A few days ago I was driving home from work on one of those afternoons when everything feels right. The sun was out. The windows were down. The air was warm enough to make you forget about the morning cold. It was a few days before Spring Break when life as a teacher gets a little easier. As I was driving down my street, I noticed my mom was outside in her front yard, and I stopped to talk to her. We sat on her front steps, also my front steps in a lot of ways. We talked about nothing in particular. The flowers she was planting. My plans for Spring Break. The nine holes of golf she had played that morning. I stayed for maybe thirty minutes before continuing down the street to my house.
As I got in my car to leave my mom, I realized that those are the moments that make cancer hard to bear. Cancer is not so obvious a problem at Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year's. There is too much already present on those days. Too many gifts. Too many people. Too many chores. Too many things to keep your mind from worrying. It is sunny afternoons in Spring when the work day is done and my mom feels good enough to work in her yard when cancer creeps up on you. It is conversations on front steps where cancer is nowhere to be found in my mom's words or laughter when cancer grabs me once again. It is a random Thursday not worth noting for any other reason than wanting to remember my mom just like that. Happy. Healthy. Funny. Present. It is those moments that remind me that cancer is still a part of our lives. We are not fighting cancer like we were a year or two years ago. We are not going to doctor appointments every week or holding our breath for test results. She is not in enough pain to mention. She is not worried enough to steal her usual ways. But cancer is not gone and in all honesty it probably never will be for the rest of my mom's life. All of our front step conversations will unfold against the backdrop of illness. Cancer will permanently be glaring over our shoulders. Stealing a bit of our afternoons. Darkening the sunlight that used to not be worth so much. Tugging at our memories. Reminding us to hold on to these conversations and these moments when things are better than they used to be, than they could be. These moments are easy. Too easy. Afternoons when things are they way they are supposed to be worry me now. Somewhere on those steps there is a ticking that can't be silenced. There is a relentless reminder that no one knows what is around the corner.
It is afternoons like this one that cancer is a problem; however, without cancer these afternoons would not count nearly as much. The ticking would be gone. The skies would just be bright. The flowers would just be blooming. The words would just be words between two people. Cancer takes away, but it also gives back. It makes you (me) stay a few minutes longer and laugh a little quicker and make note of Thursday afternoons in March when the world is right and the people you love so much are planting flowers in the front yard.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Friend Diva
Cody: Why don't you like my mom?
Me: I like your mom!
Cody: She doesn't have enough to offer you, does she?
Me: What's that mean?
Cody: You only have so much room in your life for people. If someone doesn't have something to offer, you just don't let them in.
Pause.
Me: Just be glad I had an opening a few years back.
I recently devoted 2013 to finding new people in my life. I chalked my lack of good people up to a new crop of babies (see http://codyandkaty2010.blogspot.com/2013_03_01_archive.html) or people just not being interested in being friends like all the cool people on tv (see also http://codyandkaty2010.blogspot.com/2013_01_01_archive.html).
After the above conversation with Cody, I realized that I'm a friend diva. I expect a lot out of the people I consider my friends and in turn require an extensive commitment from someone before I "let them in" as Cody puts it. I'm starting to think that I don't have a waiting line of friends because word has gotten around that I require a boot camp like initiation into the friend zone. I require endless conversations about ridiculously depressing or over talked about topics (i.e. men, the existence of god, my entire high school sports career, terminal illness, fate, destiny, and why we are really here). I expect text messages to be answered in the utmost timely manner. I need you to watch at least half of my favorite tv shows which all come on premium cable channels. I need you to thereafter analyze my favorite characters in those shows...also in a timely manner. I like to hang out at least twice a month. I'd prefer you to not have children. I need to like your husband/significant other as much as you. Democrat over Republican. Dogs over cats. A user of correct grammar. Willing to travel when I want you to. No country music fans. No smoking. No loud breathing (no, I'm not kidding). And a propensity for a well-timed curse word or caddy remark is a bonus.
I know, right? Quite the exhaustive list of characteristics in a friend. Cody made me realize that I am impossible to be friends with due to the above mentioned traits of my perfect friend. I'm a friend diva. Cody tried to describe my extensive screening process for important people as me having a high barrier to entry (Cody is really into business stuff lately. Barrier to entry refers to the obstacles present when starting a new business). I expect the best and only the best. I need to have real conversations with real people about things that matter in this big wide world. I don't have time for acquaintances and superficial chatter. In other words, I have a high barrier to entry when it comes to letting people in my life. Surprisingly, I think Cody is completely accurate.
In honor of Cody highlighting my high barrier to entry, I have decided to revamp my friend resolution for 2013. I don't want to find new friends necessarily. Instead, I want to start being more appreciative of the ones that I have. I want to stop requiring so much of my people and instead focus on all of the good they bring to the table. I have good friends and good people. I have never questioned this. I have just lost focus of what is right in front of me. I have let the changes that naturally happen to people impact my relationship with them. I assume everyone has as much time on their hands to cultivate deep, meaningful relationships with me as i have to cultivate relationships with other people. Not every person has to be the person. Maybe the answer is to roll with the punches a little better and accept that each person is good for something. I need to start finding the good that everyone around me has to offer. Even my mother-in-law who I need to work on allowing in a little more. Or some at all.
