For Joyce and Robin on Mother's Day

When I was little, I had a recurring dream that I had lost my mother. In the dreams, I would wake up from a nap or return from school to find that she was gone. Not dead, necessarily, but missing. Her toothbrush, makeup, and perfume missing from her bathroom, her clothing gone from the closets, even her favorite giant coffee mugs replaced by dainty tea cups. “Where’s Mom?” I would ask, and my father would say, “Oh, she left. You missed it. And now she’s never coming back.” In my childhood dreams, she never left on purpose. It was never a decision. She just had to leave suddenly and she couldn’t stand to say goodbye to me so she left while I was distracted. She left without saying anything. I think it was my brain attempting to process my unmentionable, almost unthinkable fear that my mother would die. It was a fear I told myself was ridiculous and impossible. Mothers of young children didn’t die! Mothers of young children weren’t allowed to die. They had too much to do, they had too many people depending on and loving them—too many people loving them too fiercely for any higher power to take them away. There was no power higher than my need and love for my mother. You only died, I thought, when no one cared about you anymore because you got too old. You only died when you were a senile great-great-grandmother no one saw anymore.  As long as I paid attention to my mom, she wouldn’t die. And I couldn’t have stopped paying attention to her even if I wanted to—she was my entire world.

The one thing that flew in the face of my logic, that opened the door for my recurring nightmares, was the fact that my own mom’s mother died when my mom was a little girl and her father died when she was a teenager. She hardly ever talked about it, and she had a ton of siblings and a stepmother who made the hole left by her parents almost unnoticeable to her children. But I knew it had happened. She had gone to elementary school one day and when she got home her mother had died of a heart attack at thirty-five years old. She hadn’t meant to die. She hadn’t said goodbye. She just had to leave suddenly and she disappeared. This bit of family history panicked me if I thought about it too much, so I tried to make sense of it. Maybe, I thought, my grandmother hadn’t really been a nice person. In the three photos I’d seen of her, hanging in a big frame over the sofa in our living room, she looked nice. She was young and pretty and smiling—she looked like my mom. But no, that couldn’t be. Maybe because my mother had so many brothers, she didn’t need her mom like I needed my mom so the higher power was able to swoop in and take her away. Maybe, even though my mom still mentioned her love for her mother and her desire to have her mom alive and in her life, she hadn’t really loved her. She thought she loved her, but she didn’t love her mom as much as I loved my mom. And if she didn’t really love her mom, then it was okay that she wasn’t around, because she must not have been that great. I mean, what kind of mother just dies? That’s not allowed. That’s selfish.

My parents have a nice house. It’s my favorite place in the world—the one place I could walk through my eyes closed and never bump into a thing. I know all its smells and its quirks, and one thing I know about above everything else is that it’s an impossible place to tell a secret. No matter where you are, no matter how quiet you think you’re being, your attempt to keep something confidential guarantees that someone will, without even trying, hear exactly the thing you never wanted them to hear. That’s important for me to mention so no one thinks I was eavesdropping on my mother when I was right years old and overheard a hushed phone conversation that robbed me of my naivete regarding the unfairness of death. I was taking a shower in my bathroom when I heard my mom on the phone with a friend. She was in her bedroom with the door shut and I had the water running, but even so, I heard, clear as a bell, “… and Lindsey is the same age I was when my mom died, I keep thinking, I can’t die now, I can’t leave them now. I know it’s silly, but I still worry about it. It makes me sad to think about all the things my mom missed.”

Wait. My mom had the same fears I had? My mom was also afraid that something would happen to her and she would suddenly leave and my siblings and I would never get to say goodbye to her? I was only eight! My mom had just had a baby! Sure, my dad was great, but he could never take care of four kids on his own. Didn’t my mom understand what I had figured out—that if you really love someone, they can never leave you? I wanted to explain it to her, but I was getting older and deep inside I knew my belief that love prevents death was superstitious and would actually hurt more than help her. Of course my mom loved her mother. She didn’t talk about her that much because she didn’t have that many memories of her, and she didn’t talk about her grief over losing both her parents because she didn’t want to burden or worry us. She wanted to create the happy, intact family that she had missed out on, and I had taken the credit for it, believing that I had been psychically responsible for keeping her alive and well. All of a sudden that idea seemed not just childish, but stupid and hurtful. Important, beloved people died all the time for no reason at all, and you didn’t stop loving someone just because they got older. Love wasn’t a finite resource that eventually depleted, allowing your former loved ones to fade away into the ether, leaving nary an emotional mess behind. After all, my paternal grandparents were elderly and I still loved them. They were still people with personalities whose lives were just as important and vital as my own. They were people, just like me. My mom was a person, just like me. And just like me, she had loved her mom more than anyone. And her mom died. Not because she didn’t care or no one cared about her. Not because she was selfish or stupid, but because she was unlucky. There’s no cosmic justice to take people away when they no longer deserve to live. Some people, through no fault of their own, just experience an almost unimaginable, unfair amount of loss. And my mother—my silly, nurturing, God-loving, joyful mother, is just one of those people. It sucks.

