Category: Achieving Balance

The Peace In Bartleby’s “I Would Prefer Not To”

Photo by sarah richer on Unsplash

“Blessed are the high in agency for they have done enough already.” ~taken from The Book of the Firstborn, probably

Three weeks ago, my sister sent me this video about finding the high agency people in your life. In the video, one gentleman asks another whom he would call for help if he were trapped in a South American jail and were to be transferred in 24 hours to an undisclosed location. He explained a high-agency person is someone who can think on their own, without instructions, and solve problems at a very high level under pressure very quickly. My sister added this comment to the video: “You are this person. You should know that most of your friends would feel the same way. This is a high compliment and you should feel really good about yourself.” I watched the video, read her comment, and realized it didn’t sit with me the way I knew she intended it to. I responded with a laugh and then said, “I think that most of the people who would be chosen for this job would be first-born daughters.” Perhaps taking my comment as self-effacing and dismissive of my skills, she replied the “only response necessary is yep. I’m awesome.” I decided to let it go at that.

The exchange has been lodged in my mind ever since, though, due to my visceral, real-time reaction to that video. It was an emphatic inner voice saying, “Yes. I could be that person but no thank you.” There was a time in my not-too-distant past when I might have received that video and corresponding accolades and felt quite honored to be someone else’s chosen savior in a tough situation. I don’t feel that way anymore, though. Thousands of hours of therapy have helped me understand I have some deep-seated issues around constantly being called on to be the adult in the room, to be the one who makes things run smoothly, the one who steps back from her own tasks to ensure everyone else is taken care of and not inconvenienced. This is not to imply that I have never been selfish because I certainly have. Who hasn’t? But my reaction was inner me finally standing up and saying, “I’m finished looking out for others at my own expense.” I would most certainly help my sister if she called me from a South American jail. I’m simply now, more than ever, finding myself capable of telling others to be accountable for their choices and figure out their own shit. It’s a small measure of heretofore unimaginable success for me.

Some people who are high agency might be so because they were required at a young age to be the adult they were not. Some people who are high agency might be so because they were taught they had no intrinsic value outside of service to others. Not everyone who is high agency loves being called on to help in every situation. Some of us are struggling trying to deal with our own crap but aren’t skilled at saying no just yet. We may not yet have learned to channel Melville’s Bartleby-the-Scrivener-level attitude of “I would prefer not to.” It’s admirable to be high agency, but being high agency for others without being high agency for yourself first will lead to burn out, regret, and bitterness. Every mother who has survived a holiday season knows this.

So this holiday season, if you have high agency people in your life upon whom you call regularly, maybe consider giving them a break and not contacting them for assistance. Yes. The holidays are stressful and you could probably use their help, but maybe give them the gift of unburdening instead. And, all you high agency people, you know who you are. Please also know it’s okay for you not to respond to someone else’s emergency, especially when you are overwhelmed yourself. It’s not only acceptable but advisable to tell the relative who is flying out to see you for the holidays and asking a gazillion unnecessary questions of you to check tsa.gov for airport security information and weather.com for updated forecasts. You don’t have to take it all on. And if someone calls you from a South American prison, maybe you choose to help them or maybe you tell them perhaps they shouldn’t have ended up in one in the first place and wish them the best.

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Finally Going To Take My Own Advice

I have posted this quote from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland on here before and it is the intro portion on my Facebook bio.

Me in a nutshell

Tonight, though, I’m finally deciding to take my own advice for real. I have been thinking for quite some time now that I need to take a social media hiatus. To that end, I’ve decided to go dark on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for a month. I’m not walking away from the platforms forever, just long enough to give my life a good detox. It’s not even that I necessarily spend too much time on them. It’s just that the time I do spend on them often leaves me feeling negative or isolated or frustrated or annoyed. I don’t need the ads. I don’t need the opportunity for comparison. I don’t need the divisiveness or the unhelpful and unnecessary commentary. I feel like too much of my life and my headspace are being taken up, frankly, by crap that does not matter.

Facebook has done some good for my life over the years. I’ve reconnected (even if a bit superficially) with some truly genuine people. I’ve used it to check up on and check in on friends who live at a distance. It’s been a good place to store memories of things I’ve done and places I’ve gone. If I scroll back through photos I posted, Facebook is a flip book of my life over the past 14 years. Back in those early days, Facebook was fun. Sadly, it has changed since then, but then so have I.

