glitches

I haven't been posting much- most of my writing these days is on my dissertation or in the form of facebook status updates.  sad, I know.  But my dad told me this story the other day and I needed to get it out somewhere.  I'm so angry about this, so frustrated, and I have no real outlet for this anger.

So my dad was flying on Southwest Airlines last week.  They almost missed their flight and he and his girlfriend were the last two people on the plane before they shut the doors.  They got on the plane and the first available seat was a middle seat between two people who were playing a card game on the seat between them.  My dad politely (as he tells it) asked them if he could sit there.  The woman looked at her traveling companion, and without making eye contact with my dad she said, "I don't want him to sit here."  They then ignored my dad and went on playing their game.  My dad was so surprised he didn't do anything, he just kept moving back in the plane until he got a seat.

We'll never know why this woman said what she did.  The only unquestionable fact of the matter is that she was incredibly rude.  For that, she should rot in hell.  But I can tell you what it came off as for my dad and for me, whether we're reading more into the situation or not. 

I get my native blood from my dad.  He's in his sixties, and he has mostly grey-to-white hair that hangs down his back.  He keeps it nicely tied back in a ponytail, but there's no question that he has long hair.  His skin is a little darker than mine, and there is little question that he is not Caucasian.  I used to say that he was obviously native, but I know better than to say that now.  All I can say for certain is that he doesn't look white.  He's not a big man, I think he's 5'11" or so, and he has that middle-age stockiness that most men aquire, but he's not fat.  He has a very friendly face, and a nice smile that usually wins people over instantly.  He's not the type to scowl at the world, and while much of his work has themes that could be interpreted as anger, he doesn't project anger in any way.

So when a white woman refused to make eye contact and refused to yield a seat on an airplane to my dad, we all immediately assumed she's making a decision based on race.  Maybe she just didn't want to share, but the one detail that really put it over the edge into racism was the fact that she didn't make eye contact and wasn't talking to him when she announced that she wasn't willing to share the seat.

Just writing about it makes me so incredibly pissed off I want to cry.  I cry when I'm mad, it's just the thing I do.  I just can't believe someone would be so amazingly rude to my dad.  And she acted in such a way that he really couldn't respond without making an enormous fuss.  I wish he had.  I wish he would have put her in her place, shown her the door, and then shoved her right out onto the tarmac.  That sort of behavior is inexcusable.  But truth be told, in a world where random people feel like they can be so rude, who's to say that an angry response from my dad wouldn't have been interpreted as violent and subject to persecution by the authorities?  If this woman was on the plane and felt this way, who's to say that the flight attendants wouldn't have sided with her and acted in a racist way against my dad as well.

After the election, I was so high.  I felt so good about how far we've come in this country.  I felt like we had really done something important, and that the emerging majority was finally getting its due.  I heard people talking about the barriers they experienced in the past and felt good that those stories were in the past.  I felt good that my sons wouldn't have to deal with that sort of ignorance, embarrassment, and shame in that way.  We've got enough on our shoulders, I was hoping that at least we could put the future in a better light.  But now I'm not so sure.  Because shit like this still happens, and these people still exist. 

I wish there was some neat, tidy resolution that I could put at the end of this story.  When my dad told me the story he told it, then changed the subject when I wanted to hear more about what happened.  He didn't tell me about what it felt like to be treated so poorly.  He was just coming home from installing a major piece of artwork in a major city, from an event where he was respected and honored as an American Indian and as an artist.  How shitty is it that his high ended the moment he stepped on to an airplane.  How demeaning and shitty and awful?  there is no resolution. 

Check In (quick!)

I just got the nicest note from an old friend.  Thanks, Q- it was very sweet of you to post and remind me of those calm, halcyon days before the second child burst into our lives.  I think the peanut joined our family in part to help remind me of what is important.  Unfortunately, I had to let some things go, because I was already spread too thin before he even came along.  One of the things I had to let go was casual internet time.  I have my haunts, but I just can't do all the fun stuff I used to do online- I've scaled back to visiting just one forum with compusive regularity, and I do most of my interacting with people through facebook.  Who knew all those old friends would ever come back into my life?  Not me.  A pleasant, albeit shocking, surprise.  Anyway, if you want to friend me on facebook, just drop me a line here and I'll try to find you, or give you my name so you can find me.