If you’re lucky enough to have your mother in your life well into your adulthood, as I am, something strange and wonderful starts to happen. You start to see your mother not as A Mother, but as A Person. For me, the majority of that experience has been wonderful. I’m still close to my mom. Though they still live in South Carolina and I now live in Connecticut, I speak to my parents almost every day. I rely on them for emotional support in almost all aspects of my life. Whenever I have a parenting question, my mom is the first person I call, and even when I don’t take her advice, I value it. Sometimes when one of my kids is having an epic meltdown and I feel like I am going to explode, I pick up the phone to call my mom and I realize she was denied an experience that I so fully take for granted, and my maternal grandmother was denied the same. My grandma never got to meet her grandchildren. My mother never ended a horrible day by dialing a phone and saying, “Mom, you would not believe the day I had. Come get your grandchildren because I need a break.” They both missed out on so much.

But despite all this loss, I now know there were many things my mother and grandmother did get to share. I can see how wonderful my grandmother was in the wonderful way her daughter has loved and raised her kids. I know because so much of who I am as a mother came to me, subconsciously, from my own mom, and thus through my grandmother. I know that in the few years my grandmother was able to spend with my mom, she taught her a lot: how to cuddle, how to be silly with your kids, how to listen to children like their feelings and experiences matter, how to live in the moment. How to be strong in the face of hardship or grief, but how to avoid allowing that strength to harden your heart. How to be fiercely, brilliantly alive. How to love. How to be loved.

It Gets Better: Maternal Mental Health Week

I had a baby three days shy of my twenty-first birthday.  The choice to parent had been an immediate and joyful one, so my pregnancy was celebrated by the people who loved me most. Even though she was a surprise baby and her father wasn't in the picture, I was excited to be a mother. It was my #1 goal in life-- to have a daughter (or daughters, if I was lucky) and raise her to be strong, compassionate, and deeply loved. When she was placed in my arms after an easy, relaxed labor and delivery, I truly felt as though all my dreams had come true. I loved everything about her. I never wanted to put her down. She was born at 10:20 pm and I stayed awake all night just staring at her face. 

And then we left the hospital and things got complicated. Contrary to what I thought at twenty, motherhood didn't magically solve all of my life's problems. I was still poor. I was still in a dysfunctional, emotionally abusive relationship. I was living in the converted back porch of my parents' house. I had no job. I'd taken the semester off from school. I had no driver's license. And every morning I watched my parents, boyfriend, and siblings eat breakfast and head out to engage with the wider world. My friends liked the baby and loved me but they were young. They were still living the life I hadn't fully realized I was leaving behind. They rarely came by to visit. And my baby had colic. She had trouble latching and would eat every ninety minutes for forty-five minutes at a time. Every second I spent breastfeeding was physically and emotionally excrutiating and  I felt trapped in my home by this endlessly hungry creature-- my daughter. My much-wanted, much-loved daughter with whom I could not stand to be alone. I was afraid of her, and afraid that others could see how afraid I was. 

While everyone was away at work and school, I would sit on a glider in the family room, feed her, and cry. I was so lonely. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I would sit on the front porch swing and wait for someone to come home, audibly sighing with relief when my mother's minivan would turn into the cul-de-sac.

Whenever I could, I would hand her off and run to the bathroom where I could hide and press warm washcloths against my aching, burning chest. I would stare at myself in the mirror and curse myself. "This is what you fucking wanted and now you can't even fucking do it, you piece of shit. What unfair universe gave you this precious baby when you're too much of a selfish shitbag to properly love and care for her? You have no capacity for love or tenderness. You don't deserve this baby. You don't deserve anything." At night, I would sit in our bedroom while my boyfriend slept and watch reruns of Gilmore Girls and Mad About You until the baby finally passed out, and when she woke up moments later, already needing to eat again, I would feel choked with rage and resentment. Then I would look at her little face and say, "I love you so much." I would force myself to smile. 

As she got older, it just got harder. I moved out of my parents' house and in with my boyfriend. We fought all the time and I would call my mom to pick up the baby so she wouldn't hear the screaming. I wanted a happy family for my baby so we got engaged. Things got worse. They got ugly. I ended the engagement. I moved back in with my parents. Now the baby could walk and say "mama" but I was convinced she hated me. She preferred the company of my mother and I preferred sitting alone and telling myself what a horrible person I was. What a horrible, selfish person, throwing away everything she loved because nothing and no one would ever be enough to fill this ugly, gaping need for...for what? I didn't know.

