25, no, make that 10, Epiphanies I’ve come to recently

If this is too long and honest, blame Stan, he started it.

1. I don’t know that I can stop at 25. I have thought about this meme often and since it seems to be making its rounds closer and closer to my immediate circle I am feeling that impending anxiety creeping up on me, leaving an eerie soundtrack in its wake. I have fantasized about making sublists—25 things about my kids you’d know if you were really friends with me, 25 food obsessions I have, 25 mom-isms I never dreamed I would say, 25 freakishly sad things you never thought I’d be thinking, etc. But then I realized that people barely want to read one liners in a listed meme, never mind whole diatribes about what people (namely me, interestingly enough) really hide behind in the privacy of their homes. Perhaps it is best if I stick to the status quo. Naw, I’ve never really been good at keeping with the status quo. Bitchy? Perhaps. Maybe to make it less off-putting, I will only post 10. If you are so inclined, you can ask me about the other 15.

2. I have never had a best friend who really considers me their only best friend. You know, thereby lending meaning and validity to the idea of *best*. I think that this plays into the heart of why I am somewhat (OK, very) reluctant to let people really close to me. By keeping people at arms distance, I guess I feel like I am going to hurt less when they invariably (a) move away (b) lose touch (c) stop knowing what is really happening in my life (d) stop caring enough to ask a genuine question. BTW, only responding when Facebook reminds you to is not really enough, in my opinion.

3. I think that I have unrealistic expectations of friendship. I must because I cant seem to hang onto them for longer than a 5-7 year span and it is the only thing I can tell myself in order to move on. Yes, my whole life has been a series of 5-7 year friendships which then fall apart and then I drift into a different friendship circle which lasts roughly 5-7 years before things change so irrevocably that I feel like my world is collapsing all over again. I am in one of those shifts right now and I am terribly torn apart because I am desperately afraid that there might not be another friendship in the future at all. I am hoping that I am wrong about it this time, that there is time to shift things back into equilibrium, but I am often foolishly optimistic about these friendship things.

4. I am grateful to the people who are close to me right now. I love being asked what I am thinking about or feeling, I so glad you want to know what my crazy kids are up to these days, I love that you feel confident enough to give me intimate gifts in public places. You want so much for me to be able to be strong and make those hard choices and assure me that you are there to help me if I falter. But I am afraid and it isn’t because I have doubts in you, it’s because I have doubts in me.

5. My children’s personalities simultaneously inspire me and frustrate me. Julia’s anxiety mirrors my own in such a painful way, I often turn it around and hate myself in those moments so much because I know that it causes me pain and therefore must make her hurt too. I don’t know what to do about this. Elena’s strength of will impresses me and burns me because while I know that being strong will stand her in good stead throughout her life, the fact that she feels the need to fight me on everything makes me crazy. Jacob’s infallible sense of courage and spunk makes me hold my breath, laugh and fret. I try not to let my composure betray my fears for my children. I think that sometimes this makes me project other emotions. I am working on that too.

6. I have a hard time letting go. This manifests itself in mental, emotional and physical clutter. Some of it I have come to grips with, a lot of it I haven’t. I seem to keep stems of wilted friendships like bad potpourri, poking back into my conscience at odd moments. Some I have wrought upon myself, others I have allowed to fester, some have yet to realize that they have been cut and are wilting at all. All keep me up at nights, thinking about “what ifs” and “if onlys”. I think that I keep the pain, like many survivors of life, in order to remind myself of the journey I have travelled and to make me cautious of what lies ahead. I don’t know that this is all bad.

7. I am a pretty sexual person. I know that this makes some people uncomfortable, but I am glad that I am comfortable in my body. Although I would prefer not having as much post-baby weight and think that exercising might just lift some of this darkness from my soul, I am pretty confident in my sexuality and like the fact that I am uninhibited in a lot of ways. To be sure, I have a plethora of issues that stem from moments best forgotten, but on the whole, I am very satisfied. (Take that as you will, you are probably correct)

8. I am easily hurt. There was a Jewel song that I can’t remember the name of but had a line that I would often sing to myself in quiet moments: “Please be gentle with me, I’m sensitive and I’d like to stay that way.” I may not show it externally but snide comments, brisk snubs and even unintended brush offs, feed into my notion that close friendships do not exist for people like me. Outwardly I tell the world that I don’t care much anyway and that I have other, better, more pressing issues to deal with, but inside I am often so wounded that I retreat into myself and feed the anxiety monster. Churchill called his the Black Dog, but mine is more like a wiggling gnat that burrows and twigs remembrances and past grievances. If you hurt me, you might not ever know it. But I will remember that feeling forever.

9. My memory has been compared to Swiss cheese. Holey, convenient and somewhat sharp on the tongue. I will often have to re-learn ideas and concepts many times and still be able to look confident even when I am fudging it. I didn’t remember how we weaned Julia from the breast or from the bottle in order to do the same with Elena. And now that Jacob is at that stage, I don’t remember what we did with either girl. In fact, I don’t even remember how we got Jacob finally weaned from the breast and that was only a short time ago. (Don’t ask me when that happened, I would have to look it up). These types of memory lapses alternately help me and hurt me. I feel like I am quite an organic responsive teacher in the classroom—I have to pay attention to how the class responds to how I have set up the lesson, even if I have taught it before because I don’t always remember enough minor details about the way they responded the last time to make it the same. Therefore, even though I might teach two sections of the same course, the way they go are completely divergent because I have few expectations about the way the lesson will proceed. Most of the time, kids respond positively to less rigidity, because the end goal remains static, even if the journey there is not. In school it seems to work for me, however, in my personal life people will say to me “But you said this ___ days ago, don’t you remember?” and the answer will always be “Really? Did I say that? Sorry.” It’s not that I don’t mean what I say or that I am dismissive of what is being asked or that I don’t think it is important enough to be remembered, but my brain is just not structured in a way that makes remembering easy. Brain injury will do that to you, I guess.
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25. I love my husband more now than I ever have before. I used to worry that our relationship would suffer from the same 5-7 year purge that all of my other relationships seem to falter but with each child, each move, each career step we’ve taken in almost 10 years together, we have grown closer and more solid in our commitment. Some days it is hard to see the forest for the trees, but we can usually connect back to the heart of our marriage. I am so appreciative of him, even when he makes me frustrated and angry, his personality and mine mesh in a way that makes it possible for me to accept and face whatever lies ahead.