Taking Back My Life

February 23, 2007 | Category: In My Life

I interrupt my musings for a rant, that will not be written in iambic pentameter.

I have rarely done this. However I feel about President Bush or the war or the Italian Prime Minister or the UNICEF study about children in rich countries or Darfur or Bono or the couple that recreated the "Dirty Dancing" scene at their wedding reception....

... I have always been a little nervous to vent my spleen on this off-off-off-Broadway internet stage. Because this is a Bully Pulpit (of sorts) and I've always been a little in awe of the written word. Its power should be respected, even if little old me is the one writing it.

That said, I get to break my own rules - right? Right?

I have a friend, and I loved her. But we had an age-old problem. She made choices I didn't agree with and because I knew it wasn't my place to say anything, I tried not to. Yet, she knew. How can you not?

How can you miss the cool tones of disapproval? The first reaction of rejection, covered quickly by a sort of false enthusiasm?

I fucked up. I knew I was. I knew I did. I am so sorry for it. Yet, faced with the same dilemma today - I don't know what the right answer is.

Be a better actress? Find a way to make real peace with the decisions, no matter how much it makes you wince? Detach for a while?

We'll never be close friends again, although that's more because we didn't know how to make peace or trust each other again. A whole different kind of stuff than the stuff that wedged us apart in the first place.

And because there is such a thing as karma, and providence, and a great wheel - now I get to taste my own medicine.

Yummy?

Not so much.

There are people in my world, now, who disapprove of the choices I make. Who talk to me in those calm, measured tones of someone forcing themselves to be what they consider neutral.

And I'm (believe it or not) an interpersonal wimp. I have such a hard time sticking up for myself in a way that is productive. Usually by the time I say something, I garble it so badly that everything around me erupts in a lava-like consistency of confusion, emotion, and bad grammar.

So instead of dealing with my relationships, I've just been nodding and smiling. And it has been KILLING ME.

Please note here that, funnily enough, I am venting to a slice of the world that has probably offered me the most support and honest dialogue. Not funny 'ha-ha' but funny as in 'watch me shout at the wrong audience'.

But before I explode....

Yes, I want to dye my hair hot pink for a while. Yes, I quit a lucrative job so we could fritter away our savings. Yes, I let my house get cluttered and somewhat sloppy between scrubs. Yes, I am overweight, undermoisterized, and somehwat unevenly tweezed (although really, my eyebrows are naturally unmatched... you can only work with what you're given!). Yes, my family is emigrating to another country. Yes, I know entirely too much about Tom Cruise.

So what?

Honest to the Lord above... so what?

I am so tired of feeling defensive about my life. And I think that is part of the reason that I pulled away from writing about it.

When I was a corporate mini-titan, juggling an insane career while being primary point on my son's upbringing, my exhaustion and long hours were easy to understand, even sympathize with.

Maybe even respect.

I don't know.

Bear had the best education money could buy, my wardrobe was from Talbot's, the housekeeper kept the kitchen spotless, our retirement was secure, and isn't all that the American Dream?

And didn't I throw it all away?

Memo to those who disapprove - Yes. I did.

The American Dream, for anyone taking notes, was originally Protestant Fanaticism. But since World War 2, it has come to mean a "successful and satisfying life".

Someone give me a list of 20 indicators of what that breaks down into, that I can use as a checklist.

No?

Would capitalistic achievements and social standing be on that list?

That's a real question.

For me, for CD, and for Bear - we didn't undergo an complete change of priorities overnight. We did not enter into an impoverished (monetarily) state with glib one-liners.

We have made choice after choice of the heart, and that's how we got here.

And here is OK.

I think, I don't know for sure, but I think that I am OK, too.

And if you want to blast me in the comments, disagree with me, send me an email asking me if I know what I am doing, ping me with question marks and an opinion that differs, and talk with me about the world and how we think we should make our places in it and even quote Thomas Paine while you're at it - I am cool with that.

Dialogue is good.

I welcome you. I welcome your thoughts and ideas.

But if you want to pick up the phone, hissing with disapproval of me and my life, with nothing to offer except this prevailing sense that I am doing it wrong...

...then I invite you to hang the fuck up.

ahem

/end rant.

Well, I think I've embarressed myself enough for one day. Mutter. I think I'll go pour myself a cup of coffee and have a bit of a sniffle.

And if you're still reading this, thank you for not being one of the people I wrote this for.

