I Can See Forty

Just had another birthday. It’s still one starting with a three (while not yet ending on a nine). But to be honest, I can’t wait for forty to arrive, pink ribbon and all. I am so ready to kick back—and that, my friends, is what I’ll do.

If we look at the decades of life we probably all had some sort of ok first decade – most likely we were actually unaware that it was only the beginning of things to come. We all went swimming, had too much ice cream, mediocre friends and, if lucky, one really good one (who moved away).

Then came the teens which I don’t think I have to dwell on much, right? What was that all about anyway? Emotional drowning thwarted only by the consumption of even more ice cream, an abundance of abysmal friends, bad clothes (nice try), bad complexion, bad music, and even worse first sex (mine was actually ok, though the guy, Mick P. ended up being gay) – all of this blamed on the broad subject of ‘coming of age’ which generally means only one thing: Really screwed up hormones.

Anyway, enter the twenties – decade of brazen strides and badly bruised egos. I don’t have much good to say about this one. I met Matt and had a great time traveling for some of those years but all together it was a rather stressful period in my life culminating in the birth of our first child.

And here we are, the thirties. I never thought that life was so much work!!! But then, when you look at life from a secure perch on grandpa’s apple tree, it doesn’t look that bad. Just lots of adults getting in and out of cars, checking the time, and raising their eyebrows.

Now I have become one of them: I write lists and I check items off, I have rushed phone conversations, I multi-task (poorly), and I chase my kids around 24/7. In between I check in with people I care about, update my blog, and wonder whether we should get a dog (I know, of course, what the answer to that one is: NO!).

I have become what I most dreaded all my life: a bore!

Anyway, it’s all about to get so much better soon. I will be fun, energetic, free (if not smashingly beautiful and brilliant), I will continue writing (just more and better stuff), my kids will take over homeschooling and (hopefully) house keeping, and Matt will beg me to go tango with him at night (which I will politely accept). And life will be just perfect.

We still won’t get a dog, however.

Barbie Babe and Rambo

I swear we girls all have it in us: The secret and often unacknowleged wish to be Barbie – and I don’t mean elongated, emanating plastic odor.

I am not kidding you when I say this. And you can find this highly offensive and yet I am telling you that almost every woman at some point (!!) in her life has wanted a slice of that vulnerable desirability that Barbie seems to promise: I am perfect, you want me, you want to throw me onto the floor, grab me by my exaggerated hair, and rip off my Velcro mini skirt.

That’s at least what I did with my elusive Barbie dolls. I tormented them. Their engraved smile at the same time attracted and annoyed me and left me in an uncomfortable state of ambivalence about womanhood that lasted for years.

I have come to grasps with that since then. I have more recently begun to wonder about men and their hidden desires.

Ken hardly seems to come close to who men really want to be – at least not between the ages of five and sixty-five. Quite contrary to the domesticated obsessively groomed Barbie playmate, the penis-extension wielding Rambo-type action figure seems to be much closer to the typical male ideal.

It’s the guy that will be on top of the food chain – forever. That’s who’s appealing. The guy that gets to order around Barbie until he is sick and tired of her and returns to shoot up some more hostile forces.

We all have lived through our respective Barbie and Rambo stages and some of us have done so with an unforgiving passion. It’s something inherent in our human condition. In fact, it’s what makes humanity procreate like rabbits. It’s a default setting that keeps us doing so despite obvious reasons not to.

Just Hanging Out

All of yesterday afternoon, I spent supine on a speed-boat with the ambiguous name High Raiser. Ambiguous only, of course, if you don’t know Fast Freddy – the 5’2” amicable owner.

Freddy had taken his friends on a cruise – frying up a whopping $176 in gas by the time he reached our beach. They were hanging out on their boat when Vanessa, mother of two, and my date for the afternoon, spotted them and began stalking them from the beach, waving her arms at them and hollering. After all, the guy on the boat was nobody less then her old flame from her wild days in this town of six hundred.

At first, it seemed they were taking off on her and in my mind I was running through a top ten list of impact-atenuating comments to help my new friend cope. But then they turned and shut off the engines again, and six-foot Vanessa began her laborious wade through the cool waters of this northern lake.

