30Jul

Captain Courage

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 4 Comments

“We should go out,” Natalie observed this morning once we had finished muddling through breakfast. Oh boy. After twenty-seven deep breaths and a booster shot of Zen, I forced myself to agree. We should go out. It can’t be healthy to cluck around inside our tiny coop alldayeveryday, and maybe the giant-sized world outside would go easy on us — a wee flock of homebound girls with shy feathers.

But first, there were naps and a shower and diaper changes and potty time. Clothes were procured from the laundry line (because one can’t wear a bathrobe forever, you know), hair was brushed, makeup was applied. Sunscreen was dolloped onto wriggling fair-skinned girls, and my industrial-strength corduroy purse was filled: wallet, no wallet (who wants the extra weight?), keys, phone, wallet again (we need to get eggs), lip gloss, tissues, camera, baby food, dirty bib, oops, clean bib, spoons, napkins, water bottle, water to go in the water bottle, sunglasses, did I already get the keys? Natalie got her holey jeans and socks and her cool silvery tennis shoes, plus a polka-dot headband—her latest fashion obsession. Sophie got a hat, until I remembered how she always flings it in the mud, and those great Velcro sandals she loves to remove with her teeth, and I buckled her into the stroller. We were going to do it.

Out the door we traipsed into my Tim Burtonesque imaginationscape. Curly, sunken-eyed trees, purple-tinged sunlight, whimsical hostility at every turn. But I could not in good conscience let myself become a hermit. At least, I could not retreat until we had spent at least as much time outside as we had spent preparing to go out, so I screwed my courage to the sticking place* and marched on.

Natalie skipped and picked pink flowers that “smelled like candy!” while Sophie kicked for joy and occasionally tried to dive-bomb out of her stroller. We bought eggs without any meltdowns or blitzed grocery displays, and my outlook slowly softened. Maybe these great outdoors, buzzing with life and warmth and green, were not so terrifying. Maybe I really could find my way back to my lane in the flow of normalcy and be the kind of mom who breezes her girls to the playground every morning without a hitch. And even if I found it tough to pry myself away from home, I could do it for them. Just seeing Natalie’s palpable excitement about going to play with other children made the trip worth it.

Except that by the time we got to the playground, it was deserted. Every one of the other kids had gone home for lunch. Natalie, ever an optimist, asked me for her pail and shovel (“Sorry, we didn’t bring those”) and then for her soccer ball (“Uh, we didn’t bring that either”) and finally just wandered forlornly around the empty swings and seesaw. I sat down on the winner’s bench for Crappiest Mother of the Year and fed Sophie her puréed blueberries, which she alternately spit out and sneezed out, and my head slowly began closing in on me. The sun was gothic cartoon again, the olive trees dense and grabby. I remembered the piles of dishes and laundry and misplaced toys I had ignored for the sake of this trip, back at home breeding and throwing wild parties like housework tends to do when left to its own devices. And suddenly, I needed to be indoors RIGHT AWAY.

I hate how easily panic hits me these days. There is never a reason or an obvious trigger, though anytime between noon and 7 p.m. is fair game. It just strikes my brain like a lightning bolt, and I can’t catch my breath. I can’t think straight. All I can see is the future billowing in flames around me and some abstract shapes of terror, urgent terror. I wouldn’t be surprised if my eyes turned white during these attacks, like the character from X-Men who summons tornadoes with her thoughts.

There might as well have been tornadoes shrieking over my head as we rushed home today. It had been too much. Simply going out had been too much. Or maybe it was going to all that effort, so much effort, just to reinforce our collective loneliness. I had suddenly acquired a taste for agoraphobia, and it chased me up the elevator, shaking, into our front door. Goodbye world, hello chronic wimp.

Much later in the day, as I was relocating messes and bludgeoning myself over the brain, a quote flashed through my mind: Courage is the willingness to accept fear and act anyway.** Despite my fragile state of mind and irrational fears of the world around me, I made the effort to walk out my front door today. What’s more, I survived. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that hey, this pretty much makes me Captain Courage. With way cuter clothes.

The End

—

*I have a thing for Shakespeare. Don’t tell Dan.

**Not Shakespeare. Not Jesus. Not sure who said this, in fact. Was it you?

28Jul

Beware of Mantras

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

Growing up quasi-Amish taught me how to bake bread from scratch, sew my own dowdy jumpers, grow organic wheat grass in a pan on the windowsill, and hide. Good lord, was I skilled at hiding. I had a lusciously guilty stash of sugar cubes that grew over the years to include Thin Mints, Warheads, Pixie Sticks, and some fundraiser candy that called itself World’s Best Chocolate (and really was! at least to a chronically deprived sweet-tooth…) and none of my five hundred siblings ever found it. Talent, non?

