Forced

Photo:  solarroadways.com

I had a completely different post lined up for today.  I spent a considerable amount of time on it too.  But, I ditched it.  Because, while it was funny, it was also forced.

I knew it from the beginning and it unsettled me.  But,  I plowed on despite my misgivings.  Investing more time.  Cultivating and tweaking, wanting to craft it into something it never was and was never capable of being.

Every step of the way I heard the voice inside my head.  And every step of the way, I disregarded it and plowed right on through to the next step. And when I was done and still wasn't comfortable with it, I contemplated publishing it anyway. For hours.  After all, I'd put so much work into it.

Why the hell would I do that?

I've learned this lesson so many times over and over again.  Or I thought I did.  Listen to your gut.  Be authentic. Forget arbitrary deadlines, meaningless statistics, stupid popularity contests and promoting sales.  Nothing, especially a cheap laugh, is worth the price of feeling disingenuous.  

Maybe, just maybe I've finally learned that now.

Non-Asthmatic

 (David McNew, Getty Images )

There's a stigma being a doctor's wife.  People think I know things.  Medical things.  Like I get some secret medical knowledge by sleeping with my husband. I don't.  I can give you a laymom's opinion, but it comes with a disclaimer.  And that is:  But what the hell do I know?

I myself do not know anything about medicine.  I don't have to.  I have the best medical reference on call 24/7.  My husband.  But the thing is, he's also my husband, which means I sometimes doubt his medical advice.  Simply because I also sleep with him.  

So about 5 years ago when I developed a shallow cough that wouldn't go away, he diagnosed me quickly.  "You have asthma.  Here's an inhaler." To which I defensively replied,  "I DON'T  have asthma! So, I don't need an inhaler."

When we moved to Morocco, my cough suddenly and mysteriously completely disappeared for two and a half years.  Cured!  But when we returned to the dry, under oxygenated air of Colorado it returned.  I get long coughing fits.   And I'm sure it causes the general public to question whether I have tuberculosis.  And whether they should call the Center for Disease Control and have me quarantined.  

"I STILL DO NOT HAVE ASTHMA!"

I am nothing, if not stubborn.  Until this past weekend.  When I went to a friend's birthday party.  And coughed for 6 hours.  SIX HOURS!  Of course I didn't have an inhaler.  Of course I didn't tell anyone I needed one.  Of course I just kept coughing.  Until the very end of the night when I admitted defeat and asked my husband if he had an inhaler with him.  You know, for my non-asthma.  

(My husband brought me an inhaler and patiently guided me through using it like a child during the writing of this post.  Because I am a child.  A stubborn child.  An asthmatic stubborn child. Thank god he's used to this, because he's a pediatrician after all. )

MY NAME IS MARIE AND I HAVE ASTHMA.

Meet the Parents

It's that time of year when the kids are back to school, providing me some relief from the constant whining and sibling rivalry of the summer.  But it also kicks my anxiety into high gear.   Because school brings kids, teachers, coaches and parents. In other words, humans.  And forces me into situations where I must meet and talk to new people.  People who don't know I'm desperately shy and socially anxious.  And that this is the reason I'm not making eye contact or small talk and I've placed myself at the the back of the room.  Or my back is turned to them.

Making me appear to be a snobby bitch.  

(Which I'm not by the way.  Really.)

I have tried to be more social and stop the vicious cycle.  Over and over again.  But, if you're not a shy introvert (yes, one can be an introvert and not be plagued with shyness)  you may not know how physically painful and completely exhausting social interactions can be.  And that for me to have enough reserve energy to feign "normal", I need pre-event downtime to mentally prepare.  And downtime after to process it.  Or in other words, a generous post interaction period to berate myself for all the stupid things I said and dwell on what I should have said instead in hindsight.

But I don't have this time because I'm busy!

(Ok, I admit, I DO always make time for the berating portion.)

So, while I have developed an innate skill for avoiding pleas for PTO members, room moms, field trip volunteers or anything else that requires human interaction, getting to know moms so they will allow their kid to have a play date with my kid is a priority.  To do this, I must convince them I'm not the serial killer I may appear to be at first meeting.    

Which of course, leads right back to the beginning.

(This may take the whole school year....)

Suggested Reading:  My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel

                                     Quiet by Susan Cain

Bedtime Stories

Photo Credit:  www.channel4.com

There comes a great turning point in parenting.  And that is when your kids begin to stay up later than you.  And then sleep until noon.  And you can't stop yourself from getting up at 6am out of routine.  The same routine those kids got you into when they were little, which probably started at 5am when they woke up and you swore you weren't going to allow them to get out of bed until the magic hour of 6am.  But you did anyhow.  Because you were helpless to prevent it.  Much like you are now.

