New here? You may want to subscribe to the (free) ABDPBT RSS feed. For an explanation of how RSS subscriptions work, please see this explanatory post. Or, you can sign up to receive new ABDPBT posts by email (also free).
Whenever I worry about things, I pick at my feet.
If I’m particularly stressed out, my feet look terrible. Is there a good reason for me to be stressed out right now? I don’t know. Is there ever a good reason? Is it normal to pick at your feet to cope with stress? What is normal? Is the fact that I’m even asking these questions a bad sign?
Inevitably, there arrives a situation which calls for someone — an outsider of some kind — to see my feet. A pedicurist, masseuse. A shoe salesman. It will be uncomfortable. They’ll say, Do you have some kind of, uh, injury, here? And I’ll say, Oh that. No that’s just this nervous habit I have. I know, it’s so gross. Because I do, And it is.
I hate it, I hate myself for it. And the worse it gets, then the worse they get, until sometimes it hurts me to walk on it, but only a little bit. Not a ton. Not enough to keep me from walking. Just a little bit, to remind me of a problem nagging at the back of my brain.
I’ve always hated my feet anyway. They’re too wide — that’s the part I get from my father. But the toes I get from my mother. I look at them in my sandals and I think of her. I am pretty sure you are supposed to look at things that remind you of your mother and be happy but that is not how I feel. I think, I should not wear these shoes. Or at least, I should not wear these shoes and put my feet up on the dashboard of the passenger seat like that, because when I do it’s like we are driving to San Diego again, in the yellow Volvo or the brown Peugeout wagon, and I am ten, and Abba or Fleetwood Mac is playing on the stereo and there is nothing I would not do to escape this skin of mine.
When I do I wonder if Mini will ever feel that same way and it’s like my heart will break in two at the thought of him ever having to feel any of it the crazy messed up, slanty way that I do. And just then he will catch my eye and ask me, Mommy, is that an owie on your foot? And I will say, Yes, baby, but it’s OK, Mommy will fix it. And he will kiss it, and say, All better. And for a moment, it is.
That was the first topic she mentioned, anyway, and the one that set the tone for the rest of our conversation. We would switch to hypothetical drop-in visits, my brother’s impending wedding, whether or not my dog is to have ACL surgery, all the while me adjusting, and readjusting, my hurt and then, later, anger about the way she chose to start the conversation, several times over the course of a ten-minute conversation. Did she say it to hurt me, or was it just something she didn’t understand? How can I be that woman — the one who, at 36, and-now-almost-37-fuck!-let’s-face-it-I’m-pushing-40-now still resents her parents for things that happened years ago? Doesn’t everybody do the best they can, given the tools they have available to them?
I don’t usually talk about my parents here. Somewhat out of respect for them as private people who don’t necessarily want their lives deconstructed on the internet. Somewhat to avoid conflict. But mostly, if I’m telling the truth, mostly it is because I really don’t want to be that woman. I hate that woman. I wish she would just get over it already.
Occasionally, one or the other of my parents will peek in here, and catch a little glimpse of my life. But sometimes, these little windows they see are worse than if they had never looked at all. We relate in fits and starts, half-truths and omissions. I don’t think my parents know what to do with me as I exist here — it is an Anna they really do not know. It is a me that I rarely let them see. Because I don’t trust them with it.
Did the window through which my mother saw Mini’s day at school make it look like he was a child who did not enjoy going to school? Did she see an introverted child, sitting patiently on the steps for an absent mother to come and fetch him, listening intently for the jingle of her car keys while the other kids laughed, played, sang John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith? Did she imagine it? Was it the same window through which I looked? What if her window was the more accurate one?
Parenting changes you in so many ways. You don’t expect some of them. I never thought I would be revisiting my own childhood every time I went to pick up Mini from school. I never thought I would be the one faced with these kinds of dilemmas and the politics of leaving a child at the gate.
Last Friday I wrote a guest post about being an alcoholic for Stefanie’s blog, and some of you guys went over and read it. One of you, in particular, who has been reading me for a long time, liked the post because you said it felt “real.” This made me think a little bit. Because I like to think that what I write here is always real, but sometimes I take a particular slant to things or emphasize one thing or the other, but it’s all genuine, so that’s real, or a version of reality, right? But then I was thinking, there’s definitely a difference between what I ordinarily write and a post like this one from BHJ, which I could have written, maybe, if I were a little bit more gifted, and also a little less self-conscious about form. I don’t have a close friend who killed himself, but I did have Tanya, which is pretty much the same thing, she was cast in the same role, more or less, as Skip was for BHJ. But instead of just writing about that, I have to change everything around into some different form, I’m going to “fictionalize” a part of my past, and put it in the second person, and that way you will all know that I’m writing about myself but I can still feel detached from it a little bit, just enough to write about it.
Surcey, your comment made me think about the topics I haven’t really talked about here, and why. Some of them are for practical reasons, but others are . . . I don’t know why. I guess sometimes I feel worried that I’ll sound like I’m feeling sorry for myself, or that I’ll hurt people’s feelings. But the thing is, who am I writing this for, anyway? Are these people I’m worried about actually reading this blog? And if I sound self-indulgent and like I’m feeling sorry for myself, well isn’t that what most bloggers do, anyway?
