Happy Thanksgiving

As an adult Thanksgiving has become my favorite holiday. Because we don't have tons of family in the area it is very low key and no drama. My mother makes the best turkey in the history of all turkeys. No one dresses up so there is no need to wear pants with a belt. And there is none of the weird religious stuff that clogs up some of the other holidays.

We just eat and enjoy each other and I love it.

It is not as relaxing as it once was since now my child wants to tear my mother's house into shreds (and sadly, there was no repeat of last year, where my mother and I passed out cold with the baby and woke up to my dad and my friend Travis having cleaned up the whole mess--Travis is single ladies and if that doesn't define catch I do not know what does). This year the baby took a short nap and then was outraged that she couldn't have an entire vat of strawberry jello for dinner and spent the afternoon tackling anyone within reach.

When we get to my parents' house, every year, my mother is cooking and watching the parade. Absolutely everyone else loathes the parade and spends the entire time complaining about it and mocking it (this sounds awful written out like that and yet I was thinking it was a charming tradition . . .hmm). So I am predisposed to thinking it is awful but WTF Macy's? It seemed like every float was conceived on a dare. Did I dream that there was some neon monstrosity sponsored by Jimmy Dean sausage that featured Katherine McPhee? Was there really a drill team composed of grandmothers on purple tricycles? I felt like we were all on drugs and not even good enjoyable ones but the kind where maybe you are hoping the police will come take you to the drunk tank where you will be safe.

I am ridiculously lucky and try to remember this every single day. My husband is awesome even though I often want to push him down stairs. My child is gorgeous and wonderful. I am trying to build my dream career--and frankly I feel fortunate just to be able to try. I live in a beautiful home and have fantastic friends. My family is amazing. The only thing I could dream of changing is my fat ass and well I must not care that much given the amount of turkey I ate today.

I hope that you all feel the same. And that you had as great of a holiday as I did.

Mourning

Some one closed on my grandfather's house today.

It never really occurred to me that some one would buy it. My grandfather built that house in the fifties. No one has ever lived in it but his family. He nailed each board into place. Made the doorway to the den really fucking narrow. And now some one else lives there.

Some one who is moving in right now (well maybe not right now as it is 11pm there). Who had already mowed the lawn this week.

In many ways this is the best case scenario. It sold quickly. It sold to some one who is going to live in it himself, and is excited about it. It wasn't sold to a commercial business that would tear it down which is what we always assumed would happen (since a trucking company bought seven of his lots over the past few years). It still stands. We can drive past it.

I don't think I ever will.

It's been four months he died. If mourning a grandparent time is like break up math (1 week for every month you were together), I have nearly seven years of mourning left to do.

That feels about right.

Roast Chicken

For a lot of reasons I have been thinking about when my daughter was a baby lately. Not that she still isn't a baby, but I mean a Baby baby. Brand new. My husband and I had tried for so long to have her and we had a lot of weird things happening at the same time. We were just raw bundles of nerves and strain at the end.

Now that my daughter is headed towards two years old, I think I can finally process what happened to our family during that time. I have forgiven myself for being so mean to my husband about my MIL. I have forgiven him for being so damn clueless about it. And for not being around for the first two months because of a work explosion. I can accept now that everyone was just doing the best that they could in a really tough spot.

Looking back I was drowning. And I recognize that I was about six inches from being swallowed up by some depression. I think I was just so beat up--from the miscarriage and the fear that defined that whole pregnancy afterwards, from my delivery, from sleep deprivation, from having a stranger (who I love now but really didn't even KNOW then) living in my house, from having that MOTHER switch flipped in my brain and I couldn't stop not even when I needed to. I was drowning.

And I remember the exact time that I stopped drowning.