I also learned how to hide my feelings, my opinions, my idiocies, and my problems. It’s a little-known fact about families who isolate themselves from the world: rather than creating a safe haven, isolation breeds like an insidious form of bacteria until you can no longer reach outside your own skin. No one allowed in, period.

I can’t begin to tell you how powerless I was raised to be. I have a lifetime of poisonous mantras stashed in my mind: Do not ask for help. Your feelings mean nothing. We do not talk about that. Doctors want to harm you. Policemen want to harm you. Your instincts are wrong. NO ONE CAN HELP. Honestly, the two best things I’ve ever done to fight off those mantras were meeting Dan, who tirelessly chiseled away at my mind with rock-solid compassion, and starting this blog. It’s not easy, of course. I constantly want to censor myself (and I often do, if you want to know the truth), and I revert several times a day back to Your feelings mean nothing. We do not talk about that. No one can help, no one can help, no one can help, no one can help.

Writing about depression, in particular, feels like stripping in front of the entire world. It comes with a host of other confessions like failure and weakness that I would much rather keep hidden, and it looks so raw and grotesque out in the air. Hi, I’m Bethany, and I can’t manage to take care of two teeny-tiny little girls and one teeny-tiny little apartment by myself and oh my god, am I actually admitting this aloud?

But your comments and e-mails have given me exactly the boost I needed to shrug off my Amish mantras and do something unimaginably frightening: Ask for help. I went to the doctor today, all of my own volition, and I told him the truth. And now there will be tests and further appointments and possibly referrals, and though we know nothing yet, I feel hopeful. I don’t know how to explain what hope feels like after this long, but thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

24Jul

Debthany Downer

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

My head is a mishmash stew these days, marinating fuzzy inklings into unfocused ideas. My daily life looks like yawning and claustrophobic mint and dust and poop in unfortunate places and half-shuttered windows and pajamas. All spinning, connectionless.

—

“Hey, how are you?”

“Fine, thanks. I mean, I had a full-blown panic attack yesterday over the fact that I had to remain alive for the rest of the day, and the day before that, the girls fussed so much that my sanity took off for Fiji, and the day before that, I felt too much like old concrete to officially get out of bed, and the day before that was some kind of mid-July vortex of antisocial unproductivity. Of course, the day before that was great—do birthdays count toward the statistics?—but today, I’m floating in a time warp, watching my body stumble around in search of my head. I mean, I’m fine. Fine. Thanks.”

—

About a year ago, I started reading the blog of a beautiful, free-spirited woman who wrote about her daily life in terms of intuition and enlightenment. On bad days, she wrote about being gentle with herself and allowing healing to manifest itself. On good days, she wrote about the change in her perception, some profound new way she was going to go about her life. I enjoyed reading her blog because she found so much significance in the mundane, and who wouldn’t love enlightenment at the end of PMS?

But recently, I’ve started finding her posts tedious and aggravating because nothing ever changes. She is always searching inside herself and coming up with bright, sparkly answers to life that make absolutely no difference the next time she has a bad day. Of course, she has every right to share her emotions. In fact, I think what bothers me the most about her journal is that it’s what mine would be if I were an optimist. Like, at all.

See, I don’t really go up-up on the upswings; I just level out into something like normal. I stop saying things like “Stomachs are retarded” and “I’m going to murder whoever invented 7 a.m.” and “Life, the universe, and everything are horrible,” but I don’t really come up with happy hopefulisms because what’s the point?

(Just think, I was trying to keep this post from sounding too depressed… Hello, Debbie Downer! I apologize to any of you who now wants to go climb into a hole for eternity.)

I never know what to write when I’m having Downer Days (or weeks… or months…) because I shouldn’t still be having them. The world is spinning, creation is evolving, and I should be changing for the better. No more sudden depression, no more losing myself in a swampy labyrinth of hours. I should be coming up with bright, sparkly answers that stick to my psyche like flypaper and accumulate over time to a bright, sparkly me. Surely everyone else is just as sick as I am of the constant ups and downs (and downs and downs and downs), but what’s a girl to do? Pretend she’s not a sloppy mess too much of the time? Lie her way into false perkiness? Ignore herself until the top of her head blows off?

Honesty is particularly heavy at times like this. Every word I come up with is a burden that I’m reluctant to hoist on others even as I’m buckling under the weight. I just have to think that one day, I will figure all of this out—I will—and then these words I scribbled from the darkness will be a path, stepping stones offered to other shadow-people as a gift.

21Jul

Loose Woman

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 3 Comments

Ballet is a foreign galaxy the first day. Everything is wildly unfamiliar—the sharp odor of sweat on metal as clammy hands grip the barre, the buttery resistance of Marley floors beneath scuffing feet. Your ballet slippers are far from pretty, at least up close. They are the color of nausea, scrunched up with too-tight elastic, and the suede soles feel misplaced. You point, you flex, you wobble on tip-toe. These are not your feet.

