Typical Erin

Stories too true to be made up.

Cheers, to being a badass 39 year-old lady.

Hey guys.

I can’t sleep.  I can’t figure out if it’s the general head-spinning of too many things, or the extremely large ice coffee I had around 5pm.  Either way, here we are at 4am.

While things have been quiet over here lately, it’s only because I’ve been working on writing my way through all my heartache, beginning with 6th grade. (6th grade was for REAL you guys.)  Kind of like High Fidelity, except more involved and less interesting, because I’m no Nick Hornby.  In the meantime, I thought I’d break from that to give my High Fidelity High Five list of the last year, because a few weeks ago, I turned 39, and it was the first time in I think 20 years that I was not depressed on my birthday, and the first time I didn’t write about the aging process, and that felt weird?   Usually, I am on the floor surrounded by wine and chocolate and netflix for hours while reminding everyone within a 50 mile radius that I have made it through another year – but it just happened this year, like a normal person’s birthday.  And even though my phone died the ultimate death, followed by my car, which resulted in my life being as chaotic as it could possibly be for the days leading up to, including, and following my birthday, I didn’t get depressed.  I cried a lot – but that’s like – normal – for me.  I cried twice yesterday, one time for this commercial:

Ridiculous.  

Anyway – top 5 big things for my 38th year.

I continued to run, once through the night without sleeping in a van with people I didn’t know all that well.  Each year that it continues to happen, I continue to be proud of myself, and hope that I continue to, because it’s not ever been in my nature to be athletic, or exercise, and I still hesitate to call myself a runner, but each time I run, I feel badass.  Every time!  And feeling badass (for me) is a good feeling.

I raised Anna.  Somewhere between 5 and 10 times, I ran down the street (about a half a mile),  cried and tried to figure out how I could magically not be a mother anymore, while still being completely in love with my daughter.  The internal dialogue is something like:

So many people could do this better.

Is it too late for adoption?

Could my parents raise her?  

I can’t breathe.

I am so selfish!  

I would die without her.

At least I feed her and she has clean clothes?  

I’m not the worst mom ever.  

How long have I been gone?  

WHERE IS ANNA?  

It usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour to move through.  And at least 100 times, I watched Anna be Anna and realized how caring, compassionate, bright, talented and awesome she is – and realized two things are true – I am both responsible for that, because I’m her mom, and not responsible at all for it – because she is her own person.  Realizing that your daughter is not an extension of you might be the coolest and most terrifying part of being a mom, or has been for me, and already has me feeling like my arms are tightly wrapped around her ankle while she walks away, begging her not to get older, while I’m simultaneously ushering her along her paths of independence in any way I can.

I left my job and got a job.  I left the company I’d been working at for 10 years, not totally knowing what would happen, and started a new job.  I have a million stories from 10 years of the old job (like the time I Facebook friend-requested the entire company, resulting in new employees thinking I was adding Facebook as part of their performance reviews), and a million stories from 6 months at the new one (like the below, which is not how I ever imagined I’d be spending any day at any job, ever?)

But the story behind the story is more important – that leaving a job I’d been in for 10 years was terrifying and exciting and the right thing to do.  Are all things that are the right thing to do terrifying and exciting?  I followed my instincts, and my heart, and trusted myself and pushed fear aside enough to do that, and it felt brave and crazy and stupid and amazing.  And maybe a little badass?

I found my community.  I have never relied so much on any community as I have in the last few months, on this one.  A few weeks ago in the midst of an event, two moms approached me, knowing I was unable to leave my job, and gave me – without my asking – the rundown of how they were taking care of Anna that day – which involved her hopping from house to house with her friends, as I’d always imagined she would, as I did when I was her age, being adopted by other mothers and well-fed and well-loved and well-cared for.  My mother didn’t need it like I did – like I do, but it helped me so much as a little person to have other adults that cared for me as well as my own mother did, and it helps me so much as a mother not just in the logistics of being a mom, but in all of it.  Life in general.  

I told stories that were painful and honest and important to tell.  Like finding out about Anna, even though I sort of already knew.  And being lonely.  And forging a path to find a relationship with Anna’s father.  And being a terrible mother, and a good mother.  And watching porn.  And falling in love, and getting my heart broken, and unknowingly undressing slowly (while backlit) for a college football team in the middle of Chicago.  And every time I told one I felt better about what I’d gone through, and less alone in the world, and for real – pretty badass.

Because everyone’s story is important to tell and not always easy to.

So thank you family, and old friends, and new friends, and old coworkers, and new coworkers,  and Reach the Beach runners, for everything.  And thank you audience members who were friends and strangers at 3S and elsewhere – for listening.

Cheers to being a badass 39 year-old lady.

Pizza, Pregnancy and Porn, OR: Why I’ve never really been a single mother.

When I first found out I was pregnant, I was living with two roommates in an apartment in Medford, Massachusetts, just over the border of the Somerville line.  I was visiting Chicago when I figured it out – taking 5 pregnancy tests and following that with a visit to Planned Parenthood because I needed someone official to confirm that the drug store at the end of my friend’s street wasn’t selling me false positives.