It was a Saturday and the baby was sleeping and I was resting and J took his mother out to do something. I sent them out. They needed to get out. And ten minutes after they left I started freaking out. I just felt so adrift and alone and I called my mom. Who heard me crying and leaped in the car. I hadn't eaten in days at that point--probably close to three weeks of not eating much of anything I don't know how my milk supply stayed up--and my mother flew up the freeway. And made roast chicken. And let me cry. Didn't call me crazy which I could just FEEL J thinking. Such a small thing really, I know she would do every day if I needed her to. But that was the worst I ever felt and she pulled me back from whatever bad bad place I was headed.

And I have never been back.

Now when people I know have babies I worry about them. I try to ask soft questions about how they are doing. I wonder if I should just automatically roast a chicken and bring potatoes and let the broth sink into their bones the way it did for me all those months ago.

Happy Halloween

When I was little I just adored Halloween. This is despite no one in my family really being into the holiday, not being the type that enjoys being scared and not really doing anything special. When you are small there is something special about being out at night, when it is dark and your mom knows. We'd be out in our totally store-bought my mom does not sew costumes, reeking of polyurethane off-gassing. We'd have on heavy coats and some years snow pants. My dad would go Trick-or-Treating with us--that alone was special as we rarely had time alone with my father. Now I know he was sipping off a flask the whole time but Iowa in October is cold yo.

We'd run and run from house to house and feel that delicious weight of your pumpkin full of candy.

I haven't dressed up in costume in years but of all of the fun that I cannot wait to do with my kid Halloween in on my list.

Except we have been in flood watch weather all day. Cold and windy and actual FEET of water on the ground. But I had already dressed her in her Supergirl costume so we went to the mall event.

Oh you guys, it was so sad. Kids in line to get candy. No running. No booze for parents. The candy even was shitty. But when you have a not quite two year old she thought it was magical. She only waited for a couple of pieces of (crappy) candy. She just wanted to run around in the mall and see the other costumes and you guys? I think she had the best night ever.

I would have been sad if she were school aged and wanting to get candy. But tonight it was perfect.

Except for the unacceptable and appalling adults in gulp sexy costumes. Like dressed as pleather cops with prisoner in chains at the MALL WITH YOUR KIDS.

But other than that, perfect.

The Secret Can Blow Me

I am not going to stun anyone here when I say that I was less than thrilled when my new work assigned us all The Secret as a group book. For those fortunate not to know about The Secret it is a book (and an accompanying dvd) that has been touted on Oprah and is a huge best seller. All about how to use positive thoughts to become rich and get everything you could ever want.

It is basically every ugly thing I hate about every religion packaged into a handy, and much more offensive, package. It claims that this is all LAW and SCIENCE when it is no such thing (bonus, my boss claimed that it was the same as gravity). The book also basically blames all bad things that happen to people on their negative and fearful thoughts. So rape victims? YOUR FAULT. Your layoff? YOUR FAULT. The Holocaust? 6 MILLION NEGATIVE NELLIES.

I know I am oversimplifying and millions of people swear by this book. It just touches every single nerve of mine. It preys on the gullible and sells them exactly what they want to hear--you can be rich and have all of your dreams without work! No wonder the author is now a millionaire.

Now I do think that you can learn something from even the most ridiculous. And, honestly, keeping positive thoughts and being mindful of that energy can be a powerful thing. I do believe that there is power in that.

However, when some one in the office said they thought their stepdad died of cancer because "he was just so negative" my head exploded. Really. I am typing this with my brains smeared on the kitchen twenty miles away. This explains a lot.

And I have been thinking about nothing of how I want to be six feet tall since Monday. I haven't grown a centimeter. Maybe it doesn't work this way?

Mama Guilt

There are things that happen that are beyond our control. Things that make me ball up my fists, take deep breaths, rage into my pillow. I hate how black and white people are--how they refuse to accept that our experiences are different from each other's. That I can decide to do THIS and it doesn't mean that I think you are wrong for doing THAT.

The Mommy Wars--which I think are largely a media creation--are just that. I have friends who stay home, friends who work full time outside the home and friends that are somewhere in between. All of these situations are hard. I can say with certainty that I would be a shitty stay at home mom. That shit is HARD YO. And it would not work for my family. But if it works for yours--and it does a lot--then I am glad that you are doing it.

