I went to the doctor today, and the first thought was food poisoning (staph) -- but that didn't explain the chicken chili episode earlier this month, so then it went to possible gallstones. I got a script for bloodwork and an abdominal ultrasound for tomorrow. I tried to get in for the ultrasound today, but apparently you have to not eat or drink since midnight for it to be valid, and I ate a grilled cheese and applesauce for lunch. Oops -- I almost didn't eat today just in case, but then my appointment was at 1:00 and I thought, why torture myself?
I looked at the blood lab slip though and saw "Urine Pregnancy Test HCG Beta."
It made me a little irritated, because it should be in my chart that that's an impossibility now, but I decided that I didn't want insurance to pay for a completely unnecessary test (plus I wanted to avoid having to pee in a cup).
"Excuse me, could you take this pregnancy test off my script? I don't actually have an endometrium, so that's not necessary."
I was directed to the nurse, who said, "Wait, you what?"
And I repeated, "I don't have an endometrium. My uterine lining was removed last December. For me to be pregnant would be some trick."
Luckily they were able to take it off the list, but then it turned out that I still needed a urine sample anyway for some sort of culture, so it really didn't save much, just the principle of the thing.
Also, I brought a giant book (A Conjuring of Light) with me to the appointment, even though I have Perfect Little World on my Kindle in my purse for Lori's Novel Approach book discussion, but I thought... what if? What if I have to go for a bunch of tests right then and there? What if something is found and I get stuck in the hospital without enough reading material? (This actually happened when I was admitted for my ectopic surgery, somehow there was a mixup and Bryce left with my book and I was left with crappy middle of the night TV when I couldn't sleep...awful.) I mean, the Kindle is sort of unlimited reading material, but I just finished the second book in that series and it was quite the cliffhanger, so if I was going to get stuck for hours I really wanted to have Conjuring to follow Perfect Little World.
I wonder if I'll ever be able to NOT worst-case-scenario things.
I hope I get (simple) answers soon. You know I don't do well with uncertainty...
Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!
Monday, January 29, 2018
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Quite Possibly the Most Embarrassing Day of My Life
2018 was NOT supposed to be a year of me leaving school in a flurry of activity, accompanied by the school nurse, curled up in a wheelchair, getting driven home by friends and coworkers, some question as to whether or not I should go to Urgent Care or the ER. That was supposed to end with the demise of 2017. But, I guess you don't always get what you want.
I was having a completely normal, perfectly fine day on Friday up until about 8th period (Bryce always complains when I talk in terms of class periods, that's from 12:56-1:36 if you want to know). I ate leftovers from a couple days ago (gluten free shells baked with gruyere sauce and broccoli) 5th period (around 11), and then the rest of my lunch 7th (an Icelandic strawberry yogurt followed by a Sumo orange around 12:30). It was a normal day.
Except after eating my second part of my lunch, I felt...unsettled.
I walked down to the English class I push into, and as I walked my stomach got gurglier and gurglier.
I settled in for the beginning of class, but then got pulled out into the hall because a meeting 9th period was cancelled, and so I took that opportunity to run to the bathroom.
I felt terrible. I was all crampy and gurgly, but I did what I came to do and headed back to class.
Unfortunately the pain started to get worse, and I left again for a different bathroom since I suspected I might be in there a while. My lower back hurt. My gurgling was running up and down my entire torso like a freaking xylophone being played. And I felt a bit bleary.
I started freaking out that I'd somehow gotten into gluten, because I was having the sharp pains in my upper abdomen that I associate with that, and I was real bloated and feeling like I was going to have some quality time in a very public restroom (for some reason it was a hot place to be during this time, and while I believe you should go when you need to go and that's what toilets are for, I still don't enjoy sick-crapping at work and try to "courtesy flush" often). I realized I was definitely sick.
I managed to get my stuff from the English room, offer a quick apology for my absence, and find my TA to let her know to run homeroom since I was going to need to go BACK to the bathroom, for sure. I looked a mess. My hair was getting big and fluffy, and my eyes were all glassy, and I had that "I think I could cry at any moment" tone in my voice. So she covered homeroom and I went BACK to the bathroom. At this point I'd been vacillating between the student bathroom and the faculty bathroom for a half hour, thinking I could return to class and then realizing partway down the hall that nope, that wasn't going to happen. I started feeling like I couldn't stand upright without excruciating pain. I cried this time, and sweat through my shirt.
Eventually I went to my room as someone saw me and said, "um, I think you should go home." I still wasn't sure (and frankly even now I'm not sure) if it was a celiac thing or a stomach bug. I made my way to my classroom, which seemed like it was about 5 miles away, and before I got to my door two of my coworker friends saw me and were like, "um, she looks fucked up" and ran over, and I just lost it. You know when you feel so sick and in pain that all you can do is cry? I hit that point.
This is where I scared the bejeezus out of all my students, as I came in and sat down and they made them all relocate to the Social Studies teacher's room for 9th period, and I was basically crying and clutching my stomach and hunched completely over feeling like aliens with talons were ripping apart my insides. Someone went to get the nurse. Someone said maybe we should get an ambulance. Someone else looked up the creamer which was the only unusual thing I ate that day to see if it was secretly glutenous, but it wasn't.
And here is where it turned completely and utterly into a shitshow of epically embarrassing proportions. I don't know why these things happen to me, but they do, and all I can do is laugh about it. Inappropriately.
My stomach started seizing again and the pain was incredible and I knew I definitely had to go to the bathroom, yet AGAIN. The nurse insisted on wheeling me there so I didn't pass out or something (a very real possibility at the time) but what I didn't realize was that I BECAME THE PIED PIPER OF POOP. People followed like an entourage, and we picked up concerned coworker friends as we turned the corner to the student bathroom, and they had teachers shut their doors (so I guess I was the reason for a very localized hold-in-place), and I basically blew ass with the school nurse in the stall next to me and a crowd of concerned people RIGHT OUTSIDE THE DOORWAY. Did you notice I said "doorway" and not "door?" Because that's right, STUDENT BATHROOMS HAVE NO DOORS. Just stalls with doors, which offer ZERO acoustic dampening at all.
I guess it was encouraging that I just had diarrhea instead of vomiting, which could mean something ruptured, but then the word "diarrhea" was repeated about a zillion times while I was leaning against the wall, sweating and wishing I could just maybe die or be transported into another dimension at this point.
"Could we maybe say 'diarrhea' less right now?" I feebly joked.
They grabbed all my stuff and wonderful people drove me home but not before a procession through the halls (thankfully not during passing time, unlike my fall in the spring where I did the wheelchair tour the first time), and they stayed until Bryce could get there, and I could have the blissful amenities of my own bathroom with a sound-dampening fan and a candle.
Not less than 25 people, including both my administrators, witnessed this at one point or another.
The activities of my ass were well documented and discussed.
I don't know how I'm going to do Monday, but so far I have responded to texts of concern (and also concerning but inaccurate accounts that I collapsed) with appreciation and a fair number of smiling poop emojis. I also emailed all my parents later in the evening, since I was fairly sure they might mention their teacher getting carted out of school and all the talk of ambulances and whatnot. (No poop emojis there, I do have SOME sense of propriety.)
Why, oh why, must my body just constantly seek to betray and humiliate me? Can it save this shit for the WEEKEND sometime?
I'm thinking it's a bug, because I am still struggling although not in constant pain anymore, and I am very tired. It's possible I was dehydrated. It's possible my intestinal tract is inflamed for reasons other than celiac. What's concerning me is that this is the second time in a month that I have felt like I was glutened but I did not actually eat anything with gluten in it. A few weeks ago I got sick like this at home, after eating White Chicken Chili that I made MYSELF, and I blamed a rotisserie chicken (that I asked about later and was assured it didn't have flour in the bag. Same thing that time -- low back pain followed by stabby/shooty upper abdominal pain and a hot-knife feeling in my low belly, diarrhea, and cramping/pains so bad I was writhing on the floor, unable to be upright or straightened out. In both instances pressing on my belly helped with the pain.
I sincerely hope I'm not dealing with some new GI issue here, and I'll be going to the doctor this next week. I hope it's just a real nasty bug, because unlike Chicken Chili night I am WIPED today too, so it's lasting more than a few hours. I didn't wake up in the morning and feel awesome. I slept the majority of the day.
I could go my whole life though without having such a public display of bodily functions, and detailed discussion of just how I was so terribly sick. Jeezum. Wish me luck on Monday...
I was having a completely normal, perfectly fine day on Friday up until about 8th period (Bryce always complains when I talk in terms of class periods, that's from 12:56-1:36 if you want to know). I ate leftovers from a couple days ago (gluten free shells baked with gruyere sauce and broccoli) 5th period (around 11), and then the rest of my lunch 7th (an Icelandic strawberry yogurt followed by a Sumo orange around 12:30). It was a normal day.
Except after eating my second part of my lunch, I felt...unsettled.
I walked down to the English class I push into, and as I walked my stomach got gurglier and gurglier.
I settled in for the beginning of class, but then got pulled out into the hall because a meeting 9th period was cancelled, and so I took that opportunity to run to the bathroom.
I felt terrible. I was all crampy and gurgly, but I did what I came to do and headed back to class.
Unfortunately the pain started to get worse, and I left again for a different bathroom since I suspected I might be in there a while. My lower back hurt. My gurgling was running up and down my entire torso like a freaking xylophone being played. And I felt a bit bleary.
I started freaking out that I'd somehow gotten into gluten, because I was having the sharp pains in my upper abdomen that I associate with that, and I was real bloated and feeling like I was going to have some quality time in a very public restroom (for some reason it was a hot place to be during this time, and while I believe you should go when you need to go and that's what toilets are for, I still don't enjoy sick-crapping at work and try to "courtesy flush" often). I realized I was definitely sick.
I managed to get my stuff from the English room, offer a quick apology for my absence, and find my TA to let her know to run homeroom since I was going to need to go BACK to the bathroom, for sure. I looked a mess. My hair was getting big and fluffy, and my eyes were all glassy, and I had that "I think I could cry at any moment" tone in my voice. So she covered homeroom and I went BACK to the bathroom. At this point I'd been vacillating between the student bathroom and the faculty bathroom for a half hour, thinking I could return to class and then realizing partway down the hall that nope, that wasn't going to happen. I started feeling like I couldn't stand upright without excruciating pain. I cried this time, and sweat through my shirt.
