpose, if only to raise a happy, healthy child and get by in life. Gosh, typing that out, it doesn't sound like I have a purpose, exactly, now, either, except the child raising part. What a lame mess I am!

And yet, I've come to a place where I can look upon myself with a degree of compassion. I am, after all, OK. I like myself, even knowing I should lose 20 pounds, don't have enough money saved for retirement, will probably just have a middling, but pleasant and well-paying job the rest of my life (if I am lucky) and even though I am not always the best mom and wife. Why do I like myself? I guess the alternative is too sad-sack and I've at least learned at this point in my life that I can't approach others with compassion unless I am compassionate with myself.

Holiday to a deserted island

I've decided. I'm taking a holiday to a deserted island. On this island I will meditate, read books, get to know my husband and kid better and just take a break from all the bullshit. So yeah, husband and kid, not truly a deserted island, and of course, I may see friends and neighbors and such, but the idea is I am staying off Facebook and Twitter for the month of July, and starting a little early, today.

This will be a challenge. Eschewing Facebook, I won't be able to post about my many adventures, how I am taking my kid to see Brave tomorrow, how we're going to the beach, how we're going to see fireworks and it will be my kid's first time. But, I also won't get in frustrating discussions about breastfeeding vs formula, the Affordable Care Act, or having to scroll and scroll and scroll through countless inane pictures of cats and ugly babies saying trite things with poor grammar. I'll miss others' posts about timely news items, the awful state of the Supreme Court, banking systems all over the world, corrupt churches and child molesters. Since I get a lot of tips on news items from my Twitter feed, I'm staying off there, too.

I worry about not being informed, but this is only for a month (for starters) and it's summer. I'm supposed to be sipping cold drinks, vegging out poolside and enjoying long, lazy days with my family, right? Right?

I will, of course, still have to work for my clients. Gotta pay to keep the AC running, after all. But, this is a much-needed break to heal my hamster wheel brain and cleanse my sullied heart. I feel tainted by my angry, contentious thoughts when arguing points with friends, even if we keep it civil (some can't even do that). I feel like a hypocrite reading Pema Chödrön and the Dalai Lama and then pounding out points meant to take someone else's view down.

Often I listen with half an ear to a story my husband is telling me about his day or something he read or heard, while I read the latest "mommy wars" article, or learn of yet another non-fiction book I must read, or form my latest counter argument in some online debate. The other day while running our local trail, I saw a couple in their 60s strolling and it hit me—someday it's going to be just me and him again and so I better keep in touch with him. We share a physical space, responsibilities, bills, sex, but honestly, my consciousness is more often keyed into to drivel on the internet. How ridiculous is that? My focus should definitely be on my life partner who I am supposed to be in love with!

And, of course, I won't even start on how I need to pay more attention to my child because that is so obvious.

So, if you'll excuse me, my plane is now boarding!

Challenge: Play more and find a way to make it edifying

I'm having mothering problems. My kid wants me to play a lot more than usual lately. (Maybe it's that preschool is out and instead of four days, she's just going to camp just two days—and of course, she's become used to being with us all day long now, and mostly engaged, after having been on vacation all together as a family for two weeks.) I don't really like playing, though. I feel sad about not liking playing.

One of the big problems I have with it is illustrated in the photo above—kids this age are disorderly. I am an order fiend (to my own standard, I'm sure some people "worse" than me would come into my space and be appalled—it's all a matter of degree). It is extremely difficult for me to find my place in the midst of this disorder. To her, I think, it somehow all makes sense. She's playing classroom. The Duplos in the middle are the schoolbus. The ones on the left are (were?) the classroom. The foam bits on the right are the playground. Presently, in the picture, the animals are hiding the paint they spilled with those paper towels. The paint is marker she drew with on the yoga mat.

Why it is so hard for me to pick a role in this story line and act it out with one of the figurines? That's all I'd have to do, right? My mom used to do it, I think. And yet, I have so much trouble with it. My kid tends to tell me that something I do when I try to do it playing isn't quite right and I (rather immaturely, I admit) get frustrated. I mean, I'd rather be reading or something, and I feel like I am doing something for her by playing and so she should be grateful for my play rather than critiquing it. Then again, if I am doing it for her, why shouldn't she have it her way?

I think I would actually enjoy playing—or doing art or crafts—in such a way that I am teacher. But, my kid doesn't really let me play that role. She kind of likes to run the show. And her show doesn't always (doesn't usually) make sense to me. She makes up words sometimes. Has arrangements I don't quite get. Sometimes she'll come up with something really cool and brilliant, though. But usually, my regimented adult mind can't get past the disorder.

In searching out ideas to help me, I mostly found academic/scientific information saying it wasn't necessary (or necessarily even good) for a child's development to have an adult play with them. But I'm not only concerned with my child's intellectual development (which I think is on track). I am concerned with our relationship.

I have to somehow overcome this. I feel like I should play with her, at least sometimes, and probably more than I do. I want to instill in her a sense that she is worthy, fun, a valuable and interesting person that people should want to engage with and so I don't want to reject her by not playing with her. And, practically speaking, she is an only child, so she has real needs for interaction. We do playdates, but it's just not feasible to do them every single day. I may crave alone time as a world-weary adult, but she is fresh and new and has much to share.

This is where getting high would come in handy—ha ha! I would be able to play so much better if I was high. Not high, I just see messes that I will eventually have to help clean up and my mind is pulled to real life, real issues I want to sort out by reading or writing. But, I digress. I need to expand my consciousness sans chemical aid and make this work. For me as much as for her. It could be a great opportunity to release myself from some of my neuroses. I mean, why this need for order? Have I always been this way? I don't remember being so touched by this need throughout my whole life.

I feel like I used to be so much a better mother to a baby than I am to a kid. Babies you just hold, feed, and you still have your brain to yourself. A kid kind of takes over your brain, if you give it half the attention it needs, or at best splits your consciousness in two somehow. No wonder I feel so nutty a lot of the time!

I have to face this challenge, though. I have to somehow find a way to play with her, ignore the messes and tap into how the make-believe storylines and dialogues might be able to teach me things. And she's been patiently waiting for me to join her by that crazy block pile, so, here I go...