When I decided to get pregnant with a third child (yes, I not we, decided) I thought I was going to stand out in a crowd with my big brood. At first people were shocked by three. Particularly my friends and family - I think my mother said something like, "Why?" But it wasn't long that I was the one getting all the notice and sympathy for having so much hard work upon me 24/7. No, soon everyone seemed to be expecting a third. Perhaps I was ahead of the crowd, I felt the trend coming maybe? I hate being like everyone else. It bugged me that our family was no longer out of the ordinary for middle-class northern Californians. There was something scintillating about the idea of breaking the long standing sanity of a two child household. Wasn't it feminism, education, rational behavior, population awareness, modern psychology, all those forms of elevated consciousness that made us consciously reduce our family sizes? We left behind the days of religious oppression, of permitting men to just get us pregnant, of thinking that more babies would fix us, fix the marriage. Now we had a neat package; two babies - either crammed together to bundle the costs and reduce the time away from a career or conversely spaced way apart to allow for more individual attention to each child as well as to spread the economic burden out - and a career, or perhaps a series of careers. We had balanced work and motherhood - we hired nannies, or started a co-op. We made huge portions of food every Sunday and froze it for the week so we could have at least 4 sit down meals together, as a family, because we all know, families who eat together do everything better. And out husbands were on board too weren't they? They did an equal portion of housework - right down the middle, 50-50. One person shops, the other cooks, one does the laundry, the other the vacuuming.
I am not that person. I like being different than what I perceive is the norm because I never can manage to live up to it anyway. First of all, I hated leaving my kids at day care or with a nanny. I couldn't stand the idea of someone else spending all that time with my still nursing baby. They were my kids and I wanted to be with them. I tried bringing my second child to work with me for a year and it was impossible. I was literally torn in two directions all day and I wasn't the only one who noticed the fraying of my nerves. Even my co-workers felt ignored. Also, my husband's job is extremely physical and he was simply unwilling to do much of anything when he came home from work. At first this deeply upset me, and all my female friends and my mother. I repeated verbatim their words of disgust right to my husband, in fights of course (you can imagine how effective this was) to no avail. Sometimes he would succumb a little bit and muster the strength to wash the dishes or make dinner (twice) but these new deals were very short lived. Eventually a marriage counselor told us to get a house cleaner. That was fabulous - but the guilt! Sometimes I would just get down with her and clean too - I felt terribly lazy about it (although the pleasure of a clean and effortless house was more than the remorse at having blown the work off myself so we had the house cleaned every week for many years.) My husband insisted it was saving our marriage.
Having a third child actually made it easy to do what I had been raised to never consider but was clearly my hearts desire (at least while my kids were young) which was to be a stay-at-home mother. It really wasn't realistic to think I could work and raise 3 children with little assistance from my husband (beyond making the bulk of the money of course). This is not to say he wasn't emotionally there for the kids or that he didn't spend time or energy on them. He did and he does. He just wasn't doing the grunge work - grocery shopping, cooking, lunches, cleaning, laundry, making beds, doctors visits, dressing, shopping for clothes, shoes etc. So I quit work and while I was at it, a few years later, had a fourth baby.
Yet again I was shocking! No one had four except the very wealthy (this was now becoming popular - a sign that you had so much disposable income that you could actually afford to raise four children all with utterly privileged lives.) I still was enjoying being so cutting edge and yet I also felt the real burden of what I had done. I realized too late, no one would ever invite us to dinner again. No one would ever want us to rent their vacation home or to borrow anything, ever. We really couldn't go to restaurants that weren't at least 80 decibels already and besides, even burritos ran us $60 now. There was not a single person who wanted to babysit for us (at least not for all four kids) accept my mother-in-law, bless her heart, but I couldn't possibly ask her more than once in a blue moon. Besides, I had this idea that each of my kids deserved the kind of attention that my first received for the first 4.7 years of her charmed and sibling free life. So I ran myself ragged trying to be all things to all my kids all the time.
I have had some real regret about having so many kids. I have certainly also felt pride that we have such an unusual, albeit, loud family. I have felt the full range of conflicting emotions - both trapped and surrounded by intense love, simultaneously over
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Moments
Lately I have been seeing moments in slow motion, with a mundane poignancy. To re-install the car seat - a physical act that I have done countless times, the nuances of which I am essentially intimate with - I must crawl inside the seat, on my knees, facing backwards and press my cheek and mouth into the backrest while I blindly (but so deftly) thread the seat belt through the correct channels. When I complete this task the seat implodes inward, downward, sucks straight into the car's backbone. I am very good at making sure that car seat is secure.