I definitely miss the blogging.  I barely have time to read blogs these days, but I have a few I follow on RSS.  Thank goodness for that. 

I've come to this place where every thing I do has to be preceeded by a quick evaluation:  is this activity good for me, for my family or for my dissertation?  If the answer is no, then I have to guiltily walk away.  This is a good, if painful exercise.  It means I can't spend hours cruising my favorite forums, or aimlessly reading people's blog archives.  It also means I can't spend my time window shopping on overstock.com or any of my other secret pleasures.  At lunch I give myself 20 minutes to watch videos on youtube, then it's back to business.  I find those diversions lead to other diversions, so it's best if I just avoid all together rather than try to ration myself to a certain amount of time each day.  I miss it, but I'm reaching for a higher goal now, and the end is in sight.

Yes, the end.  I finally finished chapter 4, after two whole damn months of writing and analyzing the data.  It was sooooo painful.  There were days when I felt like I couldn't see straight for all the time I was spending in my brain.  But I made it through, and now I'm in the part where I'm cleaning up stuff and getting ready for the next dissertation-birth contraction: chapter 5.  discussion.  I really understand now when people talk about writing a dissertation being akin to giving birth.  It just takes a hell of a lot longer and doesn't give you stretch marks.  Although, I may end up with stretch marks if I keep eating nestle's semisweet chocolate morsels like I've been doing.  (When you get rid of almost all the chocolate in the house, you make do with whatever you can.  At least I'm not eating the lentil's chocolate coins that he gets in the mail from his granny.  yet.)

So that's my life- some of it is just too wierd and painful and obnoxiously normal to discuss (the peanut: does requiring speech therapy = special needs? discuss), and some of it is just too overwhelming (me: university tenure track faculty- how is that possible? discuss.) 

All I can really say is that I'm spending all my free time visualizing myself as a university professor, getting this job I actually realize I want, and thinking good thoughts.  If you get a chance to swing a few positive job vibes my way, (like you have any to share), please do.  I'll reciprocate, if you leave me a note.

I'll be back, but probably not until after chapter 5 is done.  Just so you know.  And I was serious about the facebook thing and the whole power of positive thinking thing.  I'm so "The Secret."

Oh, my friends.  I'm so discouraged today.  I feel like everything is taking forever, nothing is going right, and I'm not sure what my goal is in the first place.  It's hard to keep one's eye on the prize when there isn't a clear prize in mind.  And the price of the prize is so high- right now my family is out playing in the new snow, while I'm at home pounding away at the keyboard trying to find something suitable for presentation.  Trying to make old software do new tricks, trying to feel like I've actually made some progress on something even though I just haven't done nearly what I thought I could do this month. 

I miss you, my friends.  I miss reading your blogs, miss your comments, miss writing to you and having the satisfaction of completion, the satisfaction of having written something that was actually coherent and heart-felt. 

I thought if I wrote about it here, I would get fired up enough to do the next step, but I'm just not.  I'm just, .... broke.  Not quite broken, but definitely broke.

Election Agony

I can't concentrate on anything right now.  Which means it's not the best time to try to construct a neat little entry, but that's just the way I am.  Take that, America.

Today is election day.  We've been pretty loyal Obama supporters, the ones with the sign on our lawn and the stickers on our cars.  We're as active as we can be, given the family and school circumstances.  Sweets took time before the primaries and called people through moveon.org to urge them to vote for Obama.  Today I took the day off and went to volunteer with the local Obama office to try to help out.  Santa Fe is overwhelmingly democrat, but much of the rest of the state is republican so we need every dem vote we can muster to balance out the rest of the state.  Thank goodness NM is a sparsely populated state outside the three major urban areas. 

I don't do cold calls unless my life or dissertation depends on it.  That has been one of the biggest trials for my research, because I had to spend a year doing call after call.  It was awful.  I signed up to volunteer knowing full well that they may require me to do cold calls.  I've had a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach all week worrying about that.  This morning when I arrived at the office, they told me to go sit with all the people waiting to do the phonebank training.  I actually BEGGED them to have me do something else.  The woman who was assigning people looked at me like "Who is this freak who can't get over herself enough to help Obama."  Or maybe it was "Why did you volunteer when you knew you would be phonebanking?"  Either way, she told me to go across town to the office where they were organizing canvasers.

