On the Other Side of the Door

Dear Lucy,

In March of last year, Big Red took down your crib and I transformed your nursery into a big girl room, the hallmark of which was a twin bed. You loved it. There were little, if any, bumps in trying to convince you to sleep in the new bed. In fact, I don't recall anything at all.

And then three and a half months later we went to California for two weeks in which the three of us, me, you, and Nana, slept together in one bed. Upon return to your room, you decided sleeping alone wasn't cool anymore, so into our bed you migrated. You stayed there until your third birthday, in October, when I created this elaborate scheme to get you back into your own bed. Luna your personal fairy arrived, replete with a fairy door, and a picture of the two of you together while you were sleeping (thanks, Photoshop). Luna also left you a letter in which she explained that she would watch over you as you slept, and that three year-olds are brave and sleep in their own beds. She also left you a new night light that projected stars on your ceiling.

It was a hit, and back into your bed you went.

Until the novelty wore off, and somehow I found you right back at my side again a few months later. Shadows you said. You needed me, you said.

You needed me.

To feel needed is sublime. To know that my presence has the power to cure all your fears is, frankly, intoxicating. You and I both love Wonder Woman, and it's in these moments that I actually feel as powerful. I was never ashamed of the co-sleeping, and I enjoyed sleeping next your warm body. It was equal parts survival and IDGAF. It was, for the time being, working.

Then it wasn't. For a while we dealt with the tossing and turning, kneeing Big Red, and landing elbows on my nose. We were losing sleep. And then it got dramatically worse: you decided the act of going to sleep, at all, was purgatory, and by doing so, took us with you into the pit of hell.

Every single night was an ongoing battle to go to bed. Gone were the calm evenings of stories and songs. In their place were tears and screaming. We bargained, we pleaded. In our worst moments we stomped away frustrated, we yelled. I became angry that I was losing my nights to your hysterics. My darling, I love you in ways words cannot even touch, and yet in those moments, I wanted to mute your cries, to teleport myself out of our sweet home and into someplace, anyplace else. Some nights I was able to call up the patience that you required, and I saw you for exactly what you were: a little girl who felt safe at her mama's side. I would repeat to myself, a mantra: this is what she needs right now, lay with her, it's just a phase, you'll miss this when it's gone. That would get me through a few evenings, but surely as still waters run deep, that ball of anger and frustration would gurgle and rise like a geyser. Again I'd be all rage and fury.

Earlier this month, Big Red and I spoke after a particularly difficult evening and agreed it was time to help you back into your bed. We would draw a line in the sand upon our return from our annual trip to California. I would be as transparent as possible, and we would hold our ground. And by golly it worked. The day you went back into your bed, I told you what would be happening, and true to form, you responded with angry tears and arms crossed over your chest. Proclamations of I WILL NOT! filled our house. I explained there'd be a prize for which to work, which seemed to help.

As the day progressed, I remind you of what would happen. That night we read books, sang songs, and chatted. You asked if I would be in my bed. I explained that I'd be downstairs with Daddy, but eventually I'd go to bed, just like you were doing, and I'd be on the other side of your door.

You have successfully been in your bed since.

The last night you slept in our bed, I watched you and was drawn to the pulse in your neck. The way the rush of blood, sweeping back and forth, made the skin leap up and down. I tried to remain as present as possible, not projecting what would happen the next night, if it would work or not, but rather just being your mama, next to you. You are a fiery, independent, strong-willed little girl, Lucy. In those moments as my eyes traversed the beautiful contours of your perfect face, I thought about how I could best support you. Not just in that hour, but as you continue to grow into yourself, whatever self evolves. I asked myself how to always remain a reflective mama so as not to stand in your way, to never unintentionally clip those dazzling wings. My girl, light always finds you, and I never want to be the one who casts a shadow.

As I wrote earlier, it's absolutely marvelous to feel needed. There will come a day though, when your need for me will change. But darling - you take the lead. I will follow as you are not mine to hold onto; you are your own. Know though, that I am always here, your soft place to fall, just on the other side of the door.

Love, Mama

Rattled.

I belong to a network of working mothers and we have a space on Facebook that’s closed to the outside world where we can post whatever rants, frustrations and successes that currently pepper our chaotic lives. Recently, a member posted a link to an article that revealed some statistics (as collected by a survey done through Care.com) about working mothers. First of all, I could have written several portions of that article, but what startled me the most were the following two revelations: 1 in 4 working moms cries at least once a week, and 11% are late or call in sick to work at least once a week. Before my daughter was born, I was the archetype of timeliness to work. Not anymore. Just this morning, my alarm went off, as it always does, at 5:30 am, but it wasn’t until 6 am that I pulled what sorry sack of a human I currently am, out of bed. In order for me to get to work on time, I need to be pulling out of the driveway by 6:20, and definitely no later than 6:30. Today it was 6:45, and that included skipping breakfast. 

