Spoiled Only Child

Jesus loves me

Christmas! I think I finally figured out what this holiday is all about. (No, I'm not going to talk about Jesus' birthday.) It's about being so busy and crazed and stressed that, when it's finally over, regular life feels like a vacation. Oh, I am so glad it's over. The holiday was lovely and just what it was supposed to be. Our family was together and cheerful, the food was abundant and delicious, everyone gave and received lovely and thoughtful presents, Mia was elated, photos were taken. But my god were we tired.

In the days leading up, there were just so many dishes and errands and presents to wrap and times I couldn't find the scissors and times Mr. SOC and I had to wait impatiently for the tape dispenser to become available so we could just finish wrapping the goddamned presents and go to bed, for Christ's sake. There was Mr. SOC's Christmas eve migraine. And then there was my crazy brain, which became hyper-focused on the to-do list to the point where it felt like there was a cyclone in my head. And then there was the 5 a.m. telephone call on Christmas morning from the mother-in-law (don't ask), and of course neither of us could get back to sleep. Then there was the epic journey to Pennsylvania with Mia on Christmas evening, involving a plane that arrived at its destination three hours late and was delayed in every way possible. We waited (hours) to get on, then we waited to take off, then we waited to land--circling and circling and circling for eternity until I began to believe we were trapped in some kind of vortex and were never going to see the earth again. Somewhere in there Mia and I had Christmas dinner at the airport Popeye's. We split the chicken tenders meal. Eight packets of ketchup were involved.

But, but, but...I am not complaining. Really, I'm not. Because I made it through to this place of sweet, sweet relief. I have arrived in a land with free beer and no dishes to do. A place where Mia is an angel who plays happily all day, charms everyone she meets and asks absolutely nothing of me. A place I could not possibly have appreciated this much without all the stress of the past week. This evening, I hung out in the hot tub with Mia and then went to see Avatar in blissful solitude, a bottle of beer tucked in my jacket pocket to sip in the darkness. I am so grateful to have made it to the other side of Christmas. Thank you, baby Jesus.

Regrouping

So, 35, it's not going well so far. Yesterday was my birthday, a day of slate gray skies, unrelenting rain and an ominous feeling of perpetual evening. I was tired from a night of poor sleep. Yes, of course, I couldn't sleep. The night before Thanksgiving, the night before my birthday, any day that I would really like to have fun on, the sleep gremlin comes and smacks me down, teaches me a lesson about anticipation and the silliness of our mortal plans. I had the day off from work, and I had that feeling of being uncomfortable, not sure what to do with myself, wondering what better thing I might have been doing. Food didn't taste good. The sore throat lingered, edging closer and closer to the cold. My parents had arrived in town to find a broken heater in their condo, the very heater that they spent their entire last visit (and their savings account) having fixed. In the afternoon, I was driving up an exit ramp and had to slam on the brakes as someone was coming down it in the wrong direction. We just avoided a head-on collision. And then my parents got a call. Their brother in law had died suddenly. Heart attack. Fell right out of his deer stand in the woods, dead.

I went to bed unsure if or when they were leaving for the funeral, cutting short this long-anticipated visit with Mia and forcing us to cancel our child-free weekend in Charleston. We had already paid a one-night deposit on our hotel, and it seemed unlikely that we would get it back. Plus, I have six days off from work, and instead of spending them visiting with my parents and drinking martinis in Charleston, it appeared that I would spend it at home with a cold and a panicky feeling in my chest. And can you guess what happened when I tried to go to sleep last night? I spent much of the night fighting off panic. Something about that day came together to make me feel absolutely terrified. It felt like a message from the universe that, no, life is not fun. Life is unforeseen tragedies and dashed expectations. It is a hopeless game of trying to veer out of the way of disaster. A game that, in the end, we all lose. My usual meditation couldn't calm my sweating body. I had been so tired all day, and yet sleep would not come. And then the visions of another exhausted day reared up, adding to the misery.