Just give me a couple ideas to riff on and I will go on and on about genre for like fifty years and bore you all to death.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately: I’ve been thinking about what I would have to do to Mini to make him into a kid like I was. I don’t want to make him into a kid like I was, mind you, I’m just wondering what it would take to do it. Because when you’re a parent, you start living your childhood over again a little bit through your kid. And the other day, Mini had just gotten this toy robot from a store, just a little black robot that kind of wiggles and walks, and he was so excited about it, and proud of it, the way two year olds can get about things that are new (which is pretty much everything, when you’re two). And one of his grandparents was there — I won’t tell you which one — and that grandparent looked at the robot and said, “I’m not impressed,” and then two things happened in quick succession: 1) I seriously considered the consequences of punching said grandparent in the face with a closed fist; and 2) I saw the air deflate from Mini’s chest — just a little bit, since it was someone he barely knows anyway — but still enough to almost bring me to tears.
A few years ago I ran into an acquaintance of my parents’ who had not seen me since I was in high school. I spoke to her for a few moments and thought nothing of it until I later heard that this woman had been shocked to see me so happy and functioning so well. She had said that, as I child, I had always struck her as “morose.” I cannot argue with that assessment, and certainly the addition of anti-depressants to my life has something to do with that change. But still, I go back to wondering what I would have to do to Mini to make him into a morose child. Is it some kind of switch that gets thrown at some point, and parenting has no real effect on it? Or is it even more banal than that — too much time left in a crib or a play pen, not enough Mommy and Me time, not enough declarations of love and value? I don’t know. I think about it, but not because I’m worried about it. I already know that Mini’s experience is totally different from mine, and I never worry about him the way that it pains me to think of myself as a child.
This morning I was getting Mini ready for school and, as has been the case of late, he was not pleased about it. So I told him, “Mini, you know that even when Mommy’s not there, she’s with you, in your heart. Just like I always carry you with me, in my heart,” and I pointed to my heart. I think he understood me. I never decided to become a good parent. It’s not like I set about studying how to do it, or what I should do when, or had a checklist of the stuff that I should do to make him happy. I just had a baby and that imperative was there, to protect him and hold him close to me, and over time that grew into something more like a special bond. I don’t think to myself, “I should go snuggle Mini,” or “Have I told Mini that I love him today?” or “Maybe I should tell Mini his new robot is cool.” I don’t think about any of that stuff with Mini. I just do it. I don’t really see why it’s so hard.
Just Like The Number Where 2+2=Six. A blog about life in the family Six, party of four.
ABDPBT GLOSSARY
New here? Not sure what one of the references I made is about? It might be time to check the ABDPBT Glossary. To translate, you might want to check out the ABDPBT Glossary page, or just look for links within the text with folders next to them to see what various terms mean.
SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe to the main ABDPBT RSS Feed to get new posts delivered to your feedreader.
OR . . . subscribe to the ABDPBT
FULL RSS FEED to get updates from all four ABDPBT blogs.
ONLINE DATING CHRONICLES
Sure, I eventually met my husband, Mr. Right-Click, through online dating. But not before I had dated nearly one hundred of Los Angeles' least suitable bachelors. Laugh along in my Online Dating Chronicles.
SPY ON ME
Looking for something to read? Wondering what I'm reading? Perhaps it's time to start Spying On My Google Reader to find out about the coolest stuff I've read lately on the internet.
MUCKRAKING
Sometimes I like to muckrake. You can read about it here. Oh, and here too. Listen, if I don't do it, that muck will just keep piling up until we have to call a roto-rooter. So really, you should thank me. You're welcome.
LISTS
You know, you slave away at blog posts day after day, you try to write fiction, you try to provide interesting social commentary, but at the end of the day, they come for the lists. Check out List Mondays to see what all the hullabaloo is about, because I sure as hell cannot explain it.
OTHER ABDPBT BLOGS
ABDPBT Personal Finance
Shining a light on the big business of poop.
ABDPBT Tech
Tech for mommy bloggers. Or bloggers who aren't mommies, but hang out with them. Or Dads. Whatever.
ABDPBT Commodity Fetishism
This is where I post stuff that I think is cool. Maybe you will think it's cool, too.
FULL ARCHIVES
If you'd prefer to peruse the ABDPBT archives by month, you can check them out here:
ABDPBT Archives
LOS ANGELES
Los Angeles is where I was born and raised. I always thought I'd leave, but for some reason I never did. Sometimes, I like it here. Other times, I'm not so sure. But good or bad, it has made me who I am.
Sometimes I take the melodrama of my life and twist and turn it until it looks almost charming. I do this because I want you to like me:
Cigarettes & Green Felt: This is about the time I figured out that adults were mostly full of shit.
Assburger: It's not just a disorder on the autism spectrum: it's also one of your relatives!
On Truth: Sometimes somebody will say something and it hurts your feelings. And then you will write a story about it and your aunt will call it "phenomenal." Everyone else will try to pretend like it never happened.
The Sheer And Unmitigated Power of Bob Mould: Sometimes you spend your formative years obsessed by an unrequited teenage crush, and then one day you realize that person is now an orthopedic surgeon who lives in your neighborhood. It kinda sucks when that happens.
Ben From Madera: For one Halloween, Ben dressed up like a bee, like that kid in the Blind Melon video. That's how I will always remember him.
Mr. Right-Click
He is my best friend, even if he uses a PC. And the fact that sometimes he will pretend to be a "Pancake Pirate" is only part of the reason. Arrrr!
Mini
His cutie-pie percentile group is off the charts.
Spinning
If you think this is just about exercise, then you have underestimated how wildly inappropriate people can be when they undergo physical pain in a group setting.
TWEET THIS