Shortly after I moved back in with my parents, I started dating a friend from high school who was immediately taken with the baby. He thought she was cute and funny. He had always loved me, he said. He told me he wanted to raise the baby, adopt her, marry me. He was kind. I said yes. We moved in together and it was wonderful except I secretly knew I was a rotten faker incapable of love. 

One night when the baby was two years old, my fiance and I stopped by my parents' house with the baby. I'd purchased her flower girl dress and wanted her to try it on so my family could see it. She didn't want to. I was exhausted. She kept crying and reaching for my mother, wanting to spent the night with my parents. She could see what a horrible person I was. She could see through me. She knew I was a fraud and she was showing everyone-- through her unwillingness to try on the dress-- that I wasn't a good or even decent mother. I lost it. I screamed and cried and threatened to take the baby away from my parents forever. I just wanted to punish someone. I wanted someone else to be the bad guy. My family just watched me, stunned. "It's just a dress, quit being such a bitch," my brother said. But it wasn't just the dress. It was everything.

I was getting everything I had ever wanted. A beautiful child, a marriage to a wonderful man, a chance to go back to school and finish my degree. And I was miserable. I could see my happiness as an outsider, but I couldn't feel it. In the car on the way home, I tried to convince my fiance to leave me. "I'm not a good woman," I told him. "The only way for you and the baby to be happy is for you to be away from me. Maybe I should give her up to someone up the task of caring for her. I'm ruining her life and she's only two. She already hates me." We got home. I carried her inside and put her to bed. I cried myself to sleep.

And then, slowly and all at once, things got better. I started to feel things again. I wish I could say I saw the right therapist or was prescribed the right medication, and I did try those things, but they didn't work. The only antidote for me was time. One day my daughter woke up from a nap and her bedhead was off the charts and I laughed. She choreographed a dance and I watched it with joy. She fell asleep in my arms and her weight was reassuring. I looked in her eyes and I thought I might cry, but this time the tears were tears of love, not despair. She thought I was funny. I thought she was a genius. I had another baby, a little girl, and I could handle it. I loved them. I loved my daughters.

Earlier tonight the same child with whom I used to dread being alone showed me her awesome new tricks on the pogo stick. She told me she had decided to definitely take Spanish when she starts middle school next year. She sat on the couch with me and asked me to crack her toes and rub her back. Her sister handed me an imaginary Best Mom trophy because I remembered to buy Pirate Booty at the grocery store. I reminded them they weren't allowed on the computer because they hadn't finished their chores and they got mad and then got over it. It was a totally average night for our family.

Sometimes on these boring, average nights, I think about myself at twenty-one, crying in the bath with her leaky boobs and her broken heart, and I wanted to hold her the way I now hold my daughters. I want to tell her what I now know to be true. She is doing the best she can. She does love that baby. She's a wonderful mother. It's going to get better and it's going to break her heart over and over again in the best, most unimaginable ways. She's at the beginning of a miracle, of a struggle, of a life, of true love.

I've got stamina.

Every morning on the drive to school, I try to play an empowering song for the girls. Recently, due to Lucy's well-documented love of all things Sia and Maddie Ziegler, we've been listening to "The Greatest" a lot. Usually it just plays quietly in the background while we check and double-check that everyone has their snacks, folders, water bottles, and homework in their bags. But today, the lyrics really got to me and when the kids got out of the car, I started the song again at the beginning and surprised myself by crying as I listened to it several times on the way home. 

Well, running out of breath, but I
Oh, I, I got stamina
Running now, I close my eyes
But, oh, I got stamina
And oh yeah, running to the waves below
But I, I got stamina
And oh yeah, I'm running and I've just enough
I got stamina

It's no secret that I love politics. I love the theater of politics. I love the way a good politician can reinvigorate citizens' desires to make the country better. I love watching social change start small and slowly gain momentum until it has a tangible effect on people I know. I love trying to see things from different perspectives, I actually enjoyed watching every primary debate and the conventions. 

I look forward to presidential debates like other people look forward to the Super Bowl. I love the zingers, the nail biting, all of it. But last night, as I watched Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump walk out and shake hands, I noticed that my heart was beating fast in a bad way. I wasn't excited. I wasn't nervous. I was terrified. I felt nauseous, on the verge of a panic attack. My older daughter, Lucy, loves Hillary Clinton and the idea of the first woman president. She sees Hillary as competent, experienced, and the obvious choice. She was sitting next to me last night and I almost wanted to just send her to bed. I didn't want her to see someone talk to a woman she admired the way Trump was about to talk to Clinton. I didn't want to watch it either.

