The Black Swan

I just have to write about this movie because it has been haunting me ever since I saw it.  I can't get it out of my thoughts and how much it disturbed me.  It was such a well done film and so beautifully hypnotic that I just couldn't take my eyes away from it.  It was so captivating, but truly horrifying and infinitely sad.

I think of how many girls out there have felt like they needed to be perfect.  That's all Nina wanted, to be perfect.  She kept saying it throughout the movie.  And when she said it, it was usually in this thin, weak, nearly inaudible voice.  The voice of a child.  The voice of someone in pain and ashamed.  Ashamed that they think they could possibly be perfect when they are so flawed.

I just read that paragraph and realized that I wrote, "That's all Nina wanted, to be perfect."  Yes, that's all.  As if being perfect is an everyday occurrence in people.  That most people walking around out there are perfect and she was the one left out in the cold, in the land of the imperfect, misfit people.  See, it's so easy to just assume that perfection is ideal and the norm.  It's not.

Nobody is perfect.  Nobody.  But a lot  of people try to be and a lot of people kill themselves trying, like Nina.

She didn't find satisfaction with any of the many accomplishments she had achieved.  Just being a dancer for a living and being a part of a prestigious ballet company would be amazing.  At least that's what I say, but I know that I would have been like Nina too.  Once I got  in, I would have thought, "Well, anyone could do this.  I need to do better, be better and achieve more!"

She couldn't be perfect if she was distracted by  her own life, so she lived with her mom.  She didn't have friends, she didn't do anything fun.  She  had no joy.  I kept wanting to shake her and say, "But Nina, you're not perfect if you are so one-sided!  You're driving yourself mad!  You're driving yourself sad!  Stop!"

She eventually doesn't know what is real and what isn't and we, as the audience, don't really either.  She is so confused by her pain.  Her emotional pain.  She scratched herself to the point of having a rash or chronic scabs because she wanted to feel something.  She was numbed by her sadness and jealousy and feelings of inadequacy.  She just wanted to feel something real, so she scratched herself and imagined hurting herself to much higher degrees. 

And in her desperate quest to find the darkness, the imperfection and stinging bite of the Black Swan within herself, she had to pretend to kill someone to get there. But she killed herself.  In her cloud of emotional confusion she kills herself, but she still doesn't get it.  As she lays dying on the mattress at the end she says to the lecherous, sick director, "I was perfect."

I took that to mean that it was worth it to her.  To have that one brief flicker of real perfection, killing herself was a small trade-off.  I can't imagine anything so sad or joyless.
I hardly know where to go from there.  I know we all have moments when we look at ourselves in the mirror and think, if only I was perfect.  Actually, I find myself saying it more often when I am comparing myself to someone else.  "If only I was as perfect as her..."

Well, "she's" not perfect.  No one is.  Who knows what kind of problems or hell "she's" been through to get that perfect thing you want.  Maybe "she" got that beautiful hair from a mother that abandoned her.  Maybe "she" is so thin because she can't stop exercising and tortures herself if she doesn't hit the gym 3 times a day.  Think of those things the next time you find yourself wanting to be "perfect" like that other person.
Nina would be someone I would look at on the street and envy.  Beautiful, graceful, thin.  But I don't want to be like Nina.  Her life was a completely joyless existence.  There isn't any time in that movie that you feel an emotion remotely close to happiness or joy.  Even when she finds out she got "the part" and she's calling her mom from the bathroom stall, it's painful to watch.  So, desperate, so childlike, so suppressed.  It just made me weep.

And now, being a mother myself, I think of watching this happen from the mother's perspective.  Her mother's character, who obviously has some problems herself, clearly has pushed Nina in some way, but it is never really made clear.  She has used Nina somehow to fulfill something she never acheived, which is something I find so transparent and despicable.  Like those mothers on those toddler beauty pageant shows.  They are so sick and so obviously trying to feel beautiful through their daughters, because, let's face it, none of the moms on those shows are beautiful. 

Why do these mothers seem so oblivious to the fact that they are damaging their child?  That is what is scary to me, that maybe that behavior just happens if you aren't happy with yourself and your life.  Does one just start making their child do things that make themselves feel happy and fulfilled and they aren't conscious of what they're doing?  Is it some sort of coping behavior?

