How the pandemic has changed me

Prior to September 11, 2001, D and I didn't want children. 

We had said when we married that we wouldn't even think about kids until we'd been married five years. When September 11 happened we'd been married almost four. 

The events of that day made us reconsider a lot of things, including what we hadn't done and what we wanted to have done prior to dying (if we had a choice). And we decided that maybe having a child was something we wanted. 

A big historic event that didn't directly impact me in any way changed the course of my life in a big way. 

The COVID-19 pandemic appears in some ways to have changed things for me as well. 

I think most of this is internal. My mindset has changed.

Some things were already changing. The brainwashing of people I know as a result of the presidency of Donald Trump had opened my eyes to the ways in which others aren't really what I thought they were. Or maybe they were always really what I thought they were but I just couldn't tolerate their behavior anymore. 

I am not a worshipper. My motto is that everyone, and I mean everyone, has had poop stains in their underpants. This is the great equalizer and the reason I don't get intimidated or overwhelmed by people who have money or fame or great talent. Even Jeff Bezos has had poop stains in his underwear, and some of those might have been added this week when his penis rocket went sky-high.

For a long time, I have not been a people-y person, but the pandemic made me really reflect on my view of friendship and acquaintances and who I want and need in my life. 

There was a contraction, and there continues to be a contraction. 

I have even reconsidered who I need to speak to.

Of course, I have no desire to be uncivil, but I don't need to pretend to like or care about fitting in. I don't need to be social media connected to everyone I've ever known. My unfriend game on the social media tabs continues. And this doesn't mean I hate people nor does it mean I wish them ill; I just don't care. I don't need their view or opinion or anything from them. 

I doubt they even like me. Perhaps by unfriending them I will remove me as an annoyance for them (and they were too kind or lazy to do it)?

A couple days ago I finished a book called Subtract by Leidy Klotz, and it was about how we don't often see the benefit of subtracting things from our lives. We seem to have an evolutionary need to add and build, but subtracting can be just as if not more beneficial. 

The pandemic has really made me think even more about subtracting from my life, distilling its essence down to what is essential and really meaningful for me. To borrow a phrase from Marie Kondo: "What does spark joy?" 

And right now, haphazard, random, not based in anything meaningful connections does not spark joy. 

Butting my nose into other's business OR saying what needs to be said

All it takes is one Google search of my daughter's school and the word "dress code" to see my name blasted all over the internet. 

If anyone can tell you that one event posted on social media can change how others perceive you and have impacts on your life, it is me. 

At the time, I spoke out because it was the right thing to do. I didn't say shitty things about the principal or the school. I didn't cuss anyone. I maintained my dignity and integrity while pointing out that what the school did was wrong.

But I was in mid-40s so my pre-frontal lobe is totally done developing. 

And there was fall-out for me. The number of times I was called to substitute teach at the school after that was ZERO. I picked up jobs there that were canceled. My assumption is that they didn't want me in the building. To them, I wasn't to be trusted. 

I doubt I would have felt any differently had I been in their shoes. 

But enough about my experience. 

I get that teenagers are going to say stupid things on social media. 

(Background: A student on another team at my daughter's school posted a not-great comment about a local school that included a picture of members of the team. A parent from that other school told me about it. I emailed the team my daughter is on because some of the girls in the picture play on both teams. It was a notice that 1.) Something on social media had been shared with me and 2.) Be careful what you post on social media (because talking smack about other schools is childish and reflects poorly on your school and coach...WHICH IT DOES.) And maybe be careful about who you take pics with because some of them post stupid stuff.)

But as a 1.) person committed to integrity and a believe that social media should be civil if nothing else and 2) a parent of a teenager at that school and 3.) a parent member of the SBDM council for the school, it is my responsibility to remind students (any of them) what is expected of them while they are in their school uniform. 

The teacher in me came out a little bit, ok.

It is my responsibility to remind them (and parents) that conversations need to continually happen about 1.) who you pick for your friends and 2.) that your friends may post stupid shit that makes you look bad simply because they posted a picture of you with their asinine comment. 

(I KNOW about logical fallacies, including guilt by association. I may not agree with it, but it is part of how the world works. I don't make the rules.)