There was something uniquely painful about watching a prepared, poised Clinton consistently work to stay calm and professional while an irrational, red-faced man screamed lies while a male moderator sat by and said nothing. I know this kind of thing happens to some extent in most debates-- the people at home want a show and it's the job of the nominees to give it to them in return for their votes. I know Clinton signed up for this when she decided to run for president, but come on.

Toward the end of the debate, Trump responded to a question about his blatant misogyny by attempting to hit Clinton where he thought it would hurt the most, while simultaneously casting himself as the more thoughtful and compassionate of the two:  "I was going to say something extremely rough to Hillary, to her family, and I said to myself I can't do it. I just can't do it. It's inappropriate, it's not nice." She just stood there, staring straight ahead and waiting for him to finish speaking. And who hasn't been that woman?

What woman hasn't had to sit quietly and maintain composure while a blustering idiot hammered her with misogynistic comments? What woman hasn't been accused of being dramatic while an hysterical man screamed at her that he was the rational one? I don't have enough fingers to count the number of times I've been expected to take responsibility for an opinion or action of a romantic partner, damned if I stood by him and damned if I didn't. All women have been in situations where we were well-informed and well-prepared, but shouted down by an unprepared, uneducated bully able to dismiss years of hate speech and lies with the shrug of a shoulder.

Last night's debate hurt to watch because it felt so personal. Hillary Clinton was every woman who has had to work three times as hard as the men in her office in order to be considered for a promotion. She was every woman who hasn't been taken seriously because she's either too hot to have a brain or to ugly for her opinion to matter. She was every woman refusing to sink to the level of an abusive partner. She was a woman, like so many women before her, sticking her neck out because how else are things going to change? 

Hillary isn't perfect. She makes mistakes. She doesn't always tell the truth, and she is held to an infinitely higher standard than her opponent. As a nation, we compare their scandals without any sense of scale and then say we've placed them on a level playing field. But she's used to having her mistakes amplified. She's used to people calling her names. She's used to being simultaneously labeled as too weak and too brash to do her job. As a woman, she's used to all this bullshit and more. But despite Trump's best attempts, she won't be swayed. She's got stamina. 

Election Season: An Open Letter to My Ten-Year-Old Daughter

I'm writing to you because this is a very big week for our country. This is the week that Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman in history to become a major political party's nominee for President of the United States. We went to Brooklyn for two days (you have pink hair now!) and we missed the roll call vote when Hillary was officially nominated, so when we got home last night, we watched it on the big screen in our living room. I can't tell you how special it was to me to be able to sit between my daughters and watch a 102-year-old woman, born before women had the right to vote, cast Arizona's votes for woman who will hopefully be the first female president of our country. 

You don't remember a president who wasn't Barack Obama. When Obama won the 2008 election, you were a toddler, too little to go with your dad and me when we flew to DC to stand in the freezing cold with hundreds of thousands of people and watched him take the oath of office. However, if Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman president, you will remember that day. And hopefully you'll remember a little bit of last night, even though you are thankfully young enough not to realize how ground-breaking it was, even though you rolled your eyes when I asked you stay in the room and watch it with me. You probably didn't notice that I was crying. I'm pretty sure you thought I was being a little silly. 

But even though I don't think you fully understood the significance of the roll call vote, I know you understand the importance of this election. And that's why I'm writing to you about it right now and not in November when we'll know the outcome and be either ecstatic or devastated. I'm writing to let you know that while we were in Brooklyn, you "prank called" people to ask them how they felt about the convention, to ask whether or not they were "with her." I'm writing because I watched you sit outside with a group of adults last week and paint a banner that said I Condemn Anti-Black Police Violence, and then march through our new city with a poster bearing the name of one of the many people of color killed by racist police violence in 2016. I'm writing because you ask our LGBTQ friends questions about their experiences, really listen to their answers, and then incorporate those answers into the way you see the world. I'm writing because you know you're privileged as a middle-class white girl, and you use that privilege to speak truth and stand up for people who don't have the same advantages. I'm writing because you do see race. You saw that your friends in Atlanta often experienced racism. You see the difference between the way white people and people of color are treated in this country. But you don't care about race when it comes to deciding whether someone is a good person, someone you want to be around, someone worthy of love. I'm writing because I'm proud of you. 

Last night, after the roll call vote, we watched a video about mother whose children have been killed because of racist civilian or police action. Even though we had marched for an end of racist police violence last week, I don't think you fully felt the emotional weight until you heard Sandra Bland's mother talking about her love for daughter, saying, "Sandy will continue to speak through me, her mother." You were sitting next to me on the couch and I felt you wipe your face on my arm. I looked over and saw that you were silently crying as you listened to those women speak. When I asked what was wrong, you managed to whisper, "This is just so sad" before you started shaking with sobs. You sat on my lap and we watched the end of their speech before listening to a beautiful song about rising up from hardship. I was so grateful for that song because as your mother in that moment, I didn't know what to say to make you feel better. I just held you as you cried. 