It used to be mornings of chaos.  Waking to the demands of small tyrants.  Oatmeal!  Toast!  Why don't you ever buy the good cereal?  Now, come Monday when school starts, I will drag my kids sorry, grumpy asses out of bed.  They will drink coffee.  I will beg them to eat before they go to school.  I will buy any cereal to get them to do this.  They won't.  They're teenagers.  

But, at night I'm slumped on the couch nearly comatose at 9pm.  Who am I kidding?  8pm.   Gone are the days of reading soothing bedtime stories to lull them to sleep.   Now they're energized at night.  And they want to watch Shark week right before bed.  And then tell me how they suddenly need a protractor for school tomorrow. Really?  They didn't need a protractor at 3pm when they came home from school?  Are you kidding me?  The only thing I'm doing at this time of night is going to bed!

When exactly did I turn into an old person?

I think it starts the second you have a kid and your life is dictated by a petite but powerful dictator.  You try to have your own life.  To keep doing the things you did before kids.  Late night concerts, last minute road trips and romantic evenings in the privacy of your own home.  But, it's a losing battle.  It will break you eventually.  This is what parenting does.  It gives you gray hairs and makes you say phrases your parents said to you, that you swore you would never say.  It makes you old.   And you're just too damn busy and exhausted to notice.

This is the circle of life.  

Teenage Dream

Image from:  www.relationship-economy.com

It's dangerously close to the end of summer. And you know how near the end of anything that thing seems to become nearly intolerable.  Like my kids on summer break.  The complaining, the fighting.  the angst and the need to be chauffeured in opposite directions of town at the same exact time. But, that's not the worst of it.  The worst is two little seemingly innocent words that enrage me beyond words.

 "I know." 

My house is a barrage of 'I knows'.  From morning until night.  Miraculously, my kids know everything.  It's true.  However, they don't do anything with all this 'knowing'.  So while they constantly parrot, "I know", I constantly parrot back another two words. "Show me".  

But they never do.

It's frustrating as hell and a legacy handed down from generation to generation.  I remember delivering the same words, with the same definitive, degrading snark to my mom.  Absolutely positive that she was an idiot, who didn't understand anything.  Exactly like my kids do to me.  

KARMA IS SUCH A BITCH.

I wish I could tell my mom how sorry I am I was such a pain in the ass teenager.

Because I now have pain is the ass teenagers of my own.

And I'm positive she'd simply say, "I know." 

Unsleeping Bag

When you really think about it, our national obsession with camping sounds pretty stupid.  Leaving our perfectly comfortable homes, packing up half of it to sleep outside in utter discomfort among the bear infested forests.   Wait.  Why do we do this again?  Oh yeah, because this is fun.

That's why we headed up to 10,000 feet elevation.  Because apparently, 7,000 feet sleeping in your own bed isn't fun enough.  

At the beginning of the trip, it does seem fun. Kind of.  For a few brief seconds, after you've packed the car full, gone through the checklist in your mind a few hundred times and assured yourself, yes, I have packed enough alcohol to keep me warm even if I forgot my wool socks and hat.  Which is right before you get there and have to set every tent, tarp and sleeping bags at warp speed racing the impending rain.  Cause there is always impending rain.  And it's a much worse threat than the bears.  After all, getting eaten by a bear would just put you out of your misery.

After camp setup then there's making the dinner, cleaning up after it and starting the bundling process when the sun goes down and the marshmallows make their gooey, messy debut insuring you won't be able to find where the hell you packed the wet wipes.   Then, it'll be time to head to your tent to bed down for the night in your sleeping bag.  Oh sure, it seemed warmed and cozy when you packed it up sweating in 80 degree weather.  But now that it's 40 outside, it seems more like a wet blanket.

That's when you realize that what seemed like a flat place to put the tent is not in fact flat.

And that you can't sleep in the fetal position all night to keep yourself warm without cramping up.

And that rolling over in a sleeping bag while trying to keep your wool hat and socks on while trying not to be strangled by your 5 layers of clothes ending in a hoodie without getting intricately twisted like a long strand of cold, black licorice is impossible.  IMPOSSIBLE I SAID!

So that whole delusion of sleeping in the cool mountain air under the stars, with the lullaby of the mountain stream?  It's complete bullshit. 

Sleeping bag?  Check.
5 layers of clothes?  Check.
Wool hat? Check.
Eye bags from not sleeping?  Check.

So the next morning, when Craig rolled over and asked, "How'd you sleep?" 

