Finding Comfort Where You Can

Last week I went to the doctor and had to fill out a little questionnaire.  One of the questions was “Do you ever feel old or unattractive?”  Initially I laughed and thought what women over 40 would not answer yes to that?  I even told the doctor that they should just pre-mark the form with yes to save time and we laughed.  However, this week I found myself in a bit of a sad place and those words kept haunting me.  Getting ready for work? Unattractive.  Bathroom mirror at work under the fluorescents? Old.  Rearview mirror?  Old, unattractive and insanely hairy.  Sigh.

I guess sad place might be a bit of an understatement: tsunami of hormones and sinkhole of sadness might be more descriptive.  I was sad about being made to realize that there are days I feel old and unattractive.  My parents were going to come down for Thanksgiving but my dad is sick so they can’t come.  William wanted me to learn to play his trumpet for his winter concert and while I wanted to, my stupid, failing, Bell’s palsy ruined lip won’t seal and I can’t play it.  I am not going to lie; I went upstairs and cried my pillow wet when that happened.  The whole time I was weeping copiously I was thinking how vain I am, how stupid this all was and how I was just sad. And while it is okay to be sad, it is okay to cry and it is okay to mope, who wants to go around like that for more than a day or two?

Today I gave myself back some power.  It wasn’t straightening my hair or stopping to recognize all the good in my life or even tying my decorative scarf in a jaunty way.  My power came from wearing the most gigantic pair of underwear I own.  You should be thinking granny panties, stay-away-panties, putting the pant-in-panties-panties.  Bloomers even.  I am not worried about panty lines because they are so big there aren’t any.  They are so big that their waistband sits higher than the waistband of my pants.  They are even so boring they are beige.  Not ecru or wheat colored or farmer’s field brown, they are just beige.  The first time Bill saw them and asked what the hell I was wearing I lied and said I must have grabbed the wrong ones by mistake.  I didn’t.  I saw them beckoning me from the bin and I grabbed them because sometimes you just need to wear a gigantic pair of underwear.  Don’t judge me: I know you all have that one pair.  Heck I know some of you would still be wearing the mesh panties they send you home from the hospital in with your newborn if you could.  They are comforting and actually so gigantic they are almost swaddling in their protection.  They seem to be acting as armor against not only the world, but deflecting the negativity circling from within as well.

I definitely know why she is smiling.

Sometimes when you are not comfortable in your inside, you need to find comfort on the outside. I used to have an Old Navy Christmas tree shirt that I would wear when I felt sad.  Over the course of ten years, I would wear that thing around the house as a warning. I would wear it under a sweater to work and feel like I was wearing a hug.  Eventually it got so threadbare and disgusting even I had to admit it had served its time and quietly retired it.  Bill has a big white sweater he wears when he is feeling blue so I know that men do this too.  Somehow sitting here knowing I am wearing the most gigantic pair of underwear in the world has me feeling so much better.  I am no longer old and unattractive, I am as young as I am ever going to be and feeling in great shape!  Take that questionnaire!  I am still sad my parents can’t come but not so sad I will tell my daughter I don’t feel like Thanksgiving this year.  Let’s cook!  Let’s make a huge turkey for just two and more side dishes than four people can eat!  And while I can’t play the trumpet, I will rest comfortably in my giant underwear and the fact William said that he and I can always play piano together.

It's A Beautiful Thing

Today is November 11, 2015 and more specifically, Veteran’s Day.  Today we honor the men and women who have served in the armed forces.  I am absolutely getting my history geek on by scrolling the news feed of my Facebook page and seeing all the pictures people have posted of their relatives in uniform.  One coworker posted a picture of his father and mentioned, pretty casually I must say, that his dad escaped a Nazi POW camp.  What?!?!  How have we never talked about this?!  I want to know everything about it, right now!  Another coworker posted a shout out to his relative for serving in the Vietnam War and to the man’s wife for raising the kids while the grandfather was deployed.  Nicely, nicely done.

