Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

I guess I'm not done talking.

So this is an awkward segue. I'm not sure there's an easy way to do this. Politics wasn't exactly the smoothest thing...

In fairness to my republican friends and readers. My father was a democrat. A racist shit head democrat but still. You'd think I'd have come away from that with some republican viewpoints, just to be as different as I could possibly be, but...yeah, there's no way.

I wrote that last post for Heather's book. I finished it last year in August right after we moved. It was the only source of stress in the month of August after the joyous day we moved into the Dream Neighborhood.

The assignment was to write about fatherhood and somehow I couldn't help it, every time I sat down it just came pouring out. It was impossible to write about Logan as a father without talking about my father. In the way I've always wanted to but rarely have.

The piece obviously wasn't a fit for the book because it's really kind of a blog post, like everything I write is.

Also, the only other piece about an abusive childhood was about coming to a place of forgiveness and understanding. I think everyone should proceed through abuse and resolving the feelings they have about it in whatever way fits for them.

I also tend to believe the world isn't nearly angry enough about child abuse. My healing process will never include forgiveness. I spent a lot of time trying to forgive my father for the insanity of what he put me through. That left me with only anger at myself and that anger left me painfully depressed and full of intense self loathing.

I know my father was a child once. I know he didn't come into this world evil. But I will never forgive him. I will never forgive my mother and I will never be at peace with what happened to me. I don't have nightmares about it anymore. I don't think about it every day. I have forgiven myself and the little girl I was.

I decided many many years ago that I would never forgive the people who failed me. Instead I would find joy in my family, happiness in my marriage and peace with my anger. Finding peace in forgiveness is not in my own plan for recovering.

So the edits on the piece for the editors...didn't go over very well.

So far the anger has gotten me pretty far and I'm comfortable with it. I'm not sure why that is so threatening to so many people?

If I could give you all a gift it would be intense rage against anyone who hurts children. Unrelenting, unending rage aimed directly at people who hurt children. I hope every time you look at your child you feel that rage bubble up inside of you and you imagine clawing the eyes out of anyone who would hurt them.

When I looked at this picture 18 years ago, I couldn't stand that little girl. I thought she was stupid and trusting and bad. That something about her was evil and made these terrible things happen to her.

Today, as a mother of a little girl, I look at that picture and I want to claw that man's eyes out. I am at peace with that feeling. That's certainly not a nice thing to say, but it is my truth.

And I want you to be okay with feeling that same kind of rage at evil.

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I wrote about the time I dropped out of high school for a couple of days when I was fifteen.

My father was furious and insisted I go back to school and also insisted I see the school crisis counselor. My father had moved out of our house at the time but several times I saw him following my school bus in the family station wagon. I had hidden from him in a drugstore once. A girl at school asked me if I was dating an older man. My father had come in to the fast food restaurant she worked at and asked if she knew Melissa Williams. He was her boyfriend.

So he was gone, but not really and I was terrified of him. My very own boogeyman driving around in a Town and Country wood sided station wagon.

The thing is I don't think he knew what he was doing when he insisted I talk to someone, or maybe he did. But I went to see the counselor at school and for a month I stared at the ground wanting to talk but being unable to even make the words come out of my mouth. And finally, very, very slowly I told him what happened to me. I told him everything. Once I started I didn't think I could stop.

Sometimes when I was telling I would only be able to whisper. Sometimes my breath would catch in my throat and I would feel like I was being suffocated for a minute in the office.

Because of legal concerns, my counselor made me tell my mother about what had happened. That went...not very well.

Within a year my father killed himself, although I still don't know if he knew I told anyone. I had no indication anyone had informed him. Somehow he did manage to hurt me another time before he died.

After that I didn't tell another person for years until Logan and I started getting serious.

Then I kept it to myself for more years. I went back to therapy a few times and revisited the topic in varying degrees.

About three years ago I told my best girlfriends and it was surprisingly healing.

After that I told my other best friends.

I had been afraid of telling anyone for 30 years and the world didn't fall apart and no one thought I was bad. Everyone believed me. Everyone kind of acted like my high school counselor (and later therapist) acted when I told. Nothing I'd feared, that had kept me from telling, happened.

Every time I've told it's been a giant reality check, with a little hug at the end. It really was that bad. I really did survive. I really am okay.

I get that again when I write about it. When I tell this part of my story, I feel more complete and understood and that is one of the things that's always driven me to write this website.

Most of my life I was "The Difficult One". The one sitting on the wall at recess instead of playing with friends in third grade. I was the one collapsing in class and ending up hospitalized. I was the one who screamed at my mother all the time. I am even now unable to have a close relationship with my mother. I was angry and sad and I didn't hide it very well to the outside world. This made my family bristle at times, I'd like to think because they didn't know the whole story.

Being able to tell the whole story of my experience in that house, it feels like screaming, "NO!"  And having people actually listen to me.

Thank you.

My immediate family, aside from my little sister, haven't responded very well to this part of my story and there are about 1000 reasons for this. Some I empathize with and feel terrible for them about. Others, I don't quite understand. I know this is hurtful information for my family. But it happened and being silent about it is helping them avoid the pain of the reality. Not me, I've lived with it my entire life. I have a right to be "selfish" about my own story.

Like my therapist told me every time I sat in his office telling him about the things that happened to me and my throat tried to close up on me. "These things already happened. That was the hard part. Saying them out loud doesn't make the things that happened to you any worse and saying them will eventually make them better."

The good news is I'm far enough along in this process I understand that the expectation I will or should keep my story to myself, or that I am somehow wrong to tell whomever I choose about what happened to me is simply false. Though I am sorry for the pain it opens up for those who are part of my family, I have not created the pain, the pain was already there. I know that for sure. We all know that for sure.

Hopefully the relationships I care about will recover from this truth. I will grieve some of them if they do not.

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I may revisit this topic from time to time as I have more things I feel I'd like to release into the world. I may not. When this happens there may be awkward segues to totally unrelated topics. But that's where my life is right now. Sharing the story of my past is something I can do now without it absorbing me in a blanket of sadness and depression.

That I can let the thought of my father as a monster live right next to my latest crafty project, I think that might be the most healed I will ever be. It is a terribly painful black part of who I am. But it is small...just like my therapist told me it would be. It keeps getting smaller and I have no doubt talking about it has done that for me.

Thank you for listening. I hope every one of you reading this who have been touched by painful childhoods in all their many forms find your way through it, as many times as you have to go through it, and find whatever "peace" is for you, for just that day.

This is a first draft.

I know very little about who my father was before he became my father. My sister has spent a lot of time collecting information about him. She's looked through all his personal belongings which were sent to my mother after he died. She's looked through all the photos he took while in Vietnam, and has even found some of the other soldiers in those pictures. Through those men she's found out tidbits about the Vietnamese woman in many of the pictures. She's looked at his death certificate and knows exactly where he shot himself to end his life. She's spent time asking my mother about him, about the way he grew up and she's learned a lot about the man he became through those stories.

I know very vague things about my father. I know he shot himself in a motel room on a road not far from where we lived when I was 16. I know he went to Vietnam but never saw actual combat, though post traumatic stress might lead you to believe otherwise. I know he was married before he married my mother at just 20 years old. He lived in a nice house in a nice part of the town I also grew up in and he attended a good Catholic high school. He was from a large family and they all had a tenuous connection which usually involved a lot of alcohol, a lot of reminiscing almost always ending in loud angry arguments over nothing I could understand. His mother died many years before I was born, in some way no one really ever talks about, and I'm not asking.

My sister has always wanted to understand our father, she was 12 when he died and 9 when my parents finally divorced and he was forcibly removed from the house. I have spent the 19 years since he died trying to forget everything about him.

My father read books to us and taught me to ride a bike. He made the very best root beer floats because he once drove an ice cream truck. Which, when you're 6, is just about the best job you could ever imagine. In fact I spent many hours wishing he hadn't given up that line of work for his career in computer technology something-or-other.

But then there was his temper he couldn't seem to control. God knows I understand how annoying the bickering of little kids can be, but I've never thought it a good idea to hurl my kids onto their beds because of it. The fact that he hated our bickering would be less surprising except for the fact that he often had screaming matches with my mother over things like the Little Debbie snack cakes she brought home from the market. That wasn't just bickering even, snack cakes were thrown, along with the contents of the refrigerator for emphasis. We didn't hurl him onto his bed. Though, we wanted to.

My father was also a little prickly because he liked to drink a lot. He had a refrigerator filled with beer in our dining room, where normal people might think to put a buffet or perhaps a china cabinet. Instead my father kept his beer in his special fridge and from Friday night to Sunday night he emptied this fridge. As he emptied this fridge the desire to argue about snack cakes was heightened. His desire to listen to very loud music at 2 o'clock in the morning was also heightened.

That's the difficult thing about getting to know my father: he wasn't all bad, but he wasn't very good either.

