Panic, Parenting

Sometimes, as a parent, you just feel like you missed the ferry back to the mainland where everyone else is probably hula-hooping, umbrella drinks in hand, while you are standing at the edge of the island yelling WAIT! YOU FORGOT ME! I'M MAROONED HERE WITH THESE CHILDREN OF MINE, WITH ONLY A DORA PUZZLE AND HALF A SNACK BAG OF CHEEZ-ITS TO GET BY ON. You almost wish for a Wilson volleyball.... Now that my semester of teaching is over and the last of the grades have been handed in, I've been feeling that marooned feeling more than ever.

And if I'm really being honest, it's been rising to a fairly serious level. I've suffered from panic attacks since I was in college, but they sort of came in a very cumulative way and not very frequently. After I had my daughter, I got them more, both provoked and unprovoked. I put myself in treatment and had a great therapist and got regulated with some medication and all was well.

More recently, though, I've had a few setbacks. I've had several panic attacks in the last week. Hands-clammy, heart racing, voice-lifting, near-hyperventilating panic attacks. When I consult Dr. Internet, she tells me that most people's panic attacks only last about 10 minutes. Oh really? So they're not supposed to last from the cereal aisle in Whole Paycheck to four solid hours later when you're trying to make dinner and cannot find the flipping flip flipper thingy that flips things?

Oh?!?

Interesting.

Needless to say, I'm back in treatment and getting my medication regulated. I'm quite comfortable sharing my mental health predicament because A. of all) I live with a therapist and his is an industry I support wholeheartedly and B. of all) there is no shame in admitting that I experience ill-timed, consuming pangs of anxiety. The only shame I see in that is being in denial that it happens and being above getting help so that everyone around me suffers. That'd be not so swell.

However, in the meantime, while I'm working on staying busy and positive and hoping to get these meds stabilized, I have a friend to help me through the interminable afternoons when I am stuck on the Island of Crankypants during a thunderstorm and the snack cabana is fresh out of fudgesicles.

My new friend's name is Normal. We actually named the puppet Normal before I started having these episodes. Ironic, isn't it?

Normal does a lot of work somedays. Normal narrates things for Baby Girl and Little Man when they are getting a little testy and their mother has about 4 seconds of Good Mama left. Normal likes to make up songs and Normal likes to laugh and be hugged and Normal has infinite patience.

I think every parent could use a Normal to do the talking.

Someday, I'm sure my kids will laugh and throw me under the bus telling their friends about how looney their mother was, and how she had this puppet named Normal and how every time they saw that hideous puppet come out of the closet, they knew there was going to be some crazymaking.

And that? Will be totally normal for me.

On Missing People

If there is one thing that surprises me about the grown-up person I am becoming, it is my tremendous capacity to miss people. Afterall. I'm a child of divorce, rendering me a seasoned household rotater, someone who knows the relationships you are supposed to be able to rely upon like bedrock can lose their solidity.  I have never been an overly sentimental person; I like an organized and tidy space and have no trouble purging little talismans.  I have a keen and sometimes incredible memory. I don't need the physical stubs from the movie tickets to remind me that you sat on my left at the Cedar Lee Theatre and rubbed the elbow of my sweater and we ate Altoids.

But as a person who pays her taxes and rotates her patio furniture inside during cold months and thinks heavily upon discipline and societal inequities: I am really quite surprised that I have become this grown-up person who misses people.  All the time.

I carry a dull ache around everyday, missing my parents 1000 miles away and missing the people that they were to me when we lived closer, steady and quiet and angry and complicated and proud.  I miss my sister and I miss my brother and I miss that I've missed so much of their rites of passage.  I just walked with them to the bus stop on Bradley Road (irritated the whole time that they were dawdling).  Did the bus come and pick those children up?  Who is this woman with the grown-up handbags and this man who shaves before he goes to work?

And my friends.  I miss the familiarity we once had and somehow all of the ways we connect over phone and web seem so artificial; they do not bridge the distance between us, and sometimes makes the disconnect seem even greater.   We broadcast updates in 140 characters to no one in particular. We log in to tune out; we look down to see what is coming our way.

I miss my husband when he is away and when he is home I miss the way that we used to live and I forget to be spontaneous because I am always reaching back to that time when we were once note-writers and bad movie-watchers and latenight snackers. I miss us and I know that I will further miss moments of my life in this blessed present that is the present if I keep on longing for what was.  But sometimes...

Pastor Angelo was preaching at Boston Temple a couple of weeks ago and he pointed to the illustration of John, the beloved apostle, who was already missing Jesus before He had even left the earth.  How he, John, a grown man, was resting his head on Jesus' chest because he knew that Jesus was going to have to leave soon.  And that is how I live my life.  Not only because I am 4'10" and I will only ever be able to rest my head in the crook of my beloved's arms or on a loving chest, but the grief that I feel for the missing that is to come sometimes floods my heart all too prematurely.

I am already missing the home that I have not left yet.  I am already missing my children who have not grown up and left the house that they will fill with laughter and crayon wrappers that I do not own yet.  I already do not make sense about that which has not even taken place to be sensible-sounding.

I am tidy, so tidy on the outside.  Purging and packing away. But on the inside, I know I am grief-stricken and looking for a chest into which I can bury my face.  But of course I'll keep my face pressed forward; I don't want to miss anything.

*** Dare I look back at this.  March 2008.  Oh, I miss her.

Date with Nate

Dear Nate Berkus, I'm super excited about our upcoming tete-a-tete. Even though there will be gaggles of other gals joining us. So it's more like a ten-by-ten-by-ten-a-tete The most important thing is that you rock the scruffy face you're healthy, I'm healthy, and there is at least one mention of gold leaf. I LOVE IT WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT GOLD LEAFING THINGS!!!!

Oh? Was I not supposed to fly my freak flag yet? Sorries! I'm such a talk show amateur! I try to watch your show in the mornings promptly at 10 a.m. so I don't miss a single DIY design dilemma , ahem, wheneverrrr it is that you come on but the mornings I am home, I usually try to take my kizzle (aren't they adorbies?) to Baby Boot Camp, or, if we are hanging out, I am distracted in helping my daughter assemble her Fancy Nancy puzzle and/or helping my son to not eat Fancy Nancy's jigsaw face. The other mornings, I am kvetching around, stepping on hot glue guns while I try to pack a snack bag for the kizzle, and I forget to set the DVR to record Nate and then I get to the end of my day and wonder why I am watching "Gilmore Girls" when I already know how it ends.

I know that you are probably thinking that such a hot mess mama should probably be focused more on memorizing the poison control hotline than on gauging whether Nate Berkus is bringing back macrame in a big way. But I suppose we all have our creative outlets and since I have no other skills besides . . . um?

Sorry for the interlude, I had to go call my mom and ask her something. Anyway. Where was I? Jigsaw puzzles? Yeah, so I'm really excited for our special time on the horizon. I'm all antsypantsed wondering whether you'll get verklempt on camera when someone talks about how much your designs for their trailer park have changed everything. I'ma bring my best gal from the 'hood and I totally hope we get a picture with you. Or one close to you. Or one where, you know, we look like a couple of hottie boombalotties and look! There's Nate Berkus' eyebrows!

I can't wait!

Love, Your #1 Fan, Kendra