Doctor Wonderful

“Motherhood often feels like a game of guilt management; sometimes the guilt is overwhelming and debilitating, sometimes just a low simmer, but it always feels right there.  There is never any shortage of fuel to feed the beast, so the whole mechanism is constantly nourished to administer shame and a general feeling of incompetency.  Add our carefully curated social media world, which not only affects our sense of success and failure but also furnishes our children with an unprecedented brand of expectations and boom:  we are the generation that does more for our kids than ever in history yet feels the guiltiest.  Virtually every one of my friends provides more than they had growing up, and still the mantra we buy into is not enough, not enough, not enough.”  Jen Hatmaker, Of Mess and Moxie (she is the queen of this genre I am dabbling with in this blog.  If you haven’t read her yet, you are MISSING OUT).

I took all 5 kids to the doctor for annual physicals last week.  Doctors and other professionals usually love it when I call and ask for 5 appointments back to back to back, preferably after 3pm.  But our office is used to our nonsense, and I did call early enough to secure the very last appointments before school started (the Wednesday before the first Monday of school.  Nailed it).

 We tend to take over places when we travel as a group—we are just all loud and big and not the least bit timid or cautious.  I saw a shirt recently that said, “I’m not for everyone,” and that is certainly how all 6 or 7 of us are in tight quarters like doctor’s office waiting rooms.  Luckily, today the office seemed to be staffed with people we were “for”, and they smiled at our antics rather than sniffing and looking down their noses at us.  The receptionist was delighted at my life hack of taking the forms that are required for every blessed child and having her photocopy the form filled in with the common information (last name, address, insurance numbers) 5 times so I only had to enter first names and birth dates into each one.  “You’re good at this,” she grinned, impressed.  Not my first rodeo, girlfriend.

Our usual doctor has gotten very popular of late, so we’ve been assigned to a relatively recent hire who we liked immediately, and who after this most recent visit has absolutely completely won us over.  He follows Grace’s volleyball career on local media, “I told my wife about you,” he admitted. Grace glowed.  He told Sam and Claire he expected to see more of them in the sports pages in coming years, and he won Lucy over by telling her he’d named his 8 month old Lucy as well (not for our Lucy, of course.  But still).  The boys were sent to one room and the girls to the other, and the teenagers delighted in having the “say no to drugs and sex” talk with their giggling younger siblings in the room.  The big girls were better this time about discussing their periods with the handsome young doctor, and I supplied supplemental information and tried to keep the worst of the heresies from being believed (“Do you brush your teeth every day?”, “Oh, almost never!”) etc.

At the end of the visit, the good looking young doctor (it is only recently that I can handle having authority figures like doctors and priests be younger than me.  It just feels crazy to hear people who are the boss of things like the health of my children talk about going to high school in the 2000s.  I mean, should BABIES be allowed to wear white coats like that?) turned to me and said words that I’m guessing I’ll feed on for years—possibly decades.

“You are doing a really good job,” he said.  “They are all really healthy and even good looking.  Whatever you are doing, keep it up.”  I did not weep or throw my arms around him, in fact muttered something inane about breastfeeding (my teenage son was particularly appalled), but I’ve been ruminating on that moment for days.

I talk really tough about this whole momming gig, but the truth is this is the hardest, most gut wrenching role I’ve ever tried to fill.  I use sarcasm and humor to mask my recognition of the utter enormity of this task I’ve been given.  I mean, seriously what was God thinking?  Every day I doubt that I am up to this.  I have thought it every day since August of 2002.  Possibly longer.

It often feels like it is not just guilt that is on a slow simmer all the time.  I also feel like I am constantly just getting by, and by failing to really handle things, I’m consistently disappointing strangers and people I love.  From not knowing my account number to not having the right piece of paper filled out, to not knowing what the hell the guy at the marina is talking about when he starts rattling on about stickers and numbers and insurance documentation needed to get my boat on the water each spring.  I always seem to be standing in front of someone who sighs loudly, or the clerk or bank teller who subtly rolls her eyes when I admit that I (again) don’t know my account number or password or pin (or, in one memorable exchange, that I don’t bathe my dog every day.  Do other people bathe their pets daily?  I don’t even bathe my children that often).  I have a friend who swears she would just like to get micro-chipped with all her relevant information, so whenever someone needs yet another piece of obscure information she has filed away SOMEWHERE (I mean, even d-level parents keep all that paper) she can just roll up her sleeve and be scanned.  When she first said it, I was horrified of the big brother implications, but a few more years into this momming marathon I’m all ready to sign up.

As a recovering people pleaser who is trying like hell to get over this nonsense in middle age, I nevertheless tend to assume that people are saying something along the lines of “Why do you have so many children if you can’t keep this stuff straight?” I have friends who assume people are saying, “you don’t work so why can’t you...?” Or “why can’t you control your dogs?” or “why are you so fat when you don’t even have kids?” Or any multitude of similar insults that say way more about us and our insecurities than anyone else.  But still, people aren’t very nice about whatever their thing is.  I am the undisputed keeper of all the things, but I am only able to handle about 80% of it well.  (And by well, I mean D-level.  A passing grade, but only just).  I live by the mantra, “good enough, next thing, good enough, next thing, good enough, next thing” so while I survive and we get by, few people pause to say, “you are doing a good job” at something as fundamental as the raising of healthy, handsome children.  My love language is “words of affirmation” but in our busy, hectic paced world, I rarely get to feel that kind of love.  Who has time to say, “nice work?”