My family likes to reminisce about my father, often viewing him as an affable sitcom dad. If Lucille Ball starred in a movie of my life, she'd play my mother and call out, "Pete-errrr" (ala "Rick-eeee") as he threw snack cakes at her head.

Our sitcom dad was manic about the condition of his lawn and would, when planes flew overhead, have flashbacks to 'Nam and begin screaming "Incoming!!!" We laugh about the night he drove our family home from dinner with his family while drunk, stopping at Quarton Lake to show us his favorite little bridge. When drunkenly jumping on a rock to cross a small river, (cue the laugh track), he landed wrong and sprained his ankle resulting in 6 weeks of crutches. Hysterical!

I have an uncle on my mother's side of the family who loves to spend a reasonable portion of our Christmas Eve gatherings discussing my father and his uncanny ability to bring the room to tears at every family gathering. Not tears of laughter rather tears of sadness, confusion or perhaps rage. And we all laugh, "Remember that Christmas I cried myself to sleep! What a riot!!!" Then we collectively sigh, our spouses feel uncomfortable and we play a game of charades to change the topic.

I think we laugh because it's easier to remember it that way.

Some memories even I can't muster the strength to laugh at. In those memories, my father is something worse than a bumbling drunken blow hard carefully mowing his lawn in perfect rows. In those memories my father is bringing me cough medicine in my dark bedroom for a cough I never had and he won't leave. Or I am left alone with him on Friday nights while my mother works, my brother is away at college and my sister spends the night with those people one calls "friends". Friends are something, by that point, I don't have any more.

It went on for as many years as I can remember. In first grade I would eat dinner and spend the rest of the night crying and clutching my stomach. The doctor sent us to the hospital for tests. For a week I couldn't eat anything but jello after breakfast until the next morning when they'd take more pictures of my insides. One day I snuck a handful of Trix cereal before we left for the test and the nurse could see it in my stomach as she took the pictures. As she ran the test, viewing my insides, I held my breath praying she couldn't also see the badness inside of me.

Later there were nightmares, my mother would sit on the sofa in the middle of the night annoyed, tired and unsure what to do with me. After weeks of this she took me to a psychiatrist where I drew pictures, talked about my nightmares and carefully avoided telling the truth. The best part of seeing the psychiatrist were the small gifts she'd give me, a barbie, a pack of crayons and my favorite candy bar at the end of the session.

Years later, just before my parents were divorced, I told my father I was going to tell and I was going to go live with someone else. Though I didn't know who.

Only I don't think I would have told, I just wanted him to leave our lives and I knew my mother was close to the end of her tolerance for him in general. That night he shut himself in his bedroom at the back of the house and shot himself while my sister, mother and I watched television in the front of the house.

Don't worry though, he didn't kill himself, he only shot himself in the shoulder like an asshole. Was this action meant to buy more time before my mother divorced him, to keep me silent or was it an act of desperate sadness?

I'm not really sure, but those two weeks he spent at an alcohol treatment facility were a tiny taste of what my life would be without him. I faked illness many times during those weeks he was away and my mother let me stay home probably because she felt badly about the trauma of one's father attempting suicide practically in front of you. I wasn't traumatized, I was angry he didn't die and I was mostly happy to be in the house alone. I could eat what I wanted, watch whatever shows I wanted and I wasn't afraid.

Of course then he came back and that feeling was almost worse than if he'd never left at all. Every day when I walked into that house after he came back it felt exactly like dying. When he finally left for good, escorted by the police, the nightmares came back and that horrible feeling of the freedom being taken away felt as real in my dreams as it had in real life. In the dreams, I would come home from school and he would be back. My mother would shrug saying, "Sorry, I can't do anything about it" and that sinking feeling in my stomach would start to choke me.

I think my sister tries to heal her sadness about who our father was by looking for answers about why he was the way he was. I've tried to heal by pretending he was only a nightmare or simply a monster because somehow that makes it easier to understand. My brain can't seem to reconcile my father as a drunken idiosyncratic dad and the night time father who tormented me for as long as I can remember.

I spent a lot of time studying the fathers I knew while growing up. I studied some really good ones so hard I'm sure their wives started to wonder if this 10 year old had a crush on their husbands. I knew I didn't want to marry someone like my father, but then since that was the relationship modeled for me my whole life I thought I might be doomed to a life of dodging snack cakes thrown at my head.

My daughter happens to have the father I always wanted.

Watching my husband and daughter develop a relationship has been incredibly healing for me, it's also opened up so many deep wounds in my soul I've gone rolling back to therapy in a heap of sadness more than once since becoming her mother. I've spent time back on the couch because motherhood is really kind of hard a lot of the time.

Other times I've been on the couch grieving from the darkest part of myself. This deep pit of sadness I mostly keep covered by not thinking much about how I grew up with my father.

The last time I was in therapy my husband and I stayed up late one night talking about the pain. The next day he left me a note before he left for work reading, "No child deserves to be betrayed by their father in such a profound way. I can't imagine destroying my own child."

Of course, that's why I married him and that's the part of watching my daughter grow up that heals the little girl I was. When Maddie was a baby, Logan always explained to me in serious tones that she was gifted. At three months old he said, "She holds her head up like a six month old! That's double her age, she's twice as good at it as other three month olds!" As a two year old when her talking started and didn't really ever stop he listened intently and reminded me she was talking as well as a four year old. "She's twice as brilliant as other two year olds."

Now Madison is nine and has the sensibility of an independence loving thirteen year old. She makes me literally insane and we often butt heads so hard I spend days massaging my temples and wondering how I ended up with this daughter I am not so good at mothering. Logan looks at our daughter and admires her maturity and complexity. He thinks she's twice as mature as other nine year olds. He thinks she's absolutely perfect.

When Maddie was three years old she had some gross motor delays the doctors were attempting to diagnose. We had to take her to the hospital for an MRI. Because the MRI machine is very loud, has a very small chamber and requires complete stillness, we also had to have her sedated for it. I voted Logan into the position of holding our daughter while they put a mask over her mouth to breathe in the gas that put her to sleep, I couldn't even be in the room.

She struggled against the doctor trying to put the mask over her mouth and Logan held onto her arms and tried to keep her head from moving so she could breathe in the gas. All Maddie saw was a scary man trying to hurt her while her father held her down.

We thought she would forget about it, she was only three, but for months afterward she would ask Logan, "Why did you hold me down while that man put that thing on my face Daddy?" Even better, she'd say, "Remember when they took a picture of my brain and Daddy held me down so the doctor could cover my face?"

One night after the MRI, I found Logan standing over Maddie's crib crying. He couldn't believe she thought he'd been trying to help someone hurt her. He'd explained to her over and over that the doctor wasn't trying to hurt her but he couldn't get over the betrayal she'd felt toward him in those moments.

I'm so happy my daughter has a father who loves every bit of who she is, I'm so happy she knows he would never betray her trust, I'm so happy she can feel safe and loved by the most important man in her life.

I like to think watching my daughter and my husband grow up together is helping to heal that little girl I was. Watching my daughter, it's easy to see how none of what happened to me was my fault, that my insides weren't bad, that I was betrayed by someone who was mentally ill. I was betrayed by my father.

Sometimes it does heal me, watching my daughter grow up having what I needed and deserved.

Still, it seems the older she gets the more aware I am of all I missed out on. As I watch her grow up, I continually grieve for the little girl I was and the father I wasn't given.

Non-Sensical Things My Father Would Say When Losing An Argument

Some nonsensical, others just plain irritating as all hell.

"Play the game [fill in name], just play the game."

"Garbage in, garbage out." (ad nauseum)

"Just keep talking. Keep right on talking...."

"Nope. You're right. You're right. You are absolutely right. You just keep talking and then maybe you'll believe it."

"Keep it up. Keep it up. Keep it up. Keep it up."

"What? I can't hear you? I'm blaring this Jimi Hendrix from my oversized stereo which rattles every window in the house." (He said that, but not in so many words.)

The Top Reading Group

A new post at the Buzz Off is up. I'm writing about picking children's books and using blogs to help you do it. "(Oh God How Many Truck Books Can A Three-Year-Old read? Answer: Many.)"

I think I mentioned before somewhere that in elementary school I always believed I was a really good reader and that I should be in the Top Reading Group. And each year I was trapped in the Middle Reading Group. The group for average readers, even though I was certain I was a really good reader. I have no idea why I believed I was a superior reader but every year I was stunned and outraged when the reading workbooks were passed out and mine always had Group Two on it.

Yesterday we attended conferences for the kids. Max's teacher, leaves a little to be desired, which is kind of like my entire experience of living in this neighborhood overall. Talking to Max's teacher about Max was like talking to Max's teacher about the weather: it's a vague and pointless experience.

Conversely we met with Madison's teacher who had such nice things to say about Maddie. She said she's a serious worker and an independent thinker, she told us her reading score grew by nearly 80 points over the summer and that's wonderful because usually kids lose some ground over the summer.

