Midsummer

It is August. I feel like this summer has flown by much faster than others - just yesterday was the kids’ last day of school; tomorrow I go to pick up school supplies. I know people always say the summer has flown by, but yeah - this time, it’s for real.

Still no word about afterschool, but we may even start school before we hear anything. Or it may be a month or two or three or more before there are spots. Who knows? I still feel like most likely we’ll hear something next week and it will be good news. But I’m preparing mentally just in case. Maybe it’ll be like when our babysitter said she couldn’t do any of these weekend trips for me anymore - it seemed like the worst calamity on earth at the time, but it ended up being a good thing; it saves me a ton of money, and the boys get to spend time with the BF and he’s forced to not work so much. We’ll see.

I feel like the event is relatively under control, but I also know about false “calm before the storm” moments. There is still a ton of work to do, most of which has to wait until the last minute, when it will be hot and I’ll be stressed and may have kids home at 2 every day instead of 6. So...yeah. One bit of good news scheduling is that for the first time in years I will not get my period the day the event starts. What a delight that will be not to be in a murderous hormone-induced rage for several days before the event. 

I’m glad the boys have enjoyed their camp, but I don’t think I’ll be sending them there again. Every time I go there it seems like it’s just a bunch of bored teenagers hanging out - nobody really seems to be in charge, and I feel like the kids are picking up some bad habits/language there. But at the same time I’m very mindful of the fact that, with the exception of our very white, very privileged elementary school, the demographic of our actual neighborhood is very different (working class Latino) and I think it’s important for the boys to be a part of that. I grew up in rough places with rough people and it teaches you a few things - mainly, that it’s not all about you. I like that my kids are often the only white kids in a situation. I think that’s important. And the camp doesn’t feel unsafe particularly, otherwise they wouldn’t be there. But I’d like them to be somewhere that maybe isn’t quite so Lord of the Flies in structure. Thankfully I’ll have a whole year to figure this out.

For now I’m doing my little workouts (have not lost a pound), slowly pecking away at event-related work, making plans for the future, and just taking things day by day.

That time of the year

There are three more weeks of summer camp before school starts on the 20th. Then two weeks before my event. I’m starting to get random waves of nausea, am not sleeping well, and am having anxiety dreams. It’s that time of the year.

Today I had in my calendar to go to the rec center to sign up for the afterschool program for both boys - it’s opening day for registration. I went after lunch and was informed that it was full. Full! Apparently there was a long line into the office at 8 AM and all the spots filled up immediately. This is the same place that two years ago always had availability. Last year they were full by the first day of school...this year it filled up in minutes. I don’t know why I’m surprised; my event is having a similar trajectory. However, I am now screwed. 

I spent the entire afternoon filling out forms and scrounging around for options only to discover the only other option - the crazy expensive STAR program - is also full and has been since school ended. 

I emailed the rec center director and she told me she’ll look at the list and see what she can do, but won’t know anything until next week. I’d like to think she’ll squeeze us in just because we’ve been using all their services for years - camps, preschool, after school - and luckily my kids are easy and well liked by the staff. But I know all of this means nothing if they just don’t have the staff or budget. 

So I’ve been trying to reconcile myself to a very different school year. I’m very fortunate that I don’t need afterschool care - only just for my mental health. I can technically pick them up every day. But the hard times are when I travel, and these first two weeks of school before my event. I remember how hard it was for three months picking up Theo at 2, 1 and occasionally noon after school last year; the idea of having two rambunctious boys running amock for hours every day while I can’t get anything done positively fills me with dread. Also, it’s no joke asking the BF to leave work at noon or one to pick up kids every couple of weeks when I’m out of town. I mean...he can do it. But ugh. 

I’m trying to make an attitude adjustment. It’ll be fun! Our evenings will be more relaxed! I can bake cookies! They can do chores! They’ll be getting older and easier all the time! It’ll be ok! But yeah, trying really hard to fight off despair. What on earth would I do if I had a 9-5 job??? I can’t even think about it. 

It’s funny because I’m on exactly the other end in my work - my whole life right now is dealing with endless desperate emails from people wanting in to my full contests and our full hotel block. The people pleaser in me is not pleased. Maybe that’s what the nausea is about. 

Hawaii

Vacations are a fascinating magnifying glass look into your life. Everything is intensified - the highs are higher and the lows are lower. And yet we insist on doing this to ourselves. Maybe we’re bored? 

We have only two more nights here on Oahu. So far the highlights have been:

Swimming in a waterfall at Waimea valley

Today’s snorkeling at Shark’s Cove

Our magical yurt stay (four nights there, now we’re in a pretty dumpy beach cottage on Oahu’s north shore)

Bobby getting more confident in his swimming and having a blast in the waves

The not so great parts have been:

Both kids, but Theo in particular, being exceptionally whiny, complaining, and ill-behaved. I feel like all we’ve been doing is angrily barking out orders that are completely ignored and then meting out punishments. But then I look around and all I see is mothers  grabbing kids’ arms and leaning down and hissing in kids’ ears full of rage, so apparently everyone is having the same vacation we are.