Nina's mother wasn't conscious of what she had done until the very end and she saw Nina on stage for the last scene of the ballet.  I'll never forget the look on the mother character's face.  It was a mix of "Oh, my God, what have I done?" and "Someone, STOP, help my child!  Don't you see she needs help?"

I think of my Abigail spinning away on that stage so in pain and I just ache.  Just thinking about it.  Why didn't that mother climb up on stage and tackle her and have her taken away?  Or at least tackle her backstage.  She knew her daughter wasn't right and she knew she, her mother, had a hand in it. 

I like to think that I will never do anything so selfish as living through my child, but after watching this movie and even seeing those horrible pageant shows, I don't know if I can be so self-righteous as to say, "I'd never do something like that."  After all, none of us is perfect or above any flaw.

That mother's face haunts me every day and I hope it does when the moment comes when I say, "Abby, you have to keep taking piano or figure skating or gymnastics.  It's good for you, you're good at it.  You have to keep doing it."  May that mother's face pop into my mind and make me bite my tongue and remember what I promised Abby in the womb. 

I told her that my wish for her was to always be happy with herself.  That's all.  I just want her to be happy, whatever she chooses to do, to be, to be with, just to be happy and to be my Abigail.  She is just pure joyfulness and this movie has made me aware that I must protect that joyfulness that she exudes. 

We all must protect our own joy as well.  It is so easy to let it snuff out.  I'm so sensitive that I can let one negative statement from someone ruin my whole day.  I'll admit that.  I'll admit that my mental state isn't a far cry from Nina's some days. That's why I have had such a visceral reaction to this movie and feel I must tell you all to not let yourselves fall under the spell of perfection.  There is no such thing.  It's like searching for the Holy Grail, you'll never find it, never acheive it no matter how hard you work.  And that's not a bad thing. 

Do things well, do things with integrity, do things with kindness, but don't let the pursuit of perfection creep in.  Remember Nina and remember her mother.  Neither one of them could let it go and it destroyed them both.  Such a sweet siren call it can be at first, that feeling that you do something so well and could do it even better and be more admired!  Such a high, such a drug, but such a killer.

The Rash Attack

I haven't posted in a while and that has definitely been going against my efforts to live a more joyful life.  But the truth is my life has not been all that joyful lately, thus, I have not felt like writing.  But, I do find that if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and persevering and being courageous (or at least faking it) that things do pass and better times do come.

Work has been a huge point of stress for the past couple of weeks as our big new software system "went live".  How thrilling!  It has kind of been one disaster after the other and staying late to figure out how to put out fires and dealing with a lot of frantic, angry people.  Not much fun. 

So, I think because of this stress I came down with a sinus infection.  I don't know how one "comes down" with a sinus infection, I always thought you had some sort of cold and it progresses into a sinus infection, but I just seemed to wake up with one.  Who knows, but I go to the doctor and he looks in an ear, down my throat and in my nose and says, "Sinus infection."  Prescribes anitbiotics and I think, "Well, that was quick.  Good, now I can get back to my stressful life."  So, that's what I do.  I was especially happy he gave me the 5 day antibiotic that gets rid of whatever really fast.

Then, the same little monitor that lives in my body and tells me when I'm on overload that I haven't been listening to decides to slap me around again.  A couple days later I am at the hairdresser and she says, "Say, did you know you have this red patch on your neck?  Have you been scratching yourself or something?" 
Voice inside my head:  "Scratching myself?  Gross."
Voice coming out of my mouth:  "No."
So, we carry on with typical salon talk and she stops and says, "Uh, did you know this red splotchiness is on your scalp?"
Voice inside my head:  Loud Screaming.  "What if it spreads to my face??????"
Voice coming out of my mouth:  "No."
She continues in skeptical, cautious, get me away from this leper tone, "It seems to be spreading around your neck too.  It looks like it hurts.  Is it itchy?"
Voice inside my head:  Loud Screaming. 
Voice outside my head:  "No, it doesn't itch."
She finishes quickly and tells me to buy some Benadryl on the way home.  She was very nice, I give her a lot of credit, she probably wanted to throw her scissors and run, but she finished and was even kind of helpful.  I was so frazzled I never would have bought Benadryl.

