What if
I just took my lunch break
If I sat down to eat
A bowl of soup
Or two scrambled eggs on toast
What if I opened a book
And with it propped against a pillow on my lap
I sipped a hot cup of tea
And disappeared for an hour
What if I just stopped
Trying to fit in a quick run
Or a trip to the grocery store
Or an unloaded dishwasher
What if I just quit
Prepping dinner
And folding laundry
And wiping toothpaste off mirrors
What would happen
Would it be OK
If I just took my lunch break?
I want to apologize for all the things I said when I didn’t know any better.
When I was trying to get pregnant, and failing, a part of me died inside every time someone asked when we were planning to have kids. I wanted to shout from the rooftops that I was trying really, really hard, or tell people that I cried in my car sometimes when I watched moms wobbling under the weight of their growing bellies toddle into the grocery store.
And in those moments I learned never to ask a woman that question.
Years later I’d meet folks who never felt compelled to have kids. They didn’t feel the same urge that I felt, and they cringed inwardly (sometimes outwardly) when asked: “So, when are you going to make me a grandma,” as though none of their other achievements had meaning if they didn’t also procreate.
Thanks to those people I learned never to approach that question by assuming parenthood was everyone’s end game.
We all thrust our biases on those around us — if I naturally gravitate to the idea of motherhood, then I assume you must also. If I love being a wife, love coming home to my spouse every day, and am unable to imagine a life without him, then I assume you want that, too, and so I might ask you: “Are you seeing anyone interesting? Do you have a boyfriend yet?”
What we fail to recognize is that when we’re shoving our own limited world views down the throats of others they experience that interaction very differently than we intend — as pity.
For the longest time I was on the ‘right’ cultural trajectory. I had the career, the house, the spouse, the kids. If our Western culture compiled a recipe for happiness, I had all the main ingredients.
And I was happy, for a bit. But even with all the necessary ingredients, everything started to sour.
I’ve learned that there are worse things than being single. What’s worse? Being in a relationship in which there’s no trust and no security. Being in a relationship that requires walking on eggshells, or sneaking glances at text messages. Single is better than feeling like you have to hide or change part of yourself to make it work, and that no matter how successful or beautiful you make yourself, you’ll never be quite enough. Single is better than knowing that no number of delicious meals prepared, family vacations planned, or Instagram-worthy photos taken will work to fix all the broken things.
Being single is easy, and believe it or not, some of us choose to be single, sometimes forever, or sometimes for just a little while.
So when someone says: “It’s going to be OK! You’re beautiful and young! You’ll find someone special, and you’ll be so happy,” I cringe and suddenly feel as though I have to defend myself and my situation. Suddenly, I feel pitiable.
When we assume people can’t be happy without a partner we’re doing them a disservice. I’ve never been happier, and I don’t know how to convince you otherwise, or even if I should bother trying. I know blogging about it won’t work, because there are those who will read this and still shake their heads and whisper: “Aww, that’s sad. Pretty girl. I hope she finds someone soon.” Adding insult to injury, they’ll respond with a “caring” reaction or throw a hug emoji in the comment section.
But it was worth a shot at least, because honestly I’m fine.
Just a little while ago I was helping a friend move and I stumbled upon the book, Happiness is a Warm Puppy, by Charles M. Schulz.
And it got me thinking (as all good books do), about what happiness looks like to me, and if it’s very different at all from what happiness looks like to you, or to anyone for that matter.
Happiness is a warm blanket, and a warm puppy; happiness is finding someone you like at the front door.
But happiness is also the first sip of hot coffee after the kids have gone to school.
Happiness is finding someone who looks really grouchy and making them laugh whether they like it or not.
Happiness is having some juicy news to share and a good friend to share it with.
Happiness is waking up, rolling over, and realizing you still have hours left to sleep.
Happiness is a concert ticket.
Happiness is realizing that you can have a crush on someone again after you thought for sure that part of you had been pummeled to smithereens.
Happiness is a hot lunch day.
Happiness is stepping on a barely frozen puddle on your morning walk and hearing that loud “crunch” under your boot.
Happiness is finding someone who looks really grouchy and making them laugh whether they like it or not.
Happiness is a really yummy bottle of wine that only costs $12.
Happiness is watching your clumsy dog catch the ball mid-air; extra happiness is when other people see it, too.
Happiness is when your son takes the garbage to the dumpster without being asked.
Happiness is finding a song with the perfect beat that makes you run faster than usual.
