Oxygen

I have a scar where they took my bandage off

The corners of a large rectangle
That covered the place
Where they took out my children

The edges stuck
So the skin came off 

They still stand
Like little darkened picture corners
Framing a smile shaped scar

My thighs are bigger
Enjoying more closeness than ever before

My skin is softer
Smushier

My hips and ribcage will likely never “go back down”

Long ago I was a size 24

TWENTY FOUR

I was sort of brand new

Just wading into life

Now I’m waist deep 

Two kids

One love

Zero escapes hatches

All the cliches and all the cups of coffee and quiet crazy mornings
That you see in 80’s sitcoms

Are my life

They are the best parts of the universe

My favorite threads
All sewn together

It’s hard being a Mother

A parent too

But Mothers

There’s just something about us

We are the givers of life
Our children live off our bodies

For longer than they tell you at the doctor

The physical toll is seemingly immeasurable
Outstretched only
By the emotional one

Both my children are the light of the world
The light of my life
And the reason I don’t sleep
Like ever

Both my pregnancies were marred by too much physical exertion
It was hard for me not to push myself

As so much control
Over my own body
Was wrested away from me

My second nearly arrived a month early
I was dehydrated
Exhausted
Insanely fixated on replacing all my disgusting “regular” planters
With pristine white glossy ceramic ones

One morning
While pouring my daughters oatmeal
I dropped suddenly to the floor
As my other daughter bore down on the exit
For a few terrifying moments I thought I would have her right there in the kitchen

An emergency trip to the doctor held her off
I was placed on temporary bedrest

Given a giant shot to speed the development of her lungs
Should she try to escape again

I was admonished
As I have been seemingly admonished my whole life
To “Slow down”

“Take it easy”
“Rest”
“Ask for help”

To “take better care of myself”

One night

Daddy was playing a show

I was up nursing my newest one
When my first daughter awoke from a nightmare in her room
Crying for Mommy

That moment
Was terrible

In that moment

My life was an impossible task

What could I do

Remove my new baby and lay her down to scream
While milk shot everywhere

Could I leave my first daughter alone in the dark with her fears

She’s older
She would fall back to sleep soon

My heart tore in my chest

In a split second
A million things
And a million plans of action raced through my head

How could I be two places at once

I couldn’t 

So I pressed my baby to my breast
Swung my legs off the bed

And ran to my daughters room
Holding my tiny suckling infant

My first born laid her head in my lap on the foot of the bed
And I stroked her hair with my free hand until she fell back to sleep

I draped a blanket over her legs

And carried my nursing babe back to our room
Burped her
Laid her down

Relaxed into the pillows and cried

Not even because I was sad

It just seemed like the thing to do

The exhaustion that accompanies Motherhood can be crippling

That’s really what I want to write about

I want to write about 

The rejuvenating joy on my daughters faces

I want to write about the times I hide in the shower

So I don’t hear the crying

The days that seem full of rapture and wonder

The days that seem like I do nothing but fail and lose my temper

I want to especially write about how others interpret this exhaustion

About the times well meaning people shake their head and encourage me to “To sleep more and eat better and get out more”

Upon writing this

My children are 2 and half 

And 5 months

One can run away from me in parking lots

While the other is mobile enough to potentially roll off the bed 

But not strong enough to sit up on her own yet

Even the smallest everyday outings can seem daunting

I cowboy up

Wrestle the car seats and the strollers and the cups and pacifiers and blankets and burp cloths

I try to make sure they both get semi regular baths

Add in nursing my youngest every 3-4 hours and you have a perfect storm of pending burn out

A month ago

The lymph nodes in my throat became swollen and painful

My joints started to ache constantly

Every morning I woke up feeling hungover 

Without the fun night of drinking to precede it

I thought of going to the doctor

I thought of taking more vitamins

I thought of eating more leafy greens

I thought of all the things that were wrong with me

Things preventing me from being a ‘Better” Mother

I never once thought of slowing down or asking for help

My job was to get all the jobs done

My body would have to wait

So one afternoon 

While carrying the baby down the stairs

The horizon started to spin

I put one arm out for the railing
Clamped my eyes shut and fought the pending black out while my knees started to buckle

I took a deep breath and it began to pass

I turned and went carefully back up the stairs
Laid her in her crib and asked for help

My throat began to throb
My joints began to scream
Before I knew what was what I was being bustled off to an “Open Late” clinic
Instead of the ER

Upon checking all my vitals and running some tests
One of which included following a trailing finger with my eyes
Something I was unable to do
The doctor came in
Sat down in front of me

And very solemnly informed me that I had no apparent illness

Then he looked at me like maybe he had a daughter about my age and said

“You’re exhausted. Your body can’t take anymore and it’s shutting down. If you don’t get rest and fluids and more rest…you will be in the hospital very soon, and things will be a lot worse.”

He leaned in a bit for emphasis and continued

“I don’t care who you have to call, or what you have to do. You MUST rest.”

