There are No Tricks and It’s All Impossible

Parenting requires you to be your best, most patient, kind, introspective, peaceful self in the face of huge fear, uncertainty, and endless demands. Kids will bounce from screaming about their insufficient snacks to tearfully asking why bunnies die in less time than it takes to walk across the kitchen. There’s almost never time to catch your breath, to think, to answer thoughtfully before they’re on to something else. Your head spins chronically. You get used to feeling frantic, feeling wrong, feeling dumb, feeling out of control. Or, if you can get used to those feelings, you do better.

Deep down I think if I were actually a good mom, it wouldn’t all be such a struggle, such a pain, so impossible. …

All Disasters, Please Line Up Single File Behind This Line

Lest anyone feel jealous about our fancy new Californian life, let me disclose some (very first-world, but still quite annoying) non-bliss-ness business:

Things started strong. Robb and the kids flew on New Year’s Day, with no delays, no terrorist attacks, no one melting down in the airport and licking the floor, and no strangers coughing directly into their mouths. Meanwhile, my mom, dog and I drove the 5 days cross-country, and did not get murdered even once in any of the Airbnb’s we rented, the dog did NOT vom, and we were not any of the several dozen cars and semi-trucks we saw off-road, flipped and jack-knived in the snow. …

January, 2021 was the first time I’ve ever watched a presidential inauguration. Even the enormity of having our first Black president in 2008 didn’t convince me, in my late 20’s, to engage. I’ve always found politics boring and the power parade gross. But something has changed, in me, and in this country, in the past four years, and I‘m recognizing the harm (and privilege) in opting out, and my responsibility to opt in.

Plus, for this ceremony, this celebration, of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden being sworn in as VP and POTUS, I very much wanted and needed to watch, and I did so, sobbing, clinging to my kids on my daughter’s bed. We landed there when I just couldn’t put down my computer long enough to make the normal morning routine happen. Things didn’t feel normal, they felt sacred, and scary, and I wanted us to witness whatever happened, together. My littlest kept asking why I was crying and handing me wads of paper towel to (scratch) dry my face with, and my easiest explanation was that I felt happy and relieved…and I was, but there was more, too. …

This isn’t a threat. No need to worry about me abandoning or harming my kids or myself. I’m way too responsible and get too much self-esteem from being needed, but I do think it’s important that I express how much I don’t want any of this anymore.

I love my kids deeply. This isn’t a reflection on them as people. They are at or above average when it comes to being humans. It’s not them specifically that I’m balking at right now, it’s just the very idea of any kids that I’m rethinking. Like, I am glad they are here on the planet, thankful they are who they are, that they are safe, and well, and that I get to know them…but I want to know them like they’re neighbor kids who live down the street and pop by my house once a day to show me the cool new trick they learned on their bikes, or to show me how they can now read an entire book all by themselves. …

That’s all. I’m too tired to write much. Been dealing with driving cross-country, then moving van being a week late, and now unpacking, and backed up drains, and white supremacists storming the nation’s capitol, and my kids being SO MUCH, being loud even when they’re quiet, being busy even when they are still. I’m beyond exhausted and overwhelmed. I’ll write more soon. Meanwhile, please enjoy this mountain sunset pic from my car, while I drove to pick up vegan tandoori chicken pizza…..(Say what??!!! It was amazing).

I haven’t been writing, even though I know it’s good for my mental health. I haven’t been exercising, or eating healthy, or meditating, or drinking water, or doing any of the things I know are good for my mental health. Instead I’ve been keeping my mentals busy, busy looking for local problems to solve and terror scrolling the news. If I order enough cleaning supplies from Target, delivered via Shipt, and I tip really well, I can scrub my soul and save the economy all in one click of the button on my phone, right? Only it’s never just one click. My brain aches from staring into the tiny screen, my guys boil over from forgotten passwords, GPS failing, leaving me helpless and worthless, the internet not working, kids panicking when they can’t log in to their classes, or (much) worse, can’t stream their shows. They make that terrible whiny/blamey, “MOOOOOOOOMMMMM” sound, and I know, I KNOW I am failing everything. Everyone. …

We’ve landed in California. We all left on New Year’s Day, and from where we lived in Michigan, it was about 2,400 miles to our destination in the Bay area. A five hour flight for Robb and the kids, direct, with N-95 masks firmly in place, seating spread out across a large craft…it was fine. The drive took me, my mom, and my dog, four and a half days, covering five-hundred to seven-hundred miles a day. The dog didn’t drive much.

We stayed in single unit, “enhanced clean” Airbnb’s along the way, only going into buildings with humans when we absolutely had to, then masked and sanitized to the gills. Despite the sense of doom, of risk, of worry, we did well. We slept hard at night and listened to charming murder mysteries as we drove. The scenery, when the roads weren’t trying to murder us, was varied and breathtaking. We saw wild horses! The audacity of that freedom. Driving was peaceful with just the two of us. Zero children and just the one dog. …

I’m actually at my computer, sitting down, by myself. Robb’s at our house, helping the movers pack and load. The kids are playing miraculously peacefully elsewhere in the Airbnb. Ope, nope, there they are. Now they’re in the room with me…snack-seeking? No! They’re still in make-believe mode, something about an elfin kingdom, so if I just play dead and maybe they’ll walk on by.

There. It worked. It helps that we’re in a new house where adventures might be waiting in wardrobes or whatnot. I’m hoping to limit their TV watching to nine hours today- fingers crossed.

We’ve been organizing, purging, and packing since before Christmas, all while Robb works remotely at a brand-new job on a different time zone. We also hosted all of our families in micro groups for Christmas, as carefully as we could, and had distanced, outside (in December/Michigan) visits with friends- it’s been necessary and good for our hearts, I pray it doesn’t come back to virally bite any of us. We couldn’t NOT say goodbye before we move across the country, but the threat of illness hangs so dark and heavy. We got tested first, I aired out the house between visits…now we just hope and hope and hope. …