In advance of this September 11

Whenever I type the words "September 11", I still think about how the "11" looks like the Twin Towers did, like how I still think of the buildings every single time I look at the Manhattan skyline. And considering I see the skyline from my town every day, September 11 is never far from my mind.

I can't believe Sunday is going to mark ten years since the attacks. Over the past ten years, I've thought a lot about that morning - how scared I was, how scary it all was, how angry I felt. Who could be so terrible as to do something like this?

It's interesting, though, what ten years' perspective can do. On Monday I watched "When Pop Culture Saved America: A 9/11 Story". It's about how the entertainment industry responded and pulled together to support America after the attacks. As I watched it, I remembered how those first few weeks and months after the attacks felt. Despite how awful the situation was, somehow everything felt more hopeful than it had before. Life was going to be more congenial, more supportive, more intelligent, more thoughtful. Right before the attacks, one of the bigger news stories getting air and online time was Anne Heche's new memoir and the stories about her alternate personality.

That, we all thought, would be something of the past. Who would waste time on drivel like that NOW?

Congress stood together and sang "God Bless America." We were united, now. Who would ever again think partisanship was worth the time it wastes?

Right??

Wait.

What happened? Where are we?

I look around today and I see so much that makes me sad, but also makes me angry. I watched one bar of Congress singing before crying. What happened to us?

I watch these specials and look at clips from ten years ago and think that the us of ten years ago would be remarkably disappointed in where we are now - dare I say, even ashamed. Terrible debt (both the government and its citizens) with no real solution, the worst unemployment since the Depression (and, again, no solution), political bickering, personal interests and grandstanding that poisoned the general public against the idea of universal healthcare.

If someone were to gauge us on 9/10/01 and 9/10/11, I dare say they would find that we had regressed. We are not better than we were. In fact, we are worse - significantly worse, in my opinion.

And, not to be reactionary about this, but I feel I have to say that this means that so far, the terrorists are winning. Their actions have caused us to crumble. We have deserted our interests at home to pursue war abroad.

The worst part? It's as if we don't care. Obviously we care because so many of us are struggling. But, somehow, for some reason, nothing is getting done. To be frank, I am disgusted with our government right now. We have wasted time and money - a whole decade - while our country disintegrated before our eyes.

I don't have any solutions. But that's not my job. I have a job and I do it. And when it's not done, I put in extra hours. And if I don't get my job done, it gets noticed and I face consequences.

I don't think our government is doing their jobs adequately. The problem is, they don't face the consequences. We do - and we are.

As I read old and new stories about people who lost loved ones on September 11, I continue to be grateful that I didn't personally lose anyone that day. But we've all lost something since and a disservice is being done to the memory of those who did die and to those of us who honestly and in good faith banded together afterwards. We all deserve better than our government is giving us right now.

For me, September 11 will always remind me of the love and pride I felt in my imperfect but wonderful country in the days that followed the attacks. I still feel that love and pride, but I'm less prone to defend it passionately these days (if at all) because it's too difficult. We need to pull ourselves together and regain some perspective before it's all too far gone.

Monday Five Countdown

Five Things I'm Grateful For

1. My son.  He makes me laugh so many times throughout the day.

2. Buster actually barked yesterday to let me know he had to go outside.  This is a minor miracle because usually he looks around and if he doesn't see anyone, he'll go do his business outside the laundry room door.  Of course, later in the evening, he didn't bark and instead visited the laundry room door, but at least he had the idea once to do it.  That means there's hope.

3. Our landlord is really understanding about the current gas and electric bill situation and isn't simply saying, "Well, that's your bill.  You pay it, deal with it."  If that were the case, we'd have to move.  And, oh lordy, do I not want to move again any time soon.

4. Pandora.  There are no students at work today because there are no classes, so I can listen to music at my desk.  (Current artist: Johnny Cash.  Oh yeah.)

5. The deli guy at the supermarket yesterday.  I was shopping for pancetta and he came out and asked, "Can he have cheese?" looking at Nate.  I said yes and he handed over four thinly sliced pieces of American cheese, on the house.  I looked at Nate and informed him that this man is awesome because there is nothing better than free cheese.