Breast feeding vs. bottle. DEAR GOD WHY do we get in each other's faces for this? Aren't we lucky that most of us have a choice of what to do? Some people do not--breastfeeding doesn't work, they can't pump at work, their baby refuses a bottle--and you know what? I think it is time to say that they are not the only ones who get a choice. We all get to choose what is right for our own damn families. And if you want to breast feed until your kid is five, well I am still going to think you are a nutso, but I won't say it to your face. That is your child, you decide.

And this. That shit is why I don't do labor massage anymore. Something I REALLY loved. Because really? Now we are judging women for their birth experience? You are a lesser mother if you weren't a goddess? Fuck that. Seriously. Let us put women in the situation where they can feel guilty for ONE MORE THING that they cannot control. Because you can control where you intend to birth, HOW you intend to birth, but it doesn't always work out the way you wanted.

I planned to give birth vaginally. It didn't happen. I labored for 29 hours, twisted around in a dozen different positions, worked really damn hard and . . .got an infection, failed to progress and had an emergency c-section because the baby and I were fading fast.

I am thankful for that c-section. I have a live baby and I am alive. Which if I am honest, where my most important birth goals. I loathe how people patronize me for it but I know they are wrong.

I feel guilty for a million things as a mother. The way I swear when she wakes up early. How impatient I get when she won't nap. How I really HATE giving her a bath. The relief I feel almost every night when she goes to bed.

I don't feel guilty for my c-section. Or weaning her to a bottle at six months. Or working full time. Or not working full time now. I don't feel guilty that I let her have plastic toys or watch some TV. I don't feel guilty that she drinks juice.

I own my guilt. And there is a lot of it. And I don't need anyone creating more for me.

Daddy Issues

My father and I are fighting. Actually that is a gross mis-statement. He is being a passive aggressive douchebag and I am pretending that I don't care and getting more and more worked up about it. It is our pattern--one that I like to think that we have worked through and changed. Every time it pops up I remember that you don't ever really work through these things. You have to keep trying all of the time.

My father has been proud of me exactly two times in my life. The day I gave birth to my daughter and the day I got a big promotion at my last job. Now I know I am lucky to have a father--one that is my friend most of the time--but it is hard for me that all of the other good things that I have done and are a part of who I am don't mean anything to him. He was not proud all of the many (all) times I made honor roll in school, of the scholarships I won or the other awards. He wasn't proud when I graduated high school or massage school or got married. He wasn't proud when I bought my first house or the second house. He wasn't proud when I found jobs in tough markets and got promotions. Or when I quit a job that was really hurting my family and got brave enough to do something else.

My father and I fought for years. Most of the years that I was teenager and a couple after. And then we realized that we could try to get along or lose each other forever. I am very proud of us that we work so hard to be friends. My father thinks he shouldn't have to work so hard to get along with his daughter.

He's mad at me because he feels guilty about my grandpa and everything he doesn't like about me are things he doesn't really like about himself. I know that. I also know that he is worried about money, and other family members and other shit and it is easier to be mean to me than it is to deal with that stuff.

I know all this and I accept all of this and I can't help but be angry with myself. Because after thirty-one years of us doing this to each other you would think I would know how to deal with it. To not crave his approval.

His approval isn't coming. And that really IS ok. Because I am proud of the person that I have become and all that I do.

I just need to accept that no, he will never feel the same way.

Thursday

I feel pulled in a bunch of directions. I spent yesterday feeling like I was having three days at once.

I had to drop off some pictures at my dad's office. My folks are leaving tomorrow to drive to my grandfather's house and bring home the things we are all taking from it. The house is already on the market--something that surprised me. My grandfather built the house himself in the fifties and it is a tiny little crackerbox. I love it, I think we all love it, but mainly because of how it feels when we walk into it. But when I look at it from a house hunter's standpoint it is small and has strange wallpaper. On the plus side, last year my cousin's husband finally put a shower in the bathroom--for the previous fifty years you had to walk down into the basement and stand behind a foot and a half wall. LUXURIOUS.

