The Sixteen Candles birthday letter

Dear N,

This week you turn 16, a birthday that feels monumental to both of us, I think.

I've never been good at projecting what you might be like at a certain age in the future. I remember Daddy asking me this question (What do you think N will be like when she is X years old?) when you were a small girl, and I just couldn't imagine what you might be like.

I lack imagination, but mostly, it simply didn't matter what I thought you might be like or what I wanted you to be like. It didn't take me very long into motherhood to recognize that I am less the sculptor of my children and more the museum curator who finds the best spot for the sculptor's work to be admired or viewed.

My children are both their own sculptors and the sculptures they create.

I like to think you are the kind of girl who has a range of friendships with people, who can move between "groups" of people and be equally comfortable and nice to all.

You are just good-hearted and not the person who looks down on others. However, you definitely have your opinions about things and don't value people who come across as snobby or fake but, unlike your mother and more like your dad, you generally keep those feelings under wraps.

Speaking of that, you are a blend of me and Daddy. You are involved and have a wide range of friendships like me, but you also truly treasure your downtime and don't require other people to be entertained (I'm better about that as an adult, but definitely was not when I was 16).

Recently you wrote your essay for induction into the National Honor Society at your school. Though you initially struggled with what to write, your essay was fantastic and just epitomized who you are:

I thought the John Lennon pun at the end was simply brilliant; your freelance writer momma was super proud of that one!

Enjoy your day, and keep studying for your permit test. You and Daddy are gonna have a blast with driving lessons.

I love you to the upside down and back even when you act like a Demogorgon (which isn't often, but you are a teenager so it happens),

Momma

The meanest, cruelest mother in the world, and I don't care

I am making N pay for her own car insurance.

Someone call CPS.

(I have received a little flack for this, and not just from the soon-to-be 16-year-old.)

I am expecting N to get a part-time job this summer (like 20 hours a week) to help make money to cover car insurance and gas, which leaves her 148 other hours during a week to do whatever. Assuming she sleeps 9 hours per night, that leaves her 85 hours per week to do whatever else she wants to do.

(FYI: I do not currently have 85 hours per week to do whatever I want.)

A summer job will do a number of things for her in addition to helping her pay for her insurance:

1--She will see that working in a job can blow, and there is nothing more motivating than working in a job that sucks to help you never want to be in that position again and make sure you keep your grades up and take education seriously.
2--She will see that even though mom and dad make XYZ gross, there are taxes taken out. Every young person needs to experience the magic of taxes for themselves.

For the past year, I have been having her give me money from her neighborhood pet-sitting business and babysitting to put towards it.
And, the truth is that I will help her a little if she is close but not exactly there.

I'm not the parent who gives her children everything their hearts desire.
They are fed, clothed, housed, and their medical needs are taken care of.
They are expected to go to school, do their school work to the best of their abilities, not be assholes to the general public, and gradually take responsibility for themselves because I don't want to be paying for their shit when they are 30.

I do nice things for my children, like buying N Elton John concert tickets for her birthday, which I think is profoundly generous.
But I don't buy tickets for N to go to Elton John, Forecastle, Bourbon & Beyond, and every other concert that comes to town.

Having my kids be financially responsible in little ways gives them some power and freedom with the goal that they will, one day, have total power over themselves and freedom from me and their dad.

As an adult, I would hate to have my parents paying for stuff because that gives them a voice in what I do.
If my parents offered to pay for my kids' education, that means they get to have an opinion about where I send them to school.
I love my parents, but I want to do what I want and make my own choices.
And I want that for my children.

Expecting them to slowly take responsibility isn't hurting them.
In my opinion, the parents who pay for everything for their children are hobbling them in ways they don't fully realize. 

Why am I doing this? (I have to ask myself about subbing)

There are times when subbing is pretty great, like last week when I subbed at an elementary school for a teacher I know who asked me to "teach her 2nd graders something about writing." (She says writing is not her strong suit.)

So, I did a lesson on adding descriptive details to sentences to make them more interesting. Students were working on fables at the time. We also practiced punctuation for dialogue, and I moved among them answering questions and helping them edit their work.

There are also times when subbing is soul-crushing, like yesterday when I subbed double-periods for a band teacher who left a note that basically said, "The day will be easy. Show a movie."