I came home to a party we’d planned before I left and spent the night watching my friends drink and dance while I pretended to sip a cocktail, wondering how I would do it, how I’d even tell them what I was doing.

When I was young, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted my life to look like when I grew up, at least on the personal side.  There were so many possibilities!  I just knew it would be awesome.  What I didn’t picture though, in any of the possible scenarios, was being pregnant, without a partner, living with two roommates in Medford, Massachusetts.  So I started picturing a new vision – what it would be like to be a mother in Boston, because of course – that’s where I would stay.  I would move out, on my own – because I could afford that, right?  And I would get her daycare.  I could travel on the train with a baby – I could do all of it, alone, I would be fine.  I watched women everyday do just that.  Haul strollers down the flights of stairs to the subway.  Inch themselves onto the platform, politely ushering their children onto the seats that would be given up for them.

I found a doctor that I trusted, a short walk from the office where I was working as an Executive Assistant.  I changed my diet, started taking prenatal vitamins, and joined a prenatal yoga class.  I started going to therapy.  I did all the things I thought I was supposed to do to take care of myself, most of the time. But I’d departed from the world I’d lived in for years and years without a plan of how to spend my time in the new one, so I was alone.  I am happy, alone, most of the time – even now, but the alone time became the only option.  None of my friends were pregnant, or even thinking about that, and I wasn’t comfortable enough in my own skin to form a connection outside of the people I already knew.  The other women in yoga class seemed like better adults – beautiful women with plans, husbands and partners and houses and stuff figured out.  I pictured them at home with their feet up, asking for their mates to run out for ice cream and pickles and french fries and I hated them with every fiber of my pregnant body.

When my roommates went out on Friday nights for dinner and drinks and everything else, I would treat myself to a small pizza with black olives and feta cheese, a pint of ice cream and porn, sometimes laying on the floor of our living room, my pregnant belly over me, so there was no chance I could be seen by the countless other college aged kids wandering the streets around our apartment.

The hormones that come with pregnancy are intense at all times, or at least they were for me.  When I was upset, which was a lot of the time, I was on the floor, sobbing so hard that I’d start to hyperventilate into my pillow so my roommates couldn’t hear me.  When I was angry, I could picture myself getting off with a defense of temporary insanity after killing the many men and women that watched me stand on the subway car, in the middle of winter, sweat dripping from my face while they sat cozily, NOT offering me their seat.  (That happened so often that when a man I didn’t even find remotely attractive offered me his seat, I almost asked him out.  I even did one of those missed connections on Craigslist?  I pictured us sharing ice cream sundaes years later, talking about how we met to the yet-to-be-born baby of mine)  And when I was horny, I sat with my phone in my hands for hours, arguing both sides of the compelling debate: when is it okay to call your ex-boyfriend – who doesn’t know you’re pregnant, for sex?  Is it always okay?  I thought it was always okay.  

I watched porn, instead, though.

I delivered all news of my pregnancy tentatively, never knowing what reaction I would get from my audience.  I get it now, that if you deliver news without being excited yourself, your audience might not totally know how to react.  At the time though – I stated the facts sort of how you would if you were delivering shocking news in a soap opera – I’d scrunch my face up in a way that would have made you think I was going to cry, say, “I’m pregnant…” and then fume silently at the lack of enthusiasm on the other end.

There was good too, though.  The guy that worked at the au bon pain downstairs from my office always gave me an extra cup of soup for the baby.  A good friend from high school made me lunch and took me to coffee and fawned over how lucky I was, and how beautiful I looked.  My friends made things for the baby’s room, ordered pregnancy magazines for me, and indulged my need to talk about it pretty much nonstop.  When I was about 8 months pregnant, I walked outside to head to work, and a woman on the street looked up at me and exclaimed, YOU’RE PREGNANT! with such emotion and happiness that I started crying.  I had no idea who she was.  I *have* no idea who she was.

And, I loved being pregnant.  It was the first time in my life I actually started to pay attention to what it meant to take care of myself, eating well, staying hydrated, sleeping enough – too much?  And just realizing that those things actually did impact how I felt everyday.  And the force of it – having to do that for someone else, allowed me to keep myself honest around it.  I felt more beautiful and sexy than I’d ever been – which I realize now, after listening to my friends and the everyday pregnant lady, is not totally normal.

I hated not having a partner, though.  Up to that point, still – even, I’ve not had what you would call traditional, successful long-term relationships.  There was no visible gap before this, for me.  I wanted something, I knew, but I have never been someone that dreamt of a partner, or a life with a family, or walking down the aisle.  Being pregnant without someone to rub my feet or get me ice cream was kind of a bummer.  That’s it though, just a bummer.  I can rub my own feet and I know where to get ice cream.  Being pregnant without anyone holding my hand through sonograms, or freaking out with me when they couldn’t find the heartbeat, or holding me so I didn’t have to hyperventilate into a pillow, was devastating.