Now here I am. The sun is shining again and the panic has receded. This morning, it was officially decided that my parents are leaving, and we canceled our Charleston reservations for a $50 fee. Yes, I'm still a bit sad about the week I had planned. But at least nothing is up in the air. That feels immensely better. And, actually, I am relieved not to have to go on a romantic getaway with a cold and a killer case of insomnia. I think I'll take this time to regroup, get my worldview back in order. Lately, it feels like there is so much fear in me. A fear that, until recently, I never even knew existed. And I am fighting it, fearing the fear, rather than simply looking at it with an open heart. No, nothing turns out how we plan, everything is out of our control, death can snatch us at any moment. But in between all that, there is joy. There is love and beauty and laughter. There are mountaintops and sparkling lakes and crisp fall afternoons at the park with an ebullient 4-year-old. All of it together, it is life, and I want to open myself to it all. Because trying to fight off the bad parts? That is one battle I am sure to lose.

You don't have to read this. Really.

I have nothing to say. But I have to write something or I might fade away altogether. Already I am just a grayish spot sitting in front of a computer screen, empty of ideas or inspiration. I am not depressed, exactly, just blah. I can't think of anything at all interesting to write about or talk about or, really, even to think about. OK, racking my brain ... I'm going to make a spinach omelet for dinner tonight. Must stop by the store for eggs, cheese and a nice baguette. Oh, and I think we're out of beer. Should really get to the grocery store before the 5 p.m. rush. But I probably won't. Yep, that was about all that was rattling around in there. 

Oh, here's something. I have a sore throat. It's really getting on my nerves. I've had it for about two weeks, and it is toying with me. It gets worse and I am sure I'm about to be smacked with a cold. Then it gets better again. Yesterday, it got worse again, leaving me sure that I would be sick for my birthday (tomorrow?! WTF??) and for our trip to Charleston on Friday. But nothing yet. Just sitting here with a sore throat and a headache, waiting for the hammer to fall. Fascinating, huh?

After today, I have six days off from work. And today I need to accomplish something that requires about two hours work. After that, I can leave and start my vacation. I arrived at the office at 9:20 a.m. It is now 2:25 p.m., and I have done about 15 minutes worth of that work. What in holy fuck am I doing? Reading a bunch of boring crap on the internet, that's what. Eating a Subway sandwich at my desk. Fading, fading to a tiny speck. Maybe I will just float away into the atmosphere, never to be heard from again. Would be easier than trying to write this post.

These things, I want to remember

I have been really angry with my mother-in-law. Really, really angry. I won't go into the reasons here, but trust me when I say that, if you are a sane and rational person with some sense of fair-play, you would be angry too. But there are a few things I need to remember. For days, my head has been so clouded by my rage that I have been unable to see them. But right now, there is a small break in the clouds, just the smallest hint of sunshine, and I don't want to forget these thoughts that have broken through.

1. My anger gives her power. The more I let it take me over, the more she screws up my life. The only person that hurts is me.
2. My husband is a good person, who is trying his best in a really terrible situation, and my anger is only making things harder for him. He has a right to grieve for his father, without that grief being all mixed up in bitter feelings created by me.
3. Good things come to those who wait. It is a cliche, but I need to trust that things will be made right in the fullness of time. No, they are not right now. But that is how life works. We trust that we can survive each trial and, in time, we learn that it has made us stronger.
4. I have made my point, and I can let it rest now. I tend to worry that my husband doesn't understand how strongly I feel about this, that he will let his instincts to please his mother take over, that he loves her more than he loves me and our daughter and the values that we hold. But he has made it clear to me where his heart lies, and that he understands my feelings, and I need to let it rest. I need to trust him.

I want to end this list with some kind sentiment aimed at my mother-in-law, but I am just not there yet. Maybe I can work toward recognizing her humanity, despite her flaws. Maybe I can remember my belief that this is not under our control, that we are living out the story that has been written for us, and that no matter how much we hate it and rail against it, it is still our story. I will try to remember.

Death, etc.