The whole world is on a “good enough, next thing” pace. 

Except last Wednesday, when an earnest young doctor made my whole year.  Dr. Wonderful, you have a huge fan in the huge Lueken family (and, given the way we reproduce across the generations, probably job security through retirement). 

PLEASE NOTE:  this is not a cue for any reader to rhapsodize over my wonderful-ness.  I have less than zero intent that that be the result of this post.  The point is that this lovely young doctor took the time to say something so kind and so obviously sincere in the course of his busy day reminded me that I need to remember to be kind and generous with my own praise.  Jen Hatmaker also wrote that, “One of my girlfriends created a text rule, which basically means anytime she has a lovely thought about someone or is reminded of them in any way or notices something delightful about a person, she immediately sends them a quick text saying so...”  I think this is a beautiful idea, and I may try to add it to my list of things I do so-so.   

Over It

“’Good Lord, why do I look so tired?

…she’d just caught sight of her reflection in the mirrored wardrobe on one side of the wall.  She got off the bed and walked over to the mirror…

‘Maybe because you are tired,’ suggested Celeste.

Madeline pressed a fingertip beneath her eye.  ‘I had a great night’s sleep!’ she said.  ‘Every day I think, ‘Gosh, you look a bit tired today,’ and it’s just recently occurred to me that it’s not that I’m tired, it’s that this is the way I look now.’”   From the book Big Little Lies, by Liane Moriarty.  Seriously, read it.

I used to get kind of worked up about family pictures.  Granted, it used to be a lot harder between the diaper blow outs and navigating nap timing and the screaming fits the girls used to have whenever I approached their tender little heads with a comb.  Indeed, I believe it was about the time of THIS post that I vowed to stop scheduling and paying for professional family photos at all.  For about the last decade, the only family photos we have are taken with a cell phone in front of the church or someone’s house after the random wedding or first communion.  There was this memorable professional photo taken before we all went zip-lining in Costa Rica last fall. 

I was allergic to something in the jungle, so more swollen and puffy than usual, and also wearing no makeup as I immediately sweated it off.  In addition, we are all wearing helmets and rappelling gear, but hey—everyone is looking forward and smiling so we used it as our Christmas card last year. 

The only exception to my “no more gd family pictures” rule is when the grandmas ask.  I fervently hope to be a grandma someday, and plan to resurrect the childhood “Dawn said” rule under the slightly more stately but no more negotiable “Grandma said” rule at that time, and therefore am paying my dues now by gamely participating in family photos when requested.  But just because we participate, doesn’t mean I agree to stress about them.

My Texas sister was home for a visit with her family this last weekend, so it was quickly decided that a large family picture was overdue.  Into an already wildly jam-packed long weekend, we lined up a photographer and decided on a color scheme (black and white).  In other years, we have assigned each family a particular color to ease in family identification (there are 18 grandkids) but I suggested the b/w theme since time was short and, like I said, I’m over it.  If some random family friend isn’t sure whether a particular child is a niece or a daughter, I don’t really care.  We can barely keep it straight, why should anyone else?

We spent the entire weekend leading up to the pictures at the lake celebrating my dad’s 70^th birthday.  We had a wonderful time, and at noon on the day of pictures, my husband suggested a family game of volleyball on the nearby sport courts.  Because I’m over it, I did not do the math on hours left between driving the 45 minutes home from the lake and getting my 7 family members primped and prepped for pictures.  We played for an hour and, after nieces and nephews were picked up one by one the 7 Luekens finally locked up and loaded up and headed home.  We had exactly 32 minutes between pulling into our driveway and arriving at the picture destination.  I did not know what anyone was going to wear.  I was not sure that every child even owned something in black or white, and if they did that it was clean and ironed.  Nevertheless, I instructed them each to find something black or white or denim and be downstairs in 30 minutes.  Then I went and took a quick power nap.  (In my defense, I had contracted a nasty cold and needed a little pick me up.  After about 5 precious minutes, I got up and made myself a cup of coffee and got on with it).

The only thing Lucy could find was the dress she wore to her other Grandpa’s funeral.  Chad wore a shirt he bought and last worn for family pictures in 2006 (Sam, now 15 and taller than his dad, was 4 months old).  Clay wore a church shirt with stains on it (not visible in the picture, I counted on).  I had no idea what the teenage girls had, but, as you can see, they figured it out.  Grace’s hair was soaking wet when we left for the pictures.  Clay’s pants are clearly a size too small (hello, high waters) and after downright refusing to wear his sister’s Nikes, we finally settled on bright turquoise crocs (and—bonus!  Learned that he will need new shoes before school starts next week).  I decided I did not have time to shower (and, having just come off a lake weekend, hadn’t washed my hair in 3 days ) After 3 frustrated minutes with my hair, I decided I needed bangs—which I then proceeded to cut myself with a kitchen scissors.  This effort was utterly wasted, as you can see, since after an entire weekend of being slicked back by lake water, my new bangs refused to lay down on my forehead for the pictures anyway.  It was fine.  It was all fine.