Eventually I went to my room as someone saw me and said, "um, I think you should go home." I still wasn't sure (and frankly even now I'm not sure) if it was a celiac thing or a stomach bug. I made my way to my classroom, which seemed like it was about 5 miles away, and before I got to my door two of my coworker friends saw me and were like, "um, she looks fucked up" and ran over, and I just lost it. You know when you feel so sick and in pain that all you can do is cry? I hit that point.
This is where I scared the bejeezus out of all my students, as I came in and sat down and they made them all relocate to the Social Studies teacher's room for 9th period, and I was basically crying and clutching my stomach and hunched completely over feeling like aliens with talons were ripping apart my insides. Someone went to get the nurse. Someone said maybe we should get an ambulance. Someone else looked up the creamer which was the only unusual thing I ate that day to see if it was secretly glutenous, but it wasn't.
And here is where it turned completely and utterly into a shitshow of epically embarrassing proportions. I don't know why these things happen to me, but they do, and all I can do is laugh about it. Inappropriately.
My stomach started seizing again and the pain was incredible and I knew I definitely had to go to the bathroom, yet AGAIN. The nurse insisted on wheeling me there so I didn't pass out or something (a very real possibility at the time) but what I didn't realize was that I BECAME THE PIED PIPER OF POOP. People followed like an entourage, and we picked up concerned coworker friends as we turned the corner to the student bathroom, and they had teachers shut their doors (so I guess I was the reason for a very localized hold-in-place), and I basically blew ass with the school nurse in the stall next to me and a crowd of concerned people RIGHT OUTSIDE THE DOORWAY. Did you notice I said "doorway" and not "door?" Because that's right, STUDENT BATHROOMS HAVE NO DOORS. Just stalls with doors, which offer ZERO acoustic dampening at all.
I guess it was encouraging that I just had diarrhea instead of vomiting, which could mean something ruptured, but then the word "diarrhea" was repeated about a zillion times while I was leaning against the wall, sweating and wishing I could just maybe die or be transported into another dimension at this point.
"Could we maybe say 'diarrhea' less right now?" I feebly joked.
They grabbed all my stuff and wonderful people drove me home but not before a procession through the halls (thankfully not during passing time, unlike my fall in the spring where I did the wheelchair tour the first time), and they stayed until Bryce could get there, and I could have the blissful amenities of my own bathroom with a sound-dampening fan and a candle.
Not less than 25 people, including both my administrators, witnessed this at one point or another.
The activities of my ass were well documented and discussed.
I don't know how I'm going to do Monday, but so far I have responded to texts of concern (and also concerning but inaccurate accounts that I collapsed) with appreciation and a fair number of smiling poop emojis. I also emailed all my parents later in the evening, since I was fairly sure they might mention their teacher getting carted out of school and all the talk of ambulances and whatnot. (No poop emojis there, I do have SOME sense of propriety.)
Why, oh why, must my body just constantly seek to betray and humiliate me? Can it save this shit for the WEEKEND sometime?
I'm thinking it's a bug, because I am still struggling although not in constant pain anymore, and I am very tired. It's possible I was dehydrated. It's possible my intestinal tract is inflamed for reasons other than celiac. What's concerning me is that this is the second time in a month that I have felt like I was glutened but I did not actually eat anything with gluten in it. A few weeks ago I got sick like this at home, after eating White Chicken Chili that I made MYSELF, and I blamed a rotisserie chicken (that I asked about later and was assured it didn't have flour in the bag. Same thing that time -- low back pain followed by stabby/shooty upper abdominal pain and a hot-knife feeling in my low belly, diarrhea, and cramping/pains so bad I was writhing on the floor, unable to be upright or straightened out. In both instances pressing on my belly helped with the pain.
I sincerely hope I'm not dealing with some new GI issue here, and I'll be going to the doctor this next week. I hope it's just a real nasty bug, because unlike Chicken Chili night I am WIPED today too, so it's lasting more than a few hours. I didn't wake up in the morning and feel awesome. I slept the majority of the day.
I could go my whole life though without having such a public display of bodily functions, and detailed discussion of just how I was so terribly sick. Jeezum. Wish me luck on Monday...
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Three Midweek Thoughts
Three things of note that happened between yesterday and today:
Caution & Love
I received a card in the mail where the envelope looked like this:
Yes, that's right, there's caution tape on the envelope. It was a Christmas card (glad I'm not the only one WAY WAY BEHIND) from my friend who was placed with her son over the summer. She is hands-down the most sensitive friend I have who is parenting after infertility. The card was beautiful, with some touching pictures of them with their son in early days, and an incredible short-form story of how they waited for him and brought him home and share him with his amazing birth parents -- it was super inclusive and very much "we're in this together" as opposed to "a magical stork dropped this baby in our laps, no history there." It made my day. Both for the adorable pictures of the baby (such a cutie) but because she is always thinking of how these things might impact me emotionally, sometimes to extreme lengths, but I will always appreciate her sensitivity. And the caution tape was real cute!
Baby Blockade
This is an annoyance. I went after school to my therapy appointment, and every so often when I go there's a family seeing another therapist in the waiting room and there's an adorable, cooing, sometimes shrieky baby with the grandma. I'm pretty sure that the baby isn't going into the session, so unclear why grandma has to watch the baby IN THE WAITING ROOM, but whatever. It's usually one of those "look everyone how cute this baby is, I'm going to spread out in this corner and make it impossible for the baby to not be the center of attention in a PSYCHOTHERAPY WAITING ROOM."
Well, today they were NOT in the corner, they were in the narrow walkway, and the stroller and the baby were well into the area I needed to pass to get to the little switches that tell your therapist when you've arrived, and two strangers were standing there cooing over the baby, and I cleared my throat BUT NO ONE MOVED. It was like, BEHOLD THE AMAZING BABY THAT NO ONE HAS EVER SEEN BEFORE, YOU CAN WAIT, SAD LADY. Then I just said "Excuse me, I need to get through" and busted my way through (without stepping on the completely adorable baby. It's not her fault her people are so clueless.).
It just annoyed me, this sense of entitlement and space-hogging and utter lack of consideration that some people with very young children can display in the most inconvenient of spaces.
There's the Good Karma!
I called the auto body shop this afternoon to set up how to pay for this dent-removal business. It was a strange start to the conversation:
"Hi, I'm Jessica, I think you saw a woman yesterday about an estimate for fixing a dent on the car door for a Ford?"
"Oh, yes, she called this morning!"
"Well, I'm the one whose car door hit her. I'm calling to see how we can work out the payment?"
"Oh, wonderful! I just think it's WONDERFUL that you left a note. You're a real honest lady, you know that? There ain't a lot of honest people out there anymore, so it was real nice to have someone like you do this for that other lady."
"Um, thank you! So...I saw the estimate is $482, do you want to call me when the work is done and I can figure out payment from there, drop by to pay it or whatever works for you?"
And this is where it got awesome.
"Well, she's not able to get in until next week, but you can pay the estimate amount, that's fine -- I left some fees off and stuff, I made it real conservative because you did such a nice thing and I didn't want to rob you or anything, I wanted to make this as pleasant for you as possible. So just pay the estimate amount whenever and if it's more when we do it don't worry about it."
WELL TICKLE ME PINK! How nice is that? I mean, nicer would be not having the wind hijack my car door and slam it into hers so I don't have to pay ANY money, but I'm so glad I don't have to wait around to see if it creeps up with the work or ends up a lot more expensive than the estimate. I am thrilled.
So I'm going to pay it Thursday, and then I can be done with this whole mess, feeling good about my moral virtue and helping people believe that there truly are good people in the world who will do the right thing.
Monday, January 22, 2018
#Microblog Mondays: Always Leave a Note
On Saturday I met a friend for lunch at a yummy Thai restaurant, and was surprised at all the traffic. I was also surprised at the lack of parking spots, and after turning around once I parked next to a nice midsize Ford SUV. It wasn't snowing, it wasn't freezing, but it was super windy (can you see where this is going?).
My car door flung out, caught by the wind, and smashed right into the middle of the backseat door on the Ford. The resulting ding wasn't small -- it was a round dent with a vertical line, sort of like a cat eye.
I did the right thing, and I went inside and asked for a piece of paper to write a note with my first name and phone number and how sorry I was that the wind possessed my car door (I figured humor wasn't a bad way to go, and also I wanted to avoid the phrase "I hit your car" since it was a total wind-powered incident), and that I was having lunch at the Thai restaurant.
Then throughout the entire lunch I stared at my phone, filled with anxiety -- who was this person? were they sitting near me? (it turns out she was) Would he/she be nice? And a silent prayer, please please please let this person be having lunch here, and not vaping at the Thirsty Coil... Yes, I realize my own personal biases were running wild here.
She called at the end, and I met her in the parking lot (with my friend for backup). She was SUPER nice and mentioned at least four times that she was very appreciative that I left a note. She said she'd get a few estimates and call me Wednesday.
This is less than ideal, and I am really pissed that I am now faced with an unexpected bill that I HOPE is no more than $200, but it could have been so much worse.
I also thought how lucky I am that I no longer have to look anxiously at my phone, waiting for it to ring with any kind of results or possible opportunities or updates. I thought how lucky I am not to be in that hyper stressed state of infertility treatment/adoption, where I would have likely cried and it may not have gone as smoothly.
Cross your fingers that this ends just as amicably as it started, and that it is less expensive than I fear. (Eh, it was in the middle, more than I hoped, but less than Bryce feared.)
As my friend said, "Doesn't it suck being ethical?" Yes, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I wish the person who sideswiped my car in the gym parking lot this fall had had the same moral compass (no note, so sad). Well, at least I got a lovely soul warming when the woman texted me with the details and ended with "So thankful for your note -- believing in humanity."
Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!
Sunday, January 21, 2018
The Pitfalls of Perfectionism
I like things to be a certain way.
You might not know it by looking at my piling habit (something I am gaining more and more control of each month, which is good because "Pile Management" was in my wedding vows), but I am very organized.
I keep lists. I plan. I love good organizational systems. I color code. I have binders.
This can all be very fine and good, especially as a teacher. Planning is the difference between order and chaos (with"order" being relative of course, there's no room for creativity if everything's TOTALLY ordered), between getting stuff done and swimming in a sea of stress. Planning helps me manage household stuff. Preparation is important to me -- I hate, hate, HATE going into things unprepared.