What I should have said was this: You are good for this world. You don't see it right now, but the love and empathy you have for every other person on earth is a remarkable thing. I've never known another child like you, even when I was a child. I've never known a child who automatically accepts every person she meets as person worthy of dignity and respect. And I mean every single person you meet. People don't have to be like you for you to value their experiences. Every life matters to you just by virtue of being a human life. Your kindness, intelligence, and compassion are inspiring not only to me, but to everyone who has a chance to see you in action.

I know you don't think you could possibly have any impact on the mothers we saw speaking at the convention last night, and to a large extent, you're right. One of the most difficult things about growing up is realizing that sometimes bad things happen to people who don't deserve them, and no amount of praying or bargaining can ever undo the wrong that has been done. It's a lesson you learned for the first time when you were five and your uncle-- your favorite person in the world-- was killed in an accident. You felt the pain of that loss, and you watched helplessly as the rest of our family felt it, too. I know that as you watched the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, and Jordan Davis speak about losing their children, a part of you was imagining your grandmother. You know all too well that that you cannot "fix" the death of a child. But you can work to fix the circumstances that led to the deaths of those particular children.

I know you think that as a ten-year-old girl, you lack the ability to create any meaningful, positive change in this world. But I am your mother, and as your mother, I have a responsibility to you to correct you when you're wrong. The truth is that people like you-- people who operate solely out of a desire to do good and love others-- are the only people who ever change things for the better. I know it's not always easy to care as much as you do, or to feel as strongly as you feel. I know it can be crushing to want to so badly to reach through the TV screen, hold the hands of grieving mothers, and fix all their problems, erasing racism and bigotry from the earth and bringing their children back to life. I know it doesn't feel like enough that whenever given the opportunity, you choose to speak up for those whose voices have been silenced. I know it doesn't feel like enough to listen and learn from people who have experienced prejudice and hardship. But you've only been around for ten years, and you've already done so much to change this world for the better. You can't see how great you already are, and you can't see how great you're going to be. You can't see what I see. And what I saw, holding you in my lap last night as you cried for the lost lives of people you never met and looked forward to the election of the first woman president, is that you are going to do big things. 

You're already my hero, and you've only just begun.

Merry Christmas, Zach

The Christmas my little brother turned ten, I got up to go to the bathroom at around three in the morning and found him sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the couch in the dark, just staring at the glow of our tree. Our parents had a rule that their four children had to at least try to wait until 6:00 a.m. before we woke them up to open presents, but there Zach sat, a big smile on his face and his full-to-bursting stocking sitting between his crossed legs."Go back to sleep, dork," I said, and he didn't even acknowledge me. He was in a meditative state, lulled into a profound contentment by the bright lights and the array of packages.

 I went back to bed, and when I woke up three hours later, I found him sitting in the same position on the couch, staring at my parents with laser eyes as they puttered back and forth between the kitchen and the family room to make their coffee and put the traditional breakfast casserole in the oven. I wasn't surprised. Despite the fact that we had two younger sisters, Zach was always the first to wake up Christmas morning. Way past the point when most kids his age opted for an extra couple hours of sleep over opening presents at the crack of dawn, he was the one to run into my bedroom and shout, "Wake up! It's Christmas!" in my ear. 

It wasn't abut the presents for him. Not really. He was the least materialistic person I've ever met, even as a kid. With the one noted exception of his second Christmas, when he asked for a blue car and had a total meltdown when Santa brought him a red one, I don't remember him having a super emotional reaction to any particular gift. What he liked was the ritual of it, the spectacle, the fact that no matter what, every year ended with a magic we all worked together to create. He was always broke, but he never let that stand in the way of spreading Christmas cheer. In high school, he and his band created an album of original Christmas songs, which is one of my most cherished possessions. When I had children and he became an uncle, he may not have been able to afford gifts for the whole family, but he always made sure the kids had something great to open. On his last Christmas, a week after his twenty-third birthday, he drove three hours to surprise his girlfriend at her parents' house on Christmas Eve, and then back to our parents' house on Christmas day to open presents and play with my kids. He wanted to experience everyone's magic, to make everyone's Christmas better and brighter, and he never failed.

My brother only had twenty-three Christmases. He died in a hiking accident in September, 2011. And three short months later, a week after he would have (should have) celebrated his 24th birthday, it was Christmastime again. 

