Take Care of Yourselves!

Don't make my mistake.

Hi, friends. It’s been ages. It’s been a rough Fall and I’ve been busy falling ever deeper into what’s turned out to be a deep hole. I had elective foot surgery a month ago and the recovery has been really hard. I had this same surgery on the other foot five years ago and the recovery wasn’t so hard. There are likely several reasons for the difference but I’ve decided it’s because I’m old. Or older. I turn 50 in a few months. If the rumors are true, I’ve got a few months left before I cease to exist in the culture. Yay.

Also: the election, about which I will add nothing to the blame game being played among all of us who actually thought we had a chance.

There are other family things going on, as well, but it’s not my place to share business that’s not my own. Suffice it to say, it’s not been fun.

However, I consider this litany of grievances—despite its gravitas and world-ending implications—background noise to the REAL drama happening over here, which is middle school applications. It is not a good process, though much of the outcome is determined by a random lottery that did not favor us this year.

Do I like any of the public schools we can apply to? Not really. So my strategy has been to visit every school we can and apply everywhere. Keep every door open. Keep open doors to schools we probably have no chance of getting into. Schools we don’t want to get into. Fancy schools. Not so fancy schools. Schools we cannot afford even if I made four times as much as I do now.

Yesterday my daughter had an interview at a fancy school. It was scheduled for 4:15. The email clearly said: if you come late, we can’t accommodate you and we can’t guarantee you’ll get another chance (read: fancy school). Since I can finally drive now, we left 45 minutes early for a trip that normally takes 15 minutes. Cue the overturned tractor trailer. Traffic started to back up on every road. Waze kept adjusting my ETA. One minute late. Three minutes late. I kept refreshing routes and trying different ones. Five minutes late. Ten. I started to get…upset.

Now, I am a single parent, as you all know. With single parenthood comes—for me, anyway—a good deal of pressure not to FUCK IT UP. My job is to give my kid the best start in life I can. The best opportunities I can. I am supposed to open doors. What I’m not supposed to do is get stuck on the road so that my child misses her chance to get into this school.

I started to apologize to my daughter. Because she is the loveliest person on earth, she kept telling me it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t have known.

And then this thing happened that hasn’t happened in a long time. This thing started to rise up in me that felt like some toxic admixture if fury, panic, and massive self-loathing. So much so that I wanted to put my head through the windshield. I was SO ANGRY at myself. I am the worst parent. I am the worst failure. I should have left earlier. I should have gotten my shit together.

Meantime, I do not want my daughter to notice that I am totally imploding in the front seat—the tears are pouring down my face—but I don’t do a great job. I say, I’m sorry, honey, but your mother is a FUCKING IDIOT. Who says this in front of their child? Me, apparently. And the worst part is, it feels good. I LIKE self-immolating in this totally inappropriate way. And I am on the verge of totally losing it in a very vocal and presumably memorable way.

My daughter (have I mentioned that she is the loveliest person on earth?) continues to reassure me that it’s okay. Though she does seem mildly freaked that I am talking this way in front of her.

We finally get to within a block of the school. Instead of driving around to the parking area, which is close to the entrance, I decided to park on the street, never mind that I’m in a surgical boot and still can’t walk especially well. What I can do, apparently, is run. So we start running—trotting?—to get there. We’re 20 minutes late and rushing to admissions and the sweat is pouring down my face and only then do I get the idea maybe everyone else is late, too.

They are. Of course they are. No one can get to this school because of the traffic. And so the interview process starts late and we are not even the last to arrive—not by a long shot. Also, most of the other moms called from their cars while their partners drove to make sure it was okay to come late. So they did not arrive frazzled, consumed with self-loathing, and in some serious pain.

My takeaway is this: I had a total meltdown. Maybe I’m not as okay as I thought. Maybe the election and its foreclosing on my daughter’s future has me so grasping for the illusion of safety that I’ve displaced all of my anxiety onto finding a good middle school for her. Maybe I’ve internalized the country’s failure to protect her future. Or maybe I just need to exercise after a month of sitting around like a lump.

So today at physical therapy, I got to ride the stationary bike for a whopping eight minutes at the lowest level. It was exhausting, but felt great. Then I posted on Facebook, asking for recommendations for what to read first thing in the morning in lieu of the NYT for the next four years. A lot of great recommendations came in, including this.

My other takeaway is: I got caught off guard because I haven’t been paying enough attention to my mood. And I haven’t been doing much in the way of self-care.

I rarely come apart like that and never in front of my daughter. And so maybe it’s okay it happened. This could just be spin, but maybe it’s okay to show your kid that parents aren’t just fallible, they can also really fall to pieces. And that what’s important is how you put yourself back together again. But I don’t know.

So, I guess I’ll just see how things go. And try to take better care of myself. I hope you are/will, too.

Hang in there, friends. Sending hugs.

Fiona

PS. Remember my post about E. coli and the Larq bottle and using it to prevent food poisoning in Peru? Well, we had an amazing trip. And then five hours after getting back, my daughter started showing signs of E. coli poisoning and was sick for almost 10 days. But it wasn’t the Larq’s fault.