I feel conflicted I admit. I think I have been working the denial imagining that he was really on a trip and would be coming back. I know that is normal. I know that it is just part of grieving. I just miss him. And I feel just as heartbroken today as I did in July.

Also yesterday, I tripped on a raised bit of sidewalk while shopping for shoes for baby and carped onto the sidewalk. Ripped the holy hell out of my hand (which is FAB for a massage therapist since you know I use that HAND A LOT). And was rushed by a group of homeless people. Who then started chanting "Sue the city!" HELPFUL. Today my hand looks a lot like shredded meat for tacos and hurts like a mother.

I did get the kid some really cute shoes. And on sale!

Lastly, I completely ROCKED my mission from J. To make a shaming jersey for the "Sally Strikeout" of his team (yeah I know sexist but they are assholes so . . .). Found a pink baseball raglan and lettered it with hot pink fuzzy letters. I rule at being a wife.

Friday

J is the head (well only) nerd at his company which is a sweet set up for everyone 90% of the time. He gets to do whatever he wants and they only have to have one nerd on staff. However, they do have a second office in Montana so periodically he has to go to Montana.

This makes no one happy.

He gripes about having to take weird flights and the weather always sucks and he almost always narrowly avoids hitting some sort of animal going to the hotel. And apparently the only place to get a steak in town is at the strip club, which I admit sounds like J's idea of heaven except apparently he doesn't believe in eating at strip clubs. I guess I understand.*

This means that I am about to be treated to a weekend of watching Cars, reading the BEAR BOOOOOOOOOOOOK over and over and well other delights. The child seems to have toddler PMS. Half of the time she is so charming that I cannot help myself. There is dancing, there is spinning and reading and laughing and goddamn she is cute. The other half she is a demonic badger from hell. A Hell Badger who likes having shit smeared in her delicate parts THANK YOU MOTHER NO WIPING. A Hell Badger who wants KUNG FU PANDA NOW and make it snappy whore.

I predict that I will actually have a grand time but will be very ready for J to be home on Monday night.

Also, we will be do the toddler death march around town. The park! Running up and down the aisles at Lowes! Mall play area! Swimming! Anything to wear out the tiny tiny ass in the family.

*The idea that naked chicks should not accompany food purchases is apparently not universal as my town here is the epicenter of those damn bikini baristas. And, in the non-shocker of the year, five of the local coffee girls have been arrested for prostitution. It mainly makes me sad for them because I can't help but feel like they are being exploited and bullied a bit by the asshole stand owners who seem to be universally fat, sweaty, nasty old dudes that have "no fat chick" bumpstickers on their rusty trucks. But I digress.

Guilt

I read Y's entry yesterday and sobbed the whole way through. I feel for her and I ache for her but really I feel for me. She wonders if she did the right thing, calling 911 when her grandpa was so sick. She feels guilty that she didn't respect what he wanted.

My grandfather wanted to die in his home. By all accounts he knew he was sick that day, he talked to my grandmother, he talked to my father, he chose to stay home. And he died alone. And while that may have been what he wanted it is very hard for me to live with.

I have a lot of guilt about not calling my grandfather enough, not going to see him. Being a Jew I don't believe in Heaven but I know that he did. So selfishly I hope that he was right and that somehow he knows.

The guilt is crushing. As crushing as the sadness. I wake up in the middle of the night and I can barely breathe. It sneaks up on me when I hardly expect it.

All I can hope is that he forgives me.

September

I don't know how I keep falling off the ends of the earth and yet I did it again. We had a great Labor Day party--somehow J and I have mastered getting everything ready for lunch at once so the food was great and the guests were all so nice. And the kids ran my kid's ass off which is really the whole point of the day for me.