We arrived for pictures with so much less swearing and sweating than I normally commit to family pictures.  I was so chill—and I wasn’t even drinking!  And guess what?  I think the pictures turned out great.  I am sort of dreading the smaller pictures of just Chad and I and our kids.  I do think I always look tired these days, and Grace and Sam have clearly moved out of the awkward middle school years and emerged looking like models.  All my kids are gorgeous—and it’s hard to stand next to their splendid flowering of youth in my always tired looking middle age.  Even Chad (whose recent affinity for triathlons have left him fitter and handsomer than ever) looks great.  I don’t love how I look, but I wouldn’t have loved how I looked if I’d spent 3 hours on professional primping.  I didn’t love how I looked when I was in my own splendid youth, so I’m over it.  I am standing beside and among the beautiful people I love best in the world under the bright summer sunshine.  Everyone is healthy and happy and when we finished we went out for pizza and beer and laughed and took selfies and tried to hear each other over the din we can’t help but cause whenever we all go anywhere together.  It was nearly a perfect day.

And yes, Clay needs a haircut (and so do I, at least some professional help for those non-bangs), and yes there are more of his ankles on display then are technically fashionable.  Yes, we only straightened the front of Lucy’s hair (can’t tell, can you?) and Claire wore the ponytail she wears 100% of the time instead of something fancier.  Yes, Chad’s shirt was purchased over a decade ago and I look really tired (always!) but had I stressed and strained and screamed and sweated they may have turned out infinitesimally better in a way that only I might have noticed or appreciated.  And, bonus! family Christmas cards are already done and no one is wearing a helmet this time.  I’m over it.

,

D-Level Parent

An open letter to Holy Family Catholic School’s New Chief Administrator

Dear Mr. Borman,

Let me congratulate you on your recent promotion to chief administrator.  You were the perfect choice for the position and we look forward to many years under your excellent guidance.  

We have also recently learned that the principal of our elementary school, the assistant principal of the high school, and the principal at the middle school are all also turning over (due in part, to the cascade effect of your own promotion).  It feels like an extremely opportune time to offer some suggestions on the parent-school relationship, specifically as it relates to communications and all things money related.

First, let me offer my qualifications:  I am an alumnae of the Holy Family system myself (St. Joe’s class of ‘89 and Wahlert class of ‘93).  More importantly, I am the mother of 5 students in your system—2 high schoolers, a middle schooler, and 2 elementary students. My husband (Dyersville Beckman, class of ‘92) and I are deeply committed to Catholic education and believe strongly in the community being developed here.  

Now for the reason for this letter.  I would like to propose a self selecting tiering strategy for school/parent communications and financial transactions.  I believe this will allow parents to opt into a personally optimized level of information flow in addition to an opportunity for teachers and administrators to customize the level of engagement and knowledge they would like from the system.  It really feels like the optimum in win-win.  With Holy Family’s recent commitment to personalized learning for the students, I believe it is time to break new ground in the development of a personalized parenting strategy as well.  

Disclaimer:  I am incredibly fortunate to have 5 well adjusted, normally developing (academically, socially, and in all other ways that I know of) healthy, allergy free children and teenagers.  I realize D-level may not be a luxury available to all, but my husband and I happen to be fairly low maintenance parents who figure our kids are smarter, more talented, and more advantaged then we ever were so there is a level of engagement, especially in these middle years of parenting—that we wish to simply opt out of.  

This proposal will include a self selected level that addresses all of the following:  school newsletters, severe weather notification, fundraising, prayer requests, school lunch accounts, obscure award information, special parent meetings and training sessions, and classroom specific project communications.  I’m sure there are other categories of parenting to opt in or out of and/or to level up or down in, but as I intend to self select the D-level of parenting, these are the only topics I can think of right now.

My proposal for the D-level parenting solution is as follows:  

1.  Assume the following information has not changed (and will not into perpetuity):  names, dates of birth and baptism, address (We have not moved since my daughter, who is now a senior in high school, was 2 years old.  After filling out all the paperwork when she was in kindergarten, we committed to never moving or changing any important information ever again).  Also assume we have not changed doctors, dentists, insurance companies, places of employment, phone numbers, emergency contacts, or the primary language spoken in our homes. Also feel free to assume that all my children have the same basic info (doctor, dentist, address etc).  Perhaps these nuances matter to A through C level parents, but I’m a D.  If it’s not right—meh (#shrug), it’s close.

2.  I will give you a set amount of money in a checking account (or similar—details to be determined by you and your team).  Whatever is left in it at the end of the year is yours.  I would propose that whatever sum you think I am spending each year per child should probably be tripled.  (Disclaimer 2:  the job you and your staff are doing is incredibly difficult and under-compensated. You make miracles happen for pennies on the dollar and I fully acknowledge this.  Know that THIS IS NOT A COMPLAINT.  But it is my experience 12 years into this parenting a school-kid gig.  And I just can’t keep one dollar bills on hand for every $3 field trip anymore, or read the 12 emails a month a mother of 5 receives regarding low school lunch account balances).

3.  Assume my child wants a t-shirt for whatever it is you are planning.  I will provide you with a size at the beginning of the year.  Actually, better yet, ask her (it’s probably not the size I would choose).  If he or she grows or we choose something too large or small, she will wear it anyway or I will make her wear her older brother’s.  She will likely complain (to me).  I am used to it.  Do not fret.  Also, please keep said shirt (bracelet, silly socks) at school until the day the child is required to wear it.  Otherwise we will lose it and/or have a full on family brawl trying to find it in the 3 minutes between when said child hands me the reminder note and the bus arrives.  If you need me to pay for two up front, take it from the account.  