I didn't mention above that canvasing was my second biggest fear.  I really, really didn't want to canvas, but I figured that I had already made a scene about phonebanking and I couldn't do it again.  So I went across town and was assigned a team for canvasing.

It turns out it wasn't that bad.  It would have been really nice if I hadn't had to go around doing that knocking on doors talking to strangers thing.  It was a gorgeous morning and we were in a super cool neighborhood.  Everyone we spoke with was all set to vote, we had no problems, and we were done pretty quickly.  Then we were sent off to a major intersection in town to stand with Obama and Vote Today signs for an hour.  That was unreal.  Most people were excited and honked or gave us a thumbs up.  Some frowns, some negative energy, but most people were happy to support us and share the excitement.  One young guy asked us "Do you like muslims?!!"  which was so wierd, I didn't know quite what to say.  The funny thing about it was that he was sitting at the light when he said it, and then the light took forever to change, so we had a lot of time to talk about how lame he was and make faces in his direction before he zoomed off.  We decided that the correct answer to that was "Yes!"

Then more canvasing, because they wanted us to return to the houses we'd visited that morning where no-one had answered the door.  One more person was home and we crossed him off the list, then we went home.

When I got home I didn't know what to do with myself.  I still don't.  The wait is agonizing, the evening is young yet.  I can't help but have flashbacks to the last two elections where we didn't find out the results until much later.  I can't help but have flashbacks to the disappointment I felt when my guy wasn't elected.  I almost didn't volunteer because I didn't want to become too invested in the election and feel that let down again.  But then I realized that I would not be helping if I hid from that possibility.  Maybe canvasing and phonebanking is scary, but four more years of republican crap?  Much, much worse.

So that's my story.  I'm nervous, anxious, and after two weeks of not drinking I busted out the Fat Tire to help us through the television coverage tonight.  It's going to be a long night, my friends.  Good luck to all of us and may the best man win.

Elections are a lot more interesting when you live in a swing state.  Interesting, as in everyone cares about how you've voted, when you've voted, and the method by which you've voted.  We get daily phone calls and canvassers who are checking in on us, curious to note which candidate we prefer, which one we voted for.  Last Sunday we had no less than three different sets of people at our front door, asking after our ballots.

Early voting is a good idea, I suppose.  If there is bad weather, a scheduling snafu, a sick kid, well then a person wouldn't be able to vote on November 4th.  I understand how it's supposed to be wonderful fabulous amazing.  But in my state, early voting is turning into a disaster.  The mail service for my town is notoriously bad- some people wait weeks to months for mail that was sent from down the street to turn up.  The push for absentee ballots has special issues when your mail service can't be trusted to deliver the ballots in time for the election.  Or in my case, the ballot arrives and the voter makes a mistake.

Yes, I made a mistake on my ballot.  I filled in the wrong bubble for a small public figure. This isn't a gigantic mistake, but I want my vote to count, so I want there to be no ambiguities.  Recalling Florida in 2000, when the ballots were hand-counted, I wasn't sure if in the case of a hand-count, my ballot would be thrown out for being incorrectly completed.  So I'm willing to go and stand in line forever on one of my work days to be sure I have a complete and accurate ballot. In official terms, I spoiled my ballot.  I spoiled it two weeks ago, and then immediately went to the county clerk's office to try to turn in the spoiled ballot and have a new ballot issued.  I was told then to return on November 3rd to get a new ballot.  Me and all the other ballot fuck-ups get to show up on the same day and sit around talking about what idiots we are.  At least, that's what some people have told me. 

I'm not the sort of person who likes to talk about how she makes mistakes.  Who does, really?  And since we live in a swing state, and we're getting all this attention for our votes, I get to explain at least three times a day what a fuck-up I am.  Each time I get a new volunteer who isn't aware of the policies around spoiled ballots and gets all concerned that I have the wrong information and my vote won't count blah blah blah.  I admit, it sounds kind of fishy- turn up at the county clerk's office on November 3rd?  Who goes there on November third, especially since that isn't an official voting day for early voting and the general election takes place the very next day.  In fact, when I first heard that information I called the local Obama office to ask if this was indeed the case.  I had a staff member spend HOURS calling people on my behalf to verify the information.  She got to the bottom of it, we were both reasonably convinced by the end of it that the third is the day I get to go rectify the situation, and that was that. 

