Winter Can Suck It

There is one word to describe Helena, Montana lately: cold. Right now, there is an air temperature of eleven below zero with wind chills hovering between 30 and 50 BELOW.

And people wonder why fewer than one million people live here.

A friend of mine was recently telling me how much she revels in the cold. She comes home from work and snuggles under blankets and watches TV or reads while drinking bottle after bottle of wine with an occasional cup of hot chocolate mixed in for good measure.

That sounds lovely. But her experience is definitely not my reality. When it is this cold, it is dangerous to play outside, which means one thing: I have been stuck inside now with two whirling dervishes who are itchy to get out in the out of doors and do something.

This is not to say that we have been sitting inside staring at one another. In fact, we’ve been pretty busy with Play-Doh and fingerpaint and glitter glue. We’ve also constructed a number of rockets and forts out of blankets and pillows. We’ve baked cookies and conducted science experiments. We’ve gone through three gallons of vinegar, two boxes of baking soda and one bottle of red food dye making volcanoes in the kitchen sink. And, I think it is entirely possible that we have reconstructed every skyscraper in Chicago’s skyline with Mega Blocks.

But the natives are getting restless. Even the cat is pacing back and forth in front of the door, waiting impatiently for the weather to break. I must turn on the Weather Channel and open the front door at least 23 times a day, just to see if within the last 15 minutes, the weather has broken and it is now summer-like outside. The boys wander over to our front windows and stare outside, willing it to warm up to ten.

I remember a mother I met in Helena once told me that she didn’t take her little one outside unless it was warmer than 50 degrees. In Montana, this means that you have a three-month window of 18 hours a day in which you can step outside with your child. I think she must have moved here from California.

My boys are Montanans and I grew up in a place with snow piled higher than the power lines all winter, which means that our family has pretty low expectations of the weather and real resolve when it comes to enduring the cold and snow. In our house, I have a 10 degree rule, but I have recently been thinking about relaxing that threshold to zero. True, you can’t be outside for too long at zero degrees, but at least you can get outside.

The other morning, as we built yet another block tower, I looked outside. It was sunny. Snow wasn’t whipping up the side of our hill from high winds. Things looked promising. I grabbed our snowpants and coats, scarves, hats, and mittens, extra pairs of socks and fur-lined mucklucks and began the 20-minute process of bundling up two very small children, only one of whom is capable of using Velcro and none of whom are capable of tying or zipping.

I assure you this is no small task. Truly, it is enough to make me want to move to Florida.

Then I got myself dressed as quickly as possible so that the boys didn’t have a heat stroke while they were waiting for me. And off we went.

We were not outside for more than ten minutes when Peter started crying and Mike started complaining that he couldn’t feel his cheeks or nose, the only parts of his body exposed. Then Mike started crying because he got snow trapped in his mitten. After a neighbor commented on our heartiness (or maybe he said foolhardiness and I didn’t hear him through my earmuffs), we called it good and came inside.

It took us more than twice the time to get all of our winter gear on and off than the total amount of time we were outside. We all had ruddy cheeks as if we’d been on an ocean-going vessel for the last six months. When I checked the Weather Channel, I found that in spite of the sun, it was a whopping eight below zero; that’s MINUS eight. In case it has been awhile since you’ve felt eight below zero, let me remind you that it’s really cold – damn cold and unforgiving.

Tomorrow we are supposed to experience a heat wave and hit 23. We are going to a sled dog race in the morning and I think we will all wear shorts and t-shirts to celebrate.

Dear God....

I remember the first time I said it out loud. My mom was standing in the kitchen ironing; my grandma was sitting at the table, shelling peas. Both were abuzz with talk of my upcoming confirmation into the church.

“I don’t know if I’m going to get confirmed,” I said to them.

“Why not?” my mom asked.

“Because I don’t believe in God,” I said.

Without even looking up from her peas, my grandma told me I was going to go to hell. My mom just pursed her lips and ironed my dad’s shirts with renewed vigor.

I was really only a child, but already I had enormous doubts about God. I couldn’t see God. I couldn’t touch God. God never spoke to me. God didn’t restore my eyesight so I could shed my pink plastic glasses, even though I asked really nicely. God didn’t make Jeremy Daniels get in really big trouble when he tackled me and kissed me on the playground. God didn’t help my mom remember to pack chocolate chip cookies in my lunch every day. God obviously wasn’t a do-er. God didn’t listen.

While I logically couldn’t justify the existence of God, I did believe in leprechauns because my third-grade teacher told me she had seen one in Ireland. Nobody ever told me they had seen God. I believed in gnomes because there was a very nicely illustrated book that detailed every aspect of a gnome’s life, including what they ate, where they slept, and the clothes they wore, which I checked out from the library often. The Bible, or the “STORY OF GOD” (as I imagined it) was hard for me to understand and didn’t really provide any finite details about God at all. What did he eat? Where did he shop? How did he get to be God, after all? I also believed in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, until Renae Yarnell announced during show-and-tell one day that, in fact, the tooth fairy and Santa Claus were played to the hilt by our very own parents! Could our parents also be masquerading around as God? Sometimes it sure seemed that way.

