I like days where you have no idea what you're going to learn.
Like my shrink fired me (okay she changed to another company but wasn't I worth staying for, I'm a million times better than Kaiser). But we signed each other's yearbooks and RIP I'll never see her again but she set me up with another shrink, a fat jolly Jasmine in Orange County who probably used to work at Disneyland and now she's going to aside from wrestle into her large sports bra every morning she's going to help me find the glitter in my otherwise solid pretty successful life.
Yes she told me we could find the glitter.
I KNOW they have actual glitter and that Carrie Fisher used to carry glitter in her purse to fling whenever there needed some cheering up (note to self: glitter up). But the shrink was right, even though I'm pretty sure she was giving me a zoom meeting in the room off her mom's kitchen.
I think I MADE all these life choices. I did for SURE decide to have kids I just didn't realize I'd be seriously doing the job for 26 years. The longest job I had ever had before kids was 9 months. And that felt like an ETERNITY and also I was fired from that job for writing about the office staff. The job only had another week to go but I have to say, the writing was really accurate and funny. The truth sets you free, plus you have to clean out your desk and miss a last paycheck. But I was also pregnant with Nathan, so really my segue into my next job was already in process.
It's hard to think back to shit that is already done that you spent a whole long time curating, and then when you see your kids big and making pretty good choices and doing pretty well, the mom in us sits back on her haunches and in my case, wonders how many saddles she can buy now. Like how many ways can I ride AWAY and in how many different saddles.
I don't want to get away, I want to fill up that reservoir the way it was all capped up to the top before. Now it's all wildly out of whack. All my yardsticks for measuring if I'm happy or not are all thrown out of the pool, all my routines and trips to the fair and excessive worrying, it's all just gushing into my shoes. No wonder I'm bewildered.
The jolly shrink was saying you don't have to do anything about the person you were. You merely step a little to the side out of that puddle and you are on fresh ground. You can still reach out to hold hands with that person who made you who you are, she's right there still drowning. You just have to start over again, right over here.
As Carrie Fisher says, nothing's ever over. It's just over there.
I have one foot in the puddle and one foot over here. After a year of Bess the caboose on the loose, I still can't believe I even get the chance to Do something else. I am so tired! Taking on my mom was also a job I willingly took and that my older brother willingly encouraged when we were in desperation 6 1/2 years ago. Nobody in their right mind takes on dementia of a beloved mom single handedly for 6 1/2 years. But at Uncle Wayne's house that day in June, 2020, next to the wide water, I did what was in front of me, and that was my mom dancing around in the grass. If only she'd kept that Santa Monica house and rented it, we could have hired a full time nurse and I could still have been a great daughter, bringing her home here to live with us. Being with her but not under her. This 6 year job, for that growth of sheer guts, I happily accept my Oscar. Facing the grief every day, that and skin breakdowns that are hard to heal, are my least favorite. The least easy.
So from this other perspective there is so much I can explore. I don't have to go back to being the happy whore I was in my 20s, that's the only other version of myself I had honed. It makes sense that you think hey let's look that girl back up, we know her at least. I definitely know how to do all of that, if that is what I need to do. I can keep teaching people to ride, that's a job that I can't believe people hand me money to do. It's actually ridiculous the amount of money to get on a horse. Anyone can do it. But apparently nobody is, because people are paying me way more than I can believe.
And there's all this writing. All these characters born and wrestled and telling me jokes that I write down and then squish into a form. I love them all. I should really take the time to get a Masters in Creative Writing so I can keep working on the thing I can do and find people to help me get it out into the world. But as my friend Chris says, with 2 masters degrees, Fuck Writing.
I told the kids what if I need to do stuff for myself now. After you're a mom you don't really care that much about what you think but you care about what your kids think about you. I don't want them to think that there's anything more important than all the things I did to be with them and be their mother. I am Wendy in Peter Pan. I mothered all of them and myself and an island of mermaids and lost boys. But now my mom bag is empty except for just being there for grown kids in this new way, and now I keep looking in the bag for where I left myself. And I pull out peter pan's shadow. I better stitch it on and find some glitter and learn to fly.
In my dream I am living in big green fields in the country in New Hampshire if it wasn't freezing and teaching little kids to ride in a riding school and out on trails. I have great teens helping me. At night I write in my barn attic loft and sometimes I go off on shoots when I sell something that can be financed, produced, shot, edited and sold. Is it that hard?
In reality I live an hour from the beach near a pool surrounded by trees with dogs by my side and kids in and out, and wandering chickens laying fresh eggs in the barn. At night I watch old Moonlighting episodes to remember what good writing sounds like and I go to bed wondering if I'm going to get my chance to tell my stories and to be myself even more.
I'm so lucky to have even this moment.
But you know what helped the most? Just going in and lying on Emma's bed, and Nathan eating some lunch at her desk and just talking about it with them. Talking about what if I need something. Would you guys mind if I figured out who I am now.
