In No Particular Order

how am I failing? let me count the ways

the pink Magnolia down the street

In this year a mere seventy days old, a list of the things, then – of some of the things – at which I feel I am failing: 

Promptly addressing the broken-up biscuits mashed into the carpet. Offering, daily and not just when I remember and/or have an excess of energy (ha!), a range of nutritionally-optimized toddler snacks beyond said biscuits and crackers that I know he will at least eat. Finding the time to read about toddler nutrition in more detail, and, while I’m at it, about his emotional development and breaking parenting cycles and raising good men who won’t see women as objects and getting my own emotional regulation under control. Ordering a new coat for my son so that every morning I don’t mutter I must order a new coat! as I wrestle wriggling arms into ever-tighter sleeves. 

Staying well when my child attends daycare. Remaining calm when everyone in our household is ill, again, and I have deadlines. Getting up at four-thirty or five in the morning to meet aforementioned deadlines.

Answering text messages in a timely manner that is not only polite but also reflective of how important the sender is to me, the sendee. Actually sending the clip of the cat playing the xylophone to my friend because it reminds me of an inside-joke we have, instead of just thinking about it (and her) but not articulating as much. Conveying how much I do think about the people I care about, out loud and frequently, so that they never need doubt my unerring loyalty and regard. Being steady where I am inclined to be chaotic. Having always at my fingertips the right thing to say. Saying these things and not just thinking them.

Finishing a book before I start another. Keeping up with my reading group’s allocated chapters. Sticking to my new year’s resolution to read the books I own before I buy any more. 

Resisting the tyranny of should! Forging my own path! Embracing my uniqueness! Accepting the things I cannot change! Changing the things I can! Etcetera, etcetera!

Being patient; being mindful. Seeking peace. Remembering my toddler is a toddler, and refraining from taking everything he does so goddamn personally. Resisting the urge to compare, compare, compare. Making eye contact with the parents at the bookshop Story Hour whose infants sit snug in the kangaroo-pockets of their crossed-legs while mine trundles giddy through the shelves, working a binky like Maggie Simpson and reaching for books with fingers that are inevitably and inexplicably sticky. Interpreting the gaze and silence of those parents as a show of solidarity and not as searing judgment. Ignoring the voice that creeps along the back of my spine and into my skull, echoes about there: any instinct you have that you can do this is a lie. 

Sleeping. Staying asleep, even on nights when the toddler goes down easy and straight through. Diverting my attention to better and kinder things (what I shall make for breakfast, or the pink Magnolia tree blooming down the street) when at three or four in the morning I think about all the worst ways in which I have behaved and all the worst ways in which I have been treated by people who professed to care about me but demonstrably did not and why, for fuck’s sake, I spent so long pining for and traipsing after and prostrating myself before people who professed to care about me but who demonstrably did not and how perhaps it was all exactly what I deserved, what I deserve, because of the very worst ways in which I have behaved and the probability these things were not in fact temporary, that they were not poor choices I wouldn’t make again but instead indicators of a permanent, yawning dearth of goodness I can’t ever hope to address.

Drinking water in addition to all that coffee. Making lunch ahead of the point I become so crazed with hunger I eat the first thing I lay my hands upon – fistfuls of dry cereal, Saltine crackers – plateless and standing, so that I don’t get lightheaded or so irritable I can’t function.

Resisting Amazon and buying local and being a good person, a hopeful person, when I am scrolling through the news. Galvanizing my despair into action. Springing upright into determined activity instead of sagging into the soft hollow of the sofa-corner and laying my cheek upon the arm. Letting my terror at what kind of future our children face force me into ongoing, unflagging movement and not paralysis. Hoping and continuing to hope. 

Aging gracefully. Accepting my changing face and observing the lines that score my forehead as monument to the years I spent teaching, to that exaggerated eye-brow raise that spoke a thousand words. Embodying the feminist principles I stand for; sticking two fingers up at the constant grinding slog of the expectations upon expectations layered upon women, using their logical inconsistency to break them apart the way I would a plot hole in a story. Laughing in a light and careless way that suggests I have made peace with all of this because I have made peace with all of this. Understanding that while I cannot necessarily stop the knee jerk response of internalized misogyny, I can choose what to do with it; understanding that the mere existence of the knee jerk is not representative of character but of programming; understanding that we may not control the first thought but we can the second. Feeling this in my bone and sinew, easy and natural as breath.

Decluttering. Buying less; consuming less, needing less from things and from people. Being above experiencing a minor thrill upon the purchase of an overpriced iced coffee. Casting off magpie-like tendencies to swoop in on any shiny scrap of a dopamine-fix. Prioritizing long-term goals. Having a sense of long-term. Having a sense of time that doesn’t feel woolly and half-formed.

Remembering, full stop: birthdays and anniversaries and the day someone has that interview, the load in the washing-machine before it starts to smell vaguely like mushrooms. Tax forms and dental appointments. Whether or not I gave the cat her medicine.

Appreciating. Noticing; finding meaning in small things. Meditating on the things that are good instead of only dwelling on the things that are not. 

Enjoying every minute of early parenthood because it won’t last and because the days are long but the years are short. Giving myself a break about the fact it is damn-near impossible to enjoy every minute because I am tired, tired, tired and there is so, so much and it is all the time. 

Writing. Writing well; writing in a way that is authentic and different and meaningful. Being consistent in my habits when everyone is sick and I am spent. Finding precisely the right word, the right rhythm. Constructing just the right arc. Writing in a way that satisfies the reader, that satisfies the image I have of it in my mind, that satisfies any criteria at all. Beginning the thing. Finishing it.