There's a downside to this, though. Something I discovered with a vengeance during our whole infertility/adoption journey. Because there are things you can plan, and there's things that you just...can't. All the preparation in the world doesn't actually change some outcomes. I have a beautiful flowered box in my closet that is proof of that -- it's filled with all my notebooks and records and folders and pictures and protocols and binders, all things I kept track of through both medical and adoption processes, to the point of obsession. I also have a plastic tub filled with things from our nursery I can't bear to part with, so that's also proof that all that planning was helpful in some ways for keeping me relatively sane, but it didn't change the outcome. And in some ways, I think my efforts to create some order in the incredible chaos that is trying to get pregnant/waiting to be matched, actually caused me more stress than necessary. It made me feel like I had some semblance of control, and when it was apparent that we had NONE (negative tests, inability to transfer, miscarriage, not getting matched, not getting profiled, not having that "click" moment in adoption), it broke me. "But I kept LISTS! But I LOGGED ALL MY VALUES! But I spent FOREVER on a profile book!" None of it mattered, in the end.
This is why I suck at puzzles. My mom gave me a puzzle for Christmas, a 1000 piece lighthouse garden thing. We had a day or two of pure relaxation at home before heading out to Vermont, so I set it up on the coffee table. I thought it would be fun.
Oh holy jeezum, it became an exercise in torture. I set out all the pieces that had edges. I got the edge done except for ONE PIECE that completely eluded me. I searched and searched but couldn't find it, so I had to make do with an ALMOST complete frame. It bugged me.
Then I set about putting other pieces together. I probably sank a good 10 hours into this puzzle, grumbling and bitching about it the whole time I tried to piece together cherry blossoms and pansy containers and walkways and tulips.
"Why don't you just stop doing it if you hate it so much?" Bryce said, as he sat on the couch reading, which is what I really wanted to be doing.
"BECAUSE, even though I am not really enjoying myself, I CAN'T STOP. I NEED to keep going, I NEED to get it done."
I didn't get it done before we had to leave, and so I covered it with magazines in hopes the cats wouldn't destroy it in my absence. Wishful thinking. Our housesitter texted me that she kept finding pieces on the floor, and I just pulled the plug and told her it was okay to just put it all in the box.
I wanted to finish it. I felt compelled to finish it. I wanted to get it perfectly, awesomely done, and it wasn't realistic in the time I had, nor was it truly enjoyable. (100 piece mini puzzles are a different story. I need something I can accomplish in one sitting otherwise it becomes obsessively unenjoyable.) I wanted to be doing other things, but once I started, I had to keep going. Coloring can be the same way -- I love coloring, and it is supposed to be relaxing and enjoyable. I have found though that I need to decide what else I have to get done if I start a coloring project, like a calendar I had last year or my beautiful You Are Here book by Jenny Lawson -- because once I start, I have a REAL hard time stopping until it's done. I need it to be perfect. I hate mistakes. It was definitely therapeutic when I was having my breakdown in April, because it kept me focused and unable to think about other things, but on an average evening or weekend day...I get lost and lose a lot of time to this activity. Weeding is another area where this perfectionism gets me, because I have such a hard time stopping. I have to set an area and say, "I'm going to get this ONE area done" -- because if I just say I'm going to weed I will easily do it until I am too sore to do anything else the next day because I need to do it all, all at once.
This is why I was a little nervous about the bullet journal. I did finally start it, because I had to pull the trigger on actually starting rather than planning and planning and searching for the perfect spreads and layouts so that it could be the most perfect thing from the start. It was a metaphysical bullet journal for longer than it had to be, because I was afraid of starting and getting it wrong.
I think that this is an area where the bullet journal is going to help me, a lot. I am embracing the fact that I can change things as I go. That if I make a mistake, so what? That I spent so much time researching things that my January weeks aren't filled out until the 15th, and that's okay. That my gratitude log didn't get started until today, so I tried to retroactively fill it in and then just was like, you know what? I can have a full one in February. No biggie.
Look at me, being all Zen and letting go, not holding on so tightly toeverything one thing!
Here are the things that I've discovered I really like about the bullet journal, now that I have January in there and a few fun pages:
- I like that it's just bullets and I can just capture a smattering of things that happened without writing a long narrative, which is what got me away from traditional journaling -- it was just too time consuming.
- I like that I can customize every single thing about it. That I can do my monthly pages for January and see how I like it, and then switch to a different layout for February to try different things out.
- I am embracing mistakes. I am working on not being perfect with it. (Okay, maybe embracing is a stronger word than reality, but I'm getting there.)
- This is terrific for my anxiety ridden, swirly mind. I have so many thoughts running through and I forget to put things down on paper and so they swirl and swirl and swirl. Now I can capture these things in one place and make them colorful and pretty.
- I am not trying to become a master letter-er or doodler. I can learn these things, but in the end, the content is what's more important to me than the pretty designs. Although I'm doing okay in that area, too.
- So far, I have just spent money on the notebook itself ($19.95), the set of 20 fineliner pens ($17.99), and a math set that included a 6" ruler so that I could give Bryce back his woodworking ruler ($5.89). He actually convinced me to get the set instead of just a small ruler, because it had two compasses, a protractor, and some triangle things, and he was like "now you can make all your shapes!" since he saw me making concentric circles with water glasses. My stencils (because a good drawer I am not) were dry-embossing stencils I've had FOREVER and they work just fine. I can also use stamping supplies I already have, although that becomes a bit of a time suck.
- I do suddenly have the urge to buy a bigger pocketbook, one I can put a pouch in with the pen supplies (my pastel-y highlighters I bought for school over the summer and then purloined for this project) in it and the notebook (the handy folio in the back is holding all my stencils). This way I can really capture things as I go and I can use it to its best advantage. I'm still using my "travel purse" that I bought for our California Honeymoon, because it was compact and waterproof(ish) and fit in my diaper bag that I use as a carry-on. It does NOT fit journaling supplies. Hmmm.
- I can see how this could quickly become a money-and-time sucker. However, I also see how I could set things up so that I can go back when I have free time and decorate things, or set aside time to work on this. It does help with the whole prioritizing thing because time I spend on this is NOT time I'm aimlessly scrolling through Facebook. Replacing Facebook with Pinterest is not a bad trade for peace of mind.
I like this new project. I will be honest, it was a huge time suck in the beginning before I started actually making spreads. I think launching it was the hardest thing because I was afraid of screwing it up. My perfectionism actually made me waste time on this one. I do think that some planning and research up front is helpful, but I think I went way overboard. It can be as simple as you want it to be, and because you make the spreads as you go, and the index captures where they are, I can manage the time for setting pages up better now that I've started.
I think this is going to be a great tool for wrangling the thoughts, organizing my lists in one place, having a creative outlet, and learning to let go of my "just-so" ways. A little. Let's not get crazy.
Now for some pictures, some are blurry on purpose because of information:
You might not know it by looking at my piling habit (something I am gaining more and more control of each month, which is good because "Pile Management" was in my wedding vows), but I am very organized.
I keep lists. I plan. I love good organizational systems. I color code. I have binders.
This can all be very fine and good, especially as a teacher. Planning is the difference between order and chaos (with"order" being relative of course, there's no room for creativity if everything's TOTALLY ordered), between getting stuff done and swimming in a sea of stress. Planning helps me manage household stuff. Preparation is important to me -- I hate, hate, HATE going into things unprepared.
There's a downside to this, though. Something I discovered with a vengeance during our whole infertility/adoption journey. Because there are things you can plan, and there's things that you just...can't. All the preparation in the world doesn't actually change some outcomes. I have a beautiful flowered box in my closet that is proof of that -- it's filled with all my notebooks and records and folders and pictures and protocols and binders, all things I kept track of through both medical and adoption processes, to the point of obsession. I also have a plastic tub filled with things from our nursery I can't bear to part with, so that's also proof that all that planning was helpful in some ways for keeping me relatively sane, but it didn't change the outcome. And in some ways, I think my efforts to create some order in the incredible chaos that is trying to get pregnant/waiting to be matched, actually caused me more stress than necessary. It made me feel like I had some semblance of control, and when it was apparent that we had NONE (negative tests, inability to transfer, miscarriage, not getting matched, not getting profiled, not having that "click" moment in adoption), it broke me. "But I kept LISTS! But I LOGGED ALL MY VALUES! But I spent FOREVER on a profile book!" None of it mattered, in the end.
This is why I suck at puzzles. My mom gave me a puzzle for Christmas, a 1000 piece lighthouse garden thing. We had a day or two of pure relaxation at home before heading out to Vermont, so I set it up on the coffee table. I thought it would be fun.
Oh holy jeezum, it became an exercise in torture. I set out all the pieces that had edges. I got the edge done except for ONE PIECE that completely eluded me. I searched and searched but couldn't find it, so I had to make do with an ALMOST complete frame. It bugged me.
Then I set about putting other pieces together. I probably sank a good 10 hours into this puzzle, grumbling and bitching about it the whole time I tried to piece together cherry blossoms and pansy containers and walkways and tulips.
"Why don't you just stop doing it if you hate it so much?" Bryce said, as he sat on the couch reading, which is what I really wanted to be doing.
"BECAUSE, even though I am not really enjoying myself, I CAN'T STOP. I NEED to keep going, I NEED to get it done."
I didn't get it done before we had to leave, and so I covered it with magazines in hopes the cats wouldn't destroy it in my absence. Wishful thinking. Our housesitter texted me that she kept finding pieces on the floor, and I just pulled the plug and told her it was okay to just put it all in the box.
I wanted to finish it. I felt compelled to finish it. I wanted to get it perfectly, awesomely done, and it wasn't realistic in the time I had, nor was it truly enjoyable. (100 piece mini puzzles are a different story. I need something I can accomplish in one sitting otherwise it becomes obsessively unenjoyable.) I wanted to be doing other things, but once I started, I had to keep going. Coloring can be the same way -- I love coloring, and it is supposed to be relaxing and enjoyable. I have found though that I need to decide what else I have to get done if I start a coloring project, like a calendar I had last year or my beautiful You Are Here book by Jenny Lawson -- because once I start, I have a REAL hard time stopping until it's done. I need it to be perfect. I hate mistakes. It was definitely therapeutic when I was having my breakdown in April, because it kept me focused and unable to think about other things, but on an average evening or weekend day...I get lost and lose a lot of time to this activity. Weeding is another area where this perfectionism gets me, because I have such a hard time stopping. I have to set an area and say, "I'm going to get this ONE area done" -- because if I just say I'm going to weed I will easily do it until I am too sore to do anything else the next day because I need to do it all, all at once.
This is why I was a little nervous about the bullet journal. I did finally start it, because I had to pull the trigger on actually starting rather than planning and planning and searching for the perfect spreads and layouts so that it could be the most perfect thing from the start. It was a metaphysical bullet journal for longer than it had to be, because I was afraid of starting and getting it wrong.
