The Year of Living Fearlessly (Recovering My Lost Childhood)

My 41st birthday is coming up and although I've done a lot in my life, I often feel like I haven't done enough.  And, yes, ya'll know about my burning desire to write and to get my book published, yada yada yada.  But, I've never spoken of the more mundane things that I wish to achieve.  Like learning how to ride a bicycle.  Or swim.  Or how to play an instrument.  There are so many things that I simply never learned how to do.  Sometimes, I look at Bren and I am in awe of him.  He throws himself into everything so wholeheartedly.  God bless him.  I hope he continues to be that way.

While I exemplify some good things (getting an education, focus, drive), I know that I am also a model of fear for him.  I am fearful of animals.  I am fearful of risk.  I dread change.  I scream my lungs out on amusement park rides.  (Sigh.)

So, for the next year, I commit to living fearlessly.  I am promising myself that by October 2012 (or when the world ends, according to some), I will have -- at a minimum -- learned how to ride a bike, swim and play an instrument.  I also want to learn how to ride a motorcycle, take at least one flying lesson and skydive.  I will, of course, regale you all with my adventures.  I'm sure you can't wait to hear all about them .... :-)

How to Turn Any Failure Into Success

I was transferring my list of contacts from one e-mail account to another when I saw something that made my stomach clench:  the list of agents to whom I had sent a query regarding my book "The Five Lives of Mimi."  It was not an extensive list -- about 10 people, but it was enough to sour my day and make me feel like a failure.

I quickly logged off the account and tried to occupy myself with something else.  But my mind kept going back to that list.  And the more I thought about it, the crappier I felt.

Fast forward a few hours and I come across this article:  How to Turn Any Failure into Success by Martha Beck.  Ms. Beck basically says that in order to appreciate success, one must first wallow through failure.  She talks about how -- sometimes -- the best reponse to a perceived failure is not "oh no!" but to say "oh well ..." and keep moving.  She provides an example from her own life about how her love of drawing turned to despair and loathing after an art teacher ordered her to draw only with a drafting pen in his class.  Having never been exposed to the instrument before, she simply could not get it to work the way she wanted it to.  Of course, after thousands of tries, she learns to draw with the pen and creates an award-winning work of art.

I know I am missing something in my quest to get Mimi published.  I am obviously not using the right words to pique the agents' interest or not approaching the right people.  (Or, as my friend Katia and I sometimes discuss, it may simply be a matter of waiting for divine timing.)  Whatever it is, that "failure" is sticking in my craw.  I hate it.  But until I get over it and unless I keep sending those letters not knowing whether I will get the courtesy of a response, I will never know the sweet taste of success.

Til Death Do Us Part

Chris Rock has a funny bit in a comedy routine where he talks about being married.  He says – and I’m paraphrasing – that there comes a time in every marriage when the wife is going to wish the husband dead.  He says that he has caught his wife looking at him plenty of times where he can almost see the thought bubble above her head “I wish he would just drop dead right now.  I won’t have to deal with a divorce or a custody battle.  Just drop dead!  Drop dead, drop dead, drop dead!”

I have been there.  In a comedy routine, it is funny; in real life, it is not.

Two days ago, I picked up a pen, found an old journal and started writing again.  Before that day, I hadn’t journaled in over four years.  Giving up journaling was traumatic for me.  It was as if someone had pressed the “mute” button on my brain. I no longer had an outlet where I could vent my feelings, my disappointments, my anger, safely.  But I had to stop, because my privacy was breached and when I wrote, I no longer knew whether I was writing what I actually felt or if I was writing for an audience.

As a child, I was not encouraged to express myself.  Children were seen and not heard.  So I wrote.  I would internalize everything and when it got to be too heavy a burden, I would lay it down on paper.  That is how I dealt.