My response was, "I haven't yet."  

And this is why I call it them unsleeping bags.

THE END.

Imposter Syndrome

Imposter Syndrome:  Tightly linked to the twin fears of failure and success, impostor syndrome is at the heart of the fear of self-promotion. Those suffering from this common syndrome are afraid that others will find out that they don't, in fact, know what they are doing at work or school, or even in their daily lives. This fear, in turn, leads sufferers to downplay or even hide their achievements and avoid climbing the professional ladder. People with this syndrome also tend to obsess about their perceived weaknesses rather than celebrating their accomplishments.

Whenever I receive compliments, I feel this way:  Like a complete and utter fraud.  'Receive' is actually the wrong word here .  'Deflect' would be far more accurate.  Because no matter how sincere and well intentioned the complimenter, I will make things awkward and uncomfortable for them.  And probably make them regret their well intentioned words by shoving it back down their throats and making them choke on them.  Metaphorically speaking, of course.

My fear of failure is constantly doing battle with my fear of success.  Making marketing my writing nearly impossible.  Anything I do, or don't, makes me feel ashamed.  Not of my writing, but the attention that may come from attempting to promote it.  The guilt over feeling the need to have people read what I wrote seems selfish.  And narcissistic.

I've been through the cycle many times.  I psych myself up.  Everyone who has a business needs to market.  I'm only informing them I have something, not shoving it down their throats.  Unless it's a compliment of course.  And the killer...Why do I feel like this is perfectly okay and necessary for everyone else to do but me?  WHY?  

So I do what I always do.  

Nothing.

Then I quietly panic.  Because I know I'm headed for failure if I keep this up.  I know my fate is to be passed over and forgotten.  And I know I'm the only person to blame.  For sabotaging myself.  But I don't know what to do about it.

Will I do what I always do?

Nothing?

Self Analysis

I've always enjoyed writing. Although, I never took any classes in how to do it.  But, when a 20 page research paper got assigned in college, I think I was the only dork mouthing "yeeeeeeessss" under my breath from the back of the class. Plus a paper meant mandatory library hours where I could go ogle (please note this is not 'google', it didn't exist then) the books on so many topics I didn't know anything about (yet) so as to feel small, insignificant and kind of stupid.  You can analyze what this this means, but I already have:  I'm self deprecating and psychotic. (By the way, I'm super excited I used a colon there.  Correctly too, I believe.)

Photo credit: rankinwriting.wordpress.com

Fast forward some 20 odd years later.  There is no library card catalog because of google. While the internet has made it easy to access information without getting out of our pajamas, it's also corrupted our short term memories and stolen our ability to spell.  Guilty as charged.  Then out of the blue it happened, the last thing anyone would expect in this day and digital age, "Would you be my pen pal?"  Old fashioned letters on paper written in long hand with thought and intent, signed, sealed and delivered after weeks of suspense. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssss!

I have not hand written more than a shopping list or accusatory notes to my kids since college.  And as my kids tell me often, I have atrocious handwriting.  Also, I don't write in cursive. Ever.  I haven't since probably junior high.  Plus, I write in all caps, like I'm shouting at the reader.  I don't know why I do this.  But I figure, it probably means I'm destined to become a serial killer or something.

Exhibit A:  Sample of my handwriting

Of course, I forewarned my pen-pal about my handwriting.   Then he reminded me he's a 7th grade language arts teacher and if he can decipher the penmanship of tweens with calloused texting thumbs and twitchy x-box fingers, he would have no problem with mine.  Touche.  (No, I don't know how to make that little apostrophe thingy on there because I'm technologically illiterate. But I would totally add it in a letter.  Just sayin'.)

It was while I was writing a letter to my pen pal, which is in the same stream of consciousness style I write this blog with, that I pondered, with pen in hand, what my penmanship or lack thereof, meant.  And I immediately logged on to the library website and ordered some handwriting analysis books for some deep self analysis.  I mean, I think I should be the first to know if I'm destined to kill someone.

The most succinct graphology guide at my library.

GOOD NEWS:  I am definitively NOT a serial killer!  But, I am an efficient, non-superfluous, spontaneous, grounded, yet private person.  I feel like my pen pal in particular should know this about me because I have his physical address and he knows I have a penchant for swords.  I will neither stab you, nor kill you slowly smothering you in useless, unnecessary words.  I do wonder if takes a red pen to my letters though...

CORRESPONDING TWEET I TWEETED LAST WEEK THAT BOMBED, BUT I LOVE:

I briefly considered organizing a 'Save Graphology' 5k run. But I'm too lazy to hand write the invitations. Never mind the t-shirts.