This post was recognized by Five Star Friday. I'm honored.
Today's post was going to be a series of blurry photographs of Miss Elephant and her new outfits. Miss Elephant came from the circus, and her outfits came from the sewing scrap pile. Don't worry, they're still coming, but there's something else I realized I have to write first.
Two events came crashing together this morning, launched by another last night. I tell you this because sometimes I myself wonder how I got the idea to do something. One was the launch of the BlogHer Book Club discussion of Brene Brown's new book, Daring Greatly. The other was a text conversation I had with a friend who's been going through a very extended trough in her life. During the course of our conversation, she wrote, "Sounds like you're doing well from your blog, though. Yay!" And for the most part, I am, and I was glad she was happy for me in the midst of her hard place, which is truly who she is, a very generous and lovely person. I would like to be more generous and lovely, myself, so I appreciate it when I see it in others.
But I felt like such a liar.
We discussed Kansas author Laura Moriarty's book The Chaperone in BlogHer Book Club a while back, and since I realized she teaches at KU and lives in Lawrence just right down the road from me, I decided to check out her backlist. Wow. I totally went fangirl and read them all. Laura Moriarty writes books that are painful to read because they are so fucking real. Last night around midnight I finished The Rest of Her Life, which is a book about the relationship between a mother and her daughter after the daughter accidentally kills a schoolmate by hitting her with her car.
And there are about a million passages in this book that made me gasp and examine myself and freak out. And this was one of them:
"'Oh," Pam said. It was all she said, that one word, but her voice held so much ache and sympathy that it seemed to Leigh her sister might have actually been there at the market and seen Diane Kletchka's misery and insanity for herself. Leigh relayed the entire confrontation, and her sister's face grew more distressed. It was hard to tell who she was feeling sorry for -- Bethany's mother, or Kara, or Gary, or Leigh herself. And that made sense. Leigh knew this even as she was talking, even as she felt a resurgence of fear just describing the scene. There were, after all, no underdogs in the scene, no winners or losers to root for. It was a miserable situation for everyone involved. An objective bystander could only wish they would all get through it." - p. 248
I read that last night, and it lodged somewhere in my mind, a piece of the puzzle sliding into place. And that's why I texted my friend this morning, because there are no underdogs in her story, either. Just a trough and a hard time, and I wanted to let her know I was thinking of her.
This new book of Brene's is all about vulnerability and not being afraid to get in the arena and show people who you really are, even though that can make you look incompetent (you think) or ineffective or sort of vindictive or unfair.
For almost a year now, Beloved's been traveling for work. A lot. Like a several times a week. And I knew with him taking this job it would put new challenges in my road. Most days I handle them well enough. Last night, though, last night, I could feel myself getting sick, and I was standing at the counter getting that dizzy/tingly/oh fuck feeling, and the little angel was asking about dinner and the movie I promised to watch with her, and the trash needed to be taken out, and the cat was protesting for her dinner, and I wasn't quite done with work for the day, and it Felt.Like.Too.Much. As it often does.
I'm not a full-time single mother, but I play one part-time in my life right now. That means my schedule is dictated by my daughter's and husband's, as there is often no one else to watch her or take her where she needs to go. Sometimes that means I can't make plans with friends or answer the phone at certain times of the day. And then I worry I'm hurting the other people in my life by paying them no attention.
Years ago, I would've just blamed this all on my husband, because that's the easy thing to do. I spent much of my early marriage holding him responsible for all manner of things that weren't his fault. And sometimes I find myself tempted to do it now. After all, he's gone while I'm doing the work at home, right? It's not like we're Downton Abbey with staff here. But I know how much he wishes he were here. I know how hard it is for him to be away from us at night, especially when we seem too busy to talk to him, but that's really because everything takes me a million years when I have to do them one at a time, and by the time he calls, we're fried and trying to get to bed. He knows this. I know this.
There are no underdogs here.
So yeah, there has been Miss Elephant this week. And a glorious bike ride on Sunday with my husband and daughter, and she made it nine whole miles and then we went to Cold Stone. But there was also last night, at the counter, with tears running down my face and me emailing my parents to say I WANT MY MOMMY. And then she emailed back with something about making iced tea for my cousin's bridal shower and I was all THAT IS NOT THE RIGHT RESPONSE TO I WANT MY MOMMY. Which she fixed this morning, but in that moment, I just fell apart.
We're all just totally treading water.
But don't we all look nice on our blogs?