Theo may in fact be sick. He was running a fever for a couple of nights and appeared to have swollen lymph nodes - we were seconds away from packing him off to an ER one night - but seems to have rallied at this point. It would explain his exceptional crankiness.

We are also having to make Bobby sit on the toilet to poop after every meal and in the morning and at night, all so he doesn’t soil himself, which he’s done a couple of times anyway. It’s fucking exhausting. 

My birthday was a bit of a hot mess. The BF as usual did not plan ahead and spent much of the day wasting time frantically trying to come up with something for us to do - it ended up being a desultory trip to Waikiki involving a glass bottom boat ride (we saw absolutely nothing - but it was fun being on a boat) and a cheesy magic show plus dinner which was all meat and therefore inedible to me. The kids got a kick out of it so it wasn’t a total loss but...yeah. He also had a complete freak out meltdown trying to find the magic show during which I had to say to him, “hey! Don’t you dare say ‘what the fuck’ to me!” and had to confront him for the bajillionth time about his smoking, which has been way out of control on this trip. He agreed to dial it back. On trips like this I see how incredibly high maintenance and helpless he is, and also how badly he handles stress. I’ve had to bail us out and take over much of the time here, which is typical for us. Normally I don’t mind being the leader - I’m comfortable in that role - but I had hoped he could handle some planning for once. Clearly he can’t so I won’t let that happen again. 

So we had a couple of pretty shitty days and I was feeling pretty down about it. And yet he’s done so much right on this trip and been such a help and loving dad to these kids. It makes me feel like an asshole for fixating on that one moment he snapped and wiping out the 1,000 things he did right, forgetting how totally impossible a trip like this would be without another committed parent-figure (trust me - with two barely swimming kids on a beach, you really, really need two adults!).

Much to my (expected) horror, our new beach cottage is full of giant waterbugs. He killed many of them last night. I for sure could not have handled that on my own without completely losing it. I could picture myself throwing sleeping kids in the car and high-tailing it to the nearest Marriott.

I’ve decided relationships are a lot like trips to Hawaii. Beautiful beaches, soft breezes, shave ice, waterfalls, tacos...and waterbugs. You kind of can’t have this beautiful place without the nasty tropical underbelly. Doesn’t mean you have to love the waterbugs...you just have to accept they’re there and try to focus on the good stuff. 

Aging

In a week I’ll be on Oahu in a yurt. There I will ring in my 47th birthday. 

I realize I’m still “young”. But I feel old and out of it. I’m having a hard time with aging at the moment. I think part of it is because culture is moving so quickly right now, it’s impossible to keep up, and that causes a certain panic that I’ve recognized in older people before. Add this to my rapidly diminishing eyesight, my inability to lose weight, and fear of oncoming menopause, and yeah - not feeling the whole aging thing.

Still - I need to think about the positives of being this age, especially on the heels of good choices I made as a younger person. I bought a house when it was still possible in LA, and hopefully that house will be paid off by the time I’m 52. Then I will have lots of options for myself and college for the kids. I started a business in my 20s, toughed it out through the hard times, and am now reaping the benefits of two decades of hard work. I had two children that will hopefully be a comfort to me in my old age. Being older isn’t all terrible. In fact, it’s mostly great. I signed up for more personal training sessions, am going to start running, and will double down on my diet once I get back from our trip. I’m not going to go quietly into that dark night, not yet. 

The boys and I had an enjoyable beach day on our own today. Boy, are beach days less physically demanding now that I have help carrying stuff and don’t have babies strapped to me! They played well together and then we went to the In N Out where you can watch airplanes land at LAX, then home. 

Theo is attempting no pull ups tonight, on his own incentive. Hold the good thought for us! 

R.I.P.

It’s over. My sister and I both didn’t know what to expect or what we were going to do...but as with all things, we got through it. My two cousins, sister, brother-in-law and step aunt got in the same little row boat we’ve used for both aunt and uncle ash spreading, went out on the ocean, spoke a little bit, spread some ashes, I played the song. I said that life with my mother was a wild ride, one that sometimes you didn’t want to be on, but in the end I thanked her for making me possible, and thereby making Bobby and Theo possible. 

I remember when I was caring for newborn Bobby and couldn’t stop thinking about how she had done all these things for me - carried me, birthed me, nursed me, wiped my butt a thousand times, had sleepless nights, endured hormonal shifts and vaginal tearing and all the rest of it. I can be as mad at her as I want, but she did all those things. And for that I am truly thankful. 

After we went back to shore a wicked thunderstorm started up along with gale-force winds that positively soaked my cousin’s small beach cottage. The rain was enough to fill a tall bucket in under a half hour. Then it passed and we had this lovely rainbow. It was very fitting, I thought. 

Grief is inconvenient

I’m in Boston. Tomorrow I get up and bury my mother. Sigh.