I wasn’t raised in a particularly religious household. True, we bowed our heads and said a prayer before dinner at night; breakfast and lunch did not seem to need to be blessed, for some reason. We often went to Sunday services and I spent more than my fair share of time in Sunday school as a child, where I remember learning to recite the Lord’s prayer and making a cross out of burnt matches. I sang in the church choir, and to this day, I can belt out hymns from memory. But I also remember thinking, from a very young age, that God was a bunch of hooey. Fire and brimstone be damned! I just didn’t subscribe.

In spite of my fervent belief system, I am someone who likes to cover my bases. So just in case God really existed, I prayed every night, for years. In the cover of night so that my hypocrisy couldn’t be found out, I would clasp my hands together, look skyward, and offer my version of “Let’s Make a Deal” to God. My prayers usually went something like this:
Dear God. Hi, it’s me. I was wondering if you could help my dad understand why it’s important for me to be able to stay out later than midnight. I am the only teenager in the entire world who is not allowed to stay out past midnight and it is not only embarrassing, but it is very possibly making it so that no guy wants to ask me out. So please help me get a better curfew. If I get a better curfew, I’ll believe in you and start going to church. Scratch that. I’ll definitely believe in you, but I’m not going to make any promises about church. Amen.

I never once found it strange to have a nightly conversation with a deity in which I had no faith. Perhaps, even stranger than praying to something in which I didn’t believe was what I asked for in my nightly ruminations: managing things like my curfew, the ins and outs of teenage dating, and getting access to the car. But this nightly ritual of mine helped me navigate being a child and a teenager, and not just any kid, but one who didn’t really fit in very well. Praying to God helped me to identify and put into words what was important in my life and what I needed help managing. Best of all, my nightly prayers were said to some kind of omnipotent divine being who didn’t roll his eyes at me or tell me I was being stupid or naïve. God accepted me as I was, even if I didn’t accept God.

Somewhere along the line, I stopped praying to God. I don’t know when it happened, and I can’t tell you why I stopped doing it. The end of my nightly ritual was probably more a result of my shared tight sleeping quarters all through college and grad school than my increasing doubts about God’s existence.

But it was also during this time that my disbelief in God, or any other omnipotent being, became cemented. During college, a good friend of mine was killed in a plane crash while pursuing his pilot’s license. At his funeral, I was shocked that his family found comfort in God. I couldn’t understand how they could still believe in God when God had taken their son from them. At one point, I lived next door to a Planned Parenthood, and just to get in my front door had to cross a picket line of “Christians” who showed me photos of aborted fetuses, called me a murderer, spit in my face, and threatened my life – all in the name of God. Surely, if God existed, he wouldn’t condemn people in this way for making a mistake and needing a legal way to fix it. Living in New Orleans, I was surrounded by poverty and unexplainable violence. It made me wonder, if God existed, how could He let a child be murdered by a stray bullet? My own mother became very ill with a rare form of cancer. It seemed completely unreasonable to me that if there was a God that He would let my mother get ill – my mother, who had always taken great care of herself, who was undeniably a very good person, and who had always believed in God.

Any lingering doubt I had about God’s possible existence was washed away. The world was not fair. People who were good and decent and young and vibrant became ill and died. Children who were funny and smart and not at fault for anything went to bed hungry, got hit by stray bullets, or suffered terribly at the hands of people who were supposed to care for them. A family, at one moment intact and at peace, was destroyed forever when a drunk driver hits their car and the father is killed, yet the drunk walks away from the accident. And then there were those who were evil – child abusers and molestors, rapists, murderers, hit-and-run drivers – they seemed to escape justice, while innocents who suffered were not cared for by God. If God existed, surely he would not allow a world like this.

Of course, none of these thoughts are new or original. Any thinking person has probably struggled with the concept of some omnipotent being who cares deeply for all life but who allows great suffering. I am merely outlining my own struggles with God.

I stopped thinking about God for a long time. He was completely off my radar. He rarely came up in conversation as I had no friends or family who were religious. I did not know a single person who went to church. Even my own mother had quit attending when the preacher stopped visiting my elderly grandmother in the hospital after my grandma’s finances prohibited her from giving money to the church, which she had always done. Still, with all of my doubt and maybe even veiled anger with God for what I viewed as injustice, I admired people of strong faith. They mystified me.

Allow me to clarify – when I say people of strong faith, I’m not talking about people who are out pounding their Bibles, condemning and hating all people who might be gay or need an abortion or might vote for a Democrat. These people scare me. And their doctrine of hate and exclusion is just one more reason I have struggled with the concept of God. Because if God existed, would he really encourage hate?

Fast forward to a few years ago. I made a new friend. Her name is Rebecca. Rebecca is, in short, amazing. She had tried out for the Olympic cycling team. She had been published, and had a million ideas for books, articles, and TV shows. Rebecca is well-read and well-traveled; she is fascinating. And she is smart. She’s brave. She’s also a great listener. She is compassionate. She is an incredible mother. She is also hilarious with a very dark sense of humor.