She also said that sometimes (she hesitated, gauging our faces)....Madison seems anxious....and that they spend a lot of time talking through her worries. She worries about substitute teachers and fire drills and a dozen other things. We told her how much ground we've made with Madison who used to cry and cling to my leg at drop off, even in the early part of second grade. We've tried to help her gain confidence by facing her fears but also by respecting her temprement.

I felt so thankful talking to her teacher because she understands who Maddie is and I think Maddie's going to have another year of 'good experiences' under her belt to help her be the most she can be. Her teacher told us one of her daughters was a lot like Madison so she understands and she said sometimes being bright is a blessing and a curse. She said, maybe Maddie is so anxious about things because she's bright enough to think through all possible scenarios and worry about how things will go.

Using that gauge, I am one of the brightest people you've ever met. Given that I've laid awake for over two weeks thinking about what will happen if our house doesn't sell or if our house sells and we can't find a house in our price range and what if we can't send our kids to the school we want and what if the new neighborhood turns out to be full of even louder people who love Willie Nelson at 10pm on a Friday and what if we move to the neighborhood but have to buy the smallest crappiest house and our kids are embarassed to live there when everyone else has nicer houses. Where's my Nobel Peace Prize in worry!

And really the whole point of this story was to tell you this: yesterday Maddie's teacher said she wasn't sure how to handle a situation considering Madison's temprement. "We'll be forming literacy groups with the other 3rd grade class in the next few weeks. Madison's scores are high enough to put her in the highest group, with other kids who read at the same level she does. But she would have to go with the other 3rd grade teacher because I am teaching the mid-level group. I've been pondering if I send her to the other teacher or keep her with me so she's more comfortable."

And my heart burst open and I told her to put her in the Top Reading Group.

I've always wondered if I would have been in the Top Reading Group if so much of my childhood wasn't spent surviving all kinds of bad things.

I know I'm doing so much wrong with my kids, I'm so imperfect I might not even be in the Mid-Level Reading Group of the parenting world.

But it seems to me that since my kids aren't worrying about things adults should be worrying about and they aren't listening to their parents scream and throw things and that since they aren't afraid to go to sleep and they aren't waiting for their parents to get divorced so some of the bad things will stop, they get to be in the Top Reading Group.

And I'm proud of myself for that.

.....

I think the world just needs to shut up for the most part because while I don't actually want to keep my head buried in the sand like a moron, I also can't keep idly thinking about what makes men hurt little girls (and boys) over and over and over because I just can not take it. The issues which have brought us to a time when men break into schools (twice in a couple of weeks) to kill young girls, are far too huge for me, with my very small brain, to really comprehend or theorize about or even understand.

I don't want to believe that the issue goes beyond a few very disturbed individuals with very disturbed upbringings. But it gets harder and harder for me to believe that, since not only are there a number of random attacks there's also a much more horrifying number of bad things happening to children who know, love and trust their abusers. And still, I take in all this information and all these theories and none of it really matters in a day to day sense.

I don't understand what's happened or how we've ended up here.

I realize how little control I have, I've realized a long time ago how I can't protect my children from bad things happening. I can follow my gut and I can teach them about being safe and owning their bodies and I can listen to them and protect them at all costs when I know they're being hurt and I can make them secure in the truth of the protection I will give them at all costs. I can't make bad things not happen, but I can make them strong and sure of themselves and make them certain of my willingness and ability to speak for them when they can not.

That's the only control I really have. That's the only thing I know for sure.

And still it bothers me because sometimes I feel like it's inevitable that something bad will happen to my children. Probably not a milk man who storms into their amish schoolhouse, since I'm not amish and have no plans to become amish, but there will be other people who could hurt them.

That really nice coach or the really personable dad of a friend everyone loves, are probably the worries I would serve myself better with. I'm not complacent but among my close group of 5 friends, 2 of us made it into adulthood unscathed by someone else's sexuality but then 3 of us were abused in some way by men we looked up to/trusted/loved as little girls. And, it's important to note: none of us told anyone. Then, when you look at my extended group of Internet Peers, we're looking at even larger numbers.

I don't know how else to take in this newest information. As a mother, I can't think very much about the reason men use girls for their sexual satisfaction, because my brain explodes with the societal implications of that.

I will not take my children to the park at the end of my street and spend the hour we're there fearing the predators who might cast their eyes on my children's incredible beauty and be compelled to snatch and abuse them. I won't stop putting their pictures on the internet because someone may view their beautiful cheeks and want to do horrible things to them. I still believe those types of attacks on children are the exception and not the rule.

People have always done horrible things. There have always been murders and rapes and molestations. Sometimes though, I worry that something has blurred the line in how we look at girls. My brain is not capable of making sense of it all, I'm only able to cry about all of this. It's complex and no one knows how to fix it and maybe there isn't a way to fix it.

I want to simplify that statement with all kinds of societal blame but I can't because it's not simple. And that scares the shit out of a lot of people. Including me.

I'm a lesbian....except if I want you to cheat on your wife.

I vaguely mentioned some Logan Branded Jackassery™ last week on my birthday. It kind of ruined my birthday and not for the reason I first thought.

A few weeks ago Logan met with Mr. Handsome for a night out. Mr. Handsome is single, Logan is not. They were at a local bar and Mr. Handsome struck up a conversation with a woman he may have been interested in. With her was a friend, so Logan began chatting with her too. I'm not sure how it came up but he mentioned he was married and this 'lady' (though I use the term loosely) replied, "That's fine, I'm a lesbian."

Logan told me this story and I thought nothing of it, except something along the lines of: "Right...you're a lesbian. Right." Because I'm a skeptical bitch, who thinks sometimes girls like to act as if they like to make out with other women as a way to pique male interest in them. (As evidence: please see all shows on MTV.)

As they chatted they found they had something in common as she is an editor at some publication Logan thought may be of interest to me. He mentioned his freelance work as a graphic designer and my freelance work as a writer and so, they exchanged business cards.

He told me all of this that night and I teased Logan about not knowing when he's being picked up and he laughed it off.

On my birthday Logan and I met for lunch (a lovely perk of the kids being in school...midday private lunches!) and he told me about a really funny email he got from his 'lesbian' friend. Gee Whiz! It turns out she's not a lesbian but is bisexual so maybe they could get together.

He replied how that was all very interesting except he's still married. He wasn't making that up to add to his mystique as the purpose of her 'lesbian' story seems to have been.

So yes, Logan told me this story and I had a lot of emotions about it and I won't bore you with the full spectrum of those emotions. (There was the "Are you Stupid?" thread I mentioned in my earlier post about my birthday and that was a fun time. Believe me.)

I trust Logan a lot and appreciate who he is so his nights out with friends still don't really bother me. I trust him because if I didn't trust him I wouldn't want to be married to him because I don't see the point. I already explained that before and my feelings on the topic still haven't changed.

He didn't cheat on me, had no intent to cheat on me and was up front about the whole thing. So why was I so upset?

After discussing the whole thing with a few friends, I realized what I'm really upset about. Here is a picture of Logan and I when I was 21 and he was 26.

Yes my hair is rather long and lifeless. But my face is fresh and I am thin and tan and full of life. Logan looks like, frankly, kind of a dork.

Here is a picture of Logan and I on our honeymoon. I am 24 and Logan is 29. You can't see it here but I'm very thin and you can see I am full of joy and tan-ness. Logan is rounding the corner of his awkward 20's and looks better than he did at 26. We both look pretty happy and attractive.

Then we had Madison and I stayed at home and I kept it together pretty well. My body changed a little but I still got my hair done regularly and wore clothes that looked good. Then I had Max and I tried to keep up but things started to be a little more difficult to keep up with, but I still did okay.

Then Logan started working at the agency and I came to his office a few times and it was like a campus, a campus full of girls with long blonde hair, Dana Buchman suits and ominously pointy shoes. The men were no better in their designer denim, artfully untucked button front shirts and body
concious polo shirts in retro colors.

Let's not even get started on the photographers he worked with, with their Prada shoes and "Trying to look like I'm not trying too hard' looks. Logan liked this world he jumped into and he started running and he started buying himself his own 'Trying but trying not to look like I'm trying too hard' looks.

In contrast I started to gain weight and the more weight I gained the less I felt like I could even look okay. I was also at home, not in an office surrounded by designer denim and shoes which will poke your eye out.

Logan kept getting more and more attractive and I, well, kept getting more and more beaten down.

Last week, on my birthday, during yet another of what I'm starting to call 'Ugly Weeks' which I should actually call 'Ugly Years' because I've had at least 52 ugly weeks so far, Logan told me how this lady (again, I'm using the term loosely) found him attractive enough to have an affair with.

I sat there across from him in my one pair of well fitting stylish jeans and a v-neck t-shirt, one of the 10 I have which I've worn everyday for the entire summer, in my one pair of summer shoes, with my hair that's way overdue for a new cut and color, with the sagging circles under my eyes and I felt completely used up.