The first December without my brother, I cried every single day. Every song reminded me of him. Every tree. Every bright colored light. Every holiday movie or Hallmark commercial or Christmas pageant or nativity scene made made me feel like the the bottom of my heart had dropped out. I tortured myself by listening to his homemade Christmas album on my drives to and from work, trying to cry myself out of tears before I got home to my kids. I banned the songs "Frosty the Snowman," "All I Want for Christmas is you," and "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" from my house as long as my husband and children were home, but would listen to them on repeat and cry when I was by myself. I didn't want commemorate his birthday or celebrate Christmas. But I wasn't the only person in my family. I had a two-year-old and a five-year-old who my brother had loved to the moon and back. And Zach wouldn't have wanted them to miss out.

So we decorated the tree. We went to the Christmas festivals. We drove around the city looking at lights. We went to the Christmas parade. We threw an oyster roast on Zach's birthday and filled the house with his music. I decorated my cubicle with Christmas lights and wore antlers on my head to make my kids laugh. We took road trips to celebrate the holidays with friends, and I recorded a video of my children struggling through the Spanish of "Feliz Navidad" and posted it on Facebook with the message, "Merry Christmas from our family to yours." And on Christmas Eve, exactly a year after I had snapped at Zach for talking during the sermon and singing in a silly voice, I went to church, sang the songs, and cried for the thousandth time in three months. Only this time, there was a tiny spark of happiness in the tears, because for the first time since he died, I felt like I was with my brother.

Look, I'm not a very religious person. My husband and I are Unitarian Universalists, and as far as I know, my brother was agnostic. And I know that Christmas has become as much a symbol of our consumerist culture as it is a celebration of the birth of Jesus. I also know that it would be very easy for me to check out during the whole month of December, to make a nest of blankets and stay in bed listening to sad music and reading novels with tragic endings. But every year, the day after Thanksgiving, I take a long look in the mirror and tell myself to buck up. Because I don't know how many Christmases I'll have with my family, and I don't want to waste them. 

So this year, we're driving up to the mountains and my husband is indulging me by cutting down the tree of our choosing. We're going to the Christmas parade. We're taking the kids to see The Nutcracker. I'm buying them a ton of presents I know they don't need and decorating the outside of our house with all the bright lights money can buy.We're going to go Christmas caroling with our neighbors and visit a nursing home to bring Christmas cheer to the residents. Just like every year since 2011, I am going to mourn another year of life that my brother has had to miss. I'll cry when we put the ornaments on the tree. I'll feel a deep ache as my children open their presents. I'll cry as I drive through a dark night lit up with the twinkling magic of Christmas. But this year when "Frosty the Snowman" comes on, I'll sing along through the tears, and I'll be singing for my brother.

Zach and me, probably Christmas 1995

Slowing Down (Against My Will) & Learning in Germany

Well, we’re a month and a half into our six month German adventure, and I can now say with certainty that I’m really glad we’re doing this. The first few weeks were rough for me. In fact, right after we moved into our apartment, I told my dad that I really didn’t see how I could possibly stay here until February.  Everything was just a little too foreign for me. Not unmanageable, but difficult, and definitely more of a change than I had been expecting. Life in Germany—at least for me—is slow. There are no shortcuts here, and I am only now realizing how important shortcuts and instantaneous results had become to me since my kids were born.  I was one of the last people I knew to get a driver’s license because until Lucy was born, I really didn’t see a reason to deal with the hassle of a driving. But as soon as I got my license, I couldn’t imagine how to live without the convenience and freedom afforded to me by having a car. So when we moved here, the adjustment from car to public transportation was a really rough one. It was hot and I was always tired and cranky, and walking to and from the grocery store was an almost unendurable chore for me. The absence of a microwave drove me crazy, and so did the fact that I was going to have to hang all our laundry on a line to dry, which I had never done in my life.

Those things still bother me every once in a while, and a day has yet to go by when I don’t miss driving. But there is something to be said for doing almost everything the slow way, especially for someone with a lifelong history of anxiety and depression. When I go to the store, I have to have some idea of what I am going to get, and there is never any extra room in my bags for impulse purchases. There’s no bus to the closest grocery store, and making the walk there and back with the girls takes at least an hour, and that bit of extra effort makes me very careful not to waste anything.  When I cook, even when it’s something small, I have to stand at the stove to make sure it doesn’t burn. I can’t just pop it in the microwave. Then, because we have such a limited number of dishes and utensils, I can’t let dishes pile up in the sink for a week before I get around to washing them. If I know I am going to want to wear an article of clothing, I have to be sure to wash it two days before I need it, because sometimes the clothes take that long to dry. 