The rest of the week I went to what we shall call nerd school. I am attempting part two of my career change now and wow have I been intimidated to get going on it. I've spent the summer sort of in limbo and the longer I delayed and weighed options the more chicken shit I got. When it comes down to it I am not brave so I have to make things way scarier to not do than do and so I wound myself and registered for nerd school and y'all know how I hate to waste money. No back out now.

For a time I thought about going back to college. Had in fact decided to do that until I realized that option sort of sucked and was going to cost a lot without a big payoff. So now I am cobbling together my education on my own. Harder and easier.

It's scary out here. I had worked for the same company for eight years. I was good at what I did. But I was never happy, never excited, never passionate about what I was doing. So the last three months I have been just quietly freaking out about being out here alone and broke and so damn scared but I am also the happiest I have been in years. I sleep deeply, dream deeply, have patience for my child and my husband. I don't scream and rage and cry. I may panic about the bills but I don't throw up driving to work anymore. I don't have anxiety answering my email. I don't stay up all night Sunday because I cannot stop worrying about Monday.

It is a relief and a gift and I can't believe it is already September. It's like being a kid again--starting the school year. Everything feels new and crisp and exciting.

Bottles and Bottles of Wine

We're having some sort of Labor Day extravaganza tomorrow--entirely directed by J because I tend to socialize not at all, just via email and twitter. We are making a very large piece of beef and also an apple tart--obviously other things but those are what I care about--and well I am not going to lie. We went into a shame clean frenzy in this house today.

I refuse to believe that no one else does the shame clean. Which is when you start to declutter your house, because it looks like a rummage sale exploded in your living room, and then you notice how you haven't dusted since last winter and GOD the floors are filthy and SHIT how are there huge cobwebs hanging from everything in the world in here. Then you run around and get flushed and sweaty and do not even sit down for hours because if you stop for a second you will not finish because it is just way to overwhelming. Everyone does this right?

Shame cleaning used to be easier--before a toy store lived in my living room--because I didn't have to squeeze it into naptimes and bedtime and wow I really didn't need the extra complication. Today to add an extra degree of difficulty I managed to have a two liter of Pepsi explode in my kitchen. I suppose the bright spot is that this was before I steam cleaned the floors in there (it did, however, move that up a few hours because so sticky). I think most of the two liter ended up soaked onto me--it took ages to ring out my jeans, t-shirt and sweatshirt. Later, because really today wasn't stressful enough, J knocked one of the glass shades off of the chandelier over the dining room table. Glass everywhere. Light fixture hanging crookedly. Hands and feet cut the fuck up because I had to dig all of the tiny slivers out of the planks of the table.

Everyone better show up tomorrow. And bring wine. Lots of wine.

Yet Another Way I Do Not Have Balance

J has been out of town until Tuesday. He left Thursday. I'll wait while you count the days.

He deserves this trip. He works so hard and this weekend is all about several concerts and staying at a luxury house and baseball and what sounds like GALLONS of vodka. He is having a grand time. I am so glad.

I just wish he would stop rubbing it in.

I will say that J has done a much better job of maintaining his pre-kid life than I have. He goes out with his friends, he plays in two softball leagues, he goes on weekend trips. I do none of that. Pre-child I sometimes went with him, but now some one has to stay home and I volunteer. When I had a stressful job this was the only way I could cope--literally the only free time I had I wanted to spend with the baby. Work was most of my social life and I used my commute to read and do other leisure activities. This worked (except for the part where my job was eating away at my soul) but I would say it set up a weird dynamic for us as a couple. His life didn't change that much from a life balance perspective.

I think this dynamic plays out this way for a lot of couples. Women take up a bulk of the childcare. J is a great dad and doesn't shy away at all from the responsibility part of parenting. But I have no life. It's mostly my fault, as I am socially pretty stupid and most of my friends live far away so I don't get out to see them much. I haven't had time for hobbies in a long time and now that I do have time I have really struggled to figure out what I want to do with my time.