Four Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. We got some very, very sad and shocking news last night regarding one of the hubby's family members.  There's nothing really to be done but deal with the aftermath and sadness. (I don't feel it's my place to be specific here, but I just keep thinking about it.)

2. My pants.  The amount that I have to cinch them now is ridiculous.  I either need to lose more weight to get into the smaller size pants I have or just buy a couple of pairs of work pants next month when I have a few extra dollars.  All this cinching is driving me crazy and I feel like it's beginning to look less neat than I would like to be.

3. My work schedule is all over the place for the next couple of weeks and I waste too much brain power constantly trying to remember when I'm working, when the hubby's working, and who's watching Nate when.

4. Balance. I don't remember the last time I had any time to myself with absolutely nothing needing to be done.  The responsibilities of being a working parent and primary homemaker are beginning to take their toll but I don't know what to do.

Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week

1. Once again, need to clean the bathroom and the floors.  Didn't get to that this weekend.

2. Never did move the boxes and holiday stuff to my parents' house. Want to do that.

3. Breathe.  Focus.

Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About

1. Balance.  In the middle of all the craziness, I'm losing the light in myself and my marriage.  I need to fight through this and not give up to this craziness.

2. Money.  Still a problem.  Always a problem.  This must be the year we end that.

One Random Thing

1. Tell your loved ones you love them.

(P.S. Did you know there's now a Bookish Penguin page on Facebook?  You know you want to go over there and like it.  Tell me where you want to live but know it'll probably never happen.)

So, what's going on with your five this week?  Please share - I really love to see other people's lists.



Thinking About Grief

A moment of levity following a funeral:

My brother-in-law: "Man, my face hurts from crying."
Me: "Oh, see, that's the good thing about being someone who cries all the time.  My face feels fine right now."

Everyone laughed.  It's not quite gallows humor, but it's nice to let the spirit smile and laugh for a few seconds in the middle of an otherwise somber day.

I mentioned the other day that one of the times in the past year that the hubby wasn't wearing a t-shirt was for his grandmother's funeral.  That funeral was actually recent, the week before Christmas (when I was finding no free time to write blog posts).  His grandmother had been sick for a few weeks and was in her late 80s, so the grief around her funeral wasn't the sort of desperate grief you see when people aren't ready to let go of their loved one.

That grief was saved for the grave of the hubby's Aunt Judie.

I've heard about Aunt Judie since I met the hubby but it wasn't until this bitter cold December day in western New Jersey that I was finally able to put together all of the pieces and see why her death has left an ongoing hole in his family.

Aunt Judie was my father-in-law's baby sister.  She was my mother-in-law's best friend.  She was thirty-five years old when she died of breast cancer, fifteen years ago.

Thirty-five.  My age.

Aunt Judie is buried at the same cemetery that the hubby's grandmother was to be buried at, so I wasn't surprised when I overheard family members making plans to go visit her in the mausoleum.

What I was surprised to hear was people say it might not be a good idea for my father-in-law to go.  I couldn't fathom why.  If you're already there, why wouldn't you go?  Wouldn't you feel bad about not going?

And then I was told - my father-in-law had never visited his sister's grave before.  Not once.  And all of a sudden, I understood why he didn't know how to get to the cemetery earlier that day.  I had thought it was odd that he got lost because, I figured, didn't he come here once in a while to see his sister's grave?

No.  He didn't.  Never.  Not once.  He couldn't bring himself to.  But we were there.

So upstairs we all walked, through this large mausoleum building.  We wound through some hallways until we found the rest of the family down a corridor, all looking up at the same marker.

My father-in-law walked in, crumpled with grief, and walked out saying, "I can't.  I can't."

It was quite possibly the most palpable display of grief I have ever witnessed, unlike any grief I have seen or felt before.

And I began to think about how unfair this all was.  And how I think I would crumple like that on a daily basis if I lost either of my siblings, especially so young.  And how it's so unfair that just because I didn't meet the hubby so long ago, I never got to meet Aunt Judie.  Everyone told me how she was the best person in the family and how I would have liked her so much.

And I started to get angry.  This was unfair.  It was unfair to my father-in-law to lose his baby sister.  It was unfair that my mother-in-law lost her best friend (who she really could use these days, for sure).  It's unfair that the hubby's cousin lost his mother when he was a small child and almost eerie that he looks so much like her. And yet, of everyone there, he was crying the least - I think because he probably dealt with this loss so much more directly than the rest of the family.  He had more peace than the others.