New 2013 resolution: stop being a friend diva.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Babies and Northern Lights
I am in baby hell and there is no obvious escape route.
Two of my good friends have had children within the past three months. One of said children was born just last week. Today I went to visit this newly created human. As we were sitting around admiring this little guy, we all started commenting on the looks of the baby. My first-time mother friend said that the baby's appearance had improved since being born. She noted that his head was sort of cone-shaped from the get-go and that his nose was sort of smashed. She went on to admit that her and her husband had tried to brace themselves for their new son not being the cutest addition to the family. Being the animal lover she is, my friend said that her first thought upon seeing her baby boy was "it's no puppy."
I could not agree more with my friend in respect to human babies being anything other than a puppy. They are not as cute as puppies. They are not as easy to take care of. They are not as affordable. Human babies cannot be put in cages for hours at a time. They cannot be bathed with a garden hose. Human babies require feeding numerous times a day and cannot be trained to use the restroom any specific place until years into the relationship. Human babies do not come when you call them. They do not take a liking to having their ears aggressively rubbed or being left outdoors on sunny afternoons...or any afternoons for that matter. And yet, nearly every woman I have in my arsenal of friends has signed up for a bare minimum of eighteen years of human babies for which I have very little explanation.
As an adult I have seen a few lines drawn in the proverbial sand. College or no? Moving away or no? Marriage or no? The only line drawing I ever gave much thought was moving and marriage. I knew that both of those decisions would very much dictate most aspects of my life. I sort of understood the ramifications of picking up and moving away and sort of understood the ramifications of getting married. Whether I understood the specifics of those processes is not as important as me having understood the seriousness of whatever the ramifications were. And yet, I always took solace in the fact that both moving and marriage is somewhat easily reversed. I knew that moving can happen at most any juncture of a journey. I knew that marriage was a little more difficult to reverse, but nearly half of us find a way so I could too.
Recently, I have started to notice that the number of folks on the other side of the baby line is rapidly increasing. Facebook is a hotbed for baby videos and baby announcements and gender reveals and 20 week updates (by the way, no one cares that your fetus is the size of a fig). Babies are everywhere and they don't seem to be going away. People I don't even know are having kids and announcing it to the world of Facebook on a daily basis. With every new baby, I feel a stronger sense of urgency to finalize my decision on which side of the line I want to stay. With every 20 week bump picture, I find myself considering what I would be craving if I were pregnant. With every gender reveal surprise, I find myself sucked in to the wonder of so-and-so having a baby girl as if one of these times someone's gender reveal party is going to expose that someone is having a pterodactyl instead of a boy.
I honestly don't get the attraction. Yet, I understand that I must be missing the appeal of children, because we all keep getting pregnant. Some of us are even signing up for baby #2.
I ask my mom friends to articulate what is so intriguing about their own child, and I never get a sufficient answer. I get a lot of "make sure you do everything you want to do before..." answers. And a lot of "you have plenty of time before you have kids." I've had a few "I would have waited a little longer" responses, but I never get an answer that communicates the reason for having a baby. I even ask my own mom who claims that my brother and me are the best thing she has ever accomplished. She gives me the predictable "you just don't know until you have your own" response, which I think answers why we all do just that. Babies benefit from the ultimate marketing campaign. We are all persuaded to jump on the baby bandwagon because the only way to understand is to get one for yourself. Babies are unable to be appreciated from afar. There is apparently some magnetic pull of early morning feedings and incessant crying. There is power in those little cone shaped heads and dirty diapers. In between the spit up and poop, there is some sort of baby drug these little unassuming humans are creating. To non-parents babies are like a mystical creature unexplained by all the parents in this world. Babies are like Nessie or Big Foot. They are UFOs and aliens. Babies cannot be defined or understood until you simply drink the kool-aid. Babies are the Northern Lights of adulthood. You don't know when exactly you're going to get to see them, but everyone testifies to the transformative experience of being in their presence.
I don't know when or if I will ever get to see the Northern Lights of parenthood. I used to think I would just sign up to get on the baby train whenever it was that I got bored with being just me. I assumed that since sixteen-year-olds all over America get pregnant without even meaning to (shout out to "Teen Mom" by the way) the process of getting pregnant must be pretty simple. However, I think getting pregnant can sometimes be as complicated as finding the Northern Lights. You've got to be in the right place at the right time. There can't be a cloud in the sky and it needs to be a new moon. You need to be outside of the city lights and it needs to be just the right time of year. I suppose having a baby would not be quite as magical if every person in this world simply put their name on the baby list and one showed up a few months later.
Sometimes I talk myself into wanting a baby. And then sometimes I remember that I have blankets hanging over the windows in my bedroom in some pathetic attempt to block out the sunlight allowing my husband and me to sleep until eleven on Saturday mornings. I realize that blocking out sunlight will be useless with a crying baby in that same room, and I heed the advice of all of you frazzled parents who longingly remember a time before parenthood when the sight of the Northern Lights was still just a dream in your clear, well-rested mind.