So now that I have the solution, I can go deal with it, right?  No.  Not without daily humiliation, explaining how I fucked up my ballot, talking these nice and a little frantic volunteers off their volunteer ledges, assuring them that I am satisfied with this information and will do whatever I need to do to make sure my vote counts.  Because without my vote registered, my name shows up on their lists with increasing urgency.  No matter that I've spoken with every Obama volunteer in Northern New Mexico, I still get those damn phone calls and canvassers at my door.  It has become such a problem that we put a sign on our front door asking them to leave us alone.  I can't answer the telephone because if it isn't a volunteer, it's Bill Richardson reminding me to take my fucking absentee ballot to the right place on November 4th.  Because Bill Richardson isn't aware that I fucked up my ballot.  If I could call Bill Richardson and explain, maybe he'd stop robo-calling me, but I can't.  So I can't answer my phone OR my door between now and November 4th.

At first I liked how dedicated these people were. I liked the extra attention.  But after two fucking weeks of this, I'm so over it.  I want Obama to win- desperately.  This election has given me new (cliche) hope for our country.  I drink the Obama Kool-Aid with great enthusiasm.  I even swoon over his handsomeness.  But jiminy crickets, people- stop bugging me! 

So yeah, vote on Tuesday.  Go Obama.  Don't fuck up your ballot.

It's two weeks until the election and I'm on pins and needles.  I hate being this anxious about something, which makes me so glad we only have presidential elections every four years.  I don't need any extra anxiety in my life.

So I had a difficult but productive meeting with some of my dissertation committee this week and they finally agreed to let me stop data collection now.  It's been a very difficult two years and I don't have very many subjects to show for it, but they relented and a back up plan was formulated to justify the small n.  I had been losing serious sleep over that meeting, so I'm relieved it's over and I can move forward now.  This whole dissertation thing is really rough.  I always heard it was rough, but I don't think I ever really appreciated it until now.  It doesn't help that sweets seemed to just cruise through his dissertation.  He never called ME crying after a committee meeting, after all.  But then again, he rarely emotes in the first place, so I guess I can't base his dissertation struggles on that observation.  I was thinking this morning how nice it would be to have him, say, appreciate things about us or me in a more vocal way.  And then I remembered that I married a yankee WASP from Rhode Island, and decided to appreciate the fact that he even talks in full sentences.  (And now I'm wondering if the phrase "yankee WASP from Rhode Island" is full of redundancies and which ones.  Does yankee automatically connote WASP?  Does WASP mean Yankee?  Is Rhode Island the uneccesary descriptor? hmmm.  Is there a class of Mendocino WASPs? Is the whole phrase offensive?)

Now that I'm in the home stretch, I am starting to look through my myopic little viewfinder and visualize what's on the other side.  Obviously, with a PhD the clear choice would be to go into academics.  But see, I don't see myself as a teacher.  That whole teaching thing doesn't really appeal to me nearly as much as clinical practice and research.  But now that I'm nearing the end of this dissertation, I'm not so convinced that I need to be engaging in research as much.  I'm pretty burned out on all of this crap, in fact.  It doesn't help that I've basically let my certification lapse and have to jump through all sorts of colorful and exciting hoops to get that reinstated.  This morning I was daydreaming about how nice it would be to get an RN position with a hospice agency.  Nothing too complicated, a place to sit back and just pull in a paycheck every two weeks.  None of this begging people to please talk to me and begging people to respond to my fucking phone calls.  None of this fretting over where the next grant is coming from and how it will be administered.  Just a simple 9-hour day where I can clock in and clock out and then leave it behind.  We could turn the office back into the dining room and I can check my email from a tiny and decorative little desk in the corner of the kitchen, instead of the overwhelmingly disorganized pile of paper I call central command now.  Oh, that smells so sweet.

I'm trying not to think about it right now because daydreaming about an easy life will act as the perfect unmotivator.  Not a good plan.  Oh, shit. 