What at last led me to the conclusion that it may be time for me to take a vacation from the site was, oddly enough, an episode of South Park that I watched last night. Stan doesn’t want a Facebook account, but his friends create one for him. The next thing he knows, he has hundreds of thousands of followers. His girlfriend, Wendy, is mad at him for a comment another female made on a photo of him in a bunny costume. (That person turns out to be his grandmother’s friend who is 92.) His dad keeps bugging him to be his Facebook friend and to “poke” his grandmother. Remember pokes? Ugh. Sick of the whole thing, Stan decides to delete his account, but his profile has become more powerful than its user and it can’t be deleted. There’s a scene reminiscent of the movie Tron where Stan is now actually in the Facebook realm and there he runs into the profiles of family and friends. They keep saying things like “Grandma likes Teddy’s photo” and “Teddy thinks Stan’s bunny costume is fantastic.” And that is when the insanity of Facebook really hit me. This is what we’ve become.

In lieu of actual human interaction, we’ve become a nation of people who show our support and friendship with a thumbs up or a heart. Instead of getting together over coffee and sharing photos of our trips, we post them online for the world to gawk at. Rather than calling someone to catch up or writing a card or even sending an email, we hop online and try to validate each other’s existences with quick comments, funny memes, and likes. We also use Facebook to leave unnecessary, snarky opinions on each other’s posts as if this type of hit-and-run commentary is actually useful dialogue. It is not surprising to me at all that Gen Z is the most depressed and anxious generation yet. They may not use Facebook, but Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat serve the same purpose, a giant popularity contest and yardstick against which to compare themselves. Imagine the psychological damage when you discover others don’t find you interesting or likable at a time when you are still discovering who you are.

I am going to keep on using WordPress because I am still on my blog-every-day-for-100-days timeline, and I will keep Snapchat because I only use that to send silly selfies to my son at college. My other social media apps will be temporarily deleted from my phone so the temptation to open them is gone. I have no idea what this detox will do to me. I’ve been a fairly regular social media user for years. I’m hoping that by sometime mid-next week I will find my brain focusing a little better and my productivity at home increasing. If I am able to be more mindful and rediscover my inner peace, it will definitely be a win. I’ll let you know on June 5th.

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Be A Goldfish — Slippery And Bold

“She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it).” ~Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

In the Apple TV series, Ted Lasso, the protagonist coach famously tells one of his players that the happiest animal on earth is the goldfish because the goldfish has a ten-second memory. He then tells the young man to “be a goldfish” so he can let go of a negative interaction that happened with a teammate on the pitch a minute ago. That line has become a favorite among fans of the show. It’s so popular you can buy mugs, stickers, and t-shirts with that saying, and it regularly makes the rounds in comments on social media. And I get it. It’s a good saying. I quite like it. I’m not very good with the advice it offers, but I’d like to be.

Today I found this meme while scrolling through my Facebook feed. It offers a goldfish with a different point of view. I like this one too. I’m a little better at being brave than I am at letting go of comments, people, and past events that are no longer important or worth perseverating over. I attribute this to two things. First, I grew up believing I was inherently unlikable, so of course if someone said an unkind thing about me or acted like I did something wrong or suddenly stopped speaking to me, I knew it was my fault. I carried those feelings around like they were a suitcase, handcuffed to me and filled with irrefutable evidence about my worth. Second, to achieve anything when you have low self-esteem, you have to be at least a little brave. It’s a fake-it-til-you-make-it proposition. So, like I said, it is easier for me to be a little brave than it is to forget about a slight.

Ideally, I think both goldfish in this scenario are right. It’s good to let go of junk you are carrying around for no reason because it often says less about you than about the person or situation you are believing rather than yourself. It’s also good to work on your bravery. Although there are some who are born brave and some who become brave situationally, most of us could put a little more deliberate effort into being brave daily. We could stand up for ourselves with our boss or ask our partner for what we need instead of stuffing our feelings or tell the chatty barista that we need a new latte because we asked for oat milk but we got whole milk and, well, that just won’t work. To be so slippery that negativity glides over me like a kid on a Slip-n-Slide and so bold that I can live my truth every moment of my life from here on out, no matter who is watching or commenting, those are my goals. Goldfish are really speaking to me these days.