I do see my part in this--how I can't get time away if I don't take that time and find a way to use it. But I can't help but contrast his trip--five days away with his friends, sleeping as much as he wants, concerts, great food, sunny baseball game--with the one I took. Where I took the child with my mother and sister and we went to my grandfather's funeral. And she was attached to me with screamy screws of freak out. I am saying his trip involves sleeping in and eating meals with two hands and I cannot help but burn a bit with jealousy.

I want him to enjoy his trip. GOOD GOD it is his last hurrah for a while given our money situation so I really want him to have fun. But I haven't peed alone in three days (wait! once at work yesterday) and I just want some pay back.

Pro Style

Like many women I find myself falling prey to marketing ploys all the time. The biggest one for me is the "pro" designation. I have a professional style hair dryer, professional style flat iron, I even have "pro" pans in the kitchen. Apparently I like to think of myself as needing professional equipment.

Which may explain my purchase today of PRO COMFORT TAMPONS.

I am just not sure what kind of professional I am emulating.

Creepily Similar

When I was growing up my mother celebrated her birthdays with brass bands and gleeful announcements. Presents were expected (and cheerfully clapped for), parties happily attended, cake demanded and general servitude encouraged. My mother never bemoaned her age or behaved as if there was anything wrong with getting older. She was, and actually continues to be, the eternal seven year old when it comes to her birthday--except she doesn't announce the next day that "she is almost eight." However, she will totally call you six months before and mention how it is almost her birthday so close enough.

This is the attitude I want to emulate about age. And I think I rocked it--until I was about 26. 26 is an awesome age. Before I had crows feet and that lower ab pooch. Now there is an age spot on my cheek that looks way to much like Arizona.

My birthday was yesterday and actually it was great. I am not sure why 31 sounds so much older than 30 but it does. I don't want to be one of those women that is 29 for decades but I have a hard time adapting.

We did go to the zoo and eat ice cream cake. I guess I am more like my mother than I thought.

18 Months

She is all giggles and drama and flailing limbs. She is laughing and throwing things and chasing the dog around the house. She hides under the dining room table, plays peekaboo beside the stove, begs "up up up" next to the chest freezer.

She is finally getting some hair. It's not blond or brown or red, but somehow all of them, with five tiny girls at the back of her head. She wants to wear dresses, she holds them out and fluffs them, and the runs towards the mudpile. She has all of her teeth--except the 2 year old molars which she is inexplicably working on now--just two rows of tiny pearls in her mouth. TEEF.

She talks constantly. Her own special language that is the love child of farm animal and martian. She does have real words, which are repeated constantly. Mama, Dada, DOG!, Elmo, MILK--most are demands.

She likes to dance, to wiggle, to jump and twirl. She goes through the cupboards, after the tiny teapot that I tell her over and over not to touch. The one she dropped on her toe to split open the nail. She wants out on the porch to smell the flowers. She wants to hear the same books over and over again. She fights diaper changes like I am trying to cut off her feet at the ankles. Wiping shit off her ass is just a way to oppress her under The Man.

I'm in love. I am frustrated. This is easier than I thought and much harder than I ever dreamed. It's every cliche you have ever heard. If I could bottle that face I would have a wonderful anti-depressant but if I bottled her rage I could destroy whole continents.

Smooth Talker

I remember my dad complaining at every meal when I was a kid about how picky an eater I was. How no one else was like this about food. How I didn't have a right to be this way. Every meal for years and years until I became an adult. And realized that not only am I not a very picky eater I wasn't even really a picky kid. And yeah, a lot of people are really weird about food oh and HI my dad is totally a fucking picky eater.

I remember falling and hurting myself and there he would be--telling me to toughen up, telling me how weak I was, complaining about how I didn't have any pain tolerance. I believed that until I was in labor--contorting myself in crazy ways for hours and hours and HOURS until the nurse confessed to me that most people quit after ten minutes because it hurt so much.

I remember him telling me how lazy I was, how I didn't know what hard work even felt like. And this one I internalized. I still sometimes feel like the laziest person around. I became a workaholic in the name of not being lazy. I don't know how to shake this even now.