But Rebecca is also sick with a disease called sarcoidosis. In most people, the disease spontaneously remits, leaving them well again. But that has not been the case with Rebecca. In fact, the disease is ravaging her body, taking up residence in her heart, lungs, liver, bones, and now her brain. I am certain that a few years ago she thought that the disease had taken everything from her. She could no longer bike for miles or run up the sides of the mountains that surround the city in which we live. But one afternoon, Rebecca missed a lunch date with me and I knew something was wrong. Her husband called me later that day to tell me that she was in the hospital.

Rebecca stayed in the hospital for a week, and when she was released, the sarcoidosis in her brain was causing overwhelming pain, not to mention dizziness and nausea that is so bad she is unable to stand, walk, care for her son, cook a meal, or read and write.

Watching someone you care about become more and more ill is difficult for a number of reasons. The selfish part of me misses my friend. Another part of me grieves on a daily basis for Rebecca’s husband, Jay, for her son, Andrew, and, of course, for Rebecca. I have struggled with what to do to help them. I have struggled with what to say, how to listen, and how many times I should call if calls go unanswered. I know I have said exactly the wrong thing at least 736 times. I have struggled with my own fears as I have watched someone who is my age, who was in great health, who has a son my son’s age, become sicker and sicker. I have struggled with being upbeat. I have struggled with not doing enough. I have wanted to be Rebecca’s cheerleader, her cook, her cleaning woman, her nurse, and a babysitter at the drop of a hat, any time of the day or night.

I feel that I have not helped enough and the reason for that is that my own struggle with depression has worsened over the past year. At the times when Rebecca’s family probably needed the most help, I was barely able to claw and scratch my way through the day. I felt lost and scared and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted Rebecca to get well or if that was medically impossible, at least, better. And I wanted to feel well enough myself that I could help her and her family.

So I did something I hadn’t done in over 15 years. I turned to God. In the dark of a very long night, as I paced the floors unable to sleep, I clasped my hands together, looked skyward and said, “Hi God. It’s me again. I hope you remember me. I know I have said that I didn’t believe in you anymore. And I’m not sure I believe in you still. But I need your help and I don’t know what else to do. Please help me get well. And please help my friend Rebecca get well. We are very good people. You’d like us if you gave us a shot. So make me better and make Rebecca better and you’ll make lots of people happy. Thank you. Amen.”

I felt silly. The whole thing felt childish. But it felt weirdly better. So I prayed again the next night, and the next until now, nearly every night, I am again playing “Let’s Make a Deal” with God. Except now, instead of longer curfews, invitations to the prom, and unlimited access to my parents’ car, I am asking for health – for Rebecca, for me, for my boys, for my husband, for anyone I care about. Because again, praying to God is helping me put into words what is most important, and with what I need the most help managing these days.

I am sorry to say that God hasn’t proven his existence to me by miraculously curing Rebecca. Or me. I was kind of hoping that God would give us both mental and physical health just to stick it to me – to prove that I was wrong after all these years – kind of like his last laugh. But Rebecca is still sick, very, very sick. And me? I’m not doing so hot lately myself.

But I’m still praying. And doubting. And looking for answers of all kinds.

Morning Ritual

Every morning I participate in a ritual that generally results in much self-loathing and unfulfilled promises to do better, to try harder, and to stop being such a lazy turd who can’t get out of bed at 5 a.m. to make it to the gym. I step on the scale.

I’ve written on these pages before about my struggle with weight gain and then weight loss during pregnancy. During each of my pregnancies, I got fat. FAT – there is no other word for it. Articles on pregnancy often talk about women being excited that their curves are filling out as their babies grow, that mothers-to-be go up a size or two in their bra, that pregnancy is beautiful and pregnant women are sexy.

I was none of these things. In fact, I was the antithesis of a graceful, beautiful pregnant woman. My thighs came to resemble giant sequoias. My chins morphed into my neck, making me resemble Jabba the Hut. My ankles looked as if I had been part of the Fred Flintstone clan, as they were nearly the same size as my sequoia-sized thighs. I had to wear giant underwear without elastic in the legs that I tucked under my burgeoning belly, which was decorated with ribbons of stretch marks. My bras, which could normally double as yarmulkes, now were big enough to resemble ski hats that would cover your entire head and ears – even if you had a really big head.

How is this possible? Well, during each pregnancy, I gained between 65 – 70 pounds. Now this much weight gain would have been fine if, say, I had given birth to 40-lb. babies. But thankfully, I did not. Unthankfully, however, my normal weight babies also signaled that much dieting was on the horizon for me and as a result, those around me would suffer needlessly, because I am not exactly a happy dieter.

After both pregnancies, it took me almost eleven months to the day after my boys’ births to lose that 65-70 pounds. Fitting into my pre-pregnancy clothes was the greatest feeling. Not having to lay down on the bed to zip up my pre-pregnancy pants, as more and more weight was shed, was even better.

But this morning, I hit another milestone. I now weigh what I weighed on the day of my wedding. This is obviously pre-baby, any baby, although not by much.