It was never my intent to be that stereotypical 'Mom'. The mom who just lets it all go and becomes worn out. The one who puts herself last and doesn't bother with herself. But here I am.

I don't know when it got this bad. I'll try to make a hair appointment, but then I think of the dozen other ways to spend that money. But then Logan is sure to make his hair appointment every 4 weeks like clockwork. I think I'll go get a few more pairs of my favorite jeans, so I have more than one pair. But then it's fall, and the kids need new jeans. Logan has, literally, ten pair of jeans alone. I know there's a product out there which will help me with these horrible under eye circles and puffiness. But when I research I feel overwhelmed at the thought of spending money on my eyes of all things.

Over the summer when we visited my sister in law, Logan tried on every single pair of sunglasses she had (she's a sales rep to optometrists). The glasses were cheap for what they were, I could have had a pair, a nice pair of sunglasses I'd love. There Logan sat trying on every pair and looking incredibly hot while doing so. I sat there and tried a couple pair of glasses on and thought, 'Why bother? Look at my hair and my stupid clothes and all this weight. Why am I going to bother with cool sunglasses. I have a pair, it's fine.'

I've become my mother.

I thought about this and thought about this all last week. I wondered what I'm going to do about this, about how awful I feel about myself. And as I explained all the ways Logan takes care of himself and pampers himself and makes himself a priority, I thought, "What? I want him to stop being so attractive?"

Is that what I want? I don't even know. I liked him back then, when he wore sambas and jean shorts and glasses with lenses as big as a baby's head. I've never felt more attracted to him than I was then. I'm happy he's happy with himself, but I've loved him the same forever.

So, do I want him to be less attractive? That's a silly thing to want, it makes no sense. "Be less attractive for me honey. Please?" Besides I can't put my happiness on someone else and their actions.

What I'm realizing is that I've built up a lot of resentment toward my husband for making himself a priority, while I continue to be pulled down by my own martyrdom and weight. It's not fair and it's not kind and I'm not happy I've allowed that to happen. But there it is and our lunch conversation about his 'Lesbian' (though she uses the term loosely) friend, forced me to pull it out and look at it a little closer.

I realized maybe the answer isn't asking Logan to sacrifice his designer jeans or regular haircuts for the kids. Maybe the answer is not asking myself to sacrifice those things in the name of motherhood or because I'm too fat so I don't deserve to look good.

This weight isn't going anywhere. I've written and thought a lot about my weight and over time I've come to the conclusion that in life there are priorities and being a size 6 isn't one of my priorities any longer. I'd like to be that weight again, but my body and life have changed and what it would take to be that thin is no longer worth the end result.

I've been trying very hard not to hate myself for making that choice and I've been trying really hard to look at myself after I go to the gym and say, 'You're fine just as you are.' I'm going to have to learn what looks good on this new shape I have and stop dressing as if I have the same body I've had for most of my life.

I have to make myself feel good and I know that buying lots of things will never give you inner happiness. But I do know that caring for myself and treating myself as valuable can only help me be the person I want to be.

At Blogher I eyed these necklaces and I thought how beautiful they are and how I would love one. I asked someone how much Andrea was selling them for and that inner voice said, "No, you don't need a necklace. Not when you could get the kids at least 4 outfits with that money. You'd have a nice necklace but the same stupid hair and the same stupid clothes."

So I didn't buy it.

But then, after my birthday, I changed my mind.

(I can almost hear the click-click-click of frantically created TypeKey accounts with usernames like, "Just Saying!" or "Here's A Thought" or "Duh! Money Doesn't Buy Happiness" or "I'll Say I'm A Lesbian If It Gets Me Into Your Husband's Pants". And I can hardly wait. Though I use the term loosely.)

Still Bershon after all these years...

About a couple years ago Sarah Brown wrote about Bershon, which you've heard about at this point because Heather's hair demonstrated Bershon earlier this week. Sarah started a Bershon pool at Flickr and I resisted looking for pictures to contribute because it seems every time I venture into our attic I end up really sad.

This is because even though there are pictures from my childhood in the attic which would lead you to believe my life was pretty normal, I know better.

You think, look at that cute smiling baby! And I think, "She has no idea how totally screwed over by life she's going to be."

You think, 'Look at that little girl with her dad, how sweet.' And I think, "I think he's drunk here."

We both look at this picture and want to pinch my little cheeks. But then I want to grab this little girl and save her from what's coming.

Which is pretty much a totally depressing way to look at your history and not just because you become your very own Debbie Downer. It's also depressing because it would be nice to look back with a little more happiness in your heart.

I looked though because I remembered this one picture of my friend Molly and I, who is also pictured above, when we were 12 and 13-ish. Her parents invited me on a trip down the east coast and her father was really annoying. Not really but it seemed that way.

He seemed so annoying that I actually secretly flipped him off while he took my picture. And in my book, there's nothing more Bershon than that. Also, if you were wondering what Madison will look like when she's all Bershon at 13, here you go:

At the same time, some of the pictures in my attic make me really happy.

Mammoth Barbie

My parents could not buy me a barbie doll.

For four years I asked for a Barbie, just a regular Barbie, not even a special edition, just plain old "Crush-Your-Self-Esteem-With-Impossible-Bodily-Proportions-Barbie". For four years at all gift giving occasions I'd open some freakishly wrong Barbie which caused me grief when trying to play with my friends and their 'normal' Barbies.

The first barbie wasn't a barbie at all but Mabel from the dollar store. Mabel was fine but her head was shaped like a pumpkin and she just didn't fit in and as a child I was mostly about fitting in.

The next attempt was a real Barbie brand Barbie, but this Barbie was nearly three times as big as a normal Barbie and became Barb-Zilla in our games and would ruin Barbie bar-b-ques and Ken was helpless to stop it. When I opened that Barbie at my birthday party, my friend Molly said quietly, "It's okay, you can just keep using my Malibu Barbie."

On my birthday, my parents tried again and gave me a Barbie and it was normal sized and I thought they'd finally pulled their heads from their asses and given me a plain, simple, normal Barbie. I was wrong though, this was 'Model Barbie' and she came with a fake camera and a model walk. Each time her legs moved her head went side to side. Just like a model, I guess. This was fine until you tried to sit her down and her head spun around to face backwards.

My father worked for Michigan Bell for all his life. One year he attended a Michigan Bell conference in Columbus, Ohio. As an aside this is the one and only time my father travelled for work and it was a small taste of what life would be without him. What it would be was: "Awesome!" From that moment on I prayed for my parent's divorce. It only took six years of praying.

After the conference my father came home with a new Barbie doll for me! Only this one was a Lesbian Michigan Bell Repair Woman Barbie. She wore all denim and a tool belt and a hard hat and was also twice as big as a normal Barbie. The normal Barbie I'd been asking for for 3+ years.

It's clear to me as a 32 year old, my parents were mentally challenged and could not find their way to the fucking Mattel aisle of the toy store.

So, I thanked my father for my Michigan Bell Lesbian Mammoth Barbie (and silently prayed my mother enjoyed his time away as much as I did so she'd leave him finally) and promptly put it on a shelf in my room where it stayed for months without being played with.

One weekend after my father had been drinking all day he came to my room and noticed Michigan Bell Lesbian Mammoth Barbie sitting on my shelf. He stumbled over to it, picked it up and threw it across my bedroom at my head.

Michigan Bell Lesbian Mammoth Barbie happened to be African American as well as an oversized butch lesbian.

After he threw the doll at me he called me a racist because I was too God damned good for a black doll. Who did I think I was? Maybe I'll just give all your toys to someone who isn't a God Damned Racist.

It's funny though, I didn't care that the doll was black. I didn't play with it because, as a 9-year-old, I clearly had a problem with oversized lesbian phone repair workers.

The twelfth session.

Me: "I just feel sad and I can't even tell you why. I just always feel this sadness inside of me. I want to cry all the time, even when I'm happy...if it was quiet the tears would start. This feeling like I never fit wherever I am, even when I clearly fit. Even when I'm surrounded by people who love me."

"Even when I'm celebrating a birthday with my husband and all our friends and there's a God Damn Flamenco dancer prancing about in front of my face rubbing her silk shawl over the back of my head, I want to cry. And I don't know how to make that not be the way I'm feeling. I don't want to feel this way and still I keep feeling this way. I keep waking up and looking around wondering why it never gets better, even though everything is better."

Therapist: "Well, you just need to change how you think about it. You are fine. You are good. You're okay. Even if you never get better from here, you're still perfect and are one of the most brave people I've ever known. Nothing is wrong with you." (I've paraphrased.)

Me: "...."

(Still Me): "Uhm, Logan says this kind of thing all the time for free. It's not helping."

If nothing is wrong with me, then why do I feel wrong with me?

Friends With Training Wheels.