I nodded and gave him all the assurance that I would “take better care of myself”

When we got home
Baby Daddy put me to bed with a giant cup of water and a promise to tend to the baby when she woke

Instructing me sternly to not do “One damn thing”

My face burned red with shame and a little bit of anger

Here I am 37 years old with two kids
Being scolded by practically everyone
To do something I wold love to do

Get plenty of rest 

I scrolled though some text messages before falling asleep

All telling me to take better care of myself
Make time for me

I grumbled a little in my brain
These people didn’t understand what my life was like
Trying to do everything right and take care of everyone

If I took time out for myself
Things would start to fall through the cracks

Looking at things objectively told me
Things were already avalanching through the cracks

I was a shambles
My children and My Love were getting a second rate me on the daily

Quick to anger and sadness
Always tired
Too busy to play
Too exhausted for “One more time Mommy”

My phone lit up with a text from a Mom friend
A Mom with two kids similar to mine in age
Married to a musician
She disciplined the way I disciplined
Co slept
Nursed
The similarities removed any chance of her being unable “to understand”

After showing some Mom solidarity and offering to come help me with the girls so I could actually rest

She said something really simple and really revolutionary to me

“It’s easy to forget about yourself with two babies…but ultimately, you have to get yourself oxygen first before you can help anyone else. (as instructed when you fly)

It was so clear

Here I was
Literally passing out
While scrambling to hold the mask for everyone around me

I had everything in the wrong order
While trying to do the best for my family by putting myself last
I was actually doing them a giant disservice 

Not to mention letting myself atrophy into a very unlikable human

“Children don’t need perfect parents, they need happy parents.”

In my quest to be a “better Mother”

We were all going without oxygen 

I could expound on the ironies

But I think the major points are as follows:

1. Don’t tell people to rest and take better care of themselves if you are not willing to involve yourself in that process. After my  Mother passed away, so many people said to me, “please call me if there’s anything I can do.”  While very well intentioned, this is total bullshit. It makes you feel like you’ve done something helpful and puts all the responsibility of your actually helping on the bereaved. IT IS NOT HELPFUL. The same goes for over exhausted parents…or anyone going through anything. If you really want to help. JUST HELP.  Show up with a plan to help.  Of all the cards and messages of sympathy I received during that time, two things stand out to me still. The girl who came to my house and cleaned it top to bottom while we were at the funeral home picking out caskets, (she even did the laundry)…and whoever it was that sent us gift cards to all the nicer restaurants in town and one to a grocery store. If a friend a spouse or someone you care about is exhibiting symptoms of sinking. Don’t call and say “Take better care of yourself.” Show up with soup. Hold the baby for 30 minutes. Call and say, “I’m at the grocery store right now, what do you need.” Don’t take ‘No’ for an answer. That’s not to say a well penned letter of encouragement doesn’t mean anything…it does. It means you should be willing to follow intention with action for the people you care about.
2. You are responsible for your own welfare. You can’t moan and complain and martyr yourself on the alter of self sacrifice if you are unwilling to ask for and accept help. This one is very hard for me. VERY HARD FOR ME. It’s one of my worst qualities. I’m not sure where I learned it…maybe from my summer camp type childhood. I can literally be on the brink of death, and you will walk away thinking I’m better than I ever have been. This is also bullshit, and does no one any favors. If your life is too much. Edit. Delegate. Ask for help…and receive said help gratefully in what ever package it comes to you in. Don’t be a hero. Make an effort to get to the bottom of whatever emotional trauma is causing to climb up onto any particular cross.
3. Learn to say no. It’s a wonderful wonderful thing to say no. If you have too many plates spinning…don’t try to dream up ways to juggle them more efficiently. You’re just a human being for God’s sake. GET RID OF SOME PLATES. The truth is, life is like walking down the beach and collecting shells. A favorite pastime of mine. You can only hold so many shells before shit starts to get ridiculous, and the beauty and awe of walking down the beach is ruined by craving fingers and seashells stashed in places they shouldn’t be. Don’t be greedy with life. Accept the weight of things that are really important to you, (They are much fewer in number than you would think) and release the rest back to the ocean. You can’t have everything and have it effectively. In the immortal words of Wesley in Princess Bride, “Anyone who says differently is selling something.”
4. Really say yes to the things you say yes to. Make sure they are in the proper order. Give your whole self to those things. I love my family the most. I love myself a good bit too, and thats good. My girls need to see me loving myself, and as mentioned before, the people that I love deserve a me that celebrates herself. I love to cook food for people. I love to write. I love to garden, and I love to communicate with the world around me and help to foster empathy and healthy living. These are my top tier things. My friends come after that…since most of them are family…and then comes all the other fluff that seems so important to accomplish. Writing a bestseller. Opening a vintage shop that serves food from my garden. Branding my own line of witty yet obscurely worded t-shirts. Becoming a Beauty Counter Director and spreading awareness about nontoxic lifestyle choices. Buying a beach bungalow. It’s very much like the scripture says…whether you believe in scripture or not. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and righteousness, and all the other things will be added to you.” In other words: Go after what’s good and actually important in life. The frosting will come together on it’s own.
5. PUT YOUR PHONE DOWN. Social media and smart phones have made us all sort of mushy brained and disinterested. As my sister friend Savannah once told me, after I bemoaned that my social media skills should be better and I should post more interesting things and build some sort of brand etc etc and blah blah blah…she said, “No you shouldn’t…because you are busy actually living your life.” Simple but true. Social media isn’t evil, and I do love to post what’s happening with my family and things that I love and products I’m using, and I love to see the everyday happenings in the life’s of people I don’t see everyday. Like my cousin in San Diego…and all my Unicorns in Birmingham. It should be remembered that social media is only a substitute for real interaction, and should NEVER REPLACE IT. My personal wake up call came when my two year old had asked me to do something and I put her off to answer an email on my phone. She placed her little hand on the screen of my phone and pushed it down away from me. When I looked up into her startlingly beautiful face, she was very solemn and with quiet mystical awareness and authority she said, “No Mommy. Phone down. Come and dance.” I scooped her up into my arms and cried a little into her hair and we dance and danced and danced….and my phone nearly took a short trip to the garbage disposal. It occurred to me while we swayed, that all through out my broken family child hood, I never saw any of the adults in my life absorbed into a telephone screen. Sometimes they were busy with tasks or they were reading…but I never had to compete with a palm sized computer for their attention. I decided that day, my children would never have to do that either.
6. Don’t get sucked into the “Better trap”. Ignore any impulse that tells you you aren’t enough. What does “better’ really mean anymore anyway. It’s such a relative term. I am better than so and so at this particular thing. So and so is better than me at another thing. Wealth is better than poverty. Health is better than sickness. More is better than less. All of these things are conditional. Wealth isn’t better if you are lonely and miserable and consumed by your possessions. Health isn’t better if you aren’t using your health to live an enjoyable life. More is almost always not better…unless it’s more memories and experiences and time with people you love. Now, don’t get it twisted, I one hundo percent agree with Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof when he proclaims after being admonished by a young revolutionary that ‘money is the worlds curse’…”Then may the Lord smite me with it! And may I never recover!” I’m down with wealth, and health and more of the good stuff. But none of it will make me better, if I’m not already happy with myself. Being a “better” Mother won’t do my children any good. Being a present, happy, maker of mistakes type Mother will serve them immensely in life…and it will relieve them of growing up always feeling like they aren’t enough.
7. Your mask has to go on first. Making yourself a priority may seem selfish, but it’s the exact opposite. You can’t save a drowning man if you’re too tired to swim. I can’t do and be all the things my family needs if I am addled by exhaustion and running on fumes. This one is the hardest one for me. I have always put doing things ahead of resting. For example: When I was in first grade I came down with Scarlet Fever. No one knew it though, because I was out running and jumping and playing on the playground…with a 104 degree temperature. Nothing got in the way of my recess. I remember feeling pretty bad, but recess was my favorite and I wasn’t going to spend it in the nurses office. When we came in for nap, my teacher noticed me scratching at my neck and stomach. When she investigated, she discovered an angry red rash, a high fever and a seriously ill child. My Mother was called to the school. All the other kids were quarantined away. I was rushed to the doctor and then placed on antibiotics and bed rest for like four days….in kid time, that’s a veritable ETERNITY. Later when I was home in bed, recovering from my fever, but dying from boredom…I complained to my Mom about how unfair it was that I couldn’t play outside. She doled out some fairly sage Mom advice and patted my head and handed me some coloring books. “Honey, If you want to be able to play outside and do all the things you love to do, you have to rest when you feel bad. Otherwise you’ll get really sick and be in bed for much longer than you would have if you had just rested in the first place” If you want to play. If you want to enjoy your life fully and not be worn down. Rest when you’re tired. Book a spa day when you don’t have the money or time for it. Take a long shower and go to bed early. What ever rejuvenates you needs to be a regular and mandatory thing. For me, it’s eating alone and pedicures. If I can get a pedicure and then go sit at the bar in some nicer restaurant and eat,  and drink a glass of wine all by myself…I’m right as rain. If I can do those things and go to bed by 10 and get up at 6…I’m the best me there is. In my family those things…and a few others…go on the calendar and are scheduled in as things that take precedence over almost anything else.

Mommy days help keep the mask on.

To sum up. There are days that I practice what I just preached, and days that I don’t. There are obviously times when pressing through is the only option. The moral of the story is: make a concerted effort to change your daily habits so that they benefit you. Get up early and go to bed even earlier. Hand the baby off and go for a quick walk. Get yourself and your kids outside. Even if the weather isn’t ideal. ( I mean the kids in Finland play outside in the snow banks sooooo ). Eat well and drink good wine. Be your own advocate, and surround yourself with people who actually help, instead of suggesting it all the time.

Most importantly. Revel in the ones you love. 
Make everyday count towards furthering your happiness. 
Rest when you need to, so you can play when you want to.

Taking care of yourself…is taking care of everyone else.