In spite of this, however, my body is definitely not the body I had when I got married. My pre-baby body, which definitely could have stood to shed 20 additional pounds and was far from perfect, was all muscle, the result of hours at the gym. My pre-baby body had no stretch marks, no sagging skin, no scars from gall bladder surgery, no tendonitis in the hips from pregnancies. My pre-baby stomach was certainly not completely flat, but it wasn’t saggy and lumpy, resembling the hide of an elephant that had gastric bypass. My pre-baby breasts, which no one would have ever accused of being tiny, had a little lift to them. And, while yes, I was a devotee of underwire bras and supportive undergarments, I never wore two sports bras to the gym, nor did those cursed breasts of mine, if unsupported, ever come to rest below my waist.

Let me just clarify that for emphasis. Yes, my breasts are now capable of hanging below my waist. And I am not a particularly high-waisted girl.

Here’s the reality – having babies does things to your body that you really don’t think will ever happen to you, but will instead happen to some other woman, hopefully that other woman who can eat whatever she wants just so she understands where you’re coming from. Also, it is virtually impossible to turn on trashy TV or flip through a trashy magazine at the doctor’s or the gym without seeing celebrities wearing midriff-baring tank tops throughout their pregnancies and then rebounding physically from pregnancy and birth within hours. Call it naivete; call it blissful ignorance, but I certainly didn’t think that after giving birth I would look as if I was five months pregnant with a gelatinous mass for a stomach that wiggled and jiggled like good ol’ Santy Claus’ infamous belly – for MONTHS. In fact, even after I went through the experience once, I was certain the second time would be different, that after giving birth to Peter, I would be back at the gym in two days, and be a walking advertisement for gyms around the world within a week.

Hormones – they obviously cloud your brain.

Getting to this weight again took a lot of work. I was back at the gym two weeks after giving birth to Peter. Granted, I wasn’t exactly pumping iron, but the gym once again became a regular part of my life. I have also literally walked the soles off of two pairs of shoes within the last year. There’s nothing quite like walking up and down the hills of Helena pushing your three year-old and carrying your 30-pound baby on your back to whittle down your waistline. And just last week, I hopped into the pool for the first time in four years and swam a mile. I couldn’t lift my arms the next day, but damn it – I completed that mile.

Getting to this weight also never would have happened without my newfound maniacal devotion to consuming a lot of vegetables with my chocolate. In fact, if I were to ever visit the kind people who own and operate Earthbound Farm, they would likely welcome me with open arms as the daughter they wished they’d had. To lose the amount of weight I have shed in the last year, you have to eat nothing short of a buttload of lettuce and other vegetables. I firmly believe that if I had instead been buying shares of Earthbound Farm stock instead of buying their veggies with the money I have spent, I would be a majority shareholder by now. And, it is entirely possible that I will morph into the Chicken Lady from the Kids in the Hall skit of many years ago based on the number of boneless, skinless chicken breasts I have consumed.

I also would personally like to thank my gall bladder, which crapped out on me in April. Dear gall bladder of mine, we had some good times together, and we consumed probably way more than our fair share of rich and fatty foods over the years. Your rock collection resulted in my inability to consume food other than popsicles and saltines for weeks before and after my surgery, and I shed a fairly remarkable amount of weight in that month-and-a-half. For that, I thank you. I hope you are enjoying your new home amongst other medical waste; I think of you often and I still miss you whenever I eat something laden with butter and sugar and I am overcome by nausea.

So, never one to rest on my laurels, it is onward and upward with new goals to achieve. I have another 15 pounds to lose to get back to what I weighed back when I was a single gal in the big city and another 15 pounds beyond that to get to what Weight Watchers says I should weigh. And then it’s off to see Dr. 90210 to get rid of the saggy boobs and skin and stretch marks. I don’t know if I’m beyond help, but I hope some Beverly Hills plastic surgeon can get me that pre-baby body that I never appreciated enough when I had it.

Peter -- 13 months

Dear Peter,

When I was pregnant with you, everyone assured me that you’d be an easy child, one of those kids who rolls with the punches, content to sleep in your stroller or slung over my shoulder, so low-key that I’d barely know you’re there. Surely, these people reasoned, I wouldn’t have another high-maintenance child since your brother missed the last bus to Hollywood.

Apparently, all of those people seriously underestimated the genes with which you are blessed. Because somehow, I have apparently become the mother of two exceedingly difficult children. Yes, I’ve seen children who sleep contentedly while being schlepped through the grocery store instead of pulling down the cucumber display as if it was a set of dominoes while their mommy turns her head for a nanosecond. I know that other children go to the new children’s museum and don’t eat one of the exhibits while their mommy fixes their big brother’s shoe. I’ve watched other children at the park who are happy to sit in the baby swing even though they are confined in some kind of parental entrapment device that inhibits them from walking all over when they have just learned to walk. So I know these children exist. I just don’t happen to have any at my house.

