Conversations XII

Elizabeth:  So my aunt Jenn is going to give me her turtles when she dies.

Me:  Well, that is kind of a crappy thing for her to leave to you.  "Sorry I died.  Here's a turtle."

Charles:  Wait...how big will they get?

E:  They are the really big ones.

C:  Well, sweet.

Me:  I don't particularly want turtles here.

C: Well, I was more thinking turtle soup...

E:  You will be dead by then.

Me: (mishearing her) They will be dead?  That is even more crappy!  "Sorry I died.  Here's a dead turtle for your inheritance."

E:  No, HE will be dead.  And those things live for a really long time.

C:  No, I'll be alive.  Assholes live forever.  And remember, you said you wanted another 100 years of marriage with me.

Me:  OK, first of all...what makes you think you will last another 100 years without me killing you first?  And second, not all assholes live forever.  I feel like Hitler was a bit of an asshole, and he is not alive.

C: Well, he killed himself.

Me:  Oh, I see.  Premature termination.  Makes sense.

E:  Don't talk about Hitler like that.  He had Daddy issues.

Me:  Like his Daddy didn't hug him enough?  Or too much?

E:  Oh.  My.  God.

C:  Maybe there wasn't enough hugging, but too much cuddling.

(Elizabeth shakes her head and walks upstairs.)

Me: (yelling after her)  Not everyone enjoys spooning, Elizabeth!  (To her boyfriend, who is still in the kitchen listening to the entire conversation)  Explains so much, doesn't it?

Health

I have been told by my teenage daughter that it is next to impossible to eat unhealthfully in our house.  I was actually kind of relieved as I  have made a concerted effort to cut the crap from our diets.  Except of course for the massive amounts of wine I take my Xanax with.  And the chocolate about once a month.  Those are actually survival needs.

Mostly for my family.  Ahem.

So...cutting the crap from our diets.  Yes.  My fears about the Dukan diet were totally founded.  I did put some of the weight I lost back on once I started to eat grains again.  It pains me to admit that.  I worked so hard.  Re-introducing grains was my undoing.  I am like a toddler.  I need the rules and limits.  If you let me take an inch, I will try for the mile.  Especially when it comes to sweets made with lovely bleached white flour and high fructose corn syrup.  Two of the devil's inventions.  Along with eggs and coconuts, but for different reasons.

Really, do I need grains in my diet?  My research has pointed me slightly in the direction of no.  The response my body has to them tells me no.  Yet...the opiate like effects on my brain continues.  Plus, it is so much quicker to just grab something grain based and to go.

I hear all about prepping veggies before hand.  Into little baggies.  Salad in mason jars with the dressing in the bottom.   Precooking chicken and steaks to have to grab.  All little things I could do to eat better and make it easier to make healthy food choices.

I have started to work at a private practice part time.  In essence, I am now working 7 days a week.  In the long run, it will be worth it.  I will be happier.  In the short term...I no longer have the time to do the crazy insane shit I used to like make home made bread and granola and to experiment with quinoa flour.  To pre-prep veggies and fruit to have readily available.

So in the short term, my health is going to suffer. It pisses me off that this is the case.  I can't do it all.  I take care of everyone but me.  Business as usual.

Physician, heal thyself.

Right?  Easier said than done.  I preach day in and day out self care to my clients.  The importance of taking care of your physical health as well as the mental health.  Granted I still am running.  I still take my meds.  I still have the MHPMHD's.

I can't do it all.  And it bugs me that I feel like I have to try.  And it bugs me that this is the thing that has slipped, and that this is the thing that bugs me.  It feels like self sabotage almost, along with internalized fat hatred.  Like I am afraid of feeling good or looking good.  Because if I am feeling good, then I am not working hard enough.  If I am looking good, I have to deal with the male gaze.  How's that for rape culture speaking for me?

When the fuck did I develop this complex?  When did wearing the horsehair shirt become my thing?  I feel like those monks on Monty Python sometimes.  I keep expecting someone to accuse me of turning them into a newt.

