MY BOGGY BLOG: find your way through the murk
Notes from the Homefront -- Theresa Jarosz Alberti, writer and mother... http://sapphire.albatross.org
Yes, I know St. Patty's Day was last week. I'm talking about real Spring green, the very first patches of green I've seen on the ground in six months. We had a great hard rain this afternoon, pouring so forcefully that we could barely hear each other talk in my writing class at The Loft on the third floor. Later, when I walked out of the library, my eyes perked up to the sight of bright grass tendrils, glowing so greenly from the wet ground. Yippee! There is hope! Spring is here!
I've heard that it might reach 65 degrees tomorrow, which after a cold winter, feels pretty hot. Every Minnesotan you see walking around outside will be shining, lit up with joy from the good weather. We get "high" in the Spring, with the lush intoxicating sunlight stroking our skin. Nobody quite enjoys good weather like those of us who have wicked winters!
I've been reading Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." So now you're forewarned-- if you don't want to read about liberal politics or care what I have to say about it, you can stop reading now.
I both love and hate this book at the same time. I really do like Al Franken and his brand of humor... gosh, all the way back to the late 70's when I was 14 and watching Saturday Night Live while I babysat. (Now I feel old.) I am a liberal, and damn proud of it. And I really appreciate what Franken has done in this and his other books... refuting the claims of the political right, backing up what he says with thorough research, opening the eyes of anyone who cares to have their eyes opened. And I do want to have my eyes opened, but oh, it is so painful too (hence my "hate" of the book mentioned above).
Mostly, I'm not so much into politics, and I have a hard time keeping up with all the news that is happening in the world. I am always so amazed at my DH, who is so knowledgeable about world news... I am much more of a microcosm person. But I do care, and I do want the world to be a better place, and I want peace and fairness and justice. And I want George Bush out of office! And I do want everything to be better for my kids. So when I become aware of the political machine out there, how all the power games work, how corrupt it all is, how powerless I am as a measley liberal Minnesotan writer mother, I get awfully down. Like this week. Reading about Al's chapter on the Paul Wellstone memorial and how republicans reported and distorted the facts-- LIED-- and how it was taken for fact with no questioning, resulting in favorable election outcomes for republicans... what can I say? I'm depressed! What happened to fairness, to justice, to ethics? What happened to media that really questions and researches and gets to the heart of what the real story is? We have lost so much. As a writer who once considered a career in journalism, I am just sickened.
Well, I don't know what to do with this black mood. All I can do as a writer now is speak my truth, my real ethical truth. Is it enough? I don't know. But onward I go.
DH and I have been taking turns having Funks today. Just lots of stuff going on, and we've been in intensive therapy together and separately, learning to deal with our feelings more directly. It's hard work. And DH has been having stuff going on with his business partner (I'll write more on this in another entry), so there have been a lot of feelings and issues for him to deal with. He was drooping around with some angst, so we sat on the couch and I assured him that he was okay and that it was good to feel these crappy feelings... and that he should just take a break, since it was such a hard day.
Later on, 'bout the time I was supposed to cook dinner, I went spiraling down to my Funk... just feelings piling up that I wasn't dealing with. I was so resistant to getting up and making dinner, just being sucked down to a black mood, and DH kindly did the same nurturing treatment for me. He listened and empathized and then he took over the kitchen and made pancakes for dinner! That was so nice! Not having to cook when I was feeling so down.
Maybe it's because it's March, with its changeable weather. Maybe it's because we are really getting closer to our own internal processes after all this therapy. Maybe we're just cuckoo. But it's so nice to have someone who will understand and even make some pancakes when the day gets you down.
:-)
Emotionally, it's been a tough week. It feels like anger is making my body burn and glow red, and adrenaline is pulsing through me in megawatts. I alternate between this and sadness, deep sadness that probably goes back to my childhood, but also relates to the thing that are going on in my life right now. And I can't really talk about much of it here right now, maybe later. It has to do with DH's business partner, it has to do with our church and its politics and policies. With our schools, too, and the state of the world, if I think about it long enough.