The first exercise, the plié, sounds like a joke: Bend your knees, straighten, repeat. If this is ballet, you’ll be dancing Swan Lake in no time, floating across the stage in your tutu and natural bendy-kneed ability. But of course it’s not that easy. Your dance teacher is suddenly a drill sergeant, and you are smacking straight into the many hurdles of gracefulness. Shoulders back. Hips tucked. Chin high. Spine stretched. Head tilted. Arms curved. Neck straight. Legs turned out. Stomach pulled in. Breathe small, straight up and down, up and down. Never let your diaphragm move. Tighten, tighten, tighten, tighten, tighten.

At first, you feel claustrophobic inside your own muscles as they contort into new positions. Your brain is locked in a grimace, trying to convert unfamiliar French terms into movement into some semblance of beauty, and you feel exactly like a duck. But after awhile (maybe months, probably years), your body adapts. Your feet expect the pressure of elastic and blister tape. Your rib cage compresses obediently, your head tilts the right direction by instinct. You turn out, tuck under, stretch up, suck in, and learn how to survive on stringent tastes of air.

—

When I was ten years old, I placed second in a mile-long running race against thirteen-year-olds. I ran in my Keds (remember those?) and was hardly winded at the end. When I was thirteen, I participated in the same race again—this time with running shoes and a title to uphold—but gave up halfway through. The stitch in my side was so bad that it took me a good thirty minutes to limp back. When I was fifteen, I quit ballet after realizing I didn’t want to do pas de bourrées for the rest of my life, but my body was already trained to be a tight, leggy ribbon, and so it has stayed.

Two years ago, after weeks of lunchtime workouts, I was able to complete five minutes on the elliptical machine. I had worked hard to make it that far, but I couldn’t celebrate. I just looked around at the college girls in their hot pink sweat pants, their round butts emblazoned with “sexy” and “angel” in glitter, breezing through their second hour of aerobics. Why was I such a wimp after years of intense physical training? Needleholes of painful light pricked against my eyelids, my forehead burned, and I resigned to becoming a couch potato forever.

—

I’ve moved far away from the galaxy of ballerinas. Their lipsticked self-control, their masquerade of effortless grace no longer apply to me. But as I’ve moved farther down the path of joy and spontaneity and chocolate cake and yoga, I’ve started realizing how starved I am for breath. All these years, I’ve been sucking in my stomach instead of air. I’ve lost my ability to run; I don’t know how to relax.

So I’m relearning how to breathe these days. I rest my hand on my diaphragm and will it to move, to draw in air instead of blocking it out. I relax my way through the sputtering of unused muscles, the pain of fresh oxygen in dusty passages of my lungs. I loosen and loosen and loosen and loosen, and my gray barnacled control begins to chip away. I want to run again, and I think, If I can be a real, live person who can love, adapt, and dream in Technicolor without air, just think what this life will be once I learn how to breathe…

Just think!

19Jul

And A Year To Grow On

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

I had been hoping that I shared a birthday with someone really fantastically cool, like Sean Connery or Chuck Norris. So when my Google search said “No one else EVER IN HISTORY shares a birthday with you, SUCKER!” I understandably felt all cold and alone in this world. Until I remembered Dooce. Who just happens to be really fantastically cool.

So happy birthday to Dooce and myself. Instead of blowing out candles for a wish this year (and rooting for either a wild mustang! or a baby sister! like I used to), I’m writing my own wish list for this year—little and big things I’d love to do before my next birthday rolls around. It’s like I’m growing up or something…

~ Stay out far too late one night just to enjoy
~ Make butterscotch pudding from scratch
~ Learn one beautiful piano piece well enough to play by memory
~ Submit at least ten short items for publication
~ Learn enough Italian to take myself to the dentist
~ Go dancing
~ Write down the girls’ birth stories for them
~ Conquer my fear of ski lifts once and for all
~ Finish my book
~ Help someone through a difficult situation
~ Run around the entire Wii Fit island without giving up
~ Earn at least $1 on my own
~ Have an adventure
~ Learn all the lyrics to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” (so I don’t have to keep filling in “da da das” when I sing it to Sophie before bed)
~ Get in touch with old friends
~ Venture into an erboristeria (colorful and intimidating Italian herb shops)
~ Wake up early without wanting to injure someone
~ Roll sushi with Dan
~ Start college funds for the girls
~ Try a new flavor of ice cream
~ Walk from our house to the very top of downtown
~ Experiment with a new hairstyle (any suggestions?)
~ Create a new holiday tradition
~ Make an acquaintance my friend
~ Buy a canvas and paint it
~ Skip with Natalie in the rain
~ Rethink an opinion
~ Send a kind letter to someone who deserves it

Now for some birthday gelato… (for breakfast, because I’m not that grown up yet)