And to be perfectly honest, this kind of behavior simply burns me up to the core. I HATE bad sportsmanship, and it may be one of the reasons why I despise sports in general. If you see too much of it, and you don't love sports enough to forgive it, it sort of ruins it all for you. 

I didn't go looking for this problem; my kid isn't even on this team. This problem was brought to my attention (and subsequently brought to my daughter's attention). And, unfortunately, I'm a "if I see something, I say something" kind of person because I recognized some of the girls as being teammates of my kid. I know some of their parents, and I like to think that if I would be angry to see my kid's picture on a post like that, they would too. 

I ended up having two people (full grown adults) say something along the lines of "Well, the other team was doing X,Y and Z." To which I responded, "Just because the other kids or other team does stupid stuff doesn't mean our school and our students stoop to that level." 

I don't have many lines in the sand, but this is one of them. 

So did I overstep? 

Maybe. 

Did my email cause the coach more grief? 

Maybe.

Did I further my reputation as somebody who says shit no one likes to hear and is a bitch?

Almost certainly. 

Would I do it again?

Yes. Because it isn't a bad thing to remind young people with undeveloped pre-front cortexes that social media can follow them around and cause an awful lot of stress in their lives (even if they never intended it.)

We don't know people

I am not a sentimental person at all, but I have realized today that I think I have allowed some form of sentimentality to dupe me. 

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has done this. I think it is probably a human trait that many people share, and it is the idea that if you once knew someone, you know them still. 

The truth is that I don't know anyone completely, not even myself. 

Even though I think I know my husband (whom I've known for 25 years), I don't. Not completely. I make an assumption that I know what he would do and how he would act based on my experience with him and how he has acted in the past. 

But people change, don't they?

And often people do not change. 

It dawned on me today that someone I have known for many years in a cursory way but who I used to be good friends with three decades ago is both very different from what I remember and also not different at all. 

With social media and our insistence on calling people "friends" who really aren't friends, I forget that very few people I'm "friends" with are deep friends. They may be people I know or have worked with. They may even be people I really, really like. They are friends "lite." 

[I'm having a mother memory here whereby I recall my mother lecturing me on the difference between acquaintances and friends, and I think I rolled my eyes a lot, and yet...here I am.]

And having these friends "lite" is not a bad thing. These people make up a community, and there can be fun and support there.  These people can be a network of advice, connections, business opportunities, education. I am in no way suggesting the camaraderie isn't real or important. 

But the downside is that we can feel betrayed or angered or astounded when friends "lite" seem different from how we knew them or what our perception of them was because they are part of our community. 

Social media makes us feel compelled to sound our barbaric yawps (present company included). And when someone yawps in a way we didn't expect, we feel confused at best. Betrayed at worst. 

My memory had sentimentalized my friendship with this person and smoothed its edges with nostalgia.

But what I remembered today is that my friendship with this person ended because of a poor judgment this person made that could have put my life in danger (drunk driving in high school). 

And then I remembered that this person recently made another judgment that ended up in a very public and embarrassing loss of her career. 

And now this person is trafficking in conspiracy theories. 

I say now, but maybe I should not be surprised. Maybe this is a pattern of poor judgment that has only now become apparent to me. 

Maybe this person has changed?

Or maybe this person hasn't?

Maybe I have defined this person based on simply having "known" her (or maybe more correctly, known of her) since I was a young teenager. A long lens facing backward is sometimes fuzzy. 

I generally try not to hold people's stupid teenage decisions against them as adults because I made MANY stupid teenage decisions. I did many things that were idiotic or cruel, and it saddens me sometimes to think that somewhere people may have an idea of me as being idiotic or cruel because I try very hard not to be either now. 

But even if I were to eliminate the teenage poor judgment event, I still have two poor judgment events in the past six months that make me realize I don't know this person and shouldn't be surprised by anything simply because she is part of my social media community. 

Perhaps the only thing we share is that we are each people on the periphery of each other's social media community. 

And momma, I'm sorry for rolling my eyes. You were right. You were right. 

Because what's the point of worrying (said my medication)

If ever I've recognized that my antidepressant medication is working it is the last four months.

Dad had his open heart surgery in February and while I was concerned, I felt like things would work out ok.
I felt this way even when Mom called me back to the hospital because they took Dad back into surgery to ensure he wasn't bleeding.
They were being precautious, not necessarily indicating that something was definitely wrong.
It was better to do this before his breathing tube had been removed.