But I came to this because I want to help people in a way that is much broader than individual patient care.  I was given certain gifts in this world, my family was given certain gifts in this world.  We were given money and status because my grandfather worked his ass off and made amazing art.  Things haven't been very difficult for me, beyond the personal obstacles most people face.  I've never had to live in my car, I still have both my parents, I have two wonderful children and even though we're broke right now we can still put them in daycare enough hours of the day so I can work on my dissertation.  My level of broke is nowhere near what many people consider broke.  It's my responsibility to pay back, to return to the community all the good that we've been given.  And since one of my gifts is a brain and a good education, that's how I can contribute.  Maybe it's too much to take on and I should step back and just focus on what makes me happy, but I think even if I did that I would still come to the conclusion that what makes me happy is serving other people.

Fuck, this shit is complicated.

Still here

You may have been wondering where I've been these days.  Or maybe you know me well enough not to wonder?  I'm trying to graduate in May, which means I have to hustle for the next few months to finish this dissertation and get it off to my committee.  I haven't had a huge amount of luck with getting participants for the study, but I'm getting closer and I hope to have enough by the time I graduate to make it a publishable study. 

Mondays are really hard for me.  Every monday that comes along I struggle to get going, struggle to get excited about another week where I feel like I can't get enough work done, can't find continuity to think about my research, can't spend enough time on work and family and still maintain my sanity.  I've been going to bed at 8:00, partly because I am reading fiction at bedtime so I can sleep without obsessing over my research, and partly because I'm getting up at 5:30 every morning with the baby.  So Mondays come along and I have to set myself up for success by re-establishing my work patterns and getting my butt in gear.

I just wanted you to know that I'm thinking of you, and I will try to post more, but I can't make any promises.  If you know me IRL, find me on facebook and we can keep up with each other there. 

smooches.

Triathlon!

So I can check something else off my life to-do list.  I completed my triathlon on Saturday and I was so, so pleased.  It was everything I wanted and more.  I finished the sprint distance in an hour and 28 minutes, which was 2 minutes under my goal.  I did okay with the running, slower than I'd trained but good because I ran with a new friend for the first mile and a half, which made it worthwhile.  My cycling was great- I had a great time and ended up finishing just 5 minutes slower than the fastest woman.  I love cycling.  The swimming wasn't so hot, but I'd had a wierd panic attack in the pool the week prior and I think I just need to learn to trust myself a little more.  When it was done I wanted to do it again, I'd had so much fun.  I can't wait to do another triathlon, in fact.

Just wanted to report.  It's all good.  I'm in a funky mood today- found out a conference I wanted to go to may not work out becuase it happens during the same week the lentil has a week off school.  Bad planning.  I was nominated for an award at that conference, so I will hope that I get the award but hope that I don't get it at the same time, just so I don't have to go.  But I want to go. But the thought of pumping that much milk between now and then is pretty daunting.  Sigh. I should just accept that I can't go and deal.

But triathlon!  My new passion!   

It's been so long since i posted, I'm afraid I've lost all my readers.  Gentle reader, don't despair, I'm just busy these days.  But I'm still here and in good spirits so hang in there and I'll be back soon.

I am training for a triathlon these days.  Since sweets has been exposed to super duper extreme iron man triathlons through our good friend stephen, he's the first to correct me when I'm talking about the triathlon to be sure I mention that it's a "sprint distance".  I think he doesn't think that sprint distance is a true triathlon and should be noted as such.  But this is a real tri, and should be fun, and a great way to get back into shape after baby number two.  I won't be sprinting through it, but simply trying to complete it without injury.  And since the tri starts at 6:30 in the morning, I don't want to burn out so I'm useless for the rest of the day.  Anyway, the triathlon is on July 19th, so think good thoughts. 

Training is going well so far- I'm taking a class through the local rec center so I have a pretty good training plan all set up for me.  Today I did an endurance run of a whole 45 minutes, which was a bit of a stretch for me.  But I survived, especially considered I'm running in the heat and humidity of Rhode Island this week.  I went swimming in the ocean yesterday but I didn't get very far because I was wearing goggles and could see all the seaweed and crap in the water that I was swimming in.  ew.  and it was cold.  So I would swim and gasp and eventually realized that I couldn't swim out any further because I was getting too cold and too grossed out.  Note to self- next time don't wear goggles so you can't see the crap in the water.  ew.  did I mention ew?

I had a committee meeting on Monday and it went surprisingly well.  I like my committee and they seem to like each other so I'm optimistic that we can all get along and get through this process without too much distress.