They are such minor changes—such minuscule inconveniences—but they can seem like a big deal to someone for whom  it’s sometimes hard to find the energy to just get out of bed. They can seem like a big hassle, but at the same time, the little chores are a huge blessing. I can’t rush through these little day-to-day activities. They have to be done deliberately and daily. And it’s good for me. It’s good for me to have little things to focus on during the day. Hanging the laundry, cooking the eggs, getting outside even when I don’t want to be because otherwise we won’t have any food for the day. And the fact that we try to save as much money as possible for weekend trips means that I am much more appreciative of the little luxuries during the week. I now savor my weekly Starbucks latte. I appreciate the coconut scent of the bubble bath Thom bought me. It’s the little things.

It was also really difficult for me to adjust to our drastically downsized living space, and to living in an apartment, which I’d sworn I would never do again. There are definitely some real drawbacks—less privacy (both in and outside of the apartment) and more awareness of and anxiety over the amount of noise the kids make during the day are the big ones—but there are good things too. The best thing about living in a smaller space is that I can always hear the kids playing. It can be annoying when I want peace and quiet, but it enables me to get to know the girls on a whole different level than I did when we lived in a three-story, 2000 sq. foot house. I can never get away from them, and they can never do anything in secret. I hear every word they say to one another during the day, so I’m aware of what they are thinking and talking about. This week, for instance, they have been using their Barbies to create different configurations of families. Step-parents, half-siblings, single parents, and LGBTQ families—figuring out the similarities and differences between different kinds of families has been at the heart of each of the “stories” they create.  Having the opportunity to notice this theme and the ways they discuss it when they are “alone” together has been a real blessing. Lucy’s biological father is coming from England next Wednesday and will be staying with us for a week, and knowing that they have been talking a lot about how to make sense of nontraditional families, I’ve been able to ease some concerns or worries I don’t think they would have brought to me if I hadn’t known to bring them up.  We’ve been able to talk a lot about how every family is different and there is no set rule as to how a family has to operate. Even families that look like ours from the outside won’t necessarily interact with one another in the way we do, and that’s okay. It’s been a huge weight off Lucy’s shoulders to learn that she isn’t required to think of any particular person to fit a clichéd, static character. Mommy is just Mommy, Daddy is just Daddy, and Will is just Will. We all love her, we all want what is best for her, and that is really all that matters.

Speaking of learning, we found out last week that the girls aren’t actually required to attend school while we’re in Germany because we are here for less than six months. Thom and I decided to let Lucy decide what she wanted to do—after all, we weren’t going to be the ones sitting in the classroom every day—and after a lot of pro/con lists, she decided to opt out of school and begin homeschooling now instead of when we get back home. We worked really hard not to encourage her one way or the other, but Thom and I both agree that she made the best choice. This way, we are free to travel without having to take the school calendar into consideration, she will be home when friends and family come to visit, and she won’t have the anxiety of trying to learn in an environment where the teacher and other kids all speak a different language. If we were going to be here longer, it would have been great for her to go to school and learn the language and socialize with the other kids, but since we’re already almost a third of the way through our time and she speaks only a few words of German, it really didn’t seem worth it. Plus, there are so many educational opportunities available while we’re living here and it makes me happy that she will really be able to focus on our weekly trips to museums, historical sites, etc. instead of zoning out because she’s spending her week desperately trying to understand what is going on in her classroom.  This way, she can continue to work on her reading and writing skills in English, learn new math skills without having to translate the new information to English before she can work on the concepts, and spend her weekends learning about science and history (while also having fun). We can use this time to figure out what we’re doing and what works for us before we get back to Atlanta and get involved with the homeschooling community there. It’s a nice little emotional and mental transition to a different kind of learning and a very different lifestyle.

We miss everyone back home, but we are really having a good time. So far we have toured a palace in Ludwigsburg, spent the day at a natural history museum and art museum in Karlsruhe, explored a medieval hospital-turned-history museum in Bad Wimpfen, and spent a very exhausting weekend at a technology museum, Andy Warhol exhibit, and Marianplatz in Munich. We’ve also spent hours and hours at the parks in Heilbronn (amazing playgrounds), eaten a ton of gelato (one euro for a cone—can’t beat it!), and adjusted to daily life in Germany. I can’t wait to see what the next few months bring. Maybe I’ll even update this blog again!

P.S. We are always ready and willing to have visitors from the US stay at our apartment. Come on over, friends!

Things I Wish I'd Known

my very first moment of motherhood, February 2006

My friend Graeme recently posted a blog entry asking for the advice mothers wish they had been given while they were pregnant. I was going to leave this as a note on her blog, but then it got really long because (surprise!) I have a lot to say. So here we go! This is what I wish I'd known.

Enjoy the belly as much you can while you're pregnant. I threw up almost every day through both of my pregnancies, but I have also never felt so great about myself and my body. I was growing a human! I'm not looking to have more kids right now, but damn I miss the feeling of a baby kicking me in the bladder.
 