I did go to the pharmacy and gave the pharmacist a list of the pills I had taken in the past two days and leaning over the counter desperately asked him, "Which one is giving me THIS?"
He also gives me the cautious, get me away from this leper tone and tells me to stop the antibiotics and go to the emergency room if I can't breathe.

So, I am laying on the couch that night staring at the TV completely covered so my gross rash doesn't touch anything and waiting to stop breathing.  The rash has now spread from neck to scalp to chest and back, lovely.  Seinfeld comes on and as the episode keeps unfolding I realize, to my  horror, that my recent life has been a bit like George Costanza's.  Nobody wants to be like George Costanza.  It's fun to laugh at George Costanza, but he really is an awful, miserable person.

It's the episode where he thinks he's having a heart attack and instead finds out he has to have his tonsils removed.  So, to save money he goes to this crazy wholistic healer guy and ends up drinking tea that makes him purple.  That was my low point, laying on the couch covered in my purplish rash feeling like the purple George Costanza.  He's screaming at the top of his lungs like I wanted to in the hair salon and I can identify with George.  How depressing.

In the end, I think that my body is just not going to be gentle with me anymore.  I didn't listen after I had the accident.  I slowed down for a little while, but not long enough to heal.  I've had four sinus infections now this winter, so I think maybe my body is telling me something there too and I haven't listened.  So, after my low "purple George" moment I decided that a rash is a pretty visible, tangible sign.  I've got to change something in my life.  I can't ignore that there is no room for joy right now in my life.  Something has to give.

So, I have been applying for new jobs around the Beaver Dam area.  It's a little discouraging because frankly, there isn't much around here, but I know I will find something.  Then, that will give me 2 and a half more hours with my daughter or my husband or for myself each day.  Maybe I could heal from this accident.  Maybe I could knit again, maybe I could exercise again, maybe my husband and I would talk again.  Maybe I won't have to work at night or on weekends anymore. 

I try to stay hopeful and feel better now that I have made the decision to not ignore the signs anymore.  Even if it takes awhile to find a job, I do find myself taking the one I have less seriously.  I'm not as rabid about work anymore because I'm frankly kind of angry with it.  It has made my life rather miserable.  I like the work I do and the people I work with are great, but it isn't a realistic situation anymore and I have to stop pretending it is. 

It's rather freeing to say, even if just to yourself, "You know what, this just doesn't work for me."

At least it has put me back on the road to being joyful.  I think.

Thanks for the Feedback

Thanks all of you who sent feedback via the comments section or through email on my last post.  I think a lot of people out there feel the same way I do at times.  And that was one of my goals in starting the blog was to not feel so lonely myself and to help others not feel alone as they struggle with the difficulties of being a working mom, stay-at-home mom (which is a working mom as well) or just a regular person in a relationship.

I also want you all to know that I do love my husband.  He is a wonderful father and is really very sweet to me.  We have been through a lot together and he is not perfect, but neither am I.  We're just doing the best we can to make life for our daughter work.  That I know we agree on 100%.  I never want to in any way make him out to be a monster, because he is not.  He just gets on my nerves sometimes as I know I get on his.

My Mom gave me her feedback on my  last post verbally.  She said, "Val, men are from Mars, women are from Venus.  That's it."  I have never read the book, but I get the basic concept that men and women think and function differently and that's why we get so frustrated with each other sometimes.  Remember, that is also what attracts us too...
Then she informed me that John Gray, the man that wrote said book, has written a few others and his most recent one talks about how the different hormone levels that women and men have at different times of the day, in their life, etc affect how we interact with each other.  Check out this link if interested: Venus on Fire, Mars on Ice: Hormonal Balance - The Key to Life, Love, and Energy

Anyway, I'll mention this just because it's kind of funny...My Mom describes a part of this new book she must have read or, more likely, heard someone talk about. She says that in the book the author explains that when a man's hormone levels get low he needs to just sit there until the levels rise back up to a certain point and then he is able to get up and do something again, thus the staring at the pre-recorded golf behavior.
While she was telling me this I was thinking, "Ah, my mother is crazy and mis-quoting something or interpreting it so it makes no sense whatsoever, blah, blah,"  BUT, it actually kind-of made sense??
I'm thinking of getting the book and seeing what it has to say.  If any of you get to it before me, let me know what you think.