The Lie

February 21, 2007 | Category: In My Life

Last weekend we went to the Enchanted Castle for a birthday party. It was a heaving mass of sneezing, hacking, nose-wiping, sugar-high kids. Of course, Bear had a blast.

As soon as I got him home, CD and I hoisted Bear into a tub and scrubbed a fine layer of skin off. Dagnabbit, we didn't get there in time.

This morning our beautiful boy awoke with that barking cough that we know, and hate.

Vaporizers are now set on stun, captain. Benedryl locked and loaded.

Back here at the ranch...

1) Moving to Canda. This is true.

It will take about 2 years to get their equivalent of a green card (landed status).

They have a streamlined paperwork version of the application, not currently available to Americans living in America, and we were all hyped because it was availabe to CD. The catch? The queue time for THAT process is about... 4 years.

So we'll go the American route, and look for a job there in the meantime (work visas are available - I've had two).

Why Canada? It was a long, long decision... if anyone remembers when we first started thinking about moving. And not all the reasons are logical, listed.

Like when I landed in England, got to London, and walked along the Thames that first afternoon. I knew - solidly in my soul with no more proof than the sun on the river and the distant traffic - that I could spend the rest of my life there and be happy.

Come to think of it, I almost did.

The more we looked for where we should go, someplace with a great education system that was much more rural, geographically beautiful, family-friendly, and had enough of an IT field for CD .... the more we kept casting our eyes north. First to Minneapolis and Buffalo. Then, as Bear would say, Norther.

I think if I hadn't wanted Canada, we might have ended up in Sweden - which is where most of CD's family has emigrated. But with due respect to the Ikea mothership, no.

So, Canada.

On a side note, Michelle pointed out to me yesterday (oh, I love me some Gmail-Chat), that another member of the blogworld is poised to make this trek already. Chasmyn and her brood are moving up to Canada in about.. hmmm... 6 days.

2) Heath Ledger and Tom Cruise. Yes, heaven help me, this is true too.

3) Bear's School versus Corporate Mommy. This is the lie.

In fact, I was fired as room mother.

The teacher put on that glazed smile a few weeks ago and informed me that she had decided to the all the planning and preparation for the class party for Valentine's Day, wouldn't need any help with the 100th day celebration, and gee, if she did suddenly need my services again - why she would CALL.

Bear and I got together his Scooby-Doo Valentines and made that banner and I just pretended that everything was fine. Because this is SO not his battle. And I was told, when I made the obligatory "WTF?!" phone call, that while Room Parents do have traditional responsibilities - we serve at the pleasure of the teachers.

As though all this comes with free rides on Air Force One.

The principal? The one that told me that 'children from lower-socioeconomic strata are sometimes taught at home to use violence to solve problems and that I, as a parent, had to understand that?' She didn't return my call.

Holy Hannah, yes. Yes, I am THAT mom.

4. Lapband. Yes, this is true. I am considering it. Also the new medication out there. I am very, very serious about getting help because the long-term effects of obesity are terrifying, and also because I want to be healthier for my life. I want to be able to ice skate with Bear and twist into monkey love positions with CD (should, you know, his back ever fully heal).

5. The End of the Ravings of a Corporate Mommy. Yes, this is true, too. I had decided during my 100 days recently that this blog had run to its natural end.

But I couldn't pull the plug. I am now considering either a blog with private posts or setting this blog up on a regular schedule like Helen does. Although she posts every weekday and I might choose just 2 or 3 set days a week. CD got me the software to make podcasts, so there's all kinds of options.

I read all your emails, and the comments, and it made me think that I was being silly to think that now that my journey from corporate shark to freelancing minnow is sealed that the story seems to have strolled to where it should end.

But there is a part of me that wonders if I am hanging on after jumping the shark. I am scared that somehow I will get to be like this sad caricature of who Corporate Mommy used to be.

And I have learned, since revealing my real name, to be timid in my words. And that just has to stop.

I want to keep this blog alive, if anyone is still reading. I want the freedom to write what I feel and think, really. I want to stop pulling down drafts because I am afraid.. of the reaction, of who might be reading.

It's just... how?

4 Things That Are True

February 19, 2007 | Category: In My Life

The other night I got in the Passat, turned up the music, set the seat warmers to '5' (also known as the 'Holy Shit You Could Cook an Egg on my Ass!' level), and hopped on the Eisenhower Expressway so I could sauvely idle my way into the city.