I drove to work and noticed all the flags flying today and thought of my neighbor who passed away a few years ago.  Bentley served in WWII and refused to talk about his service other than to say it was nothing.  I missed that he was not outside raising his flag and saluting it so very smartly today.  As old and fragile as he got, Bentley was ramrod straight and crisp when he saluted that flag.  It was a beautiful, beautiful thing and one that I am so very grateful I got a chance to witness.  I stopped at a red light and noticed the man on the corner had a sign declaring him to be a disabled vet so I rolled down my window and offered him some money.  He took it and thanked me and I thanked him for his service and he smiled a very toothless smile and walked on to the next car.  And then I leaky-eye cried; the kind I normally reserve for kids’ sports performances where I am so overcome with pride and emotion and nothing is sad, but dammit there I am crying again. 

As I think about it, I think it is because we are all, on our own way, kind of proud to be Americans today.  We are sharing our histories or our services and people are thanking and being thanked, and that is a damn beautiful thing.  How often are we proud to be American? How often do we even think about being proud of being American?  I think we are ambivalent about it most of the time and embarrassed about it the rest.  Next year is a presidential election year and as such, the absolute worst of America and its politics is what we are bombarded with.  I am tutoring kids in US History and one day will teach it, and America failed a lot of the time.  We killed, we conquered, we annihilated, we overpromised and under-delivered and continue to do so.  We continue to be racially divisive and sexually biased and discriminatory and if you don’t think so, you are a very white man with a college education and a good, good job.

However, today is not about the politicians or who is right or who is wrong. It is about the people of America.  Underneath all the bad you hear and find in America, the fact is that there are a ton of regular people doing good things every day.  Regular people raising their kids and thinking they are doing a terrible job.  There are people teaching kids or mentoring them and trying to get them to care.  People who volunteer to help, people who need the services the volunteers bring.  People who get up every day and just do what has to be done.  People who feed us, people who take our nasty trash away, and people who run our businesses.  Today, I feel reminded of all of that.  Today I feel like even though all we may hear about is the bad, that there is still an awfully lot of good and good people out there.  Today is about the dads and brothers and moms and aunts who believed in something bigger than themselves and who gave their time, their years and even their lives to serve it.  That is a beautiful thing, an amazing thing; a squeeze-your-heart and leaky-eye cry kind of thing.  Thank you veterans, for your service, and thank you also for reminding me that it is okay to have leaky-eye pride about the country you live in.

Think Like Rosie

Tomorrow is Halloween and as such, we are encouraged to wear costumes to school today.  My librarian is an all-in, party, let’s do it person so of course we are going to dress up and it is going to have a theme.  The first year we were witches which the kids really appreciated.  Last year we were Teletubbies which I think they appreciated even more.  This year we struggled for a good theme.  When I say that we struggled, I really mean she did because I just wanted to be Rosie.  Finally she got me to agree to be a superhero and my immediate thought was Wonder Woman.  I flashed back to me, age 6, Wonder Woman Underoos and tinfoil bracelets and thought not that Wonder Woman.  I flashed back to me age 20ish, downtown Dallas and a homemade Wonder Woman costume that had very little fabric and thought not that Wonder Woman either.  I moaned about not wanting to be this superhero or that and all I really wanted to be was Rosie when she commented “Just be Rosie!  She’s your superhero.”  Light bulb forced on and done!

Yes, Rosie is a piece of war propaganda but I think she is one of the best.  Rosie encouraged women to join the workforce and keep the war effort moving at home.  History.com says it nicely with “American women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers during World War II, as widespread male enlistment left gaping holes in the industrial labor force. Between 1940 and 1945, the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to nearly 37 percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home. “Rosie the Riveter,” star of a government campaign aimed at recruiting female workers for the munitions industry, became perhaps the most iconic image of working women during the war.”  They needed us and we responded.  Of course the women were paid much less than the men who held the same jobs and yes, they were kicked out of their jobs when the men came home from war, but in that time they filled the roles that needed to be filled.  Superhero stuff for sure.