Whoosh! That was the sound of me returning from another dimension. Things have been out-of-control crazy over here. On Tuesday night, my father-in-law died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 90 years old, and had lived an active and independent life until the very last day, but still... Losing a parent is hard. Really hard. And it's even harder when the remaining parent is also 90 years old and difficult, and they had absolutely no plans for their deaths, and they have no money and every bit of the responsibility falls on you. So Mr. SOC has had a tough go of it. And in addition to dealing with the viewing and the cremation and the memorial service and the military honors and writing the obituary and giving the eulogy, there have been family feuds and fights over money and reunions with long-lost siblings. And during all of this, Mia was sent home from school with a fever, so I've been pretty much out-of-commission taking care of her. Mix all that with Mr. SOC's childhood memories of his father (From his eulogy: "I remember the feel of his woolen overcoat that smelled of New York and smoke-filled train cars." Sob.) and wine-soaked ruminations on death. (It's inconceivable really, that you can be here one day shopping at Walmart and mooching the free coffee at the bank, and—BANG!—the next day you're a pile of ashes in a box on the mantle. For those of us left behind, death is the most incredible disappearing act. How can you be here, so solidly here, and then just... not be?) So anyway, we've been living in some kind of alternate universe for the past five days.

Then today, I thought Mr. SOC might finally get a day to relax, take a breath. But instead, he went to his parents' house and cleaned his dead father's filthy bathroom. And now he's at the emergency room with his son, who appears to have a bat bite on his arm. And we really don't want him to get rabies. But he got this bite a week ago, and hadn't mentioned it, so I hope to hell it's not too late to start the rabies treatment. It's all a bit surreal.

But the one benefit of all this is that, until Tuesday night, I was having a little personal breakdown, complete with feelings of hopelessness, etc. But this seems to have rocked me out of it. It was like a volcanic eruption that shifted my perceptions and forced me out of my self-centered downward spiral. So now, even though we are stressed and saddened and have a long road ahead of us figuring out how to deal with my mother-in-law, I somehow feel better than I did before it all started. I am not depressed anymore. I think maybe part of my problem has been this expectation that life is supposed to be fun. Every day is supposed to be fun, and anything that happens that is not fun causes me to panic, because I am losing out on the fun life I deserve. But sometimes, life is just hard, it's just putting one foot in front of the other, doing what you have to do and making it through. And it is so freeing to just let it be that.

I should probably delete this post

So here I was worrying about death and infirmity, and something completely unexpected came and whacked me on the back of the head. Politics. I am not the kind of person who takes politics personally. But we just had a school board election, and the people who won want to dramatically change our schools in a way that I think is unconscionable. And I can't do anything about it. These people who I don't support in any way are going to ruin our schools. My child will probably be OK, but the poor kids, the ones who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods, well, good luck to them. And we will all be poorer for that.

This election got me thinking that this whole far-right movement really is taking hold again, that less than a year after Bush left office, all the hope is disappearing in favor of the most polarized politics our country has ever seen. I mean, there are actually people--lots of people--who are prepared to kill health care reform just to make the president look bad. Something our country so desperately needs. If you don't like Obama's plan, then come up with an alternative, but please don't send crazy people out in the streets with signs saying "Hands off my healthcare!" It feels almost as if we've come to the end of the viability of the two-party system in America. This just isn't working anymore.

It's all making me start to wonder if this is even the kind of country where I want to live, the kind of place I want my daughter to grow up in. I am profoundly disillusioned with the selfishness that seems to permeate the American psyche. Who cares about the poor? Who cares about the uninsured? Just as long as I get mine. This goes totally outside the bounds of what I allow myself to write here, but I just cannot keep it inside. I have actually started to cry multiple times every day for the past three days thinking about this stuff. I am so afraid of where my country, my state, my county are headed. I just don't understand why those of us who have more can't seem to find the slightest bit of care for those who have less. But I guess it's more important to us to have five televisions, to have closets stuffed full of crap we don't need from Target, than to make sure that poor people have healthcare or decent schools for their kids. So we'll just build more jails and pay for more ER visits, all for the luxury of not having to give a shit about anyone else.

I have a cold. Please kill me.

Remember how I said I hate it when people blog about being sick? Yeah, well, I now hate my former self. I will never belittle the experience of being sick, or the common cold, again. Never. Because this is fucking awful. I have been trying so hard to stay away from this blog during my long days of coughing and misery, but now I am at my wit's end. And if there is anything, anything, that might ease my mental suffering, I will do it--including blogging about my snot. Whatever it takes.