4.  Assume my child wants the school lunch (do you really think a D-level parent is going to pack one?).  If he doesn’t eat it, donate it to a child in need or throw it away.  Feel free to lecture him with reminders that money doesn’t grow on trees and plenty of children in Africa would love to have his nut-free, gluten-free, appropriately portioned pre-made lunch (again, this is not required for my child and I support whatever you have to do to keep every child safe.  I also, obviously, do not want my child to be over-fed per Michelle Obama standards.  Just kidding.  You can give him twinkies and hot dogs for all I care, just leave me out of it).  

5.  Remember that I am more than willing to donate whatever is left in my account at the end of the year.  Perhaps you and my child can work together on a budgeting plan.  Don’t forget PTA dues, seconds at lunch (especially for the teenage boys), yearbooks, canned food donations for school Masses, and Christmas gifts for the retired clergy. Also non-food birthday “treats”, Valentines, and class parties (Note: I usually choose napkins but you have to log in early to snag that option). Please choose some especially nice bakery cupcakes for the teacher’s lounge at Parent Teacher conferences.  These only occur every other month so there should be plenty of money.

6.  You may transport him to school events in parent vehicles, vans, buses, trolleys, blimps, tandem bicycles, horseback, and helicopters (or any not previously named form of transportation).  You can also make him walk or not take him anywhere, which is how they handled it back in the 80’s.  Again, you have my permission.

7.  You may take his picture, give him Tylenol, and feed him snacks. You can also share my address.  Everything I own is trashed by the combined impact of 5 offspring and d-level parenting so I don’t feel this is a significant threat to me or them.  Also, I have already promised not to move until the last child is out of college, so anyone who wants to find us probably can by now.

8.  Please stop calling me in the middle of the night to tell me school is cancelled or delayed (I realize there is a way to customize this to my personal preference but I forgot my password.  In fact, going forward assume I do not know my password for weather notifications, my lunch account, power school, conference sign ups, google drive, and all other systems that I don’t even know I should be checking). 

9. After last winter, I will just assume that school is cancelled for the entire month of February.  Call me (after 6:30am) if it’s on.  Otherwise, we’ll see you in March.  

10.  I promise to pray for all expectant mothers and families fighting illness and cancer and active military.  I will pray for Mr(s) X who just had a baby/broke her arm/forgot her password (again).  

11.  I am also very proud of the winners of the geography bee, the book contest, Harry Potter camp, Mathletes, Science Night, and state tennis (I have Facebook, after all. The kids I know—I know about).  I agree with all the sweet newsletter comments about the weather and how proud we are of these kids and how many blessings of our Lord Jesus Christ that we wish upon them.  But, as a self proclaimed d-level parent, I won’t be reading them anymore.

In exchange for this blissful silence, I promise never to call and complain about the snacks or the temperature or the quantity of homework. I won’t engage in parent drama about classroom management or... whatever.  I already don’t, but its time I get something in return. It is probably fair for you to know that I haven’t helped with homework since sometime in the mid-2000s except under extreme duress.  God help my youngest 2 (who happen to be rock stars.  At my 2nd grade son’s last conference, we were astonished to learn that he is reading at a 5th grade level—or something like that.  It was super good and there were numbers to prove it.  My eyes met my husband’s over his sweet, tousled blonde head and we silently had the following exchange:

Me:  Have you EVER read to him?  Ever?  Or given him books?

Husband:  NEVER #shrug). 

So all your well intentioned communications were already lost on me.  I’m just trying to get things out in the open.

You may have wondered why I started with my academic resume at the beginning of this letter and here is why.  I HAVE ALREADY PASSED 2ND GRADE and all the grades that follow (some of them 3 or 4 times at this point.  I just can’t handle 1 or 2 more).  And you can surely access the academic records to prove it.  I was a model student.  A pleasure to have in class and a lively thinker.  Look up my transcripts.  There are even a few teachers who were around when I graced the hallowed Holy Family halls who can vouch for me.

However, I am a committed D-level parent at this point.  I trust you to educate my children.  I’ve seen your resume.  You are UP TO IT.  

Also if there were fewer meetings and gatherings and awards assemblies and fund raisers, I could meet other moms more often for wine, and I promise you I could both build excellent community AND learn EVERYTHING THAT NEEDS TO BE KNOWN in that few hours.  (Also, you know, there would be wine).

I had every intention of articulating each level in this letter, but as a D-level parent, I’ve reached the limit of my attention span and commitment (also, what do I know of A, B or C levels?).  I do have a few parents in mind who can give you insight into the higher levels, if you would like.  Let me know. 

In the meantime, I will look forward to the text message where I can opt into this desired parenting level.  In fact, just assume I’m in.  If you put it in the newsletter or an email, I’ll probably miss it.

Sincerely,

D. (level) Lueken

The patron saint of PMS

“Madeline was being assaulted by a vicious bout of PMS on Chloe’s first day of school.  She was fighting back, but to no avail.  I choose my mood, she told herself as she stood in the kitchen…

PMS was still a relatively new experience for Madeline.  Another jolly part of the aging process.  She’d never really believed in it before.  Then, as she hit her late thirties, her body said, OK, you don’t believe in PMS?  I’ll show you PMS.  Get a load of this, bitch. 

Now, for one day every month, she had to fake everything:  her basic humanity, her love for her children, her love for Ed.  She’d once been appalled to hear of women claiming PMS as a defense for murder.  Now she understood.  She could happily murder someone today!  In fact, she felt like there should be some sort of recognition for her remarkable strength of character that she didn’t.”  From the novel, Big Little Lies, by Liane Moriarty (if you are only watching the TV series you are MISSING OUT.  Read her books—start with this one)

I Want To Punch You In The Face But I Love Jesus, The Ultimate PMS Companion Book (by Sherri Lynn) book I just bought.  More quotes forthcoming, I’m sure.