The problem with blogging while you're in emotional flux is that you start to write and realize you're questioning everything you think and say. "Am I being defensive here?" "Maybe I'm transferring here...." "Maybe I'm glossing over my emotions?"

So all you can do is I don't know. Not post?

I've been looking forward to the day both my kids would be in school every single day since I found out I was pregnant with Madison. I saw those two pink lines and first I thought, "Wow, the pill really can fail." and then I thought....well if I hurry things along they'll both be in school every day when I'm 32."

I even put school supplies on my baby shower registry.

Max starts kindergarten on September 6 and all last year as I tried to keep up with the frenetic pace of Flogging Baby I dreamed of the day I'd have 3 hours to work every single day free of guilt. Guilt because Max watched way too many hours of television in order for me to meet my quota each month.

I'd be lying if I didn't tell you I get a little thrill when thinking about the afternoons of freedom awaiting me in just over a month. But, something very bad has happened. Something I didn't believe possible.

I am crying when I think of summer being over.

At Max's preschool I made friends. Friends who I love and need in my life so much. I used to feel sad all the great women I've met through this website didn't all live on one single block in well maintained homes where we all had the same tolerance for loud stupid music blaring for all the world to forcibly listen to. (This tolerance would be: zero.)

I often felt, through my years with the MOMS Club, that I was a misfit in this place. Motherhood looked different in other places, why couldn't I find mothers more like me?

And I found my friends and I don't mean to rub your noses in it, because I know so many of us are still feeling lost amongst the mothers in our vicinity. But I feel so lucky to know these women. I need them as much, actually I think at this point I need them more, than I need the internet mothers I know.

Since our kids have been in preschool together for the last two years, we've seen each other almost every day. At preschool pick up and car pool pick up. We've had weekly playgroups and we've had girl's nights in where I shared more of myself than I ever have with real life people besides Logan, we've had family nights where we talk and laugh and our kids play and then nights out where we have fun like adults.

I'm not very good at intimate relationships. It's amazing Logan and I have been able to forge the relationship we have. It points to both my honesty with myself and even more so, his extreme patience with difficult women.

I've often called my friends my "friends with training wheels". Sometimes, during conflict with someone or another I feel like I bring Helen Keller to the table, flailing about, to their Anne Sullivan trying to give me the gift of communication. ("It's 'Water' Helen! W-A-T-E-R!")

(As an example: Me: "I just don't know how to tell you when I don't like something you've said. Tell me how I can do it without hurting you." Her: "I don't know....don't personally attack me?" You mean that's not 'helpful'?)

("That's right Helen! It's a doll! D-O-L-L!")

One night early in the summer Leslie talked about how it's not going to be the same in the fall. All our kids are going to different schools and/or attending different kindergarten sessions (some gluttons are sending their kids to AM (insane!), while other lazy people (me!) are sending their kids to PM).

At first I told Logan how sad I was for Leslie and Andrea who both still have 2 and 3 smaller kids at home even though they're oldest kids are starting kindergarten. The other three of us are sending our youngest kids to school, which is like entering a whole new world of living. I was still busy thinking only of the 3 hours I'd have every day to myself.

For the ones with younger siblings at home, they still need as much support because it's hard being at home with little kids all day. It's physically exhausting and emotionally draining. At least it was for me and I only had two little kids at a time.

That night (where we stayed up until 2am on a Thursday talking about, you know, everything) when Leslie brought up how different everything will be next year I tried to contrast Leslie's talk about it being 'different' with how it won't be different. I said we'll still be able to get together as families. We can still have girl's nights. We'll have playdates on half days and vacations.....

But then I started to cry because it will be different and different is scary.

We've all been running in a hundred different directions this summer and it's already different. I'm trying to keep breathing but sometimes, when I let my brain go I start to flail ("It has a name Helen!").

I'm not very good at making friends. It took me nearly seven years to find these friends and I'd like to think the training wheels are working and showing me how to reach out to other people. I know all my friends are great at reaching out and just being who they are and attracting people to them.

I put a helmet on and knee pads and wrist guards and without the training wheels I drive my bike directly into the nearest tree. So I retreat to the safety of my crossed arms standing alone praying for the safety of The Circle Drive.

I was feeling bad for Leslie and Andrea who still have little kids to entertain and take care of all day. But what I realized is I'm also feeling bad for me because I'm afraid of being left behind.

If only I'd known this was our leather anniversary.

[Holy Crap Typepad. I've never been this annoyed with you.]

I'm going to suggest you don't schedule a therapy appointment just before an anniversary date with your husband. Especially don't do this if you're seeing a therapist who has already walked through your brain so there won't be any benign chit-chat preceding anything of substance.

You know, the usual, "I was born a poor black child...." things you do before getting to the real issues you're paying a billion dollars to work through. Instead you'll dive right into some hairy stuff which takes your breath away.

You'll rush out of the office and drive 90 miles an hour home but you won't really remember the drive because you're distracted by all that hairiness you didn't leave at the office.

But maybe that's just me.

We raced down to Detroit to eat at Small Plates before they closed. Logan gave me a card of his own design, because he's a robot, and I gave him a store bought card because I am not. When we arrived I gave him my card.

I bought a blank card hoping at some point something profound and sentimental to say about our marriage and our relationship would come to me. But it never did, so I wrote:

Happy Anniversary To My Best Thing.
Nine Years and Still Kickin' It.
(Oh God, I'm so sorry I just wrote that.)
I love you.

Logan continues to love me even though I write ridiculous things in store bought cards.

We've been married for 9 years now (together for 13) and it's hard to think of something new to say about our marriage and our relationship which will not make you gag and flail about with convulsions.

("I married my best friend!" [gag] "He's the wind beneath my wings!" [I just consumed my tongue.])

I've written everything I wanted to say already. Last year I felt like we were plugging away at life and there just wasn't the time to spend together. The year before I felt hopeful, but also weary because we'd fought hard that year to keep our marriage together.

This year I realized things have been good. There have been no new babies and the hormonal plummet which follows. Those Who Must Never Be Named have been contained behind a wall which protects my marriage from people who would dismantle it. We aren't on a financially sinking ship anymore. The kids are older and less physically demanding.

Things are good and maybe that makes our marriage easier. Functioning under immense stress takes it's toll on those you love the most.

Last night my therapist asked why I thought these things were coming up now, now that things are good. I feel safe and loved. I'm not exhausted from dealing with a crumbling relationship with my in-laws. I'm not battling postpartum hormones. I'm not looking at an empty checkbook and hyperventilating. I'm not trying to learn how to grow and change with my husband.

I just am and what I am is mostly good. And now it's okay to look at the things which aren't okay and maybe I can heal them. Maybe that's what I want to say about my marriage this year.

I would not be able to go to my therapist's office and look at the bad things if I didn't have Logan to love me anyway when I get home. But 'Nine Years and Still Kickin' It' is way catchier.

Flip Flops and Awkwardness.

We made it to northern Michigan without incident. We also made it back from northern Michigan without incident, unless you consider keep-you-awake-and-in-misery food poisoning from crappy road food an 'incident'. Or if you consider sitting in traffic for an extra 1.5 hours an 'incident'. Because those things happened on the way home and still the trip was, in my mind, a great success.

If you're stuck just outside of West Branch in hellish construction related traffic realizing you just ate some pathogen-laden food and are now not moving at all on the interstate, do not use your watch to time how long it takes you to actually move a mile.

You might think, as I did, it will make you realize it's not really as bad as you're feeling it is, but that will only happen if it doesn't take you 32.7 minutes to go 2.3 miles. When it takes you 32.7 minutes to go 2.3 miles and you're faced with the (written down) proof of the fact that you're trapped on the road to hell with no exit in sight and no alternate route in mind you'll start to feel anxious and also angry.

Then you'll worry about that pathogen-laden lunch you just consumed because I can pee on the side of the road with the best of them but I like to vomit and/or do other things in the privacy of my own home.

Our trip was only 1.5 days total, and yet we packed in an entire week of activities into that day and a half. I packed the kids and I thinking we'd sit around the beach and read about how afraid of being alone Nick Lachey is. My kids love reading about Nick Lachey.

Since I thought we'd be sitting at the beach I packed a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and a couple of pairs of underwear for the children. For myself I packed a pair of jeans, which I wore to the beach, and a pair of flip flops.

Imagine how fun it was to hike in flip flops! And sail in t-shirts! (I bought overpriced tourist sweatshirts for the kids. Should they suffer for my unpreparedness?)

Jean invited me up to stay at their vacation rental and I used to babysit for Jean's kids who are now 16, 19 and 22. I loved her kids as much as I could ever imagine loving anyone at that time. I loved playing with them and watching Jean parent them and I learned a lot of good things from being part of their family in that way.

Saying that probably hurts my own family, which is probably why I've never mentioned Jean's name or posted her picture on this website.

I used to go up north to babysit nearly every summer and I spent time with their friends back then, since I was babysitting.