When she was born, I had moved into my parents house, giving up the vision I had of single-mother-in-the-city, realizing I had no idea what the fuck I was doing.  While my mother cut the umbilical cord, sobbing, I stared at the lump on Anna’s back, wondering what it was and why no one was saying anything about it.  It was a tumor, we’d later find out, and it landed us in Dartmouth-Hitchcock for a few months, first to remove it, and second to treat the spinal meningitis that resulted from the surgery.

It was hard.  It was hard to be a new mom in a hospital, it was hard to be a new mom alone, it was hard to just be, in general, in those months.  Anna was hooked up to IV’s, making it incredibly difficult to breastfeed, surrounded by nurses in an environment that would have you believe you may as well throw your bedridden child out the third floor window of the hospital if you weren’t breastfeeding.  Breastfeeding in its most natural state is beautiful.  Breastfeeding in a teaching hospital when you’re facing difficulties is humiliating.  At one point I had to wear this kind of flask around my neck filled with breastmilk that had tubes coming out of it that I taped to my breasts that Anna then fed from.  We were like – trying to fake her out.

Pumping became how I spent the majority of my time at Dartmouth.  It’s not pretty – pumping.  The hospital grade electric pumps make you feel like a cow, really – or at least give you some insight as to how cows must feel on a regular basis.  You sit with the pumps hooked up to each breast, and have the milk literally sucked out of you, the sound of the pump doing its work making you feel more like a machine and less like a woman with each ounce, if you were lucky to get that much out, which I wasn’t.  If having my father accidentally walk in while I was doing that wasn’t awful enough, sitting in front of the window looking out at the mountains while doing it and having a window washer drop down in front of me was.  I detached so quickly it was as if I was hitting the ground taking cover from a bomb.

In my darkest moments, I wanted to dive out the third floor window myself.

What happened as a result, though, was that I was never left alone to contemplate it.  My parents carted themselves and weeks worth of clothing down to Dartmouth and lived at the Holiday Inn. My friends, the good ones – the ones that were the first to get the call that I was pregnant, the first to help me process it all, the first to hear we were on our way to Dartmouth, showed up.  My family showed up.  My ex-boyfriend that I never called for sex showed up.  They continue to now, in a way that makes me feel that sometimes, my situation is one that has more support than one of a two-parent household.  Sometimes, I feel lucky.

And while I continue, 10 years later, to be officially stamped in the same way I was then, with a single mother status, remembering these last 10 years, I realize time and time again that I might be without a partner, but I have never really been alone.  I have never really been a single mother.

Take care of yourself, save the date for prom 2017, and: this one’s for you, Becki.

Hey hey.

Does that sound too much like Fat Albert?  MAN it is tough to kill hey guys.

Anyway, how’s things?

Here, they are peaceful.

We have had a relatively slowgoing start to the new year, which has been really, really nice, to be honest.  With the exception of a mishap yesterday (why are there brownies in my house?) my year has been my resolutions: sleep-yoga-run-walk-write-drinkwater-eatwell-bewithAnna-figureouthowtohelpothers.  Not in any particular order, really.  Well – in some order.  The taking care of myself part, so far, seems to be the hardest.  When Anna was younger, I thought taking care of myself meant taking time to be alone – that’s it, really – and in that solitude, doing things that made me happy.  I’ve learned though, that it’s something to embrace with her, to talk about, so she can learn before 38 how to do that for herself, and so I can get better at helping her find her way.  I don’t know if anyone loves Jada as much as I do – but even if you don’t – I think the below is worth watching.  “Communication creates partnership.”

It’s like, OF COURSE!  She’s so great.

Anyway, in other news:

Save the date: I’m going to be at 3S Artspace the day after Valentine’s Day (that is February 15th, for those of you that aren’t on top of your 2017 calendars yet) to tell a story – and the theme is Love/Hate.  Every time I tell a story – I feel like I can put it away, so I think I’m going to talk about one of my love affairs.  As long as my parents don’t show up?  It will be scandalous and fun and I really think you should come, not just because I feel safer when I see people I love but also because every single storyteller always tells a story that is worth telling and worth hearing – information about the event here: It will be so much fun!

Equally as important: I’m going to throw an 80’s style prom for my birthday this year.  You’re all invited.  June-ish.  I harbor all kinds of unprocessed feelings about my high school (lack of) relationships and pretty awful prom nights, and much like storytelling helps me put the bad feelings down, I think redoing my prom would as well.  I also harbor serious love for 80’s love songs, because, hello, they’re amazing.  I might hire a DJ just so I can hear, “This one is for Erin,” after dedicating a song to myself, because in the list of things I have never gotten over is hearing someone dedicate a song to me on 94.9 WHOM somewhere between the years 1988 and 1992.  (Let it go, Erin, I know.)  I’ll dedicate one to you too, no worries.  Maybe I’ll slowly dedicate songs to you via my blogs over the next 6 months to help us get ready?

Too much?

