Being Super Stupid, or Why I'm Super Stupid

Another front runner for the title is "How Come I Keep Being SO Super Stupid?"

Here's how it works: You have a life experience and you think it sucks, so you decide to learn from it. Oh my, you ARE a grown up, aren't you? Now you can walk away from it and think very highly of yourself for a little bit as you puff up you chest and marvel in your own solid footing as a citizen of the earth.

And then some time passes and you fall back into being some kind of idiotic jackal of a human being and make all the same mistakes over again. Just this week I did like five things that I have sworn to never ever do again. For instance, this morning I ate bread pudding for breakfast which makes me feel like I've eaten seven bricks - the old skool kind, too; not today's new fangled bricks that crumble at the first magnitude 2.3 earthquake....

I got a tetanus shot on Friday and that flew directly in the face of my vow to never bow to peer pressure again and let anyone poke me unless we were in love. I mean, I didn't even know the nurse's name. And now my arm really hurts, which proves that being invasively poked by a stranger and allowing foreign fluids into your body NEVER works out well.

When making a meal plan for the week I have been determined to KEEP IT CHEAP. And yet, if you look carefully, there is shrimp on the menu. Shrimp! Like I'm a Rockefeller or something. (Also, like it's 1940...because who the hell are the Rockefellers anyway? I want to be a Kardashian, don't I? Or a baseball player's wife...God, I'm so stupid.) Anyway, shrimp.

And then there are the walls I keep walking right into. Not real walls, because I have eyeballs and a sense of space and time. At least on most days. No, the walls I mean are the ones I have constructed for my own frigging well being. The ones placed there when all the stars aligned to show me that my path need not go that way and I had four available brain cells to agree with the stars. Those walls.

Some days I walk by and think, "What dumbass put a wall right there? Imma take a look at what's on the other side." This is called "Being Super Stupid." It's "Why I'm Super Stupid." And it causes me to ask, "How Come I Keep Being SO Super Stupid?" Because I really never like what's on the other side of the wall I created for my own good health.

And then I end up getting arm STDs, buying shrimp and eating bread pudding for breakfast.

This one has it all: a wall, an STD, and peer pressure. 

Keeping up

Lisa Congdon drew this.

You know what's really difficult? Living an authentic life. You know what else is really difficult? Hang on. I'm going to make a list because
A) It's easier.
B) It's too much to explain in paragraph form.
C) I got a lot of things that are really difficult and just telling you "why list making is easier" is easier to do in a list.

So here we go, in no particular order except the order that I think of them, which might mark them as "in order of importance," but I don't know. My brain doesn't function in Excel.

The schedules of my family.
I find their schedules to be ridiculously hard to track. When is Husband going to be late from work? When is he leaving early for a meeting? When is he out of town? When is Boy1 to be at his one sport? When is Boy2 to be at his only sport? If I have managed to keep three friends, when have I committed to seeing them? Am I going to yoga? What day is it? We are not, by any stretch of the AMERICAN imagination, an over-scheduled family. Each child is allowed to choose one spring and one fall sport. Summers and winters are off seasons for extra-curriculars. This marks me as a wildly lazy mother and yet....I still can't keep up. Is there something fundamentally wrong with my brain? It's possible, but there's no effing way I can make it to the doctor to find out. When am I scheduling THAT??

The school work of my children.
"Uh, hang on," you say, "Aren't kids supposed to be in charge of their own schedules lest we become 'helicopter parents'?" (For the uninitiated, a "helicopter parent" is like the worst insult these days. It indicates that you micro-manage the small people whose very future you're charged with shaping.) I'm supposed to let Boy1 and Boy2 fall flat on their faces and feel failures now, while the stakes are low, rather than later on when they'll undoubtedly land in jail because I made sure that their homework was on time. Of course, the natural flip side to this Wild Boy mentality is that I'm a fantastic failure if the boys actually DO fall flat on their faces. Because honestly. What kind of parent A) raises a child who falls flat on his face? and B) lets her child fall flat on his face in abject failure? Don't we all know that small things to us are big things to them? And allowing them to fail because WE FAILED to provide the firm structure and guidance is the very definition of derelict parenting. I can't keep up with which parenting model is the right one.