First, let’s start with the big news. You’re walking. And running. And falling. On Christmas Day, it was as if you said to yourself, “Holy sweet Jesus – look at all of these toys! How can I get to them faster? How can I break Mike’s new stuff at warp speed? How can I get over to that giant tree in the middle of the living room and pull on it harder so that it falls down? I can walk, damn it!” And you haven’t looked back since. In fact, now that you can walk, you have decided that crawling is so last season that you won’t even crawl when it’s in your best interest (like when going down the story steps at the library.) No matter that you’re really not very good at walking yet; you’re not about to stoop to crawling ever again. I mean come on, crawling is for babies.

You’ve also started talking. I am delighted to report that your first word was “mama”. Now when you say my name, it becomes almost like a Gregorian chant, “Mama mama mama mama maaa maaaa!” you’ll say over and over again until you fall in my arms or I come running. Your other words have a lot more to do with your general impatience for getting on with things because they are, “All done!” “Down!” and “DONE!!!” Again, these are frequently repeated over and over again, as in “Lady, get your big butt over here and get me out of this god damn high chair because I am so DONE!!! All DONE! I want to get DOWN! Down! DOWN!!!! Right now because I have some walking to do and I see one of Mikey’s most beloved possessions that I must go over and eat while he is not looking.”

Which brings me to another point about you. Since birth, you’ve been one of those mouth babies – one of those kids who sticks everything down his gullet – and now that you’re extremely mobile, your penchant for tasting all things has become an almost Xtreme sporting event. In the past few days, I’ve done finger sweeps for wood chips, gravel, magnets, puzzle pieces, a set of miniature tools for one of Mike’s fire trucks, and a pine cone. I won’t even start making a list of things that I just give you a glass of water or milk to wash down, like dirt and soap. It’s no wonder that you poop what feels like 27 times a day. Quite frankly, one of these days I fully expect to change your diaper and find that stuffed monkey we can’t seem to find anywhere.

Let’s see – you also have a nasty little temper, and when you get mad, you stomp your fat little feet on the ground, scream, and throw things. That’s lovely. You also absolutely despise being told no. In fact, if you’re told no, as in, “Peter, don’t touch the oven,” you’ll look right at me and then open the oven door with this expression in your eyes that says, “Yeah? And what are you gonna do about it, lady?” And, this is my personal favorite, if you’re remotely upset about something, you’ll stand there and shriek, shriek so loudly that my ear drums reverberate. Which makes your brother start crying. Which makes me want to log onto Ebay and list two perfectly good, albeit very annoying, children for sale – cheap.

You’re also not a sleeper, which has possibly driven a wedge between you and your father that will never be repaired. In fact, for awhile there, you were logging about 20 minutes a day for a nap and let’s just say that I would have rather spent time with Kim Jong Il because while he might be evil, he at least has funny hair. You were just plain grumpy. I finally took you to the doctor because I thought that perhaps there was some kind of medical explanation for why you weren’t sleeping and our pediatrician just flat-out didn’t believe me when I told him how little you were sleeping a day. Then he offered this bit of advice, “Some kids just aren’t sleepers.” Yes, that may be, but you should also know that some kids go live with foster families too.

But for all of your general pain-in-the-assedness, I still love you. In fact, when you’re not lighting things on fire by staring at them, you can really be the sweetest baby. You love to be hugged and kissed and I have to tell you, you’re possibly the world’s very best hugger. You wrap those fat little arms around my neck and snuggle your face into my shoulder and squeeze as hard as you can, all the while giving me big juicy kisses, complete with tongue. You can be such a lovey-dovey little guy, waddling over with your arms up and sporting your giant jack-o-lantern grin, just needing to take a break from destroying things long enough to get a few good cuddles in, and then you’re off and running again. But those few minutes, which I get probably 20 times a day, are what help me look the other way when you waddle over to show me a book you’ve ripped apart, a picture you’ve shredded, or one of Mike’s toys that is now in 37 pieces.

While I am the recipient of most of your cuddling, nobody is really left out. Much to Mike’s dismay, he is often tackled by you just so you can give him a giant juicy kiss. “Pee-tah slimed me!” Mike always yells as he struggles to get out from underneath you. The cats get lovingly patted while you rub your head against theirs. But one of my favorite things to watch is you with stuffed animals. You got a stuffed dog for your birthday and that expression of watching someone’s face “light up” really does not do your response justice. As soon as the dog was out of the wrapping paper, you swept him up into your arms and rubbed your bald little head against him, all the while giving him kisses. Now you regularly carry the biggest stuffed animals you can find, some bigger than you are, around the house and then you periodically throw yourself down on the top of them to smother them with hugs and kisses.

For the first eight months of your life, I was convinced that you’d grow up to be an illiterate pro-wrestler. Whenever I showed you a book, you either tried to tear the cover off or you squirmed to get down as if I was really going to make you watch re-runs of Lawrence Welk. But now, you love to sit and look at books. True, you’ve shredded more than a few of our family favorites, but you can content yourself for a long time just by sitting with your basket of books and turning the pages of each while exclaiming, “Dah DOO! Gadala DOH! Dah Doo DOH DOH!” and pointing up to the ceiling. I have no idea what this all means, but I am sure you’re onto something brilliant.

