a roller coaster but not the fun kind
a bunch of nonsensical mini and sometimes daily existential crises.
More from the proverbial archives. Sometimes I write things and need to let them stew before editing and publishing. Stew is delicious and everyone knows it needs TIME. So that’s what’s up here. I just feel the need to explain the passage of time since C’s birthday was in February, and a lot of what I’m discussing here is not recent nor the most egregious anymore. Sob. Let’s go!
C’s 6th birthday is 6 sleeps away. He is very excited and I am very excited for him.
I spoke to Demarcus at the venue where we’re having his party, and finalized our pizza order, chose juice boxes instead of water bottles, and requested very specific balloon colors. I get 18 included in the price of my party package. Nice.
Then, in a quick insta scroll (mistake!), I saw that video of the Latina woman being arrested and sent for deportation, after having committed zero crimes. The comments were a testament to our times. Outrage, and outrage at the outrage.
I ordered some flat glass beads to DIY a “heart of Tefiti” for C’s friends to take home in their party favors. The first bag of beads I ordered were smaller than I thought they’d be, so I lament over this to MP who suggests I return them and find a bigger size. So I do. 1.5” diameter glass beads is better than .7” glass beads, turns out, and I am pleased. I have fun with the paint markers, drawing the swirly thing on each glass bead, while watching John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight and letting the rage build inside me over whatever topic he is speed-talking us through. I wonder why I am doing this: the craft AND the subjecting myself to a show and info I don’t technically need.
Then I see the headline of pulling out of Paris Climate Accords and the World Health Organization, and then about how the CDC was instructed to cease communicating with the WHO. And inside I freak out a little bit. Isn’t bird flu on the brink of being another pandemic? Is this really the right time to do a thing that doesn’t seem right at all? Measles, anyone?
But then, a client’s website - about showcasing museums all over the country - goes down, and I hop on my computer to investigate quickly. Very glad to find out it’s not my fault, but not so glad that it’s not something I can resolve quickly for the client. I send an email with info he needs to know. He’s a kind human, so his response is kind and understanding. Maybe he also saw some crazy headlines and knows we all need to be kind to each other. Maybe he’s just kind. I read his reply, and wonder who he voted for and wonder if he is also scared for his kids.
Then C asks for a very specific type of cake and I am researching aka scrolling on Pinterest trying to figure out if I can get away with a pull-apart cupcake cake that is vaguely Moana themed but not full on Maui or princess and also not $150. It feels very important to get it right, and I scroll and scroll, getting inspired at all the beautiful cakes people make, feeling like I want to try it, knowing I won’t because I hate baking and have accepted this isn’t my thing. I DIY’d little hearts of Tefiti, remember? THAT is my thing. Still, I keep scrolling, and we watch SNL in the background, and the cold open skit is hilarious but also devastating. Weekend Update makes me cry with laughter but also die inside a little bit. I choose a purple lizard pull-apart cupcake thing that sorta resembles this very obscure sea monster C is obsessed with in Moana 2. Victory.
Then I see agent orange is attempting to freeze federal funding that supports things like the public library from which I borrowed an audiobook I am loving. I don’t think this will go anywhere, but what if it does? And my alternatives are to pay for an Audible subscription but that’s an Amazon company, right?! Should I be using it? What does it mean if I use it? What does it mean if I boycott? Anything?
This reminds me I need to order a couple audiobooks for J’s birthday that he can play on his little kid radio clock thing. I want him to love stories and reading just like I do, like his big brother does. Reading is important, and will build character and intelligence and stuff. He’s a white boy, I want to give him all the chances to develop compassion and whatever the opposite of entitlement is.
Then I am reminded of an article I read discussing the “boyhood crisis” and how boys are struggling, not reading as well as girls, have a higher suicide rate than girls, aren’t graduating from college as much as girls. And now I’m scared again. Should I not have had these boys? Can’t do anything about that now, but I think about it more and more. What will they be like? Will me teaching them to do shit around the house and do their own laundry and my attempts to instill empathy and kindness in them work, or are they fated to be more privileged white boy dipshits who disrespect women and can’t handle their emotions? I order another couple rainbow / pride themed tshirts from a small business to make myself feel better.