Early on in the article, the author recounts a rough evening where after a long night at the office she comes home to discover that there isn’t enough milk left in the house and that come morning, her kids would wake wanting their milk and there would be none. Fatigued, and ready raise the white flag, she “[shuffles] into the living room, [crumples] into an exhausted heap on the floor next to a pile of toys no one had cleaned up” and cries. This morning as I was frenetically getting myself together (which involved grabbing the nearest work-reasonable top, one that I wouldn’t notice until it was too late, had dried Lucy snot on one shoulder), I passed by the living room and was also confronted with a scattering of toys that had not been picked up. That chore falls under my list of responsibilities, but last night I’d made a deliberate choice not to pick up her toys because I needed to get a lasagna into the oven. And the reason it had to happen last night was because attempting to put it together this evening, baking it, and having it be ready for a 5:30/6 pm dinnertime would be impossible. So it had to happen last night. By the time Lucy was in bed, and the lasagna was bubbling in its Corningware, it was nearly 8:30. I had just a paltry thirty minutes left to speak to and hang with the man I call my husband before my eyelids would become too heavy to keep up. These days I turn to dust around 9 pm. 

Motherhood itself is tough stuff, but more than motherhood itself, it's the rattling motherhood does to your life. The secondary expense. All that stuff I got done on time, had organized, remembered - well, I can't seem to get a handle on it. Any of it, and it's rattled me because I've always been the one who has their shit together. There just isn’t enough time anymore.

I’m late to work on a regular basis, I haven’t exercised in god knows how long, I eat crap (breakfast this morning was chocolate chip cookies and a Sunkist – leftovers from Lucy’s party this past weekend I shoved in my bag on the way out the door), I forget stuff, and the house is constantly verging on disastrous. Here’s the good news. My daughter is healthy, happy, thriving, and loved immensely. My marriage is solid, and we have an understanding that while most days we can only muster a quick conversation and check-in, for now it’s about survival.

I know that so much of this, motherhood, parenting, life, is all about perspective. If I take a moment to pause and examine the details, the conclusions are a lot less dramatic. Late to work for me means not getting there with time to exhale before running down to do bag duty. Am I technically late? No. But to me, it feels like late when I don’t have some leisurely time. While I occasionally replace some meals with total shit-bag food, not every meal I shovel into my pie-hole is without merit. In fact, tonight’s lasagna is made with grass-fed beef, and plenty of vegetables. And the disastrous house is not tragically disastrous, it’s just lived in and not always picked up with everything in its place. What can I say? My standards are my own prison.

Too many plates are spinning, there are far too many balls in the air. Something has to give. And not only does something have to take a backseat, but I need to pick a starting point. A place from which to reassess – find and hit the proverbial reset button. Instead I’m faced with what feels like my own personal Everest of a mission, and I have no idea where to begin. If I could just get 48 hours - 48 hours that included an acupuncture session, a full-body massage, and time to regroup, that would be perfect. Instead I’m Clarice Starling in Buffalo Bill’s basement, in the dark, pointing my gun at nothing in particular. 

Ramblings

Maybe it’s the autumnal air, the trees beginning to turn their brilliant colors, the sky deepening it’s hue before a long winter’s sleep. Something has affixed itself to me; something that has no name but boards alongside restlessness and boredom. Let me interject and state that this has nothing to do with Lucille. On the Motherhood front, I feel a sense of gratifying fulfillment. Motherhood has simultaneously shattered and healed me. By day’s end I am exhausted, but even in a collapsed state on the big brown couch, every evening, my heart swells when I turn the monitor on and see my daughter’s rumpled body in the corner of her crib, her doughy hand clutching her lovey.

This thing, this some other, has more to do with the rest of my life. I’m 36. Am I too young to be facing a mid-life crisis? Is that what this is? I have been teaching for nearly eleven years, a decade split between two schools I love. For the majority of my career, I’ve been fortunate enough to teach exactly what I want and how I want, and I have been relatively successful at it. But lately the claws of a greener pasture seem to have fastened themselves to the hours of my days. Daydreaming has turned into thoughts of a full-fledged photography business, or transforming into a married with a kid version of Carrie Bradshaw. My usual state of acceptance and general happiness has been stained with a narrative of I want more.

Can we really have it all?

Pause.

My god, can we have it all and more?

My immediate response to this nebulous fog is to organize. The need for a clean slate, for shirts hanging in the closet to be filed side-by-side according to color and sleeve length, makes me happy. Begin a cleanse and whole body makeover.  And I know why. It’s because I can control these. I can make changes, I can reorganize my desk drawers, I can clean out the pantry – I can be in complete control of the outcome. I’m not grasping at gossamer trails of smoke in the air that don’t exist. Shirts on a hanger are concrete items that can be manipulated. The daydreaming, the fettered state of metacognition – it’s all so elusive.