In one, remaining, and unfortunate way, my body is like that of a 16 year old girl.  It’s not in my perky bosom or tight little booty (ha!  I could hardly claim those when I WAS a 16 year old girl)!  But rather, in the wild rhythms of my monthly cycle.  Though they remain fairly regular (I used to say you could set your watch by them, back in those days when I actually paid attention to their comings and goings), they nevertheless clutch me and shake my emotions violently flinging me from sentimental tears to angry tantrums from moment to moment.  Last night I cried about a photocopied poem my son’s teacher put in his backpack on his last day of school (yeah, that’s how we roll.  School starts in under 2 weeks—time to clean out the backpacks!).  And then I cried about my other child’s preschool teacher’s poem (sent several years ago and which she dug out after gleefully observing the strong reaction her brother’s had evoked). 

This morning, I was angry at my husband for the unforgiveable sin of standing at the sink I wanted to use.  And then for chewing a bagel.  And for kissing me goodbye and saying “I love you.”  About this time every month, I sink into paroxysms of deep despair about my unbelievably difficult life.  In good months, I am able to swallow my rage and sorrow (and not, you know, punch people in the face).  In bad months, I unleash that fury (100% of the time to date this has been verbal.  I have not actually punched anyone in the face). Nevertheless, it ain’t pretty.  Even I (especially I) don’t want to live with me during these days.

Right now, I’m sitting at a beautiful little coffee shop owned by a dear woman I know personally.  In the bright summer sunshine.  Completely alone.  They served me my latte garnished with two chocolate covered espresso beans (I love chocolate covered espresso beans).  On the table in front of me is a blooming pot full of pink and purple and yellow flowers (I love pink and purple and yellow).  In a few minutes I have to leave to go to my annual mammogram.

See?  Life is an evil, green faced witch with a giant wart on her nose. 

I went an entire decade having just one or two periods a year.  For real.  I have 5 children, and I breastfed each one for nearly 2 years.  In the equation of women’s biology, that meant just a few experiences with this hormonal tango for a vast majority of my adult life.  (I’ve been menstruating for almost 30 years—wait.  Only going 10 without a period means it wasn’t the “vast majority” was it?  I hate math.  I hate estrogen.) 

I have really been trying to grow in my spiritual life of late.  I want to give my life over to Jesus (because he won’t leave me alone for one reason).  I honestly thought this morning that it was possible I was possessed by a demon.  Perhaps I am.  And the devil’s name is PMS.

Can PMS be my cross?  Must I find a way to love through this painful, disheartening, unpleasant inner turmoil?  I’m sorry, men, but you honestly have no idea.  Hell hath no fury and all that.  I listened to a Christian podcast the other day and two thirty-something women mentioned that for years during that one week of every month, they felt they were stumbling on their faith journey (“Back-slidden” was the specific—apparently Protestant?—term they used). Last month, I searched for a patron saint of PMS, because, seriously, I need a saintly sister to calm my raw nerves around this time of the month.  I need someone to call upon—like a wise, holy older sister—to ease my suffering.   

According to Father Google, there isn’t really a patron saint of PMS (go figure).  Some recommend Saint Gianna Molla who was a physician and died in childbirth or St. Rose of Lima who was so beautiful she had to beat men off with a stick.  Both feel like a stretch to me, especially Rose.  Beauty is not the first thing I think of associated with PMS.   (And of the many reasons I struggle to compare my life to that of the saints, having to beat men off with a stick due to my beauty is even harder to imagine than, say, being eaten by lions).   One chat board recommended St. Felicity of Rome, who was martyred after watching each of her 7 sons tortured and killed for their faith.  So that’s a tough one to adopt as a recourse to my first world problems associated with chocolate chips on my just swept floor and too many sporting events to attend on a given weekday.  I think the safest answer is NO, there is no patron saint of PMS. 

And this, of course, is where my mind parades martyr visions of female saints being beheaded, drawn and quartered, fed to lions, plagued by wretched illness, having breasts cut off and tongues cut out and eyes gouged from their heads.  Jesus himself said, “You have not yet endured to the point of shedding blood.”  Well, now that you mention it.... But I presume this sort of “shedding blood” isn’t exactly what He had in mind.  Or maybe it IS—and it was a message for all men everywhere that this PMS mess is no joke (as though any man who lives with a woman might still wonder after a few months of exposure to it).  Regardless, I endure. 

But, make no mistake—this is indeed a cross for me.  Every month.  Every blessed month.  But, one must deal.  I will tame my snarly tongue and sip my perfect latte in this lovely sunshine.  And speaking of breasts being cut off…. I have an appointment to keep.

Kiki, Now and Then

I really like meeting people as the person I am now, and though I look forward to years of slowly filling in details and stories and hearing theirs in exchange—seeing the elemental values of a relationship grow with each visit—there’s nothing that can ever take the place of someone who knew you when and likes you, loves you, in spite or because of it.  When that someone is part of the present, then you have the rarest of all friendships; you speak your own language, a kind of shorthand only available to childhood friends, where a word or phrase conjures up major portions of your life.  With such a friendship you know and accept all of the changes that have occurred over time; you know the past history that shapes the present, and you know the surface appearance and all that lies underneath.”