While this wasn't the hardest subbing day I've ever had, I also may have allowed kids to get on their phones because my main role was to keep kids alive and from fighting. They don't want to watch a G or PG movie, especially not one of the three I offered them and for which they had to vote. They wanted to sit with their feet propped up (and who doesn't), but there weren't enough chairs in some classes for everyone to do this, so I then had to argue with people over that. (Because middle schoolers are all about what is fair.)

I realize the teacher doesn't have desks in the band room, but there are things called clipboards (and I am happy to buy 50 of them for him), so students can have some work to do in groups that is actually about music education. Even a little bit of work keeps kids occupied and the sub has SOMETHING to hold them accountable to.

I said this much to the AP when I left (nicely, of course).

Am I a difficult person?
Perhaps.
Do I deserve being called a "Karen?"
Possibly.
I have been known to not be able to keep my mouth shut when something is just dumb or wrong or not well considered.


But I became a sub because it galled me to see subs in my kids' classes who were sitting on their phones.
So, here I am, ready to be more than that, and I am sometimes hobbled by the teachers. (Which annoys me, and yet I.SO.GET because planning work for a sub is like another whole stinking job.)

Finding religion in science fiction

I do not believe that religious texts are the only places to find, learn about, or struggle with god or religion.
I actually have better luck finding theology in secular texts.

I recently finished listening to the audiobook of Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, a science fiction book that was published in the 1990s.

In this book, the protagonist Lauren Olamena doesn't understand the loving god, god as parent (even though her father is a Baptist preacher).

I have always struggled with god as parent as well.
As a child, I knew my parents got frustrated with me, and I didn't fully understand what parent love meant.
How you can both hate your child and love your child in the exact same moment?

I've always had trouble wrapping my head around god that loves unconditionally because even though I would die for my children and will love them no matter what, which I suppose means I love them unconditionally, I don't really feel like this is the same love I would want from my god.
I know what I think sometimes about my children; those mean thoughts I keep tucked inside my head.
How angry I get at them, how frustrating they can be, the feeling of resentment that sometimes pulses through me.
How I sometimes think I could literally get in my car and abandon them because being a mother is just so exhausting.
So I put those same feelings on god when I think of god as parent.
And that makes god not so endearing to me and not really anyone or anything I want to determine things about my life or my afterlife.

The other idea that I struggle with is the god of the bible offering his only son.
Again, I realize I'm struggling to not put my human parameters around god, but I cannot fathom this. To sacrifice one of my children (a flesh-and-blood one at that) for the good of my other children (who are kind of jerk heads)?
I can see a Sethe (from Beloved) decision to sacrifice one's own child to keep one's own child from extreme suffering.
(See how I revert back to non-sacred texts.)

Anyway, because the whole god-as-parent thing kinks me up, I found myself drawn to the notion of god as change, which is what Butler suggests in her aforementioned sci-fi novel.

I love this quote:
All that you touch, you change.
All that you change, changes you.
The only lasting truth is change.
God is change.

This is an idea I can understand. God as something pliable, something that I have some control over at times and over which I have no control at times.
God that doesn't wish me ill or well.

I think mine and G's OCD makes this God as change idea really powerful.
OCD wants control and creates ridiculous rules for attempting to establish control.
What the psychiatrist (with my help) is trying to do is to make change and being out of control acceptable to G.
One of my favorite prayers is the Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Humans want to feel in control, and the god as parent idea makes that hard.
Parents, as sci-fi writer Alix Harrow says, are plot-spoilers.
Parents want control over their children. And children rebel against this. (Which is why, in novels, having no parents in the picture makes for better stories.)

I have always rebelled around anything and anyone that tries to control me--my body, my thoughts, my beliefs, my feelings.
God feels more workable to me if he/she/it is neutral and malleable and allows me the capacity to exercise control as I can. 

How quitting the gym is healthy (for me right now)

It seems strange to connect my decision to end my gym membership with health.
It isn't like the gym was costing me a ton of cash ($15.89 per month).
But the gym membership was costing me psychological energy.
It was causing me psychological stress.

As the kids have gotten older, my mental energy load has increased what feels like a thousand-fold. (It probably is actually a thousand-fold and not just a feeling of that being the case.)