At night, in the middle of the night, when my husband and I are trying or are in fact, sleeping, things happen. Not sex, (although that used to happen wordlessly in the middle of the night - I am hoping that by the time our kids are out of the bed we won't be too old or have forgotten how to rouse ourselves like that) but all sorts of unspoken or muttered communications. My husband does this thing where he sweeps the proscribed area that he thinks of as "his" on the bed with his leg and like a bulldozer emotionlessly pushes all out of his way - the thing in his way is typically me or my blanket and sometimes (because we often end up sleeping head-to-toe) my pillow or face. It bugs the hell out of me. It makes me so resentful, so righteous. I always assume he is angry at me, resenting me right back. But he isn't - he is unconsciously trying to get comfortable. Sometimes, when I am being swept by the leg and a child is telling me his nightmare and another child is literally climbing my head looking for a good nesting spot, I think, "Who on earth does this?". Who?
In the morning when I meditate sitting up, my three year old sometimes wakes. He is already in bed with me but since I am now sitting up, he is no longer pressed against my body properly and so must get closer. He snuggles in, half sitting, half slumped and begins the process of finding my nipple. With his hand he travels under the comforter, navigates his way through the layers, finds the edge of my shirt and travels over the wiggly rungs of loose flesh on my stomach. As his pudgy soft hand covers every contour of my skin I am forced to think of how this intimate exercise will influence him. This (assuming he is going to be straight) is how he will measure all female bodies - against the texture, shape and in all honestly, flabbiness, of his mother. It is no wonder that the vast majority of men who have told me such information have admitted that a woman with some meat is the sexiest of all. The skinny models in lingerie catalogs are not appealing. It is no wonder. My son's first experience with comfort, love, with the sensual experience, is with a post-partum woman. And we all know what a post-partum woman looks like. To me, this is a beautiful thing.
These are the minute details of daily life that I am struck by. Basic and perhaps not, at first glance, particularly intriguing. I don't know where the zoom lens of the mind has come from but it certainly has given me good material for writing...
At night, in the middle of the night, when my husband and I are trying or are in fact, sleeping, things happen. Not sex, (although that used to happen wordlessly in the middle of the night - I am hoping that by the time our kids are out of the bed we won't be too old or have forgotten how to rouse ourselves like that) but all sorts of unspoken or muttered communications. My husband does this thing where he sweeps the proscribed area that he thinks of as "his" on the bed with his leg and like a bulldozer emotionlessly pushes all out of his way - the thing in his way is typically me or my blanket and sometimes (because we often end up sleeping head-to-toe) my pillow or face. It bugs the hell out of me. It makes me so resentful, so righteous. I always assume he is angry at me, resenting me right back. But he isn't - he is unconsciously trying to get comfortable. Sometimes, when I am being swept by the leg and a child is telling me his nightmare and another child is literally climbing my head looking for a good nesting spot, I think, "Who on earth does this?". Who?
In the morning when I meditate sitting up, my three year old sometimes wakes. He is already in bed with me but since I am now sitting up, he is no longer pressed against my body properly and so must get closer. He snuggles in, half sitting, half slumped and begins the process of finding my nipple. With his hand he travels under the comforter, navigates his way through the layers, finds the edge of my shirt and travels over the wiggly rungs of loose flesh on my stomach. As his pudgy soft hand covers every contour of my skin I am forced to think of how this intimate exercise will influence him. This (assuming he is going to be straight) is how he will measure all female bodies - against the texture, shape and in all honestly, flabbiness, of his mother. It is no wonder that the vast majority of men who have told me such information have admitted that a woman with some meat is the sexiest of all. The skinny models in lingerie catalogs are not appealing. It is no wonder. My son's first experience with comfort, love, with the sensual experience, is with a post-partum woman. And we all know what a post-partum woman looks like. To me, this is a beautiful thing.
These are the minute details of daily life that I am struck by. Basic and perhaps not, at first glance, particularly intriguing. I don't know where the zoom lens of the mind has come from but it certainly has given me good material for writing...
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
There is Nothing Better out There
I have been married for 15 years this August and have lived with my husband for 17 1/2 years. I do not know where he ends and I begin. This is a trite little way of describing the indescribable connection that forms when you have lived with, had children (4) with, slept with (sexually and simply, well, slept) and shared money with the same person for so long. We have lived in 4 apartments and 4 houses. We have had horrendous arguments about preparing, packing, planning and executing our moves. We have picked paint colors, felt belittled by the disapproval of the other over the colors we liked and didn't like, bickered and challenged each other to paint properly, prep correctly, and cover the floors thoroughly. Countless times, he and I have stood surveying a room and negotiated how the furniture should be arranged - sometimes complimenting the other, sometimes expressing gratitude for a great idea and sometimes hating the others guts for simply refusing to put the sofa in the "right" spot.
We have taught each other how to cook, how to sing, to dance, to write in cursive, in architectural script, to draw in perspective, to use a screw gun and to sew. There were times, months or weeks, when I was more powerful, more together, more emotionally fit and there were times when he was the strong one, the one who kept everything from falling apart. There were long periods of general disharmony, where resentment prevailed and compassion and understanding came only after emotionally violent arguments. There were periods in which nothing in the world felt better than being folded into his chest. The smell of my husband's body is tantamount to home. I have imagined him gone from my life (death, divorce, done it all fantasy wise) and I can almost make myself cry just thinking about missing his scent - or perchance catching it on an old shirt or a pillow case.
