Since Before We Were Born

Scott and I have been friends since before we were born, except for the thirty years or so when we weren't. His parents and mine were "couple friends" and our moms were pregnant with us at the same time. I was born in April, and he was born in October, if my memory serves me correctly. We were in the playpen together. His back yard connected to my back yard. We rode bikes around the neighborhood. We played at each other's houses.

Somewhere along the way, our parents stopped socializing, but they were still pleasant enough to each other. Then, one day - maybe we were in first grade? - Scott and I had a fight. I don't even know what it was about, but he yelled at me, and said he didn't want to be my friend anymore. He said he didn't want me to come over to play anymore. I was devastated and didn't know what had happened. I sort of couldn't believe it. My heart was more or less broken. And that, as they say, was that.

That is, until about five months ago. Through Facebook, I reconnected with another guy from our class, and together with another girl who I stayed close to all these years, we decided to put together a sixth grade reunion. That Facebook guy (now a professor and published author!) gave me Scott's email address. So I emailed him about the reunion. And he wrote back. And now we've been emailing for the past five months or so, on and off.

I can't really describe how nice this is. We're not acknowledging the fact that we used to be friends, that we stopped being friends, and that we had very little contact during all our school years and what contact we did have was, in my recollection, pretty awkward and not much fun. (To be fair, though, my entire childhood until the day I set foot on my college campus was pretty awkward and not much fun.)

But he and I are not talking about any of that. We're talking about our kids, and a little bit about our families, and life. He's been a weight lifter since we were 12, and I started working out this spring, and so we talk about that. We just chat about stuff, really. Like it's the most natural thing in the world for us to be chatting.

But I feel like jumping up and down and yelling "hooray" from the rooftop! I feel the way you can imagine I'd feel about being reconnected to someone who was so important to me, who was like a cousin, when we were children. I lost this person and I never knew why, and now suddenly we're friends, sort of. It sounds totally ludicrous to confess that I've hoped for this for my whole life, not necessarily actively, but just whenever I'd think of this kid, once every year or two, I'd feel sort of a vague pang of regret that he wasn't in my life in some way, and a sense of sadness that our paths had diverged. I never really imagined that we'd become friends. But it seems that this is precisely what we're doing.

For years my life was divided into The Present (everything about my life today and for all the years I've lived in Charlottesville, which has been since 1993), College (1989-1993) and My Childhood (lived in the same house all my life, from 1971-1989, when I graduated high school. I only kept two or three friends from childhood until now. I only stayed in close touch with one or two friends from college. Most of my life, my active interests, my hobbies, my friends, have all been people or things that I developed after I graduated from college and moved here. My childhood is a painful time to remember, and I've long had this vague uneasiness that I didn't stay in touch with my college friends. Getting engaged to be married as a sophomore and moving to Charlottesville with my then-fiance, now-husband, and being in a relationship with him for the past seventeen years made it easy for me to lose touch with my college friends. My life was just different from theirs. I wasn't single; in a way I was pretty settled from the moment we threw our mortarboards in the air. My life forked off in a different direction from my college friends' lives. I kept in touch with just two or three grade school friends, but even there I didn't do as much as I could to feed and water those relationships. My three geographic locations: Queens, Middlebury, and Charlottesville, were like three separate lives, with very little overlap, socially.

Now, I'm weaving my three lives back together again, thanks to the internet and email. Because of Facebook, I'm in touch with friends from junior high school and high school that I haven't thought about in years, but the connections are joyful ones. Because of LinkedIn, I'm back in touch with college friends that I otherwise might have more or less forgotten about entirely, but now we' have new friendships forming in the here and now, with the shared experiences still behind us. It's lovely, really. All of it. Revisiting my past lives and being comfortable, grounded, and not the depressed and anxious little kid I used to be, means that I get to reincorporate parts of my past into my present without that empty feeling in the pit of my stomach of not fitting in, not measuring up, not being accepted. Now, I don't really give a crap what the kids in school thought of me, or think of me. I am who I am, and I like myself pretty well, and I can appreciate them for who they've grown up to be, too. It's nice to be making new old friends. And it's nice to not be so uncomfortable in my own skin anymore as I'm doing it.