When I die, if for some odd reason I can’t be cremated, I want the Lewis Carroll saying at the top of this page on my tombstone. I am good at giving myself advice. I’m good at knowing the right thing to do (be it, let it go or be brave), I’m just not great at doing it. I’m just telling you this because I spout a lot of platitudes and inspirational quotes (read: fluffy bullshit) on this blog, and you should know it doesn’t mean I am living it. I’m working on it, but I’m not there. Not by a long shot. So if you’re not there either, that makes you my people. My suspicion is I have a lot more people than I thought.

Keep on keeping on, friends. We got this.

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Being A Difficult Woman Is Actually Quite Easy

Here are a handful of things a woman might do that could get her labeled as “difficult”:

  • Refuse to smile when someone tells her she would look prettier that way
  • Ask for what she wants
  • Insist on equal treatment
  • Express an unpopular opinion (or even a popular one in the wrong company)
  • Say she isn’t interested in sex at the moment
  • Request help around the house or with the children
  • Believe it should be her body and her choice
  • Put herself first or make herself a priority
  • Know her worth
  • Expect appropriate acknowledgment and compensation for a job well done
  • Go against social norms, especially regarding appearance, career choice, or motherhood
  • Exhibit her anger, disappointment, or sadness
  • Call herself a feminist
  • Clap back against a cat call or other uninvited advance from an unknown male

There are, I’m certain, many other things a woman might do that could get her branded as difficult. It’s not just men who would label a self-assured or successful woman difficult. Sometimes women will cast other women in that same light because they are so accustomed to societal norms they don’t see the inherent sexism in them.

I have been labeled difficult plenty of times. It used to bother me. Now I simply see it as my duty. I’m not saying we need to smash the patriarchy to smithereens, but I think we’d do a lot better as a species if we allowed the world to become more balanced. Too much of any one thing is never a good idea, especially if that one thing is testosterone.

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The Collapse And Crumble Condition

“For a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a gaseous nebula must collapse. So collapse. Crumble. This is not your destruction. This is your birth.” ~Noor Tagouri

Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash

I committed to writing here every day, but on some days that is a tall order. Today, for example, was not my best day. Still tired from my travel and long weekend, I woke up and took my son to school. This trip takes me about an hour and ten minutes round trip. Made it home in time to get in a quick shower and turn around and get back into the car to drive 35 minutes (one way) to therapy. I had a productive, but emotional and exhausting, therapy session. Left therapy and drove home to grab an apple for lunch. I finished it and a few slices of cheddar and hopped back in my car to go to my hair appointment. When I left the salon, I had just enough time to make it to pick up at my son’s school. I grabbed him and drove home. I was home for about 30 minutes and was able to sort through some Amazon packages. I then went with my husband to pick up take out Mexican food for dinner because I haven’t made it to the grocery store since returning from our trip to Portland. We made it home around 5:30. While carrying the food in from the car, the bottom of the paper bag gave out and all the containers dropped onto the floor. Some sauce splashed out but, thankfully, the majority of the food remained in its containers. Still, the incident made enough of a mess on the entryway rug and floor that I had to pull out the steam mop before dinner. We managed to get all the food plated and warmed and served by 5:45. At the dinner table, it was noted that I haven’t cooked a meal in a while, well, since last Wednesday, the night before Luke and I left for Portland. Sigh. I finished my meal, put dessert on the table, loaded the dishwasher, wiped down the placemats, table, and counter, and thought I would get a minute to work on an actual blog post, but then the puppy got angsty so I took him outside. He pooped and peed and rolled in the snow, so I thought he might be ready to settle. Instead of settling as I had hoped he would, though, he tore around our bedroom grabbing anything within his jumping range. He then chewed up a KN95 mask before heading into the bathroom to pee on the tile floor (and partially on one of the rugs in there too because why not). I pulled out the steam cleaner again, and then folded a load of someone else’s laundry to clear up the washer and dryer so I could put in a load with the towels I had used to clean the puppy mess and the bathroom rug. When I finally sat down to attempt to write something here, it was 9:45 p.m. So, here we are with me simply providing a litany of complaints about my subpar Monday because that is all I have energy and brain power for. I know I live an incredibly fortunate life and, as a rule, I try to focus on the gratitude I have for that fact; but today was not my best day, so I’m not feeling very grateful. I’ve also learned that just because someone is fortunate does not mean they are immune to struggles, frustration, sadness, and exhaustion. Everyone is entitled to a bad day.