The prom rundown: I didn’t have a boyfriend, or even a boy – friend.  I’d moved to Dover a year earlier, and only recently settled in to having regular friends, which was a miracle, or at least a miracle is what my friends described it as, since no one ever talks to new girls?  Since girls didn’t ask boys (or at least this girl wouldn’t) I felt I was destined not to go, and to keep my dignity intact, told my friends I didn’t even want to go.  To be honest, I didn’t really want to go – but only because I knew my fairy godmother wasn’t going to descend and transform me, and the thought of putting myself together was terrifying.  At the time, the only outfit I wore was a grey sweatshirt, jeans, and hiking boots, hair pulled back into a tight ponytail.

Side note: I have no idea why I wore hiking boots.  The only hikes I conquered were to and from high school, and perhaps the mall.  To wait tables.  

When I was finally asked, it was a week before the prom, and I remember halfheartedly saying yes to him, while inside I was falling to the ground in sweet relief.  When it came to the day though, and a group of my friends were all gathered at my best friend’s house for pictures, my date was not there.  I’d been stood up.  When the mothers started pushing us together, I tried very quietly to usher myself out and properly melt into the ground, but they were having none of it.  Sometimes, moms are the worst.  I wondered if I could run into the house proclaiming sickness, or just fall to the ground in a faint, but I was paralyzed in embarrassment.  I quietly stood at the side of all my very prettily put together friends, alone, wearing a dress I’d had to borrow that didn’t totally fit, wearing a corsage I’d put on myself.  I look at that girl now and think SAVE HER PLEASE!  Put her back in her clothes and tell her it’s okay to not go to the prom.  Save her from high school altogether!  At least save her from those white mary janes.  

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Sigh.

So.

If any of your resolutions involve helping others – come to 3S on February 15th, and help me (and other wonderful yet-to-be-named storytellers) feel some love.

And if they involve helping yourself, eat well.  Drink more water.  Get some sleep.  Go to yoga!

Or, come to my birthday party.

This one’s for you, Becki:

Stay open to everything. Don’t wash your keys. Keep your clothes on. Buy an extinguisher? XXO, 2016. Hello 2017.

Hey there.  (I killed ‘hey guys’.  HUGE CHANGES AFOOT!)

Happy New Year!  I have smudged the house, sprinkled water from the rose of jericho on our doorstep, and burned the Christmas tree.

Welcoming 2017 by burning the last remnants of 2016 ?❤??

A video posted by Erin Laplante (@typical_erin_) on

I spent the last few days thinking about what happened for us in 2016 while I planned for 2017, and remembered that for our little family, it was a pretty big year. For instance, I found out that if you put your remote door lock / panic button to your car in the dryer, the panic button (alarm) will go off randomly and then turn back off while you run frantically around your house trying to find your keys.  It will later that day go off whenever it feels like it – like, in the parking lot of Trader Joe’s, in downtown Portsmouth, or in your very own driveway of course, terrifying you and/or your neighbors until you run to your car, unlock it (manually, because the remote only works to lock it and set off the panic button) and start the car, which requires three turns of the ignition.

OR, until you use a hammer to smash it after the 7th time this happens.

Cheers.

Typical.

Also, though – good finds.

Anna found a love of sports – I am not a sports lover.  Mostly because I totally sucked it at every sport I played – and it’s legit no fun to do something you’re not very good at.  This isn’t one of those low self-esteem things, I am healthily recognizing that I am not good at something, and don’t have any interest in focusing energy on it.  I do, however, recognize the good that it brings to the little ones – learning to collaborate as a team, developing self-esteem, leadership skills, self-discipline, doing something that contributes to your physical well-being – there’s so much good for her.  The bravery of Anna – who had never really played anything – walking onto a team of girls she didn’t know to play a sport she didn’t know how to play, and then loving it, was a pretty good lesson for both of us, and I’ve tried to remember that over the course of the year when I’ve been forced into social situations (or any situation) that I might not be all that excited about – the benefits  of challenging yourself and remaining open – to whatever, can be pretty rewarding.  (Below after a tournament in which they kicked ass)

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I found myself a little bit more – I’d give up the additional eye wrinkles, and the deepening of that one solid one between my eyebrows for anything, of course, but a big part of me really does love getting older.  I think with each additional day, month and year, I feel a little bit more comfortable in my own skin.  I still wake up at 3:00 a.m. on a regular basis and question every decision I’ve ever made, and then when I get to the same answers, start all over again.  I still (sometimes) get caught up in where I am compared to where I thought I’d be, or who I am compared to who I thought I’d be, or worse – who and where I am compared to anyone else, or the very worst, why I can’t ever get the Christmas tree up and/or down successfully without breaking things in the house, breaking a part of my body, or breaking my ongoing resolution to stop saying ‘fuck’ so much (because it bugs Anna) but eventually, I remind myself that where I ended up, where our family is now, is pretty great.  And not just because it’s in Maine.  (And so close to the Rite Aid?)

