Were we really fristers after all?

Apparently we’re good at taking pictures of un-reality. Because the day after Thanksgiving, I walked out of the bathroom to overhear my sister talking to the friend I had brought to Thanksgiving dinner, about how she think I criticize her so much, and how hurtful I am, and that it’s ‘so highschool,’ and I wanted to slam my fist into the door and walk out. Screaming. Crying. I wanted to do it all. Instead I walked back around the corner and put my kid to bed, because parenting duties don’t stop when you overhead gossip going on in the kitchen when they think you’re not listening.

The whole time we were there, my New York born, Seattle, living, friend kept saying things like, “your sister is so nice, she’s just such a nice person,” and honestly I’m sick of that. I’ve been hearing that kind of shit my whole life. My sister, the quintessential cheerleader personality, with all of her baubles and tittering laugh, being compared to my tell-it-like-it-is personality that questions every authority I’ve come across. I’m the older one, the responsible one, the one who doesn’t shamelessly flirt with everyone she meets. The one who came home and studied and didn’t sneak out to party with older boys and questionable friends. And all people who come in contact with her say “she’s so nice.”

I’m tired of feeling like no matter what I do, no matter who I am, that my way of being in the world is wrong. I’m tired of being labelled the ‘difficult,’ one because my personality doesn’t conform to the standard of femininity that my sister embodies. It makes me feel like shit to hear my sister say that I’m basically a terrible person and that she can’t even tell me to my face. Makes me think that she’s just been putting up a happy-happy-joy-joy cheerleader front all this time. And for what? To build a fake relationship with me and have it all go to shit when I overhear her badmouthing me?

Boof says it’s because I have the kind of personality that doesn’t let people come close without dropping their defense mechanisms. That I don’t put up with bullshit and some people don’t like that feature about me. That it’s not about my being being wrong in the world, but rather that it forces them to see how they are wrong in the world, and they must change to interact with me. Whatever it is, it doesn’t feel good. And it makes me want to cut off all relationships, like with my friend, or my sister, to pursue more authentic relationships. Ones that don’t feel like I am a difficult person.

Nanny Trial

I told her that my goal for Fridays, spending them with my son while I’m gone at private practice, was for him to feel loved and cared for and that the structure of the day can be free flowing, as he is in ‘school’ the rest of the week, which is a very structured setting.

And I came home to find her handwritten note, and the dishes put in the dishwasher, and a little Christmas ornament made.

All of my initial fears of her being flaky have yet to come true. She was 5 minutes early, very communicative, and had a cheerful disposition at the end. I am hopeful that she will be the nanny we can keep for awhile while I get to explore whether private practice is a good fit for me or not.

Life as a Series of Changes or Crises

In the five days between talking with my bestie Ruth, my life managed to catapult into entire upheaval, mostly in a good way, though. Our weekly phone dates, which have been going on for near a decade go far beyond the bare bones updating that happens with longer distance/time friends, and so I felt almost no qualms in stating in one breath:

So, I’m starting a private practice. And some (paraphrasing for privacy) pretty interesting personal things happened in our sex life, and I feel mixed emotions that I want to process with you.  And I interviewed a nanny, and liked her, but worried she’ll be flakey. And did I mention I’m teaching an additional class next quarter? And why do I always feel like when we talk it sometimes feel like I’m giving you a pinball list of my next crazy adventure.

She laughed, and said, ‘you know, I’ve come to realize, that most of my friends leave rather boring day to day lives. And when things are good with me and Barnes we’re good, and I don’t need to report on it at all, and we talk about things like deep religion and stuff, and then when things are up in the air or hard I need to process. And so in talking with friends, it can seem like our lives are a series of changes or crises.”

Boy did she hit the nail on the head, per usual.

Brought on my some frustration at work, I went out to coffee with a former classmate who has managed to start a counseling agency. An agency with a contract with a local school district so counselors can provide therapy to students. A counseling agency with a billing specialist, scheduler, 8 treatment rooms and a group room, an ARNP in-house for medications, and access to insurance panels. She said she’d love to have me on board, and it’s when I finally let myself remember that I love doing therapy, and am excited to see where this goes, and the possibility for 6 clients a week could almost equal $20,000 extra a year (on the high end), and that while I’m nervous about adding an extra day to my plate, it’s not forever, possibly time limited for a year or so depending on whether I get pregnant, but it could be an opportunity for me to get this other part of my soul fulfilled.