But let’s think even more about Rosie.  She answered the call and went to work.  Probably for the first time in her life and that is big.  But guess what?  Not all our Rosies were just working; many of our Rosies were moms.  They were still raising kids and they were working while their husbands were shipped overseas.  They were raising kids and working and growing Victory Gardens to supplement the food they couldn’t buy due to rationing. They were raising kids and working while waiting for a letter home saying that he was still okay, or he was thinking of her and that he missed her too.  They were raising kids on their own and working while dreading a knock on the door, a telegram in their hand, a finality they didn’t want to face.  Goose bumps.

I admire the hell out of Rosie because in my own life, I am a mom, I work and I sometimes grow a garden.  Thank God we don’t have to live on what we grow because the 15 tomatoes and 38 green beans would not have gotten us far.  There are many days where when I am doing all that I do I feel like I am not doing any of it well.  Or I do some of it well and fail the other parts.  I have days where I feel I rock the parenting and tank the working.  Or I have a day at work where I give, give, give to kids who need it and have nothing left to give my own kids.  And aside from the occasional date night or quiet coffee in the morning, the time I spend with my husband is not always the best I have to offer.  This had me feeling rather blah but as I dressed up as Rosie today and drove to school, I started to think like Rosie too.  Maybe I am not doing it all well, but I am doing it.  I will probably not be immortalized in any war time propaganda, but that is okay. I will take the belly laughs from the teen, or the fleeting snuggles from the preteen after he pours his heart out.  I will revel in the look my husband gives me when he laughs at something I said and tells me that he like-likes me.  I’ll store up the “Thanks Ms. McMahons!” and remember that dotted throughout the day, I am doing good things.  Probably not all the good things in all the places on any day, but I bet Rosie had her off days too.  

Ask Not What Your School Can Do

These first two months of school have been crazy.  They have been frantic, frazzled and frenetic.  Teachers are looking harassed, harangued and harried.  They are wearing their April faces in October.  Our loving library has been referred to as a “police state” and “fascist regime”.  Rules have changed, things have changed, people have changed and all and all, it has been disheartening.  We have been negative, needling and near-sighted.  We have felt put upon, put down and pushed aside.  As a result we are slow to smile, quick to anger and a little lifeless around the edges.  We don’t like to be like this and we talk about what to do to fix it, but until today I didn’t have an answer.

Today I taught.  Today I stood in front of a class of about 25 or so and spoke, directed, instructed, lectured and modeled.  It was exciting and new and it went well.  It could have gone a lot of ways, but it went well.  We spent 90 minutes discussing forgotten people of American history: the women and more specifically, the suffragists.  It was thrilling!  I don’t know if it was thrilling for the kids, but they were at least engaged.  At the end of the class, they watched a clip from Iron Jawed Angels.  The clip I had them watch is where Alice Paul (Hillary Swank) is force fed in prison to end her hunger strike.  After the clip, the class was instructed to write for two minutes, non-stop, about how they felt.  And they wrote.  Not all of them wrote for two minutes, but they wrote.  Like the wanna-teach-teacher I am, I brought them all home tonight to read.  There are some true gems because they are teenagers and when instructed to write how they feel, they pepper their feelings with profanity.  They say things like “Damn that sucks.” Or “I am worried those raw eggs will make her sick”, or the best one, “Jesus Christ that’s blasphemy. The one that really got me was the “I am so mad right now!!!!!!”  I showed someone something that made them so mad.  This student was mad so she was listening. And if she is mad then she might be mad enough to care and if she is mad enough to care, then let’s change the world!!!  I am excited that I finally made someone mad and not mad at me! 

Someone else has been having a year like mine!

This student helped me realize that I probably make people feel something every day.  I am hoping it is not always anger.  I am hoping I help them feel relieved when I offer them a solution or happy when I show them how to fix what isn’t working.  I would like to think I make them feel encouraged when I listen or amused when I share a pearl of wisdom.    Somehow in the hullabaloo of this 2015 school year I forgot that what I say and do can make a difference.  I forgot that if I can’t change the big stuff, at least I can impact the little stuff.  That little stuff can carry you through a day if you take the time to notice it.