—From the essay “Cathy, Now and Then” by Jill McCorkle

 I have always loved this quote which has lived in my heart and in my memory for over two decades now.  I dug out the old book of essays this weekend and was struck that the book is called The Seasons of Women given the theme of my first post.  I read this shortly after I graduated from college and also shortly before I met Chad.  My cousin Kristie was my first thought then, as she is now.  There is no friendship on the planet that fulfills the spirit of that quote more than that of my first friend and I.  So much was different about my life then.  I lived alone in a tiny, 2 bedroom house—tinier than most apartments.  I worked second shift at a local window factory as an assembly line supervisor which was an absurd pivot from my first 22 years of life and the degree I had just earned.  Babies and mortgages and midlife angst were a lifetime away.  What wasn’t different?  Kristie was there.  

She lived in Ames and worked in Des Moines—which put us a little over an hour apart. She had interned with her employer while in college and had accepted a full time position afterwards, opting to keep her apartment in her college town and commute the 45-ish minutes rather than leave her friends and the life she had built there.  She had a boyfriend and I worked second shift, and we just didn’t see each other much.  It was the days before texting and social media, so there wasn’t an effortless way to keep in touch.  We’d connect at all the major holidays back home with the family and sporadically in between.   Even then, I know we were rarely out of each other’s thoughts for long stretches of time.  We were—are--just too inextricably connected.

For the first 18 years of our life, every week of our existence was interwoven.  We never lived close enough to be together every single day, but it was a rare week that didn’t find us together in some manner—for her mom the hairstylist to cut my hair or for my mom the nurse to check out one of her sister’s rashes or cuts.  Or for our families to meet up for a barbecue or for one or the other to spend a few hours at the other’s house while our moms ran errands.  Her house was like my house, and I still don’t knock before walking in though she hasn’t lived there in almost 25 years (her mom is my godmother after all).  We grew up almost like sisters, and there is literally no phase of my life that she does not figure prominently in.  

I was 8 months old when she was born—a joyful fact that I lorded over her through the acquisition of driver’s licenses and 21st birthdays, and which she has lorded over me ever since.  I may have gotten to drive first, but I was also 30, then 40, too soon 50 first and so on.  Family lore has it that I called her “Kiki” before I could master the more difficult nuances of her actual name, and the nickname has stuck.  

Today is her birthday.  Her birthday, and her childhood phone number (556-3249), the name of her imaginary friend (Kelly Momo.  Mine was Kanga), the location of her birthmark (inside of one ring finger—her mom used to try and scrub it off because she thought it was grease from playing in the garage with her dad), her aversion to milk (not quite an allergy—in those decades before “dairy free” was a thing), her proclivity to cracking her knuckles (even in her sleep), how she used to love to say “let’s play house or go swimming” a thousand times a weekend in the years when we spent endless days at our grandparents’ “farm”, her humor, her loyalty, her courage—a thousand memories and a thousand details are as familiar to me as the details of my own story.  They are my story.  Where does one actually begin to craft a birthday tribute to a person so near, so dear, and so familiar it is nearly impossible to conjure more than a handful of important memories in an entire life that she doesn’t feature at least peripherally in.

That’s not quite true.  I do recall the time her family went on a vacation to the East Coast (Philadelphia and DC areas I believe) without us (our dads were best friends, our moms beloved sisters, our little siblings all aged within a year of one another).  We vacationed together a lot, though not exclusively.  When she came home and told us about it I still recall an odd discomfort almost like “how could she have seen these things without me?”   As I sit here recalling it, the only similar experience that comes to mind is when I met someone at my oldest child’s daycare who referred to me as “Grace’s mom.”  I remember thinking how strange it was that my tiny, precious child had “met” someone I didn’t know.  It gave me pause—this first ever moment of realizing she would—in fact did—have a life completely separate from me.  What a commentary on my relationship to Kristie that, as I sit here remembering, the ache of both memories is the same.  How can my first born and my oldest friend have lives, experiences, relationships—that don’t include me?  It’s almost like a tiny, immature part of me thinks they cease to exist when they aren’t with me.  Of course intellectually this is absurd (and more than a little self centered) but my body and my heart don’t care what my brain wants to think.  That’s how close to my heart, how viscerally connected I feel to Kristie.  The only analogy I can draw on is the bond between mother and child.   

This is not to say that our relationship has been comprised only of giggling over milkshakes and Hallmark greeting card sentiments.  The ones we love the most can hurt us the most, and we’ve cut one another deeply over our 40 plus years together.  We are significantly different people and just because we know fairly intimately all the “me’s” we’ve each been, doesn’t mean those girls and women have always been wildly compatible. 
 

We both started as high achieving eldest children (though, interestingly, when we first stumbled upon the birth order theories, Kristie once commented that she shared many characteristics of a second/middle child—she postulated because of our extremely close relationship and my dominating big sister tendencies towards all my little siblings and, I guess, cousins.  What can I say?  I’m protective.  And bossy).  We were both bookish and imaginative.  We were both cautiously adventurous.  We loved poring through the woods and cornfields surrounding our homes and grandparents’ farm, though we never went far enough to get lost or tried anything that would really have gotten us hurt (save one very memorable bike crash when we attempted the massive hill in her backyard, my hands on the streamered handlebars, hers wrapped around me from behind on her pink banana seat bike.  Mine was yellow, by the way, and must have been at my house since we had to ride double.  We wore, in fact owned, no helmets of course—this was approximately 1983).  We watched the same shows and listened to the same music.  I think our first album was the same (either Paula Abdul or Debbie Gibson), but maybe not.  Her dad introduced us to Crystal Gale (“Don’t it make my brown eyes blue?” Was our shared theme song), and my dad introduced us to Y basketball.  Her mom French braided our hair and my mom made us take naps and eat organic peanut butter “fudge”.