I think that this is an area where the bullet journal is going to help me, a lot. I am embracing the fact that I can change things as I go. That if I make a mistake, so what? That I spent so much time researching things that my January weeks aren't filled out until the 15th, and that's okay. That my gratitude log didn't get started until today, so I tried to retroactively fill it in and then just was like, you know what? I can have a full one in February. No biggie.
Look at me, being all Zen and letting go, not holding on so tightly to
Here are the things that I've discovered I really like about the bullet journal, now that I have January in there and a few fun pages:
- I like that it's just bullets and I can just capture a smattering of things that happened without writing a long narrative, which is what got me away from traditional journaling -- it was just too time consuming.
- I like that I can customize every single thing about it. That I can do my monthly pages for January and see how I like it, and then switch to a different layout for February to try different things out.
- I am embracing mistakes. I am working on not being perfect with it. (Okay, maybe embracing is a stronger word than reality, but I'm getting there.)
- This is terrific for my anxiety ridden, swirly mind. I have so many thoughts running through and I forget to put things down on paper and so they swirl and swirl and swirl. Now I can capture these things in one place and make them colorful and pretty.
- I am not trying to become a master letter-er or doodler. I can learn these things, but in the end, the content is what's more important to me than the pretty designs. Although I'm doing okay in that area, too.
- So far, I have just spent money on the notebook itself ($19.95), the set of 20 fineliner pens ($17.99), and a math set that included a 6" ruler so that I could give Bryce back his woodworking ruler ($5.89). He actually convinced me to get the set instead of just a small ruler, because it had two compasses, a protractor, and some triangle things, and he was like "now you can make all your shapes!" since he saw me making concentric circles with water glasses. My stencils (because a good drawer I am not) were dry-embossing stencils I've had FOREVER and they work just fine. I can also use stamping supplies I already have, although that becomes a bit of a time suck.
- I do suddenly have the urge to buy a bigger pocketbook, one I can put a pouch in with the pen supplies (my pastel-y highlighters I bought for school over the summer and then purloined for this project) in it and the notebook (the handy folio in the back is holding all my stencils). This way I can really capture things as I go and I can use it to its best advantage. I'm still using my "travel purse" that I bought for our California Honeymoon, because it was compact and waterproof(ish) and fit in my diaper bag that I use as a carry-on. It does NOT fit journaling supplies. Hmmm.
- I can see how this could quickly become a money-and-time sucker. However, I also see how I could set things up so that I can go back when I have free time and decorate things, or set aside time to work on this. It does help with the whole prioritizing thing because time I spend on this is NOT time I'm aimlessly scrolling through Facebook. Replacing Facebook with Pinterest is not a bad trade for peace of mind.
I like this new project. I will be honest, it was a huge time suck in the beginning before I started actually making spreads. I think launching it was the hardest thing because I was afraid of screwing it up. My perfectionism actually made me waste time on this one. I do think that some planning and research up front is helpful, but I think I went way overboard. It can be as simple as you want it to be, and because you make the spreads as you go, and the index captures where they are, I can manage the time for setting pages up better now that I've started.
I think this is going to be a great tool for wrangling the thoughts, organizing my lists in one place, having a creative outlet, and learning to let go of my "just-so" ways. A little. Let's not get crazy.
Now for some pictures, some are blurry on purpose because of information:
 |
| Look! An index! I have 22 whole pages in my bullet journal so far! |
 |
| Fun with stencils and lettering (sort of). |
 |
| So stupidly proud of this birthdays spread I cribbed from Pinterest and adjusted for me. These are the water glass circles... |
 |
| Future Log, Future Log (sing to the tune of "Spiderman, Spiderman"...). I had fun making all those tiny calendars. Mine is two spreads. This is the second half of the year, so not a lot in it yet. I do like this whole migrating thing to capture long term dates and whatnot. |
 |
| I am not advertising for the pens, I'm just hiding unsightly Sterilite drawers on my desk. :) This is my monthly spread. I'm doing it differently next month. There's a month calendar, a habit tracker, a next month at a glance, a quote, and goals. |
 |
| Weekly spread. Not sure if I'll keep this for February, but I did make the meal plan the whole bottom for the following weeks, because I wanted to capture where the recipes come from and then the red is what we actually ate. Trying to reduce food waste and try new recipes, and eat less meat. |
 |
| Look! It's a Gratitude Log! Stole this idea from a Pinterest thing, but made it my own. Not gonna worry about the blank dates where I was retroactively filling in. I like the idea of doing a different theme each month for gratitude so it's pretty. Used my handy dandy protractor for the sun! :) |
Monday, January 15, 2018
#Microblog Mondays: Attempting the Bullet Journal
My house is littered with notebooks. I have a zillion fertility/adoption notebooks from our journey, a notebook that has to-do lists and packing lists and trip planning stuff in it, a notebook with to-do lists, meal plans, blog posts, blog ideas, stuff we want to do, houses we went to see, etc... This is not even counting the journals I have filled over my 41 years.
So when I saw this thing called a Bullet Journal that can be the Notebook to End All Notebooks, an ultimate do-it-yourself, customize-able planner and list depot...I was intrigued.
My intrigue has gotten to the point where I have actually bought supplies.
I haven't actually gotten the layouts and pages and trackers and all that stuff from my head to the paper, though, despite literally HOURS of researching "bullet journal" on Pinterest. (My favorite, most snarky and profanity-laced upshot: WTF Is A Bullet Journal?) There is a LOT of info on this, and it appears to be real popular with a) people who work in social media and b) stay-at-home-moms who are religious. I am really neither of these things, and yet I really want to have a bullet journal, for these reasons and more:
1) One Notebook to Rule Them All
2) I get to design the pages and it doesn't matter necessarily what order they go in because there's a handy-dandy index at the front that you fill in as you go.
3) I am a list-lover, and I am a PAPER list-lover. I enjoy the Google Keep app for lists, too, but no anthropologist is going to pore over a dead smartphone in the future to see what people did with their lives (not that I think that I will be fodder for anthropologists in the future, but that would be a great perk). Long live the actual paper journal!
4) Along those lines, how lovely to have a year encapsulated in beautiful notebooks, so you can look back at the lists and the things that you did and what mattered to you, and sort of relive those moments for better or worse? I love going through old agendas or notebooks full of to-do lists for that reason. Now it can all live in one place. In theory.
5) It can be a creative outlet that helps me be more organized in how I spend my time, my money, my calories, my creative efforts, my projects...
My fears with this thing are that it will be a time-suck and difficult to keep up with. The #1 advice on this is "schedule time in your bullet journal to bullet journal" which seems deliciously meta to me but will I do it with fidelity? Maybe with my lovely desk/office space I WILL! Will I be too perfectionist to actually get started, because I am afraid of messing up? Hmmm, that's a tough one. My goal is to get at least 4 pages done today so that maybe I have a hope of actually having a January in this thing.
Anyway, what do you think about bullet journaling? Have you tried it? Did you love it, hate it, love to hate it, hate to love it? Share links in the comments if you've posted about this thing before and I am suffering amnesia, because I swear I first heard about it from Loribeth at The Road Less Travelled but I couldn't find it when I searched.
I hope this tool helps me to be more organized and productive in this brand spanking new year!
Want to read more #Microblog Mondays, perhaps ones that actually play by the rules? Go here and enjoy!
So when I saw this thing called a Bullet Journal that can be the Notebook to End All Notebooks, an ultimate do-it-yourself, customize-able planner and list depot...I was intrigued.
My intrigue has gotten to the point where I have actually bought supplies.
 |
| Behold, the fancy-schmancy, often-cited-in-bullet-journaling-pins Leuchtturm 1917 notebook, with the two ribbon bookmarks and the pretty Nordic Blue color! |
 |
| Look! The inside, which I'm not sure you can clearly see, which has a dot grid pattern and pre-numbered pages! |
 |
| I am a sucker for great pens, and so when this set was recommended by bullet journal people (and it showed up in my Amazon recommendations when I bought the fancy notebook), I could not resist. Look at all the COLORS! And they are TRIANGULAR so they don't roll! And apparently you can leave them uncapped accidentally forever and they won't dry out! |
I haven't actually gotten the layouts and pages and trackers and all that stuff from my head to the paper, though, despite literally HOURS of researching "bullet journal" on Pinterest. (My favorite, most snarky and profanity-laced upshot: WTF Is A Bullet Journal?) There is a LOT of info on this, and it appears to be real popular with a) people who work in social media and b) stay-at-home-moms who are religious. I am really neither of these things, and yet I really want to have a bullet journal, for these reasons and more:
1) One Notebook to Rule Them All
2) I get to design the pages and it doesn't matter necessarily what order they go in because there's a handy-dandy index at the front that you fill in as you go.
3) I am a list-lover, and I am a PAPER list-lover. I enjoy the Google Keep app for lists, too, but no anthropologist is going to pore over a dead smartphone in the future to see what people did with their lives (not that I think that I will be fodder for anthropologists in the future, but that would be a great perk). Long live the actual paper journal!
4) Along those lines, how lovely to have a year encapsulated in beautiful notebooks, so you can look back at the lists and the things that you did and what mattered to you, and sort of relive those moments for better or worse? I love going through old agendas or notebooks full of to-do lists for that reason. Now it can all live in one place. In theory.
5) It can be a creative outlet that helps me be more organized in how I spend my time, my money, my calories, my creative efforts, my projects...
My fears with this thing are that it will be a time-suck and difficult to keep up with. The #1 advice on this is "schedule time in your bullet journal to bullet journal" which seems deliciously meta to me but will I do it with fidelity? Maybe with my lovely desk/office space I WILL! Will I be too perfectionist to actually get started, because I am afraid of messing up? Hmmm, that's a tough one. My goal is to get at least 4 pages done today so that maybe I have a hope of actually having a January in this thing.
Anyway, what do you think about bullet journaling? Have you tried it? Did you love it, hate it, love to hate it, hate to love it? Share links in the comments if you've posted about this thing before and I am suffering amnesia, because I swear I first heard about it from Loribeth at The Road Less Travelled but I couldn't find it when I searched.
I hope this tool helps me to be more organized and productive in this brand spanking new year!
Want to read more #Microblog Mondays, perhaps ones that actually play by the rules? Go here and enjoy!
Sunday, January 14, 2018
What's the Deduction for Heartbreak?
January is a great month, even though it's cold and the weather's often unpredictable. This year is particularly harsh so far: for the third time in a row my best friend visit was rescheduled because of crap weather on the roads. Despite that, I love it because it's time to look back and look forward, make goals, and figure out what's important. It's always a time where I feel reinvigorated to organize, to purge, to go through things and get a handle on my spaces and my time.