It’s going to rain this week and as a result lunch will be a nightmare.  However, I am not going to dread it.  We are going to plan for it and go in like the warriors: the nurturing, caring, “this is still a library!” warriors that we are.  And while I am walking and walking and walking around and grow disheartened by the swelling crowd and those who insist on breaking rules they know are there, I will not let it set the tone for my day.  I will take care of the rule breakers because that is my job, but I will look for those I can help because that is what makes my job worthwhile.  

Parental Exhaustion Suggested

I have not actually read Dante’s Inferno, however I am confident that one of his circles of hell must include having two children in middle school at the same time.  I have not been this parentally exhausted since the crying-poop years of 2001-2006.  There is a reason that so many shows and books are dedicated to the woes of middle school: it sucks.  And it sucks even more watching and pushing your kids through it. 

My night last night is indicative of all the nights since school started.  4:58pm call from home asking if they can have a soda.  The next three minutes spent in a debate as to why caffeinated soda is not a good choice at 5pm and to stop calling me to ask if they can drink soda.    Get home, SG has some sort of tooth emergency.  We have at least three of these a week and when that girl gets her braces off, I will cry in relief.  There was nothing but she felt like it was something could I immediately walk through the door and look in her mouth?  If she would just let me go to the bathroom, maybe change my clothes, I might be more sympathetic.  Quick dinner while we encourage William to stop talking and start eating as piano guy will be there any minute.  Piano guy is there, piano lesson for the boy followed by guitar lesson for SG.  SG starts guitar, homework begins with W.  He failed another Social Studies test, so while going over economies we are also correcting types of government on the failed test.  He can’t keep either straight.  He gets teary, I want to get teary.  SG comes in and starts her math homework.  Math homework is a two person process for her.  I am now doing math and social studies and making lunches.  Oh and she tells me she has to do a SS review for a big test tomorrow.  I ask why she wasn’t studying for it this weekend.  She goes dark.  Why wasn’t it written in your agenda?  No reply.  9pm she finishes her last math problem and heads up to shower and go to bed.  I move to the living room and sit in a chair.  I am empty, glaze-eyed and as a hollow as a pumpkin about to be carved.

The nightly war room.

This is every night and this is a night we didn’t have to be out somewhere.  I am going to bed after telling the children I love to get their heads out of their ass or step it up, or please just let me sit here a minute.  I am emotionally, physically and spiritually exhausted.  My wine and chocolate consumption is through the roof and it is not helping.  We have Sunday meetings to look at grades and walk through what we have to do this week.  We menu plan because last week we didn’t and I am embarrassed to tell you how many nights we ended up eating tater tots.  We are on this sinking ship of middle school and while I am bailing as fast as I can, the two of them are watching me as they lean casually up against the mast and talk about how tired they are and how hard school is.  What hormone is it that turns kids into sloths?  My children are producing all of it.  I wish they sold spray-on ambition like they do sunscreen.  I would dose them both head to toe each day.

In addition to the nightly shenanigans, we have also had illegal social media apps found on a phone, bullying and social drama at school, the start of a brand new sport and someone needing to go to tutorials every morning.  If having a baby and toddler at the same time gave us the crying-poop years are these now the holy-crap-I-can’t-keep-my-head-above-water-years?  And I know they will be grown and gone before I know it and the house will be quiet and small and I will be sad.  I know.  And yet driving home I routinely think “please no homework”, “please someone have had a good day”, “please, can I just put on my pajama pants” and “for the love of God, if I could just pee before I need to look in someone’s mouth.”

