See Ya Later, Alligator

Warning: Might not be suitable for small children, teenage boys and/or men with weak constitutions.


Recent text exchange with one of my best girlfriends:

Me: Can I write about your uterus?
Her: Absolutely! LOL!
Me: Can I attach your name to your uterus? Or should you and your uterus remain anonymous? I can call you Jane Doe and your uterus Crazy Susan? Or I could use a combo like Florence and the Mad Machine?
Her: Whatever you want! That’s what friends are for.


Now, I certainly don’t want to brag, fluff my $19.99 Old Navy pencil skirt or toot my own rusted horn but I’m a pretty decent party planner.


I’ve planned countless princess parties with candied apples and sugared roses, scream-worthy Halloween haunts with edible cadavers, 70s pub crawls, Christmas vacation karaoke keggers, scavenger brunch booze cruises, doggie birthday bashes and even an elegant, yet casual, guinea pig wedding in a mere 10 days.


This is probably about the time you are wondering what a party has to do with my friend and her uterus; well that’s because after 32 years of hell hath no fury like a woman on her “flow,” they are finally and quite happily I might add, parting ways.


And what better way to say thank you for tightly swaddling and housing, though cramped, two
beautiful children in comfort, but not necessarily style, for a total of 18 lingering months and eight excruciating days.


An intimate gathering of friends for a proper send-off, of course.


Now, it’s not just a sad and sentimental fare-the-well to her womb, so to speak. It’s also a rockin’ celebratory “don’t let the back door hit you on your way out,” sayonara sweetheart, so long suffering and if we are honest, not so nice knowing ya once a week, every month of every blessed year.


Bye-bye bloating – and later – blinding, backbreaking cramps. Adieu annoying aches, pains and overall discomfort.


It’s hammer time.


So how to you throw a party for such a great occasions as this one? Especially seeing, thanks to modern, less-evasive medicine and insurance companies finally realizing it’s a good thing to get out when you are done helping populate the earth, that these particular shindigs are soon to be all the rage?


I thought of a back yard BBQ with ribs and a smoked butt … seemed a bit macabre; pondered a Susan Sarandon movie marathon … too sappy. Thought about cocktails and dancing the night away a Ziggy’s, but whether you are still lugging around your half-pound uterus or not … too exhausting, at least at our age.


So, it looks like it’s going to be a small gathering of good friends with Champagne and a bonfire where she can toss all of her unused Playtex boxes into a roaring pit of flames and finally be done with it all once and for all while blaring George Michael’s “Freedom.” Then, we’ll do what we usually do. Sit on Alicia’s back porch, order Locos, sip on some wine, visit, laugh, chat, probably cry but we’ll always be merry because we have each other. Through thick and thin, surgeries and successes, pain and loss, trials and tribulations, we will always be friends.


It’s interesting to note that even today some people feel if they lose a part of themselves that makes them “female” it makes them less of a woman. There is always this judgy-ness about what is more female and what is less and sadly, it comes mainly from other females. If you don’t breastfeed, you’re less of a woman. If you choose a career over child rearing … less of a woman. If you have a C-section instead of a natural birth … you’re less of a woman. But we all know, deep down, boobs and uteruses and ovaries do not a woman make. A woman is a real woman because of her character and depth not her parts.


My friend Jennifer is a real woman because:


She raised two smart, beautiful kids all on her own with hardly any help and never, ever complains.


She is a real woman because even when suffering she is engaged; an active seeker and nurturer of life and all the good that’s in it.


She is a real woman because she is loyal, a steadfast friend to the end.


She is true and good and just so very lovely.


So here’s to Jennifer and all the other women out there celebrating letting go, moving on and living large.


See you around the bonfire.

Rearview Mirror of Motherhood

Hindsight, they say, is 20/20.


Yes, you can really only see clearly once everything is behind you and you’ve had time to reflect.

Only, I like a little realism with my reality if you know what I’m saying. As in, hindsight should be called plain old mean, inevitable, a big “I told you so,” or even a “nanny nanny boo boo” in this game called life. For me, hindsight is akin to age spots, frown lines, laugh lines and wild hairs. If you live long enough, they sprout out of nowhere and slap you in the face without even saying I’m sorry.


I was thinking about this the other morning after my kids stopped fighting over the phone charger long enough to notice that I did indeed exist. They do this from time to time like when they desperately need more milk for their cereal because they forget where the fridge is located or a towel because they don’t remember what a linen closet looks like.


“Hey, mom. What do want for Mother’s Day this year?” one of them asks while trying to untangle the cord from her sister’s neck. I pretend not to notice because let’s face it, I’m too tired and she’s still breathing.


“Peace of mind.” I say this firmly, on autopilot, without even thinking. But it stops me in my tracks.


My girls, however, roll their eyes, mouth something to each other in pig Latin and commence to wrestle.


See, growing up, every single time my mom was asked what she wanted she always said, and I mean every single time, those same three words: Peace of Mind.


And my brother and I would roll our eyes, snicker and continue to beat each other over the head with the Atari console because one of us was hogging Pac Man.


It seems these days, praying for peace of mind now that I have a few years under the belt as mom has become a daily occurrence: When I step over three soppy wet towels to find my fancy conditioner bottle empty and my missing flat iron flung on the back of the toilet seat next to my favorite layering sweater: Please, bring me Peace of Mind.


Having my moral compass questioned as someone who “always goes back on her word” in a busy
department store dressing room when, by promising to buy new bath suit, I did not mean a $178 Lilly Pulitzer one: Peace of Mind. (I’ll even take just five minutes worth.)


Listening to a barrage of “you never get me,” “why are you so mean,” and “how did I get so unlucky,” when I’m only trying to band-aid, clothe, feed, discipline and parent. Come on Peace of Mind. Where are you when I need you?


So, as I look at hindsight in my own mirror, I just want to take a little time and do something I should have done long ago. I’m sorry mom and I love you.


Mom, I am sorry I said you were the meanest mother ever and I hated you because my curfew was an hour earlier than my friends. I love you.


I feel awful for glaring daggers and huffing off when you made me do the dishes, feed/bath/walk the dog, clean my room, babysit to help pay for designer jeans, get a summer job because when I just wanted to hang out with my friends while all you were trying to do was teach me responsibility. I love you.


I’m sorry I yelled, talked back and slammed doors and told you “you don’t know anything” when all you were doing was trying to teach me right from wrong. I love you.


And I’m sorry for all the times I rolled my eyes, ignored you or took you for granted when you tried to help me parent my own children because I stubbornly and willfully disregarded the fact that you had been there, done that years before and were only trying to help me because you love me. I love you, too.


I think this Mother’s Day, as we look in the rearview mirror of our own motherhood, and yes, fatherhood, when we call, lunch, brunch or visit with our moms (those of us who are still so very lucky), we should remember how unbelievably hard all of this living life stuff truly is.


Mom, I appreciate you. I love you. Always have. Always will.


And for those of us, who are now living in the thick of it all, knee deep screaming and kicking our way through, let us remember some of the hardest parts will all be over, though sadly, soon enough.
And even then, Peace of Mind may not be so easily found because, as our own mother’s remind us, even when our children are grown and flown, we will still worry about them, cry when they cry, hurt when they hurt, want to fix everything even though we know we can’t.


So keep on keeping on by celebrating the big moments, find humor and grace in the little ones and lean on your mom when it’s tough. No one said it would be easy. No one told us it would be this hard, either. (Maybe they did, but we were too busy being right to listen.) But as our moms tell us over and over again, it’s definitely all worth it.


Happy Mother’s Day, y’all!