Today was about getting my office under control a bit, which spiraled into "I must clean out my inbox," which then spiraled further into, "huh, maybe I should go through my charitable contributions for the year to get ready for taxes," which then led me down a spirally rabbit hole. The ultimate goal was to clear my desk of holiday paperwork and stuff relocated from our space rearrangement in the dining room, and make it so I could start a new project I'm going to Microblog about tomorrow: a bullet journal.
But I got stuck in my inbox.
And my inbox led me to a whole lot of stuff that I guess I could call "memory lane" but it felt more like a nightmare scene, like when Dorothy and her crew are walking on the yellow brick road through the enchanted forest with all the glowing eyes and creepy vines and whatnot. It's that kind of lane.
I ran across old emails about treatment. I ran across old emails from support group lists. I ran across all the comments on a zillion posts that I published but never deleted from my email inbox for some strange reason.
I ran across receipts for our adoption agency. I'm guessing we can't claim anything against the Adoption Tax Credit because we didn't ultimately adopt, but we did spend quite a bit of money over the two and a half years we were with the agency, despite having left without the outcome we'd hoped for. I'd say across the years at least $5,000, maybe a little more. It's more than a little depressing to think on all we've spent over the years to NOT have children. I'm pretty sure we've sent a phantom one to four years of state college, in a single, including books and spending money.
Receipts and treatment plans and then-encouraging "don't give up" emails are one thing, but the kicker was when I went through my charitable giving, because I do a lot online and I don't always get receipts through the mail. I tallied up all I could using the search keywords "donation," "receipt," "donation receipt," and "gift," and then went into my filing cabinet to find the mailed and other physical receipts.
On the plus side -- my own charitable giving, not including any Bryce has made, and not including any goods (clothes, books, furniture), was a lot higher than last year. I was actually really happy with it -- I spread it out over a year and I set up a variety of monthly "sustainer" donation plans. I also made it a point to donate after a certain inauguration, and then again there was a burst in April, and over the summer, and in the fall. I plan to donate just as much next year, even though (and please let me know if I've got this wrong) the whole tax bill thing happened where charitable contributions aren't tax deductible anymore for 2018. I hope that everyone still gives to the causes they care about if they're able, because I'm worried about nonprofit development given that little gem of legislation.
Anyway, when I went through the folder, I found the paperwork that really put me in a bit of a funk.
The donation slip for our nursery.
Oh yeah, that's right, 2017 was the year we DISMANTLED A NURSERY, PACKED IT UP, and GAVE IT AWAY. The list of things is staggering.
And sad.
So much hope, dismantled.
How do you tally that up? Many of the larger things (like the crib) we bought ourselves, but there were also a fair amount of items that were gifted to us. So there's a little guilt there, although it's not like we're going to make a profit off it or anything. And it was Bryce and me that packed everything up, and carted it down the stairs by the door. And it was the donation coordinator and me who marched everything out of the house and into two cars while neighbors were out chatting, then unloaded it into her storage space, and then drove home to an empty entryway and a very, very empty room upstairs. So I think we've earned that deduction in terms of heartbreak and literally taking apart the most symbolic representation of our dream imaginable.
It brought me right back to that moment of "okay, it's time, we need to take down all this stuff, get it to someone who can truly use it, and turn this space into something else." It brought me back to an image of Bryce, on his knees on the plush nursery carpet, unscrewing the bolts that held the crib together. It's why last week when I was reading a PEOPLE magazine on the elliptical I angrily paged past the article of Joh.n Stam.os "finally becoming a dad at 54," not because he doesn't deserve happiness and well-wishes from strangers but because of a photo shoot picture where he's looking all confuzzled by the assembly directions on a white crib, and he's sprawled out on the carpet with the panels all around him.
I have a picture of Bryce doing that very thing, then redoing it with the one panel whose holes were drilled funny once the replacement part came in, and then a very sad series of pictures where he is taking the crib apart. It made me mad. Probably because it really made me sad.
Someone suggested that maybe we could return the crib to the store where we bought it instead of donating it...and maybe that would have been possible except that the store was a family-owned one and it closed down shortly after we bought a few items there. Which could possibly be interpreted as omen-y if you were of the suspicious sort. Which I'm trying not to be.
So here I am, still cleaning up things in my office, still not started with my lovely bullet journal (although I have to say just thinking about putting it together makes me feel more organized and reflective). I'm feeling a little sad and sorry for myself.
But then again, I'm sitting in my beautiful office that I am lucky to have to clean, at my new laptop (since my old laptop died along with everything we thought was backed up but apparently never ran), in a space that is now pretty devoid of sadness. I love this space, even though I basically had to rip my heart out, strangle it in my hands, throw it on the floor, and stomp on it in order to get it. People who don't know what it once was say things like, "Must be nice, to have your own office," when I talk about this space and how it's all mine. I don't always feel like explaining or zinging back, "oh yeah? Well it would have been nice if it could have stayed a nursery, dingbat." For the most part I just smile and say, "yes, yes it is." (While internally calling them dingbats.)
It is more special to me because of its history, because of all of the loss that led to me having this peaceful, productive space, this room of my own. I will be grateful when tax season is over and we won't ever have anything adoption or family-building related attached to our taxes ever again.
Someday I will hit that magical point where these things won't sneak up on me quite so viscerally. I hope. Although the pain isn't always bad, it reminds me of all the ways I am so very fortunate, of the joys I hold close that have survived the hardest days of my life.
Today was about getting my office under control a bit, which spiraled into "I must clean out my inbox," which then spiraled further into, "huh, maybe I should go through my charitable contributions for the year to get ready for taxes," which then led me down a spirally rabbit hole. The ultimate goal was to clear my desk of holiday paperwork and stuff relocated from our space rearrangement in the dining room, and make it so I could start a new project I'm going to Microblog about tomorrow: a bullet journal.
But I got stuck in my inbox.
And my inbox led me to a whole lot of stuff that I guess I could call "memory lane" but it felt more like a nightmare scene, like when Dorothy and her crew are walking on the yellow brick road through the enchanted forest with all the glowing eyes and creepy vines and whatnot. It's that kind of lane.
I ran across old emails about treatment. I ran across old emails from support group lists. I ran across all the comments on a zillion posts that I published but never deleted from my email inbox for some strange reason.
I ran across receipts for our adoption agency. I'm guessing we can't claim anything against the Adoption Tax Credit because we didn't ultimately adopt, but we did spend quite a bit of money over the two and a half years we were with the agency, despite having left without the outcome we'd hoped for. I'd say across the years at least $5,000, maybe a little more. It's more than a little depressing to think on all we've spent over the years to NOT have children. I'm pretty sure we've sent a phantom one to four years of state college, in a single, including books and spending money.
Receipts and treatment plans and then-encouraging "don't give up" emails are one thing, but the kicker was when I went through my charitable giving, because I do a lot online and I don't always get receipts through the mail. I tallied up all I could using the search keywords "donation," "receipt," "donation receipt," and "gift," and then went into my filing cabinet to find the mailed and other physical receipts.
On the plus side -- my own charitable giving, not including any Bryce has made, and not including any goods (clothes, books, furniture), was a lot higher than last year. I was actually really happy with it -- I spread it out over a year and I set up a variety of monthly "sustainer" donation plans. I also made it a point to donate after a certain inauguration, and then again there was a burst in April, and over the summer, and in the fall. I plan to donate just as much next year, even though (and please let me know if I've got this wrong) the whole tax bill thing happened where charitable contributions aren't tax deductible anymore for 2018. I hope that everyone still gives to the causes they care about if they're able, because I'm worried about nonprofit development given that little gem of legislation.
Anyway, when I went through the folder, I found the paperwork that really put me in a bit of a funk.
The donation slip for our nursery.
Oh yeah, that's right, 2017 was the year we DISMANTLED A NURSERY, PACKED IT UP, and GAVE IT AWAY. The list of things is staggering.
And sad.
So much hope, dismantled.
How do you tally that up? Many of the larger things (like the crib) we bought ourselves, but there were also a fair amount of items that were gifted to us. So there's a little guilt there, although it's not like we're going to make a profit off it or anything. And it was Bryce and me that packed everything up, and carted it down the stairs by the door. And it was the donation coordinator and me who marched everything out of the house and into two cars while neighbors were out chatting, then unloaded it into her storage space, and then drove home to an empty entryway and a very, very empty room upstairs. So I think we've earned that deduction in terms of heartbreak and literally taking apart the most symbolic representation of our dream imaginable.
It brought me right back to that moment of "okay, it's time, we need to take down all this stuff, get it to someone who can truly use it, and turn this space into something else." It brought me back to an image of Bryce, on his knees on the plush nursery carpet, unscrewing the bolts that held the crib together. It's why last week when I was reading a PEOPLE magazine on the elliptical I angrily paged past the article of Joh.n Stam.os "finally becoming a dad at 54," not because he doesn't deserve happiness and well-wishes from strangers but because of a photo shoot picture where he's looking all confuzzled by the assembly directions on a white crib, and he's sprawled out on the carpet with the panels all around him.
I have a picture of Bryce doing that very thing, then redoing it with the one panel whose holes were drilled funny once the replacement part came in, and then a very sad series of pictures where he is taking the crib apart. It made me mad. Probably because it really made me sad.
Someone suggested that maybe we could return the crib to the store where we bought it instead of donating it...and maybe that would have been possible except that the store was a family-owned one and it closed down shortly after we bought a few items there. Which could possibly be interpreted as omen-y if you were of the suspicious sort. Which I'm trying not to be.
So here I am, still cleaning up things in my office, still not started with my lovely bullet journal (although I have to say just thinking about putting it together makes me feel more organized and reflective). I'm feeling a little sad and sorry for myself.
But then again, I'm sitting in my beautiful office that I am lucky to have to clean, at my new laptop (since my old laptop died along with everything we thought was backed up but apparently never ran), in a space that is now pretty devoid of sadness. I love this space, even though I basically had to rip my heart out, strangle it in my hands, throw it on the floor, and stomp on it in order to get it. People who don't know what it once was say things like, "Must be nice, to have your own office," when I talk about this space and how it's all mine. I don't always feel like explaining or zinging back, "oh yeah? Well it would have been nice if it could have stayed a nursery, dingbat." For the most part I just smile and say, "yes, yes it is." (While internally calling them dingbats.)
It is more special to me because of its history, because of all of the loss that led to me having this peaceful, productive space, this room of my own. I will be grateful when tax season is over and we won't ever have anything adoption or family-building related attached to our taxes ever again.