Yeah, it's hard to be humble when you're in gridlock on a Saturday night.

Me and a girlfriend went to see Breach. The movie about the spy, Robert Hansson. Good movie, although not as good as The Queen. But I'm rambling.

The spy says to the clerk - 'Tell me 5 things about yourself, 4 of them true...'

That really caught my imagination.

Sunday morning, after pancakes and sausage, I asked Bear to do it. He said:

1) I have lots of freckles
2) I like using my manners
3) Other people tell me I'm polite
4) I don't like being polite
5) I'm good at karate

I grinned at him. "Don't tell me I'm cute. I hate being cute!" he warned as I opened my mouth to say something.

So I just kissed his nose.

Then I asked CD the question. Half an hour later, he was still struggling with an answer. "This isn't so hard, Daddy," Bear told him. But CD never talks about himself. And when he's coming out of a relapse into Depression, which he is now, he is also digging out of an isolationist imperative. Eventually he came up with some things about his childhood.

It wasn't a bad list, although I guess his lie too.

I've been struggling with this post. Struggling with what to say. So instead of tying myself up in prosaic circles - here instead are 5 things about me.

4 of them are true.

1) I love Chicago. I have loved this city since I first stepped foot in it.

Every other family member I have, on both sides, lives within driving distance of the ocean. I have often felt like a cuckoo's egg because I was happy here. But I woke up recently and realized, I'm not. Not anymore. And that maybe no opportunities for anywhere else ever came real because I wasn't really ready to leave.

Now I am. Which is what started the conversation that led to CD and I deciding to emigrate to Canada.

2) Symmetries fascinate me. Beats and patterns twirl in my head unbidden.

But not in the usual way. Like Tom Cruise and Heath Ledger.

OK? First, these two guys are out there, partnered up with Naomi Watts and Nicole Kidman, who are great friends. That goes on for a good long while, and then it ends.

Naomi and Nicole? Still pals. But Toma nd Heath are off the hook - no longer freinds-in-law who have to make nice while the women chat.

Ah, maybe not. Tom Cruise and Heath Ledger decide to move on to Dawson's Creek - there were two female leads on the show, Katie Holmes and Michelle Williams.

In the fall of 2005, Tom and Katie announce their having a baby. 2 weeks later, Heath and Michelle Williams actually have their baby. And eventually, both couple marry.

Jeez. It's not like I want this stuff stuffing my thoughts. But there it is, in my brain. Health Ledger and Tom Cruise. And their women. Gak.

3) I have managed to make peace with Bear's school. I cheerfully planned a great Valentine's Day party, per my Room Parent official duty book. The principal and I reached an agreement to disagree place where I think we're both managing to respect each other's positions. When I delivered the banner Bear made as his project for the 100'th Day of School celebration, I really felt part of the school community.

4) I have been over 200 pounds now for almost 5 years. I have decided to do something drastic, since all reasonable measures continue to fail. I am considering letting a surgeon place a rubber band around my stomach to controll how many calories I can physically ingest. Just thinking about it scares the crap out of me, especially since a lot of the reason behind it feels like vanity. But I know that the long-term effects of obesity are heinous, so it all feels... crazy inside.

Especially when I do something like a project with Bear about the concept of 'What is alive?' and we make homemade pretzels (it was an experiment for both of us!). They came out great, but I felt guilty even trying one with him. Instead of being able to nibble and have the conversation about yeast - I was thinking 'oh these are fattening, how can I even bite into this?' It's just a fucked up way to live.

5) During my 100 Days of Wild Winds one of the basic questions I asked myself was if I should dismantle this blog. I decided that I would, because I need the absolute ripping honesty that comes from a private place - and this one? Has my real name on it, searchable to just about the uh .. entire planet.

But each time I take that breath to start the end, I can't do it. I am addicted to it. I am addicted to you. I am addicted to Cheryl and Kalisah and Helen and Suzanne and Kimberly and Michelle and Jim and oh.... stopping before I fry my hand. I am addicted to this community of write and read and share and breathe. And I don't know what to do now, when before I was so sure.

I've spent a lot of time admiring the new front door (yes, for those who remember.. the 'thwacka' door that rode 900 miles on our van).... thinking about how I can save this and me. No answers have floated in with snow, though.

Damn snow.

Me vs. Education, The Continuing Saga...

February 06, 2007 | Category: Mother to the First Power

Since Bear is both-handed, he's developed task-hand-specific stuff.

