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!

A Southern Yard Sale Story

I am here to tell you I survived, but just barely, one of America's most treasured innovations; the good old-fashioned yard sale.


Some folks may argue that a yard (or attic or garage) sale is simply a way to dump unwanted crap and call it a day.


True, but let's be honest here, because whatever you decide to call a private transaction of gently used goods from one fine citizen to another, the sale is not really a sale at all; it's a blood sport.


Why would I openly invite hostility into  my otherwise serene surroundings, anyway, you may be wondering right about now? Well, the reason is two-fold. One Charlie wanted to put our old side-by-side fridge on Craigslist so he could park in the garage. I hear Craigslist, and people, I think MURDER. I dare you, Google it. It's frightening. However, my husband argues that giving our address out in the paper isn't any different. But if you like to gamble and I really, really do but not with my life., your local paper with an audience of 18,000 is less likely to catch the eye of a serial killer than sending it out there to the entire 7 billion who roam the earth.


The second reason is my Aunt Pam. She is my relative who can slug down her morning Metamucil, enjoy a good 2-hour discourse on bowel functioning, while draining two pots of coffee before noon when she finally decides to get dressed. She is a hoot and a half, and as I've described her before, sweeter than molasses but tougher than a $2 dollar steak in the scratch and dent bin in the Piggly Wiggly. I just adore her.


Any-hoo, she loves herself a good yard sale, I mean LOVES it. As she puts it, "It's the most exciting, legal thing you can do."


And I know this because I have seen her in action at my grandmother's estate sale in Athens all those years ago right after she passed:


"Norma would have wanted me to have those art deco dishes," the not-so-friendly neighbor lady told Pam.


"Yes, of course, she would. But only if you paid $10 for them."


When two ladies grabbed grandma's black, cordless telephone at the same time and commenced to wrestle, Aunt Pam walked up to the dynamic duo all the while yelling, "Hold the phone! Hold the phone!" (Get it, hold the phone? Gosh, I love puns, especially when they are unintentional.)


"Ladies, look. You can stroll on down to the Wal-Mart and get one for $19.99. I know because I bought it there for mama. Now, I don't think losing a limb nor life is worth a cheap old piece of plastic and wires. Figure it out and don't forget to pay the lady at the door."


Now granted this was an estate sale, which as Aunt Pam explains, "Is the catnip these people live for."


So, therefore, I can only assume a little yard sale is akin to the "dingle-berries" she has to snip off when she grooms her beloved kitty, Busy.


Charlie whole heartedly agrees. The last yard sale he helped with was after our Columbia move in 2001.


He still can't talk about it.


So Pam said she'd step up and down she came f rom Raleigh.


Now, before we could even talk about pricing, she held a back porch bourbon and Coke meeting, where we discussed 'the ten rules to a successful yard sale':


1. No checks, that's what the ATM is for.
2. Holding is for infants. If you hold an item, you gotta give me ten.
3. If you're rude, you hit the streets.
4. If something is heavy, this girl is not heftin' the end outta here. Best go back and get a buddy.
5. Hold your pricing notebook close to the vest, I have known people to walk around and stare over your shoulder.
6. Never accept a "bundle." I never bundle anything unless the show's almost over or you are too cute for words.
7. If someone insults your stuff and tells you it's not worth anything, then you explain to them that it just came out of your house. "Would I insult your stuff? I don't think so."
8. Again, if someone is rude, you ask them to hit the street.
9. Always have a lot of change with you and lock the doors to the house. People will try and find their way in. Trust me.
10. Last but not least, staging is key. You must make it look as good as possible -as in...damn; I want that........used litter box., broken tennis racket or whatever.


Charlie had already said he'd be a no-show, but he did put in his two-cents on rule #9 and asked Pam not to store "the change" in her bra seeing as it was 110 degrees outside and all that. See, he knows too well that's how Pam gets away with not paying for dinner.


"I'll throw in a twenty," she'll tell him, tucking into her shirt.
"Uh-that's okay. We got it."
She stuffs it back in.


But to make a short story long, I guess right about now, y'all are wondering how the yard sale went.


Well, it was actually a pretty big bust. After paying for the ad, we walked away with $51.50 and 95% of our stuff still lying around where we left it. We did donate it all to the Boys and Girls Club thrift shop, and it ends up our stuff will help out it some small way.


As Aunt Pam also wisely reminded us, "If you are not in the mood for a side-by-side refrigerator, you are not in the mood for a side-by-side refrigerator."


But I will tell you one thing; it was a lot of fun hanging out watching my aunt in her element.


If we'd never had the sale, I never would have been privileged to watch the showdown Aunt Pam and an (insert Pam's air quotes) antique dealer had while they haggled for 35 minutes over a circa 1997 leather jacket I think Charlie picked up at an airport:


"You're tough," antiques dealer tells her.
"It's not my first rodeo," she says back.
"Mine, either."
"I know."