I stood in the mausoleum corridor next to my sister-in-law.  We both have a younger sister who's a mother and we stood there in tears, barely able to imagine, "What if... what would we do..."

We don't know how our own deaths will affect the people we know.  Sure, we can imagine.  When I was a terribly unhappy high school student, I would often wonder what life would be like if I wasn't around anymore.  I wasn't actually suicidal, but there were many days I simply wished I stopped existing.  What stopped me long before ever actually thinking about it was thinking about how sad my parents would be.

What I never considered before was the people I don't know who might miss me.  I never thought to ponder that the hubby was out there somewhere and if I didn't exist, he'd be someone else's hubby and there'd be no Nate.  I'm sure Aunt Judie thought about her son and his eventual wife and children.  But did she ever think about her then 15 year old nephew getting married and having a wife and son who wouldn't get to know her but would miss her anyway, somehow?  I wonder if that kind of thinking is simply too overwhelmingly sad to even approach in thought.

I've always been one to cry fairly easily and not shy away from the sadder parts of life (hence the earlier joke), but since Nate was born, it's not like I newly wear my heart on my sleeve.  No, it's like I hold my beating heart outstretched in my hands daily, leaving it open to stings and barbs and terrible worries.  It's one part of motherhood that has truly surprised me.  You read about the depth of emotion that being a parent opens, but for me it was indescribable and unknowable until it happened.

For some reason, over the past few days I've had some serious moments of sadness wash over me.  It's not a post-holiday letdown.  It's not related to some new event.  There are a number of stressful situations going on right now (money is always one) but there's just been something hitting me when I hear a song from high school or read a blog post about someone who lost a child.  It's hitting me harder than it usually does, but I'm rolling with it.  Sometimes I have days where I'm happier for no apparent reason.  There has to be a flip side to that.

While walking Buster one recent morning, I randomly thought, "Wow, when Buster dies, I'm going to have to explain death to Nate."

And then I realized Buster's only a year old.  Nate will probably be in high school by the time we're saying goodbye to Buster.

And then I really wanted to cry.

(Okay, not really, I love Buster . . . most of the time.  He's just . . . challenging.)

The day of the funeral, I felt like more a part of the hubby's family than I had before.  There's something about being together, sharing the most raw of emotions, that unites people.  I realized at some point in the day that this is the first family death either the hubby or I have experienced since we got married.  It certainly won't be the last or the most difficult, but it was different to go through this with a spouse.  It sounds cliche, but it made death feel less lonely.

It's probably one of the greatest benefits of marriage or partnership, but also one of the more terrifying because, of course, that partnership and support will end one day.  But until then, it is quite a gift.

Moment of Light

December 3 – Moment.

Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

I read this prompt this morning while I was walking Buster and immediately thought, "Oh, well, I have to write about the moment Nate was born."  It seems a given.  But, really, that moment was so surreal, so nearly out-of-body in its enormity, that it doesn't quite fit what I envision the answer to this prompt to be.

And now, after hours of thinking about the prompt on and off, I still don't have a better answer.  I haven't had any of those truly alive moments this year, or if I have, they haven't been of the pleasant variety.  They've been those moments where you sit, feeling alone whether you're alone or not, and are simply walloped by feeling the implications of a hundred life decisions at once.  Or one big event comes to a head and you feel the entire world fall away around you as you wonder how the hell you're going to make it through the next minute, hour, day.

Today, I'll add, is one of those days.  And it isn't the only one of those days that the hubby and I have had recently and certainly, by far, not the only one this year.

What's interesting to me is that this year had really demonstrated the universe's balance.  We had the biggest moment of light in our lives with the birth of Nate, but we have also had the darkest moments of our life together this year, as well.

So I'm glad that when I read the prompt this morning, Nate was my first thought and not the darkness we have been fighting all year.  We've won some of the battles with the darkness, but not all of them and new ones always appear.  Thank goodness for the light to keep us going.

Six Months a Mother

This post has been writing itself in my head for about two months now.  For some reason I just knew in my gut that when Nate turned six months old, I'd be feeling a huge pull to think about myself as a mother.