I’ve had episodes of grief and near panic about this, and then it passes, and then it comes back. Will I feel better once it’s over, once we have jettisoned her ashes to the Boston Bay along with her sister and brother-in-law? Once I’ve done the last - and only, for a long time - thing I have to do for her? Once I’ve had the last day that gets to be all about her? Does it get to be about me, now? Ah, The Song of the Child of the Narcissist. Sing it louder and we can all dance to it. 

I arrived last night and had lots of crazy dreams, mostly about her, of course. At one point I became very warm and was convinced she was visiting me. I felt her love for me, utterly enveloping. But even in the dream I was fighting it. “That’s all bullshit. It’s a nice fantasy, but no.” Her consciousness is gone, as is her human form. She knows nothing but that she is dead. Selah. 

I carry her genes, her blood, her mannerisms, her attitudes about things (for better or worse). On stage tonight I couldn’t help but think about how much my voice sounds like hers, how I’m doing this entirely because of her influence, how the countless times I watched her perform no doubt seeped into me, affecting every look and movement that I like to think are authentically mine. They’re not. 

Maybe some day my boys will fight my influence - maybe they’ll be proud of it. I feel both, really. Bobby is already so me it’s a little scary. Theo, like all younger siblings, automatically gets the freedom to create his own thing, and does with relish. Oh, let’s hope I don’t alienate them with my selfishness the way she did me.

I don’t want to be sad - sad feels helpless; lost. I feel more comfortable being angry because it feels empowering. I’m angry that she let this happen to her - isolated herself far away, clung to foolish beliefs, let herself die slowly and in a ghastly manner. I feel like you don’t have the right to do things like that if you’re a parent. I would never put my boys through that - having to find me, figure out all my shit with zero roadmap, left with no note or explanation or apology...fuck that. What she did sucks. And we get to carry that forever, and someday I have to explain to her grandchildren what happened to her...the same way she explained to me that her grandmother died in a sanitarium after repeated suicide attempts. Good times! 

I had hoped to write something to say tomorrow but I haven’t been able to do it. I picked a nice Blossom Dearie version of the song Some Other Time to play (I didn’t think I could make it through singing it); beyond that I don’t really know what I’m going to do or say. 

Here I am at this joyful Lindy Hop event full of love and youth and community, and yet I have to go do this dark thing tomorrow. It feels so out of place and fills me with dread, like prying open a coffin. 

I hope I can get through it and feel relief. This is the only thing required of me for her, ever again. I can suck it up for a day and try to remember the good times (there were many) and try to purport myself like a respectful young (?) lady. I owe her at least that. Hold the good thought for me, would you? 

WWJJD

I started with my personal trainer last Wednesday and have worked out independently twice since, as was required. Right now we’re mostly doing a little light weight training, something I’ve never done in my entire life. Like so many women I focus on working my legs and losing weight, not getting strong. But I’d like to try something new. 

And it’s been really interesting, how I feel about lifting weights. It’s all about the story we tell ourselves, isn’t it? Right now I like the idea of being a strong, kickass woman who lifts weights in the gym with a bunch of guys half my age. This appeals to me. In my mind I’m channeling my idol, Joan Jett. “Do ya wanna touch me there? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah!!!”

Will I keep up with it? Who knows. But I do find it very meditative and empowering, much like knitting. Until my event is over the time requirements may be a problem. But I am motivated. So that’s something. 

What Would Joan Jett Do? I think she would lift weights and kick ass. That’s what she’d do.

In other news, my registration system kicked over...and it was a huge mess, because my business partner sent an email to all my attendees telling them about the switchover before I’d really had a chance to check it over, which caused a mass panic when people found contests missing and the wrong event pass on their account. Between Friday and Sunday I was swamped with freaked out emails; we had to do a re-import of all the data, and I had to manually check each of 400 registrations from our opening day to make sure everyone got what they paid for. I believe I’ve found most of the problems...but there’s no escaping that the event weekend is going to be a bit of a cluster-f after all this. I can’t go into my event with any confidence that the information I have is correct, which is terrifying. But...it is what it is. My staff knows to be understanding and just give people what they think they paid for; keep the customers happy. We’ll survive this, and then next year will be so much better.  But yeah. It was a tense few days. 

Had a weekend of birthday parties for the boys’ friends and baby showers. I’m so relieved the boys like their summer camp. We had a nice dip in the hot tub last night in which I watched in amusement while they took turns doing different jumps based on Captain Underpants and told each other, “oooh, that’s cool!” As much as there is often whining, tattling and shadenfreude involved, they do have a really good relationship. I’m very proud of that.

Thursday I leave for Boston for my annual singing gig and also to bury my mother. I’m dreading it, but I suppose I need the closure, since my mother’s death, for me, has been largely theoretical. Is this where I finally freak out and become non-functional? I suppose it’s possible, but not probable. I’ll bring some weights. And my knitting. Hopefully those will get me through.