Happiness is watching snow fall for the first time all year knowing that you’ve got a warm blanket, a warm puppy, a cozy bed, and snow tires.
Happiness is overhearing someone say something nice about you when they don’t realize you’re in the room.
Happiness is being missed.
Happiness is bravely telling someone how you feel and having them reply: “Me, too!”
Happiness is waving to the elderly lady in her kitchen window as you walk by with your dog every morning.
Happiness is reading a good book and realizing it’s the first one in a series.
And finally, happiness is a penis-shaped bookmark.
Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday. Like most things, though, this year I’ll be celebrating slightly differently.
Instead of piling into my childhood home with my brother and sister and their spouses and children, I’ll be spending the holiday with friends, hiking, laughing, and eating great food, while my kiddos spend the weekend with their dad and his girlfriend.
Funny, then, that change, growth, and the clarity that comes on the other side of it is what I’m most thankful for this year.
I’m grateful for soul-filling moments that become frozen in time. Just a few nights ago I convinced my son to come for a run with me. It was a short run — hardly worth the effort from an exercise point of view — but at the end of our run he spotted a patch of dry leaves, grabbed a handful and let them crumble between his fingers.
“You’ve got to try this, mom! It feels SO GOOD!”
And so I did. And we stood there, four steps away from the car and for five solid minutes, crumbling leaves in our fingers and covering our shoes in leaf dust. Our cheeks were pink, our hands smelled like fall, and I’ll never drive by that spot without smiling.
I am thankful for my body, for the way it moves without pain (most days), and for how strong and reliable it is. I’m thankful for the scars that remind me that yes, in fact, I heal.
I’m thankful for clean sheets, floral wallpaper, scented candles (like these amazing ones that my friend’s niece makes), and pink, faux rabbit-fur throw pillows.
I’m thankful for all of the things I didn’t say, the secrets I didn’t spill, and the gossip I didn’t repeat. I’m thankful for the texts I scripted in anger and deleted, and for the ones I received, read, and left ‘seen’ and unresponded to.
I’m thankful for remote work and videoconferencing, and for the side conversations that go on behind the meetings.
I’m thankful for all of the times over the past year that I’ve screwed up. I know there will be so many more screw ups in future, but at least those ones are behind me.
I’m thankful for the relationships that haven’t worked out, for the roads not taken, and for the lessons that saying goodbye have taught me about myself and the kind of person I want to be.
More than anything, though, I’m thankful for the relationships that have worked out. For the friendships that are richer now than they’ve ever been. I’m thankful for the life-long bonds, and also for the brand new folks that show up unexpectedly. I’m thankful for the relationships that start off as a few shared gifs in a work chat and an eye roll here or there, and then before you know it, you can’t imagine a day without that bit of connection.
Tell me, what are you thankful for?
Compliments are hard to manage for a well-adjusted woman, and even at my most confident I’ve never known what to do with them. However, right now, right in the midst of heartbreak and transition, if you give me a compliment I will poke a million holes in it. I will deflect like a boss. Make no mistake — I want the compliment, I just don’t know how to handle it when it arrives.
Example 1:
Them: “You look so beautiful in your photos!”
Me: “The photographer was amazing, and the lighting would have made a block of cheese look like a supermodel. We sure timed that right!”
Example 2:
Them: “You have a real gift for writing, Danna.”
Me (via text to a friend): “How do I tell the difference between a pity, we-feel-sorry-for-you like, and a real like?”
When I’m wallowing there is not a compliment that I’ll believe, and there is not a nice thing you can say that I will trust entirely.
(“Let’s face it,” sad me will say to myself, “if I were actually beautiful enough, then this probably wouldn’t be happening. If I were actually talented and funny and smart enough then I probably could have prevented my world from turning upside down.)
But there is, thank Christ, a time limit on being pathetic. I can enjoy the food and music (sour jujubes and Adelle mostly), but I can’t move in and unpack.
The antidote to being down in the dumps awash in self-pity, is, unsurprisingly, administered by women.
During my 42 years on this planet I’ve come to realize a universal truth — the longer you live, the busier you become. I’ve heard life doesn’t even slow in retirement. Life, like skipping rope, just gets harder as you get older. And time for leisure becomes more scarce.
My own calendar is filled with work commitments, family commitments and other obligations, both in-person and virtual. There is never enough food in the fridge, the laundry is never done, and no matter how many times I walk the damn dog those big sad eyes will always be staring at me, begging for just one more trip around the ‘hood. I know I should go to bed earlier, but instead of sleeping I use the ever-shrinking time after the kids go to bed to tidy up, or to answer a couple of emails to get a head start on the next day.