I have been so resentful, so hateful in fact, of my husband and the way he controls, dictates, orders around and imposes his boundaries and standards on me and yet I have folded myself around his ways. I have become ever conscious of them. There is no time I leave the bed unmade all day (always rushing to make it at 4:30 before he gets home from work) without thinking of him and how much he hates an unmade bed. I do not prepare a meal or even a snack and not wonder what he would think of it or judge the tastiness based on his taste buds, his likes and dislikes. I have quite a few items of clothing that I can barely bring myself to wear because he once said something only mildly disparaging about them - and conversely, everything I own that he has complimented me on, I remember too.
There is no movie, no book, no radio program, no news article, that I do not filter through his perception as well as my own. I often feel as though he is perched on my shoulder, overseeing everything I do - he is right there with my mother who is watching as well. Sounds bleak but it is not - I don't think so anyway... I actually think it is relatively normal to be so enmeshed with one's partner of so long. There is a reason we finish each others thoughts or bring up the same subject at the same time - we are entangled, linked, biochemically as well as through our shared history.
Sometimes I, (and I know he does this too though he is not the kind of guy who would mention it out loud) wonder what it would be like to be single or to be married to a totally different kind of person - someone who did everything my way. Someone who liked more of the things I do - someone who wasn't so allergic to poison oak that he is kind of a drag to camp with - stuff like that. But I have watched divorce up close and from a distance. I have seen women leave for new men and men leave for other women. I have seen the total wreckage, chaos and cacophony of pain that comes of it. I know now from these observations, that new love fades, that it is all just a projection anyway. There is nothing better out there. I know that. So I muddle though, rage at, embrace and adore, giggle, bitch, complain and float inside this marriage.
We have taught each other how to cook, how to sing, to dance, to write in cursive, in architectural script, to draw in perspective, to use a screw gun and to sew. There were times, months or weeks, when I was more powerful, more together, more emotionally fit and there were times when he was the strong one, the one who kept everything from falling apart. There were long periods of general disharmony, where resentment prevailed and compassion and understanding came only after emotionally violent arguments. There were periods in which nothing in the world felt better than being folded into his chest. The smell of my husband's body is tantamount to home. I have imagined him gone from my life (death, divorce, done it all fantasy wise) and I can almost make myself cry just thinking about missing his scent - or perchance catching it on an old shirt or a pillow case.
I have been so resentful, so hateful in fact, of my husband and the way he controls, dictates, orders around and imposes his boundaries and standards on me and yet I have folded myself around his ways. I have become ever conscious of them. There is no time I leave the bed unmade all day (always rushing to make it at 4:30 before he gets home from work) without thinking of him and how much he hates an unmade bed. I do not prepare a meal or even a snack and not wonder what he would think of it or judge the tastiness based on his taste buds, his likes and dislikes. I have quite a few items of clothing that I can barely bring myself to wear because he once said something only mildly disparaging about them - and conversely, everything I own that he has complimented me on, I remember too.
There is no movie, no book, no radio program, no news article, that I do not filter through his perception as well as my own. I often feel as though he is perched on my shoulder, overseeing everything I do - he is right there with my mother who is watching as well. Sounds bleak but it is not - I don't think so anyway... I actually think it is relatively normal to be so enmeshed with one's partner of so long. There is a reason we finish each others thoughts or bring up the same subject at the same time - we are entangled, linked, biochemically as well as through our shared history.
Sometimes I, (and I know he does this too though he is not the kind of guy who would mention it out loud) wonder what it would be like to be single or to be married to a totally different kind of person - someone who did everything my way. Someone who liked more of the things I do - someone who wasn't so allergic to poison oak that he is kind of a drag to camp with - stuff like that. But I have watched divorce up close and from a distance. I have seen women leave for new men and men leave for other women. I have seen the total wreckage, chaos and cacophony of pain that comes of it. I know now from these observations, that new love fades, that it is all just a projection anyway. There is nothing better out there. I know that. So I muddle though, rage at, embrace and adore, giggle, bitch, complain and float inside this marriage.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Antipathy
I have been reluctant to say this out loud for fear of being told that I made my own bed and I ought to lay in in, quietly, but... I really resent my kids. Not all the time, but often. Especially the youngest, which seems the worst kind of resentment. To blame an innocent three year old, really? I wake up with resentment - dread, really. He sleeps in our bed, which I desperately want to change, and although he manages to typically stay up later than I do, he also wakes up just when I am snuggling down into that post-pee bliss land of morning sleep. Upon awakening his first thought seems to be, "Where, oh where, has that God damn nipple gotten to in the night?" And then begins a resentful, irritated, aggressive search for my breasts which, mind you, must be accessible in exactly the correct way - the angle, the lack of obstruction by blanket or my arms. Once he has managed to create the perfect nipple touching environment, there comes the actual process of reuniting with his long lost friend. This is not a gentle thing. No, it is incessant swirling, shifting, pinching, stroking, a sort of wiggling of fingers and palm. I cannot begin to tell you how much I detest this self-comforting nipple-love that my youngest, and all three of his siblings before him, seem to have been born with. I tried to prevent it. I really did. It seems though, that it must be genetic, because it is not as though I taught them how to do it - and the neighbor kids certainly didn't pass it on. They just searched around, while nursing, and found something absolutely wonderful to play with. I would move their roaming hand, push it, nudge it, but when a four month old reaches out in that ever so innocent, "I am just resting my tired little pudgy hand on your breast for a moment" way, what can a soft-hearted, exhausted breastfeeding momma do? It is cute and it does seem innocent. At first.