That, my friends, is why family, not stuff, is worth its weight in gold.

To Boobs and Back Again: A Story on Personal Growth

 

Email exchange with the editor of Coastal Illustrated:

“Hey Bob!  Hope this finds you well and somewhat warm.  I can’t feel my left pinkie toe but what the hay…because you will be happy to know it’s my birthday next Tuesday!  You may or may not be excited about my birthday (have one every year, so nothing new) or particularly concerned about my toe (seeing as it will eventually thaw and does anyone really need a pinkie toe anyway) but more specifically because I fly out early, early Wednesday AM to Costa Rica which means …drum roll please… I will get my article to you by Monday (writers note: early for me never, ever happens).  Oh, and can I write about boobs?  In a tasteful way, of course :)  As if, there is any other way, right? La”

“I’m sure it will be tasteful.  Be careful sending pictures though.  Happy Birthday, La.  Your toe should thaw in Costa Rica.”

                That’s why Bob makes the big bucks; he’s totally right.  About the pictures.  Oh, and curse words but that’s another story.

                But for me, what’s important here isn’t the vaca, the weather or the word that begins with “b”, rhymes with tubes and makes grown men giggle.  It’s my annual “woe is me”, “oh holy, crap”, I’m getting another year older so I’ll keep waxing philosophical while getting up every hour on the hour to pee column.

                It seems my birthday always coincides with the first of the year- or rather… the symbolic start of new beginnings, fresh (not stale) do-over s and over-the-top promises, props and pathways to all sorts of untapped potential.   So you’ll have to just bear with me.

                Almost ten years ago, at 32, I was in the same, questioning place.  Only ten times more woeful.

                The difference was I had just had my second baby.  Gosh, she was gorgeous.  She had freckles like fairy dust, baby blues as crisp as a fresh fall sky and dimples as deep as a canyon.  I WAS IN LOVE. 

                But the awful, scary truth was I absolutely could not, no matter how hard or how fiercely I tried breastfeed that precious baby.

                And let me tell you I tried everything.  But nothing worked.

                What did happen was I developed a really bad infection in my left mammary gland that would burn so bad I could feel it shoot through my chest, all around my brain and straight down my back all the while I was nursing. 

                 I would weep, y’all.  Seriously.  Three weeks in and they would bring my happy, pudgy, everyone sneaking her formula-fed baby into to see me, and I’d crumple in a big, bad puddle of failure.  It got to be so I would cry at the sight of that gorgeous baby-not because I didn’t love her- but because I Was THE WORST MOTHER EVER.   I was depriving her of something she so desperately needed.

                “Breast is best.”

“Breast is best.”

Even though my pediatrician kept telling me she will still go to college without all that colostrum.  I still figured I screwed it all up.

Finally, I friend sat me down and gave me a talking to.

“Look, if you’re going to cry every time you see her because it hurts so much just to feed her then get over yourself already and enjoy your baby.  Here’s the bottle.  You’re welcome. Plus, Publix is slap out of cabbage leaves and were defrosting your freezer.”

Flash forward two years later.

The baby is healthy and happy, but mom is not.  She-I-can’t get over how much everything has changed.  It’s not just the sleepless nights and the spit up; the soiled sheets and the contaminated diaper genies.  It’s the fact and very real truth that slaps me the face every day when I get out of the one minute shower with my other toddler strap to my knee.  My boobs- that were nothing to brag about to begin with- were now sliding their merry way down to the equator near the Galapagos Islands looking to board Charles Darwin’s ship.   

Y’all.  I had never seen anything like it.  And in my post-partum, unequally sized shaped, dimpled and destroyed girls seemed to be telling me:

“Breast is best.”

“Breast is best.”

So I went in.

I can’t say getting implants was the worst decision I ever made almost eight years ago.  After all, I have sadly but happily been making many, many mistakes ever since.

I guess I just put a value on my body and my role in my life that said- “wait… not so fast.  I don’t’ want to get older, look older, not quite yet.”

See, in my 30’s, I felt that if I looked good, I’d feel good.

In my 30’s, if I wanted people to like me, I had to present “me” in a certain neat, pretty-packaged, likable way.

Now, in my 40’s, I really don’t give a damn. (Sorry, Bob.)

Turns out growing older is a pretty good gig after all. As long as you get it.

I removed my implants this past summer.  I can tell you it was one of the wiser decisions I have ever made.  I feel lighter…….. in so many ways.

Though my boobs still do point straight down South to the equator.  But who cares…I’m heading there now as we speak.

Are breasts really best?

Nah’.  Life is.