There was one time when the boy was a newborn and SG was a toddler where we all ended up sobbing at the check-out at Target.  The boy was crying because he was hungry, SG was crying because she was two and I was crying, sweating and leaking while trying to calm everyone down and pay for my diapers as everyone in the store was judging me and I remember just wanting to sit down and sob.  This very nice lady came over and put her hand on my arm and said “Honey, it gets easier, it really does.”  That simple reassurance gave me the hope to power through.  I really would like that reassurance now but what I am getting is laughter while I recount my episodes, or nods of agreement when I say HOLY CRAP ten times a day, or tiny smirks in the corner of people’s mouths.  Someone please put your hand on my arm and tell me it will get easier!  I don’t care if it is a lie; say it!!  Until then you can find me in bed by 9pm staring straight up at the ceiling thinking HOLY CRAP.

Dear John

power of the pen.

Dear John,

You don't know me, but we have a mutual acquaintance in my son William.  You and he are in the same grade and lately, you have made it part of your day to taunt him and his friends, to tease them and to make them feel miserable.  You know John how they say that sticks and stones will break our bones but names will never hurt us?  This is one of the biggest parent lies out there.  Words crush John.  Words wound and take time to heal.  Words can make our breath catch in our throat and make us want to sink to our knees.  There is a lot of power in words and you like to use it. Again, I don't know you, but I bet you are popular.  I bet you do well in school. School is easy for you and you are bored so you find your fun in lording your power over those who are finding this transition to middle school harder.  You zeroed in on William and his friends because they are good kids, but they are awkward, they are the kids who don't even know they are supposed to be trying hard to be cool.  I can see the attraction for you.

Lately you have taken to following this group around as they enjoy being outside after lunch.  You like to pick at them, tell them what they are wearing is dumb, what they are doing is dumb.  You are like a small Robespierre using your sharp words to guillotine through fragile egos and self-esteem.  You like to call them things like "loser" or "gaywad".  I am not sure what a gaywad actually is but the sound of it is offensive and I guess that is what you are going for.  You like to take their names and put spins on them.  Wyatt has become Wyatt Derp and while I give you points for historical referencing John, I just want you to know that I'm your huckleberry.  

He is not going to fight you John, or tell on you. I am not going to call the school or come up at lunch to see what goes on myself.  He's going to learn how to ignore you, how to see that the words you hurl with such accuracy and speed can be deflected.  He will learn that you are a predatory, pugilistic punk and that he is better.  He will learn to ignore you and he will learn to walk away and when he does John, you will grow smaller. 

These might be the best years of your life John, so I hope you are enjoying them.  Guys like you John become less important with each passing year.  You will probably peak in high school and early on in high school.  Your friends will grow tired of your games and your inability to grow up with them and one by one John, they will drop you.  Your texts will go unanswered, your snaps unopened and all your many status updates unliked.  You will be the kind of guy people avoid in the breakroom and I don't see you ever really getting out of a cubicle.  Forget the corner office John; you won't even see an office. 

And William?  Don't worry about him.  He will be strong because of you.  He will be empathetic because of you.  He will value friendship and a be a great friend because of you John.  He will survive you and have the skills necessary to survive the next John in his life.  True, you hurt him.  You hurt his heart and it hurts mine in turn, but he is going to get through this.  He will forget about you as he grows stronger and grows up.  Your reign of terror, as vicious and well-played as it is, will not last long.  So, enjoy this time of being lord of lunch recess and I hope the memories you make will help you through your sad adult life.  

Sincerely,

William's mom

Know When to Fold Them

We have all had birthdays that were not great.  We have all had birthdays that come and go with little fan fare and when you are older than ten, it is probably safe to say we have all had a birthday that just plain stunk.  Poor Bill is having a birthday that is all three.  And this is fifty! This is a milestone birthday that is hard to face and harder to handle when it goes as badly as this one has gone.

It all starts with me.  I am a good person but sometimes I drop the ball.  Sometimes I don't speak the same love language as my husband and as a result, I disappoint him.  My love language is words; no surprise there.  His is acts of service and I forgot this.  So when I asked him for months what did he want to do for his 50th birthday and he kept avoiding or not answering, I should have recognized he was looking for something big.  However, as I did not hear any words, I thought he just wants to keep it low key.  I continued in this thought until the night before his birthday when he said he thought I really would have planned something to wow him.  Instant stomach ache, overwhelming feelings of guilt and cue the tears because there are no words to fix this.