In an earlier post, I mentioned my word for the year, the one I wanted to focus on, is boundaries. It’s clear from my day today that I am not doing an exemplary job of establishing those thus far. I am worn out, physically, mentally, and emotionally right now, so much so that I broke down and sobbed while cleaning up the puppy pee. It’s safe to say I am a little overwrought. So, while boundary setting is on my list and will be set in motion soon, for tonight and the rest of the week the word is self-care because I am feeling stick-a-fork-in-me done.

There is some good news, though. I have known for weeks that I was heading towards this emotional breakdown, so I planned a weekend away for myself starting this Friday and ending early Sunday evening. I hope to read, sleep, meditate, write, work on a vision board, and eat raw, healthy food. If the weather holds, I might take a long walk or two. My last solo trip (one where I had zero responsibilities to anyone other than myself) was in September 2020. My introvert brain is due. With any luck, I will be able to return in a better headspace and with a plan to establish some boundaries that will make my life more peaceful for the remainder of the year. Fingers crossed.

Post script: Not two minutes after I had finished this post, the older dog decided she needed to be let out. So, I opened the door and went out with her into the cold and dark in my socks and pajamas only to have her stand out there for two minutes. Then our house alarm went off because apparently we’re setting it again now.

Is it Tuesday yet?

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Time – You Asked For It, You Got It

IMG_0924
Got books to read? Guess what? There’s time for that.

The worst thing about our current situation for me now (as I sit at home, a *fingers crossed* healthy person with self-sufficient kids and more free time than I’ve ever had) is the feeling of helplessness and isolation it is creating. So I have been brainstorming ways to keep myself sane as the news grows exponentially worse. The only way not to feel overwhelmed is to focus on what we can do rather than what we cannot.

Here are a few things my family has decided to do while we’re stuck at home that will keep us connected and involved and yet usefully distracted.

We are going to learn about each other. Yeah. We know the basics. I know Luke is into sci-fi and Joe is fascinated with world cultures and history, but what do I know about those topics? Not enough that I can share in their joy about them. So, in this isolation period, we’ve decided to teach each other about things we care about. Every week, we each will have a 30-45 minute opportunity after dinner to share our passions with the rest. The rules we’ve laid out around this are lax. You choose your topic and how you want to present it and the rest of us have to be patient and commit to learning and understanding the topic. You can use any means you want to share your chosen topic for the week. You can read aloud from a text. You can share a video (even if that video is just your favorite episode of Friends). You can put together a slideshow presentation. You can pick a favorite game and have everyone to play along. You can run your session like a classroom experience or make it interactive. The sky is the limit. The floor is yours.

I have committed myself also to reaching outside of our house by any means possible, starting with snail mail. I have stamps that have been sitting in a drawer, so I am digging through my card stash and sending out greetings the old fashioned way. When I run out of cards, I will make more using printer paper and markers or I will write notes and stick them in the business envelopes we have in abundance and never use anymore. Stamps are easily ordered online and delivered to you if you need them too, and the USPS has dozens of fun, themed stamps available, which makes the whole endeavor even more joyful. Shop the Postal Store. We currently have stamps with dinosaurs, sharks, and military dogs. And I have stickers stashed in a box from a chore chart I used to fill in for the boys, so I will be using them to decorate those envelopes and messages like a nine year old girl passing notes. Of course, there’s always FaceTime, Skype, Whats App, and regular old phone calls and texts too, if you prefer that. Have virtual coffee with someone or, like our family, set up grog time. At 5 pm, we are going to connect via FaceTime from our separate homes with our cocktails and catch up. Separate does not have to mean alone.