It strangely made me feel better that there was some sort of explanation for this weird sitting and staring behavior that I have never understood in our almost 8 years of marriage.  Even if it is unfounded, it makes me feel joyful, well maybe not joyful, but comforted now when I see my husband sitting there watching River Monsters, when he could be doing a million other more useful things, that he can't help it.  Maybe?  At least it helps me bite my tongue and move on.

Read My Mind, Please!!!

Do you ever want your husband/significant other to read your mind?  Why can't they?  Why can't I read his?  Sometimes I would really like to know what is really happening in there as he stares at people playing golf all day.  How can that possibly be exciting?  I understand football, basketball, and sometimes baseball, but GOLF??  Only on a Sunday when Tiger and Phil are tied.  But on a Thursday afternoon...snore.
But yet, this is what is a priority over helping a wife that had an equally stressful day as him get a sick child to bed.

And it's not like I don't ask for help.  I fully admit that I'm very, very bad at asking for help, but tonight I actually did.  I said directly to his face, "I am going to need help getting her in a bath, setting up the vaporizer and getting her to bed." So that is what I expected he would do since he agreed to it.  And also because he knew I had  rushed home from work to get my child to the last appointment of the day with "Dr. Jay", who I'll save for another post, picking up eye drops at the busiest Walgreens in the country, I swear, and wrestling her in and out of the car with end of the day neck and back pain,

I thought this was pretty straightforward, was it not?

Well, apparently, I needed to write a step by step instruction sheet on what exactly I needed him to do because what he interpreted this as was, "Hmm, I think I'll sit down and turn on The Masters and watch pre-recorded play."
WHAT???

So, Abby has partially eaten, but I give her some fruit and milk and let her have some of the remains of a soggy frozen pizza I decide to choke down for my dinner while reading to her on the floor.  This is not like me.  I like my daughter to eat in her high chair at a table with Mom and Dad.  She eats better and usually exclaims, "Happy Family!" when we all sit down together.  I love it.  But tonight, I'm way too tired, in pain, and irritated.

Nic actually does say, "Okay, Abby it's time for keester time," (their secret code for bathtime), but he says this while blindly staring at the screen paying no attention to the fact that she still needs to eat more, is interested in eating more and is not yet ready for "keester time."  He tends to rush her into doing things when he's ready to do them so he can get his needs met rather than waiting for when she's ready and feels comfortable...this bothers me a bit too.

I'm too tired to say anything and he doesn't move from his nest on the couch, so Abby and I continue to eat and read until I say, when she is ready, "Abby, now it's time for bathtime."  He does come and help me get her into the bathtub, which is difficult for me, and he does set up the vaporizer for me, which is great. He can be very helpful if he feels motivated to be.

But then, I have the audacity to ask him to do one other thing,  cover up her sandbox outside so the dogs don't poop in it.  Was that an outrageous request??  I mean, I really am wondering that.  Should I not have asked him to do that?

The first thing out of his mouth when I asked him to do that was, "NO.  Your Mom should have covered it back up herself."  Then he starts to exclaim how he needs to take a shower, he needs to get to bed, blah, blah, blah and just acting like there is just no time for this and how dare I ask. Such a change from earlier in the evening shen he was all about getting me to bed early because I looked tired, in pain and had had a long week.  Where did that husband go?

So in the huff of a seventh-grade girl he stomps down the stairs and goes outside to cover the sandbox up.  Fine.  Then he takes his shower, tells me he has no idea what I want from him and that I need to go to bed.  Then he goes to bed.
I am obviously up venting to you all and not going to bed.  This is my joy for today.  At least I can write about this and see what others think...please comment if you read this with your honest opinions.

What was that all about?  Why the temper tantrum at one extra request, which by the way, I asked him to do very nicely?  Why did he all of a sudden not care that I eat a decent meal and get to bed once he saw the glow of The Masters on TV?  Why do Abby and I disappear to him when something he wants to do comes along?

When he said he had no idea what I wanted from him I said, "Well, Nic, it would have been nice since you had earlier expressed that you wanted me to eat and go straight to bed, that you say, 'Val, I'll take care of getting Abby fed, bathed and to bed.  You take care of yourself and go to bed.' "
He had no answer to that, by the way.  This is when he went to bed. 