But as high school approached, our shared interests began to diverge.  I had stuck with basketball when she gave it up around middle school, she stuck with diving which I gave up around the same time.  Our interest in music started to change—I gravitated toward hip hop (“Busta move” was the theme song of my high school basketball career) and she towards more alternative choices (we both loved The Cure’s “Letter to Elise” though that was the only one I liked and she enjoyed their whole album).  We were hormone addled, stupid teens and we fought—both struggling to define our identities and space in a world we couldn’t know back then was more than big enough for both of us.

In my mid-twenties, I met and married Chad.  Kristie was my most loyal (only local) bridesmaid who made the 45 minute trek between where we lived then multiple times to help emboss silver stars onto our wedding invitations and programs.  She cared for our oldest child when I went to the hospital to have my second, and remains a beloved “auntie” to that sweet blue eyed baby girl who turned 17 just eleven days ago.   

Our lives sped forward from there, Chad and I adding more babies at breakneck speed, and she building her career across multiple companies—venturing far and wide through travel jobs and personal travel (she spent a memorable month in India around the same time I was planning my second—or was it third?—maternity leave).  Though we had started to diverge in high school, the gap widened as I was consumed by the early years of motherhood and she was—do I even know?  I was so consumed by my own life that I lost track.  From afar, I envied her the freedom and the travel.  The unabashed pursuit of ever more exciting career opportunities.  The creation of a lovely home utterly reflective of her tastes and personality.  My home is a hodgepodge of tastes—the awkward melding of Chad and my preferences molded around the wash-and-wear practicality of a big, active, slightly (slightly?) messy family.  Our lives, which had seemed so utterly parallel at the beginning, were shifting.  In a novel I read recently, a character described the impact of such a small shift in course early on.  “If you nudge an asteroid off course by just a tiny bit and give it enough time, it will end up in an entirely different place.  Life is no different.  Nudge someone one way or the next and a person’s life trajectory can change forever.”  From The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs.  This was us, I guess.  I remember once journaling how the divide between child-free and parent was so wide as to feel nearly impossible to communicate across.  I don’t know this for certain, but I bet I was talking about Kristie.  It was strange and difficult to navigate such an impactful phase of life without her.

What is interesting, though, and not entirely in keeping with the asteroid metaphor, is that as the years pass, it feels as if we are drawing back together again.  In my first post I mentioned the hours I had spent in the company of “wise and funny and similarly slightly rueful” and the first one that came to mind was a recent hour spent at her lovely home in Des Moines, sipping good red wine, over a fancy fireplace contraption she had recently treated herself to.  The time I spent with Kristie—back to baring our souls and wrestling life’s deepest challenges, using our shared language and history to finish each other’s sentences, or to not bother finishing them at all—centered and comforted me in a way nothing else can.  She is my touchstone and my safe harbor and my oldest, dearest, most beloved friend.  I hesitated over the “most beloved” because I have a lot of beloved friends—and she has even more.  But what my soul whispered in that brief moment was that if someone is so fundamentally resident in your heart and life that there are memories and moments where you can barely distinguish her experience from yours, who feels as much like “coming home” as anyone else in your life, “most beloved” doesn’t even begin to touch it.

Happy birthday dear, dear, friend of my heart.  The intertwining of our lives is a blessing for which I’ll forever be grateful.  I can’t wait for our adventures in the next 44.  To start, how about we play house or go swimming?

Halftime

A dear friend shared this Brene Brown quote with me after my last post:

I THINK MIDLIFE IS WHEN THE UNIVERSE GENTLY PLACES HER HANDS UPON YOUR SHOULDERS, PULLS YOU CLOSE, AND WHISPERS IN YOUR EAR:  

“I’m not screwing around.  It’s time.  All of this pretending and performing—these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt—has got to go.

Time is growing short.  There are unexplored adventures ahead of you.  You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think.  You were born worthy of love and belonging.  Courage and daring are coursing through you.  You were made to live and love with your whole heart.  It’s time to show up and be seen.”

It reminded me of a podcast I heard recently.  In it, the host described a publicity stunt by Will Smith in celebration of his 50th birthday.  You can see as much as you care to on YouTube, but he literally bungee jumped out of a helicopter over the desert outside Las Vegas.  The host quoted him as saying it was his “halftime show” marking his transition into the third quarter of life.  She went on to say something along the lines of, “We are not supposed to stop striving as we reach middle age.  This is just the beginning.  Games are won in the third quarter.”  I tried to find this exact interview with the Fresh Prince and came up short, so I can’t quote it directly, but as a former basketball player and current coach, this idea really resonated with me.  After spending so many weeks and months navel gazing over my age and the passage of time and the current condition of my life, I was invigorated by this new metaphor.  I still like the midsummer one a lot, especially when you acknowledge that the “frenzy of the harvest” that I mentioned last time implies an awful lot of life work yet to be done.  But thinking of my life as a game yet to be won forces me to put down my wine glass and get up out of my dock chair and figure out my next step.  I’m a competitor to the core, and part of my struggle has been that I didn’t think there was much left to achieve.  Please don’t misunderstand—it’s not that I believe I have nailed every aspect of my life—but it does feel as though I accomplished a lot of what I set out to do as an ambitious, dreamy eyed student stepping out into the world.  I have landed more or less where I wanted to—and I never thought much beyond 40 when I set my sights on my future in any case.  