It's great to be back in touch with the important people from my school years. None of it, though, is as nice as reconnecting with my very first friend from before we were born. I actually pinched myself the other day because I thought maybe I really was dreaming. What an incredible gift to have another chance to just hang out and be (virtually, that is) with my good old childhood friend. It's a delight to get to know him now as an adult, tiny bit by tiny bit. We keep our email chats pretty light, maybe in part because our childhood experiences (for various reasons) were so painful that we can't really go there. There's no need to process anything --- It's just nice to have him around. I feel sort of like I found my old teddy bear in a back corner of my parents' basement. Lucky, happy, joyful, comforted, amazed, full of fondness.

Life is full of interesting twists and turns and surprises, isn't it?

Someone Else's Family

This year, I'm going to go on vacation with someone else's family. No, I'm not starring in some weird new reality TV show --- I am going to practice mindful detachment when I spend a week at the beach with my parents, my siblings, and their spouses and children. I'm going to try to pretend they're someone else's family.

I love my family, even when some of my relatives drive me up a wall. But I have never been able to be detached, in a zen sort of way. This year, when someone says something that in the past I would have felt I just had to respond to, instead, I will freeze, and I'll turn into one of my friends for a minute. I'll channel one of my friends and I'll do what she would do in that moment, if she were there instead of me. Or, I'll mentally transform my aggravating family member into a member of someone else's family.

I'd never make a sarcastic crack at my friend's sister or mother, right? Hopefully this mental role-playing will help me to remember: Don't engage! Let it go! Smile and nod.

I saw a funny cartoon recently. The character was sitting at her computer calling up to her partner who was summoning her to bed. The character said something along the lines of "I can't come to bed now, honey --- Someone is WRONG on the INTERNET!"

It cracked me up, because I have had that awareness of others when I've been online. I've noticed someone else's inexplicable inability or unwillingness to let something go online. I've thought to myself, "Why do you care about this? Just turn off your computer and go do something else. Why are you letting this bother you? Why waste your time? Hit the delete button!"

Next time I find myself on the verge of retorting (and escalating things) when I'm with a family member who's annoying me, I'm going to rise above my situation and think, what would my Best Self say right now to my cartoon character self? Cartoon character self cries, "Someone is WRONG in my FAMILY!" But Best Self gently puts a hand on cartoon character self's hand and says, "That's right, dear, and it's not your job to set them straight. Just go do something else. Smile and nod. Don't engage. Don't argue. Don't let them get to you.

At least now I can literally Run Away when stuff like this happens. I'm going to wear my running shoes all week long so I can dash out the door at a moment's notice.

And no, I'm not even leaving soon. I'm just mentally preparing for this trip, three weeks in advance.

What are your pitfalls when you spend time with your family of origin? What gets your goat? And what strategies work for you to help cope with the stressful times?

Running Away

I started running on Saturday. I signed up for the Women's Four Miler Training Program and I registered for the race (at the end of August) and someone in my women's group is even having tee shirts printed. So I'm really doing this.

This morning, it felt so great to go out my door, walk down my driveway, and run almost half a mile, turn around, and come back. Okay, let me qualify that. It felt great to walk out my door and know that I was ABOUT to run almost one mile. Actually RUNNING the mile, that didn't feel so great. My legs felt like lead. My lungs and heart were working hard. My body was yelling, "What? You have GOT to be kidding. You did this once already, two days ago. Last time you did this was maybe ten years ago. You did it two or three times then and then had the good sense to never try this monkey business again. What the hell? I was counting on Saturday being some kind of aberration. You're doing this again? Please stop this nonsense. Can I go lie down yet?"

But I let those naysaying thoughts go, and I did it. And on Wednesday I'll do it again. And then again on Saturday for the weekly training run. The program for beginners that I'm following has us start with just running three days a week in the beginning, with a day or two of break in between. Thank God.

I really did get to walk out my door and "run away" this morning. I can't tell you how many times I have fantasized about doing that when my day was really hard and I had exhausted my patience and my coping skills. Running out of the house this morning was really empowering. Funny though, one of my favorite things about it was coming home and hearing my kids cheering, "Yay mommy!" from the living room. It made me forget the tantrums and the meltdowns that I had to cope with from the moment they woke up at 5:45am!