Again, I was being straightforward.  I wasn't expecting him to read my mind because that isn't fair, I realize that.  So I was completely honest with him.  "Nic, I wanted you to take over and you didn't.  It was disappointing to me."
He didn't want to hear that, so he went to bed.
Grrrrr.
Thanks for listening. This post wasn't very joyful, but please, if you can, tell me what I did wrong.  I want our marriage to be joyful, but there seems to be this weird disconnect sometimes.  I am really trying to be completely honest with him and I think I was in this situation, but tell me if I wasn't.

I know all of you out there are harried and busy and tired like me, and working on a relationship seems to be one of the biggest sources of unjoyfulness and puzzlement.  It also seems to end up at the bottom of the totem pole when I think it needs to be more towards the top.  How do we get it there?
Please share any ideas or thoughts you have...if you have a minute

Breathe and find something beautiful today, even if I can't...wait!  I saw buds on the lilac bush outside my kitchen window.  That was joyful.  At least I leave you with a happy thought, no matter how unrelated to the subject of the post...the smell of lilacs is coming soon.

The Silver Lining vs. Debbie Downer

Again, the silver lining, another cliche, but a really valuable thing to learn: how to find the silver lining in all situations and people you meet.  I find if I cannot find something good or at least funny that I can laugh about in every person or situation that life becomes rather unbearable and joyless.  There are so many people out there, it seems especially now when the nation is so uptight and stressed in general, that the Debbie Downers are everywhere...wah, wah, waaaaah. 

By the way, I hope all of you have seen the Debbie Downer skits from Saturday Night Live a few years ago.  If you have not, Google "Debbie Downer" and watch a couple on YouTube.  You will suddenly recognize people you work with, people in your family, and frighteningly, maybe yourself.
Debbie just thinks that everything is awful, despicable and unacceptable.  It becomes so funny as you watch a skit because you can't believe that anyone could be so outrageously negative, but I can name at least five people off the top of my head that I know are Debbie Downers.  Ugh.

I have found that I can be a Debbie Downer about myself, but not so much about others.  I am much more willing to cut myself down than another person, but that's a topic for another post. I have also found that over the years I am getting better at finding positive things in bad or difficult situations rather than resorting to throwing myself a pity party.

An example of a few Debbie Downers I recently experienced:
I am a software trainer for UW-Madison and am currently training PeopleSoft to all of UW System.  So, basically, lately, I have been traveling around the state with others on the PeopleSoft Training Team (who I like, fortunately) and dealing with mostly older state employees that are being confronted with ...gasp!...CHANGE!!!

This is certainly on paper a Debbie Downer situation and we have encountered many Debbie Downers as we traveled around the state, but a particular group of people that I trained took the cake.  It was a great example of how a few rotten apples can ruin the whole bunch. 
I happened to be training this group of people by myself.  I usually have a partner with me so, by design, we can save the other one from a horrible question or take over when one of us is ready to pass out or kill a Debbie Downer.  Well, I did not have that luxury on this day.

So, I know it's a rough group when they start coming in a half hour early for class and my manager is telling them that he emailed them that the class doesn't start until 9:00.  Mr.Debbie Downer, an old man who had long past retirement age, immediately glowers, "I have a job, you know.  I could have used that extra half hour."  Then he looks around with his little beady eyes waiting for somebody to apologize to him.  I wasn't going to do it and neither did my manager, thank God.  If he doesn't read his email, that's not our fault.

Then, as the session gets started I realize I have a major classroom disrupter.  The adult version of the kid you send to the office 5 minutes into class every day.  Except, this is adult education and you can't send them anywhere or tell them to leave.  She interrupts me at least every 5 minutes with a screeching, "QUESTION!".  She then would proceed to ask something that has nothing to do with what I'm talking about and stare at me like I'm no better than the dirt beneath her shoe.  When I would respond that we will get to that or that we're not really getting that deep into things, she would scoff or continue to ask questions until I had completely forgotten what I was originally talking about.