I would guess that my father would never dream that those words would stick with me this way. He isn't a monster, he was just trying to prepare me for the world. If there was a way to know what words would worm their way into a child's lizard brain I am sure every parent would like that information. But those words are the ones I remember and though I haven't been a child for a long long time, they are the ones I hear in my head. The ones I can't shake.

I am not working full time. I am still trying to figure out whether I should go to school or not. I am doing 10-15 massages a week (20 is full time) and it is really hard. I feel exposed. And afraid. Last night J said something about how he didn't want me to be a stay-at-home-mom (which I don't want that either) and I started panicking that he thought I was lazy and a burden and gah gah gah. The anxiety and the fear.

I wonder how I am fucking up my daughter. I am probably giving her a complex because I keep trying to get her to pronounce DOG correctly--in 2039 she will be blogging about how she tries not to say words with the letter D because her mother was so crazy. I digress.

It's not my father's fault I feel this way--I just can't seem to get rid of the guy in my head. He isn't screaming or lighting things on fire. He just sits in a wingback chair--smoking all day long and usually drinking cognac--and says things softly. In a deadly way that I know is true. Things like "you don't really think that you can do that do you?" or "it's a shame how you have let yourself go . . .even further." There is no way to make him stop, getting angry only makes him stronger, move convincing. I am sure we all have that voice in our heads--mine just parts his hair on the side and smokes a pipe. I wish I could make him pipe down for a while, for five minutes. I wonder what it would be like to not hear him nagging me. I wonder if I could figure out what I want, what I dream of, if he didn't crush anything more complex than a piece of toast before I can even think it.

He's out tonight. He is talking me out of going to school. He has me opening up the browser to apply for jobs at McDonalds to earn my keep. He is doubt and fear and everything that deep down I know is wrong with me. I think to move forward I am going to have to figure out how to move him the fuck out.

Haze

You know how when you have had a few too many glasses (bottles) of wine or your husband keeps topping of your cocktail how simple things become very hard? Like why does your name look spelled wrong on your driver's license? Is there really an E in it? It is like trying to get through your day while swimming in tapioca pudding? Sure it sounds glamorous but it is making me wonder if maybe I had a stroke.

I have felt like that since coming back from my trip. Just unsettled and slow and WOW. I was filling out some forms yesterday and I am not lying I couldn't remember how my middle name was spelled (now in my defense it was spelled one way on my birth certificate and another on my social security card and I can never remember which is "correct").

And I am not even drunk.

I can't seem to sort things out. I am sure I will in time. Meanwhile if you see a blond wandering the streets in a haze it is probably me. Pull over and say hi. And maybe point me towards my house.

The Post That Got So Long So Fast

My trip was overwhelming. Last night, after the baby was in bed, I went downstairs where J had already started washing all the baby's stuff and pulled out some of the things from my grandpa's house and it all just hit me. I started crying and I wondered if I would be able to stop.

Everything went better and worse than I had thought. The baby wouldn't go with anyone else. My normally outgoing, easy-going, friendly baby was (understandably) nervous (what with all the crying people) and clingy and well morphed into a fucking barnacle. She wailed if I walked more than three feet from her. She didn't sleep well (so I didn't sleep well). She rarely got a nap. I didn't plan for any of that because my daughter isn't that baby. I was prepared for the emotional strain, for conflicting feelings, for intense fatigue but I really didn't plan to have my kid to turn up the stress to a whole new level.

The best thing about the trip honestly was how hard everyone tried to be kind to one another. My family, we are like any other, sometimes we are awesome together and sometimes we are not. We fail each other in millions of ways every day. I have never doubted that I am loved by my family and I hope they never doubt that I love that--but sometimes they make me a wee bit stabby. Stabby towards the eyeballs. And while, yes, that happened a bit (we were all in close quarters for a week after all), I was impressed with how HARD we all tried.

I am trying to gear my brain to do that all of the time. Trying to be kind to the people I love. REVOLUTIONARY. But truly, I think most of us are steaming piles of shit to the people closest to us. We know we can be so we do it. But I am going to try not to anymore.