We found our family – it is an ongoing mostly uphill battle to find your family when one third of it is in Chicago.  Anna’s father had been here a few times, but by himself, with just the two of us, which mainly meant that everything was on my terms, on my turf, in my surroundings.  And at least one third of each trip, for me, was spent in the corner of the kitchen of whatever house we were living in, glass of wine in hand, exhaling.  Because I was scared, mostly.  I don’t know of what.  I mean, I have some ongoing theories, of course.  Maybe in a few more years I’ll have better perspective on it.  Maybe you guys are shaking your heads knowingly, having a better view into what it might have been.  Y’know when you’re listening to someone else talk and hoping they get it sooner than they do?  Maybe that’s what you’re doing.  Don’t go up the stairs Erin, out the front door!  So we ventured west this year, which took some courage from all of us.  It was good, though – almost all of the time.  Not because it was actually good, really – there were as many tough or difficult moments as there were good ones.  Right when I thought I must have just hopped onto a unicorn that was galloping over a rainbow, dark clouds would settle in.  I knew it though – I recognized the tough and managed it, we all did, in a way that felt like we’d finally found each other.  And with each of the tough moments (even more so than the good ones, I think) we get a little bit closer to some state of normal – what feels like it could be our normal.  Whatever that might end up being.  14064044_10208453037657312_2037160165234429613_n

And on the last night there, when we were ushered so lovingly into her father’s sister’s house – her aunt’s, for dinner, and Anna settled in to play with one of the grandkids, and I sat at the table with photo albums of her grandparents – ohmygoodness you guys.  I don’t know.  That one night was worth all of 2016.

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So.  If we’ve learned anything this year, it’s to stay open to everything, to trust everything, even when – maybe especially when it’s completely terrifying.

And don’t wash your keys.

(And don’t take off your clothes in front of a backlit window.  And don’t burn the Christmas tree next to the planted tree in your yard.  And don’t leave rice krispy treats uncovered next to your SUPER FABULOUS fur coat during a snowstorm-car-ride.  And don’t rip the smoke alarm out trying to get it to stop, when you’re prone to fires?)

Hello 2017. 

 

 

Werewolves, homemade hurricanes and Horne field hookups. Or: I’m sorry for the teenage years (but I’m forgiving myself for the teenage years)

When I was 16, my father came into my room to wake me up and saw a blond head.  He immediately thought there was another girl in my bed, and stared at me dumbfounded.  The night before, I had decided to bleach my hair, but, not knowing anything about how to do that, I ended up with platinum, orange and yellow hair.  I didn’t tell my parents; because at that point, I did anything I could possibly do to avoid telling them anything.

I think about what that moment must have been like for my father, and think about my own path with my daughter and think fucccccckkk.

You could say I was not the ideal teenager.

I went through all the regular stuff at 13 – bad skin, greasy hair, and an ass the kids I babysat at the time described as SO HUGE.  I managed my fair share of relationships (which I would later learn was a result of being one of the first girls to develop) but as we reached the end of the summer of our eighth grade year and prepped to be freshmen, I was single.  The soon to be senior boys started hanging out with us – my friends pairing up one by one over the course of the summer.

There was a field that we frequented at the end of what defined our neighborhood – when we were little, to swing and run and climb a weird set of rocks I always imagined a tribute to Stonehenge, when we were a little older to make out in the woods, and on this particular night – to bask in the love of the soon to be senior boys.  Now I know – I had no shot with these men.  Out of the lot of my incredibly beautiful friends I was low on the totem pole.  At the time, though, I could fool myself into thinking I was bound to end up with one of them, of course, like the end of a John Hughes movie, perhaps sitting on a table leaning over my birthday cake with romantic 80’s pop in the background.

We were all lying on the rocks– making fun of each other and flirting.

And then, a little yellow convertible screeched to a halt at the end of the road, and my father yelled, GET IN THE CAR ERIN, NOW.

I’d told him I was at my friend Kacie’s house, and I was – until we decided to head down to the field.

If Meredith, Courtney and Kacie’s curfew was 9:30, mine was 9:00.  If they could cross the bridge to go to the school playground, my limits were on my side of the river.  If they could go to Horne field with the soon to be senior boys, I would have to get picked up by my dad in my mom’s very recognizable little yellow convertible, inevitably killing my John Hughes ending.

I vowed to never forgive my father, for probably the 100th time.

And soon after, started to do what I imagine millions of teenagers had done before me as a result – lied.

I said I was sleeping at a friend’s house, and snuck out to go to an all-night party at the town reservoir.  I emptied my parent’s liquor cabinet into plastic cups our family had gotten at a fast food restaurant and my friend and I drank them in less than a half hour – and then collected all of the political signs in the neighborhood – and redistributed them.  I went to after school parties at a neighborhood boys house and watched my best friend chug a bottle of vodka while I kissed my then-boyfriend.

What was happening at the same time behind the scenes of my very strictly regulated young life though – was slow developing self-hatred.  Although I did have a boyfriend, freshmen year – he was not all that nice to me, never really expressing affection, only holding my hand when no one was looking.

I broke up with him, finally – telling him I wasn’t emotionally fulfilled.