The reality, though, of this more, is not really real. At least it appears to be temporary; it comes in waves. While I was feeling as previously described for several days, I then sank my teeth into planning one of my new courses, and guess what? I felt revived. The color came back into my cheeks, and the wan sense of boredom retreated. Clearly this just bolsters the case for not making a rash decision. Good thing I didn’t resign and go spend umpteen-thousand dollars on lenses and a new camera body. Good thing my family still has health insurance.

Good thing.

Banner Week!

For a while I've had little to write about. Well, you know how they say life shows up in threes? Whoever they are - they are right. This week was a banner week.

I. Big Red
I haven't really spoken of Big Red for a while because there wasn't much to put on  paper screen. Big Red's story is a bit convoluted for those who haven't been following so I'll give you the shortened version as best I can. Here's the lightening fast wrap-up of what's happened with Big Red since we arrived back in our Steel Town in the summer of 2008:

• He gets hired within a week of our return, making a really great flat-rate salary at an Audi/VW dealership. Turns out the dealership sucks big time and he works with a bunch of chauvinistic cheating pigs.
• He leaves dealership to work in an independent shop - sigh of relief. This place is a little further, but worth the commute. Turns out his boss begins to cheat him so that he won't have to pay Big Red. Huge bummer.
• He leaves the small shop and takes a break from being a mechanic altogether; quits working, stays home for 8 weeks and finishes our basement over the holidays.
• When it's time to look for work, he's weary of going back to any kind of shop so he gets a job as a parts delivery driver making $8/hr. While the money is tight, he's home before me, and his demeanor completely lightens up; he's the happiest he's been since we've been here.
• Then the mother of all job opportunity arises. He has a chance to go work for an independent shop, one where they specialize in taking care of vintage race cars. It's a dream. He begins the job in the summer of 2011. We all breathe a collective sigh of relief and I write about it here. And then the worst things happens: the dream becomes a nightmare. Big Red is treated like crap, referred to a "f*@king monkey" in front of clients. He comes home many nights dejected and confused. He begins to spin into a darkness I've never seen before. This job lasts six weeks. Just when we think everything is lost and there's no hope, yet another way out turns up - a job at a Toyota dealership where his friend works. He jumps on it and begins in the early fall of 2011.
• Big Red's spirit brightens and things seem to mollify themselves. But no, of course not, that would be too easy. Turns out this dealership is no better than the previous one. There's plenty of brown-nosing mechanics getting fed work. What becomes clear as day is that dealerships just SUCK. It's an environment that breeds corruption because income is on the line. Takeaway the variability of income, and I'm certain things would be better. But that'll never happen. Big Red begins to look for a way out.
• Through the most unconventional turn of events, through a friend of a friend who knows his mother, Big Red is told to "call" Mr. W. Mr. W is the owner of a small shop that caters to vintage race cars, among other race cars (open-wheel). When my mother-in-law gives me the message, I'm nervous because I know that Big Red's palate has been soured with his experience last summer at the other race shop. Nevertheless it's another chance. I give the message to Big Red, he's understandably skeptical. I encourage him to call anyhow. He does. Meets Mr. W, and realizes that Mr. W ain't like the others, and actually refers to what he does as "a craft." Big Red is over the moon. They negotiate a salary, yes a freaking SALARY, and Big Red begins work on April 2!

What's the moral of the story? Risk. You must be willing to take risks. Had Big Red snuffed the invitation to call Mr. W because he was afraid to encounter the hell he had previously, he would have missed out on the chance of a lifetime. And folks, this really is the chance of a lifetime. Working with Mr. W will allow Big Red to travel and do unique amazing work. It's the piece of the puzzle that's been missing since we moved back. I am beyond excited for him, and more than anything relieved. When I hurt, it's my own problem and I can fix myself. When my husband hurts and I'm left helpless because there isn't a damn thing I can do, I feel useless. There are few things worse than seeing someone you love, to the moon and back, hurt so deeply. Likewise, there are few things better than seeing that same person happy.

II. 20+ lbs.
This morning I weighed in and I've crossed the 20 lb. threshold. I'm down a total of 21.2 lbs! I am ECSTATIC.  Yes, I still have another 18 to go, but I'm more motivated than ever. I've kept up with the P90X, but I have made a few of my own modifications. I did not like the Kempo so I'm substituting that for a day where I take long run (5-6 miles), or I hop on the elliptical. It's going incredibly well, and I'm damn proud of myself. My battle with food continues to be won, and it's actually becoming less of a battle. Earlier this week one of our math teachers had pies for "Pie Day" (3/14), and offered up some to those of us eating in the lunch room. While I could of just said no and skipped it altogether, I quickly realized that it wasn't necessary, but that I'd have to exercise restraint on how much I took. Look, I love food and that's never going to change. I can still eat sweets if the craving hits, I'm just much more aware of what I'm eating and how much of it I'm going to eat. I took a sliver of key lime pie and a sliver of peanut butter pie. I enjoyed every single morsel, my craving was satisfied, and I didn't undo all my hard work.