I am about to put a stop to it - I have managed to end it at bedtime. Now we just hold hands instead, which I much prefer (although even that is tainted with demands about the angle of our fingers, the order of the interlacing) to being fondled by anyone but my husband. Any day now, you may see me, with a chastity belt of the breasts and a perfectly happy three year old.
I am about to put a stop to it - I have managed to end it at bedtime. Now we just hold hands instead, which I much prefer (although even that is tainted with demands about the angle of our fingers, the order of the interlacing) to being fondled by anyone but my husband. Any day now, you may see me, with a chastity belt of the breasts and a perfectly happy three year old.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Nature Nurture
I realize that the nature/nurture debate has been hammered out in so many formats, so many scientific and psychological journals, to the point which I doubt I can shed any further light on the subject. I suspect that if I were to read more thoroughly of the aforementioned pieces I could find further answers to my endless stream of queries regarding my efforts at child rearing and my influence on the outcome.
For a total layman I think I have a pretty good grasp on how things work...a child is born with a certain set of traits, assets and liabilities. His environment, particularly if is is extreme in any way, has the potential to activate some genes (which then effect emotional and intellectual health) and to enhance or diminish genes that are actively relevant. This supposition leaves me with the question: How much does it matter how I parent? My inclination to keep my kids safe, clean, healthily fed and educated is a given. Beyond that, how much affection, focused attention, exposure to nature, culture, spirituality, boundaries, rules, discipline etc is the correct amount?
Is there something that I could be doing right now with my children that will enable them to have grand dreams and then actually manifest them? Is there something I am doing right now that is in fact squelching a part of them that would otherwise have them become a Doctors without Borders physician, the next great philanthropist, the inventor of the first entirely solar car made of 100% post-consumer waste? Or, perhaps even a grander dream, a child who grows into an adult who finds love, is engaged with the world and is relatively happy? Someone who is self supporting, generous, kind, perhaps?
As an aside, have you noticed that great men and women of history, those that made radical changes politically, socially, artistically and scientifically are, in their personal lives, pretty screwed up? Why can't the JFK's and the MLK's of the world also be faithful to their wives? And why can't the Sylvia Plath's and the Virginia Wolfe's be at all contented? Speaking of which, what type of adult would I prefer my child to be? The miserable genius or the happy every-man?
Because I do have four children I am in a special position to see, in actuality, how little I, or my husband may have to do with the personalities and achievements of our kids. Much remains to be revealed, as they are still young, but I am guessing that although much in their teen and adult life will be attributed to how we raised them - sad and funny anecdotes will be told, blame and credit will be assigned - they will turn out differently than each other and they will remain the people they were always going to be - even if they had been raised in entirely different families.
So then, the question remains, why do I, like most parents, worry so much about how I am handling, addressing and responding to my kid's needs, personalities and problems? Why do I expend so much effort adjusting my responses and reactions to their foibles and their victories? And most curious, why do I worry so much how the world perceives me in relation to them and their behavior? Is it just self-centered fear? Do I (we) suffer from extreme egocentricity? Or is it biologically driven? A built in impulse intended to assure the best possible outcome for our offspring (living long enough to reproduce) that has, with the advent of gunpowder and antibiotics, spun into a neurotic habit? I hate it when it all comes down to evolutionary biological imperatives so I hope there is more to it - something else that explains that parental drive to do it right, to do it better or as well as our parents did or didn't.
Of course it is highly likely that my suppositions about the effects we have on our children are infinitely simplified - that in fact the nature/nurture dance is far more complex than I have made it out to be. Regardless, I do so hope to get it right even as I watch myself doing so much of it wrong. Perhaps it is in the quest for right-behavior that we are being the best kind of parent we can be - purely by seeking, we shape our children positively. Because we care, because we question ourselves, our motivations, we shed the selfishness that allows us to be more open, more effective, in our parenting. If that is even in part a truth, then I may have, through my infinite desire to know more, a chance at being a good mother.