My self-image – not as a result of my relationship with him, but as a result of all of the teenage hell of hormones we all go through, was pretty awful.  In short: a really ugly, mousy woman with an incredibly deep voice that needed to lose weight.  With 20 years of perspective looking back now, I can see that I was the same adorable human I am now, of course, but then, could not see that girl in the mirror in front of me.

My parents will time and again draw a specific timeline to my metamorphosis – when we moved from my small hometown in Northern New Hampshire to Southern New Hampshire.  Like a magic, overnight transition – like when Michael Jackson sees the moonlight – his eyes turning a deep yellow/green, sprouting ears and hair – turning into a werewolf unexpectedly.  His werewolf status would actually be a good way to describe what I ended up being in my parents’ life – a total. Fucking. Nightmare.

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I remember my mother saying, as we were pulling out of town, that she understood how I felt – and feeling like that was impossible.  She was not 14, she was 40, and she wasn’t ugly – she was beautiful.  Everyone loved her that met her, she had a huge community of friends she could talk to, she wasn’t a teenager.  She was an adult.  A decision maker.

I survived the 2 hour drive and the adjustment to a new school, but barely.  My mother took me back to Berlin regularly, at the time I thought for me, but now I know those trips were for both of us.  I found friends that felt like a fit, even if they weren’t the ones I’d left.

And my parents were right in that the move changed me – all of us, really – but it didn’t put me on a path of self-destruction, it just ramped it up into warp speed.

I stole the car.  I snuck out.  I skipped school.  I went to parties at UNH.  I drank and did drugs I would have a hard time admitting openly to most people.  I told my parents I was going one way, and I inevitably went the other, ducking and hiding the entire time.

What happened also, though – during that period of time, is that my parents continued to love me, even when I was giving them every reason not to.  They attended every event I was a part of – whether it was a parade, or practice, or concert or game.  They volunteered to help at the school, even though I wouldn’t even openly admit to their existence any more than I would admit to my own.  When I wanted to drive my mom’s famous little yellow convertible to the senior banquet, my dad quietly worked on the car so I could, adding expense and time to his life that I didn’t really deserve, only telling me in response to some flip comment I’d made to him about wanting to drive it in the first place.

And years later, when I found myself pregnant, unexpectedly – there was no gap in between delivering the news and feeling support from them.  I moved into their house, huge and hormonal.  My mom listened to my cry about being pregnant, brought me tea on the back porch in the afternoons and let me fall asleep reading.  She helped me pick out baby clothes and make the huge room in her house that Anna and I would share feel like my own.

And even though I swore at her when she decided to talk to the nurse about a rash she was developing when I was in hard labor – the two of them leaning over me, I do not know how I could have gone through the delivery without her.  When she cut the cord, tears streaming down her face, I told her I was sorry.  Because even though I had grown up, a lot, actually, until Anna – I didn’t understand what it was like.

I didn’t know what it was like to be a parent, anymore than a parent can really get what it’s like to be a 14 year-old.  As much as we all love each other, we are continually on the front lines of our own battle.

It took me too long to get to the place I’m in now, I know, and I can’t erase the things I did along the way that hurt those around me, most especially my parents.  I can’t go back and see how hard it must have been for my mother to leave the only place she’d ever known, 45 years in.  But I can appreciate it now.  I can’t thank my father for what he was doing for me in the moment that he was working on my mother’s famous little yellow convertible, but I can apologize for it now.

What’s important for me to express is that it wasn’t the move that changed me, or anything my parents did – it was just what needed to happen for me to get here.  Where I love myself as best I can, my daughter as best I can, and of course, my parents, as best I can.  None of that love is perfect – sometimes, in the face of a beautiful man, my voice gets deeper, my skin gets oily and I gain 10 pounds.  Sometimes when I say WHAT in response to Anna asking me for the 50th time about something, I can see my tone cut into her like a knife, and sometimes, like last night, my frustration over something my mother says to me can blow up beyond reasonable proportion.

And what my parents have left me with is what the most important thing to do is, as a parent, which is love.

Open House: a black tie affair, or: I’m sorry I cried all over your ice cream counter.

Hey guys.

How are things?

Here, they are sleepy.  My allergies have taken over in a way that has me in a zombie-like state, consistently looking like I haven’t slept in years and consistently feeling like I’m putting away a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes. In truth, the only thing I’m putting away is a consistent cocktail of Benadryl, Allegra, Claritin and Flonase, which by the way, is the worst name of a medicine ever.  I’m not taking them all at once but I’m making the rounds, trying to find something that will allow me to sleep through the night.  This week I’m switching to natural remedies, and not just because I’m not allowed to buy allergy medication at the store anymore.  (I’m not though.  They scanned my license the last time I went in and I’m on a statewide ban.)

I really am, though.  