This running thing is my latest step in my journey to feel like and to practice being my Best Self. What are some projects that you've taken on, or habits you've developed or broken, that have helped you practice being your Best Self? Any advice for me on how to stick with this when I feel like quitting, as I am sure I will? I will be posting some motivational quotes on my fridge and bathroom mirror, and around my computer monitor. Your own words or the words of others - doesn't matter. Post a comment!

Ode To A Modern Husband

I had one of those "where did you FIND him?!" conversations with a perfect stranger today. You know, the kind where some woman makes a comment about how men (in general) act, and how they Never Do This or Always Do That? I'm often in the position of either smiling weakly and excusing myself to get on with my day, thinking about my own husband and how glad I am that Mr. O is not like that, or, sometimes I'll gently disagree with an "I don't know... My husband does at least half the housework, and he's an amazing parent in his own right... It's like having another mom in the household..."

I chose the latter today and left my utter stranger chatmate completely dumbfounded. Granted, she was about 20 years older than I am, so it was partially a generational thing, but I do believe that there are a lot of terrific men out there.

I get so tired of hearing women complain about men, the way people like to complain about traffic or bad weather, just to make conversation. I know a lot of great men: husbands, fathers, boyfriends, uncles, grandpas, friends. Yes, there are a lot of jerks out there, but same goes for the womenfolk too.

I guess stereotypes in general get on my nerves. Mr. O defies stereotypes:

He drives an old pickup truck with the radio station set to a country station...
...but most days he bikes to work, five miles each way. And when he gets home, he's likely to turn on NPR.

He loves Fluffernutter sandwiches...
...but he makes tamales from scratch, does a LOT of our family's cooking, and has been a vegetarian for most of his life.

He loves his workshop and his power tools...
...but he also knows how to knit a scarf.

He likes NASCAR...
...but his favorite sport is tennis. Golf might be vying for that top spot lately, though.

He once told me (before we actually started dating, many years ago) that he thought feminism was a "crock of shit"...
...but then he become one! (a feminist, that is. not a crock of shit.)

Mr. O does wonderful things. He gets off his bike on his morning commute to go rescue turtles when he sees them trying to cross a road. He has been known to help injured wildlife, bringing them to the Wildlife Center of Virginia. He is a strict label-reading vegetarian, but he doesn't say a word when a friend of his orders meat. Mr. O is a terrific man. He is sweet, kind, funny, smart, fun, patient, loving, forgiving, and rock-solid. He's politically progressive, fiercely pro-choice, opposed to racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, and so on. He's an awesome cook. He can fix things. He's a good friend: honest, loyal, and easygoing. He's curious, adventurous, and stable, all at once. He gets bashful when I tell stories about him, so I'm limited in how I can illustrate these qualities, but take my word for it. He's a gem.

I feel really lucky to be spending my life with him. And gosh golly, I just wanted to say all that.

Far From Perfect

I try to remind myself that when I totally lose my patience with my kids (especially my four year old) and yell at them, then apologize, that I'm not in fact scarring them for life but instead I'm teaching them that it's only human to be mad, to lose your patience, to have a temper tantrum (kid version or adult version) and that nobody stops loving anybody because of it.

I know not to compare my experience of my ugly underbelly of parenting with my perception of other people's families. I know that I'm not really the only parent in the world who professes to believe in positive parenting, and who really does believe in it, actually, but who then completely loses her s#!t sometimes and yells loudly at the kids when they get on Mom's last nerve. I'm sure that there are others like me. The guilt, the shame, mixed with the genuine belief/understanding that I'm a good mother, overall. I see how well-adjusted my kids are. I see how loving and kind they are. I see how happy (mostly) they are. The older one is rather melodramatic, but she's secure, and confident (mostly), interesting and smart and funny and fun. She knows she is totally adored by her parents and her sister. Little sis knows the same thing (at least, by her parents... *half smiling, half grimacing*)

But I still have fears that I'm Screwing Everything Up and that it will take decades of therapy to undo the damage I'm doing by yelling at them.

Sigh. I wish we (mothers, parents in general) talked about this more. Talking with kindred spirit moms is so helpful for me. Time for me to read some parenting books? Maybe there's one about Striving For Positive Parenting When You're The One in the Family Who's No Less Likely Some Days to Have A Tantrum as Anyone Else.