If ever I've realized my meds work is when Mom told me a few weeks ago that her biopsy came back showing breast cancer.
Unlike the first time, 22 years ago, I didn't go into shock.
I didn't put a hold on my life and plans (which is what I did when D and I were engaged).
At that time, I stopped wedding planning.
I stopped talking about the wedding.
I had to compartmentalize my life because there was no going forward until I knew what was up with Mom.

My ability to just keep swimming probably has a lot to do with being a parent now, too.
(Although I think the medication is the bigger part of it.)
Life just doesn't stop for me because I have three other people whose lives don't just stop.
Since I am the coordinator of and driver for those three lives, I don't get to hole up and die.

Our family has one more major surgery coming in June--my nephew has pectus excavatum and will undergo surgery, a hospital stay, and a pretty significant recovery period.

I am hoping that this completes the cycle of "Stressful/Bad Things Come in Threes."

During all this stuff with my parents, I have been pretty open on social media as a way to keep our family and their friends informed.

These postings present me with a mixed bag of feelings primarily because, thus far, I've had good news to report.
While I know people want to know, and it is easier for me to communicate via social media, I feel a bit of "survivor's guilt."
Dad came through surgery well and has done a bang-up job in recovery.
Mom's node is benign so we expect her treatment beyond surgery should be minimal. (Possibly even just medication.)

Posting something socially as a way to keep folks informed makes me think about the people I know who have had to report unpleasant, scary, and downright sad things about their family members.
I know my thoughts of them are cold comfort.
I don't feel pity, but I wish they hadn't gone through pain.
Of course, we all go through pain.
It is the timing and the specifics of that pain that differs from person to person.

I don't and won't say things like "Praise God" or anything of the sort in relation to my mom's or dad's surgeries.
Or my nephew's.
I have asked people at church to keep them on the prayer list (because I do believe, if nothing else, prayer allows for a sense of community and a show of support).
I'm also "out-there" enough to believe that the energy of combined prayer can have mystical effects.

However, social media easy communication makes me think overthink about what I write when I post.

For example, I have always, always felt horribly uncomfortable with the notion of praising God when news is good.
I don't do it.
I feel uncomfortable when I see other people do it.

Because if I heap the praise on God when all goes well, what do I do when news is bad?
Praise God that this whole mess sucks ass?
Because if we're honest, I'm not loving having both parents deal with such MAJOR stuff within 3 months.

How do I praise God that my dad survived open heart surgery when someone else's dad doesn't?
That my mom's cancer hasn't metastasized when someone else's mother's cancer has?

(I realize faith and logic are not the same things.)
(But I am a logical person, so faith does not come easily for me.)
(I'm not even sure where the idea of fairness is supposed to come into this dilemma.)

Which goes back to my medication, which has allowed my anxious mind to quiet, to find peace.
And that wasn't nebulous floating God from the heavens sending a nebulous floating cloud of don't worry down to me.
That was God in the form of other human beings helping me.
Because praying to nebulous floating God didn't work for me, even though I tried and tried to make it work that way.
For years.
If I believe that each person is uniquely different, then I believe that God reaches us in uniquely different ways, with uniquely different methods and timeframes.
Your way is not my way.
My way is not your way.
Each of our ways is right.for.us.

I just now found this quote from comedian Peter Holmes who used to be an evangelical, and I find this resonates with me. I don't think God is Santa Claus or a Fairy Godmother. He's not going to grant my wishes.

I see God is as awareness. And it's something that we're not equal to, but that we're participating with. And the best chance we have at experiencing it and feeling it is not just having an ecstatic experience. It's finding your dignified, inherent place in its flow, through using myth, metaphor, ritual, chanting, meditation.. We're trying to wake up not just to a new set of beliefs, but to our place in the river. And there's all this resistance. And that's all ego stuff. And there's all these, all these, like, you know, headaches and whatever. And when we're quiet, and when we quiet that stuff down, and we can feel and identify with our piece of "divine awareness" then that's when you'll kind of find your flow.

Public pain

In general, I think it is a good idea when people are honest and open about their experiences.

I talk about my GAD and OCD because they are part of who I am, and I have found that I have been able to offer comfort and support to others who also struggle with them. I talk about G's issues because of the support offered to others but also the support others have offered me. It helps to feel not-so-alone.

