“Take an aspirin,” he growled from under his pillow.
This wasn’t a normal headache. I didn’t know what it was, but I could imagine that at any moment a vessel would rupture and I would be left in that hotel room, blood flowing out of my head, my husband sleeping peacefully ’til late morning when he was ready to wake.
“We’ve got to go. Get up,” I said, slowly getting dressed, as if I could stall the pain by being slow, or quiet, or dark, or forgotten.
“Fuck, Elizabeth!” But he got up. “I’ll drive you, but that’s it.”
While Tom waited, I gathered the baby, the diaper bag, the scribbled directions to the hospital, and my crumbling self.
We got lost on the way. We didn’t know where we were going. A wrong turn added another forty minutes. Tom shouted most of that time. “Goddamit! Why the fuck do you need to go the hospital? This is so stupid.” He didn’t stop until he pulled the Pathfinder up to the emergency room doors, and I fumbled out of the car.
I cringed at the bright white lights of the ER, and felt my way to a nurse. I think I filled out some paperwork, with my eyes squinting and my head a sidewalk beaten by a sledgehammer. A blurry doctor moved me into a room.
“We have to do a cat scan to make sure it’s not an aneurism.”
“Okay.” Anything, anything, just please make the pain to go away.
I sat naked, a needle in my back, then nothing. Whiteness, sleep, no pain, no Tom.
When I opened my eyes again it was some time later. I lay on the table, unaware, drugs still in me. I could only see in shapes and blobs. I remember a Tom-blob walked into the bright, cold room, and threw our son-blob into my arms. I could barely feel my arms, I could barely hold him, my sweet baby, but I knew I had to hold tight. I couldn’t drop him on the hospital floor. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
The doctor came in then and said something to Tom. She sounded angry; he snatched the baby from me. I closed my eyes again and slept.
In that hazy fog of a night, I became clear that Tom would pay for how he treated me and our son for the rest of his life.
A month later, when we got the hospital bill he shouted again, “A three-thousand dollar headache? Are you kidding me!?”
A year later, I left him for a weekend to have an affair.
When he forgave me that, I divorced him.
Chapter 8
Selfish
Inever wanted to be a mother. Not after spending the younger part of my life babysitting my little brother and cousins, while the grown-ups went out to wine tastings and galas. I vowed I would never have kids of my own. They were too much trouble. I wanted to remain unencumbered, free to do as I pleased.
Three years into the fog of a disintegrating marriage with Tom, I noticed a few pains in my belly. Four weeks passed with no bleeding, and I made a side trip to the pharmacy. I remember sitting on the bathroom floor watching a plastic applicator, dreading the color change, and at the same time feeling hopeful. The hope must have come from those primal maternal instincts of amazement and absolute protection of the unborn creature growing inside; biology could be the only explanation for my excitement in an otherwise somber time.
Truth was, I intuitively knew I was pregnant. I knew before I missed my period. I knew before pink parallel lines told me so. That’s why I had declined a glass of wine at our friend’s wedding. And why I would go walking in the woods and put my hand on my tummy and say, “Hello in there.” The pink lines simply confirmed what I had already known. But, somehow the geometry gave me permission to fall head-over-heels in love with the little kidney bean-shaped parasite.
Love. I felt such love.
Then, horror. I could not raise this beautiful creature with a man who was so volatile, so childlike himself.
But how would I be able to raise this child on my own? I was too scared to leave the marriage; I didn’t know where to go. I had to stay, I told myself. Pretend. I could pretend. For the baby. I could do that for my baby.
Turned out, I wasn’t so good at pretending. Every time Tom and I fought, I cringed at what Jack might be interpreting. What would his one-year-old, two-year-old, three-year-old mind think? How could he learn healthy relationship skills from two people who so clearly didn’t understand the game themselves? How could he be happy in this madness? How could I? After a few years, it became clear to me I couldn’t be that woman who stayed, who gave up her entire self for her child. Eventually, I garnered the wisdom that doing so is too much burden on a human being, let alone a child. Still, I felt like a failure. Tom reminded me over and over that I had destroyed our family. “You are so selfish! You have your head in the clouds,” he’d say, lips in a snarl. “Jack needs his mom and dad together.”
Even as Tom shot verbal bullets, I reminded myself what I believed Jack needed: a mamma with spunk, life force, and a fierce commitment to exploring the nooks and crannies of her life and its evolution. How else would he learn to explore and honor his own? Of course, sometimes life and its evolution got messy. Real messy. But authenticity was worth every bit of grind, and crappy truth was better than faux pristine.
My mothering term, thus far, had been a dichotomy of loving my job as a parent and praying I could be “on break” to write or travel or take a nap instead of making egg salad. While getting on the floor and building Lego structures had never been my thing, hugs and kisses and cuddling came effortlessly. I was enamored with the brilliant little mind that invented his own board games and wrote hilarious tales about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Cornflakes. Before he turned middle schooler and worried about looking good, he was a sound machine with vocal chords constantly at play, buzzing, beeping, humming, whizzing, whooping; I could listen to him all day.
Sometimes when I got home from work late and Gabe would be buried in his home office, Jack would call out from his room, wanting a little attention, “Mom, can you get me some orange juice, please?” He’d already been home from school for a couple hours; he’d likely finished his homework and edited a new video he’d created for his YouTube account: Chocolate Thunder.
“Sure,” I’d call back.
I loved him so much. So fucking much.
Loving him was easy.
The hairy part was figuring out how to not screw him up. How could I grow this child so that he became his highest self? The discipline, the encouragement, knowing when to be firm and when to leave room, are hard. As he grew older and became more resistant, my job as his mother toughened. As he was about to turn ten, and the IUD neared its end, I questioned if I really had the energy to raise another. I’d lost the spunk I promised to model for my son, and I wasn’t exactly sure why or how to get my pep back.
“Maybe I’m ill,” I complained to a friend one day.
“Are you eating enough protein?” she asked. “Don’t worry, you don’t have cancer.” She rolled her eyes as she read my thoughts.
“That’s a relief,” I said and laughed.
“Eat more meat,” she ordered.
I didn’t think it was just the meat. Robin’s writing advice megaphoned in my head: “Just write one blog post a week.” For lack of solutions, I finally sat down with my laptop and logged into my blank Wordpress site to write a selfish, sloppy blog post, all for myself, with no concern for editing. Like a stalled, rusty, busted-ass train creaking its way into movement after a decade of neglect, I typed my heart out:
After a woman has spent the entire day making sure the policy report is turned in on time, the case review procedures are written clearly, and she restrains herself from accidently throwing the office equipment through a stump grinder. . . .
. . . after she’s fed herself ten times a day to keep the blood sugar levels at optimum performance, folded someone else’s clothes, made dinner on time so that homework could be completed on time, so that the little one could be in bed on time, so that he could stay focused and happy and ungrumpy the following morning when it starts all over again. . . .
. . . after a woman has made sure tha
t the bacon was cooked not-too-crispy-and-a-bit-chewy, even though she likes it extra crispy . . . after she’s ruined her good red shoes in the mud, hanging the Spring Fling sign at her son’s school. . . .
. . . after she’s let her partner make love to her finally. . . .
. . . after she’s returned the last phone call for the day. . . .
. . . after she’s wiped someone else’s pee off the toilet seat. . . .
. . . well, doesn’t she deserve to be a tad bit selfish?
Besides, when a woman (okay, I won’t speak for all women), when I have not been selfish, even just a little bit, I start to have the desire to stomp on children’s toys, to break dishes, to drive wildly into a white picket fence.
When I have not been selfish, I cry. I rant. I rave. I complain. I bite my nails. I shout out when he asks me for a glass of orange juice. I withhold sex. Worse, I don’t even want to have sex.
I stop showering. My armpits get sticky and smell. And life with me is hell.
So really, oh you dear demons from the past, YES! I am selfish. And yes, this blog is all about me. And yes, had I not been selfish, I would have made your lives more miserable that you already think I have.
So, let’s all go on a selfish ride. Let’s embrace our selfishness. Let’s print T-shirts with the message, “I am selfish, watch me do what ever the hell I want.”
Starting with this blog. My selfish blog. My dirty rotten scoundrel of a delicious, decadent, selfish blog.
It’s great to have a spot on the planet, a tiny little space in and of this world, where I am free to be selfish, whiny, beautiful, grumpy, funny, a rotten mother, mother-of-the-year, flustered, depressed, a slob, antsy, flighty, crying, friends with a vibrator, a dreamer, a story teller.
My own special place where I’m free to create empires or be resigned. A place to do yoga, play tennis, suffer Facebook trauma, eat sushi, have the worstest day of my life, put the toothpaste wherever I want.
My own nook to live in a world of possibility, or settle for less. And finally, thank the Lord, a place where I can lift my head in the clouds as much as I can stand it.
Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine!
Guilty as charged.
P.S. I really do hope more than one person reads this.
Chapter 9
Changes
Friendship weaves a narrative, with plot points and climaxes, tension and comic relief. Friendships are a source of love and companionship, support, play. Challenges, heartache, pain. Maureen and I had fought the last time we’d seen each other; we’d hurt feelings, bruised hearts. All normal experiences over decades for long-haul friends.
I sipped my third cup of green leaf jasmine at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. Gabe and I were in San Francisco for the weekend to attend a wedding, and I was already a bit on edge, trying to pretend watching Gabe’s friends say “I do” hadn’t brought up a few of my own insecurities regarding Gabe’s unwillingness to marry. When I found out that Maureen and her husband, James, happened to be passing through San Fran on a road trip down the California Coast at the same time, we planned a rendezvous. I couldn’t wait to see her; I needed my friend.
Like butterflies, Maureen and I flitter toward each other at certain points in time, then retreat in opposite directions, then back again. She’d been there for me, holding my hand through the divorce and riding shotgun when, after Hurricane Katrina, I needed to drive the last surviving contents of my home across country. She’d been there for me always. Yet, I felt uncertain, like maybe she wouldn’t show up, or maybe she was still angry, or something was left unsaid and she’d decided to drive back to Colorado. She and James were late, very late. With each minute they didn’t arrive, those little anxieties populated like fleas.
The San Francisco day was sunny, though, as it always seemed to be when Maureen was around. The time she came to Michigan to visit me during my first marriage, we had an October Indian summer. After my divorce, in New Orleans, we strolled around the Garden District under a pleasant sun, visiting the famous aboveground St. Louis Cemetery and admiring the mansions on St. Charles Avenue. During a January in Steamboat Springs, we sledded in perfect white powder. We laughed and played, and I didn’t remember being cold at all. In San Francisco that day, as Gabe and I sat in the teahouse waiting for Maureen and her hubby to arrive, the weather was perfect yet again. I knew full well how windy and frigid San Francisco could be, so I decided to push away the concerns and take the dazzling warmth as a divine omen.
Thirty minutes later there was still no sign of them. All my worries came front and center, compounding like financial investments I wish I had. What if she hadn’t forgiven me? What if Gabe never wanted to marry me? What if I had to leave him in order to have another baby? What if I wasn’t cut out to be a writer?
Gabe and I finally paid our bill, a full hour and a half after ordering, and traced our steps back through the meandering gardens of bonsai and water lilies. Slumped, I started to ask Gabe if we could go back to the hotel, when I saw Maureen rushing toward me in a wide-brimmed hat—James just a few steps behind.
“I tried to call you so many times. We slept in. Didn’t hear the alarm. I’m so sorry,” she said, out of breath, as she hugged me.
“We left our cell phones in the car,” I said, irritated that she was late, and irritated that the closest I would come to marriage with Gabe was our family cell plan. But I certainly wasn’t prepared to admit either of those sentiments. I reminded myself to just be happy she showed up at all; it had been a year since we’d seen each other.
To ease the awkward reunion, the four of us set about wandering through rows of roses that bloom through the summer in Golden Gate Park. James and Gabriel rambled up ahead, talking, getting to know each other better. They’d only met a few times before, yet they were linked because Maureen and I were linked. Linked in the way friends for a lifetime hook together: sometimes from choice, sometimes from obligation, and at times, from a stubbornness that forced the friendship to prevail, no matter what. Stubborn is where we were that day. We were devoted still, despite having given up screenwriting over a decade ago. Despite the fact that five years of geographical separation, differing desires, and the nameless weather patterns of life had distanced us.
We lingered behind our chosen men, trying to find a few moments alone. We needed those moments; the threads of separateness remained unwoven, unspoken, and we had to find a way of continuing our weave. I stared ahead as I walked, the late arrival already forgotten; I was simply glad that we were finally together.
“I love reading your blog,” Maureen said.
“Really?”
“Yes! Damn! You’ve gotten to be a great writer. Not that you weren’t one before, but I can definitely tell you’ve been honing your skills.”
Her praise made me happy. And relieved. Maybe I could be a writer, then?
“I totally think you should send that post about your home and the past foreclosure to Newsweek as an article. It’s so well written and poignant. So many people are going through the same thing, so it’s very timely and current.”
“Thank you, maybe I will.” I linked my arm in hers, the giddy college feeling returning. “You are the best fan ever! Will you remind me now and again that you like my writing? Maybe even call me out on it when I don’t write?”
She laughed. “Yes! And if you don’t write, I will tie you down in the snow and make you write.”
I grunted; she knows how much I despise being cold. “That would do the trick. What else is going on in your life?” I asked, appreciating how friendships have a way of falling quite easily back into place, despite differences and distance.
“James and I are trying to have a baby.”
“What? Oh my god . . . really? I . . . really?” I gaped. “Wow, I can’t believe you want to have a baby. I remember you sitting in that house we lived in senior year, homework papers all around you. Remember that dirty house? I hated our roommates. I think they threw a raving p
arty every night. I could never sleep.”
“Oh my god, it was like a frat house,” she groaned.
“And you told me you never, never, wanted to get married and have children. Now look at you!”
“Yes, I know.” She said it dreamy-in-love.
“Shit! Wow . . . how long have you been trying?”
“Just a month. Some people said it might take a while.
“Or maybe not.” I put my hand on my empty belly and conjured up a memory of what it was like to carry a being inside me; how quickly it had happened.
“Are you sure you want to have a child?” I asked her, as she’d seemed so opposed to motherhood before.
She laughed. “James has promised he would take care of it. Believe me, I’m only going to do this once.”
Her words satisfied me, and so did the look on her face, like she’d just eaten the best cheesecake and was now ready for the check.
“Let’s have babies together.” I linked my arm around hers again, a tad excited that dual babies could be a real possibility.
“Do you want another one?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I shrugged the words off like it was no big deal.
“Does Gabe?”
“He says he doesn’t.”
“So what will you do?”
“Nothing for now, I guess. We’ll just have to wait and see.” I detested waiting and seeing.
“James and I were talking earlier,” she said, “We think Gabe would make a great father.”
“Would you tell him that, please?”
“He just has to want to have children.” She spoke with more desperation than I’d shown.
“I know, I know. I’m thinking he’ll come around. If I work on him a bit, he might be persuaded. It would be so fun to be pregnant together. We could paint our bellies and make a memory cast. We could shop for cute little hats and compare morning sickness,” I said, noticing that all my motherhood fantasies took place during the nine months of gestation, none in the years after birth.
The Elegant Out Page 4