On Friday, his actual birthday, Bill got up at 1:30am and went to work as one of his sites was pouring concrete and he needed to be there.  That stinks as a start.  Later when he got to his office he saw a brand new company truck in the lot like the one he was promised and thought "Happy Birthday to me!".  Except it wasn't for him.  And there was no cake in the break room for him and no one even said happy birthday.  Later in the day he got a call from the owner of a restaurant that he built saying the water heater was out and he needed to get there right now.  With one final squeeze of his ten year old boy heart, he headed there thinking it was a surprise party after all.  It really was just the water heater.  When he was telling us all of this last night, both SG and I cried as he laughed retelling it.  That tender-hearted girl is going to need counseling after hearing all that.  We did give him presents and the kids made him beautiful cards (because they speak my language) and the day ended slightly better than it started.

Today we decided would be Bill day.  We would do the things he likes that we never do and no one would complain.  Maizy came over and we all crammed into the car Bill just got back after a month at the repair shop.  We were a block away when it became apparent someone smelled and smelled terribly.  Yes, it was the boy.  A mile down the road one sister threatened to throw up and the other threatened to kill him if he didn't put his arms down.  Good times.  We are now five miles from home and piece of the cowling on roof flies off and hits a car behind us.  Yes, on the car he just got back from the shop.  No one spoke for a good ten minutes.  Bill shook off his anger and we continued on.  We went to the vegan taco food trailer Bill always wants to go to and we always resist going to.  We found it and put in our order and then heard it would be at least twenty minutes.  It was forty minutes, it was blazing hot and we had to sit with strangers at picnic tables.  The strangers got the shade and we got the hot, hot sun.  Oh, and thirty minutes into the wait the boy started getting attacked by yellow jackets.  But we were not going to complain because this was Bill's birthday celebration!  Luckily, the food came and it was really good or we were starving, hard to tell.  Everyone but SG enjoyed their food and Bill was feeling if not happy, at least loved.

He and I then left the kids at home and went to go see a movie.  A movie where they serve you beer and food so it should be great.  No.  The movie was terrible! I haven't seen a movie that bad in forever because if a movie is that bad I just go to sleep.  You know when all the previews are terrible that the movie probably stinks and stink it did.  A Walk in the Woods quickly proved that Robert Redford is too old to act and direct films.  Everything about it was painful and Nick Nolte was such a mess I thought he was Gary Busse at first.  I hoped fervently that Bill was enjoying it even though I was not.  A quick glance into his glazed eyes told me he was not.  I think he even fell asleep for awhile.  We had planned to go out tonight but as we left the movie theater, Bill remarked that he was done.  He was done with this birthday because this birthday is done with him and we should just go home and call it.  So we came home laughing, a little, and wondering why it is the world has it in for him.  We then realized we had nothing for dinner and Bill had to run to the store.  Look at this poor man peeling potatoes on his day of Bill.

Sadness personified.

Forget SG; I am going to need counseling after this terrible birthday.

We think that because McMahon men rarely make it to fifty that the world was just not prepared for this McMahon man to actually turn fifty. I am grateful he was able to turn fifty and he is happy to be alive if not yet happy to be fifty.  We have decided to just put this birthday to bed and get on with the weekend.  The vegan coconut cream pie that will be made tomorrow is not for Bill's birthday, it will just because it is a long weekend and there is time to bake. I am afraid the oven will catch on fire if I say it is for his birthday.   The places we have yet to go and the things we have yet to do are in no way part of a birthday celebration, they are just because it is a long weekend and there is time to do things.  No birthday fun happening here, no sir!

And me, because all I know to do is to use words, I am using my words to try and make a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad birthday into one that at least makes him smile a little in the corners when he reads through it.  I am also writing this so everyone reminds me next year to do something big; I need to plan the hell out of fifty-one.  No words, just acts.  Well, some words, but they won't be center stage.