And so, the nanny interviewing begins. We met a woman who seems like a great fit, though I’m worried about her being flaky, and so I hope that added stress doesn’t happen because I am already feeling super nervous about my transition from 4 to 5 days, and I really want Potamus to have a good time with a fun person, and that’s what it seems to be. Ugh I hate being an adult sometimes and having to deal with all the stress, added on top of that the whole mommy guilt which I mostly avoid, but it rears its ugly head in situations like this where I feel like I’m tipping the balance of family to career focus.

But then I think, how great it’ll be in the summers, when I work one day a week, and he’s only in care 2-3 days, and the rest with me. That there are plenty of moms who work 5 days a week, and that dads never worry about this type of commitment. And that if I’m able to even make an extra $15,000 that would pay for childcare for a second kid if the time came to it. And I’d be able to flex my therapy muscles.

So there you go, a series of crises and changes in my world.

Word Count. Page Count.

I managed to bum my parent’s old broken word processor for the month of November. Well, technically forever, since my mom was adamant “just take it to Goodwill when you’re done.” I’m in the throes of NaNoWriMo, and find myself cycling between ‘oh, this is really fun, I hadn’t remembered that memory,’ and ‘this sucks ass, why am I doing this, who would even read this terrible shit?’

Thankfully I’ve read enough Ann Lamott over the years to know that my shitty first draft monkey mind is probably right on par. The word processor part is broken, but I have managed to get it on the typewriter setting, so I spend my nights “typing away furiously like Angela Landsbury,” according to Boof. I manage to get at least two pages a day, sometimes three, or four, and at my last count I was up to a whopping 27 typed pages of pure memory drivel. While the rest of the NaNoWriMoers are coming up with complex stories rivalling the best selling romance Twilight, I am putting down words around every Halloween costume I’ve ever worn. And all the Halloween candy I stole as a kid. And why I can’t stop eating these damn mini snickers bars. Memoir writing at its finest.

What’s lovely about the whole romantic writing style, is that I can’t edit, delete, or save. When a page is done, with it’s terrible margins and weird spacing from the time the paper got caught up on the little banged up metal thingy inside, it gets put in the mounting stack. Hopefully my house won’t burn down anytime soon (mostly because that would suck, but also I would lose all of my work…and my house). I have no idea if I’ll make the 50,000 word arbitrary NaNoWriMo goal, mostly because I can’t actually do a word count on typewritten nonsense. But I already feel like a winner. To see the ever growing stack of finished pages sitting next to me on the table, and to know that I have 11 days of sitting-down-and-writing-regardless-of-how-I-feel under my belt, is something to be proud of.

Pass another mini-Snickers, let’s celebrate!

Honey Grey Eyes

This kid, ya’ll. He’s pretty dang amazing. I love his personality, and watching him grow up, and laughing at his funny little ways of saying things. But my heart is so wistful from this weekend, when he was napping in the back seat of the car. The car was idling in the driveway, and I was reading my book, and when he woke up (scared), he just wanted a snuggle before going into the house.

In the clear afternoon light I got a real good look into this sweet boy’s face. And I was shocked. I’m sure I’d seen it before, but dismissed it until I was ready to face the truth. My baby no longer has blue eyes. He’ll be turning three, and while it might have been four or six or eight months that we’ve been living with this truth, I now cannot hide from the truth. He’s a honey grey green eyed boy (what, is that classified as hazel?).

They’re beautiful eyes. Clear and muddy at the same time. Speckled green and gray and seem to change in the light. But they aren’t blue, or blue-green like mine, and that’s where the wistfulness comes in. I knew it was inevitable. I knew that the blonde blue eyed baby that seemed miraculous odds against a dark hair dark eyed dominant gene pool. I have loved looking into a face that resembles my own so much, but this beautiful hard part about parenting is also letting him get to be the wonderful little boy that he is. And that means embracing the sweet honey grey green eyed toddler who says “pooperman” because he can’t pronounce superman.

Super Family

This year’s theme revolved around Potamus’ love of all things super hero related. We had Wonder Mom, Bat Dad, and Spider Kid. Pretty epic. He fell asleep halfway around our neighborhood loop. I had to carry him asleep on my shoulder with his heavy sack of treats dangling from his grubby little fists.

He now keeps saying “chocolate,” and “costume,” and I get the two confused because he can’t quite enunciate well enough yet. At any rate, we had a fun Halloween, and hope you all did too!