I have now been coughing, or feeling that tickly sensation in the back of my throat, continuously for eight days. It is enough to make a person lose her mind. For the past four days, I the cough has been accompanied by congestion, fatigue and general awfulness. The most torturous part is that, after spending all day yesterday lying in bed drinking tea and eating soup, I felt immensely better last night. I woke up this morning so excited about my return to good health, new facebook statuses dancing in my head. "I am so grateful for my good health," I imagined myself writing. No, maybe, "I am finally reemerging into the land of the living, and I am so grateful for it." The birds were chirping and the sun was shining. It was the first day of the rest of my life. And then I sat down at my desk, and I couldn't stop coughing, and then I noticed that strange woozy sensation again, and before long I felt just as awful as I did two days ago.

I can't describe the mental anguish that this illness has caused. I feel so guilty for lying around the house doing absolutely nothing. I feel guilty for coughing over and over, forcing everyone around me to listen to it. I feel guilty every time I go out into the world, because I am surely spreading my germs. I feel guilty that Mr. SOC has been sleeping on the couch for five nights and there is no end in sight. I feel guilty that we haven't had sex in ages. I feel guilty for skipping out of work. I feel guilty for ignoring my to-do list. I feel guilty for being an emotional wreck. I feel guilty for being knocked flat by a stupid fucking cold. This virus is screwing with my head, I tell you.

Now, I am waiting for Mr. SOC to get home, dreading his realization that I am not on the road to recovery, that I am once again coughing and whining and snotty and that tonight is probably not going to be the night we rekindle our romance. I want to lie on the couch and do nothing. I want to get up and force myself into action, to become healthy by acting healthy. I want to fall into a black hole until this is all over. I want to move into my own apartment, quit my job and be left to cough alone, in peace, guilt-free, until death finally takes me. Didn't I tell you this cold had driven me crazy? Didn't I tell you?

This is what I can write in 12 minutes

1. I really hate it when people blog about being sick. For god's sake, do you think you are the first person to have a cold? And yet, when you have post-nasal drip that tickles the back of your throat, making you feel the urge to cough every single second for days, and you are hacking a dry awful cough 17 times a minute and you have no idea when or if it will ever go away, well, your world really narrows down. There is nothing but you and that godforsaken cough and, really, what else is there to write about?
2. It appears that fall has arrived. It is supposed to still be hot as hell here right now, but instead there is a crispness to the air and I am dreaming of pumpkin farms and winter stews and getting that vague worry that, oh my god, I really am going to have to go through this fucking Christmas thing again, aren't I? Couldn't I have just one year off? Just this one? Anyway, this also means that my secret summer vacation is over. I guess I have to go back to thinking about my life goals again and caring about my job and whatever all that other stuff I used to do was. But really, why? Summer vacation was good. It took a real mental load off, and I don't think I did any worse at my job. And in this economy, there's really no sense applying for other jobs. So maybe I will continue the summer vacation indefinitely. At least until after the holidays. Although I might take an online course or two. And think about my Spanish again, and my little secret business plan. Oh hell, I guess it really is over.
3. A friend sent me a notepad full of blank lists, and I am using it way too much. Its lure is more than I can handle, all those beautiful blank lined and numbered pages. But I go as fast as I can and I just cannot get to the end of my list. I cleaned out the fridge tonight, but the freezer is still full of unidentifiable objects and the kitchen cabinets are crammed with crap, half of which probably needs to be thrown away. I am still tripping over unpacked crates and bags from our Labor Day trip. And really, every corner of this house is piled with crap that we don't need and don't know what to do with. Old baby clothes, pots and pans we never use, ancient magazines. When will there ever be time to get to the end of the list? (I know, I know. Never. Fuck.)
4. I think I am obsessed with the lists because I have some unexplainable feeling that the change of seasons is a sort of fresh start. I'm ready to stay home, clean up, weed the garden, bake pies, knit intricate sweaters, clear out all our clutter, begin the winter nesting rituals. But the reality is I only have time to do one one-hundreth of that crap. Which leads to frustration and many, many lists.
5. My mother just left after a two-week visit. I love her very much, and consider her one of my best friends, but I realized that I just cannot fully relax when she is around. Maybe it's because of her mounting health problems, and my constant fear of her death, which seems to have really intensified lately. Or maybe it's that she never, ever tells anyone what she really wants, so I am always guessing about whether she's happy and has what she wants. Oh, it's not even worth writing about. But I was looking forward to breathing a big sigh of relief when she left. Instead, I got this cough as soon as her plane took off. So now I'm just hacking miserably, and blogging about it.
6. I guess that was more like 22 minutes.