Then I met Big Bren.  Big Bren and I were like oil and vinegar.  If he said “up,” I said “down.”  If he said “black,” I said “white.”  We clashed constantly.  But instead of walking away from him and finding someone with whom I was more compatible, I continued to subject myself to him.  And so, I wrote.  I wrote all the things I could not tell him.  When I felt my anger spiraling out of control, I wrote some more.  But still I stayed.  And the more I tolerated, the more he piled on.  There was no pleasing him.  He became controlling.  One day, he smashed my computer screen because he reviewed my browsing history and didn’t like some of the websites I had visited.  He shredded a $300 coat I bought him because we got into an argument.  He poked fun of me for meditating.  One time, we went on vacation and on the flight back, I fell asleep and leaned onto his shoulder; he elbowed me awake.  I wrote this all down.  (I'm sure that if he was a writer, he'd be writing about me as well.  He ticked off my mother one day when she was making him coffee at her house.  She asked him how he wanted it.  His reply:  "Like my woman -- dark and bitter."  He would probably also tell of the time soon after we started dating when he told me me was going on vacation and I called my friend Nycol up and we followed him.  Or when I threw a glass at him because I heard him concluding a telephone conversation with "I love you, too" and thought he was speaking to another woman; he was -- his mother.  Or when I attached a GPS tracker to his car.) 

Then, one day, he discovered my journals.  At first, it was a hidden treasure for him.  He could get a sneak peak into my mind without my knowing he had been there.  Then, his need to control took over and he began “answering” my journal entries.  If I said something nasty about him, there would be a corresponding response.  In one I wrote, “I need to get out of this relationship.”  He responded, “don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.”

Every time I got a new hiding place for my journal, he found it.  He was completely invested in controlling everything about me, including my thoughts.  After we had the baby, it seemed to get worse.  Now he had a little person to control me with.  When I wrote entries to my son, he ripped them out. 

So I stopped writing.  And that is when the “I wish him dead” thoughts started.  That and the recurring depression, over-eating and corresponding weight gain.  I prayed he would die and I would get a chance to meet someone and be happy for once.  I prayed he would die before my son became aware of how truly dysfunctional his parents’ relationship was.  I prayed he would stop breathing in his sleep and simply die.  I didn’t want him to suffer.  I didn’t want him to get killed.  I just wanted him to die!  I didn’t feel like I had the will power or the wherewithal to walk away from him, but well, if he died …

I’ve said before that God doesn’t always answer our prayers the way we want Her to, but She always listens.  Shortly after I started praying for that man to die, things began to change in my marriage.  It was as if a film had been lifted from my eyes and I was able to really see for a change.  I began to notice that when I didn’t speak up for myself (because I was pouring everything into a journal), his behavior escalated.  He was exactly like a child seeking attention.  I realized that the closer I was to the truth about a matter, the louder he yelled and the more hateful he became.  If I challenged him on something trivial, the stakes became higher and higher, with no winners.  And underneath all the bravado, he was a frightened little boy who was afraid that I would reject him and leave him all alone.

As all of this became clear to me, I began to change as well.  Instead of spewing hatred at him for all the things he didn’t do, didn’t have and couldn’t provide, I began to appreciate all the things he did do and continues to do for our household.  Instead of automatically responding with an opposing view to everything he said, I began to think first and answer second.

Those relatively minor things have made all the difference in our putrefying marriage and have given it a new life I didn’t think he was going to live to see.  As sure as I sit here, the man that he was is dead and gone.  Just as I have laid the old crazy version of me to rest.  Which is a good thing, because the woman I am now would not tolerate the ill treatment of yesteryear; and I hope that who he is now would not be attracted to a loony bitch.  These days, we most definitely still have our fights; old habits (on both our parts) die hard.  But when I see either or both of us engaging in the old behaviors, I can stop the pattern now before the downward spiral.  The result is that I feel like I can write again.  This blog was the beginning of my renaissance – the permission I needed to give myself to speak freely again.  He no longer feels the need to read my journals (or even this blog), but if he does, there is nothing that I haven’t already told him. 

Long live my husband.

Update 9/30/11:  I was telling Big Bren about this post and how I'd written about all the crazy things we did to each other.  He looked at me, smiled wistfully and said, "Yeah, we had a really passionate relationship."  Aaaarrrgggghhhhh!

I went to a taping of "The View"

My friend Nycol was clearly ready for her close-up.

I was "thisclose" to Babs.



 It was a really good show (Michael Moore was on).  It's always good to get a reminder that there is more to life than the day-to-day.

Michael Moore is looking like his old self again (make of that what you will).  :-)

Vacation Pics

I took Bren to Honduras this Summer purportedly to get in touch with his roots. 

 We didn't get around to much root touching, but we certainly had fun trying ... :-)

Back to School

History Repeats ...

 I remember being 25.  I had graduated from law school and had passed the Bar exam on my first try.  I felt invincible -- like I could do anything.