Then, while Screech Owl is hooting away and others are asking legitimate questions, I have to try to ignore Mr. Debbie Downer right in front of me mumbling to himself and grumbling until he eventually falls asleep, his head hanging awkwardly to the side, mouth slightly open...at least I don't have to deal with him anymore. 

I get to explaining how to enter a Floating Holiday into the new system (really exciting stuff, huh?) and my mind is blown at the rudeness and childishness of this group.  I explain that a Floating Holiday is like Christmas on a Saturday or any other day an employee wouldn't normally be working and I immediately hear from someone that I hadn't thought was a Debbie Downer, "That's not what a Floating Holiday is!" 

Again, not only a rude interruption, but what the hell is she talking about???  I'm sorry, but everyone I've talked to since this session has agreed with me that a Floating Holiday is like Christams on a Saturday.  I have no idea what to say, so I ask her what a Floating Holiday is.  She just says, pointing to my example on the projector that that is not it.  So, basically, she can't articulate to me what a Floating Holiday is, just that what I'm telling people is wrong. 

I am getting irritated with her rude, disruptive protestations, so I stop, look at her and say, "Okay, I'm moving on.  If you need clarification on what a Floating Holiday is, then you can talk to the subject matter expert."
I was not rude, just direct.

She shuts up and glowers and grumbles in her seat for the rest of the day and the whole next day.  And I think, "Is it worth it to expend so much energy on being right on something, to insist that something that is right is wrong?  If you are feeling so out of control because of a change, is it fair to attack the messenger that is trying to help you?" 
I can tell you this, if she calls me for help, she will be at the bottom of my priority list, as will Screech Owl and the sleeping Mr. Debbie Downer.

In an effort to make the next session better, I create a sheet with a little car on it titled, "Parking Lot".  I start class the next day asking participants to please write their questions down rather than just asking them the minute they pop into their heads.  I explain that we will stop every half hour or so and go over their "Parking Lot" questions.  I expect a comment, but nobody protests.

Well, guess what, Screech Owl wasn't in the room when I explained this and 5 minutes in to class I hear the screeching, "QUESTION!".  Ugh.  I turn with what I know is a nasty look towards her, but my silver lining begins to glimmer as I realize the class is on my side.  The woman next to the owl slams her hand down on the Parking Lot sheet and says, "PARKING LOT!".
I don't hear a peep from Screech Owl for the rest of the day.
I so wanted to laugh and high five the lady that saved me.  I was starting to feel like I was going crazy and this lady made me realize that most people are rational and normal and that these bad apples were overtaking the class.  Between me and my friend next to Screech Owl, we settled them down.

I could have gone home and cried about this and turned into a Debbie Downer myself, but instead I told people about the sleeping old man, asked them what they thought a Floating Holiday was, and did my best impression of the Screech Owl and we laughed.  I validated that it was, in fact, the class that was nuts, not me.  And I found the silver lining, however warped it was, that crazy people can be mildly entertaining and that I wasn't the only one in the class suffering at the hands of the Mr. and Ms. Debbie Downers in our class.

Also, as a bonus silver lining, I was telling the story to my husband and imitating Screech Owl by going, "QUESTION! QUESTION!" and my daughter, who is at the age where she imitates everything we do, starts walking around the kitchen going, "QUESTION, QUESTION!" 
If a two-year-old hopping around the kitchen imitating an adult who was acting like a two-year-old doesn't make you laugh, then you are a Debbie Downer.

Compare and Despair

I did not come up with this nifty little phrase, so do not credit it to me, but isn't it the truth?  I don't know about you, but I think comparing yourself to others can be the quickest route to joylessness.  But yet, I do it all the time: 

• I should find time to exercise like Midge my co-worker.  
• I wish my hair was that color. 
• I wish I could go on vacations like my friend Barbie.  
• I wish I was more organized like the lady that writes this blog.
• Why does Skipper have it so together and I'm such a mess?

If those are just a few that came off the top of my head, imagine the running stream that goes on all day!  If you are anything like me, let's try to stop this and be reasonable.  For example, before starting this blog I looked at some "mom" blogs that were pretty intimidating. 
They had tabs for "tools" they refer to in their blog.  Tools?  For what?  I thought this was a mommy blog and I would read something funny about someone else that has a child with grotesque, sticky day-care nose. I didn't know I needed to bring my "tools" or find my "tools".  