There are always extra things to do. There is never extra time.
This is what life is like for all the women I know, but that hasn’t stopped them from showing up.
Despite the pressure put on these remarkable women to do everything and to be everything to everyone around them, they show up. These women are running businesses and raising families, but they pick up the phone and actually call. They give an hour, sometimes more, and fill up the silence that would otherwise eat me alive.
They arrive, and they give, and holy shit, what a compliment.
If I am enough for these women, then I am plenty. And even though you might not be able to hear it, or accept it, you, my friend, are pretty spectacular, too.
I’ve been thinking about my massage therapist a lot these days.
I wonder how he’s doing, and how he’s keeping busy, and I’ll be honest, I’m a little envious of his wife who had the forethought to marry an RMT. Was he an RMT when they met, or did she direct him toward his career path? Either way, I consider her an absolute genius.
I did not pick my partner based on the skills he could bring to a pandemic. I mean, his sense of humour has been a blessing, and he is wicked good at making Excel spreadsheets, but he is not an RMT, or a chiropractor. Neither of us are particularly good teachers, either, as it turns out.
Determining my fantasy quarantine team has taken up quite a bit of my imagination over the past several weeks as I itemize specific skills and discount others. Until recently I didn’t realize how handy it would be to be socially isolated with a hair stylist, or an esthetician.
And I would trade all the Excel spreadsheets in the world in order to add a fitness trainer and a nutrition coach to my roster, as all this self-isolated snacking is getting decidedly out of hand.
I also wouldn’t mind adding a bartender and a barista to my team, either.
There is room on my team for a pet groomer. I was eyeing up my husband’s electric moustache trimmer recently and noted that it was the PERFECT size for trimming the fluff around my doodle’s backside, but after a few moments of reflection I opted against it (because I’m a good person, and that would be a mean thing to do).
Mostly, though, I just miss my massage therapist. Being socially isolated with someone of his talents would be wicked handy. My home office is not ergonomic, and this momma has a neck kink like nobody’s business.
What do I have to trade? I’ve got a couple of budding comedians and fashion critics on the block. One of them can tell you just about everything you will ever need to know about Pokemon, and can also relate any aspect of your life to a Garfield comic. The other one will regale you with ego-boosting observations like: “What are you even wearing? Your shirt is super wrinkled and looks weird, but your hair is the worst part.” When he’s not offering up unsolicited comments on your attire, he will just jump out at you with a surprise high kick, or tackle you into a mid-afternoon wrestle-hug, which is another reason I’m on the lookout for an RMT.
Who is on your fantasy quarantine team?
The guilt of parenting during a pandemic is heavier than any weighted blanket available on Amazon, and unlike a weighted blanket which is designed to reduce anxiety and improve sleep, it ratchets it up, and gives your brain more to consider as you lay awake, completely aware of how badly you’re failing at just about everything you’re doing right now.
Where I live, we’re in Week 3 of pandemic parenting, meaning while mom and dad work full time from home, we’re also providing full-time care to our children, which includes some educational instruction.
(I’d like to pause here and acknowledge that our pandemic situation is privileged. Privilege, in this case, looks like general good health, two parents, two pay cheques (for now), food in the fridge, an ample (but not excessive) amount of toilet paper, a bit of a backyard, and more sunny days than rainy ones. There’s even an uncertified therapy dog who is happy to absorb all of the angst and fear that comes from being locked up with your loved ones for days on end.)
I always wanted children, but I also knew that stay-at-home parenting was not my jam. I love grown-ups, and swearing, and solving grown-up problems. I love leaving behind my dirty laundry and mismatched socks in favour of a quiet office that I share with a five-year old orchid that blooms semi-annually. I love the sound of the office HVAC system, and I love my other office mate, a tiny blue space heater that only sees use in summer because the HVAC system lives in Opposite Land. I love going to work, I love being at work, and I love coming home from work to see faces I would die for — faces that I’ve missed so much and thought about so many times during the day. I love the car ride home from daycare because I get to hear all of their ridiculous stories. I love sharing adventures and kid gossip at the dinner table. I love weekends because it means I can stay home with my people because I miss them so much.