For a total layman I think I have a pretty good grasp on how things work...a child is born with a certain set of traits, assets and liabilities. His environment, particularly if is is extreme in any way, has the potential to activate some genes (which then effect emotional and intellectual health) and to enhance or diminish genes that are actively relevant. This supposition leaves me with the question: How much does it matter how I parent? My inclination to keep my kids safe, clean, healthily fed and educated is a given. Beyond that, how much affection, focused attention, exposure to nature, culture, spirituality, boundaries, rules, discipline etc is the correct amount?
Is there something that I could be doing right now with my children that will enable them to have grand dreams and then actually manifest them? Is there something I am doing right now that is in fact squelching a part of them that would otherwise have them become a Doctors without Borders physician, the next great philanthropist, the inventor of the first entirely solar car made of 100% post-consumer waste? Or, perhaps even a grander dream, a child who grows into an adult who finds love, is engaged with the world and is relatively happy? Someone who is self supporting, generous, kind, perhaps?
As an aside, have you noticed that great men and women of history, those that made radical changes politically, socially, artistically and scientifically are, in their personal lives, pretty screwed up? Why can't the JFK's and the MLK's of the world also be faithful to their wives? And why can't the Sylvia Plath's and the Virginia Wolfe's be at all contented? Speaking of which, what type of adult would I prefer my child to be? The miserable genius or the happy every-man?
Because I do have four children I am in a special position to see, in actuality, how little I, or my husband may have to do with the personalities and achievements of our kids. Much remains to be revealed, as they are still young, but I am guessing that although much in their teen and adult life will be attributed to how we raised them - sad and funny anecdotes will be told, blame and credit will be assigned - they will turn out differently than each other and they will remain the people they were always going to be - even if they had been raised in entirely different families.
So then, the question remains, why do I, like most parents, worry so much about how I am handling, addressing and responding to my kid's needs, personalities and problems? Why do I expend so much effort adjusting my responses and reactions to their foibles and their victories? And most curious, why do I worry so much how the world perceives me in relation to them and their behavior? Is it just self-centered fear? Do I (we) suffer from extreme egocentricity? Or is it biologically driven? A built in impulse intended to assure the best possible outcome for our offspring (living long enough to reproduce) that has, with the advent of gunpowder and antibiotics, spun into a neurotic habit? I hate it when it all comes down to evolutionary biological imperatives so I hope there is more to it - something else that explains that parental drive to do it right, to do it better or as well as our parents did or didn't.
Of course it is highly likely that my suppositions about the effects we have on our children are infinitely simplified - that in fact the nature/nurture dance is far more complex than I have made it out to be. Regardless, I do so hope to get it right even as I watch myself doing so much of it wrong. Perhaps it is in the quest for right-behavior that we are being the best kind of parent we can be - purely by seeking, we shape our children positively. Because we care, because we question ourselves, our motivations, we shed the selfishness that allows us to be more open, more effective, in our parenting. If that is even in part a truth, then I may have, through my infinite desire to know more, a chance at being a good mother.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Really honest life story shit in process, unedited...
I was 14, and determined to fuck-up, when my family moved me across a bridge and into an entirely new city - one that was socially radically different than mine. I had already started my slut reputation off well at one high school and I suppose I thought I would continue on with my infamy at another. I was under the impression that sleeping with a lot of boys was a good way to make new friends and to become popular. I really did think that. Unfortunately sleeping with whomever, whenever, was bad for one's social standing in the Bay Area but was really just not done in San Rafael.
And sleep around is certainly what I did. And drink. And do drugs. And generally be a total misfit. When I was in the middle of ninth grade I saw a boy who was a couple years older than I standing outside after P.E. I was instantaneously in love. I mean full-on, heart brokenly, want to have his baby in love. I saw his eyelashes and it was on. The way he stood was enough to make me feel like throwing up - literally - in a good yet painful way. His eyes were like penetrating heavy weights and I was sunk to the ocean floor when he looked at me. This is exactly the way I felt at the time. That intensity of feeling. It was excruciating from the the very first moment.
So being the reckless girl I was, I walked right up to him and said something. I am not exactly sure what I said but it was something like, "I want to be with you." The emphasis on BE. And what do you think he did? Yes, he promptly escorted me right off campus and into his mom-is-not-home apartment.
At that time I had decided to try to quit drinking and doing drugs. I had a sober father, uncle and grandfather and was familiar with the signs of alcoholism and I suspected I had it. It has been a short time, 5 days, 5 weeks, something like that, that I had maintained a tentative sobriety.
He offered me a wine cooler - I remember this so clearly because wine coolers were new (to me or to the world, not sure) and I had this tiny baby moment of remembering that I was not going to drink anymore. Fuck that. It was on. All on, all the way, no looking back. And so began the onslaught of the worst emotional pain I had ever felt - which, at 14 was not a vast amount of pain. But I had had my share of familial, social and even romantic trials to know that this was not going to go well.