After a couple of hours, her kids followed. Then so did mine and eventually I did as well. Jules, riding on top of my shoulders, had been cheering me on all along ‘boat, boat, boat, boat, boat.’ So what was I supposed to do?

To say the least, it wasn’t a likely crowd for me. And with my plain dark blue Speedo suit and knotted beach hair I wasn’t a likely match for them either. But we all spent a surprisingly fun time on board of the High Raiser.

After initally pondering the effect of a couple of salacious comments to the owner, I decided to relax and dig into the bag of Lay’s circling around instead. The kids were taking turns diving off the side of the boat and 23-months old Jules was flirting with one of the female crew members. Time to chill.

The reason for my sojourn on the High Raiser, Fast Freddy, turned out to be quite a charmer. He also was turning a darker shade of crimson by the minute. His short, stout appearance seemed an unlikely match for Vanessa. But in her own words, he was and always will be: Fast Freddy-everything with him had to be fast…cars, boats, you name it.

I smiled and helped myself to another handful of chips.

Leaving that World

Now that I have left my world of magically made beds, automatic clean dishes and otherwise effortless domestic perfection it’s time for me to become imaginative lest it all comes to a screeching halt or better one gigantic unnerved scream. And I can tell, people around me are waiting for exactly that.

But so far I am actually doing better than should be expected. I serenely set tables, I frolick folding laundry and wash dishes, pick up toys, water plants, carry out garbage, wipe spilled milk (no crying) and still find time to keep abreast on what’s ailing Brad and Angelina.

The truth is that taking things back into my own hands has actually come as a relief. Since I didn’t grow up with help at home, I don’t really know how deal with it. I don’t know how to keep the gardener from knocking up the nanny, or maids from construing ever more fantastic fiction about what really happened to my butter dish, or the night guard from peeing in the pool.

I don’t have enough bitch in me to be an effective employer of the socio-economic less fortunate. And believe me, at times I wished I did. For instance, when within six weeks my nanny’s grandpa, great-grandma, and uncle died, her brother broke an arm, her mom was hospitalized, and the family dog had thirteen puppies. She never showed up once on Monday during that time.

The fact is, I am much happier in a space that I can easily manage myself in a community that is safe.

During my time in Costa Rica, I missed being able to walk around town without having to gage the risk of being either mugged, attacked by a dog, or run over by a truck. And the chances were pretty high – I went for short walks anyway.

Yet, hiking on the back roads is definitely not advisable – at least not for a woman, I was told – and so I didn’t. I signed up at the Country Club instead and stared at flawless teenage asses bobbing up and down on the stairmaster in front of me.

What would be paradise for some had become a tightrope for me.

Simply not my world.

Life

Life itself remains a very effective therapist.
Karen Horney (psychoanalyst)

Hear Me Whine

Lately, I have been wanting some broad shoulders to lean against. Someone bigger and wider than me. Someone who would not take offense at my runny nose and incoherent babble and who would maybe even gently stroke my hair and assure me that everything-will-be-all-right.

Matt’s shoulders are really nice but he is an inch shorter than I am and – worst of all – I don’t buy his lines…we are stuck in the same bubbling cauldron, so who is he to fool?

I used to know a really good guy who lived across the alley and would check in on me and my broken heaters, collapsed chimneys, absurd ATT bills, and crashed utility posts last summer. He died in August, before I even got here. I am still mad about that one.

And then there are a couple of potential candidates I really pissed off, so probably no shoulders to cry on there, even if they were available.

Anyway, one of the most beautiful set of shoulders that would actually be lent to me free of charge are attached to my dear friend who is geographically incapacitated to act on his generosity. Damn. I so deserve a pair of solid shoulders these days.

Thinking about it in some wistful sort of state, I realize, however, that my wonderful friend and soul mate back where home used to be is thirty-three times more deserving than I. And it doesn’t look like she will be getting a chance to drool blissfully any time soon, either.

So, I guess we’ll have to wait for the holidays to roll around. We might get lucky yet. If only Santa wasn’t such a freak. Yikes!