He writes lefty. He uses a computer mouse righty. His t-ball coach did this thing with his eye-hand coordination and said Bear is strong in the right eye, so Bear should try batting/throwing righty - which, as it turns out, has Bear delighted with his power and accuracy. Coach says Bear will probably develop into a switch-hitter later.

For every new activity, we have to trial-and-error what hand (or foot) will be primary long before we can even open the manual and start doing whatever it is we're doing. Bear likes to try both sides, think about it, and make a choice. And if you attempt to push him along, you get a quick lesson in stubborness.

Me? I step back. And, you know, make soup.

His stubborness is an old friend by now. And I have learned to appreciate it. That he is reading and writing at age-appropriate levels is a frigging monument to his stubborness, and the hours upon hours we have spent at the dining room table doing countless maze books and woorkbooks and tactile fine-motor-building activities - like Lego's.

So we homeschool in the morning. And then he goes to afternoon kindergarten. And I'm room mother. And I'm on the PTA. And I just hang out, a whole shitload of time.

I've noticed that his teacher, who may be a very nice person outside the classroom, doesn't seem to want to actually be IN the classroom.

She gets frustrated very easily, and snaps at the kids - even in front of me. 4 years in Montessori, and I don't think I heard any of Bear's teachers raise their voice at the kids once. She does it most days. You can hear it through the door.

Does that upset me?

Does it show?

Look, I love teachers. My first real job was as a teacher, and it's a tough gig. But that's not a blank check.

Bear's teacher isn't engaged. The school isn't engaged. And that's reflected in the fights that break out at the drop of a hat. The test scores. The attitude that pervades.

When I suggested we move to healthier cookies and bottled water for the class parties - I got PTA Boss telling me that I have to provide juice boxes and cupcakes because non-sugary alternatives 'won't seem like a real party' for the kids.

But what just sent me over the edge was when Bear came home with that little red bruise for a SECOND time.

He was standing in line, a melee broke out, and he got caught in the fallout. I looked at the red smudge and I was ready to blow like a tube of croissant batter in a hot car. Well, actually, I did blow.

So I called the principal.

Three times.

Finally I left a message that if she didn't return my call immediately, I was going to call the police and the Board of Education.

She called me back in about 20 minutes after that message. Told me that this school had a student body that was 80% elgible for aid. And that I was more used to the atmosphere at Happy Montessori, where the 'socio-econmic makeup is more affluent'.

She told me that children from lower-economic strata tend to use violence as the answer, even in Kindergarten.

Basically? She was telling me that POOR PEOPLE ARE VIOLENT.

Holy frigging crap.

THEN she said that my son should "stop complaining to his mommy about it and tell the teacher when it happens".

What the....?

He had a BRUISE. That I could SEE. And she thought she should equate that to getting the smaller portion of fingerpaint?

I mean, we tell our children to complain to an adult they trust. If he doesn't trust his teacher to give a shit then that is her failure, not my son's. (Especially when the teacher has given these kids all kind of anti-tattling lectures).

But more importantly, my son shouldn't be BRUISED. Is this a difficult concept? No blaming poverty. No complaining about WHO is reporting it. Deal with the actual problem, lady!

She asked what I wanted out of the situation, and I said I wanted a non-violence policy with zero-tolerance that was enacted and enforced. I said, maybe if these kids had higher expectations, they would rise to them.

The Principal informed me that I clearly didn't understand poor people.

I was so furious when we hung up that my next step was the Board of Ed. But when they returned my call, they told me that the prinicpal of Bear's school had announced the next day a new program of community partnership to end violence and bullying in the school.

I said I'd like to volunteer.

No on has gotten back to me.

Say it out loud

February 02, 2007 | Category: In My Life

A strange coincidence this week, a couple of emails asking me when and how I knew I should quit my job. Actually, three of them.

I'm going to hope it wasn't the same person, thrice, and take the cheap bathbubbles exit on the drug store highway and say... I didn't know.

I told the executives that I wanted an unpaid leave with my heart beating THWACK THWACKA in my ears. But I was literally having chest pains from the stress, and I didn't want to be a complete weenie and die on the job. So I asked for the leave.

I filled out the paperwork for my unpaid leave thinking "Well, when the 30 days is up, I'll just end up back at work..." even as I was saying to the person who was backfilling for me that he had to take over with the assumption that I wouldn't be back.