Take, for example, this exchange I vividly recall from college, which I have quoted countless times in recent appointments with physical therapists and orthopedic surgeons:

Athletic trainer after preliminary rehab on (another) severe ankle sprain:  “We can tape you up and you can play tonight, but you will probably regret it when you’re 40.”

Me at 19 (snorting): “40?  I’ll practically be dead by then.  Tape it up.  I’m playing.”

Isn’t that how we usually envision our lives?  We sort of skip over this middle section with its monotony of bills and   housework and slowly aging bodies we never intended to let get this way.  We picture vividly the wedding days and the big promotions and the new houses and the baby's births.  But the grind of the day to day--once the career aspirations are more or less achieved ("I'm a lawyer!", "I'm a vet!", "I'm a program manager!"), and the dewy babies are eye-rolling teenagers, and the not-so-new house needs some upgrade as uninspiring as a new roof or bigger water heater, and the old body needs a new hip--don't factor much either in our  imaginations, or in any of the media and entertainment we consume (books, movies, magazines, social media). 

But if it’s only halftime, there’s a lot of game left to play.  Even if we won the first half, we aren’t done.  There's more to the second half than just maintenance and waiting.  Any team that steps back on the court after halftime with the game plan of playing not to lose, surely will.  The universe unquestionably has her hands on my shoulders and is whispering “You need to get back out there—on your terms this time.”  I know this is true for so many of the rest of you, or my last post wouldn’t have struck such a cord.

Of course, no player worthy of the team colors fails to make some adjustments heading into the second half.   You are more tired and probably a little bit bruised and beat up.  You don’t carry the same optimism and confidence into the second half as the first.  You’ve seen what can happen, and you are significantly better prepared— more seasoned and aware, more cautious and alert.  On the flip side, you’ve honed your team.  You've had to make some cuts to your roster and that wasn’t easy, but hopefully the teammates by your side now are the right mix of aggressive and smart, fast and effective, supportive and strong.  They compliment you and your skills and they love the game just like you do.  They all want you to win because if you do, they do.  

The stakes are higher and harder though (aren’t they always, in the 3rd quarter?). There is no denying that you are that much closer to the end.  Mistakes in the third quarter are a lot more costly than those you make in the first.  The challenge for all of us is to adjust our strategy to the life we have, while never backing down, giving up on, or surrendering ownership of what winning looks like in the end, for us specifically and individually. We can’t fall asleep to this—allowing the drift of our lives, the expectations of the world around us, or the demands of our loved ones to sweep us into old age with many (any) of our dreams left unfulfilled.  I also believe we need to step into our ability to actually change some of the rules.  Some of them are obsolete and some of them are just stupid.  In the second half, we ought to be able to look the rules, and the rulekeepers, in the eye and say, politely and with all the sportsmanship in our well-behaved hearts, "hell no."

I am just now opening my eyes to this need.  It took me quite awhile to even define what was eating me.  I thought I was just sad that my beloved oldest child was about to start her senior year.  Or that my joints were giving out two decades before most people’s.  Or that my job was starting to feel a bit monotonous.  Or that parenting teenagers is a grueling exercise in frustration and self doubt.  Latching onto this halftime metaphor has helped me start to reposition my thoughts around this phase of my life.  It is not just about over.  There is so much game left to be played.

On a side note, I was trying to articulate some of this to my teenage son the other day.  Because the pitch of a mother’s voice occurs at the frequency of a dog whistle to her offspring, he only heard a mere fraction of what I was saying.  When I got to the “Will Smith skydiving as halftime show” part his ears perked up.  Somehow, he managed to wrangle a promise out of me that for his 21st birthday and my 50th (which occur in the same year), we would skydive together to celebrate our momentous passage into new phases of life.  I was kind of thinking “book club dinner party” would be a nice halftime show, but I guess we’ll see.  I’ve got a few years yet.

In the meantime, I am really trying hard to define my game plan for the second half.  I have literally dusted off some old corporate strategic planning documents and spent hours poring over metrics and strategies for myself.  What does “exceptional health” look like in the third quarter? What plays do I need to start running to create true financial independence?  What do I want my marriage to look like?  How do I define parenting success?  After my last post, a friend mentioned creating a bucket list which was one of those “duh” moments of brilliant insight for me.  Of course.  Lay those into a long term strategy.  What sights do I want to see?  What mountains (literally? Figuratively?) do I want to climb?  Does collecting my pension in 20 years after 40 corporate years of dutiful service define life joy and winning for me?  Where do I want to live?  Who do I want to be?  It has been quite a daunting process, but it has invigorated me.  It led to the creation of this blog.  It led to me finally scheduling a doctor’s appointment to get this next thing taken care of.  It led to a change in how I approach discussions about budgets and goals between Chad and I.  It led to me finally rolling out my yoga mat again (once in the last 6 weeks.  I mean, you have to start somewhere).

So I will begin, again—smarter and tougher than I was in the first half.  I will bring the best parts of my game with me into the next quarter, and I’ll dump the plays that haven’t been working.  I’ll be up to the challenge.  And I plan to win.