All that worrying for nothing

Oh, so this is what people mean when they say "vacation." They don't mean rushing from place to place, trying to have new experiences. They mean staying in a luxury home in view of the breakers, strolling from beach to pool to hot tub, throwing your kid into a pile of 4-year-olds while you drink beer on the deck, reading novels in bed and occasionally getting ambitious enough to take a trip to the ice cream shop. I used to say that I didn't understand what you were supposed to do at the beach. Now I know. You are supposed to learn what it's like not to do anything, not to be rushing from here to there, not to have any ambition at all other than to watch the surf and dig in the sand and take your child for a swim.

All of my hopes and not a single one of my fears were realized during this trip. I was able to use this vacation as a sort of meditative experience, a place where I could let go of all my usual worries.  Time seemed to stretch out into a smooth expanse, completely free of the ceaseless rushing and dilemmas that plague my ordinary days. I didn't worry about what we were going to eat or our schedule for the day. I ignored the imperfections of this place where we chose to vacation and the annoying tics of some our housemates. I made new friends and babysat children I barely knew and felt myself part of an extended, if very temporary, family.

Every time I caught myself stressing about what we should do next--should we go to the lighthouse tomorrow morning? And when are we going to fit in that nature walk?--I was able to stop myself, to remember that life is lived in this moment, not the next. I remembered to enjoy the simplest of pleasures: the feeling of being freshly showered after a long day in the sun and sand, of the surf rushing under my feet, watching dune grass sway in the breeze and eating lunch beside the pool. I swam and read and walked and sat and played and ate and drank and remembered what it is to simply be here, in this place and time.

I know, of course, that this week was a luxury afforded by the work and stresses of the rest of my life. But I hope I can take a little bit of it with me: The knowledge that you really can let go of it all, and the world continues to spin on its axis, the people you love go on living, you all find something to eat and a place to sleep. I can rest. Everything really is OK.

Is it possible to fail at vacation?

Hello from vacationland. I am in the first of two weeks of vacation/furlough, and this is the week where I get to live my dream of being a stay-at-home mom with the benefit of full-time child care. This is truly the life I fantasize about. But can I confess something? I have no idea what to do with myself. That's not to say that I am bored--far from it. Instead, my brain is buzzing with all the possibilities, making list upon list of things that need to be done. I think the best way to describe my state of mind is confused. What am I supposed to be doing with this precious, precious gift of time by myself? Should I be relaxing on the couch with a good book? Cooking gourmet meals? Cleaning and organizing my house? Packing for our beach trip? Preparing for Mia's birthday party? Taking her out of school and spending quality time? What is the right thing?

As a result of my confusion, I'm trying to squeeze all those things in, and so I make lists upon lists of the things I need to do, and then end up paralyzed by all that needs to be done. So I just spent the past hour watching the Colbert Report on the laptop, and now I'm totally behind on my plans for the day (which include stuff like reading, knitting, straightening the house, washing the blanket on our bed, doing laundry for the beach trip and AAAAHHHH, I can't think about it all.) My brain just cannot seem to accept that life is always a work in progress, that there are always going to be things on the to do list. Instead, I keep trying to make the complete list. I have this crazed idea that if I could just get everything on the list, then I could eventually cross it all off and then, only then, I could find peace. So when I think of another thing that needs to go on the list, no matter how trivial, I become instantly anxious. Because every new thing I add to the list is another obstacle between me and the peace I seek. I rush through each task, because I am in a race with the list. Hurry up that workout, no dawdling at the store, finish that novel because there's another one on the stack, go, go, go.

Last night, the buzzing of the to-do's got so loud that I just couldn't relax. No matter what I did, my brain kept going over and over the list, thinking about what I needed to do and when I would do it. It was like a skipping record or something, and I couldn't unstick it. Of course, I had trouble sleeping. And now I am sluggish and feeling like a real failure at vacation. Aren't I supposed to become gradually more relaxed as the week goes by? Instead, I am becoming more and more keyed up. What I really need is a vacation from myself.