I always wanted children, but I also knew that teaching was not my jam. My mother is a teacher, my sister, too. I watch both and shake my head. Where they excel, I would flounder. Judging by my parenting style, if you put me in charge of a class full of 7-year-olds I would take turns bribing them with Dino-Sours and threatening to cancel Christmas. Adults, with their manners and passive-aggressive side-eyes, don’t scare me, but children are wise and cunning. Eventually they’d figure out that my threats are as empty as the bag of Dino-Sours that I inhaled in the cloak room. At which point I’d probably just run behind a plant and hide because 1. children are terrifying, 2. I have zero teaching tools and no desire to acquire them, and 3. unlike my sister and my mother, I lack the ultimate secret weapon: A teacher voice.
I always loved the routine provided by school, daycare and work, and the thrill I got from stacking all those perfect little glass jars so they balanced so perfectly and shone so beautifully that even the stiffest wind couldn’t knock them over. And yet here we are, in the midst of a pandemic, my glass jars of routine and sanity shattered on the driveway, and I am stuck in my house, working full time, parenting full time, and teaching, too.
I’ve got to say, I’m not a huge fan.
Pandemic parenting means that I never get to miss my children, and they never get to miss each other. They are always here, always in my business and in each other’s. They wrestle constantly, stopping only when someone gets a bloody nose or a knee to the nuts, and when I suggest a directed drawing, some Reflex Math, or a visit to the Cincinnati Zoo (online, obviously), I’m met with a deep sigh and a “no thanks, I already know about hippos.”
Knees to the nuts it is, then.
And despite how much I joke about my lack of parenting skills, I always secretly thought I was pretty good at it. Until yesterday.
During my oldest child’s first Zoom videoconference with his class he opened up: “I miss everyone so much. I only ever get to talk to my little brother who argues all the time, or my mom and dad, and they’re always working.”
I overheard his comment while up in my office. Working.
And that, dear friends, is what parenting in a pandemic feels like — a heavy, weighted blanket of guilt — guilt that is bottomless and causes breathlessness even as I write it down.
In honour of Pink Shirt Day how about we do something completely radical?
For one single day let’s cancel gym class, unilaterally — in every city, everywhere.
Or, maybe we could do something slightly less dramatic. Maybe we could implement a few minor changes. For starters, how about we end the time-honoured tradition of forcing children to line up while their peers select them for a team; a process that inevitably ends up with one child being the last selected, over and over again until he or she can finally opt out of gym as an elective in Grade 11.
Because really, what is this selection process if not socially acceptable bullying? Sure, it was how things worked in the 1980s when I was in elementary school, but that was before we wore pink shirts and used cute acronyms to describe ideal behaviour.
The fact is kids want to win. And while they may wish to be “Safe, Outstanding, Accountable, and Respectful (SOAR),” when you throw them into the Hunger Games Arena (or gymnasium) and tell them to pick their dodgeball team, they’re going to do the exact same thing we did when we were 10 and pick the kids who can throw hard and run fast. And the rest of the kids are going to stand in an ever-shrinking line with their cheeks burning just waiting for this humiliation to end.
I’ve written before about being a parent to child of many skills and talents, most of which are cerebral rather than physical. I adore my thoughtful, artistic son, the one who happily climbs trees and folds paper airplanes; the one who, if given a choice between a visit to the dentist and a stint on a soccer team, would choose his teeth every time.
But he must participate in gym, and generally he’s fine with it, though he cares little about whether he wins or loses. On this day, however, he cared. On this day he came home from school and told me of a day that “started off great, and then got worse.”
It was Tuesday. Gym day. His class was to play dodgeball, and two children were selected to choose teams.
“I was chosen first, which never happens,” he said, making me sigh.
But then his team started doing poorly, and another boy on his team took the loss seriously.
“He told me that I was the reason we were losing. And then I heard him tell his friend that he couldn’t believe I had been chosen first out of all the kids in the class. AND HE KNEW I COULD HEAR HIM!”
“What did you do,” I asked him.
“I turned to them and said, ‘hey, guys, I’m RIGHT HERE!’ And then they turned to me and said, ‘whatever.'”
What I heard from the story was that my son had been chosen first, and that another child was jealous. My son was steamed, and addressed it in the moment. The moment passed, they went back to class, and completed their day, but not without my son learning a harsh new lesson.
I’m not concerned about this child of mine. He is smart enough and has enough great friends that it doesn’t matter if he plays soccer or hockey, if he’s on the winning team or the losing team, or if gets picked first or picked last. Each day he comes home to a place where he is safe, he is loved, and if he ever feels like he can’t fight his own battles, he knows his home team will spring into action.