16Jul

Dichotomous Days

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

Tension:

  • Lead-blanket tiredness, every single morning and sometimes until bedtime. I hung onto today by a thread of willpower and finally gave up at noon, when I put my haggard self to bed. (Coffee helps, though I suddenly stopped liking the taste last month. Coffee in a chocolate-coconut frappuccino courtesy of my blender-wielding husband definitely helps. Sleep, exercise, and nutrition do not.)
  • Owning a house during a major housing slump and losing our renters. Taking care of our house when we lived in it was enough work, but figuring out the details from across the ocean? Without the extra income? Wondering how soon the place will fall into ruin without tenants and become just a pile of bricks swallowed by crabgrass? There’s a chance that worrying about this has impacted my sleep…
  • Huge possibility of having to move to another city next summer. I knew this home wouldn’t be permanent, but I’ve come to love our friendly little neighborhood and the old, old streets of downtown, not to mention the people who have welcomed us into their families. (Benefits of moving: Will be closer to Florence, Dan’s brother, and IKEA. Very much closer to outlet mall. The other city is still beautiful, AND we may finally get a large-enough house. Oh, and the transfer has the possibility of being long-term. Really, I need to just get over this and be excited already.)

Ease:

  • Summer-colored fruits and veggies, fresh or bread-crumbed or slathered in yo-cream or drizzled with balsamic vinegar. I love how easy it is to eat healthy in warm weather—salads and fruit drinks every day, and we’ve reduced our grocery budget by €40 a week. I feel all earthy and bright at the thought, like I’ve just discovered a secret.
  • August just around the corner. We spent our vacation budget (uh, for the next five years) on Sophie’s emergency room trip, so we’ll be coming up with fun and relaxing things to do around here. Which, really? Could not make me happier. I mean, we’re already in Italy; might as well enjoy it! I’m planning to serve meals on paper plates and read books somewhere breezy.
  • A certain member of the family finally being potty-trained. After what felt like seventeen years of Pull-Ups and puddles and uncontrollable weeping (on my part), we have autonomy. Also, another member of the family recently contracted mobility, and the crawling, cruising, and self-congratulatory giggles are almost too fun to stand! Almost.
  • Exciting new changes coming soon, like school for Natalie! And hopefully well-scheduled days for me during which I can write and write and write! Plus, a significant raise and talk of a winter ski vacation with the in-laws. Exclamation point!

C’est la vie, non?

16Jul

Wii Are Not Yet Fit

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 1 Comment

Short-Distance Running on Wii Fit… With Children

Me (starting): Oooh, this hurts. Ow. Ow. I hate this.Oooooh.

Natalie: “LOOK! Look at that!! Who is that? Who is that? Who is THAT???!”

Me: (gasps for breath)

Natalie: “WHOISTHATWHOISTHATWHOISTHATWHOISTHATWHOIS—”

Me: “That… is… Daddy, see?… in the… black?”

Sophie: (grabs my left foot)

Me: Ow, ow, who invented running? Because they deserve my foot up somewhere very sensitive on their persons right now.

Natalie: “LOOK! Is that Daddy? Is that Daddy, right there? See the black? Is that Daddy? IsthatDaddyisthatDaddyisthatDaddyisthatDa—”

Me: “No… not… Daddy…”

Sophie: (crawls up my left leg)

Natalie: “Oo, look at THAT one! Is THAT Daddy? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it?”

Me: (clutching side, panting)

Natalie: “Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it?”

Me: Someone’s about to get hurt.

Natalie: “IS IT DADDY? IS THAT DADDY? Ooo, look at the puppies! IS THAT DADDY? IS IT? IS IT?”

Me: “NO!!!”

Sophie: (swings from my kneecap by her teeth)

Natalie: “LOOK! LOOK AT THAT! It’s Chicken Little! CHICKEN LITTLE! Do you SEE that, Mommy? Do you see Chicken Little? Huh? Huh?”

Me: (seeing stars, imagining Chicken Little in my crockpot, alive)

Natalie: “Do you see Chicken Little? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do y—”

Me: “YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Sophie: (wraps around my esophagus)

Me: This is the worst day of my life. I hate everything. I totally understand how video games turn people into mass murderers. I myself will have to go on a rampage after breakfast. I hope Nintendo is happy.

Natalie: “Oh wow, is THAT Daddy? I think it IS Daddy! See the black shirt? See? Is it Daddy? Do you see him, Mommy? Do you see? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? DO YOUDOYOUDOYOUDOYOUDOYOUDOYOUDOYOU???”

Sophie: “Tthhhhhbbbbbllllffffff.”

Wii Fit: “Congratulations! You have reached your goal of: 3 minutes! Well done!” (happy, shiny noise) “You have also unlocked: Long-distance run!”

Me: (has coronary)

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