Being true to myself.
--This includes, but is not limited to, letting go of the expectations of others, demanding my own good health and practicing what I preach...say, like in the blog directly preceding this one.
Oh sure, I talk a good game, but crawl inside my head at 3am on any night of the week and you'll find me berating myself for something I did or said to someone my freshman year in high school. Or last week. Or at any point between right now and the moment I have a first memory of getting a bath in a sink at Aunt Dottie's house. If I have said it or done it, or let's face it NOT done it (because I kill myself over things I should have said or done) then please believe I am mentally pistol whipping myself on a fairly regular basis. Live zen? Channel Buddha? I'll put that on the schedule I can't keep up with, m'kay?

Although here's the thing:
I think I must be doing something right. Even though I fail a lot of people, a lot of the time, there must be times when I'm getting it right. Sure Boy1 is going to fail his 40-books reading requirement. He did last year, he's going to this year. He loves reading books that don't count towards his forty...like manga and online publications where he learn fifty different things I never knew about light refraction. He'll decide one day, at age 11, to get his first job delivering papers, all on his own; seeing it through, and introducing himself to every neighbor he meets along the way. Boy2 may be a soccer-ball hog, and an emotional roller coaster, but at age 8, he knows everything there is to know about Leonardo da Vinci . And he'll see a friend get out of a car with an armful of books and ask to help carry them. And somehow, fifteen years later, I'm married to the same man with no signs of stopping. He's still the guy I like to hang out with on a Friday night. Or a Wednesday night.

I have a few friends who get it about me. They know I need the kind of open door policy where we just ARE friends. Six days, six months or six years between conversations. And they know that the hard shell on top is just protecting the totally exposed underbelly where my feelings and heart reside.

So yes. Keeping up is so hard to do that one really needs to make a list of the ways it's practically impossible. But maybe it's not about keeping up. And here's a lesson I should probably write on a sticky note and post everywhere that my eyes wander: Life is about letting go.

Because I'm only me and I can only do what I can do in the moment I can do it. Maybe there are people ten times stronger than me, who think in Excel, who thrive in chaos and busy-ness, who seek constant motion and light and sound. But I'm not one of them. I need quiet and calm, slow and peaceful.

I bow out. Again. The reminder is that we have only ourselves (and maybe whatever god we might believe in) to honor and serve. Will it really matter on our dying day that we got our children to seventeen different sporting events and made all the cookies, and went to every dinner party and kept the cleanest house, if the life we reflect upon wasn't OURS? If I'll never know when the cancer cell is going to explode or when the other driver will plow into me, I'd better get to living my life. Because it's the only one that's going to count when it's over.

On letting go

For a while now I've been doing some work. It's the kind of work that takes place mostly inside my psyche and sometimes shows on the outside. As an example, I have spent a fair amount of mental energy examining my habits and responses to external problems and as a result I've lost about 20-25 pounds depending on the day.

But that's just one example. It's the most visibly dramatic. It's hardly the most important, however.

I've been letting go of many things in the past few years and I don't see signs of stopping; since we're always works in progress. Letting go is allowing me to be a better me, even if some of the losses are difficult.

Here are the top three things that I'm changing or ditching in an effort to live a longer, more peaceful and true life for myself.

I do not owe anyone anything.

As we go through our years we find that we develop friendships and other relationships which are based on many different things. Sometimes it's as simple as a bloodline, but also humor, shared sadness, or a common goal. And as we travel our lives we think that the favors we've done or the stories and secrets we've shared somehow entitle us to something from one another. I have learned that I am happier when my relationships are based on feelings of trust, compatibility and whatever the opposite of "relationship debt" is. No one owes me anything that they cannot give freely and I, in turn, owe them nothing that isn't freely given. This is, perhaps, the most difficult lesson to realize because we tend to feel owed.

People often remark that a friend should do something, offer something, be something to another, because of history or because of what they feel they've invested of themselves into another. This is so unfair. People can give what they can give. And score keeping helps no one. When people have expected more than I can give I have had to step back and understand that it is not a reflection of me, or them, that I can't be the friend they want. (Disclaimer: a dear friend told me this very lesson, when I sought her opinion for absolution.) 