(If you don't get that, I am not sure I want you reading my blog.)


Seriously, if you don't know what I am talking about...just go watch the movie.  It's pretty sad when I can say I have seen a movie.  Because I don't watch them usually.  I haven't even seen National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which apparently in this country is akin to admitting that the English had every right to fight the Revolutionary War because they were the ones being wronged.

Maybe I've turned myself into the newt.  I can't say yet that it got better.  It's still a work in progress.

Closets

Charlie has recently taken to turning the light on in the small linen closet in our bathroom.  Now, I am not one to complain if it means that she will go in there and just poop.  When that child needs to poop, she is as stinky as all get out.  Her farts rival that of the dogs.

I tried telling her that she did not need the closet light on to go to the bathroom.  That the four lights across the medicine cabinet, coupled with the overhead light and the bright sunshine streaming in through the window...they all provide a more than adequate amount of lighting for all of her powder room needs.  She remains unconvinced.  Why I am surprised, I don't know, as this is the same child who demands proof that jumping off of the front steps onto a concrete walkway will hurt.  And then proceeds with the experiment to prove exactly that.

Why have I not been to the ER more with her?  Her guardian angel has to be speed balling.

When it comes right down to it, she needs to have the darkness lit up and what is hiding there revealed for her to see.  Even if it is just towels and toilet paper and extra toothpaste.  The hidden corners of the bathroom need to be illuminated so her overactive mind can rest for a minute.  At least long enough for her to pinch one off.

I can appreciate that kind of anxiety.  Hell, I live with that kind of anxiety.  The kind that my meds will never completely eliminate.  The kind that tells me what is hidden and unknown is to be feared, while I rationally know that this is a load of bull crap that my mind tries to play off as the truth.

What's in the dark closet that I am so afraid of?  What prevents me from moving forward, from being all that I can be?  Monsters?  The maniac who will stab you to death with a Q-tip?  My past?  What is so terrifying in that closet that it can't be faced?

You go ahead and turn that light on, little girl.  I don't want there to be any scary stuff that you are afraid to illuminate.  Face your fears head on and barrel through them, Charlie style.  Grab a hold of them with both hand and kiss them directly on the mouth to tell them to fuck off.  Don't ever lose that passion to find out why because of being afraid of what is in the dark.

Good

"You're doing good."

I heard that frequently in the days after I had my son.  When we went to the funeral parlor to make arrangements, the funeral director expressed surprise at how "good" I was doing.  The basis for this?  I guess I was not crying hysterically in his office.  I was numb, shocked, grieving.  But it was all inside.

Society's standards for acceptable grieving are just that.  Keep it inside.  You are doing "good" if you are able to function.  Forget that my entire world was just turned upside down.  Forget that instead of bringing a baby home from the hospital, I got a box of ashes and a death certificate.  Forget that instead of celebrating the anniversary of his birth, I get to remember the anniversary of his death.

Fuck that.

I didn't want to have to do "good".  I wanted to post the funny shit he said at Facebook.  To mock my parenting and all the ways I was surely screwing him up.  To debate the years of therapy he would need.

All of the stuff I will never have.  A mother/son relationship.  A little brother for Alexis and Elizabeth.  A big brother for Charlie.  A nephew for my siblings; grandson for our parents.  In an instant, it was taken from all of us.

And I was expected to do "good".

I take July 2 off every year.  I can't work that day.  I just can't.  Yet I was asked when I thought I would stop doing this.

Because I am doing "good".

I didn't ask for good.  I didn't sign up for this.  I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.  I wish that I could make this funny; that I could laugh this off like I am able to do with so many things.  Humor has saved me on more than one occasion.

And you know what?  I can do good 51 weeks out of the year.  I can walk around and pretend like a part of me did not die that day.  That I won't sob tomorrow, clinging to his blanket and his hat and looking at the really shitty picture I have of my son.  Reading all of the cards we got.  Re-experiencing it like I do every year.

That is about as good as it gets.