It has probably taken me this long to actually even think of myself AS a mother and not just some imposter who the crazy hospital let take home this little 8lb bundle back in May with nary a background check or home inspection.  (Really, when you actually have a baby, it feels astounding how easily you are allowed to take on the care for such a fragile, helpless little being. It makes me wonder how humans continue to thrive.  The whole ride home I was thinking, "Really?  This was it?  They really just let us pack up and leave with him just now?")

Before I had Nate, I knew I would try my best to parent as naturally as possible in the superficial land that is my home state of New Jersey.  I would use a sling.  I would breastfeed.  I would make all my own baby food.  I would avoid Gerber (product of Nestle) at all costs.  I would treasure all these millions of tiny moments that everyone assured me would fly by.

And then I actually became a mother.  And way fewer of the moments flew by than I anticipated.  Sure, now, those first two months are a bit hazy, but at the time they felt never-ending.  A friend of my sister's recently asked how I was and I said something like, "Fine, good - everything is just so much more fun after those first few months, you know." And she said in return, "Oh, I know.  Those first three months are like hazing, aren't they?"  And I thought, how perfect - yes.  You do indeed get hazed into motherhood, even with the sweetest of babies.

Nate wanted nothing to do with the awesome sling I bought.  He wanted to stand in it, even as an infant, and all I could envision was him slipping out the bottom and hitting the ground, so we gave up on the sling for a while (I am determined to try again soon).

I wanted to wait for baby food until Nate was 6 months old, but he started seeming hungry after finishing 8oz in his bottle (he kept sucking and sucking on the empty bottle and then would cry when we took it away - clearly hungry, right?) so we started food.  Except we really weren't ready for this, were all in the middle of a terrible cold/ear infection family epidemic, and barely had money for groceries.  So what did we have?  The Gerber food that was given to us as part of a gift at the baby shower.  I may try to not support Nestle whenever possible, but I'm not about to waste baby food so Nate's first baby food was Gerber.  (At least it was organic, right?)  Sigh.

And the breastfeeding.  The breastfeeding that lasted less than a week and broke my heart, seemingly irreparably since it is still something I find myself crying about on occasion.  And by on occasion I mean any time I think about it, which I basically try not to do so as to avoid said crying.

The other day a friend posted on Twitter that her teething son had bit her while nursing and so "the booby bar was closed."  I read the hubby the tweet and he said, "Now aren't you glad you're not breastfeeding?"  Not for a split second did I consider answering yes.  I said, "Well, I'm glad I'm not being bitten on the boob, but no, I'm never glad that I'm not breastfeeding." And then I started to cry, as I do every time I think about this.

People often ask me how Nate is doing and will off-handedly ask, "Are you breastfeeding?" and I have to choke down the lump that instantly builds in my throat and smile and say, "Oh, no, that didn't work out for us.  My milk didn't come in, so yeah, you know..." and then move along before, again, I start to tear up.

Why the crying?  Because I still think I could have tried harder, dammit.  I am still not convinced that had I given it another three or four days, I might have been able to help my milk come in.  I'm still aggravated that I don't have anyone in my immediate life who breastfed who could have come over and helped me figure out if it was a supply issue or just a delay or who knows what else.  Nate was less than a week old, crying pretty much all the time if he wasn't eating or asleep, and seemingly only satisfied if he was eating (or trying to eat since we figured he wasn't getting much anyway).

Now, at 6 months, I wonder what it would have been like if I had persevered and succeeded.  Would we still be nursing?  Would I have figured out pumping at work?  Or would I have given up after returning to work?  Would I be kicking myself over that instead?  If still nursing, would I be absolutely loving it or would I be dying to quit?  And what would Nate be like?  Would he be bigger?  Smaller?  Would his sleep be different?

I'll never know any of this and it's the ONE thing that continues to eat away at me regularly.  Nate is clearly fine - healthy and strong and happy - but I still just wish.

Being a working mother will get its own post at some point, I think.  I'm still processing that aspect of my life and my feelings about it are constantly shifting.  I've been a mother for six months, but a working one for less than three.  At times it feels simple and at other times it feels incredibly complicated (which, I guess, makes it complicated by the fact that it changes?).  And I feel like this post already has such a heavy air to it that I don't want to discuss another heavy topic here.  Being a mother for me is inextricably linked with being a working mother, but I think the topic warrants some separate thoughts at another time.