So in short: lots of stuff to do these days.  no time to post.  I'm thinking of you, internets.  I miss you.  I'll see you on the other side.

The 25% Mom

I was just sitting on the couch nursing the baby when the phone rang.  I knew it was my mom, since she’s the only person who ever calls me at home, and I considered not answering it.  The baby was just about asleep and I was enjoying the quiet time, but I knew that ignoring the call would only lead to trouble.  My mom has this sixth sense about ignored calls and will torment me if she thinks I am not responding to her calls.  (“why are you so mad at me?” is a common refrain.)

I answered the phone.  It was her. 

“I just wanted to apologize for dumping all my stuff on you.”

Backtrack.  Set the stage.  A year ago this group approached me and asked if I would speak at their conference.  A conference for Native American women with breast cancer.  Since this is my target demographic for my research, it was a total no-brainer.  I agreed.

About two months ago sweets and his high school friends started to make plans for a guy’s weekend.  Sweets made arrangements with my mom to come and help me with the kids during the planned weekend, then made his travel arrangements.  A week later the people from the conference got in touch with me to tell me that they had to change the date of the conference, now it was going to happen at the same time as the guy’s weekend.  Since it was such a perfect place for me to build visibility, I agreed to speak, even though there was an obvious childcare issue.  Before I agreed to speak, I made sure my mom was still committed to helping out with the kids, like she had already said she would do.  I explained to her that I had to speak at this conference, and I really needed her to watch the boys during the conference.  She was delighted- she says that she really likes to spend time with them and always talks about how she wishes she could spend more time with them.  It seemed like a win-win for everyone.

The conference was on the 17^th.  On the 11^th, I called my mom to confirm that she was going to be with us for the whole day on Saturday during the conference. 

“I’m so glad you called!  I am still going to be able to help out overnight on Saturday and stay with you guys on Sunday, but I’m going to be speaking at a conference on Saturday and I’ll join you guys after that.”

What?  I was totally confused.  I am the one with the conference, not her.  What fucking conference is this?  Wait? Wait!  I reminded her that she had already agreed to watch the boys so I could talk at my conference.  She started backpedaling.  All of a sudden, this very wishy washy story emerged about how she was hoping to get a promotion in July and that they had signed her up to talk at this conference and that she had no choice and she really needed to do this and….

More backstory:  my mom is constantly telling me about how much they love her at her job but she doesn’t make enough money and times are really tight and she needs to find another job and they’re always, always, always just about to promote her.

So there I am, totally fucked.  I’m committed to speaking at a pretty important conference, but I have no babysitting.  The peanut is at that yucky developmental place where he is totally sensitive and only wants to be with mom.  We have a great babysitter, but she’s a fairly devout Jew and the conference is on Saturday.  I actually had the nerve to ask her if she would watch the baby, and we actually spent time trying to figure out a way to make it seem like she wasn’t working for us on that day.  I can’t believe I did that, and I felt so, so awful afterwards.  I asked some people who we’d had a playdate with the week before if they could watch the lentil and they were so friendly and agreeable, I’m entirely in their debt.  Forever.  So the lentil is taken care of, but I’m still worried about what to do with the peanut.  I’m actually envisioning myself trying to present at the conference with the baby hanging from my body in some crazy baby carrier.  Total hippy moment.  Unfortunately, my audience isn’t a bunch of hippies.

And to make things worse, the other person on the panel is a very important person who could easily make my career work and I need, desperately need to impress her.

So eventually my mom finds a way to watch the baby while I’m speaking, but I’m still left with lugging the child around for the rest of the conference, which made it very difficult to recruit subjects for my study.  All the brochures I’d had printed up (almost $100.00!) basically go to waste, and I leave the conference with just one subject recruited.  My talk goes fairly well and I make a very good connection with the co-presenter on the panel.  She discusses possible career options with me, which is very, very good, and we talk about setting up a more formal meeting soon.  The conference pays me well, which was a pleasant surprise.  And the baby behaved himself.  And afterwards, my mom tells me that she wasn’t “speaking” at a conference, she was there to co-facilitate an anger management session with a group of veterans and their spouses.  Important work, to be sure.  But the co- part of the co-facilitating is the bit that got me.  She didn’t have to be there.  She chose to be there.  Once again, my mom chose against being helpful to me for her own gain.  She didn’t even get paid to be there.  And nobody is a last-minute ringer at an anger management workshop.