And then Spring is here and all the sports registrations are open. Giant eye rolls. But apparently at least one of my sons is old enough now that I’m supposed to care about this. He asked for t-ball and hockey, so I look them up and miraculously I haven’t missed registration dates. I sign him up for both, because we can and I love him, and pay a couple hundred dollars to inconvenience myself 2 to 3 times per week and maybe bring him some joy. I am a great mom.
Then, another headline about some idiotic comment the head of all health policy in this country has made finds me, and I wonder if all of these stupid things that are happening will mean that my boys will not have access to the best that scientific research has created and provided up to this point? Will they work hard at tball only to die from tuberculosis or perhaps e-coli infection because milk regulations will be removed and overseas pandemics are no longer being monitored or aided? What about those steaks I bought the other day, can we eat them or are the USDA firings already impacting the quality of the food on the shelves? How will I know if it changes? How will I know if or when I can no longer trust purchasing meat or veggies or I guess literally anything from my local previously-trusted-so-implicitly-it-never-occurred-to-me-I-might-not-one-day-be-able-to grocery store?
Then one night, Big Boi J throws a truly epic tantrum at bedtime (we skipped his nap, it’s my fault), and while he throws himself around on the floor in his underwear, wailing about not-really-sure, I marvel at my calmness, and my lack of anxiety in the moment. I am so chill, and for a second I am able to recognize this incredible motherhood moment and personal growth. Eventually, he calms enough to ask me about pajamas (one of this favorite topics ever), and we are able to move on to getting dressed and choosing bedtime books. When I sing his song (Golden Slumbers), he sings with me, and then asks me to give him a hug. I am a little smug about how this ended but also proud of myself and him and feeling …the love. Boy mom, s’not so bad, after all!
Now MP is away for a week, so I am busier than usual this morning. I’m in charge of all of it (he usually does all/most morning things, whilst I stay in my bed nest until the very last possible second), but it goes well. Boys are actually listening to me?! They eat an actually decent meal. Shoes are put on feet with minimal nagging and frustrated sounds on my part. We get out the door at an actually decent time. I even make myself a coffee for the walk! The boys hold hands on the walk. I wave to a neighbor, who I feel grateful to know and be neighbors with. I know who they voted for, and am comforted that I know we stand for the same things. My wave says “hi,” but my head says “another day battling the patriarchy and fascism, godspeed to you.”
Later I realize I need to go to the NC License Plate Agency office to renew my tags, which are 1.5 years out of date. Yikes. I am laughing and crying on the inside. Because how have I not been pulled over and cited for this yet? And then I remember: I’m a suburban (ish) white female, driving a mid-size late-ish model SUV, with car seats and college stickers on the back window. Of COURSE I haven’t been pulled over! And I am guilty and sad and mad that this privilege and type of profiling exists at all.
Then I pack Big Boi J into his carseat and take us to Costco, where I am having all 4 of our tires replaced. A purchase I thought nothing of, except for the fact that the car barely passed inspection and so we need them, and Costco has good service and pricing. J asks me if we can get a cake pop from the Starbucks down the road while we wait. I immediately say yes, and think nothing of it except that it’s a good activity to waste 1 to 1.5 hours while we wait for the installation to finish. We are safe, on a public sidewalk, where the grass is mowed and pedestrian crossings maintained. I wonder if folks driving past me on the road think about the maintenance of this road in relation to their taxes, and in relation to their voting practices.
My mom calls and we have a nice chat about what she’s up to, living her best retirement life. She is caring for my children when we go on a little anniversary trip when the boys are on spring break. I am excited to share the rental house details with her, and we work out logistics of pickup and whatever else. She is excited for time with her grandchildren. I am thankful to have a living and healthy mother who is both capable and eager to watch my boys and help me out and show her love. She has to go pretty quickly, she’s golfing with her girlfriends. Big Boi J yells exuberantly LOVE YOU NINIIIIIIIIII as we hang up, and he immediately asks to see a picture of her. Adorable. I am smiling.