Another thing I am doing is going through my house and using items I bought with the best of intentions that are gathering dust because I never followed through. Last Christmas I decided I wanted to learn to write in some cool fonts, so I received books and pens that have remained untouched because I didn’t have or make the time. I have a stack of books I meant to read that are collecting dust. I have yoga videos saved. I have books of sudoku and word search puzzles I bought for flights that haven’t been completed. There are a gazillion digital photos that I’ve been meaning to go through and pare down and back up. And as the weather warms up there are yard games, like Spikeball, I bought for us to play that we need to learn and can practice outdoors in the fresh air of our yard. Pick an hour a day, turn off the television, and focus on growing yourself in a positive way because at some point we will come out on the other side of this.

In an isolated situation, what we have been given is time, the time we have all in the recent past complained we didn’t have. Make conscious choices about how you use your time now. Don’t just distract yourself. Grow yourself. Perhaps we can come out of this scary portion of history with some positives that will assist us as we re-enter a world that has changed.

 

 

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Seven Years To A Dog

Goodbye, suburbia. Hello, brick ranch in the city!
Goodbye, suburbia. Hello, brick ranch in the city!

You know the time discrepancy they say exists between human years and dog years? I feel that same time disparity in my life right now. I am the dog in this scenario, and I have lived a year in the past month. In four short weeks, we looked at homes, found one, and closed on it. On Monday, we took possession of a 1960s-era, boxy, brick ranch in the city. We will spend the next six months renovating it, transforming it into our personal space in preparation for our final severance from suburbia next spring. This morning I find myself sitting in our future dining room writing at a plastic table while awaiting the internet installer. After only a few days, the house feels like home. I already know how the sun moves through the rooms and the ambient light changes throughout the day. I recognize the quiet rumble of the heater when it springs to life with its echoes of distant thunder. The backyard is my oasis, a private park with mature trees gently shading the ideal spot for an adirondack chair and a good book. Denver is my old friend. Everything is close here, intimate and accessible. And, in an introvert’s dream, I can live anonymously in its confines, obscured by the constant buzz of a world hurriedly carrying on without any notice of me.

Still, with all the familiarity around me in my new space, there is upheaval. I find myself in a netherworld, half out of my old life and half into my new existence. The boys are growing up faster than I imagined they could. Joe starts high school next year and he is now tall enough that I can watch his green eyes up close as he processes that he will soon be taller than me. He shows no signs of regret in leaving our current home and growing up; he relishes the dream of a basement space where he can revel unabated in teenage solitude. The new house gives him room to slide out of my hands and into his independent life as he was always meant to do, but the implications of this transition are simultaneously amazing and horrifying. There are days when all I want to do is sit on the couch swilling midday wine and wallowing in episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine on PBS Kids to mourn his growth. Alas, no amount of wishing to go back has materialized a time machine in which I could take that trip.

So I have found other coping mechanisms. I admit I’ve sought refuge in a binge-watching grave of The Office. You know, television is great for creating vacuous space in your head. And it’s a good place to idle while you’re waiting for motivation, but it’s no place to reside permanently. It’s time to bid adieu to things past. I’m working to separate from parts of my existence that were so integral to my being that I feel physically crushed by their emotional loss. I’ve been hobbling along in a Dunder-Mifflin haze for too long trying to avoid noticing those phantom limbs. Now that we’re committed to this new house, though, that time must end. Shit is getting real. It’s time to harness my rapidly spinning mind and use that energy to move, both literally and figuratively.

One way I hope to manage this shift over the next year is by returning to writing. As we inch along making improvements to our new home, I am going to document the physical transformation of our new space here. Along the way, I will work with added ferocity to live in the present (even though the present becomes the past with increasing speed as the boys get older). I’m positive I will discover a thing or two about myself and about my future trajectory as we set ourselves up for this next phase in our lives. Learning new skills, like tiling floors and installing custom closets, could help improve my self-esteem and garner additional confidence. The more I allow myself think about it, the more excited I become to shake off the weight of Michael Scott and see what I will uncover and where I will land. Goodbye, Scranton.

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I Stay Home…Get Over It

I have the best job ever.
This is my career. How could it be worthless?