You’re also my music man. There’s nothing you love more than a snappy tune, except maybe dancing to it. As soon as any music comes on, you’re bouncing up and down, clapping your hands, and marching around in circles. In fact, Mike often breaks into song at the dinner table just to watch you sway back and forth in your high chair.

By the time your brother was this age, I was cruising construction sites around town to satisfy what seemed to be his primal love of trucks. For you, we hang out at the animal shelter and pet shops, because you love, love LOVE animals – of all shapes, sizes, and pedigrees. Whenever you see the dogs next door, you let out this excited high-pitched squeal that sends the poor hounds running. You’ve gotten to be quite gentle with our cats, especially Mr. T, and I often find you rubbing your face against his head while Mr. T sniffs you lovingly. Though his tail is a bit of a temptation.

And finally, I think we have made it through a stretch of several weeks where your brother has not tried to give you away to strangers or leave you behind at the store or send you to your grandma and grandpa’s to live. In fact, I think I’m not going out on too much of a limb when I say that it is entirely possible that your brother likes you quite a bit. True, nearly every day my main job in this house is refereeing the two of you so that toys are occasionally shared and not too much yelling goes on by either of you. But most of the time, you and Mike partner together to conspire against me and your dad. Our nightly dinner ritual includes you pretending to poop and as you sit there, straining and grunting and turning bright red, your brother starts to laugh so hard that he inevitably, every single night, almost chokes to death on his dinner. Now I’m certainly not above a good poop joke, but can’t you please give it a rest? I mean, come on – every night? And, today, for example, I think I logged enough miles to qualify as a world-champion marathon sprinter just from chasing the two of you through the stacks of the public library. I feel like you and your brother have some kind of unspoken code that goes something like this, “You divert her attention and I’ll do something really bad!”

“Why does Pee-tah do that?” Mike always asks when you throw something, turn your cup upside down and pour all of the milk out of it, or take a bin of toys and turn it upside down before moving onto something else entirely.

“That’s just Peter being Peter,” I tell him because I don’t have any other explanation. Your dad and I have said several times over the last few months, “We’re going to be going to the principal’s office an awful lot with this one.” Or “This one is our emergency room kid.” Or “Poor Mikey. He’s going to be bamboozled by his brother to do all of these bad things.” Because you are trouble with a capital T. You’ve got that glint in your eye, that sparkle in your smile, that way of furtively looking over your shoulder that signals big trouble in the making.

But I’ve always loved trouble myself. And you, my little troublemaker, are no different. I know you’ll keep me on my toes, probably for the rest of my days. But that just makes me smile, looking forward to all of the excitement you’ll bring.

Love,
Mamamamamama

To Health and Happiness in the New Year

I wish I could say I got help when an old roommate asked me if I still got so depressed that I couldn’t get out of bed.

I wish I could say that I got help when my husband told me that my depression was negatively impacting our marriage and the lives of our children.

I wish I could say that I got help when my then-two-year-old son said to me, “Mom, I wish you wouldn’t cry so much. It makes me sad.”

But I didn’t. I didn’t even get help after one particularly frightening week when I hit the lowest low I’ve ever had. It took another week like that – where I went even lower – a week where I very seriously considered committing myself, to seek help and take a doctor’s advice.

Where to start? I’ve been living with depression for at least the last fifteen years, maybe longer. I first sought help for the physical symptoms of depression over ten years ago. Since I had my first son, my depression has been worse and since the last trimester of my last pregnancy, my depression has had crippling effects on nearly every aspect of my life. In fact, now that I am feeling better with the help of lots of medication, I can look back on the last 18 months and say that even when I thought I wasn’t depressed, I was still exhibiting symptoms.

What were my symptoms? Well, there were the physical symptoms. I was almost continuously nauseated and had all kinds of digestive problems. I had debilitating headaches. I had mysterious aches and pains. I was always cold – freezing, to be more exact. I was exhausted, but I had insomnia. I had zero interest in eating, losing twelve pounds in a week’s time.

And then there were the mental symptoms. To say I was down in the dumps would be an understatement. I cried about twenty times a day. About nothing and everything. I had ZERO patience and lost my temper about the smallest, most insignificant things – even when my kids were just being kids. Normally an incorrigible optimist, I began to see the glass not only as half-empty, but also full of holes – leaks that I couldn’t stop or control. I couldn’t concentrate on the simplest tasks; picking up our house at night would often take me well over an hour because I just couldn’t focus on getting it done. I had no interest in anything. I couldn’t sit down at the computer and write. I couldn’t read. I wasn’t interested in cooking or going anywhere. I didn’t feel like talking with my friends or family. I often just sat and stared.

The worst part of my depression though was the anxiety. And this is what finally spurred me to get help. I became convinced that I was dying. So convinced, in fact, that I was afraid to sleep. Because if I closed my eyes and fell asleep I would die.

Looking at this from my improved mental state, I now recognize how completely insane this was. But at the time, nothing seemed more real than my impending death every night as I got into bed. I paced the floors of my house like some sort of caged animal while everyone snoozed peacefully upstairs. I was convinced I had everything from rare types of cancer, potential blood clots, an aneurysm in my brain waiting to pop, multiple sclerosis, and a failing liver. Oddly enough what I didn’t think I had was mental health issues.