It's okay to determine that your own peace and happiness are strengthened by letting go of relationships where you can't be what the other person needs. In this way you accept responsibility not only for your own role, but for your own happiness. And even if it's sad and difficult, it's liberating. I have found this to be the Golden Rule of my own peace and happiness.

I owe myself my own good health.

I'm a mom, so naturally my gut instinct is to take care of my children first and foremost. Here's what I've learned lately, however: when we don't care for ourselves first, it really is true that we serve no one. This sounds so very, very selfish and self-involved but there's a fine line that has to be traveled. If you do it right you're a better person for those around you. When I was pregnant with my younger son, my mother was dying. Midwives tried (in vain) to have me care for myself. What could I do? I certainly couldn't demand that my needs for rest and nutrition would come before my dying mother's needs. Could I? At any rate, I didn't, and I had frightening pre-term labor that threatened a premature birth. During my sixth month she died and in that sad, sad time, I had nothing left to do but care for myself and my older son. 

I couldn't stop to learn the lesson then, but in the years since her death I've reflected on that time and I know I could have taken steps to find more space for myself, my needs and those of the baby boy growing inside me. Who knows how things might have changed had I been more selfish for us. But this lesson is not learned too late. In the past few years I have found that demanding time for writing, for yoga, for reading is worth it in ways I cannot measure. Sometimes it means not doing laundry after the boys go to bed. Sometimes it means that dinner dishes wait until the next day to be washed. Sometimes it means shutting the bedroom door and taking five minutes to breathe. To breathe. 

We forget to breathe and it's the most important thing we do all day. 

I have let go of expectations for myself that aren't mine.

This sort of seems like a repeat of my new Golden Rule, but it's different. The expectations that I am talking about the ones imposed upon me, mostly by society at large. A few years ago I felt really defeated by not being at the top of a career. In fact a few years ago I was still floundering, trying to decide just what it is I want to be when I grow up. It seemed like a giant let-down to "just" be a mom. Maybe I was doing a disservice to the bold and brave feminists before my time who gave so much, so I could do anything I wanted, just to "settle" for being a mom. Although, what if being a mom is my best life and not giving it my all in trade for some career is going to leave me feeling wasted and sad? 

And really, who cares? Who besides me, my partner and my children cares? The honest answer is no one. Everyone else is far too busy laboring along their own paths to be looking at me and my choices. So ultimately I can't make choices based on what I think others might want of me. I have to make my choices based on how I'm going to feel at the end of my days. 

I'm not a famous anything. I'm not a superstar writer. I'm not the best mom or wife who ever lived. But I am as good as I can be, and always trying my best to get better. Friendships are growing stronger and more equal, and calm days and nights with more satisfaction find me smiling more often. In the last blog, I decided that less would mean more and that luxury could be found by living with fewer expectations and simpler possessions. 

Not everyone approves of this path I'm taking, but if I apply my own rules correctly that's okay. I can allow them to disapprove of me, even dislike me, for living a life that doesn't make sense to them. It's okay to let someone travel their own path without you. My goal now is to find the people who can travel with me, without expectations and without keeping score. When I stop keeping track for myself, I find peace and true happiness.

And that, I believe, will lead to a life well lived.

Where is my luxury?

A few months ago my sweet Grandma died. She was in her nineties, the exact number being in dispute because she knows (I'm sorry, knew) she was named for a statue brought to her little Italian village the year she was born. Her birth certificate said differently. Who even cares, right?

Since her death a few things have come up and they've really made me change the way I think about my own life and my place in other people's lives. Some things are far too personal to put here, or anywhere else in fact. Some of the lessons will reside in my heart and mind - just for me. But one particular thing happened today and has stayed with me all day. And THIS lesson wants to be out.

My Grandma Rita was a woman of meager finances. And few material wants. She grew up in the early 1900's, in Italy, with less than nothing: not much food, very few clothes, no fancy furniture or luxury items. She really grew up in what we would consider almost abject poverty. She had a potato for a doll at one point!! This kind of life delivered a woman who worked hard, took exceptional care of the belongings she did have and gave her a solid grasp of what is needed to be happy. In fact, I don't think she cared much about the difference between want and need because, in her estimation, if your needs are filled what's left to want?