Anyway – other than the allergies, I have been a little quiet over here lately because we have been in transition.  The back to school stuff causes us both a little anxiety – and I forget that every year until it happens.  In her old school, it was the back to school picnic that sent me into an anxiety-ridden state of panic, and it turns out the Open House in Kittery is my triggering event.  I honestly have no idea why.  I think it might just be that I kick into SUPERAWKWARDERIN at events with large amounts of people I don’t know.  I small talk in a way that makes me unrecognizable to myself – saying things like “HERE WE GO AGAIN HAHAHAH!” and “IS IT CHRISTMAS BREAK YET” in an  unbelievably loud voice.

Which is what I did this year.  

Anna also told me I had to *look nice*.  I mean – I generally try to look nice.  It makes me feel comfortable.  So when someone tells me I have to – when I already feel uncomfortable – I ramp it up to evening gown level.  I wore a summery cocktail dress.  There was no need to wear a summery cocktail dress to open house, or put my hair up, or wear heels, but I did – while sweating uncontrollably, and small-talking loudly.

When we finally made it through the evening, and out to the parking lot, I said something that made Anna mad.  It doesn’t matter what I said – it just made her walk a fair distance ahead of me to the car.  I spent that time, watching her in front of me, and trying to remember when I shifted gears to wanting to alienate myself from my own mother, and figured it was likely around the same time, and that bummed me out.

There’s a Dairy Queen at the end of our street.  We don’t go – ever – even though there’s an eyebrow raise and a smile from her almost each time we pass.  And we hadn’t eaten dinner.  And even though I knew it was not good – for either of us – instead of passing it that night, I pulled in.  And she squealed in delight.  And that made me so happy.  And then we got up to the window – and I ordered, while she stared at the menu, and then she ordered – and paused to look at me and say ‘Small or large?’ and I said ‘I think small honey – they give…’ and before I could end my sentence, she threw back her head, heavy sighed, and started loudly complaining about how I never let her get anything she wants.

And I immediately burst into tears.  I cried through paying for the ice cream, then while walking to the car, and all the way home.  And when my own ice cream started dripping on my evening gown, I was too angry to ask her to hold it for me.  So I just kept crying.

And when we pulled on to our street, and the ice cream had melted to an extent that my hand was covered, sticky and drippy and gross, and was dripping on me so much that there was a pool of cookie dough in my cocktail-dress lap, I rolled down the window, and threw the entire thing out.

And when we got home, I went in my room and laid on my bed in my ice cream-covered cocktail dress for about an hour, until Anna wandered in slowly and laid next to me, and we both apologized to each other.

And the next morning on the way to school, we pulled over about a half-mile from the house, and Anna watched me pick up the empty carton of ice cream I’d thrown out the window.  (Because hello, littering?)

I feel like I usually have a reason for telling you guys a story like this – like there’s some ending for me, but this one is just for the telling.  Because I bet one of you sweat uncontrollably and laughed too loudly at your own terrible joke while shaking hands with the music teacher in your heels on open house, or one of you cried through ordering ice cream while the college-aged girl stared at you in disbelief, or maybe you threw your ice cream out the window (or at least you wanted to).

And sometimes I just need to remember that when I’m laying in my ice-cream covered dress.

xoxo.

Maybe the first chapter, OR: Why not all quitting is bad.

He was never involved in our lives from the very beginning – but that didn’t prevent questions from her.  So I gave her as much as she asked for.  No more, no less.

“Where is my father?”

“Chicago.”

As she got older, her questions became tougher.

“Why isn’t he here?”

“He’s not capable of being a father right now, but that has nothing to do with you.”

I called him every year on her birthday, to tell him the same thing.  How she was doing, where we were, my unchanged contact information.   I considered this an open invitation to our lives – but all of this information was left on his voicemail, and he never returned my call.  On her eighth birthday, I was met with the automated nonworking phone number message, and resorted to email, giving me a better venue for my case.  I wrote that we were at the cusp of the land of teenage Anna, and it was a perfect opportunity to change his mind.  He could have a relationship with his daughter.  He could help with the more difficult questions by simply showing up.

He responded a few weeks later.  He’d done his research, finally.  He’d seen videos I’d posted on youtube, and my blog, and could no longer avoid admitting there was a human on the planet that was his daughter.

Our email conversations were timid, and guarded.   I didn’t trust he was sincere in his newfound need to be in Anna’s life, that he wouldn’t walk away again if the discussion continued.  He, it turns out, didn’t trust me entirely either.  When a business trip came up that would have me passing through Chicago, I asked if we could meet in person.  I wanted to see him, and have these discussions face to face.  I needed to watch him as he answered my questions, and see his reactions when I answered his.

I booked a room at a Bed and Breakfast in my old neighborhood, thinking I’d feel safest in the area of the city I knew best.  I walked the 3 blocks to the restaurant where we agreed to meet, in the center of the six corner intersection of Wicker Park where I’d spent so much time.  I saw him across the street before he saw me, and all of the awful from our short-lived relationship came back.  My stomach dropped, and I wanted to run.

Over our first drink, he talked about what was going on in his life.  His wife and their somewhat rocky relationship.  How she didn’t know.  His career, or lack thereof, and aspirations to write a screenplay.  He talked enough that the good came back, too – he was funny, I’d forgotten that.  He had a quick wit, something I attribute to intelligence and therefore find incredibly attractive.  I forgot, just for a minute, why we were where we were.  There was a shift in our conversation though, and I woke up.  He was my daughter’s father.  We were not on a date.