I don’t know what made it click for me that my anxiety about my health and my fear of dying was related to my depression. But I remember the exact moment. I was sitting on our couch feeding Peter and I was consumed by thoughts that I would keel over at any minute. Every ping and pang in my body seemed amplified by 10,000. I was terrified. And I just started sobbing because I realized I was watching my mind unravel.

I have heard before that it’s a good sign if you recognize you’re going crazy. But I’m here to tell you – I’ve been held up at gunpoint; I’ve been on a plane I was sure would crash into the Atlantic – and there is nothing more terrifying than watching yourself lose your mind.

I called a doctor that afternoon. She couldn’t see me for several weeks. Then when I saw her, she promptly misdiagnosed me as being bipolar and prescribed a “mood stabilizer ” with very complicated dosage instructions, a battery of tests to rule out any kind of biological problems, and a suggestion to see a cognitive therapist. By the time I had gotten into see her, the worst of my depression had passed. So I decided to try one more time to will my depression away without prescription drugs, but this time with the help of a therapist. I was sure that I could manage my depression effectively if I just talked about my life with someone.

At this point, many of you are thinking, “What the hell? Just take the damn anti-depressant and feel better.” But I will tell you it’s a lot more complicated than that. It took me over 15 years to see a doctor and to admit to a medical professional that I had depression. The medicine she prescribed had all kinds of side effects, not the least of which was weight gain. And Lord knows, I’ll take thin (at least for me) and crazy over fat and sane any day of the week.

Taking medication also seemed complicated. There was that mysterious dosage schedule that I couldn’t seem to get straight in my head. I also needed to go have more tests done. It was all just so, well, involved. And when you are depressed, just doing the bare minimum you need to do to get through the day is already more than you could handle.

Finally, taking medication also seemed like admitting defeat. That by swallowing a pill every day I was really saying I had mental health issues, and I didn’t want to have mental health issues. I didn’t want to be crazy. I didn’t want to take a pill that made my brain work the way it was supposed to. I also wondered if I was really that bad off. Maybe my depression wasn’t as bad as I thought. Maybe I hadn’t done everything I could to beat it. Maybe I needed more sunlight. Maybe I needed to exercise more. Maybe yoga! Maybe there was some kind of dietary change I could make that would make all of the difference. Maybe therapy was the answer.

I didn’t get the drugs, but I did call a therapist and make an appointment. I spent that first hour with her sobbing about all that I perceived to be wrong with my life and why I was depressed. Walking out of her office on that first day, I felt enormously better. I felt cleansed. I felt clear-headed. I felt relieved, like the weight of the world I had been carrying for the last several years was finally lifted. I went back to see her. My depression eased up. I was managing situations better. I was handling stress better. My husband even commented on how much better I was doing. My therapist started to ask me if I still felt as if I needed to see her.

Then a very stressful situation arose at work. Almost instantly, my anxiety returned. I started having digestive problems again. My head hurt so badly that I had ringing in my ears. I started needing sleeping pills at night so that I didn’t lay awake consumed with worry about my sure and impending death.

Then I started screaming at my kids. I dreaded the moment when they woke up from their naps. I cried all of the time. I threatened my husband with divorce. I started missing work or going in later and later. I stopped going to the gym. I stopped writing. I stopped reading. I stopped returning emails and phone calls. I quit eating and lost a lot of weight. I had several articles out for potential publication and I never followed through with editors. Doing what I needed to do every day was exhausting. Getting dinner on the table produced nearly crushing symptoms of anxiety for me and made me want to take to my bed. A friend of mine became very ill and was hospitalized and I was completely unable to offer her or her family any kind of support. Doing the basics – feeding my kids, reading to them, going to work – took everything I had and then some. In fact, it felt as if every step I took throughout the day was with an airbus chained around my waist.

I can only tell you about all of these symptoms of depression now because I am able to look back and recognize what was going on in my life. I think perhaps one of the worst things about depression for me is that I am completely unable, or maybe unwilling, to recognize the signs that I am caught in a downward spiral until I hit rock bottom, until I am at that point where getting out of bed and facing each day takes incredible effort.

One night in the midst of all of this, as I sat up alone in the dark, nauseated and convinced I was going to die if I went to sleep, I had a rare moment of clarity and finally realized that I needed to take the medication. I seriously thought about committing myself, driving to the hospital right then and there, so that I could get the help I needed when I realized what kind of help I needed. But then I thought about how much I hate hospitals. And I worried about how my husband would get the car back. And I worried even more about who would take care of my boys while I was in the loony bin. So I took a bunch of sleeping pills and went to sleep.

The next morning I called the doctor. I kept my appointment. I told her I was not bipolar. I told her about my anxiety. My depression. And she prescribed a different drug. I walked to work and cried the whole way, fingering the prescription in my coat pocket. I vowed to take the medicine. I reminded myself of how terrifying it was to watch my mind unravel. I reminded myself of my kids, of my relationship with my husband, of my friends and family. I reminded myself that I have every reason to be happy – that I deserve to be happy – and that if taking a pill would help me with that, then so be it.