One day around that time, all my siblings and I were at our parents' house in the Bronx.  It was some occasion and we were all there at the same time.  The conversation was flowing and I don't remember how we got to regrets and failed hopes, but my father said something to the effect of that if he didn't have to work his whole life to support his family, he would have gone to school and studied philosophy or become a lawyer.  The sadness with which he said it silenced the whole room.  It was a rare glimpse into his psyche; and it made me feel as if he had sacrificed himself and his dreams for us.

When I couldn't bear the silence any longer, I said "Why don't you go to school now?  We are all grown and out of the house.  There's nothing stopping you from following your dreams now." 

He looked at me like I was a fool.  I will always remember his response:  "It is too late for me.  I am too old now."  And, as he always does when the conversation gets heavy or uncomfortable, he walked out of the room and didn't come back.  My father was 55 at the time.

The other day, Brendan and I were cuddling in bed, as we do every night before his bedtime.  He suddenly turned to me and said, "Mommy, you look a little sad and tired.  Are you not happy?"  I looked at him a little sharply.  Who would've thought 7 year olds could be so perceptive?

"I'm happy now," I said, obviously deflecting the question.  He looked at me again.  "Do you like being a lawyer, Mommy?"  A slight pause on my end.  "Sometimes," I finally answered.  He was quiet for a few minutes, then: "What would you do if you could do any kind of job in the world, Mom?"  No pause this time, "I would write full-time.  And I would be involved in the entertainment business somehow, either writing television shows or movies or even acting."

He scrambled to sit up and grabbed my face in his little hands.  "So why don't you do it, Mommy?"  My immediate response:  "Well, baby, I'm too old now." 

I am forty years old.  A full 15 years younger than my dad was when we had our conversation.  As those words left my mouth, I realized that they weren't true.  There is always time to do an about-face if you know you are going down the wrong path.  There is always time to reassess and get clear.  And there is always time to dream and have faith that those dreams will come true.

So, now, a month before my 41st birthday, I hereby re-commit to my dreams.  Not my childhood dreams, but the dreams I have now as a woman.  I vow to lead my son by example.  How can I tell him that all things are possible for him, but live with my own personal failure?  I don't want him to learn that when things don't happen right away, you simply give up.  I want him to be a fighter and for that, I am getting up and getting back in the ring.       

Everything you should know about kids, but no one bothered to tell you

In honor of a good friend who just recently had a little one, I am republishing this:

 

Everything you should know about kids ...

• Whoever coined the term “sleeps like a baby” to mean deep, restful sleep probably never had children. Sleeping babies are the most unrestful beings you will ever witness. Not only do they wake up every few hours to eat, but while they are actually sleeping, they: flail their arms (sometimes hitting themselves in the face and waking themselves up); they twist and turn; they whimper and cry; and they pee and poop.
• The “Terrible Twos” last from 18 months until 18 years.
• A two year old will refuse to eat anything you make, but if Grandma makes it, it’s going down without a fight.
• At some point in his life, your son will want to be a princess for Halloween.
• All young kids are fascinated by poop.
• A three-, and even a four, -year-old does not mind spending the day with a piece of crap stuck to his bottom.
• Speaking of which, before your child turns 3, make sure you buy stock in Fruit of the Loom. I cannot tell you the number of briefs that went straight from my son’s bottom into the trash can.
• You will understand every single word that comes out of your two-year-old’s mouth, even when it sounds like complete gobbly-gook to everyone else.
• "Home Decor" to children means figuring out where to stick the boogers: the wall or the ceiling. Bunk beds are perfect for ceiling-booger decor.
• Once the kid comes out, your body fat migrates to parts of your body where you didn’t think fat could exist. I have back fat now. Enough said.
• The skin literally falls off your nipples within three weeks of starting to breastfeed your bundle of joy. Oh, and by the way, that hurts. A lot.
• After feeding a child with your breasts, you will never look at them the same way again. (Your navel will be able to look directly at them, but you won’t. Never. Again.)
• Talking about breasts, you might want to refrain from telling a four-year-old what breasts are really for. That is unless you don’t mind him screaming in the middle of A&P, “Mommy, why can’t I drink milk from your breasts anymore???”

Despite all of the above, you will love your child(ren) more than life itself. You love them so much, it’s actually scary. So maybe, just maybe, it makes it all worthwhile. :-)