The Clench

I am spinning around and around lately. There is a lot of stress happening. Some centered around the job hunt. Some financial. But mostly stress because of my own personality. I am some one who takes a worry and rubs it around in my hands. It spins and spins in my head until I can't let it go. I need structure and routine to feel comfortable so this limbo status is hard. That doesn't mean it is bad but it is hard.

The stress is making me clench my jaw again and this morning I woke up with my eye almost swollen shut and throbbing. Just another sign that I need to learn to calm the eff down.

I've been thinking a lot. About how what is right for my family is a fluid thing. Last year leaving my job was the right thing. It has been hard but it was right. And though it is hard for me to accept--going back to a corp gig isn't saying I was wrong but really just acknowledging that things have changed. And when it is hard to accept that what is right for ME, for US, can change so much no wonder all of us have a hard time grabbing hold of acceptance for other people's choices.

I feel my MIL staring at me sometimes. I know she doesn't agree with me all of the time, or even some of the time. We are very different people who were brought up very different ways and I think in a lot of ways how my husband and I live feels like a rejection to her. It isn't meant to be but it is true that we live in a very different way than she did. Or does. If you are a hippie who lived on a commune and in the mountains and then were homeless by choice it would seem really ODD that your son would get married and become a techie guy and move to the suburbs. But there it is and here we are and I wish I could just say look we don't think you were wrong (well not about everything) but we're doing something different. This is what is right for US.

Instead I just worry about it. And resent her judgement.

And clench. Always clenching.

I Miss Him

I will never forget that phone call.

My dad, early in the morning, but not too early because he didn't want to wake me up. What could I do? And he was crying, which I don't think I had ever heard before but have heard many times since. My grandpa gone. The one person that I stupidly thought could never die was dead.

The anniversary snuck up on me a bit. I have been a little crazed and wired and well maybe my freak out about not having a life was really about something else? I am stressed about looking for a job and sad about my grandma dying and all of those things but I can handle them.

My grandpa has been dead a year today. He really isn't coming back. I am an adult and I knew that, I know that, but it is like finding out again today. He is really gone. And I miss him.

I didn't see him often, not often enough that is for sure. I didn't call because I was so stupid. I didn't want to bother him. But I can still smell his old man spicy smell. I can feel how strong his hugs were. I remember him carrying me around--uh in my twenties. He was the strongest man I ever knew (I am pretty sure my father would fall over if he tried to carry me three inches). I can feel his hand on my shoulder, waking me up to have ice cream in the middle of the night. I remember his face when he told me he restored the piano for me. I can feel the heat of his lap and how he smelled like sweat and sun in the dark den during Cubs' games on summer afternoons.

I can see the cold, waxy skin in his casket too.

In Judaism the anniversary of death is called Yahrzeit and technically it is the anniversary on the Hebrew date but I lit a candle today for him. And I said the Kaddish. I hope he wouldn't mind. This is supposed to be the closing of mourning him. I don't suppose I ever will stop.

Maybe I Should Open With DON'T RUN

My husband has a life. In the past week he has gone to the movies, played in a softball tournament, played his regular softball games, gone to two MLB baseball games and tonight he is at a concert. In the past week I have gone to work and uh stayed home to watch our daughter.

I don't mind this, really. I am so glad that he hobbies and interests and he is much more fun and engaged with me when he has those outlets. But I need something too. I don't really have a pack of girlfriends I run around with. My friends are spread out--some far from me--and most of us have kids and don't really get out at night. So my husband is my main source of adult company. And when he goes out every night that means not only am I home with the kid but I have no one to talk to either.

In fact, this past weekend he was gone most of the days too.

I never want to be the one that says no, I don't think that is my place. He is an adult and can have his own time. But now this pattern has played out that I have no social life and his is more active than before we had kids. But I still feel stymied about it. It isn't easy to make close girlfriends as an adult. Most of the women I know are from work--which means geographically they are far from me. Or they are the wives of his friends--which means I don't know them well at all and we may not have much in common. Neither of these lends itself much to me just hanging out with them once in a while. And my social anxiety--and the extreme likelihood that I will be unable to make small talk like some sort of backwards social reject (which I guess is fair)--doesn't help.

I guess I am lonely more than anything else. It is strange because I have a lot of person to person contact in my work now and meet many people who I would like to be friends with. But it would be strange and unprofessional for me to ask a client if she wanted to get a drink sometime.

I will be fine--I just need to make more of an effort to be less ridiculous. I need to give in and call the other moms I know because even if they may not appreciate my sense of humor or my obsession with the Golden Girls we can still have fun.

I need to have friends like men do--where sometimes they don't even know the guys last name but they still hang out and have fun.

Man, this is when I miss being single. I used to have tons of men friends. But that all fades away when you get married--even if no one really wants it to. I guess I will just have to hang out at the park, the first mom who is nice to me and doesn't look like a crazy person I follow her home.

Wait, does that make ME the crazy person.

Saturday Night Madness

I read this horrible article tonight about how the BP spill is bringing forth a methane explosion. A methane explosion that would likely kill all of humanity in a fiery ball and also most of earth. In the next six months. And no one can do anything.

I would like to unread this article. It is causing me an endless loop of anxiety (FIERY BALL AND THE END OF HUMANITY) and depression. My life has been wasted! Oh shit my baby is going to die! I don't want my baby to die before me but I can't hope to die FIRST because she would be so scared and ALONE. And also I have done nothing to use my life in a useful or compelling matter but really what does it matter since we are all about to be ashes and toxic waste before my kid turns three. Part of me wants to hide in the closet and cry, part of me says screw it lets go to Europe and enjoy the last six months of humanity but mainly I hoping to find sweet sweet solace in denial. Denial and cowardice because what else is there?

It is nights like this that I really wish I had some sort of pharmaceutical available. Wine isn't going to cut it since I am much more likely to end up sobbing in the bathtub. And I am alone here with the baby so that seems like a bad idea. Mostly I would like to forget that article because I am just thinking "well that dinosaur that tried to warn the other dinosaurs about the Big Bang just ended up dead with the rest of them and I am sure they never thought it could happen either."

Other than that Saturday is GREAT.

**Edited to add, yes I KNOW that this is pretty much a tinfoil hat conspiracy but I am in a highly suggestible mood tonight.

The Yard

When we bought this house I didn't really understand why our realtor kept talking about the yard. J and I are not yard people. We hate doing yard work. We don't garden. We had two little dogs. A yard was wasted on us really. We just wanted somewhere the dogs could pee.

Last summer we had a patio built out in the back. Had the yard leveled. And I began to understand a little more why he was so enthusiastic about it. In some parts of the country this yard would be tiny but around here it is large. We have a view of the mountain. You can see the trainyard (this is not a feature for adults but for the preschool set it is like growing goldfish crackers on a bush out there they are very excited). The house and the trees are laid out in such a way that it is all shade in the heat of the day.

This year I get the yard.

When Mo wakes up from her nap we go outside. We take the puppy (oh did I tell you about the puppy) and go lay in the grass. We sit in chairs and have a drink. We blow bubbles. She rides her tricycle. She slides on her slide. The neighbor girl, who is the nicest child I have ever met, comes over and throws the dog a ball over and over. We pick flowers and dig in the dirt and hit baseballs and everything in my head is quiet.

My yard is covered in toys. We have eight hundred old softballs that the dog chases and rips apart. We have a toddler bat and ball and tee. We have a climber with two slides. We have a bubble bucket. We throw balls and slide and count bubbles. The world is still spinning but we're eating apple slices and chasing the dog and if I could freeze time I would. I would hit pause.

I get the yard. I love the yard. Especially since I don't do any yard work.