The viewing and funeral were so so so hard. I realize that I am fortunate to be thirty years old and up until two weeks ago have all four grandparents alive. I KNOW. And I have often said that this is a blessing and curse. While I would love to have my grandfather back and oh how I wish he were back, I know that it is better for HIM this way. His quality of life had really suffered. He was so weak and sick. And the other three are in the same boat. The human body is not really intended to go on into it's eighties. And neither is the human mind. He died in his home where he wanted to be. He had a long life. He said goodbye. We should all be so lucky.

And that is the difficult part of the trip. Seeing my great-uncles at the funerals--literally shells of who they were a few years ago. My other grandparents are really about 3/4 of a semi-competent person. It is a lot like letting a fourteen year old live alone. 90% of the time they are ok but you know--they eat a lot of crap, injure themselves constantly and oh they buy things they do not need. I hate how they have deteriorated. And I hate how as I get older I see their flaws so much more clearly. It is hard as you become an adult to see your parents as people. But I think it is even harder to go through that experience as an adult. I got a vivid demonstration of how frustrating it must have been for my mother to have these people be our grandparents when we were small (and I am so grateful that she did it anyway). We all have flaws and we are all largely products of our environment. Which means that the elderly in my family say some crazy shit that well, is uncomfortable to hear.

Also, ONE OF THEM, will go all bat-shit crazy if you maybe MAYBE snap at her at the mall play area because she was hovering around your kid and giving you the stink eye and brought up how many bruises said kid has and wouldn't back the eff off. HYPOTHETICALLY. She may also insist that it was your sister who snapped and be pissed at her instead.

MY KID IS FINE AT THE MALL PLAY AREA IT IS MADE OF FOAM AND HAS A BOUNCY FLOOR PLEASE LET HER CLIMB ON THE CLIMBER THINGY.

I was thanked so many times for bringing the baby, something that made me feel guilty a bit because was a I making it seem like it was so hard? Mostly I think she just charmed the pants off of them. She was being very cute and chatting away and eating so many things--something that didn't stop amazing one of my uncles whose own children have never eaten anything voluntarily. Mo eating lasagna and carrots and all the fruit in the world just blew his mind. Babies are great at funerals, they are cheering and cute and distracting. Fabulous unless you are their mother and you just want to mourn your grandfather and well you can't. Because you are marching your kid out since the hymns were freaking her out. Or you are playing cars with her and your cousin's son rather than sitting with your grandmother at the casket. These things are fine and useful but totally shit the bed as far as mourning rituals. There is a reason you don't sit shiva with hot wheels.

The absolute highlight of the week for me was watching Mo with my cousin's son. She called him her MeMe and several days later she is still talking about him. She followed him around relentlessly. Copied his every move. And he adored her. They kept hugging and kissing each other and she didn't even mind when he ran her over in fits of jealousy. Watching that I was so happy for her and consumed by guilt. She won't have any cousins to play with close by like my sister and I did. When my sister does have children they will live across the country. J's brother says he doesn't want kids but even if he were to change his mind they would still live thousands of miles away. And she will be an only child. It was so comforting to see my cousins and my sister and my family. Mo won't ever have that and I admit it breaks my heart.

I can't stop thinking and feeling and worrying about everything. I roll it all over in my brain until the edges are worn but still keep rolling. It's confusing and scary. There are so many things I need to say and I know that eventually I will say them all. Right now I am just grateful to have some one else to deal with the barnacle so I can rest.

And think. Always think.

Longest Trip Ever

To sum up the trip: we've been here since last Tuesday and I took my first dump today.

It's just been so sad, so draining, I haven't slept a bit. The child has been a barnacle--she will barely leave my side. We are all touchy and need to be home in our own beds. I have tons of guilt about my grandpa and about my other grandparents. And I am angry even though I know there is no point to that.

We leave on Tuesday. I cannot come soon enough.