Ever since I made the choice to leave my career and stay home with my sons, I’ve been overwhelmed by my choice. There have been periods of time when I felt like I was nothing more than a butt wiper or a housekeeper or, in darkest times, a slave. Some days it is hard to find the silver lining in my current career. But, no fail, right about the time that I am feeling 100% certain about my decision, some working woman or man asks me what I do. The standard response I get when I tell a career person that I am a stay-at-home mom is a simple, one syllable, “Oh.” Conversation over. Clearly, I have no longer have anything current or intelligent to talk about, and no one wants to hear about kids, so they leave. I am a serial conversation killer. I’m not exactly sure when the decision to expend my energy solely as mother and homemaker vaporized my IQ and decimated my inherent worth as a human being, but it happened. Working people get to ask me ridiculous questions about my personal choice without feeling an iota of impropriety. I wonder how they would feel about it if I questioned the validity of their career choice? Really? You’re a programmer? I’ve heard they’ve taught monkeys to do that.

I was fortunate enough to have a choice to make when I was 32: 1) have a career and no kids, 2) have a career and kids, or 3) have kids and no career. I chose what was behind Door Number Three. When Joe was born, I knew that what I really wanted was as low-stress of a life as I could have. To me, that meant not trying to juggle too many things. Steve worked. We could afford for me not to work. We came to an agreement. He puts money in our bank account. I run the house. We share duties with our sons. Our weekends are free to enjoy because I take care of the busy work during the week. As with any choice, it has both good and bad points. The choice I made means I clean toilets and mop floors like Cinderella because we can’t afford a maid. It also means, however, I can go to yoga during the day when my kids are in school because I am my own boss. Like anyone else’s life, my life is a balancing act to keep things working. But, make no mistake about it, I work. Every day. Seven days a week. I get no paid vacation. No bonuses. No salary. But it’s worth it to me because our four lives are more peaceful because of what I do.

To be fair, I know that the work I do is invisible to those on the outside (unless they catch me at Starbucks having coffee with a friend while they’re on their way to work and suddenly I’m no longer invisible). And this is why people feel free to interpret something they know nothing about. Still, I get tired of answering condescending questions. To that end, today I invented some succinct responses to lessen the agony of being asked them repeatedly:

“When do you think you’ll go back to work?” Never. Work sucks.

“What did you do when you worked?” I was an adult film star.

“What do you do with all your free time when the kids are in school?” Day drink.

“Don’t you get bored?” Oh…when I get bored watching Oprah, I take a nap. Crisis averted.

Really, people. I am doing the right thing for me. I only get one shot with my boys. I have to do my best the first time around because it’s the only time I have. Ask any adult child about their relationship with their parents and you will know this is true. Time with our children goes by fast. I have six years left with my beautiful, deep-thinking, first-born son. It will be over in the blink of an eye. I know I have been fortunate to have a choice, and I know that what is right for me is not necessarily right for others. I don’t begrudge anyone their choice. I simply wish others would believe that there’s more to me than my lack of a paycheck. Right now, I’m somebody’s most important person, and that won’t always be the case. Someday they will no longer need me. I bet I will not be on my death-bed regretting the inordinate amount of time I spent with my sons in their youth. I will only regret acknowledging stupid questions about the smartest choice I ever made.

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The Upside of Upchuck

The reason I'm mellowing...these kids have both puked on me.
These cute kids have both puked on me.

There are some good things about getting older, particularly if that getting older occurs along with parenthood. In my advancing years, for example, I’ve discovered that I have quite a bit more perspective now than I had in my 30s before I had children. My Type-A, uptight self has been given many opportunities to learn not to sweat the small stuff. I mean, there’s a lot of perspective to gain when you’ve spent hours agonizing over the perfect outfit to wear to an anniversary party at an upscale restaurant only to have your six-year-old vomit on you in the car just as you pull into the parking lot. That’s the universe’s way of telling you to relax a little and stop fussing over things that don’t matter. The universe has been working overtime to correct my anal-retentive tendencies. My mother told me once that if you pray for something, it’s not given to you. Instead you’re provided the opportunity to earn it. My life is proof that her belief is true.