Someday I will hit that magical point where these things won't sneak up on me quite so viscerally. I hope. Although the pain isn't always bad, it reminds me of all the ways I am so very fortunate, of the joys I hold close that have survived the hardest days of my life.
Monday, January 8, 2018
#Microblog Mondays: Somehow Not Sad
As part of our plan to get everything in our house in order and get rid of as much clutter as possible, we were clearing out/putting away stuff in our bedroom.
This was after we put this gem up on the wall in our dining room (well, dining area, it's open to the living room) that we picked up in Vermont, which started a snowball effect of organizing as we moved all kinds of furniture around and it was a perfect time to organize and purge:
We loved the story behind this piece of art, we loved its organic quality, and the size just fit PERFECTLY in that spot. To get it there we dismantled a baker's rack that was basically a crap-collector, and moved our bar to the back room where we can still use it but it's a little less, um, accessible. That dresser was in the bathroom upstairs, and was largely empty because it used to hold all the baby washcloths and towels and bath toys, and we hadn't filled it with anything...since. (We need to get a sideboard for under the other painting, which is funny because the one I bought for my office would fit PERFECTLY and go with the furniture so we'll just have to get another one since I'm not giving up my perfect piece!)
While cleaning up the upstairs, I had a tub that was sitting in the bedroom, next to my sock cabinet (don't ask). Bryce asked, "What are we doing with this one?"
Oh, that one.
It was the tub of things we wanted to keep -- onesies we bought on trips, or that were bought for us, or knit things made for a baby that didn't come, or stuffed animals I wasn't quite ready to get rid of, and a beautiful owl puppet that I need to figure out how to use in my daily life, books we were given with the nameplate stickers with messages to Mystery Baby who will forever remain a mystery, and all our cards and the guestbook from our showers.
Ordinarily that sort of thing would be a shove into a pit of incredible sadness and encountering it would put me in a funk for a long, long while. But I just looked through it, and while there's definitely sadness there, it didn't ruin my day. I didn't even cry. I played with the puppet. And then I decided you know what? I don't have to decide today, either, and we can put it in a storage nook we have in an eave behind a wall in our bedroom and figure it all out later. If I want to give it to someone, if I want to keep it in a tub to revisit from time to time, if I want to rescue the owl puppet from its plastic tomb.
I don't know how that didn't make me unbearably sad, other than that I am truly healing. I am truly reaching that point of acceptance where I can say, "that didn't work out, and my life is different now, and that's okay -- more than okay, because our life will be beautiful despite our loss, and maybe in part because of it."
Yeah. That sounds pretty good to me.
Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!
This was after we put this gem up on the wall in our dining room (well, dining area, it's open to the living room) that we picked up in Vermont, which started a snowball effect of organizing as we moved all kinds of furniture around and it was a perfect time to organize and purge:
 |
| That "painting" is a blown up print of these pressed flower prints that a woman who was a backbone of the community in Grafton created, and after she passed her children made them into prints. |
We loved the story behind this piece of art, we loved its organic quality, and the size just fit PERFECTLY in that spot. To get it there we dismantled a baker's rack that was basically a crap-collector, and moved our bar to the back room where we can still use it but it's a little less, um, accessible. That dresser was in the bathroom upstairs, and was largely empty because it used to hold all the baby washcloths and towels and bath toys, and we hadn't filled it with anything...since. (We need to get a sideboard for under the other painting, which is funny because the one I bought for my office would fit PERFECTLY and go with the furniture so we'll just have to get another one since I'm not giving up my perfect piece!)
 |
| See, doesn't the bar look nice there, at the end of the wonderland that is Bryce's man office? |
While cleaning up the upstairs, I had a tub that was sitting in the bedroom, next to my sock cabinet (don't ask). Bryce asked, "What are we doing with this one?"
Oh, that one.
It was the tub of things we wanted to keep -- onesies we bought on trips, or that were bought for us, or knit things made for a baby that didn't come, or stuffed animals I wasn't quite ready to get rid of, and a beautiful owl puppet that I need to figure out how to use in my daily life, books we were given with the nameplate stickers with messages to Mystery Baby who will forever remain a mystery, and all our cards and the guestbook from our showers.
Ordinarily that sort of thing would be a shove into a pit of incredible sadness and encountering it would put me in a funk for a long, long while. But I just looked through it, and while there's definitely sadness there, it didn't ruin my day. I didn't even cry. I played with the puppet. And then I decided you know what? I don't have to decide today, either, and we can put it in a storage nook we have in an eave behind a wall in our bedroom and figure it all out later. If I want to give it to someone, if I want to keep it in a tub to revisit from time to time, if I want to rescue the owl puppet from its plastic tomb.
I don't know how that didn't make me unbearably sad, other than that I am truly healing. I am truly reaching that point of acceptance where I can say, "that didn't work out, and my life is different now, and that's okay -- more than okay, because our life will be beautiful despite our loss, and maybe in part because of it."
Yeah. That sounds pretty good to me.
Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!
Sunday, January 7, 2018
New Year Goals
When closing out 2017, we made lists of all we'd accomplished in 2017, and then the longer list of crappy things that had happened.
But, we also made a bit of an exciting list. Things To Accomplish In 2018.
I don't really want to share all of them here, but it was fun to come up with things to focus on this next year, to have a blank slate in front of us where we have no more time/money/energy we need to devote to family building, because it's built. Happy family of two right here.
That's not to say that I don't get sad, that I don't think about how different the list would be if it had worked out in the way we'd hoped, but I do have to say that I feel so much better, so much more at peace, and so excited to see what this life is going to shape into.
A lot of things on the list were related to making our home perfect for our new situation. Everything before was about accommodating a child in here, making space for a third person, and it was real hard to imagine staying with everything as it is. Now, we are more in love with our house every day, and thinking on what we can do to make it even better so that we can enjoy our time together in it.
One thing is that we want to build a garage at the end of our driveway, which would involve moving our little shed and getting an architect and probably a morass of permits and things from the town(s), because I live on a dead end street that belongs to TWO different towns, and the line goes through our backyard just enough to possibly cause an issue. BUT, let's assume for a moment that everything sails through and we can have this garage that we are planning and dreaming up in our heads.
It will have space for up to 3 cars, but one can be behind another car as it would be for if Bryce decides to fulfil his dream of "winter car, summer car" and get a sporty little number for the warmer weather. No midlife crisis here, ha ha. It would also relocate his woodworking workshop to space either below or behind the car part, over the ravine. So pretty heavy duty electrical would be necessary, but that would open up our current garage that's connected to the house to become a family room of sorts. Or, a "woods-view, screen/window haven, listening/music playing, reading, yoga-doing room." But that's further down the list.
It would also have a woodburning stove that we have from Bryce's dad, that hasn't been used yet because I am afraid of setting the house on fire, and a sort of studio of sorts for me, either behind the cars or under, since the back half of this thing will need to be on stilts I think or built into the ravine behind our house (which sounds much fancier than it actually is). Then I could read, or write, or just relax, in this woodland cabin thing in our backyard while Bryce does woodworking.
Does that not sound amazing? One of my pet peeves for this house is the lack of a garage, as I am constantly cleaning off my car early in the morning before school, which adds a good 10-15 minutes to my routine depending on the amount of snow that fell overnight. I don't care if it's not connected, to trudge through the snow to a garage where my warm, dry, clear car waits would be HEAVEN. Also, we have a single driveway, and with the placement of this fantasy garage we would be able to swap cars by parking them in the garage and then just backing out at different times. Which I guess isn't swapping at all, glorious thing that is!
It would give us more space, it would need to look like our shed (so New England-y charm and maybe a weathervane/cupola thingie up top), so that it doesn't look hideous out in the woods. How exciting is that? We are going to look into actually designing this thing up, because it would basically solve so many of the problems lingering with our house, and we wouldn't have to move. You know, just build another outbuilding, but whatever! Hopefully it doesn't cost the same as a house. I don't think it should, since no plumbing required, and just three areas -- carpark, woodshop, studio. Maybe a little room for gardening stuff. Maybe. I mean, we hope to retain the shed. So I guess we'll have a bit of a compound going on.
That's a big goal for 2018 -- adapting our home for our needs, now, and not for "what may be" that turned out to happen...not ever. Spending some money for our own haven.
Another goal is to plan an international trip. Not to take an international trip, since in The Year of the Qual Exam I just don't see that happening, but to plan one out for 2019. We're sort of in a tie between the Nordic countries and Tuscany or French wine country. Honestly, I'm feeling Nordic happiness -- Norway, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Denmark... But a trip of this magnitude requires some planning (and recovering from the garage construction if that can be brought to reality). And a little prepwork to make sure I don't freak out, because international travel makes me real, real nervous. Probably not much more airtime to Scandinavian countries than to California, honestly, but there's something about flying over ocean that gives me the twitches.
Bryce wants to pass his Qual Exam, of course, and get some publications in.
We want to host a dinner party. Not talk about it, not plan it in our heads and never execute, but put our new extendable table to use and have some people over for dinner and drinks, for real. We want to have people over more often. Which will be sort of hard given the prep for the Qual Exam, which is now pushed into the spring a bit more, but we can figure it out. It will be fun. I think. Yes, fun.
We are going to sponsor two students for the annual 8th grade Washington trip. I'm actually going this year as a chaperone, which is brand new to me and makes me real nervous, but this is the year of trying to go outside my comfort zone, while also saying no to stuff. I just didn't feel like saying no to this trip this year anymore. I don't really have a great excuse anymore, and it's an experience I should have at least once, right? But it's expensive for the kiddos, and we always have more kids who need funds than we have "scholarships." So we're sponsoring two kids anonymously, in hopes that more people can go and finances aren't as much of a factor (although they are). I also want to get involved in fundraising efforts to make the trip as a whole less expensive for everyone, and make it more affordable for all families.
We are going to clean out the house -- the basement, the closets, the drawers that haven't been touched in forever. We are going to organize and streamline and make this house perfect, or at least a close proximity, because we love our home and we are sort of drowning in stuff. I feel terribly guilty donating or trashing things that were given to me, but I hang on to the weirdest stuff and I need to just let go. I just threw out a bunch of candle caps. Why am I hanging on to those metal or plastic caps to jar candles? No clue. The stuff that was given is harder. But, I'm going to go all Marie Kondo on most things (not books though--her view on books is simply barbaric) and cull viciously. I just want to find places for a lot of the things I keep out of obligation so I'm not filling a landfill. I hate waste. But I also don't want to drown in stuff, so there's that.