This boy had a girlfriend when I met him and he did not break up with her to be with me (although they did break up while I was still seeing him, things did not change in terms of my status as his official girlfriend). He dealt drugs and had a pager - (a pager that was like a mocking distant glass of water in the midst of a dry, hot desert - there was this pretense that I could get in touch with him, but he almost never called me back). He was often distant and cold and occasionally really romantic and loving. We were both from a liberal background and shared a certain jaded sensibility about the way the world worked. I saw that there was a real verbal and mental connection between us and he with me but for him, the drugs, childhood pain and teenage angst were all too powerful to allow any of that good stuff into a relationship with me. I was way more that he wanted to deal with - he had no resources to take on my level of obsession. There was no repository within him for my fantasy.
So that was how I spent my high school years. Fucked up with obsession. Trying to have real boyfriends along the way who were sweet, normal, nice guys but never really liking them all that much. Doing tons of drinking. Torturing my parents. Dressing and behaving in the most provocative, aggressive and rebellious fashion. I failed or received "D's" in all my classes. I think I took geometry twice. Eventually I had to take a remedial math class, which I failed when the teacher made a deal with me. He said, if I would quit smoking he would give me an "A". I wouldn't even have to take the final. I agreed. But of course, I had absolutely no intention of quitting smoking. A girl with some sense of self-preservation might have perhaps not smoked at school, or not told anyone that I was smoking and smoked only in private. But not me. I just went on smoking right before class, on campus and told anyone who would listen about how flagrantly I was defying my commitment. The teacher found out and I didn't care. I thought it was pretty funny actually. My complete loser-dome was amusing.
When I was 16 I sliced my wrist - I had been into cutting myself way before is was popular or even talked about. I would never have believed that this self-mutilation was anything but a maniupative tactic for being cool and edgy if I hadn't at the age of 13 been so utterly compelled by the shimmering, sharp $80 disection
I remember very little about the aftermath of the wrist-slicing except that my parents bought a horse before it was healed. The day we went to the stable and I test-rode Gear Jammer I was very self-conscious of the telltale wrist bandage and I did my best to keep my jacket sleeve low. I loved the horse and I loved riding him. Slowly my family became horse people and I ended up, over the next three years being given and purchasing with my own money, 3 more horses. Riding was the one thing that my parents and I enjoyed doing together. It was the only time when I felt successful and competent. Physical exertion coupled with the intense emotional connection between horse and rider was a powerful antidepressant (if I was in fact depressed - it didn't feel like depression, it felt like extreme confusion, arrogance and obsessive-mindedness).
There were older girl friends too - one in particular who knew about this bar - a blues bar - that didn't ask for I.D. and had a couple of pool tables. Of course, this was my new favorite spot. I can still conjure the feeling of titillation it gave me to walk into the smokey, stale place, with the twangy sounds of musicians warming up and the jubilantly friendly female bar tender who loved to get me wasted every Friday night. I discovered new kinds of alcohol. Midori for Mellonballs, Jagermeister straight, and Manhattans which seemed to have a lot of it all.
And sleep around is certainly what I did. And drink. And do drugs. And generally be a total misfit. When I was in the middle of ninth grade I saw a boy who was a couple years older than I standing outside after P.E. I was instantaneously in love. I mean full-on, heart brokenly, want to have his baby in love. I saw his eyelashes and it was on. The way he stood was enough to make me feel like throwing up - literally - in a good yet painful way. His eyes were like penetrating heavy weights and I was sunk to the ocean floor when he looked at me. This is exactly the way I felt at the time. That intensity of feeling. It was excruciating from the the very first moment.
So being the reckless girl I was, I walked right up to him and said something. I am not exactly sure what I said but it was something like, "I want to be with you." The emphasis on BE. And what do you think he did? Yes, he promptly escorted me right off campus and into his mom-is-not-home apartment.
At that time I had decided to try to quit drinking and doing drugs. I had a sober father, uncle and grandfather and was familiar with the signs of alcoholism and I suspected I had it. It has been a short time, 5 days, 5 weeks, something like that, that I had maintained a tentative sobriety.
He offered me a wine cooler - I remember this so clearly because wine coolers were new (to me or to the world, not sure) and I had this tiny baby moment of remembering that I was not going to drink anymore. Fuck that. It was on. All on, all the way, no looking back. And so began the onslaught of the worst emotional pain I had ever felt - which, at 14 was not a vast amount of pain. But I had had my share of familial, social and even romantic trials to know that this was not going to go well.
This boy had a girlfriend when I met him and he did not break up with her to be with me (although they did break up while I was still seeing him, things did not change in terms of my status as his official girlfriend). He dealt drugs and had a pager - (a pager that was like a mocking distant glass of water in the midst of a dry, hot desert - there was this pretense that I could get in touch with him, but he almost never called me back). He was often distant and cold and occasionally really romantic and loving. We were both from a liberal background and shared a certain jaded sensibility about the way the world worked. I saw that there was a real verbal and mental connection between us and he with me but for him, the drugs, childhood pain and teenage angst were all too powerful to allow any of that good stuff into a relationship with me. I was way more that he wanted to deal with - he had no resources to take on my level of obsession. There was no repository within him for my fantasy.