I read further and find out these tools are things like recipes for organic cleaning products, recipes for healthy food, meal plans, specifically branded plastic bins, etc.  I thought, "Well, I can't do this.  I have nowhere near the knowledge or resources this person has.  Plus, I'm not that organized, happy, perfect."
But then I thought, who is?  And how can I be like these super-mom bloggers when they probably do this for a living and I work 40 hours or more a week with a 2 and a half hour commute each day?  I barely have time to pick up milk let alone make my own toilet bowl scrub.
Then I thought, these blogs are terrible, how dare these super-moms put this stuff out there and make us struggling moms feel inadequate!  What terrible people!

But no, they aren't terrible people, they are doing what they love to do: be organized and on the ball and basically the smug "know-it-all" you all remember from high school.  Let's face it, if I didn't have the schedule I did I would probably have the same kind of blog or at least be just as organized as them (maybe).  And everything and everyone has its/their place.  These sites can actually be helpful if you kind-of edit them down.

I have found that when I stumble upon one of such blogs that it is more helpful to find ONE THING to take away from it that is helpful and not to focus on ALL the things they suggest you do.  Otherwise, hyperventilating and self-loathing will set it very quickly.  Either that or you will end up at Target or online spending a fortune on plastic storage boxes.
Like I mentioned last time, I think one step at a time is the way to go.  With lots of things.  Finding joy, mommy blogs, whatever, one step at a time.  So cliche, but true.

Another example from what I will now refer to as my "joyless period"...
My husband, Nic, works third shift and I work 8am-4:30pm and have a 1 hour and 15 minute commute each way.  Abby, our daughter, needs to eat around 5:30 or 6:00.  So, unless I have something ready to go in the fridge to warm up or something in the crock pot, I can't cook and have something on the table by 5:30 or 6:00.  My husband likes to cook and is very good at it, but alas, he is male and has zero planning skills or foresight.  I would get these calls at about 4:00 at work, "What should we have for dinner tonight?"  Or, "Can you pick up chicken, shiitake mushrooms and parsley?"
My response to these calls was always, "What?"  And then in my head and sometimes out loud, "What part of cooking dinner don't you understand?  Cooking dinner includes picking out a recipe and buying groceries."

Men need to be told this I learned.

So, since I hadn't learned that men need to be told this at least 27 and a half times before it actually sinks in I remembered that I had once heard about "Meal Planning".  I  thought, what a great idea!  I will have a schedule of meals set up and we'll make the same shopping list each week and I can make things on the weekend to have ready for Nic to cook up.  It will work so well!  I'll just do a little research online on how this works best.

Okay, so I end up on aforementioned intimidating "mommy" blog and this woman is telling me to master the intricacies of the Google calendar, read her recipes, go to this site and get this recipe, set up things so I email myself to remember this or that ingredient, don't forget to make sure I have vegetables secretly hidden in things so Abby isn't malnourished and the hyperventilating begins.
Then before completely dissolving I call my friend and say, "Do you do meal plans?"
She says, "What's that?  Rushing to the store after work and buying a box of pasta and a can of sauce?"
I immediately felt better.

So, do we eat dinner?  Yes, but we don't "meal plan".  Nic now has a set arsenal of recipes that he rotates, some nights we eat leftovers, some nights we make a pizza with a vegetable as a side.  On weekends I very rarely cook for the week, but sometimes I make dinner on a Saturday night.  It has somehow worked itself out.  I just had to keep kind of beating it into him.  And I didn't need to inflict the "Super-Mom Meal Plan of the Century for Perfect People" upon our already frantic lifestyle.  It would have been way too rigid for us to keep up with.  And then, that invites thoughts of failure, "Oh, my God, I can't even stick to the meal plan!  I'm no good!  My child will now get scurvy."  Ridiculous.
One positive thing did happen because of my meal plan adventure.  I found a very good recipe for tilapia that my daughter loves and I can prepare it the night before in 10 minutes and have Nic bake it for us while I'm driving home. 
Again, my point, one recipe.  Not a whole meal plan and all the trimmings.  One simple recipe.  Joy!