But I am concerned about gym class, especially for the kids who might not bounce back so easily. I bet if you did some research you’d discover school-aged bullying happens in a few key venues: The playground, online, and in gym class. We can’t cancel the internet, though it’d be nice to kill the comment section for a day. The kids need fresh air, so we can’t cancel recess. And as much as I personally would have liked to kibosh gym class to avoid the torture that was volleyball, I understand that kids need this, too.
However, in the 30-plus years since I was in elementary school, plenty has changed. Our kids are learning in entirely new ways and using new technologies. Cursive writing is dead, and report cards don’t even have grades anymore. Yet by all accounts gym class has stayed the same. Sure, physical activity is necessary. Sure, dodgeball may end up teaching more relevant skills than, say algebra, so I get we can’t cancel it. But in honour of Pink Shirt Day, maybe the bright lights among us can do something to make gym class slightly less cruel.
Maybe today on Pink Shirt Day the teacher can pick the teams.
If you asked my kids what they did this summer (as I’m sure their teachers did today), they’d respond with the classic, “nothing,” and further elucidate that it was “fine.”
But let me tell you, their summer has been amazing. Stupendous. Chock full of memories galore.
Funny thing, though, just as we all begin flossing two days before our semi-annual dentist visit, I busted out the home reading books and sight words four days before the start of school.
And I groaned, and mentally chastised myself for letting the book-learning slip. My littlest child, for whom reading has never come easy, struggled through words that had stars behind them when he left his classroom on that final day in June. He grew frustrated and annoyed with my choice of books, and flatly refused to sit still, insisting that he’d read with me, “tomorrow” (which coincides with the day that my diet always starts).
What have my kids done this summer?
They’ve gone swimming more times that I can count. They’ve sailed down water slides, and turned over rocks looking for crabs. They’ve scooped up fistfuls of sand in a quest for clams, and took turns announcing theirs as the biggest, or most beautiful.
They’ve trapped jellyfish in travel mugs just to watch them pulse, and named them before setting them free. They strapped on lifejackets and paddled out into the surf in a kayak, one of them spotting a family of otters along the beach.
They’ve visited with grandmas and grandpas and aunties and uncles and cousins and even a great grandpa who refused to turn up his hearing aid so he couldn’t hear about great adventures, but warned us loudly (as he always does) to visit more, because he won’t last much longer.
They stayed up way past their bedtimes, and rode bikes and scooters in the neighbourhood with friends. They’ve bobbed around on lakes, and learned how to do backflips into pools. They’ve gone camping; they’ve eaten in restaurants and around fires.
I’ve ensured that they’ve experienced summer, its sunsets, its weird bugs and its skinned knees. They still smell of sunscreen even after they’ve bathed, or maybe they just smell of sunshine?
They’ve been healthy. There have been zero trips to the doctor, or late nights with big bowls. There have been no fevers, coughs, or stuffed noses.
But as the new school dawns I have so much guilt — not for the things we did do, but for the things we didn’t.
When our routine went out the window, so did the homework. Teachers ask us every year to keep up the great work, and to practice over the summer, but we didn’t, and that’s on me.
As is the case with so much of parenting, it’s easier to dwell on the activities that you didn’t do than it is to congratulate yourself for all of the things that you did. Contriving such amazing experiences requires boatloads of effort, and quite a bit of cash. Nightly reading and flossing is cheap by comparison.
But what does dental hygiene have to do with literacy? Guilt.
The guilt kicked in during a visit to the dentist last week where several cavities were detected. It was in this moment of handwringing that I began tallying up all the other ways I’ve failed my sweet children. Flossing. Reading. Probably not enough vegetables. They went to Sunday school with their grandma twice though, so that had to count for something.
How did I let this happen? Was it too many campfire marshmallows, and not enough gargling around the fire? Probably.
While looking into my child’s mouth the dentist saw the thing I didn’t do well enough, not the 999 incredible things I did. When my children head back to school this week, their teachers will sigh and see where I cut corners. They may even imagine my nightly refrain: “That’s OK. You’re tired. We’ll read tomorrow.”
And the guilt makes my tummy hurt.
So, here’s to the start of the new school year, the start of a routine that includes fewer campfires and jellyfish, and more vowels and fractions. Let’s give a cheer to those food groups we’ll welcome back into our lives again, and for the oral health that will once again take centre stage.
Mind you, if you were to ask my children what they did this summer, and they answered, “brush, floss, and practice sight words,” I’d probably get a failing grade also.
There’s no climbing out of this bottomless pit of parenting guilt.
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