I was not raised to really feel my feelings. Feelings were something to sweep under the rug, to Control, to hide, to make sure nobody knew you were having them because then What Might They Think? What They Thought (They being the eyes of the world outside our family) was so important. So best not have feelings, show feelings, or make yourself vulnerable. Then you wouldn't get hurt.
Well, it was a lie. All those feelings and my automatic reaction to not show them now are something I must deal with. Old feelings, lots of feelings to explore and dig through. And when a hurricane of feelings comes up like it has this last week, then I get all stressed out. I'm yelling in my head. I'm trying to distract myself with my old friend, Food. Or TV, or the Internet. But it doesn't really work, and that's the problem.
Ah, feelings. I'll get the hang of them one of these days.
Okay, I've been debating about whether to tell this little story. It's rather personal, but then again, it is a good "day in the life" story, of what it means to be a woman. At least, one moment in the life of an average woman.
So if you don't care to read a very personal story, please don't read any further!
To start, I am 39 years old, with three children ages 12, 12 and 9. DH and I have decided that 3 is a great number of kids for us, and outside of occasional baby-pings on my part ("oh, a baby! I love babies! Sigh.") we are very happy to be past the baby phases and have kids who are old enough to talk with, debate with, and occasionally, leave home alone without a babysitter! But DH and I have done nothing permanent about birth control, for various reasons. One of which being the fact that I have to stay on The Pill anyway because otherwise my cycles are highly irregular.
And this last week, I was due to get my period... usually very regularly coming the Tuesday after my last pill in the cycle. But days passed and no period, until I told DH about it on Friday. Now, some months, not getting my period wouldn't matter too much anyway, but this month, we've actually been enjoying a romantic life again, so not getting my period could mean that I'm actually... gulp... pregnant!
I told DH, and he actually got a little smile on his face and we teased each other about it, and all sorts of imaginings started going through my head... some scary and some pleasant. I mean, what would it be like to have a baby in our chaotic, disorganized life? What would it mean to my writing? My energy? Our future? It came down to, as DH and I discussed it, that we'd deal with it if we had to. And then, surprisingly enough, we ended up watching some old videos of our kids as babies, and it brought so many memories back to me. How sweet they were, how good we were with babies, how much love babies bring, how much work they are...
So I went out and bought a pregnancy test on Saturday. I haven't done that in years, and I'd forgotten how self-conscious a woman can feel doing this. Of course I had to stand in a long line at Walgreens. And I saw a very community-involved neighbor there, saying hi to me as I clutched my test kit under my arm. Thank God she didn't stop to talk! And then, there was getting up to the cashier to lay my little purple box down... when I asked if she wanted to see ID for my check, she said, "oh no, Theresa, I know you. You're one of the nice ones." She acted like she knew me, but I really don't go to that store very often at all. So that was weird. I know she read my name off the check, but I really didn't need to have the personal touch when I was Buying A Pregnancy Test!
The end result: no, I am not pregnant. (Big Sigh of Relief!) I called a phone nurse, and she said it isn't uncommon to miss a period, and to just watch for it next month. The little baby dreams of a curly dark haired baby went poof, and I waved goodbye sadly, but yes, relieved to be able to go forward with my three middle-aged kids.
I share this with you as just a little slice of Life as Woman. That even a 39 year old mom with a daughter on the verge of getting her period still has to worry about getting her period. That reproduction and what to do with it is always a fact of life. It's not something that comes up real often in our society. But it's there and real for every woman...
One of my little nephews turned 6 today. My sisters' kids always seem so much younger than my own, and they are, but the oldest of the young ones is not really a little one anymore...6!
I yelled at a woman in a parking lot today because she stole a parking spot I'd been waiting for, with turn signal on. I'd been having a fight with older DS in the car when she did this, and my anger fueled me to park behind her car and get out and yell. This isn't like me.. I didn't know who I'd be yelling out, whether it would be some big jerk guy or not, but I was prepped to yell. She apologized and moved out of the spot.
We had one of those pretty snows this morning, the kind where every tree limb is coated and it looks like a fairy world.
DH and I sat around listening to the Indigo Girls' new CD. It is very cool!
That's it for now.