I did not talk about my GAD and OCD when I was in the thick of dealing with them, however.  For one, I was too emotionally effed up to discuss them publicly.  It was also the time before Facebook and my blog.  Maybe I would have blasted the social world with my struggle at the time, but I really hope I would not have. There was a small window of people who knew what I was experiencing.

It makes me feel hugely uncomfortable when I see people publicly going through whatever turmoil is hitting their lives in the very public arena of social media.  I feel like I have made that mistake at times, and it is not pretty.

Emotions are just too raw.  You cannot be rational while experiencing intense emotion.

I certainly understand the desire and need for support, for others to know that you are hurting. When D told me in the wee hours of the morning that his father had died in 2004, it was hard not to call my parents at that second and tell them the news. I'm not sure I understand why we often have this need for others to know our pain, but I understand that need.

But the throes of rage or grief are not our best moments.  We have to blend them with consideration and time to come to our better selves.

We can come across as jaded or thoughtless or flip in our times of intense pain when we go public.  Those are all real; we really do feel that way at the time, but they make everyone else uncomfortable.

I have inadvertently responded to posts on social media which I thought were jokes on the part of the poster, only to find out that they were not jokes. The sky really was falling in their world.

Sometimes I wish us regular folks would follow the lead of our celebrity neighbors and make blanket, non-emotional statements of fact to let everyone know what is going on regarding miscarriages or divorces or home sales falling through.

Because there is some need on the part of the social public to know what is going on.  I know people who did not ever publicly acknowledge something and then at a later time I ask about it, drudging up their pain because I didn't get the memo.

It is a weird balancing act between knowing what to share and knowing what is over-sharing on public media.

O Reason, where art thou?

Good lord, it is increasingly difficult to be a reasonable person.

And when I say a reasonable person, I mean someone who sees multiple complexities in any given situation.  I'm not trying to see multiple complexities....I just do because there are always multiple complexities to virtually every adult situation.

I feel like I'm struggling to have conversations with everyone.  I'm not as liberal as my liberal friends, and I'm not as conservative as my conservative friends.

No matter what I think or say, it is the wrong thing.

If I say I am against the immigration policy then I am against veterans or anyone who has been left out of a job for the past eight years.  Why weren't you livid when.... fill in the blanks.  

If I say the biggest problem I have with the immigration policy is that it left people in a terrible lurch mid-flight without any fair warning and denied access to people with Green Cards and was about as sloppily done as a last-minute middle schooler social studies project then I am just a liberal sore-loser.

If I say I have less of a problem with a well-formulated and implemented temporary ban on immigration then I am against refugees.

If I think Black lives matter that has to mean I think police lives don't.  If I think police lives matter  it has to mean that Black lives don't.

If I think women's choices matter it has to mean I think fetuses don't.  If I think fetuses matter that has to mean that women's safety doesn't.

If I think global trade is a good thing that has to mean I'm against regular working Americans.  If I support regular working Americans then it has to mean I'm against free trade.

I saw a post about how taking in Syrian refugees is like locking your doors at night.  You don't hate the people outside, but you love the people inside.  And I can't wholly disagree with this because it is true.  I do lock my doors at night, although it is because our neighborhood had a bunch of white dudes roaming around, breaking into cars and stealing stuff.  It wasn't refugees.

Given the opioid epidemic around here, they were probably looking for drug money, but if I say that then I am against people with addictions.

There is just no winning right now.

Half my life (and why I won't do a Love Your Spouse challenge)

This summer marks a milestone:  I've been in a relationship with D for half my life--21 years.

I very clearly remember, sometime after we married, a conversation we had about the point at which we would be together half my life.  That seemed like a long time away, longer than what it has actually been to arrive at half my life with him.

This fall we will mark 19 years of marriage.  We keep thinking we'll go on a trip for our 20th in 2017, assuming we can ever firmly decide on a place.  So far we've considered Paris, Bavaria, Hawaii, Montreal and Key West.  But I keep finding places I'd like to go.....so add Acadia National Park in Maine to the list.

Overall, I think we are well-suited to one another.  I hear of other couples who have shouting match arguments, and I don't understand it.  I could have shouting match arguments if I was married to a different person, but yelling just isn't D's thing.  He shuts down, and you can't fight with someone who is no longer standing there in front of you.