I watched them all and felt horribly out of place with all the ugliness I'd left at home. I wondered if I'd ever feel as at ease as they all did. I wondered if I'd have a husband who would love me like theirs did. I wondered if I'd ever figure out how to be as normal as they were. I wondered if laughter would ever come freely to me and I wondered if I'd ever have friendships with people who understood who I was.

So these last few days, being back with those people as an adult with my own children, I felt 16 again. I felt out of my own element where I do have friendships where I can be myself and I don't feel awkward and I have a husband who drags me along into the crowd when all I want to do is feel ugly and stupid.

I went to this spectacular house and had dinner at the grown up table and I watched. I reminded myself I'm 32 now, these are my two beautiful children and I have a life with great friends and an amazing husband and I've got what I thought they had back then. I got what I wanted.

Still I just couldn't shake the awkwardness of being 'Lissie' in the world of grown ups. Not just grown ups, Professional Grown Ups.

This feeling was helped immensely on the huge sailboat we rode on as I watched the Pro-Grown Ups hanging out, sharing cocktails and great stories from an awkward spot on the deck. But it gets better because as I sat on the deck, holding a lot of paraphenalia only a non-sailing type would hold, the boat tipped sharply.

I knew I should get off the deck and sit with everyone else but felt foolish moving around. Only I don't exactly know why, I suppose I just wanted to be subtle and 'cool'. So instead of simply standing up and moving to a safer spot on the boat, I gripped the top part of the boat as tightly as I could. I gripped until the angle was too much and my shoes, camera and (most importantly) my beer went crashing to the far side of the boat.

At which point I combusted into flames and wondered why it is I have to be a self concious freak all the time.

When I relayed my thought process to Jean on the way to dinner, when we were alone, she said, "No one thought twice about what you were doing on the deck."

And I realized then that I'm apparently starring in my own private television show where I am a glaring idiot half the time. Thankfully, though, no one's really watching my show and hopefully the network will cancel it.

Speaking of the past and being the 16 year old me even as a 32 year old: guess who's changing therapists? Guess who I'm going to see? I'll give you a hint: it's not Dr Phil.

Keep your face normal and do not talk with your hands.

As promised, I attended Exposure.Detroit on Friday night, I also sat in the car outside Karas Bros. Tavern saying to Logan, "I don't want to do this. Why did I say I would do this? Why am I doing this to myself?"

And Dr. Logan walked around to my car door, opened it and said, "You said you would go because you want to go and because you know this is the kind of thing you have to do to get better in the ways you want to be better."

He then pulled me by the arm out of the car and I tried to take a deep breath and be brave. While being brave I wrapped myself around his head a lot like a cat will do when frightened.

Then I took a deep breathe and swallowed a beer bottle whole and tried to talk to new people. And you know, once again it wasn't bad, it was fun. We met Melissa/Mainegal whose pictures I'd admired for a while, especially that marathon one of you-know-who and my spouse.

As an aside, I still haven't been introduced to my pretend boyfriend but still Logan certainly knows how to take one for the team. The other night I said, as my face exploded with a pimple, 'John would never even notice me.' Logan said, "John would want to dip you in honey."

Which, unless honey is an astringent, was a lie. But still it helped Logan get lucky.

We also met UrbanTiki and his lovely wife Tiki, and this is so weird, but Bobby doesn't really write a blog I've ever seen. I've seen his amazing pictures of Detroit and other things and his adorable daughter and beautiful wife and I've read the captions for his pictures but just from his pictures and his short words about his work and family I thought I'd like them. And I did.

Or maybe that was the simple fact that Tiki allowed me to wrap my body around her head to save me from my social anxiety.

We also met tEdGuY49 and his wife Chris, whose stories of her children filled me with hope for the future. That perhaps when my kids are grown I'll still be able to speak in complete sentences which aren't punctuated with, "Hold on, it's mommy's turn to talk now."

It would be nice if I had some more pictures of the people we met but Logan was in charge of the photos that night and this means about 48 of the 231 include my ass, which must not be viewed without protective eyewear, and also several nonsense photos like this one:

Here is a picture of me, where you might think, at first glance, I'm happy and not a socially anxious freak. But in fact, I think I may have been having a seizure in this moment. I think I'd just bitten my tongue off, which is easy to do when your teeth are as large as mine. Look out!!!

In this photo I demonstrate the correct way to check for testicular cancer, you can see how thrilled my conversational partner (who I think is this guy) is to be discussing this with me. (But just you wait, it gets better.)

After I realized I'd once again spoken with my hands in an awkward way, I proceeded to do something with my face I'm not sure I've been able to do before or since. Maybe while in labor I made that face, but other than that I can think of no excuse for me making the face you see below.

I think I was talking about how I always close my eyes in pictures. But instead I demonstrated how I always close my eyes and have a seizure in photos.

The good news is in spite of that face I made above, I did not fling any actual Fiats, but you realize the Fiat thing was just a metaphor for what I did in that picture above. What you see right there is a Fiat being flung. But still at least no one was maimed by that Fiat and the bar itself was left unharmed by the flinging Fiats.

Besides that face I made, the only other flung Fiat came at the hands of Logan. Logan's worked hard over the last 8 years to come up with his own set of 'Dad Jokes'.

'Dad Jokes' are those ones your father always does and which always make you say, "Oh MY God You are SO embarrassing! Will you drive me to the mall now?"

Logan's repertoire includes:

Shift the car into drive when really you need to reverse but look back like you're reversing and act surprised every time the car lurches forward. (This is my personal favorite.)

Kick the flip flop off everyone's foot. (This one is big with the 3-5 year old set.)

Walk up behind an unsuspecting person standing and talking to a group of people, take your knee and bump it into the back of unsuspecting person's knee, which will cause their knee to give and they'll stumble a bit. (I don't understand the allure of this joke, but I think this is his favorite gag.)

This is a picture of Logan slinking home after performing this gag on Bobby. He has bad knees and was forced to sit in a chair crying silent tears of pain mixed with rage at Logan the rest of the night.

I hope Logan's proud of himself and his Tomfoolery. Let this be a lesson to you all, if you approach an event without any social anxiety you'll probably maim someone by the end of the night. At least my face only repelled people, but didn't actually harm anyone.

So I did it anyway and I made a few really stupid faces while doing it but still I did it and had fun and proved to myself for the 3,592nd time that things are never as hard as I imagine them to be. Maybe someday I'll actually trust these things.

In other news: let's meet back here to talk about how much I must hate Madison because I am making her go to swim lessons even though she almost drown today and probably will tomorrow too! I can't believe you don't care about me at all you are a horrible mother and I hate you.

She'll probably wrap her body around my head tomorrow as we walk to swim lessons like a scared cat.

I just can't imagine where she got that......

The art of doing it anyway.

Last week was sort of hard for me. Monday was the meeting with my high school counselor after which I went home and waited for a phone call and we all know I hate phone calls. Then I drove to Detroit to meet Dutch, which was fine of course but seeing people I don't see all the time always makes me nervous because you never know what kind of stupid thing I'm going to fling from my mouth.

A stupid thing like an off handed but perhaps stupid remark (think: "I'm Not Just A Talking Head!") or even worse, a chicken bone from last week. No, that's never happened but I worry it could happen.

These things gave me anxiety. Going to my old school made me anxious. Answering the phone made me anxious. Meeting up with Dutch made me anxious. But, I did it anyway and no one was maimed by a Fiat flinging forth from my gob. I survived that round of stress.

Then a day or so later, an editor at a large local paper emailed and asked if I'd like to get lunch. Would I like to meet up here on Thursday? This was on Wednesday. Without thinking very clearly I wrote back (thank God he didn't call on the phone), "Sure. That sounds great."

That's when I remembered: I am slowly transforming myself into Howard Hughes and I don't do well meeting new people.

But, I sucked it up. Maggie, when I asked for advice said, off-handedly, "Don't worry about what you wear, just follow the usual rules. Closed toe shoes, no shoulders showing...you know."

I read her email and nodded 'Yes, I know.' But then frantically realized 'No, I don't know.' Because I have an extremely casual wardrobe which fits my life since the biggest event of my week is Tuesday Playgroup and no one cares if I show up naked to that.

I don't though, because public nudity is, not surprisingly, on my 'No. Never again.' list.

I managed to scrape together an outfit which was passable and didn't scream 'Only Attends Tuesday Playgroup Ever.' and Maggie also gave me other great advice and things to say and I said them quietly to myself all the way down to Detroit.

On Monday when I met Dutch, I didn't bring the directions he'd emailed me, I thought I'd just 'know it when I saw it'. I don't know where I get the idea I can just find my way anywhere because I've never been able to find my way anywhere. Once my sister and I drove right past Philadelphia, around it perhaps, and ended up at the toll booth heading into New Jersey.