So that was how I spent my high school years. Fucked up with obsession. Trying to have real boyfriends along the way who were sweet, normal, nice guys but never really liking them all that much. Doing tons of drinking. Torturing my parents. Dressing and behaving in the most provocative, aggressive and rebellious fashion. I failed or received "D's" in all my classes. I think I took geometry twice. Eventually I had to take a remedial math class, which I failed when the teacher made a deal with me. He said, if I would quit smoking he would give me an "A". I wouldn't even have to take the final. I agreed. But of course, I had absolutely no intention of quitting smoking. A girl with some sense of self-preservation might have perhaps not smoked at school, or not told anyone that I was smoking and smoked only in private. But not me. I just went on smoking right before class, on campus and told anyone who would listen about how flagrantly I was defying my commitment. The teacher found out and I didn't care. I thought it was pretty funny actually. My complete loser-dome was amusing.
When I was 16 I sliced my wrist - I had been into cutting myself way before is was popular or even talked about. I would never have believed that this self-mutilation was anything but a maniupative tactic for being cool and edgy if I hadn't at the age of 13 been so utterly compelled by the shimmering, sharp $80 disection
I remember very little about the aftermath of the wrist-slicing except that my parents bought a horse before it was healed. The day we went to the stable and I test-rode Gear Jammer I was very self-conscious of the telltale wrist bandage and I did my best to keep my jacket sleeve low. I loved the horse and I loved riding him. Slowly my family became horse people and I ended up, over the next three years being given and purchasing with my own money, 3 more horses. Riding was the one thing that my parents and I enjoyed doing together. It was the only time when I felt successful and competent. Physical exertion coupled with the intense emotional connection between horse and rider was a powerful antidepressant (if I was in fact depressed - it didn't feel like depression, it felt like extreme confusion, arrogance and obsessive-mindedness).
When I was 16 and just eeking out a little bit of sanity now and then, my mother suggested I quit high school. She said that she was sick of getting the pre-recorded message from my school which said, "Your child has missed one or more classes. If this is an excused absence please call or send a note..." I was sick of rushing to the phone to intercept those calls myself. Her suggestion was the wisest parenting decision I think she ever made. I literally quit the next day and never came back. I was a few months shy of the completion of my junior year and easily passed my GED. I took a year off of school all together and moved back to my home city, Oakland, and in with my very laid back about my drinking and screwing around, grandmother. I worked at my families retail business, bought a truck, a new horse and had the time of my life. If I wasn't regularly drinking and driving and crashing my car and waking up in strange houses I would say that it was a healthy, growing period. I had finally managed to at least functionally get over the boyfriend who really wasn't a boyfriend and only occasionally bounced back into his life.
When I started to take classes at a junior college I soon solidly understood what it was I hated so much about high school. Not only did the teachers, in general, hate their jobs and their students but the shit they taught was often banal and utterly uninspiring. More than that though, I now realized, was the social dynamic of the staid and false culture which high school produces. Junior college, in particular, perhaps more so than a four year university, offered such a random mixture of people of all ages, races and socio-economic back grounds. It was so much more my scene since I had always been one to mix it up socially. One of the things I couldn't stand about the town my parents moved us to was the uptight and rigid ideas about class that were ever present, everywhere. I also revealed to myself that I was really smart. Getting A's was no problem for me now. And I liked shit - academic shit. My dad now became one of my most useful friends for he could write exceptionally well having taught English at UC Berkeley. I spent hours on the phone reading and rereading my papers to him as he stopped me mid-sentence and shredded my sentences until they were precise, sharp, perfect representations of my mind. We did this for years, even after I went to the East coast to attend a real university.
I remember being gleefully surprised by the type of guys who were now asking me out - grown men (young grown men) with histories and pasts and interests beyond foot ball and drinking. I encountered my first young sober person and I actually thought he was fascinating with long, long red hair and such a cool way of dressing. I hooked up with this young Spanish looking guy - from the bad part of town - who made it extremely clear from the outset that this was just sex (and I was actually fine with that - he wasn't my mentally my type, too into the gangster bullshit). He was so beautiful to behold that I drew him in class - perfectly. He really was an Adonis.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Sick Fantasy
When I wash the dishes or trim the roses - pretty much any time I have a sharp object in my hand - I visualize myself accidentally cutting off a finger or slicing open my hand. I think we all do this, some not even quite consciously. For most, I suspect these images only hit the brain as a warning to not accidentally inflict hospital-worthy wounds. But lately, my mental flashes of bloody limbs have gotten more like movies. Instead of a quick picture that is drowned out by a renewed consciousness to watch what I am doing, I have come to take these imaginings as a possible vacation.