When I got a couple of offers for other positions within Mega while I was on leave, I just sort of... let them fade away. "Oh, thank you," I would say, honestly. "It's nice of you to think of me, but I'm still deciding on my next step..."

When the guy pinged me via IM, the hatchet-man? - I thought as I dialed his number "Oh, huh, so maybe..."

And when he said I was being laid off effective Friday, with that smile in his voice like he was a cat presenting me with a half-dead mouse with its brains hanging out, it finally hit. What I had done. And I actually put the phone on mute and did this half sob - half giggle thing. I mean, I had to stand up and shake my hands really hard like I'd just been crowned Miss America. Only, without the rhinestone tiara.

How did I know it was time to leave Mega? How did I orchestrate leaving?

I don't know.

I'm not sage. I'm not wise. I still am unsure when to use Saffron and when to use Cumin.

There was no light bulb moment.

I was always torn, wanting to be a stay at home mom when my son was young and yet working 60 hour weeks.

My dad is a Vice-President. My mother is a CPA. And I am so deeply proud of them. They are good people.

The world told them, when they were raising me, that 'Greed was good'. And they worked their asses off to provide me with the years at prep school, the bedroom with the picture window and flowered wallpaper, the ski vacations and the ballet lessons.

And I am grateful.

But that doesn't mean that I want to make the same choices.

It began to occur to me that I didn't know the last time I actually hung out with either of them. Grabbed lunch somewhere, just the two of us, to shoot the shit. Relaxing and laughing over some sun-drenched table.

Just never happens.

Oh, God. That makes me sound like some disgruntled whiny-assed daughter. Which I am not.

For the record, my parents worked really hard to build a family that spent time together.

But the truth, to me, is that people just don't change gears like that. At least, I can't. I couldn't spend 10 hours in heightened rush mode, telling other people what to do and fighting to get my goals met, and then just popover to the soccer field and plug into being a parent. My cell phone would go off and I would be answering it and pulling off the sidelines. Coming back and asking another parent 'What did I miss?"

It's just that... look. This is my own shit.

But I really hated being hung up on my salary, and my title. And I... couldn't multi task the demands of my corporate responsibilities with my parenting in a way that respected the sacredness of undivided attention. I was constantly juggling.

And my son and my husband and I began to stop eating family meals around the table. We started missing the details of each other. In tiny little ways.

I would have flashes of the future, of Bear talking to me like I talk to my parents - in a status report.

The more I suited up onto the corporate battleground, the more I succeeded - and failed - the more I became convinced that I knew where this road led... and I wanted something different for my life and that of my family.

How did I know it was time to quit?

I didn't. I just... became sure inside over time that I was doing it wrong.

CD looked at me and said "What would make you happy?" It was a frigging throwaway question. He was a little pissed even. Said it kind of snotty, but with real curiosity for what I would say.

The answer took a while. It bloomed in me over weeks. Over nights. Over teleconferences.

It feels counterintuitive to contemplate raising my son with fewer social and material advantages than I had. Like somehow I am making this crazy bad mommy decision.

But eventually, I just started saying out loud, that I would like to ... be home with him while he's growing up. To be his parent and his teacher. To live simply with my family, preferably by the water - which seems to feed all our souls.

Nothing I hadn't said before. Maybe it was that this time, I was serious. Something changed when we began talking about what it was going to cost to pay the piper to make it happen. Like we were really going to do this now.

We talked about what it would mean to leave the lucrative job that sucked 60 hours a week from life. Sell the house. Move our little boy far from the only home he has ever known. Be responsible for the dishes and the laundry for the next, uh, 400,000 loads.

And for CD, who was crushed by a major depression more than 5 years ago, and had to leave me pretty much to carry everything while he recovered, I think it was harder for him to decide this than me. Because it would put a lot on his shoulders. But he started saying it, too. Like, "We'd want to wait until the school year was over to move..."

And then I said to my boss one day, after layoffs had been announced, that I would slip a twenty to get my name on the RIF list. Because I needed a long, serious break.

And she laughed. So I laughed back. But neither of us thought it was funny. Then a hundred little steps after that.

I don't know which moment it all clicked. There was no Prince Ferdinand, getting killed and starting a war. I'm sorry. It just... happened in small decisions, in 'what if...' conversations, and in slowly changed priorities.

And then, we were here.

My friend Dee has a passionate love for the Gandhi quote

Action expresses priorities.

She says that once we decided to change direction, it was inevitable that we did. And I guess, that is all the answer I have.