I am in the process of making a schedule for writing time. I need to make it more of a priority even when things get crazy at school, because I ENJOY it and I want to expand a bit. I want to write more. I want to write different things. I want to attempt some sort of project that scares the pants off me but if I never do it I'll regret it forever. I'll just let you fill in the blanks on that one.
2018 sounds pretty good, no? Lots of fun things to do, to accomplish, to stretch ourselves, to give back. I'm pretty darn excited.
But, we also made a bit of an exciting list. Things To Accomplish In 2018.
I don't really want to share all of them here, but it was fun to come up with things to focus on this next year, to have a blank slate in front of us where we have no more time/money/energy we need to devote to family building, because it's built. Happy family of two right here.
That's not to say that I don't get sad, that I don't think about how different the list would be if it had worked out in the way we'd hoped, but I do have to say that I feel so much better, so much more at peace, and so excited to see what this life is going to shape into.
A lot of things on the list were related to making our home perfect for our new situation. Everything before was about accommodating a child in here, making space for a third person, and it was real hard to imagine staying with everything as it is. Now, we are more in love with our house every day, and thinking on what we can do to make it even better so that we can enjoy our time together in it.
One thing is that we want to build a garage at the end of our driveway, which would involve moving our little shed and getting an architect and probably a morass of permits and things from the town(s), because I live on a dead end street that belongs to TWO different towns, and the line goes through our backyard just enough to possibly cause an issue. BUT, let's assume for a moment that everything sails through and we can have this garage that we are planning and dreaming up in our heads.
It will have space for up to 3 cars, but one can be behind another car as it would be for if Bryce decides to fulfil his dream of "winter car, summer car" and get a sporty little number for the warmer weather. No midlife crisis here, ha ha. It would also relocate his woodworking workshop to space either below or behind the car part, over the ravine. So pretty heavy duty electrical would be necessary, but that would open up our current garage that's connected to the house to become a family room of sorts. Or, a "woods-view, screen/window haven, listening/music playing, reading, yoga-doing room." But that's further down the list.
It would also have a woodburning stove that we have from Bryce's dad, that hasn't been used yet because I am afraid of setting the house on fire, and a sort of studio of sorts for me, either behind the cars or under, since the back half of this thing will need to be on stilts I think or built into the ravine behind our house (which sounds much fancier than it actually is). Then I could read, or write, or just relax, in this woodland cabin thing in our backyard while Bryce does woodworking.
Does that not sound amazing? One of my pet peeves for this house is the lack of a garage, as I am constantly cleaning off my car early in the morning before school, which adds a good 10-15 minutes to my routine depending on the amount of snow that fell overnight. I don't care if it's not connected, to trudge through the snow to a garage where my warm, dry, clear car waits would be HEAVEN. Also, we have a single driveway, and with the placement of this fantasy garage we would be able to swap cars by parking them in the garage and then just backing out at different times. Which I guess isn't swapping at all, glorious thing that is!
It would give us more space, it would need to look like our shed (so New England-y charm and maybe a weathervane/cupola thingie up top), so that it doesn't look hideous out in the woods. How exciting is that? We are going to look into actually designing this thing up, because it would basically solve so many of the problems lingering with our house, and we wouldn't have to move. You know, just build another outbuilding, but whatever! Hopefully it doesn't cost the same as a house. I don't think it should, since no plumbing required, and just three areas -- carpark, woodshop, studio. Maybe a little room for gardening stuff. Maybe. I mean, we hope to retain the shed. So I guess we'll have a bit of a compound going on.
That's a big goal for 2018 -- adapting our home for our needs, now, and not for "what may be" that turned out to happen...not ever. Spending some money for our own haven.
Another goal is to plan an international trip. Not to take an international trip, since in The Year of the Qual Exam I just don't see that happening, but to plan one out for 2019. We're sort of in a tie between the Nordic countries and Tuscany or French wine country. Honestly, I'm feeling Nordic happiness -- Norway, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Denmark... But a trip of this magnitude requires some planning (and recovering from the garage construction if that can be brought to reality). And a little prepwork to make sure I don't freak out, because international travel makes me real, real nervous. Probably not much more airtime to Scandinavian countries than to California, honestly, but there's something about flying over ocean that gives me the twitches.
Bryce wants to pass his Qual Exam, of course, and get some publications in.
We want to host a dinner party. Not talk about it, not plan it in our heads and never execute, but put our new extendable table to use and have some people over for dinner and drinks, for real. We want to have people over more often. Which will be sort of hard given the prep for the Qual Exam, which is now pushed into the spring a bit more, but we can figure it out. It will be fun. I think. Yes, fun.
We are going to sponsor two students for the annual 8th grade Washington trip. I'm actually going this year as a chaperone, which is brand new to me and makes me real nervous, but this is the year of trying to go outside my comfort zone, while also saying no to stuff. I just didn't feel like saying no to this trip this year anymore. I don't really have a great excuse anymore, and it's an experience I should have at least once, right? But it's expensive for the kiddos, and we always have more kids who need funds than we have "scholarships." So we're sponsoring two kids anonymously, in hopes that more people can go and finances aren't as much of a factor (although they are). I also want to get involved in fundraising efforts to make the trip as a whole less expensive for everyone, and make it more affordable for all families.
We are going to clean out the house -- the basement, the closets, the drawers that haven't been touched in forever. We are going to organize and streamline and make this house perfect, or at least a close proximity, because we love our home and we are sort of drowning in stuff. I feel terribly guilty donating or trashing things that were given to me, but I hang on to the weirdest stuff and I need to just let go. I just threw out a bunch of candle caps. Why am I hanging on to those metal or plastic caps to jar candles? No clue. The stuff that was given is harder. But, I'm going to go all Marie Kondo on most things (not books though--her view on books is simply barbaric) and cull viciously. I just want to find places for a lot of the things I keep out of obligation so I'm not filling a landfill. I hate waste. But I also don't want to drown in stuff, so there's that.
I am in the process of making a schedule for writing time. I need to make it more of a priority even when things get crazy at school, because I ENJOY it and I want to expand a bit. I want to write more. I want to write different things. I want to attempt some sort of project that scares the pants off me but if I never do it I'll regret it forever. I'll just let you fill in the blanks on that one.
2018 sounds pretty good, no? Lots of fun things to do, to accomplish, to stretch ourselves, to give back. I'm pretty darn excited.
Saturday, January 6, 2018
You're Not Allowed to Be Busy
The day before the holiday break, I told the two students who tried to have lunch in my room, "Sorry charlies, but there's no work to do today and I desperately need an adult, social lunch, to the cafeteria you go!" and I had lunch with a bunch of my colleagues. They are lovely ladies, and most of the time the conversation doesn't fill me with fury.
On this day though, I got to see a real ugly side of the Mom Club. A great example of comparison turning people into "mean girls," and I witnessed some real bitchery.
A teacher who recently went from mom of two to mom of four was complaining about another teacher, that she was just driving her CRAZY. Granted, this other teacher tends to do the comparison thing herself and tell everyone that their life can't ever be hard because they have spouses and two salaries and she is single and so it's harder financially, and it can really rub people the wrong way. It can be offputting to be told you can't complain when not everyone knows your personal situations in and out. Sometime I'm told by my coworkers, "Oh, don't complain -- you have a husband, you know...your life is charmed. Haven't you been told that?" and I actually have to say, "um, no, I don't get told that, actually...I get a little more of the 'I know you know how hard life can be,' because, you know, I've had things very obviously not turn out the way I'd hoped, too." But they get real mad when their personal lives are judged by comparison and any difficulties in the background are ignored or glossed over.
Which is why it was somewhat shocking to me to find the reason for this mom teacher's ire.
She said, "She had the BALLS to say she was tired because she was so busy! I just wanted to PUNCH her!" Okay, I was thinking that surely she must said something stupid like, "you have NO IDEA how tired I am!" to a fairly recent mother of twins and two older boys. She must have made a direct comparison or said "you just don't know what it's like."
But that's NOT what happened.
Mom Teacher said, "I was walking down the hall and she said, 'Ah, I am SO TIRED, my eyes are just BURNING, I was wrapping presents all night last night!' Can you believe that? I could have just PUNCHED her." (She has a thing for punching.)
Okay, you see, I was ALSO walking down the hall when this exchange happened, and there was no comparison. It was literally a statement of fact: she was tired, she'd been wrapping presents, she couldn't wait for break because she needed a break from everything. NO COMPARISON.
And then, the kicker happened.
All the other women at the table, also moms to children of varying ages, expressed shock and disapproval and outrage. And one then said, "What was she, wrapping presents for her CAT?" and they all laughed. "How dare she say she's busy? She doesn't have kids! She doesn't know what that's like! Ugh! Busy INDEED!" were the other comments.
I was shocked, but then I decided, fuck it. I'm going to say something, because this is DISGUSTING. I piped up in the middle of this bizarre witch hunt and said, "Um, you don't have to have kids to be busy. You can have a very hectic life and be tired, even without kids."
People stopped and looked at me, and I saw flickers of unease and perhaps a little sheepishness, and there was some of the awesome, "Oh, we didn't mean YOU, of course" which is bullshit. A comment like that is an affront to ANYONE who isn't in the Mom Club, who must just sit at home reveling in our childfree existence, not having to Scotchguard all the upholstered furniture.
I continued, "but it is, isn't it? I mean, I get it -- it's busy with children, But there are lots of ways to have a fulfilling, busy life. I mean, I just got my National Board certification and Bryce is pursuing his PhD, and we can be very busy with different things of our own, no kids required."
Then there was hemming and hawing and one person said, "I had no idea that I could be busier when I had kids, but I just fit it all in there somehow and other things had to go, that's not the same. You ARE so much busier with kids." Which sort of missed the point. I wasn't saying you aren't busy with kids, I know that's true, but they made it seem like no one else could ever complain about busyness or tiredness.
I know that I get more sleep than someone who has a baby or even a toddler. I know that I don't have to drive all over town for lessons and play groups and whatever. But that insidious message that you can only complain about being busy, you can only complain about being tired when you have a bevy of little kids...it doesn't make sense to me. It's a really shallow worldview.
I was really, really pissed by the whole interaction. My T.A. told me later that she was glad I spoke up, and that it was disgusting how mean they were. She said that you never know what's on anyone's plate and you shouldn't judge anyone else or assume that you know what their life is like.