I imagine the entire scene unfolding and it appeals to me. I am not indirectly talking about suicide or an attempted suicide or even a pretend attempted suicide. I am imagining rest and being taken care of. I imagine the attention that would be paid to me, the way in which my youngest would finally stop asking me to hold him. I imagine that for a moment no one would need me and I would instead, be the needy one. As I write this my 7 year old has asked me to read him a poem that he wrote in a book he bound in a class I taught at his school. He also asked if he could sit in my lap while I wrote. And I am grateful for that - for being his teacher, for his love of me and his desire to share good memories with me, memories I helped facilitate. While I type these words, my 3 year old has made a successful trek up my leg and into my lap, my hands are rigid on the keyboard to prevent his monkey paws from ripping them off and toward what he'd like me to do.
Back to my victim fantasy: The whole ambulance ride to the hospital appeals to me, "Well, you look like you gave yourself one hell of a cut! What were you trying to do there?", the paramedic would joke - he would joke because of course, there would be no life threatening danger, just a quick ER visit and some stitches. Maybe a few hours in a room alone to recover while I waited to be picked up by my, very grateful I am alright, husband. He would probably bring me lunch, perhaps a sandwich made from food I didn't purchase, or maybe even something my kids would hate, like raw fish or a curry.
No children would be allowed in the recovery room and I wouldn't mind. For just a few hours in a day I would not be able to put myself second. If I didn't tend to this horrible wound I would be in for some serious trouble, doctors orders! And the follow-up care would involve absolutely no washing of dishes, nor bathing of children and certainly, under no circumstances, folding any clothes.
Because I actually do know what it is like when I am under orders to lay low (post-partum X 4) and the dire consequences to my marriage when I am not head of clean-up patrol, in this fantasy, my mother, the most tidy human on earth - would come over for 4 hours a day of cleaning, cooking and general childcare. And since I am thoroughly orchestrating how this disaster/miracle/stay-cation would go down, how about this: My whole family, sick with concern and worry for me, would realize that it just isn't healthy for their dear, beloved wife and mother to be solely focused on their needs. My kids would each pick a heavy-duty chore he could take on. One would realize that laundry was his new duty. Another, mopping and sweeping. Even the 3 year old would see me as I really am, a mere mortal who needs a little bit of physical space every once in while.
And then after the scar began to fade and became just another great party story, I would end the tale with this life lesson, "You know what I really learned from that whole event? The take-away? Boundaries. You have to learn to put down boundaries."
I imagine the entire scene unfolding and it appeals to me. I am not indirectly talking about suicide or an attempted suicide or even a pretend attempted suicide. I am imagining rest and being taken care of. I imagine the attention that would be paid to me, the way in which my youngest would finally stop asking me to hold him. I imagine that for a moment no one would need me and I would instead, be the needy one. As I write this my 7 year old has asked me to read him a poem that he wrote in a book he bound in a class I taught at his school. He also asked if he could sit in my lap while I wrote. And I am grateful for that - for being his teacher, for his love of me and his desire to share good memories with me, memories I helped facilitate. While I type these words, my 3 year old has made a successful trek up my leg and into my lap, my hands are rigid on the keyboard to prevent his monkey paws from ripping them off and toward what he'd like me to do.
Back to my victim fantasy: The whole ambulance ride to the hospital appeals to me, "Well, you look like you gave yourself one hell of a cut! What were you trying to do there?", the paramedic would joke - he would joke because of course, there would be no life threatening danger, just a quick ER visit and some stitches. Maybe a few hours in a room alone to recover while I waited to be picked up by my, very grateful I am alright, husband. He would probably bring me lunch, perhaps a sandwich made from food I didn't purchase, or maybe even something my kids would hate, like raw fish or a curry.
No children would be allowed in the recovery room and I wouldn't mind. For just a few hours in a day I would not be able to put myself second. If I didn't tend to this horrible wound I would be in for some serious trouble, doctors orders! And the follow-up care would involve absolutely no washing of dishes, nor bathing of children and certainly, under no circumstances, folding any clothes.
Because I actually do know what it is like when I am under orders to lay low (post-partum X 4) and the dire consequences to my marriage when I am not head of clean-up patrol, in this fantasy, my mother, the most tidy human on earth - would come over for 4 hours a day of cleaning, cooking and general childcare. And since I am thoroughly orchestrating how this disaster/miracle/stay-cation would go down, how about this: My whole family, sick with concern and worry for me, would realize that it just isn't healthy for their dear, beloved wife and mother to be solely focused on their needs. My kids would each pick a heavy-duty chore he could take on. One would realize that laundry was his new duty. Another, mopping and sweeping. Even the 3 year old would see me as I really am, a mere mortal who needs a little bit of physical space every once in while.
And then after the scar began to fade and became just another great party story, I would end the tale with this life lesson, "You know what I really learned from that whole event? The take-away? Boundaries. You have to learn to put down boundaries."
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