But after she died I went into her bedroom and saw something rather remarkable on her dresser. It made me stop right there in my tracks.

A bottle of (almost empty) Chanel No. 5 perfume.

I brought it home and put it on my own dresser where it has remained until today. Today I opened it up and put some on. A few lessons were learned VERY QUICKLY. They are as follows:

1- No matter what else anyone thinks, for me, Chanel No. 5 smells like old ladies. Because as it turns out Grandma always wore Chanel No. 5. And so the smell of this perfume makes me think of a sweet Italian lady, serving mounds of al dente pasta and giving me espresso soaked sugar cubes.

2- My grandmother always had one lavish indulgence in her possession, for as long as I ever knew her.

3- I am a spoiled rotten brat of a white girl living in the glut of self-pity and envy that is the current climate of middle-class American society.

Here's the thing. I can't look at my life and find one single thing that FEELS like this perfume must have felt to her. There is no place for me to rest my thoughts where I feel decadent and pampered like no other. Everywhere I look in my life I see excess, and consumerism gone awry. I have the newest phone, the newest laptop, the fashionable designer jeans, the boots that everyone else has, the jewelry that I see in magazines and on TV...you know, the flat screen HDTV I'm supposed to have. My whole life is a veneer of having it all.

And what I'm missing is feeling like any single one thing counts for more than its surface quality. I've spent all day thinking about what I possess, about how the things I own make me feel when I touch them or use them. There is nothing that comes readily to mind that imparts a feeling of lavishness or decadence. There is so much all the time that none of it has any deep meaning. So among all of the lessons my grandmother taught me in her long and wonderful life of poverty and grace, she has left a very valuable lesson in death.

I doubt she knew that her Chanel No. 5 was going to be a gift to me, that this small bottle of mostly used perfume would teach me so much about gratitude, but it has. Because when I put it on my neck this morning, I felt like maybe I was being extravagant - using something with very a finite amount. No matter how many other bottles I might ever buy, only this one will be the one she looked upon and used as a small, delicious luxury. And so it felt like a small, delicious luxury to me.

And now I want less. So that I can have more.

Role model wanted

LUCAS JACKSON / REUTERS

Once again a hero has fallen from grace. Lance Armstrong is finally coming clean about something from which even his most ardent supporters were probably having trouble defending him. And everyone is up in arms about how we were duped, how he lied, and about how much time he spent riding the coattails of the Livestrong foundation.

I'm not sure why we can't separate the talent from the person. There is no actual logical reason why a sports phenom MUST be a good person who stands up to society's moral codes. In politics, one can navigate the halls of Congress with dexterity and influence positive measures and still be a total bastard. A surgeon can save lives time and again through careful precision and a sharp eye and still be an abusive parent who embezzles money from the hospital. Moral fiber and skill in something are not required to live together.

And I'm not certain that the hypocrisy lies with the "offender." I believe the hypocrisy lies in us. We simply do not ever once allow for humanity in our heroes, and we continually confuse the art with the artist.

I don't believe Lance Armstrong should be honored for his role as a cyclist. I think it's right to strip him of his titles and competition should never be open to him again despite any effort to set the record straight. There is no amount of apologizing that will restore the lives he's crushed with the machinery of his denial. But I'm not sure why a dude who can pedal a bike is so glorified anyway. I'm not sure why a dude who carries an oblong ball fifty yards is a national treasure. I don't know why a skilled guitarist is a paragon of character. Entertaining, yes. Valued, yes.

But no one should be asked to stand on some kind of impossibly high moral ground just because of something they can DO. Lance Armstrong is an asshole, no doubt. He's a egotistical blow hard who got all wrapped up in himself and his "art." But he's not a monster. He used his name (and our eager, frothing love of him) to do good for cancer research and that is still desperately needed. The two sides of Lance Armstrong don't offset each other obviously, but they really don't need to.

We shouldn't keep confusing the art with the artist. The cycling and the charity are two different things. And he's one man, complete with a staggering array of good qualities and bad. I think that's really all of us, if we're remotely self-aware. Maybe we should look for heroes made of strong moral fiber rather than strong muscular fiber. If we can't do that we need to be honest and admit that the content of a man's character is not our measuring stick for the position of role model.

In any event, the truth is that we can't have it both ways.