Later, I see a headline about the breakdown of social security services, and I think of Nini. My parents are lucky [and privileged!] enough to not rely solely on social security to pay their bills, but at least 2 elderly folks in my family do. And parts of my extended family do. And obviously the millions of Americans I don’t know who also rely on it, and I care about this even though I do not know them or their situations. I am sad. I never expected to be able to use social security myself - Millennials have known for a long while it’s not really in the cards for us - but it feels like a harbinger of worse things. Will Big Boi J have a healthy economy in which to get a job? Will Big Boi J be a toxic white man? What does a failure of social security benefits (if that is what eventually happens) mean for two little boys who maybe won’t need to rely on it because of generational wealth? Or will they?! Because generational wealth will be gone because of…everything? And it won’t be there?!
Back at Costco, our car is ready to be picked up. We get pizza, because not sure if this is common knowledge but toddlers love pizza. So we’re eating, and I’m trying desperately to not let him drop his gigantic slice on the floor. I’m watching people and families walk past with their full carts on their way to the exit. Not an egg in sight, lots of produce, lots of bulk snack items. Liquid hydration packs, medicines, jumbo pack of ankle socks. Wine. Tired faces. Many races. [heh, a rhyme!] Many ages, many varieties of groups and families. A man walks past with 5 kids, age probably 4 to teenager. I wonder why they aren’t in school on this, a non-holiday weekday. I wonder if they are a homeschool family. I wonder if they are following a garbage secretly-white-supremacist curriculum that includes Jesus but not dinosaurs. I wonder if it’s any of my business. I wonder who everyone voted for. I wonder how many Latinx faces I see are citizens or if their safety is at risk. I wonder if they know their safety might be at risk. I wonder if they know what to do about it. I wonder if their kids will be ok. J interrupts my existential crisis to ask me about playing in our yard when we get home because it’s such a beautiful day. I wonder how many of the folks walking by with their groceries have a safe place for their kids to play, if they’re ok, if they’re also mad, if they’re also a little bit scared, if they care. If they voted, and how.
J starts getting silly with his pizza, staring at the guy we’re sharing a table with who has a pretty cool looking undercut and a sleeve of tats. Asking me what he’s doing, and what he’s eating, and why he’s here, and I am hoping he never loses this intense and persistent curiosity about every detail, AND hoping he doesn’t say something offensive to or about this guy that I will have to explain. And I wonder if I’m doing enough to teach him about different sorts of folks. If I tell him enough that what people look like or choose to do with their bodies is none of our business, and that it means nothing about their personality or character or integrity. I wonder if that toddler book with all the multi-racial and same-sex-couple families is pointless. I look up books to teach kids about racism, and I wonder if it’s too early, or if it’s too late already, to teach them about this complicated topic. I wonder what words I’m supposed to use. A Black family walks past with a preschool-aged child, and I wonder if that little one has experienced racism yet because the stats on that are obscene, and then I think, I probably shouldn’t wait to talk about it with mine, who have never experienced it and probably never will.
J drops part of his pizza on the floor and wants to keep eating it. It’s time to leave.
I wonder if I took my anxiety medicine or if I’m behind a day, which sometimes causes me to spiral in excess. I feel glad for modern medicine, thankful for insurance, and despair that we don’t all have the same.
When we get home, J asks me to sing an extra song before nap. And I sing Edelweiss, a fictional anthem from fictional-based-on-reality story about Austria being annexed by Nazi Germany, a very casual and supported governmental action that was widely supported but precipitated the subsequent horrors of World War II in Europe. And I try to feel hope, and I try to remember I am capable of and do perform resistance in different tiny ways, and it all matters.
The point of this is not to send all of us into an existential crisis, she reminds herself. I am sharing because I’m an over-sharer, and I want to remind myself that it’s normal to have a daily existential crisis in these times when shit is literally crazy. There ARE things we can do. Please check out Emily in Your Phone on insta and substack to learn all the big and little ways to get involved in America aka political action but make it normal and reachable and sustainable.
kloveyoubyeeee