But this story is less about the conference and more about my mom.  Her behavior over the past week has been a total trigger for me.  It made me realize that my mom is only 25% there for me, and has always been that way.  I’ve recognized for a long time that she’s pretty self-centered, but this weekend was the final puzzle piece that brought it all together with frightening clarity.

When I was 12, my mom left our family to live with her new boyfriend in Australia.  When I was 13 she returned, divorced my dad, and took me to California.  When I was 16, I woke up one morning to see my mom sitting on some strange man’s lap.  They asked me what I was doing that day and I said “playing soccer.”  Then they said “We’re going ring shopping!  We’re getting married!”  I think I may have thrown up, but I’m not sure.  It was a blur.  Closely following that conversation was the “and you’re going to have a new step-sister!” conversation where I learned about the strange man’s 12-year-old daughter.

For much of my life, my mom has found ways to justify the fact that I’m not a priority for her.  I’ve never really been able to pin-point this until this weekend.  It’s always bugged me that she has other things happening when I need her, but I never identified what those other things were and why it bugged me until now.  When I was 17, I was playing in an honor band performance about 150 miles from where we were living.  My mom swore she’d be there for my performance.  She didn’t show up.  When I got home, she explained that my brother was arrested that weekend and she had been forced to stay home and deal with his problems.  (Looking back, it seems totally obvious to me that my brother should have spent a little more time in jail when he was younger to try to avoid the chronic alcoholism we’re all living with now.)

That’s a perfect example of how these things work.  It’s always just out of her control.  She can’t come to my soccer games because her alcoholic husband needed something.  She can’t go to my concerts because she has to stay home and bail out my brother.  She can’t help me with my kids because she has to deal with some half-fabricated work problem.  She really wants to, she’s really sorry she’s not there, but she just can’t do it because it’s out of her hands.

Now that I’m a parent, I am starting to see through this bullshit.  I am realizing that sometimes you have to make decisions that might hurt because you have to be there for your kids.

In the doctoral program, I have a classmate who has three kids.  The doctoral students used to try to get together now and then for social events and she could never do it.  One kid was having a game or a recital or just needed some mom time and she always chose her kids over anything else.  She was a great roll-model for me, showing me how one makes their kids a priority.  She showed me that no matter what, you always have to choose your children over anything else.  Even if that means you won’t have fun with your friends or you might miss out on something exciting.

My mom doesn’t do that.  She will always choose the excitement.

But at the same time, she tries.  She makes promises, and she usually comes through by about 25%.  This conference weekend is a great example- she was able to watch one boy while I spoke, but I still had to spend a week trying to find another alternative, which took away from me preparing for my presentation.  She wasn’t there for us over the weekend when we needed her- at bedtimes, because she was too busy with her own life.  Even though we’d asked her months in advance to commit to our family, she still found a way to get out of the commitment.  We couldn’t rely on her to actually help.  She did come and spend time with the lentil, but it wasn’t what I needed.  She always tries, because after all, these things that get in the way are never her fault.  But she never follows through completely.

I realized this weekend that I just cannot rely on my mother to ever help us out in the way she says she will.  She just can’t do it.  She will make all sorts of promises, but they’re empty.  I love my mom.  She tries hard.  But she just doesn’t do that mom thing that I want- the mom thing where she’s there for me when I need her, where she helps me and soothes me and makes me feel like maybe the world is going to be okay.  I never realized how much this bugs me until this weekend, when her preoccupation with her own life became crystal clear.  I know this may come off as me whining, but I think maybe I just need to whine a little.  I wanted a mom who would follow through with promises and be there for me when I needed her most.  I got a mom who really wants to be there but only follows through at about 25% of need.  It’s a constant psych-out because I never know when she might actually follow through.

She offered to throw me a birthday party.  This morning, during our phone call where she apologized for laying her crap on me, she was really calling to tell me that she couldn’t throw me a birthday party after all because she has no money.  Good thing we already started planning the party without her.  Instead of throwing us a party, she’s making us potato salad.  But don’t worry- she’s going to make two kinds of potato salad, in case people don’t want the kind with mayonnaise.  Because she’s going the extra mile for her kids.