Just Shoot Me

One thing I do now when I am traveling by plane is hide water bottles in my carry-on luggage. Out of five bottles they usually find three or four. The inevitably bull-necked officer at security raises his eyebrows at me – the idiot who can’t follow directions— and gives me the ‘m’am-I’ll-need-to-open-your-bags’ address. As always, I smile woefully sorry...the kids, you know.

Usually I also carry empty water bottles with me so that I can fill them once I get through the checkpoint. Then, however, they tend to get me at the next one.

What can you do? With three kids and one of the worst years for delays in airline travel I am not going to deny us water. To hell with whatever bomb bull crap scare these little big boys came up with now. I am so tired of it.

All these years I have been trying to grow up and get over my issues. The world around me, however, seems to be getting crazier by the minute. And it’s fine if it was just your normal kind of craziness but the destructive force behind it makes me sad and, as it is, really thirsty.

I smile at the security guy: Life is tough, I know.

Watcha Gonna Get

I remember lying awake one night shortly after my 21st birthday thinking that the whole world was about to open itself to me, that I was on the threshold of something big and wonderful to come.

And life did look like that immense box of chocolates right then -- with all the dark ones daintily arranged in concentric circles around a middle of deliciously puffed white truffles. Every choice an exquisite surprise. Pick me, pick me and you shall have a life of fun and excitement: 'pick me and your life will take you to the top, pick me and life will take you places you never knew existed", they seemed to whisper.

As I am writing these lines, it’s the night before the early morning departure into the skies of airline travel. Fun is in the air and the excitement is rising as I am chasing my young ones around to get them dressed in stretch pants and T-shirts – the first layer of what they will be wearing on tomorrow’s trip. It’s my way of cutting down on early morning break-downs. Afterall, we are expected to line up at the check-in counter at 4:45 am for the post nine-eleven three hour pre-boarding marathon. Not an easy deed with three sleep-drunk kids.

All this started precisely 330 days ago, when I successfully wrung five mileage award tickets out of the gnarly claws of an airline sales rep. To save my family overnight stays in overprized inconspicuous airport hotels – and the baby from traveling by himself, I had to fight my way up to the top of customer servicelandia. It was a heroic battle, which I eventually emerged from successfully.

There are certain undertows of airline travel with small children that one must be keenly aware of or chaos is certain to ensue. So, I plan.

I sketch out a well-measured count-down schedule that extends over weeks. No last-minute frenzied rushes to the embassy over an expired passport. No heart attacks over forgotten life-saving baby items. I even have a ‘Last Things to Remember’ list which I ususally get to sometime after midnight.

Throughout my career as a mom I have acquired some surprising skills, one of which is master packer: I can fold, stack, bolster, and squeeze an amazing number of items into suitcases, bags, and carry-ons without ever exceeding either weight or size limitations. WOOHOO !!

I generally try to limit myself to two suitcases for all of us. The reason for that is that our belongings and we still have to fit into a mid-size sedan. An important detail not to be overlooked.

There are always, however, as few extra items. Some will find a place in one of the six small and medium size backpacks, shoulder bags, and pouches. But then there are also the ubiquitous umbrella stroller and inevitable infant car-seat and toddler booster.

I really should ask for a pay raise. After all, our framily's sanity depends entirely on my diligently honed ‘mother instincts .’ And, believe me, it took years of harsh and unforgiving training to get to where I am.

In no time I locate games, coloring books, crayons, DVD player and favorite movies, charger, chewing gum, snacks, half-empty water bottles, toys, baby jars, plastic spoons, disposable bibs, diapers, wipes – lots of wipes – books, and extra T-shirts for everyone in the almost certain event of spilled apple-juice. I even remember to grab a handfull of zip lock bags in several sizes for storage, garbage, and any kind of bodily refuse.

At last, I place all of this and and a supply of pain killers in the designated place. In my mind, I retain a mental map of everything that goes in so I can swiftly extricated any item anytime during the crowded flight. I am done.

As I am sitting here in this mess of what has become my life, my legs and feet in a tingly state of numbness, I suddenly crave chocolate. Lots of it – but these days I prefer chocolate bars to boxes of chocolate. At least you know what you gonna get.