It's good to have a birth plan. It's good to be educated and to read whatever books you want to read to feel ready. When I was pregnant with my first baby, my mother and I watched TLC's "A Birth Story" for two hours every single morning. I had a book called The Pregnancy Bible and I treated it like it really was the word of God. I memorized that thing. With my second pregnancy, I decided to have a natural birth with a playlist and a birthing tub and candles and instead I had a breech baby with a cord wrapped around her neck several times and a c-section. It happens. A plan is great, but birth happens with or without your plan. Your health and the health of your baby are the most important things. Everything else is sprinkles on the cupcake.


There are a few times when it is totally understandable to act like an asshole, and the delivery of your baby is one of those times. I had a wonderful midwife to assist with the births of both my children, and I developed such a wonderful relationship with one of my nurses that she actually came to the hospital on her day off to visit and bring me a candy bar. Midwives, nurses, doctors...they can be wonderful people. But they are people, which means they can also be awful. If you don't feel you're getting the treatment you deserve, or you feel uncomfortable or shamed ignored, it's okay to let that be known. Don't suffer through a crap experience because you ended up with a crap nurse. Say something.

When it comes to post-delivery (at least in my experience), there is going to be a LOT of blood and a LOT of oversharing. I had one vaginal delivery with an epidural and one c-section. My vaginal delivery was super easy (I only pushed for twenty minutes) and I never felt more than a little discomfort, so when the epidural wore off, I was totally unprepared for how much my crotch would burn and how much blood would be coming out of me. With the c-section, I sat in the bathroom for a full hour in absolute hysterics because I couldn't pee. When I finally managed it, my husband had to put my (giant, mesh, hospital-issued) underwear on for me. I had to have help in the shower both times. That's life.

Witch hazel. Witch hazel, witch hazel, witch hazel. Your vagina is going to burn like hot lava. Yes, it is.

You don't have to "sleep when the baby sleeps" or risk failing as a mother because you're too exhausted. If having a clean house will make you feel better, clean when the baby sleeps. If showering and/or putting on makeup makes you feel more like yourself, that's great. If getting out for a bit to go to the store or a movie will make you feel better, do that. If sleeping helps, that's good too. You don't exist only for the baby. You are still a human being with emotional and physical needs. They're just as important as the needs of the baby.
 

Round two, October 2009

Take pictures. All the time. Take pictures of their baby ears, their baby hair, their baby fingers and toes. Before you know it, they'll be little people instead of babies and you'll miss those infant features. Also, smell the hell out of their heads while you have a chance.

Breastfeeding is great for your baby and for a lot of women, it is also great for bonding and it's just the most magical thing on earth. For other women, it's kind of painful and kind of crap, but they can deal with it because for them, the benefits outweigh all the suck. For other women-- and I am one of them-- breastfeeding is a special hell that makes you seriously consider throwing yourself or your baby across the room and beg your doctor for antidepressants. If you are in that last group, for the love of God, do not torture yourself. Your baby needs a sane mother more than it needs to be breastfed. You're not making your baby weak or stupid by refusing to feel suicidal for a year after giving birth. I promise.

It's ok to ask for help. Not just when you have a newborn, but all the time. It takes a village. At the very least, it takes help from your partner (if you have one). Try to find someone you can call on in the middle of the night if you're really about to lose your mind. If you don't have a person like that in your life right now, mommy groups and support groups are great resources.

The baby will eventually sleep, I promise.

If you feel overwhelmed and the baby will not stop screaming and you feel the urge to shake the baby, put it down. Put the baby somewhere safe and walk away for a minute. This sounded like advice I would NEVER need to use, but then I had a baby and I realized how easy it is to want to shake a baby to "snap them out of it."  You're not a horrible person for having the passing thought, you're just exhausted and you can't think of anything to do to help. Both my babies had colic, though, so maybe this doesn't happen to everyone.

If you don't bond with your baby immediately, try not to worry about it too much. I expected motherhood to be something out of a movie, so when I had sore boobs and a fussy infant and post-partum depression, I really had myself convinced that I was not only the worst mother, but also the worst person, in the entire world. I thought I should be able to do everything, and if I couldn't do it, then none of the things I'd thought about myself were true. Who cared what else I accomplished in my life if I couldn't even bond with my baby? Fast forward almost eight years, and I would jump in front of a train for that kid in a skinny minute. I loved both my kids from the time they were born, but I love them both so much more now. It can be hard to bond with a sleeping/eating/pooping machine, but soon enough you and your child will have a real relationship and inside jokes and shared memories and it will be wonderful.
 

motherhood, 2012

Do what you feel you need to do, what you know is best. Even if it flies in the face of all advice. You can do it! It's going to be a hell of a ride.