Creating Joy

My husband called me "joyless" recently.  It is a fairly startling thing to hear coming from the mouth of your beloved, but I really did nothing more than continue to be joyless that my husband found me joyless.  I continued on with the frantic, frenetic, freaked out pace of the full-time working mom.  My feet hit the floor in the morning and I moved through my days blind to my emotions and needs, these things not even registering on my constantly circling radar.  A radar that focused on:

• What needs to be done next?
• Now what needs to be done?
• Is my child happy?
• Does my child have everything she needs?
• Can I give her more?
• Am I keeping my husband happy?
• Am I going to meet that deadline or do I have to work tonight?
• Do we need milk?

By the time my feet came off the floor and I fell into sheets that had hopefully been washed within the last week, I would be so exhausted, yet wired that I needed medication to help me turn off the radar and fall asleep for a few hours.  Then it all began again.

My husband and family continued to express concern here and there in ways that I know they thought were loud and clear.  But they were not aware of the narrow-mindedness, the ultra-focused mind of the triple F (frantic, frenetic, freaked out) working mom.  Our radars are not built to catch concern for US.  Concern for our child: absolutely number one, concern for work: yes, concern for our husbands: sure, but for ourselves?  No.

Shortly after the "joyless" comment I was taking our daughter to daycare on less than favorable roads and a semi hit us.  I was driving very cautiously as I must keep my daughter safe and the semi tried to pass me as I was going too slow.  He lost control and the cab of his semi smashed into the driver side of my car sending my daughter and I spinning out of control on a major highway during morning rush hour.  We landed backwards in the ditch with a thud, completely stuck and in need of help.  I soon discovered a metaphor for my state of being; completely stuck and in need of help.

My daughter, Abigail, 22 months, was completely fine after being checked out by EMTs and her pediatrician and as I was calling for help she even asked me to, "put on some music?"  I on the other hand, I turned out to be not okay.  I didn't even bother to have myself checked out by the EMTs and wouldn't allow a check out for myself at the hospital.  I felt fine.  And I really did.  It wasn't until a couple days later that the creeping, horrible pain began to settle into my neck and travel around my  back.  What was this?  My body was forcing me to think about it.  Blast.  The last thing I can fit into my triple F working mom life.

I tried chiropractic care and didn't have much success.  I really liked her and felt she wanted to help me be well, so of course my friend, and I think the friend of a lot of working moms, guilt kept kicking me when I stopped going and tried to carry on with my working mom life through the pain.  My body will not let me continue on, though.  I have to believe that this accident happened for a reason.  I cannot continue in pain and I cannot continue to be joyless.

I have just had an evaluation with a physical therapist who specializes in neck and back problems and I feel very hopeful at this point.  He told me that he doesn't know how I get out of bed every morning and live the life I live with the state my body is in.  He doesn't even know the state my mind is in most of the time!  But I think working moms feel very much the way I responded to his comment on this.  I said, "I have to.  I don't really have much of a choice."

But we do.  We do have a choice.  A choice to stop with the crazy pace of the typical working mom life and to find the joy or create the joy that we have lost from our lives or perhaps never had in our lives.  I am going to make the choice to commit to getting physically and mentally well.  To me that means the crazy pace of the "working mom" life has to end.  Sure, I'm still going to be a working mom, I just have to do it a different way.  I need to do it in a way that creates joy in my life instead of crushing it to the point where I emit a cloud of joylessness and despair.  I never chose to do that, I think it just happens to so many of us that try to do too much and think that there is no alternative.  We build our own personal jails with walls of tasks that MUST be done otherwise we have failed, we are bad moms, wives, employees.  This must stop, at least in my life.  I'm hoping that choosing to knock down those walls of rigid responsibility will open up a whole new world and let sunlight come streaming back into my life.

Starting this blog is one of the first steps on my list of how to create more joy in my life.  I love to write, I always have.  Since I was a little girl I would have notebooks full of stories and thoughts and then it just stopped.  I realize that I've "just stopped" a lot of things that have brought me joy, but I'm taking things one step at a time. Step One: I'm going to bring the joy of writing back into my life through this blog.  Please continue to check back and share your thoughts and experiences as well.  I know there are others out there who feel the bonds of the triple F (frantic, frenetic and freaked out) working mom life.  Let's break them together!