But I still didn’t start taking the drug.

I got the prescription filled and obsessively read about the side effects for several days. I put off and put off taking the drug because I was afraid that it would make my stomach problems and headaches even more debilitating, as many anti-depressants cause nausea and headaches. I delayed taking the meds because I had things going on at work that I needed to be present for, and I didn’t want the drug to make it so I couldn’t function. Finally though, after spending the bulk of another day crying, slinking around my house and avoiding my family, I just finally became tired of feeling bad. I wanted to feel better. I wanted to want to spend time with my kids. I wanted to like my husband. I wanted to laugh again. I wanted to feel like my old self.

I went into the kitchen and popped my first pill. It was terrifying – almost as terrifying as realizing I was going crazy. I sat and waited to need to be driven to the emergency room because I suddenly had a seizure or developed a rash from head to toe. But all in all, it wasn’t that bad. That’s not to say that I didn’t have side effects, because I did – lots of them. Nausea. Disturbed sleep. Headaches. Muscle twitches. But by the third day of taking the medication, I noticed a significant improvement in my mood, and that made all of the side effects I was experiencing inconsequential.

Eventually, the side effects disappeared as they tend to do when you are taking an anti-depressant. And my mood continued to improve. Brent has called the transformation “dramatic.” I would have to agree. I will tell you that within the first few days of taking the medication, I wasn’t snapping at my kids. I was handling stressful situations, big and small, with ease and finesse. I stopped crying. My aches and pains disappeared. I started calling editors again. I reached out to my friends. My stomach problems improved. I no longer spent the bulk of each day shivering under an enormous pile of blankets. I stopped obsessing about my health and was able to dismiss the occasional ache as gas pain as opposed to colon cancer. I felt significantly more present because I was able to concentrate on what was happening instead of being convinced that I was about to die. Tasks that had taken me over an hour, I could now complete in a matter of minutes because I was able to concentrate on completing them.

Best of all, I started enjoying my life again. Each day presented lots of opportunity for laughs and discovery instead of dread and anxiety. I realized that my three year-old is funny, really funny. So is my one year-old. When Peter pulled the Christmas tree down on top of himself sending water in every direction and ornaments flying, I was able to get him out from under the tree and call my husband at work so he could come home and help me right the behemoth – and I did so calmly and assuredly – without yelling at Peter for being a curious one year-old. When Mike shoved two rockets up his nostrils and pretended he was a walrus with giant tusks, I was able to laugh instead of worrying about the rockets piercing his brain, making him a vegetable for the rest of his life instead of the Nobel Prize winner I am sure he will become. And let me just tell you – it felt great, amazing, incredible to be able to laugh about this.

I also started telling people who are close to me about my struggle with depression. I told Brent that I will need his help in recognizing symptoms because I know now that I cannot until I am mired so deeply in a depressed state that I am essentially non-functioning. I admitted to people that I am in therapy and that I am on medication. I was honest with my parents about my depression and told them, for the first time, the steps I have taken to make myself better. I asked some friends and my brother for extra support because while I am feeling better, I know I have a long way to go and that my depression and anxiety will be something I will have to work at managing probably for the rest of my life. It felt amazing to be honest about this after all of these years and it felt even more amazing to know how much I am cared about by so many people.

I am enormously proud of myself for taking all of the steps I needed to take to make myself feel better. I only wish that I had done it sooner – years ago – instead of living my life as an irritable, self-obsessed zombie and making the lives of those closest to me hard and often times, miserable. I feel terribly for the way I have mothered my children over the past few years. I feel terribly for the type of partner I have been to my husband for the last few years. I feel terribly for the type of friend, sister, and daughter I have been for the last few years. I feel terribly for the life I created for myself when things could have been so much different.

I have debated about writing about this on this blog because there are many people who read it – some of my co-workers, others who know me very peripherally and even some who have never met me at all. This is such a personal issue and it is something with which I am still struggling. But I decided to write about this here because I wanted to remember how bad I felt. I want to remember how completely terrifying (and I know I have used that word a lot in this post, but really, there is no other way to describe it) it is to watch your mind unravel. I want to remind myself that if I have to take medication for the rest of my life so that I am never in that place again, then that’s what it means.

I also want to be a positive example – for my kids, for my friends, for my family, and maybe for some readers – that you don’t have to feel bad. That if you are struggling, if you feel hopeless, lost, anxious, sad, or angry, you can do something about it. Addressing and managing your mental health, however you need to do it, is tremendously important. You can feel better. Really.

As we start this new year, I cannot even begin to express how great it is to feel like my old self. How wonderful it is to look forward to seeing my children. How amazing it is to have a conversation with my husband that isn’t about resentment and bitterness. How incredible it is to get up in the morning and not be filled with dread and anxiety, convinced that today is my last day on this planet. On the contrary, I feel very much like I am starting over, filled with fresh hope for all that 2008 will bring.

Happy New Year.