III. New Website
My photography is slowly growing. I don't have a large client base by any stretch, but word is quietly getting around. I've known for a while that the next step in growing my photography business is to put together a website. I'm not ready to invest hundreds in some flashy set up, so I've been scouring the internet for free options. This week I found one through www.wix.com. I don't own my own domain just yet, and am planning to take that second leap this summer. It isn't terribly expensive and it's something I'll definitely take care of. Until then, my photography business can be found at: http://www.wix.com/ilenemarshall/photography. I will continue to update my galleries, hopefully getting some students to do some senior portraits soon. I'm proud of what I've put together and while I know it's relatively simple compared to the super-professionals out there, I'm quick to realize I'm not a super-pro. I'm a full-time teacher with a budding photography business. For now, I think it's a great start.

Gadgets Galore

For the past few days, my Internet connection had been failing me. A satanic message continued to appear on my screen as I attempted to connect to Google, or Gmail, or Facebook, or - whatever. Take your friggin pick. Error blah, blah, blah, DNS server blah, blah, blah. This morning, after rebooting and unplugging our modem a billion times, after rebooting my computer a billion times, I finally broke down and called our service carrier. Dude on the phone had me go through the same steps I'd just taken and still the issue had not been resolved. Dude on the phone then connected me to a "special" department - the super-galactic-troubleshooters, and new dude took my info and let me know there would be a small fee for their expert services, but don't worry m'am we'll make sure everything gets resolved.

Long story short: reboot effing router. Super-galactic-troubleshooting dude connected to my laptop remotely, checked a few things and said I was good to go - no reconfigure needed. So pretty much I just paid to do something I could have (should have, damnit!) been able to do for free? Fantastic.

Everything appeared to be working just dandy.

Skip to the living room a half an hour later, sipping some coffee and talking to Big Red about replacing the batteries in three dead watches. Tangent: I love watches and I've got a few totally groovy ones but I haven't been able to use them because they died about a year ago. I've slacked in taking them somewhere partly because, well - I slacked, and partly because I didn't want to pay to have it done because I knew I'd be overcharged for a simple procedure. Big Red confirmed he could remove the backs of the watches and we could do a simple battery swap in house. He went downstairs, grabbed an itty-bitty screw driver, quickly removed the backs, we identified the batteries and then I went and grabbed my laptop out of the office. I figure I could find the batteries on Amazon. Sat back down on the couch, flipped up my screen, tried to load the Internet and BOOM - same asshole issue!!

My blood pressure went from totally livable to near death in seconds.  We clicked on seven thousand boxes, ran scans, unplugged, replugged - you name it, it was done. Nada. Nothing, Still wonky. Finally I came up with System Restore. I chose January 12 since that seemed safe. The issues started a few days ago so I figured if I chose that date, I'd go back to whatever setting this damn gadget had before it was exhibiting problems. Started the restore, went to brush my teeth and floss. Yes, I floss every morning. I have excellent dental hygiene and my dentist loves me for it. I make his job super easy.

Checked back on the bastard laptop, and sure enough - it was working like a charm. Laptop was upgraded from temporary bastard to best friend.

I am infuriated at the technology for which I'm so dependent upon and I'm furious with myself that I am in fact so dependent upon such technology. When did we become such slaves to our gadgets? Remember when the biggest problem you had was replacing batteries in your Speak & Spell? Go back even further and consider the human powered Sit 'n Spin. No batteries required, just the ability to sit crossed leg and turn a wheel. Even the Sit 'n Spin has sold out to a "Music & Lights" version.  Big Red weighed in on the issue as it pertains to technology and gadgets as found in cars. All those luxuries that can be found in vehicles like power windows, cd changers, heated seats, even key fobs - just add those to the possibilities of what can go wrong and what might need fixing.

I am completely aware that not only do I use gadgets on a daily basis, I actually need them. Communication at work comes almost exclusively through our Outlook email. Most of our classrooms function via an online website where students get and upload assignments. I use my laptop at home for communication, and post processing my pictures. Hell, my camera is basically a mini computer.

Is an Eastern philosophy necessary to maintain sanity with all these gadgets? Pain and suffering [when working with gadgets] are a part of life, so we must accept them in order to continue moving forward and reach enlightenment. I'm almost certain something of this nature has recently been added to the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. I jest.

Sort of.

I'm down with enlightenment so long as my Internet connection doesn't drop anymore.