I'm trying to keep up with all their things:
field hockey practices
science fair paperwork
student council schedule
homework
Girl Scout events
doctor visits (which feel like all the time, given G is seeing a psychiatrist once a week for ERP and M has a plantar wart that has been needing twice-monthly visits, and M has orthodontist appointments once a month, and the boys and I need allergy shots anywhere from 2-3 times a week (me) to every 2-3 weeks (the boys).

Plus, there are my jobs---subbing, cottage school, tutoring, consulting, freelancing.

Plus, there is the podcast which is my hobby right now.

Back in the days of yore, I was home a lot with the kids. Nap times made afternoon outings impossible. I yearned to be out doing something.
At that time, getting out of the house was a treat for me, a much-needed opportunity to speak to adults and get away from my children.
It was my me-time.

But now, I'm rarely home, and when I am, I don't want to leave.
I don't want to get in the car and drive somewhere I don't absolutely HAVE.TO.BE.
I am happy to go for a walk on the treadmill or take a walk with D during his lunch break when he works from home or do some yoga stretching on the floor of my living room.

Having the gym membership was one more thing that required my attention and needed me to remember it.

To have it off my mental to-do list makes me feel so much better.
And that is worth a lot more than the $200 it was costing me every year.

Tempering my wants

Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows I love to travel.
I don't necessarily love the "traveling" part of travel, but I love visiting new places and experiencing new things.

I had hoped to take the family to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons this year but decided a while back that that goal was feasible but not responsible.

Last year was a bit of a money hemorrhage.
New HVAC system and water heater in May.
New-to-us car in October.
And I realized that we had actually gone on not one, not two, but three trips in 2019:
Atlanta, GA during Spring Break, 2019
Cape San Blas, FL during summer 2019
and
Michigan City, IN during fall break 2019.

To go to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons would involve airfare for 5 people, a rental car, and probably two home rentals since we would want to minimize driving between the national parks.
If you've ever looked into flying to Jackson Hole, it is crazy-expensive.

As much as I hated to let the idea go, I had to let it go.
If I proceeded, I would feel guilty for spending so much money when what we really need to do is save.

So, I had to think about where we could go that might give us a bit of a Yellowstone feel without the airfare and rental car.
My kids will agree to just about anything if it involves the possibility of seeing animals.
When we visited Rocky Mountain National Park, we spent an entire day on a hunt to see a moose, and when we finally did on our way out of the park, even G didn't want to get back in the car to leave.

I realized that we could venture to Land Between the Lakes, which is less than 4 hours away and has a bison & elk prairie.
So we're doing a "state"-cation this year.
There is horseback-riding at LBL, and the place we're staying is right on the water and has kayaks.
If we get bored, we can visit Fort Donelson in Tennessee or Paducah.
We're even taking my niece, which will change things up since she has never traveled with us before.

Also, on my list for a short day-trip in spring is Big Bone Lick State Park which, surprisingly, also has bison on site.
The draw, though, is simply the name. 

OCD is part of my reason

This past fall marked 15 years since I began treatment for my OCD.
It has taken almost that entire time for me to get comfortable with this disorder.

That diagnosis has changed my life in many ways.

It made me see the value of therapy and encourage it for others.
It made me vocal about the need for better and more mental health care.
It made me realize that having a mental health issue does not equate to being useless, crazy, or unworthy.
It made me better equipped to handle my own son's OCD and be empathic.
And beyond my son, it has allowed me to offer help and hope to other people.

A young person I know and see regularly was diagnosed, and her mom, who is also my friend, made sure to mention to her daughter that "Ms. V has OCD" to help ease her daughter's handling of the diagnosis.

It made me feel very proud to know that in some ways I have become a "poster-girl" for OCD among people I know.
Because when you have a condition that isn't going to go away and that can be crippling and embarrassing, you need to know that a person can have the condition and still thrive.
That a person can still have healthy long-term relationships.
And be smart.
And be productive.
And be cool.
(Ok, I'm not really cool except in my own head.)

It also makes me glad that I've been a bit of a loudmouth about my OCD, allowing others to feel comfortable enough to ask me questions and seek my suggestions and guidance.