In high school we used to go to a party store at 6 Mile and Woodward in Detroit. There we'd wait for some frightening drunk and/or high man to come and ask us if we wanted him to buy us alcohol, for a fee of course. That wasn't scary, but New Jersey? That's scary. (I kid, because Alice loves the Jersey jokes. No really. She loves them.)

On Thursday I walked out of the house without directions once again. Since I go to Detroit about 10 times a year, clearly I know the place like the back of my hand. I know it exactly like the back of my hand if I looked at the back of my hand only 10 times a year. ("I have a freckle there?")

So I got lost and was nearly 20 minutes late for lunch and far too many of my introductions begin with, "I'm so sorry I'm late....." It's always good to start introductions on a negative note, isn't it? But the conversation recovered from my stupidity and we had a lovely lunch at a table in front of floor to ceiling windows with not a single child in sight.

When I talk to Logan about the internet he often looks at me as if I'm semi-brain damaged and he's taken pity on me by marrying me anyway. But this person wanted to hear what I had to say about the internet and he knew just enough to be engaged. But he didn't know so much that when I told him the internet is a vast empire controlled by a variety of rodents on wheels (their size corresponds to your connection speed you understand)(guinea pigs are the 'dial ups') he didn't question me. He went along with it, looking absolutely riveted by all this information I was sharing with him.

Then my hearts of palm salad came and the rest of our time together consisted of me pretending to listen while trying to keep myself from shoving all five tempura battered hearts of palm in my mouth at once.

I debated, for several moments, how awkward that would be. Me sitting there, my mouth stuffed full of battered hearts of palm. Would it stop the conversation? Maggie didn't say anything about not stuffing my mouth full of battered hearts of palm. She said close toed shoes and I had those. Maybe the business people of the world understand how badly you need to eat all those delicious hearts of palm all at once.

In the end I decided it would be safer to cut my salad into bite sized pieces.

I haven't worked out in a week or so because my heart rate has been raised to anaerobic levels about 32 times with the lunch and the Detroit outing and the meeting of high school ghosts. But that's not even all because on Saturday we had a birthday party to go to.

You remember John and Asa? Remember how they had a baby last year? Their baby turned one over the weekend. This also marked the one year anniversary of the last time John combed his hair.

"Why?" You ask. "Why would a one year old's birthday cause you stress you hyper suburbanite?"

Because there were people I didn't really know very well at the party and this always makes me afraid of my mouth flinging a Fiat, remember?

We met Lauren, Jonathon and Noah from How Bourgeois and saw Dan from Moodmat, among other places. It seemed to go well, no one was maimed anyway. But it stressed me out.

My anaerobic workout is not over yet because Friday night we're going downtown again to see Detroit Expose itself at Karras Brothers Tavern.

Tonight I explained to Logan how my heart has been racing for the last week and how proud I am of myself for doing it all anyway. Also I mentioned how proud I am of myself for not shoving all those hearts of palm in my mouth at once. I said how I'm nervous about Friday, that I'm afraid I'll go into cardiac arrest if I keep doing all of these 'social' things.

He said, "I think that's going to be fun."

I said, "But we won't know anyone."

He said, "All new people to talk to, it's going to be great."

I said, "All new people to talk to, I'm having a heart attack."

But I'm doing it anyway, in spite of my cardiac health. I've been doing the things I have to do because I'm not happy transforming myself into a post modern Howard Hughes.

I want to be more of myself and the only way to do that is to do it anyway.

Hopefully I'll do it anyway without flinging foreign objects from my mouth at unsuspecting strangers.

This, this is a scroller. I'm sort of sorry.

There are a lot of things to talk about tonight and probably none of them will make sense or be worthwhile to talk about while I'm still processing them but, really, when has that stopped me before?

I dropped Max off at Leslie's this morning at 8:45 (Max didn't come home until 5-ish....Leslie is skinny, has four kids 4 and under and adds a fifth one without even noticing it....I'm glad I know her but Jesus I suck) and then drove to my old high school.

I hadn't realized how difficult it would be to go to my old high school, until I drove up and realized I'd stopped breathing and had no heart beat.

Since I didn't exactly want to visit my old counselor while I was dead, I drove around the block. Twice. When I'd revived myself, I parked my car and walked into the building. Once I stepped inside the actual building though, all that anxiety melted away because the building is absolutely nothing like it was nearly 12 years ago.

Which means it wasn't nearly as 'hellfire and brimstone' with that sulfur smell as it was back then.

We talked for an hour or two and I walked away feeling more understood but still wondering what the Hell I want out of life anyway. Am I asking for too much? I'm starting to think so. The great news is that tomorrow is my therapy appointment and that means more Self Analyzing "Fun".

Hooray.

When I got back to the house Logan called and asked how it went. I said, "uhm....good....."

He said, "Let's talk about it later?"

I said, "Okay."

When he walked in the door I was sitting at the kitchen bar listening to Ben Folds and Ben Folds makes me sob even when there are fireflies in the yard, all my friends and all my favorite beers on the porch. SO, you can imagine the effect it had on me tonight.

He said, "Are you listening to Ben Folds so you can cry while dinner cooks?"

I said, "Yes."

Then I cried on his shirt and he's probably spraying 'Shout' on those snot stains right now.

I hate that I know I shouldn't feel this way and I still do.

Medicine here I come.

You may think this was enough of a day. You want a nap now don't you? But no, that wasn't the end of my day. At 1 o'clock as I tried to will my dryer to work (Dryer is dead, repair man comes Thursday.) my phone rang.

I didn't answer, which means I had to make a phone call.

Dutch (and Wood and Juniper)(those are not their real names)(I'm going to be really embarassed to call them only by their internet names for....for ever.) at SweetJuniper is moving to Detroit. And he flew in last night to put an offer in on a townhouse in downtown Detroit. 

They've (Dutch has) written about the Detroit thing in the past and I've always said I can't do it but I love they're doing it and this young family moving to Detroit is not only what Detroit needs but it's also what I need to appreciate Detroit.

Today, since Leslie kept Max all day (because Max is like Logan except he's unfortunately inherited my social anxiety, so I would have been uncomfortable with bringing my sobbing son to meet a stranger), I drove downtown to meet Dutch. We walked through his new neighborhood, and I felt like crying. Because I want to move somewhere new with all the anxiety and the uncertainty.

I want to find my new market and I want to wonder where the playgrounds are and I want to believe in Detroit.

We walked and he showed me the community they (Dutch Wood and Juniper (not their real names)(I know! It freaks me out too!)) want to live in. Logan drove past this place nearly every day for 5 years. I drove past it many, many days after lunch or happy hour and sadly, I never saw it.

Seeing it today made me so glad I've found the internet. That my phone phobia let me return Dutch's call and that I get to see the Detroit new people see.

I know Dutch is wondering if this is the right decision for his family, moving from San Francisco to Detroit? You move from wherever you are to Detroit and see if you don't wonder what you're doing.

But feeling his enthusiasm today, gave me something.

This morning I met my high school counselor and was emotionally wrecked by it.

This afternoon I drove around Belle Isle and watched someone from San Francisco seeing it with new eyes. What has always made me depressed, made me feel hopeful through a new person's eyes.

As we drove along a stretch of Bell Isle Dutch noted, as we looked at the Ambassador Bridge and the Ren Cen, "It just doesn't look like a burnt out city from here."

I want to see Detroit from there. I saw it today, but I want to see it all the time.

I want to see myself the way my high school counselor sees me all the time, not just when I'm in his office.

I want things to be better than they are now and I don't know if that's a reasonable thing to hope for.

And still, I keep talking about myself.

I keep thinking, "I hate talking about myself all the time and I also hate talking about my kids all the time and this leaves me with talking about Logan or the cats all the time."

To talk about Logan would involve lots of, "Hey! If you're one of Logan's new coworkers, you know what would be nice? If you ASKED HIM TO JOIN YOU WHEN YOU ALL GO OUT TO LUNCH. Do you all have the social capabilities of, say, me?"

Thinking of Logan eating lunch alone in his cubicle makes me both ridiculously angry and heartbreakingly sad.

Then I'd talk about the cats and well, no offense to the cat lovers of the world, but they don't do a whole lot.

And then I remembered the book!

A book which includes one of my favorite moments in the history of being Melissa. My bra fitting. I know you've already read that story but look at all the people also included in this collection. Funny people, with funny stories of their own. For example: this person and this one and also this one.

The book will be available on June 30th on Amazon, however, if you pre-order you get to laugh a lot and save money. Saving money is very important to me. As is a well fitting bra.

•••••

Tomorrow I'm meeting with my old high school counselor, the one I talked about before.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm hoping to get out of this meeting, but I am feeling anxious about it all. Will I sit on my hands, staring at the ground afraid to speak? Will I sob in that ugly way I can do?

Will I depress him with my inability to be whole? Will he wonder if all that time and love he gave me was wasted? Will he remember how I threatened to never speak to him again when he suggested I could be even happier if I weighed 140 pounds?