Two of my good friends have had children within the past three months. One of said children was born just last week. Today I went to visit this newly created human. As we were sitting around admiring this little guy, we all started commenting on the looks of the baby. My first-time mother friend said that the baby's appearance had improved since being born. She noted that his head was sort of cone-shaped from the get-go and that his nose was sort of smashed. She went on to admit that her and her husband had tried to brace themselves for their new son not being the cutest addition to the family. Being the animal lover she is, my friend said that her first thought upon seeing her baby boy was "it's no puppy."
I could not agree more with my friend in respect to human babies being anything other than a puppy. They are not as cute as puppies. They are not as easy to take care of. They are not as affordable. Human babies cannot be put in cages for hours at a time. They cannot be bathed with a garden hose. Human babies require feeding numerous times a day and cannot be trained to use the restroom any specific place until years into the relationship. Human babies do not come when you call them. They do not take a liking to having their ears aggressively rubbed or being left outdoors on sunny afternoons...or any afternoons for that matter. And yet, nearly every woman I have in my arsenal of friends has signed up for a bare minimum of eighteen years of human babies for which I have very little explanation.
As an adult I have seen a few lines drawn in the proverbial sand. College or no? Moving away or no? Marriage or no? The only line drawing I ever gave much thought was moving and marriage. I knew that both of those decisions would very much dictate most aspects of my life. I sort of understood the ramifications of picking up and moving away and sort of understood the ramifications of getting married. Whether I understood the specifics of those processes is not as important as me having understood the seriousness of whatever the ramifications were. And yet, I always took solace in the fact that both moving and marriage is somewhat easily reversed. I knew that moving can happen at most any juncture of a journey. I knew that marriage was a little more difficult to reverse, but nearly half of us find a way so I could too.
Recently, I have started to notice that the number of folks on the other side of the baby line is rapidly increasing. Facebook is a hotbed for baby videos and baby announcements and gender reveals and 20 week updates (by the way, no one cares that your fetus is the size of a fig). Babies are everywhere and they don't seem to be going away. People I don't even know are having kids and announcing it to the world of Facebook on a daily basis. With every new baby, I feel a stronger sense of urgency to finalize my decision on which side of the line I want to stay. With every 20 week bump picture, I find myself considering what I would be craving if I were pregnant. With every gender reveal surprise, I find myself sucked in to the wonder of so-and-so having a baby girl as if one of these times someone's gender reveal party is going to expose that someone is having a pterodactyl instead of a boy.
I honestly don't get the attraction. Yet, I understand that I must be missing the appeal of children, because we all keep getting pregnant. Some of us are even signing up for baby #2.
I ask my mom friends to articulate what is so intriguing about their own child, and I never get a sufficient answer. I get a lot of "make sure you do everything you want to do before..." answers. And a lot of "you have plenty of time before you have kids." I've had a few "I would have waited a little longer" responses, but I never get an answer that communicates the reason for having a baby. I even ask my own mom who claims that my brother and me are the best thing she has ever accomplished. She gives me the predictable "you just don't know until you have your own" response, which I think answers why we all do just that. Babies benefit from the ultimate marketing campaign. We are all persuaded to jump on the baby bandwagon because the only way to understand is to get one for yourself. Babies are unable to be appreciated from afar. There is apparently some magnetic pull of early morning feedings and incessant crying. There is power in those little cone shaped heads and dirty diapers. In between the spit up and poop, there is some sort of baby drug these little unassuming humans are creating. To non-parents babies are like a mystical creature unexplained by all the parents in this world. Babies are like Nessie or Big Foot. They are UFOs and aliens. Babies cannot be defined or understood until you simply drink the kool-aid. Babies are the Northern Lights of adulthood. You don't know when exactly you're going to get to see them, but everyone testifies to the transformative experience of being in their presence.
I don't know when or if I will ever get to see the Northern Lights of parenthood. I used to think I would just sign up to get on the baby train whenever it was that I got bored with being just me. I assumed that since sixteen-year-olds all over America get pregnant without even meaning to (shout out to "Teen Mom" by the way) the process of getting pregnant must be pretty simple. However, I think getting pregnant can sometimes be as complicated as finding the Northern Lights. You've got to be in the right place at the right time. There can't be a cloud in the sky and it needs to be a new moon. You need to be outside of the city lights and it needs to be just the right time of year. I suppose having a baby would not be quite as magical if every person in this world simply put their name on the baby list and one showed up a few months later.
Sometimes I talk myself into wanting a baby. And then sometimes I remember that I have blankets hanging over the windows in my bedroom in some pathetic attempt to block out the sunlight allowing my husband and me to sleep until eleven on Saturday mornings. I realize that blocking out sunlight will be useless with a crying baby in that same room, and I heed the advice of all of you frazzled parents who longingly remember a time before parenthood when the sight of the Northern Lights was still just a dream in your clear, well-rested mind.
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