My parents never did shouting match arguments either. They had "quiet disagreements," and I think this sums up what D and I have.

With this being said, D and I certainly get on each other's last nerve.  There are times I think to myself, "Why in God's name did I marry him?"  There are times when I imagine taking a frying pan to his head.  But some of that frustration at times coalesces with frustrations with the kids, so I'm often not sure how much is actually him or the kids or the combination of both.  He doesn't write a blog or particularly talk about when he is frustrated with me, but I know he has to get that way at least occasionally.  And he isn't the type to huff and puff and rattle crap around as I do when I'm frustrated.

I've seen a Love Your Spouse challenge on Facebook and haven't been tagged by anyone, which is good, because I wouldn't do it.  For starters, D doesn't like to have his photo plastered on Facebook.

But I also don't want to do it because I think it sends a false message, and isn't that what social media is mostly about anyway?  The majority of people post stuff that they want everyone to think is their life, even if what they post is only 5% of it.

People post a pic of themselves at the gym on the elliptical but not of their kitchen counter with 3 packages of donuts (and yes, I'm referring to my kitchen counter right now).

People post pics of themselves dressed up, coordinated with their kids, but not slumming in their paint clothes on a Saturday afternoon with their hair not washed since Thursday.

People post pics of the dinner that turned out beautifully but not the 8 million dinners that ended up burnt in the oven or that tasted craptastic.

And if I post pics of me and D together all smiley, it doesn't convey the 99% of our marriage that is figuring out who picks up what kid from where.  It doesn't convey me shopping for his underwear at Target.  It doesn't convey morning breath and gross nail-picking habits (mine) and beard hair all over the bathroom (his) and watching each other's bodies grow looser and grayer over 20 years.

It ain't pretty, that's for sure.

What we say on social media is probably .2% of the story.  If someone posts that they are moving with their children, it might mean that they are in the midst of or just come out of a nasty, nasty divorce.  There is a lot to, as Paul Harvey would say, "the rest of the story" that we aren't privy to.  We don't want to be privy to it, but we forget it is there at all on social media.

My loves.....(blecccchhhhhhh)...and my theory of unintentional adoration

Despite reports to the contrary, I love my children.

I tell my children I love them every day, sometimes multiple times a day.

But I also tell my children that they are being turds, jerks, annoying, aggravating, uncooperative and pains in the butt.  Depending on how they are behaving, they might hear these statements multiple times a day, too.

On Friday, when I picked G up from school for his occupational therapy, his teacher walked him to the office, and he had his homework journal in his hands.  My first thought was, "Did he not do his homework, and she is walking him to the office to speak to me?"  My second thought was, "I'm gonna kill him."

In fact, he was simply bringing his journal home but hadn't put it in his book bag and, due to the heightened security, his teacher had walked him to the office.

My first instinct with my children is, "What have they done wrong?"

They have never given me any reason to think I should meet situations in this way, but it reminds me a lot of how my parents behaved with me.  I didn't give my parents any reason to meet situations this way either (at least until high school, and even then, it wasn't in terms of authority figures or school work....I just liked boys too much).

I sometimes post things about my kids on Facebook, and it is generally of the "weird-ass stuff my kids said" variety.  I often post things about being a mother to my children, which is of the "this is hard and definitely not what I signed up for" variety.  Sometimes I think the general perception might be that I don't like my children or this motherhood gig.  Sometimes that perception is correct.

It is not in my personality to refer to my children as "my loves" or say that "I love my kids to the moon and back."  Such statements sound far too adoring to me and to use them, even if I say them in my own head, like I just did, kinda makes me gag a bit.

Sometimes I wonder how the language one uses on social media is picked up by kids.  I suspect it is.....because the language one uses on Facebook is how a person thinks, even if they only put up the "good and/or fake" parts of their lives.

I sometimes feel rather guilty because I am sarcastic, because I don't lavish praise on my kids.  I worry that my kids might feel like they can't be good enough in my eyes or that I have such high expectations they will never live up to them.

But as I consider on it more,  I think I would rather err on this side than on the side of my kids thinking I adore them.   Being under the influence of unintentional adoration would have to be just as heavy as whatever sarcastic weight I throw my kids under as a result of my own personality quirks.