Will he understand why I'm still flailing even after all the very good things I've gotten? If he understands, will he have a magic wand to make it stop happening?

Good enough.

When I was 15, I decided I was dropping out of school. For no real reason other than I hated being there and wasn't very good at concentrating long enough to do very well. As you can imagine, 15-year-olds are very wise and think through all their decisions very carefully. I did as well.

I woke up on a Tuesday, showered and dressed for school, and then decided I would never go back there again.

I was a little taken aback when my father, who'd been making mad passionate love to his beer bottle in a motel after the divorce, took notice and forced me back to school. He also forced me to see a counselor at the school who I was absolutely certain I would not like. But my father scared the living fuck out of me so I did as I was told.

I went to see this counselor and was mainly happy I got out of class to do so. Things started out fine, I explained my well thought out plans to drop out of high school and he listened intently. Then there were more things I wanted to talk about but my mouth wouldn't work.

For weeks I spent 45 minutes at a time sitting in that office not saying a word. I sat in a chair on my hands, feeling so stupid, wanting to open my mouth but not being entirely sure what I should say. Mr Rozema let me do this for weeks and weeks.

He would stare at me and wonder what the hell I was thinking. I would sit on my hands looking down at the ground with tunnel vision and my heart racing. Finally, I started to talk.

I talked there when my father killed himself the following year. I talked through my senior year when all I wanted to do was die. Sometimes, things were hard to say with words, so I started writing in journals for him to read. I'd drop them off on Friday and he'd read them, write notes back and bring them back to me on Monday. Over the summer, I'd mail him my journal entries and he'd send them back lovingly noted with the right words to keep me going.

They were a life line.

I clung to his words because he loved me and thought I would be okay and I wanted so badly to believe him. He patiently read through page after page of self hatred and loathing. He answered me with the truth as he saw it. He told me the ugly things I believed about myself were lies fed to me by people who couldn't love me enough. He told me I was a good writer, he liked reading what I had to say.

He told me I was good enough. I wanted to believe him and I held on. Barely, but I did the best I could to survive.

Logan's been gone and I've been fighting back a huge tear in my stomach. I don't understand what the tear is, but it's scaring me. I couldn't sleep on Tuesday night thinking about the tear and how I'm so much better than I was. That life is so much better than it was. Why am I still hurting like this?

In the middle of the night I went up into the attic and found those old journals I used to write. I wanted to read them because I thought it would make me feel better to see how far I've come. I started reading them and couldn't put them away. I read until I fell asleep with the lights on. I read the next day and the day after that.

Usually when you read your old journals or diaries, you Cringe with the humiliation of it all. The overblown drama of hormones and boys and that U2 concert your mom won't let you attend. Reading my journals and the notes my counselor wrote back to me, I didn't cringe. Not once.

I did punch a hole in the wall reading my 17 year old self saying earnestly, "It's just that if I eat what you're asking me to, I'll weigh at least 120 pounds and I can't live with that."

Uh....if I ever run into my 17-year-old self at a party, remind me not to let her see me stand on a scale.  She would be unhappy with the way things turned out with the 'normal eating' thing.

I didn't cringe at my words. I was awed at my emotional clarity back then, at my ability to understand my feelings. To understand why I was struggling, but struggling anyway.

I obsessively read my words and that tear in my stomach went to my eyes and hasn't stopped coming out since then.

Which is great because Logan's gone.

I decided to look up Mr Rozema and send him an email.

"I've been reading these old notes we used to send back and forth and I don't think I knew it at the time but you saved my life. You made me feel loved and you made me understand how nearly all of the things I believed about myself were lies fed to me by people who didn't love me at all or enough.

I think I chose Logan as my husband because I knew you, so one day my children will have you to thank too."

And I sent off the email and told him everything I've done with my life since the last time we talked. My heart swelled with pride when I told him about the writing I'm doing. When I showed him pictures of my babies and my husband and of us together like the family he told me I would one day have but I never believed him, I started to cry.

Because I thought all I've done would make me whole. That if I did enough and was enough I would fill this black hole in my soul with so much stuff, that it wouldn't matter so much.

I thought having a good husband who loves me and amazing children who can quote spongebob and love me in spite of my imperfections and friends who give me so much of what I need and a career I couldn't have imagined as a teenager, I thought it would all make me okay.

He told me back then, most of my life was very bad and as I grew, I would add more layers of good experiences. Like a large cliched onion, as I grew up and had more experiences, this black part of myself would still be there but it would be so small in comparison to the rest of the things I've done and love I've been given, it wouldn't matter so much.

But still, there's that tear in my stomach that plagues me. I can't make it go away.

Reading these journals scares me. It scares me for the same reason I teetered on the edge of suicide back then. What if this is the best I can do? What if, considering everything I had to fight to overcome, this is as good as it can ever be?

And maybe that's not enough.

Therapy

The therapist was much better than the last one (and those others I mentioned from my long therapy past). Keep in mind I never mentioned all the very very good ones I had so if you're thinking about trying out therapy, you should know that I'm running on 3 bad ones to 5 (or is it 6)(yes, 6) very helpful if not excellent therapists.

All of the ones I consider 'excellent' were excellent at helping me, but there was this one who had a little case of giving her clients too much information.

Like how she told me about the time she marched into the restaurant where her husband was seeing the woman who threatened to break up their marriage and told her what exactly she thought of that situation. Which was in the first place, totally unprofessional and completely unrelated to the reason I was in therapy at all as a 19 year old. She had an uncanny way of doing that: making my therapy about her and her relationship with her husband and her son who seemed, according to her stories, desperate to draw appropriate boundaries with her.

Which, hey! Was exactly what I wanted to do with her.

Okay so let's say I've had 4 bad ones and 5 good ones. Not great odds, but when you think about who I would be if I hadn't had those 5 good therapists, let's just say, they're awesome odds.

With the new therapist we spoke briefly about Logan's marathon running and how sometimes I've been known to resent his training. A lot. The doctor then said, "Sometimes I question the health of running marathons repeatedly."

I said, "You're so right. Logan's the crazy one right? I don't even need to be here."

Which was a stretch obviously.

I have a very bad feeling this round of therapy is going to be very difficult and I'm not feeling particularly good about it. In fact I think thinking about it has given me a massive head cold.

I am afraid to say Dr. Phil may have taken up a spot in my brain. A spot I may have used for other things, like more Oprah. Or something.

I do this thing, and I've been doing this thing for so long I barely even noticed I was doing it until recently. I decided I wanted to stop doing this thing but it's so deeply a part of who I am I can't seem to stop.

And so, Dr. Phil would say, "What are you getting out of this behavior?"

And I keep asking myself the same thing and the answer is nothing and it's driving me absolutely insane because even though I'm getting nothing out of it, I can't stop.

I tend to believe certain things about myself and I can't seem to make myself believe otherwise. No matter what I do or what happens to me I struggle with a deep and crippling self-doubt which runs over to self-loathing.

I wrote about it after I went to California and it's taken me until now to start looking at it because I'm afraid I'll never be able to fix it.

"I walked away from my trip wishing that how I saw myself matched how other people saw me. This massive insecurity and self loathing is really limiting me. But I don't know what to do about it. Last night Logan said, in response to this latest emotional come-apart: "<big sigh> Okay, well I see what the problem is. You just have to stop thinking about yourself like that." Hey! Great!"

The therapist asked me when I first remember thinking about myself this way (in unkind and unpleasant terms) and I can't remember. It's always been this way. Lately I've noticed it in glaring focus because while I think being modest is a nice thing to be to a certain degree, I can't stand concieted people at all, after a while it's not just a way of being, it's a way of feeling all the time.

After a while your self-effacing ways make business people in your life treat you like you're the unibomber or Howard Hughes or even worse Irish-Catholic and you realize at that point your self-effacement has ventured into 'psychotic' territory and maybe, as that annoying Dr Phil in my head would say, that's not working out so well anymore.

Only you don't know how else to be because this is just who you are. You don't want to be. You want to be the type of person who puts other people at ease and who is at ease herself.

As you're talking to the therapist he notes you're looking incredibly uncomfortable sitting there and you flash to all the times you feel self concious and uptight (all the time) and the therapist also notes that in the first 10 minutes of your visit you've apologized or prefaced what you're about to say with, "I know how stupid this is..." or "I feel ridiculous saying this..." or a million other (I'm about to do it again) stupid ways (<-----I just called myself stupid) you say things with a shield up around you.

You don't know why you do it but you really don't want to anymore.

You leave the therapist's office with Dr Phil ringing in your ears, "How is that working for you?" and you curse yourself for ever watching that show and also you fight back waves of anxiety because you think you know why you harbor all this self-doubt and loathing but you're not sure you will ever be able to fix it.

You fight the anxiety until Sunday when you catch a cold and sleep for 14 hours and still feel like crap because the rain won't let up and preschool ends next week and wow, therapy can only get better right?