For instance, do they know that this single teacher has a second job tutoring? That it IS actually harder without a second full time income -- I mean, so many of us have husbands who make a LOT more money than we do, and she has just her teaching salary and what she makes tutoring, and frankly that IS harder financially. Do they know that she was wrapping a shit-ton of presents for her cousin's kids, for her friends' kids, that she has children in her life even if she doesn't have children? That she might not have the pressure of waiting until kids go to bed to do it, and there's no pretending to be Santa, but that wrapping is wrapping is wrapping? You get just as many papercuts when they're not actually your children. I know these people know that she's going through a couple different crises at the moment, too, and the lack of empathy is astounding. It is hard when there's a bit of a "no one can possibly know what I'm going through" attitude coming from the target of this vitriol, and it can be hard to be sympathetic to someone who goes through difficult times and isn't always personable about it, but it just felt so UNCALLED FOR, the sharpness of the cuts. "What is she, wrapping presents for her cat?" I mean, what the actual fuck?
I talked to my dad about it over break because I was still steaming, and he was like, "Oh, she's single and has no kids? Oh no, she's not ALLOWED to be busy. Only moms get that privilege. They're the ones who have the contests of who has the most crap to deal with, who got the least amount of sleep, who's the most tired." (He was being sarcastic of course...he's a single guy and so gets his fair share of this attitude, too.)
WHY DO PEOPLE WANT TO WIN THESE KINDS OF CONTESTS? Why can't you BOTH be tired for your own separate reasons, and just be like, "yeah, the holidays suck, I hope you get some rest!" and leave it at that? It's always amazing to me that there seems to be some sort of prize for who has the most misery. Leave me out of that racket.
Whew, okay, rant over. What I learned from this is that I don't want to know what's said about me behind my back. I want to make sure that I always speak up when the Mom Brigade gets going, if only to try to open up a chink in that self-righteous armor and hopefully inspire a little looking at another perspective. I wish I had spoken up and told them how mean it was to make that comment about the cat, but next time I can be more aggressive (in a nice way) about it. Because unfortunately I am certain that there will be a next time. I am so disappointed in the lack of kindness, but hopefully I can help dilute the poison and build a more peaceful, inclusive worldview. I can hope, right?
On this day though, I got to see a real ugly side of the Mom Club. A great example of comparison turning people into "mean girls," and I witnessed some real bitchery.
A teacher who recently went from mom of two to mom of four was complaining about another teacher, that she was just driving her CRAZY. Granted, this other teacher tends to do the comparison thing herself and tell everyone that their life can't ever be hard because they have spouses and two salaries and she is single and so it's harder financially, and it can really rub people the wrong way. It can be offputting to be told you can't complain when not everyone knows your personal situations in and out. Sometime I'm told by my coworkers, "Oh, don't complain -- you have a husband, you know...your life is charmed. Haven't you been told that?" and I actually have to say, "um, no, I don't get told that, actually...I get a little more of the 'I know you know how hard life can be,' because, you know, I've had things very obviously not turn out the way I'd hoped, too." But they get real mad when their personal lives are judged by comparison and any difficulties in the background are ignored or glossed over.
Which is why it was somewhat shocking to me to find the reason for this mom teacher's ire.
She said, "She had the BALLS to say she was tired because she was so busy! I just wanted to PUNCH her!" Okay, I was thinking that surely she must said something stupid like, "you have NO IDEA how tired I am!" to a fairly recent mother of twins and two older boys. She must have made a direct comparison or said "you just don't know what it's like."
But that's NOT what happened.
Mom Teacher said, "I was walking down the hall and she said, 'Ah, I am SO TIRED, my eyes are just BURNING, I was wrapping presents all night last night!' Can you believe that? I could have just PUNCHED her." (She has a thing for punching.)
Okay, you see, I was ALSO walking down the hall when this exchange happened, and there was no comparison. It was literally a statement of fact: she was tired, she'd been wrapping presents, she couldn't wait for break because she needed a break from everything. NO COMPARISON.
And then, the kicker happened.
All the other women at the table, also moms to children of varying ages, expressed shock and disapproval and outrage. And one then said, "What was she, wrapping presents for her CAT?" and they all laughed. "How dare she say she's busy? She doesn't have kids! She doesn't know what that's like! Ugh! Busy INDEED!" were the other comments.
I was shocked, but then I decided, fuck it. I'm going to say something, because this is DISGUSTING. I piped up in the middle of this bizarre witch hunt and said, "Um, you don't have to have kids to be busy. You can have a very hectic life and be tired, even without kids."
People stopped and looked at me, and I saw flickers of unease and perhaps a little sheepishness, and there was some of the awesome, "Oh, we didn't mean YOU, of course" which is bullshit. A comment like that is an affront to ANYONE who isn't in the Mom Club, who must just sit at home reveling in our childfree existence, not having to Scotchguard all the upholstered furniture.
I continued, "but it is, isn't it? I mean, I get it -- it's busy with children, But there are lots of ways to have a fulfilling, busy life. I mean, I just got my National Board certification and Bryce is pursuing his PhD, and we can be very busy with different things of our own, no kids required."
Then there was hemming and hawing and one person said, "I had no idea that I could be busier when I had kids, but I just fit it all in there somehow and other things had to go, that's not the same. You ARE so much busier with kids." Which sort of missed the point. I wasn't saying you aren't busy with kids, I know that's true, but they made it seem like no one else could ever complain about busyness or tiredness.
I know that I get more sleep than someone who has a baby or even a toddler. I know that I don't have to drive all over town for lessons and play groups and whatever. But that insidious message that you can only complain about being busy, you can only complain about being tired when you have a bevy of little kids...it doesn't make sense to me. It's a really shallow worldview.
I was really, really pissed by the whole interaction. My T.A. told me later that she was glad I spoke up, and that it was disgusting how mean they were. She said that you never know what's on anyone's plate and you shouldn't judge anyone else or assume that you know what their life is like.
For instance, do they know that this single teacher has a second job tutoring? That it IS actually harder without a second full time income -- I mean, so many of us have husbands who make a LOT more money than we do, and she has just her teaching salary and what she makes tutoring, and frankly that IS harder financially. Do they know that she was wrapping a shit-ton of presents for her cousin's kids, for her friends' kids, that she has children in her life even if she doesn't have children? That she might not have the pressure of waiting until kids go to bed to do it, and there's no pretending to be Santa, but that wrapping is wrapping is wrapping? You get just as many papercuts when they're not actually your children. I know these people know that she's going through a couple different crises at the moment, too, and the lack of empathy is astounding. It is hard when there's a bit of a "no one can possibly know what I'm going through" attitude coming from the target of this vitriol, and it can be hard to be sympathetic to someone who goes through difficult times and isn't always personable about it, but it just felt so UNCALLED FOR, the sharpness of the cuts. "What is she, wrapping presents for her cat?" I mean, what the actual fuck?
I talked to my dad about it over break because I was still steaming, and he was like, "Oh, she's single and has no kids? Oh no, she's not ALLOWED to be busy. Only moms get that privilege. They're the ones who have the contests of who has the most crap to deal with, who got the least amount of sleep, who's the most tired." (He was being sarcastic of course...he's a single guy and so gets his fair share of this attitude, too.)
WHY DO PEOPLE WANT TO WIN THESE KINDS OF CONTESTS? Why can't you BOTH be tired for your own separate reasons, and just be like, "yeah, the holidays suck, I hope you get some rest!" and leave it at that? It's always amazing to me that there seems to be some sort of prize for who has the most misery. Leave me out of that racket.
Whew, okay, rant over. What I learned from this is that I don't want to know what's said about me behind my back. I want to make sure that I always speak up when the Mom Brigade gets going, if only to try to open up a chink in that self-righteous armor and hopefully inspire a little looking at another perspective. I wish I had spoken up and told them how mean it was to make that comment about the cat, but next time I can be more aggressive (in a nice way) about it. Because unfortunately I am certain that there will be a next time. I am so disappointed in the lack of kindness, but hopefully I can help dilute the poison and build a more peaceful, inclusive worldview. I can hope, right?
Monday, January 1, 2018
#Microblog Mondays: Simply "No"
We went to a holiday party before the actual holiday break, one that I knew I would know very few if any people there. It was a great excuse to get all dolled up in my new plaid dress with a fun 50's silhouette and cropped cardigan (that will only ever get worn with dresses, a crop top gal I am not), but when we arrived to the INCREDIBLY FANCYPANTS house (one where our house could easily fit nestled inside the kitchen/great room), and it was held by a coworker of sorts of Bryce's through the university where he's studying, but his personal assistant had it catered (and she has celiac too) so it was going to be a party where I COULD ACTUALLY EAT SOMETHING, and it didn't sound too terrible.
Well, at least until I walked in the door and felt woefully overdressed in the face of a slew of sleek, dark-neutral clad, slender wives and moms, a surprising number of small children running about and shrieking gaily from multiple dedicated play areas, and had the realization that I was very much not with my tribe here.
As predicted,we were I was asked the dreaded, "So, do you have kids?" question no less than FIVE times throughout the night.
And I just said, "No."
I didn't add "that didn't work out for us," or "it's a long story" or any kind of explanation -- I didn't even say it in a morose or wistful tone, I just said "No" and moved on.
It felt amazingly freeing on my part -- I mean, I'm probably not going to see the majority of these people ever again (unless we go to this party next year), and they knew nothing at all about me except for what I offered. What was weird was that I felt that an unfettered "no" was disconcerting to a lot of the askers, who seemed a bit put off and at one point someone asked how long we'd been married and I happily said 8 years and let them just wonder about our circumstances. No one asked. They just sort of stuttered and awkwardly changed the subject. Which I let them do without that urge to explain further.
A milestone, I think!
Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!
 |
| Cute, no? |
Well, at least until I walked in the door and felt woefully overdressed in the face of a slew of sleek, dark-neutral clad, slender wives and moms, a surprising number of small children running about and shrieking gaily from multiple dedicated play areas, and had the realization that I was very much not with my tribe here.
As predicted,
And I just said, "No."
I didn't add "that didn't work out for us," or "it's a long story" or any kind of explanation -- I didn't even say it in a morose or wistful tone, I just said "No" and moved on.
It felt amazingly freeing on my part -- I mean, I'm probably not going to see the majority of these people ever again (unless we go to this party next year), and they knew nothing at all about me except for what I offered. What was weird was that I felt that an unfettered "no" was disconcerting to a lot of the askers, who seemed a bit put off and at one point someone asked how long we'd been married and I happily said 8 years and let them just wonder about our circumstances. No one asked. They just sort of stuttered and awkwardly changed the subject. Which I let them do without that urge to explain further.
A milestone, I think!
Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!