What this post doesn't yet get to, though, is how much I absolutely love Nathaniel.  The bonding took a while.  I remember a day, maybe when Nate was around 6 - 8 weeks old, when my sister asked, "Don't you just love him like crazy, though?  Can't you just not get enough of him?  Don't you just want to squeeze him and squeeze him and never put him down?"

And I so clearly remember thinking, "Oh.  That's what I'm supposed to be feeling?"  Because I didn't.  I loved Nate, but it felt like more of a responsibility.  I was supposed to love him, obviously.  I was required to care for him.  And when he cried, it did tug at my heart.  But I sorely needed a break and I was roughly halfway through my maternity leave with no break in sight.  I was not feeling the crazy love.  I was mainly just feeling the crazy.  (Again, I think there needs to be a separate post reflecting on my maternity leave.)

But now?  Now I would answer my sister's questions with a resounding, "YES! YES! To every question, YES."  A coworker of my dad's asked me Halloween weekend, "Oh, how do you not just squeeze him all day?" and I said, "Well, I kind of do, really."  I don't want to put him down and I do have this irresistible urge to just squeeze and kiss and tickle him ALL THE TIME.  I totally get it now.  I feel like maybe I was a little slow in getting it (maybe a little resistant somehow?) but I so get it now.

I still feel like an imposter sometimes and I still don't feel natural calling myself a mother or referring to "my son."  It makes me feel self-conscious, like when I was a writing student and wrote poetry regularly but never wanted to refer to myself as "a poet" because I felt like I hadn't earned that title; my writing wasn't good enough for me to call myself that.  So if I follow the analogy through, maybe I don't feel like my mothering is good enough yet for me to call myself a mother.

But that's the thing, the title isn't a choice once the state exists.  I AM a mother, regardless of how I feel wearing that title.  And I never have been a fan of titles.  I always hated the titles "girlfriend/boyfriend" and even grew weary of "fiance" after a short while (that said, I love "husband/wife").

The love I feel for Nathaniel is the simplest, purest thing I have ever experienced in my life and I think what I dislike is all the weight that comes with the title.  I just want to love him and nurture his growth and happiness and creativity.

And what I have to make sure I remember is that I can.  I can just do that.  I can just love him and nurture him.  I can shrug off the weight of the title "mother" and all its implications and connotations, both personal and societal.  Motherhood is what you make of it.  If I want to care about what I feed him, I should - but I shouldn't beat myself up when I need to cut some corner to make sure he's fed.

I think one of the points of value I bring to being a mother at 35 is that I'm comfortable defining myself by now.  I know who I am, I like who I am - even the parts I don't like, I like.  What I need to do now is take that comfort and spread it to my mothering.  I need to like myself as a mother and I need to become more comfortable with my choices.  I'm definitely getting there and I have the benefit of not having too many people second guessing me at every turn, but I need to accept not only the decisions I'm making now, but the ones I already made and the mistakes I've made.  I know they won't be the last.

I love to challenge myself and take on several challenges at once - working full-time plus part-time work, graduate school, family obligations, social obligations, personal projects - but nothing has challenged me as much as the decision to become a mother, from the time of the positive pregnancy test to today, right now, this minute, this minute, this minute.

I breathe in a way I hadn't before.  I look at the sun and rain and trees and the night sky in ways I hadn't before.  It's been like the opposite of peeling back the layers of an onion.  I'm not getting at a me that was always inside, under other layers.  It's more like I'm putting on more layers, adding to the parts of me I already knew and the parts I haven't uncovered yet.

I feel proud of making it this far and being in one piece.  I feel proud of having a child who is clearly thriving and happy.  I feel proud of also having a marriage that is happy and thriving and growing in this process.

And that's all I really want to ask for right now.  I can keep it that simple if I want to because, for me, if I want to boil down the essence of what matters most to me, that's it.  My son, myself, and my marriage are happy and healthy.  Being a mother has made me appreciate even more the simplest, purest joys in life - and not just appreciate them, but treasure them.

This - this I treasure: