Grief And The Maiden

 My mother has been gone for a month now. I wasn't sad about her passing. She had suffered a lot in her last few years between the diabetes that ravaged her kidneys & necessitated surgery to create 2 different fistulas, then thrice weekly dialysis, along with dementia & heart disease, plus loss of mobility, falls, weakness, a significant change in personality & towards the end, incontinence. Her quality of life had totally diminished & it basically revolved around her dialysis schedule & doctor's appointments, with a few fun outings thrown in there. Still, she was a presence in my parent's house, sitting there, in her recliner chair, with the TV remote & phone nearby, watching endless hours of "Murder She Wrote", "Monk" or ridiculously bad Hallmark & Lifetime movies, sometimes game shows or the local news. 

There was still a spark of the disapproving mother I had always known, even towards the end, when she was hospitalized after her peritoneal fistula failed & was unable to be fixed by the vascular surgeon. The decision had been made by her medical team, that stopping dialysis and having her transfer into hospice care was the only option, since her veins were not viable, one kidney wasn't functioning anymore & the other was working only at about 10%... I knew that renal failure was quick & took about 2 weeks for a person to die, thanks to a hospice nurse friend. So, I also knew that before things got worse, I needed to ask my mom some questions. When I did, I got a typical response, "Ellen, stop quizzing me. Leave me alone!". I wasn't mad, because I knew she was tired & her dementia addled brain simply couldn't handle the things I was asking of her... I laughed, because it also showed me that she still had some fight left in her. It was the last "real" conversation we had & it epitomized our relationship.

From the time I was a toddler, my mother & I were at odds. I could never accept "No." for an answer & instead of being a nice, compliant child, I always argued back... I was strong willed & stubborn & would try my damnedest to wear her down, so I could get my way. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time it just created tension & a battle of wills. I loved testing the limits... I still do. 

I suppose that it had something to do with the fact that at 9 months old, I was sent to stay with my Aunt & Uncle in Des Moines, because my mother had slipped a disc in her spine when she was pregnant with me & needed to have major surgery to repair it. She wouldn't be able to hold me or carry me during her recovery, so instead of hiring a nanny or caretaker, or having my father take time off work to care for me (this was long before the days of FMLA) the decision was made to send me to relatives. My cousins loved having a little doll to play with & I'm sure I loved having 3 instant siblings to fuss over me. I took my first steps at their house & used to think it was hilarious to pour out all of the kibble from their dog Rascal's food bowl all over the kitchen floor. I called my Aunt Lila "Mommy" & was thoroughly confused when I was returned to my parents, after being in Des Moines for 3 months. I was also apparently the reason my Aunt & Uncle never had a 4th child! And although it all worked out, I'm sure that son some level, I had a sense of abandonment. How could a mother give up her only child like that, for even a few days?

I do remember my mother being AMAZING if I was ever sick, which was rare & if I were ever hungry, she was a fantastic cook, although I was an extremely picky eater. I did love her Jell-O molds & the fabulous meals she'd make for Jewish holidays, like brisket & matzoh ball soup. Yet when it came to academics or athletic performance (I did dance, gymnastics & briefly ice skating), there was ALWAYS judgment & disapproval. If you got a B, it should've been an A. If you came in 2nd place in a regional competition, it should've been 1st. There was NEVER any praise for the great job that I did manage to do, only scorn at the fact that I could've & should've done better. The message that was firmly planted in my psyche was "You're not good enough.". And of course, I internalized that. 

I was always good at writing, artistic pursuits (drawing, painting, collages & anything creative), as well as the biological sciences... I was fascinated with nature & animals & I used to read my grandmother's National Geographic magazines from cover to cover, whenever I'd visit her. I would spend hours underneath her mahogany dining room table, with the claw & ball feet, writing & illustrating stories, while sucking on the Brach's sour balls candy, that she had in abundance, in the crystal candy dish that resided in the middle of her round, mid-century living room table. My grandmother was not a warm, loving, demonstrative person, so I'm sure she was happy that I could entertain myself, while she sat in her favorite chair, smoking Winston's, reading the paper or talking in the phone to her friends. She always loved whatever creations I made & sometimes, a particularly good drawing would end up being displayed on her refrigerator. Unlike my mother, who would tear me apart for being so "bad" at math (it was never my strong suit), instead of praising my artistic abilities or writing skill.

In facr, in the 3rd grade, I wrote & illustrated a story about a mole, cleverly drawn with white crayon on black & brown constriction paper, to show how dark it was underground, which actually got entered into the Illinois Young Artist's contest & my story made it all the way to Springfield. My teacher, Miss Moy, who I adored, was VERY excited & proud. Much more so than my own mother. I remember being so disappointed that I didn't get a prize, but Miss Moy, who was a kind, creative, nurturing mentor (and is still my favorite teacher to this day), told me how lucky I was to have made it that far, to the "finals" & that I should be really proud of myself. I wasn't, but she knew how to put a positive spin on it for me, versus the disapproval & judgment I got at home. I'm sure my mother WAS quite proud of me & my accomplishments, but she NEVER showed it, not to me anyway.

Throughout my high school, college & early adult life, ALL I got from my mother was the same message, slightly varied, but always that my efforts weren't ever good enough, nor were my choices in jobs, friends or boyfriends... I made "bad" decisions & when THE most traumatic thing that has ever happened to me, after the breakup of a bad relationship in my early 20's occurred, instead of providing comfort & empathy, my mother BLAMED me for it. It was the ultimate form of parental rejection & gaslighting... It's a wonder I had ANY self-esteem growing up! And to be fair, I found out years later that she did the SAME thing to my sister, when she didn't medal in a high school swim team event or when she ran off to Las Vegas to marry her African American husband, who was a musician with dreadlocks (the horror of her middle class, Jewish daughter doing such a scandalous, rebellious thing was almost too much to bear). When my mother had a heart attack in 2002, she apparently blamed my sister for it. Nevermind the fact that she was overweight, didn't eat a healthy diet or exercise & she is genetically predisposed to heart disease, thanks to our wonderful Ashkenazi DNA. Her daughters were clearly doing these things to punish HER & she was going to make sure we knew it! She was a martyr.

My mother grew up during war time, as the youngest daughter of a doctor & a teacher, both immigrants, who were college educated, which was almost unheard of. She was quiet, pretty & smart. She grew up in a household with a sister who was 8 years older than her, 2 parents who were emotionally unavailable, where education was paramount & finishing the food on your dinner plate was required, because "there were children starving in Europe". She rebelled quietly, in her own way, but ultimately led a very sheltered life. Her father died of a heart attack when she was in college (on a full academic scholarship to Roosevelt University in Chicago) & she lived with her mother until she married my Dad in 1966. She became a teacher, like my grandmother & Aunt had, then a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, while my father was the breadwinner (back int he days when you could raise a family on one salary) until my sister was old enough to go to full day kindergarten, then she went back to teaching. I'm SURE she felt unfulfilled, since most of her high school friends went away to college & married wealthier guys than my father. She was smart enough to have been a doctor or a lawyer, but back in the 50's & 60's, girls weren't given the message that they could do or be "anything". I'm also sure that losing her father, who she was close with, was traumatic & I know she dealt with it as an adult by overeating. She battled her weight for as long as I can remember, trying every fad diet, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Richard Simmons exercise plans, books, the lot... 

Yet I would always find her food stashes, especially the chocolate candy & cookies she hid. Her overeating was an example to me of what NOT to do, so I went the opposite direction. I had always been petite & a picky eater... I would take more food on my plate than I could possibly eat, so my parent's would chastise me about it, which resulted in the old "battle of wills". Although my mother vowed never to make me or my sister sit at the table to finish a meal (since she hated having been forced to do that by my grandmother), I decided to skip the arguments over food & simply stopped eating altogether, just to shut them up. And it DID shut them up. I don't think they even recognized that I had an eating disorder and if they did, they never consulted with professionals or got me any help. When I was doing dance & gymnastics, it was a way for me to have some control over my body, in addition to having to "perform". I honestly loved the feeling of being so starved that I'd experience the euphoric, lightheadedness that came with it. I loved that my friends would pig out on snacks, but I had the "discipline" to only eat a few bites of an apple. If I wasn't "good enough" in academics or athletics, I could be the best at not eating. And when puberty came calling around 12 or 13 & my lithe, boyish figure started to become soft & curvy, with tiny boobs appearing, I was PISSED! I was 15 and a half when I got my first period, probably because I had no body fat & had been a gymnast. My mother was ready to take me to the doctor before it finally happened... I'm sure she was relieved, but again, there was no congratulations, only the fact that I was a failure at puberty, since it took so long!

And later, when I became a mother myself, I couldn't go to her for advice on things like breast feeding (since women of her generation didn't do it, in favor of bottle feeding formula, which the doctors recommended). I know she was proud of her only grandchild, but she also made me keenly aware of my own daughter's "stubbornness & iron will" as a baby & toddler (and what would you expect from a child who was a mix of centuries of pure Ukrainian & Scottish DNA?). My mother had NO idea that when I was pregnant & found out the sex of the baby, that I cried for TWO days... Because I knew what was coming & I was terrified of repeating the same awful mistakes my own mother had made with me. I ended up having to have a scheduled c-section delivery, 3 weeks before my due date, because I had placenta previa (which is a dangerous condition where the placenta is low in the uterus, blocking the cervix & potentially causing life threatening hemorrhaging if one goes into labor & the placenta comes out before the baby does), which was also terrifying to me, since it meant a surgical birth, rather than a natural delivery. I also suffered from a bad bout of post partum depression, which I wasn't expecting & again, my mother had no point of reference & offered me very little support or help with her newly arrived granddaughter. She longed for grandchildren & then when I provided her with one, she simply couldn't be bothered to actually engage with her or do fun things with her, like other grandmothers did. I'm not sure why, but my mother acted like babysitting o r spending time with her grandchild was an inconvenience. This only further disappointed & frustrated me.

I had ALWAYS had a closer relationship to my father. We were far more alike than my mother & I. We related to each other with our love of adventure, books, movies, music & creative pursuits (we once built a Viking ship from a kit, painted it & mounted it on a stand). My father worked in retail, so he was always working, but we managed to have special time together doing Indian Princesses through the YMCA or weekend jaunts to antiquarian bookstores & antique shops. My father had been orphaned at the age of 14, got sent to live with his older sister in NY & then joined the Navy at 17. He was my hero & the tough guy who was really a teddy bear when it came to his daughters. My mother was my enemy, since she was the disciplinarian, the "bad cop", the person who's approval & love I would never have. 

Although, even from childhood, my younger sister, who was olive complexioned with dark hair & eyes, like my Dad's mother & sister, was always the favorite. She got away with murder, unlike me, who was always punished for the slightest infraction. My father spanked my sister ONE time & because she cried & carried on, he felt terrible... Unlike me, who took it like a man each time I was in trouble. I was too stubborn to cry in front of him & show that I was upset... I was stupid, because my sister's "manipulation" turned him into jelly. She was the one who went on to become a high school science teacher, then got her Master's & PhD (paid for in part by her affluent school district)... I was just the asshole who had 2 bad marriages, managed to do well the 3rd time & produced a precious grandchild. My mother LOVED to brag about the fact that there was once again "a doctor" in the family, which made me secretly furious, because had I had the opportunity & the money, I would have loved to get a Master's degree myself. 

And as my mother lay dying, at the end of her life, ALL of these feelings & resentments bubbled up inside me... ALL of the years of disapproval, judgment & the complete lack of emotional availability were laid bare. I had been lucky & smart enough to find "other mothers" to fulfill that need for myself in the form of neighbors like Karen Farber, Judy Tecktiel, Pam Gorges or teachers like Miss Moy, my mom's cousin Marlene & my beloved Aunt Lila, who in some ways were better mothers to me than my own. They gave me things that my own mother couldn't & for that I am eternally grateful. 

But when I looked at her, lying in that hospice bed, her brain & body under the medicinal twilight spell of a Haldol, Lorezepam, Dilaudid cocktail, all pale, Her once beautiful hair all sparse, whispy & white against her skull, her once beautiful face all sunken in, her breathing labored, her pale skin, still amazingly soft as I held her hand & told her it was okay for her to let go, I couldn't be mad... I could only feel pity & sadness. I was not the daughter she wanted & she was not the mother I needed. And after she died & the funeral was over, I had to grieve over that... the infinite melancholia of a mother that I had almost no real relationship with, the person who I couldn't really go to for advice or comfort for anything, the person who had abandoned me as a baby & damaged me psychologically to the point of an eating disorder, the person who blamed me for my mistakes, the person who criticized and judged me up until the very end, the person who NEVER ever understood me or accepted me for who I was and the choices I made with my life. THAT is what I had to grieve & I am still grieving. 

I'm sure it will get better & easier over time. Although, I don't accept the standard bullshit excuse of, "She did the best she could"... No, she didn't. Because the best she could have done was to love, accept and support her daughter unconditionally & that never happened, despite how "proud" she claimed to be of me. And as a mother myself, it has always been my burden & challenge to do my best to be a different kind of mother to MY daughter... to always be the mother that she needs, no matter what. Because I promised myself a long time ago that I would not let history repeat itself, I would not be like Fannie Janofsky or Sybil Marshall, I would be better than that. I would be me.

These Are The Things You Didn't Know, But Now You Do.

 So, you see me or know me from work, mutual friends, etc... We hang out, you think I'm a "cool" person, because I've traveled, done interesting things, I'm funny, open, friendly, a bit unconventional & outspoken... But you have NO idea that I've suffered unimaginable tragedy as the victim of a very violent crime, when I was in my early 20's. I rarely talk about it.

You also have NO idea that as the result of a psycho ex-boyfriend, who tried to kill me, because he didn't like that I broke up with him, the course of my life was forever changed & not in a "good" way. You also don't know that when I did try to break up with him, after only dating for 5 months, he raped me, got me pregnant & I ended up telling him in no uncertain terms that I was NOT having his child under any circumstances & he needed to take me to the clinic ASAP to have this taken care of(this was back when Roe v Wade was the law of the land, thank fuck!). And nobody on this earth can tell me that I didn't do the absolute right thing in this situation.

You don't know that I was on "autopilot" or had undiagnosed, untreated PTSD for YEARS afterwards. You don't know that the actual incident was traumatic enough, but then it took 2 years for it to go to trial & when it did, I was re-traumatized all over again. You don't know that this guy is now living out his life + 30 year sentence in prison or that at one point, the legal team was considering asking for the death penalty.

You also don't know that nobody in my family, not my parents, not my sister, not my cousins, Aunts or Uncles EVER once asked me if I was okay or whether I needed anything or that they were sorry something like this happened to me. You don't know that my Mother actually blamed me for the incident... as if I could've predicted that this closet sociopath had murderous intentions! You don't know that I got NOTHING in the way of empathy or compassion from anyone at the time, only disdain, criticism and being portrayed as "the victim" in a "crime of passion".

There was ONE family member, who told me I was her hero, because of the strength & grace I projected, even when I felt like I was dying inside... She reminded me that I come from the toughest, most stubborn of people (Ukrainians), who literally left the Motherland with nothing, not even speaking the language, then boarded ships to America & re-built lives for themselves, their children & grandchildren, so they would have better opportunities in this new land. She told me I was genetically programmed for "survival" & she was right.

You have no clue that beyond my well-constructed, but very genuine facade, I am a deeply distrustful, cynical, jaded person, who will never feel safe in any situation & is always looking over my shoulder when out in public. You can't imagine the depths of my dislike towards most of humanity. You also can't imagine the things I would do to anyone that would even think about doing such harm to MY precious, only daughter. You don't know that I cried for 2 days when I found out I was having a girl, because my mind flashed forward to potential boyfriends that could someday perpetrate & violate her, like I had been perpetrated & violated.

You don't know that my anger & hatred has simmered for nearly 30 years, fueled by deep reserves of determination & willful character... A weaker person would've been shattered by what I endured & probably ended up being institutionalized, suicidal or barely able to function... But, not this girl. I never viewed myself as a "victim", which is perhaps what saved me from drowning & succumbing to the stigma... I carried on, I still carry on. I'm not even sure how my brain allowed me to, but it did & I did. The thought of letting this "define" me or letting him "win" was never an option.

You don't know that the trauma still resides in my mind & body... I still have nightmares about him, I sometimes wake up in a cold sweat, screaming. And I'm fully convinced that my rheumatoid arthritis is a direct, physical, autoimmune response to the emotional & physical stress I endured & still endure, almost 30 years later. Again, not many people could handle such intense, daily, never-ending physical pain.

Sometimes, I sit back in awe of it all... Because if you had told me years ago that I could survive intense trauma & still be standing here, sane, rational, genuine & with a wicked sense of humor, I would've laughed in your face. But here I am, in all of my imperfectly perfect glory...These are the things you didn't know, but now you do.

Dear Frenemy

 Dear Frenemy,

High school is long past, but my reckoning is not. Now that I've had many years of perspective & lots of time to reflect, here are a few salient truths for you to ponder...

I was ALWAYS prettier, thinner, more clever & funny. I could wear the little, lacy, nothing bras, while you had to spend hundreds on "over the shoulder boulder holders" & had to get a breast reduction at 16. I had better skin & hair. I was a much kinder person. I was far more charming, which is probably why the uber handsome guy at the cafe we met the summer before college called ME & started dating ME, not you, prompting you to tell our entire group of friends that if I ever mentioned him, I was lying, because your bitterness & jealousy over that was more than you could bear.  I was more creative & artsy. I looked fucking amazing in my size 7, vintage prom dress ala Molly Ringwald, while you had to wear something that looked like old, lace curtains that a mother of the bride would wear (and your prom date, who you drunkenly lost your virginity to in the back seat of his grandma's Buick turned out to be gay, which I still chuckle about to this day). And despite your "reputation" for developing early & acting the "slut", with your seemingly endless knowledge of boys, you ended up marrying the college guy who gave you an STD (which you bragged about), while I had amazing boyfriends & probably slept with more people (some quite famous) than you ever dreamed of. I did theatre, I fronted a band, I did burlesque, I strutted my stuff on many stages, all to the delight of audiences, which is also something you could only ever dream of doing. I've traveled the world, I've been a published author, I've owned homes & cars & horses, while you've lived in all of 2 places. 

And now, as adults, when I mention you to other people who knew you back then, they ALL tell me what a bitch they thought you were & honestly can't believe I considered you to be my best friend. Because honestly, you were and probably are still a horrible person. I may have been a very innocent, trusting person, with low inner self-esteem back then, because I didn't want to believe that you were capable of such fuckery towards such a close friend, but I am quite the opposite nowadays. I know that you're connected to people I know, and yet, you've never once tried to reach out to re-connect, despite me hearing murmurings that you may have wanted to... But please know that if you ever did, I wouldn't even give you the motherfucking time of day... Because you don't deserve one single second of my time, my energy or my valuable friendship... I have NO fucks left to give where you're concerned. You are nothing to me, nothing but a cautionary tale that I tell my own daughter, about how to choose friends very wisely & steer very clear of twatwaffles like you, who use people & then throw them away, all because of their own desperate insecurity, self-hate & jealousy.

It's okay because guess what?... I survived the damage you inflicted on me & in the end, I WIN. I ALWAYS win, sweetheart! And despite everything, I have some incredible female friends who are just like me & you don't hold a candle to ANY of them!

My Body Betrays Me

 I was a picky eater as a child. I always took food on my plate and never finished it. It was a HUGE source of annoyance for my parents, who had been raised by my Grandparents & their "depression" era mentality that it was somehow shameful to leave food on a plate when there were children starving in Europe. My mother had been forced to sit at the dinner table until she finished meals, which had very little to do with children starving in Europe & everything to do with the power struggle between her and my grandmother.

But MY parents chose the "shaming" route, which was their lame attempt to "guilt" me about my eating habits & only served to make me more determined to annoy them & ultimately led to me having a eating disorder. Because, after hearing them tell me how wasteful I was with food & how I never finished anything, It just became easier not to eat, which instead of alarming them, made them simply back off and allowed me to be in control... Because ALL eating disorders are about control, not food.

And as a young girl, I was involved in dance & gymnastics, which only further fueled the need to basically look like a little boy... Lithe, petite, no hips, no tits, super flexible & able to defy gravity... I was like that until the puberty fairy hit me with her stick, not at 12 or 13, like most girls my age, but at 15 1/2, because I basically has zero body fat from my lack of nutrition & insane physicality. I remember being at a weekend retreat as a sophomore in high school & feeling a huge pain in my lower left side... Little did I know that it was my ovaries firing up for the first time & a mature egg was ripe & ready to burst from its follicle, to then travel down a fallopian tube & maybe get fertilized... And then, my breasts, which were nothing more than "mosquito bites" began to fill out a bit, while my hips became curvier, along with my upper thighs & ass... I HATED IT!

I had NO idea that my new "womanly" figure was meant to attract the opposite sex... I just wanted by boyish, slim body back... I even missed being teased about being flat-chested & "a carpenter's dream - flat as a board"... I could no longer buy jeans in the boys section of the clothing store, but suddenly wearing more tight fitting tops & skirts in a size 7 (which seemed gigantic to me) was an option & I could shop in the juniors department & The Limited or Express, Casual Corner or Contempo Casuals. I still thought I was "unfuckable" in high school, because I was a 32A & boys thought of me as "cute" not pretty or sexy, but I was actually okay with that, because while I had MANY crushes, I never actually dated anyone seriously... I wasn't ready for that. I was still getting used to my teenage body, which was apparently the envy of 2 close girlfriends... One had always struggled with her weight & the other had developed early & actually had a breast reduction the summer before our junior year of high school... She LOATHED the fact that I could wear skimpy bras, or no bra at all & I ate like a bird... Her jealousy of me, eventually turned her into a "frenemy" & I'm still leery of friendships with women, because of how badly she betrayed me and hurt me. She is now a cautionary tale for my daughter, about choosing your friends very wisely.

I blossomed in college, where boys finally discovered the "exotic", sassy Jewish girl from Chicago... In the middle of Ames, Iowa, I was a rare delicacy. I was an Art major, who was very into music & theater & unlike the Iowa farm girls from small towns, who did nothing but drink until they puked on the weekends & chase dooshy frat boys or any male that would make a suitable husband. My freshman year dorm room was kitty corner to the bathroom on our floor & if my room's windows & the windows to the bathroom were open on a Saturday or Sunday morning, I could hear the chorus of retching from those hungover girls & the bullimics that thought they were being SO clever with their eating disorders... I couldn't wait to switch rooms, which is exactly what I did 2nd semester. I learned to like eating in the cafeteria on the main floor of our dorm... I even got up to 105 lbs, which at the time was "heavy" for me... But I still fit into my size 7 clothes & I walked all over campus, so that kept me in reasonably good shape & not into "the freshman 15" weight gaining territory. I even had a few serious boyfriends, who adored me, so it was a pretty great time in my life.

I never had issues with my weight after college... I worked, I worked out after work, I did pilates & yoga when I could, as a holdover from dance & gymnastics training. I couldn't do either of those anymore, due to a knee injury in high school, but I was still in reasonably good shape. I had a few boyfriends, nothing serious, one turned out to be a real psycho, which was a total mind fuck, but eventually I got married to a Korean American guy, who looked good on paper, but was a terrible match in reality. After being together for 4 years & married for one, I got pregnant & subsequently had a miscarriage... I was devastated, because my best friend at work was also pregnant & we would've had our babies around the same time... But it was not meant to be, I remember the midwife I was working with was so incredibly kind & re-assuring, telling me that it's actually a GOOD thing that our bodies can recognize when there's a problem with a pregnancy & react accordingly & now, at least I knew I was fertile & could get pregnant... I was only 7 weeks along, so it was early & my miscarriage was not that much worse than having a bad period, but I don't think I ever properly grieved that loss or the subsequent breakdown of my "starter" marriage after 2 years... "Shit happens" I told myself & despite feeling like a massive failure, I moved on.

Five years later, I re-married & after two years of that marriage, we discussed the possibility of having a child... I remember telling my husband that it would probably take 6 months to a year of trying, but I got pregnant on the very first try, which surprised and excited me. I remember being 128 lbs when I got pregnant & I was closer to a size 8 or 10 at the time... I only gained 22 lbs with my pregnancy, which was "right in the ballpark" according to my ob / gyn. My belly grew & so did my boobs, which was a total blessing, since I FINALLY had some "real" cleavage! Unfortunately, at the 5 month mark, it was discovered that I had placenta previa, which was a dangerous & uncomfortable condition, so the rest of my pregnancy sucked & my daughter's birth required a scheduled c-section. And while I marveled at my body's ability to conceive & grow another human being, I made sure to do water aerobics & yoga, so that I wouldn't feel like a huge hippo. And I wondered if I would ever be able to get my pre-baby body back.

I never really did, because in my late 30's & 40's, my body decided it wanted to hang onto the "extra" curves & I essentially had gone from a pear shape to an hourglass... It horrified me, because no matter how hard I worked out, my body refused to go back to a size 8 & with a baby, then toddler, I simply didn't have the luxury of being able to work out for hours a day. So, I grudgingly accepted my fate & bought clothes in a bigger size... Instead of celebrating that my body had changed, thanks to my daughter, I secretly hated looking in the mirror & my old eating disorder reared its ugly head again. I foolishly compared myself to the other women in the Mom's group I belonged to, never taking the time to realize that I looked like a "normal" woman with a child. I beat myself up mercilessly for not bouncing back to my old body shape. And nobody ever told me how wrong my thinking was.

And then in my mid-late 40's I hit the perimenopause wall... And suddenly I had to contend with insomnia, hot flashes, mood swings & weight gain... ALL things I had never encountered before & no matter how hard I tried, my body STILL hung onto that extra curvature, even adding some to my hips, belly, ass & thighs, along with my upper arms... I was an am disgusted by it. Once again, instead of embracing the changes, I loathed them & would cry in the dressing room, each time I had to try on a pair of jeans. The only thing I appreciated was the fact that I had become a 38C, a small C, but still a C cup, so even though I kept the lower body curves, I also kept my new, naturally enhanced boobs (and lots of women have to go the surgical route to get them). THAT part didn't seem like a betrayal, but everything else did. Because once again, my hormones, who were just doing their genetic job, had turned me into another being, one who looked a lot like my mother, a person who has struggled with her own body image issues & dealt with it by overeating & then trying every diet known to man, while I was growing up. 

I'm still trying to accept myself at 52... I'm certainly self-aware enough to not ever make a big deal about my teenage daughter's eating habits or her blossoming body, because I KNOW firsthand how damaging that can be to a girl's self-esteem. She looks a lot like I did back then & weight has never been an issue for her, so far. She likes to dress in baggy, androgynous clothes most of the time, but when she doesn't, I make sure to compliment her on her cute figure, which so far, is perfectly in proportion. I don't ever want her to suffer the damage that I suffered & inflicted upon myself, both psychologically & physically, because I thought I had to live up to some highly unrealistic, manufactured & Photoshopped version of what a woman should look like. I'm hoping that her sassy, half-Scottish genes will allow her to not give a shit about what other people think, which so far seems to be pretty effective. I made a promise to myself long ago that I would NEVER do or say anything to make her feel like she was anything less than perfect or beautiful... I just wish I had had someone tell ME those things when I was a girl. It would've made a huge difference, then again, I probably would've turned out a lot different & far less empathetic than I've become as a middle-aged woman.

Dementia: The Mindkiller

In addition to dealing with my own recent health issues (the dreaded heart palpitations & the horrid RA), I've been having to bear witness to an even more insidious disease... not mine, of course, my mother's dementia. 

This is a road I've traveled before, as I got to see my maternal Grandmother's own slow descent into it, nearly 30 years ago... I watched my strong, smart, stubborn, not very demonstrative, former teacher, Granny Fannie's mind fade away to nothing. Now, it wasn't ALL bad, because as her mind started to go, she recalled long forgotten memories, like the time she came to America as a 7 or 8 year-old girl, in steerage, with her mother, as the last 2 members of her family to make the perilous journey from Chernigov, Ukraine, where Jews knew nothing but suffering & poverty at the turn of the 20th century, to embark on an unprecedented voyage to a new land, with a new language, new hopes & dreams, where the streets were paved with gold & a poor, peasant family could perhaps have a better life for themselves and their children. She recalled that when the ship pulled into NY harbor, she saw the Statue of Liberty, standing there with her book and her torch, beckoning the stranger, bidding them welcome and she thought it was a REAL lady! Her mother had to explain to her that it was just a statue, not a real person... Can you imagine THAT being your very first impression of America???!!! She then went on to tell me about her memories of being processed at Ellis Island and how twin girls, who had also made the journey with them, were put into quarantine, because of a problem with their eyes... And then how an immigration officer handed her mother an apple and her a banana, but had to show her how to peel and eat the banana, because tropical fruit was NOT something they had in the shtetl! She told me that she was excited to see her older sisters, her father & her half-brothers, who were already ensconced in Chicago, but the missed her pet goat.

My Granny lived alone in a small, modest 1 bedroom apartment for many years after my grandfather died, it had a big living / dining room with green, wool carpeting that I used to help her vacuum with an old Electrolux. She also had a small kitchen, a bedroom a hall & linen closet, a bathroom with black & white penny tiled floor & a 40's pedestal sink with separate taps for hot & cold, plus a small kitchen. when I would have weekend sleepovers, we'd watch PBS, I'd read her National Geographic magazines & sing showtunes to her, while she read the paper & smoked Winston's or chewed Dentyne cinnamon gum. For breakfast we'd have Corn Flakes with sliced bananas or Bays English muffins with apricot jam. She even let me drink coffee from her ancient percolator, with plenty of milk & sugar added. She had a huge, crystal candy jar on her mid-century, round living room table, filled with Brach's sour ball candies. I'd always swipe the purple ones, since I liked those the best & I'd pop one into my mouth, before sneaking underneath her mahogany dining room table that had claw & ball feet, where I'd spend hours drawing pictures & looking at story books... Sometimes, her friend, Mrs. Bergman would come over to visit & bring me a toy or candy as a treat. We'd often go for walks to the local park, which was right next to the Misericordia home for children with Down syndrome, run by the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese or we'd walk down to the White Hen Pantry convenience store a few blocks away to buy bread eggs & some cheap toy, if I was lucky. Sometimes, we'd ride the bus down Peterson Avenue to her bank or a doctor's appointment, since she didn't drive, but I loved the "adventure". I even remember her telling me to always put toilet paper on the seat if you ever had to pee or poop in a public bathroom! I pretty much had Granny Fannie all to myself, since my sister was 5 years younger than me and my first cousins, her other 3 grandchildren, lived far away in Des Moines. She was never very affectionate or demonstrative with me or anyone else for that matter, but I loved her dearly.

So she lived alone for many years, on the north side of Chicago, between West Ridge & Ravenswood, which was not quite Edgebrook... It was a mistake though, because even though this was the time before assisted living or retirement communities were a "thing", it didn't do her any good to be all alone and not that close to where we lived. Eventually, my mom had a lovely woman from Belize come over every day to help cook, clean, dress, bathe & be general companionship for my grandmother, who's mind was clearly fading... one night, my Granny got up to go to the bathroom & fell, breaking her hip... She laid there all night until her caretaker came the next morning, found her & she ended up in the hospital. From there, it was off to the nursing home, because she clearly couldn't be left alone anymore & there wasn't room enough in our house for another person, plus we had 2 flights of stairs.

My Granny ended up in a very good nursing home, not far from us, chosen carefully after much deliberation & visiting of other facilities. She was placed on a Medicare floor, filled almost exclusively with Alzheimer's patients... The nursing staff LOVED my Granny, because she was pleasant & not carrying on or having outbursts, plus she could feed herself & go to the bathroom on her own. She didn't know who the hell anyone was or even where she was, but it was honestly the happiest I ever saw her! She was fed, bathed, dressed & well-cared for every day & didn't have a car in the world... She had even reverted to an almost child-like state of existence. I once got permission to  bring the family cat, a big, orange tabby named Michael, to visit her as a "therapy pet & she LOVED petting his soft fur as he sat quietly in her lap, loving the attention.

One night, they put her to bed & went to check on her an hour or two later & she was gone... Died in her sleep of either a stroke or a heart attack, which is frankly, how "I" want to go. I remember my mom getting the call late at night & then having to go gather her clothes & few belongings the next day. The Filipina nurse, who my Granny was a favorite of, came in to work for her shift that morning & apparently had a breakdown when she saw that my Granny's bed had been stripped & her things were gone... I barely remember her funeral, but I wasn't all that sad about her death... She was 86 & had lived a long, full life before dying peacefully. During her few years at the nursing home, she had been well cared for & was spared the mental anguish of knowing she was losing her mind & not in her own home anymore... It was a blessing, really.

And now, here I am, seeing history repeating itself, only this time, my Father is the main caretaker, so HE has to watch his wife fading before his very eyes from her diabetes ravaged kidneys, which require thrice weekly dialysis sessions, to her asking him the same question 20 times a day... She was never much of an extrovert, but her personality has most definitely changed as her cognitive degeneration has slowly continued... She used to read, talk on the phone, have lunch with former teacher friends, go to movies & plays... She's not up for any of that anymore. She sits in her recliner chair all day & watches stupid Lifetime movies or golf... I KNOW it's not good for her mental state & probably provides very little mental stimulation for whatever neurons are still firing, but what else can we do?... We can't force her to go out walking or do crossword puzzles, which she used to do religiously, because she simply doesn't have the energy or stamina for it. My Mom is 79 & she may as well be 86 at this point.

Gone is the woman who drummed the message "You're not good enough. You will never be good enough."into my head from a very early age... Gone is the woman who was always emotionally unavailable, except when you were sick, yet demanded perfection in academics, dance, gymnastics & piano lessons, even in former boyfriends, because THEY were never good enough either! Gone is the woman who would judge the f@ck out of every outfit, every hairstyle, every choice in friends, school plays, bad test results & less than C grades, to the point of giving me an eating disorder from her insanely unrealistic expectations & constant need to live vicariously though her daughters. Gone is the woman who blamed my sister for her heart attack in 2000 & me for not knowing that the psycho ex-boyfriend was in fact, a psycho! I can't even be mad at her for how badly she tried to destroy my self-esteem & victim blaming, because I know it comes from her own messed up family dynamic & failed educational & career choices. I scared the f@ck out of her from day one, because I was stubborn, with a mind of my own & I never wanted to be her "perfect", compliant daughter. I never wanted to be valedictorian of the class & go to an Ivy League college or marry a nice Jewish doctor or lawyer... It was never my dream or my sister's, although at least my sister got a Master's & a PhD, while I produced the only grandchild (who is also stubborn & strong willed & unimpressed by expectations). I never had her "approval" & I knew I never would, so I just stopped trying to get it.

I've now had to find a caretaker to assist my Dad in looking after my mom & it's now MY job to help them go through 22 years worth of stuff in their townhouse & then help them find a reasonably priced condo, with everything on one level, no dangerous stairs for my mom to trip & fall on, where they will spend their remaining years. I am the eldest daughter, the strong one, the brave one, the one you want in a crisis because I get shit done, that's now I roll... I am the one who will probably have power of medical & financial attorney for my aging parents. Thankfully, my Dad is still active, both physically & mentally, so he is able to make most of the decisions about my mother's car at this point, but as I know, that can change in a heartbeat. He is the one who has to deal with seeing his wife deteriorate & slowly lose her mind & her very personality right before his eyes... I'm sure he hates it, in fact, I know he does. Instead of a quick, painless process, it's a long, slow, descent into nothingness & I'm actually glad I'm somewhat removed from it. my mother hasn't been my mother for YEARS, at least not the mother I actually needed, so I'm actually quite objective about the whole process, because I've been here before. I know this play, I know all of the songs & I even know how it ends. I just hope the applause at the end is good, so my mom finally gets the standing ovation she deserves.

The Liberating Power Of Cream Colored Jeans

It's been awhile since I was comfortable going into smaller retail stores, but as the weather has gotten nicer & the pandemic seems to be getting under control, thanks to the wonders of modern medical science, I decided to go to one of my fave outlet stores to peruse & possibly give myself a much-needed dose of "retail therapy".

This particular store (oh fuck it, let's just say it)... Lands End Inlet, happens to have a really cool catalog overstock / clearance section that I have scored lots of cool items from in the past. This comes in especially handy for buying kids clothes (for my daughter) & work wear for me. The trick is that you have to be willing to dig though racks & racks of stuff & be okay with the fact that the stock changes a lot. If you're good with that, you can sometimes find a serious bargain.

I hadn't been in there in AGES & there's one right in my town, next to my other fave bargain retail place, Big Lots, so I popped in & started casually looking around. Of course, I went to the back of the store & I zeroed in on the Petite section & started looking at jeans... I have a seriously hard time finding ones that fit my short length, tiny waist & curvy hips, thighs & butt... You would think it would be super easy, but let me tell you, it's not! Sizing for women is a shit show, even at the best of times, because you can't go by numbers, you have to go by fit & maybe you can find something in the middle that sort of works, if you're lucky.

Suddenly, On an unassuming rack, I saw them... cream colored jeans, in my size for $14.50! Now, aside from the fact that this was a total bargain, I wouldn't ever normally consider buying them, because of a lot of things... I HATE how I look right now, thanks to perimenopause & the fact that I spent the pandemic on my couch, either working on my laptop or watching the plethora of programming on cable TV, so I'm not exactly in "fighting" shape... And even when I was, cream colored jeans are strictly the domain of lithe, thin, super-fit, suburban MILFs, who shop at Whole Foods, get hot stone massages & expensive haircuts... My curvy hipped, cellulite dimpled ass would NEVER look good in cream colored jeans, because I wasn't the petite, size 8 or 10 that I used to be, before having a kid. My pear shape had turned into an hourglass years ago.

But, for some reason, I didn't put them back... I touched the material, it was quality denim fabric, but soft, with some stretch... maybe I COULD pull this off?!... I couldn't actually try them on in the fitting room, which was closed, but I figured that since I lived nearby, if I tried them on at home & they didn't fit, I could easily bring them back for a refund. And I did just that... They fit me pretty damn well... I mean WHY couldn't I pull these off with a cute top & some strappy sandals or ankle boots? Who fucking cares if I'm no longer the size I was 10 years ago? I should embrace my shape & the curves that I EARNED over a lifetime of womanhood, instead of beating myself up about not being "thin" enough! Who cares if my saddlebags show alongside my rounded hips, thighs & no longer flat stomach? Who cares if a lighter colored demim shows off visible panty lines & a little cellulite? What do I have to prove at this point in my life to anyone?... The answer is NOTHING! Nothing at all! 

I spent YEARS feeling bad about my body & often flirted with an eating disorder, first as an adolescent with budding breasts that ruined my otherwise boyish frame, then getting teased in Jr. high for being "A carpenter's dream - flat as a board & easy to screw",well, at least the first part was right! Then in high school where I was merely cute, but not "fuckable", which I was certain was because of my small tits, which were great for being in dance & gymnastics, but not something any boys were interested in. In college, I blossomed & finally had some semblance of acceptance with my body... College guys liked my "exotic" looks, especially when I was onstage doing plays or performing in a band... I learned to harness the power of my femininity & the divine goddess energy I had hidden away, deep inside. I look at pictures of me from that time & think "Holy shit!"... I was so beautiful and I didn't even know it! I was a size 8 & I thought I was fat... I wasn't, I was perfect, but I didn't have the self-confidence to embrace that! 

After college, I still struggled with body image issues, but it was less pronounced as I grew into womanhood & experienced life and more serious relationships... I got married in a beautiful, ivory sample size wedding dress that fit me like it was made for me... I looked gorgeous & had a lovely wedding... Sadly, it didn't last. Later I got married again, to a Scotsman, on the beach in Florida, in an ivory silk skirt & ivory lace tunic from one of my favorite designers, April Cornell. And two years later, I had a daughter, which changed my body yet again... Taking me from that pear shape to an hourglass... My barely B cups became small Cs, my curves stayed & so did my c-section scar, hidden in my bikini line. My body had finally fulfilled it's biological imperative and I had no choice but to accept it.

So back to the cream colored jeans... Yes, they were $14.50. Yes, they fit me perfectly. Yes, I kept them & actually got complemented when I wore them out somewhere the other day. So the lesson here is... Life is too damn short not to buy the clothes or the shoes you like or to eat dessert or to take that trip you've been thinking about... Buy the cream colored jeans & wear them with pride... IT WILL LIBERATE YOU! 

Life Is Not Fair

"Life is not fair. Get used to it." - Bill Gates

My overwhemling emotion these days seems to be anger... Pure, unadulterated anger, with undertones of intense sadness. I'm angry about SO many things right now and I'm hoping that getting them out of my head will be somehow cathartic...

I'm angry that the only stuff I see in my social media feeds lately is the pure insanity spiral of crumbling democracy, rising fascism, racism, discrimination, intolerance, xenophobia,  corruption, environmental ruin, selfish, rich, powerful people trying to claim dominion over the rest of us, while the idiotic, religious fringe folks throw their "thoughts & prayers" at everything... And yet the planet is somehow managing not to spin off its axis, because this bullshit has been going on with humanity since the dawn of our eistence...

I'm angry that my body has been taken over by the alien force known as "perimenopause", which has thrown my brain & mentsrual cycle into episodes of murderous rage, insomnia, hunger, hot flashes, unwanted hairs, middle-age spread, exhaustion, thinning hair and at times, surges of a goddess-like power... Nobody ever told me that I would have to endure this, not my mother, nor any older woman I know... It's apparently a HUGE female secret that you have to do extensive research on, by yourself, late at night, because nobody will talk about it... Unless you start complaining and then you get to hear another woman's litany of symptoms, which is in no way helpful or useful... So much for "sisterhood"!

I'm angry that I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. I've never had what I'd describe as a "career"... just a series of jobs that I learned things at & made some good connections through. I've never made a particularly great salary, nor have I ever had a good boss, who was a mentor & wanted to see me succeed. I have an Art degree that basically qualifies me to be a barista at Starbuck's, although I do occasionally get to use my "mad skills" to create PowerPoint presentations, invitations, flyers or a beautifully decoupaged vase. I currently have a job that I really like in the community / social services field, working with some fabulous, dedicated people, who seem to recognize my humor, empathetic nature & appreciate my talents... Except the pay is not that great. Oh, and did I mention that my husband was recently relieved of his job, after nearly 6 years of busting his ass for a completely manufactured, bullshit reason?!... So now he gets to do the job hunt thing, while we both try not to go insane worrying about how we're going to pay our bills and not lose our house. I know something better will eventually come along for him, as it did for me, but the waiting is truly the hardest part.

I'm angry that my alcoholic, undiagnosed ADD / borderline & narcissistic personality disorder ex-husband has yet to man-up and be a responsible parent / human being & actually keep a job, so that he can provide child-support for his daughter. It's quite clearly spelled out in our divorce agreement, yet I had to spend 7 months of time & money back in 2016 fighting him in court over it. And the judge DID find him in contempt of court & ruled that he owes a shit-ton of unpaid child-support, which he agreed to pay monthly, right before he fucked off back to his home town in Scotland. I've not gotten a fraction of the money he owes, which keeps accruing, month after month and I will probably never see it... so my daughter's step-father & I bust our asses to make sure our child has what she needs like food, clothing, a roof over her head, school supplies, etc., etc., etc.... And yes, after 9 years of this I resent the f@ck out him every damn day!

I'm angry most of all right now that a friend of mine lost his wife yesterday to a very insidious cancer called glioblastoma. The diagnosis of this type of cancer is always fatal, because it's aggressive and there is NO cure as of yet. All they can do it treat it with surgery & chemo & hope for the best. I've followed my friend and his family's cancer journey for the last year and they have handled it with the utmost grace and courage... I am in awe of them, because I don't think I could handle one tenth of what they've been though. My friend's wife was only a few years older than me & the cancer reduced her from a vibrant, beautiful woman to being bedridden, puffy and non-verbal, in a hospital bed. In her final days, she was in a hospice facility that took amazing care of her, based on what the family had posted about it... They had tremendous love and support in their cancer journey, which makes me so grateful, but my friend is now a widow and his daughter is motherless... it's so damn unfair!

ALL of this was doing my head in early this morning, so I went out into the darkness of my backyard at 3:30 AM, sobbing with rage and sadness... I looked up into the sky, and asked, "WHY?!", as if the cold stars of space, millions of light years away would somehow hold any kind of answer for me... And as I happened to turn my head slightly, to get a better view of the half-moon that was hanging there, mocking me, I saw a streak of light and a flash... If I had blinked I would've missed it, but there it was, some bit of rock or space junk that was hurtling towards the earth and burned up in the atmosphere, just as I was looking up into the heavens... I have no idea what it means, I just know that I was there to see it, when I needed to see something, anything that would remind me that there is indeed a spark of magic or divinity somewhere in the universe, because life is not fair.