Tomorrow we’re taking the boys up for the first of five ski lessons we’ve enrolled them in. I’m a little anxious because they’re not as excited about it as we are. For most of my life, I’ve been a Nervous Nelly before a new experience. Once, in college, I drank two shots of vodka before going out for Thai food with a date because I’d never been to a Thai restaurant before and there were so many unknowns I was petrified. (A therapist would make a fortune off of me. I know this.) As I’ve gotten older and lived for years with unpredictable children, though, I’ve found a coping mechanism that won’t end in alcoholism. I play the Worst-Case-Scenario game. For example, take our skiing day tomorrow. There are dozens of things that could go wrong. We could get stuck in a snowstorm. We could forget our skis. A kid could drop one glove off a ski lift. We could arrive late and miss the lessons altogether. One of us could tear an ACL. It’s all possible, but it’s not likely. I’ve learned that worrying about the “what ifs” is a colossal waste of time. If we forget our skis, we’ll rent them. If the drive is horrific, we’ll turn around and head home. If one of us tears an ACL, well….that would suck, but it wouldn’t end the world as we know it. The more I’ve realized how unlikely it is that we’ll reach Death Con 5, the less I trouble myself over the small stuff. Gradually, my Threat Level Red decreased to Orange and now at last to Yellow. I’m making progress. I doubt I’ll ever see Green, but you gotta have goals and green is my favorite color.

No matter what happens with our planned ski adventure tomorrow, I know it will all work out one way or another.  I’m grateful that the universe found a way to offer me practice in the things I need. I once thought I did not want to be a parent. The universe knew better. Now I have two boys who are providing me with a great deal of perspective. Because of them, I’m less of an uptight loon than I used to be. I try new foods (without requiring vodka courage). I visit foreign countries. I’m interested in experiencing new things. And I don’t even lose sleep over any of it. It’s incredible how having a little person vomit on you can change you forever.

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Queue George Michael’s 1990 Hit…FREEDOM!

Harry Flufferpants, Esq.
Harry Flufferpants, Esq.

One of the best things that has come from our sons’ beginning at a new school is the stress it’s taken out of my life. For years our boys were struggling to keep up in class, an issue that was never more obvious than when they would pull out their homework. Every night was a battle. Homework that, according to their teachers and reports from friends whose children were in the same class, should have taken no more than an hour or an hour and a half each night took our boys upwards of three hours. There was non-stop whining, pleading, bargaining, and crying, and that’s without even mentioning how hard the boys took it. Five evenings out of the week (because, let’s face it, the weekend’s homework was not worked on slowly over two days but was instead busted out in one heinous rush on Sunday night), there was no peace in our house. Math assignments, book reports, and spelling troubled me more than any other thing in my life, including midlife crisis and the amount of time I had to wait for the next season of Downton Abbey. Those days are gone.

In their place, we have creativity, laughter, and family time. Because the boys work so hard all day at school to overcome their learning disabilities and because the school understands that, our boys currently have a manageable hour’s worth of homework each night…with a little extra time needed when special projects are assigned. And as if the one hour limit didn’t provide me with enough solace, the school also offers a homework club each day after school. For a reasonable fee the boys can stay an hour after school and complete their work in a teacher-supervised classroom with other students. It’s pure genius. When I pick up my boys at 4 pm, they are finished for the evening. We are currently mulling over which outside activities they could do, like music lessons and tae kwon do, because they will at last have the time to partake. I’m giddy simply thinking about it. They are finally getting to experience what life has been like for their friends. I’m excited for them. It’s about time.

In the meantime, our boys have taken their extra time to try new things and exercise their imaginations. Joe has been discovering graphic novels (books with more pictures than words that are perfect for dyslexic kids…get your minds out of the gutter, people) and Luke has been engaged creating the Museum of Cute. He’s using his iPad to print out photos of cute things, like teacup-sized Pomeranian dogs and mini pigs wearing rain boots, and organizing a collection, which he plans to tour our families through in a few weeks on opening night. Tonight there was an explosion of cute when he brought me this picture of a tiny, white Pomeranian with a mustache. The photo is labeled, “My Lawyer, Harry Flufferpants, Esq.” I can’t make this stuff up.

I also can’t seem to get the chorus from George Michael’s 1990 hit Freedom out of my head. Normally, this would be a problem for me, but I’m so relaxed after my new nighttime ritual mug of chamomile tea that I can’t even find the residual daily angst to care. I think my zen just got a bit closer.

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