I then apologized – for treating my pregnancy like a press release, rather than something that was affecting the two of us and our lives.  I owned what I thought I could.  I recognized how selfish that was.

A week prior to finding out I was pregnant, my best friend’s partner died in a tragic car accident, killing three men I knew, one I loved, leaving my best friend without her partner.  The accident had been caused by a young girl on a mission for suicide – carrying out that mission by pushing her foot down on her gas pedal, as far as it would go, until she hit something – and that happened to be Doug’s car.  He was on his lunch break.

She broke her foot.

When the last funeral ended, and things had become quiet again, I realized I was pregnant.

I don’t think – if the circumstances were different, my choices would have been either, but the power of finding out I was pregnant after the unexpected loss of three lives put a halt in any discussion I could possibly have.  I didn’t think about how he would feel, or how this wasn’t planned, or whether he wanted to be a father at all.

In turn, he explained and apologized for his initial reaction.  He’d grown up in a neighborhood where presenting yourself as pregnant was either a relationship tactic or a request for money, and had not built trust for women presenting that information because of that.

Over the next few months, we got to know each other again, or maybe, for the first time.  And then we agreed to talk to my – our – daughter.

A friend of mine once told me you could not always plan difficult discussions that happen with your children.  The questions that precede those discussions will happen when you are least prepared – when you’re making a sandwich, or driving in your car on the way to soccer practice.  You won’t be sitting at the top of an isolated mountain, a breathtaking view in front of you, perhaps appropriately composed music lightly playing in the background.

I registered my friend’s advice, but like all parenting advice, like all parenting in general, thought I would tackle it perfectly.  No matter what forefront of parenting I encounter, I think, I’ll get it right this time.  That parent had a different experience, but I’ve done my homework.  I’m good.

So I brought her camping in Northern New Hampshire.

The second night there, when the surrounding campsites had quieted down, and we started a fire, I started talking.  She listened and watched me, intently focused on my every word, with no apparent reaction.  No questions.  Complete silence.  I told her, as I’d told her so many times before, that her father was in Chicago.  That although, up to this point, he had not been a part of our lives, he wanted to change that.  That we’d been talking – and the content of our conversations.  And when I’d said all I thought I could say – I asked her if she wanted to see pictures.

She said yes, a smile so small and quick showing on her lips I wondered if I imagined it. I scrolled through the album her father and I collected, noting the captions I knew to be true behind each shot. He was travelling, he was a teenager, he was smiling next to me the night we met. When I finally finished, she sighed, loudly, and slumped back in her camping chair.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you disappointed?”

“Yes.”

I went through every possible question I could think of that would have elicited this response.  Was he not handsome enough? Was it the color of his skin? Were his features not similar enough to her own, or were they too similar? Was it something I said, or how I presented the information overall? Each time, she answered no.

“What is it then, honey? Can you tell me?”

“Well, you said he was black.”

“Yes.”

“And you said he lived in Chicago.”

“That’s right, he does.”

“I just thought it must be Obama.”

She further explained, while I stared blankly, that it made sense to her that his identity was secret, since he was the President?  And I loved him so much.  (Which I mean, I do.)

I noted that while I was some lady (right?), I was not a first lady.

And then her father came to meet her.

And it sucked.

Not because it didn’t go well with the two of them – because each moment in the same room together, with each other, was difficult.  I was angry, it turns out – something I hadn’t realized I was holding onto until he was in front of me, with her, laughing with her, or teasing her.  Instantly in those moments – I would get flashes of her presenting me with her final projects at art camp, or throwing up in the middle of the night all over me, or the worst one – flashes of my bank account, and I would grow quiet.

And  I realized I had been quiet for 8 years before that.

Because while for those 8 years – I assumed it was his responsibility to contact us – to be the one that aggressively fought for a relationship with his daughter, it was clear that my phone calls were a checklist for me, so I could walk away feeling like I had done something, while in actuality, I had ignored the fact that he really existed, and the fact that he could in fact, have a positive impact on both of our lives.

And I have not quit being angry, but I have quit assuming that someone else is responsible for this relationship, because if I want my daughter to be happy, and I do  – I am 100% responsible for making it work.

Silver bells, cockle shells, and naked dreams – xoxo, Mary.

Hey guys.

I really want Mary to take off as my nickname.  I’ve started using it at Starbucks and other situations where people don’t know my real name.  I picture her – my new alter ego – as someone that does not have difficulty making the transition from vegetarian to vegan (but the CHEESE you guys?!  That wine-soaked cheese from Trader Joe’s.  All day long.) and also as someone that can completely restrain herself from eating an entire bag of granola.  She is just generally good with boundaries and self-restraint, in a way that Erin is not.

Other things Mary would not do:

Wear her shirt inside out to church: The other church-folk didn’t notice, or maybe they were too church-y to tell me?  And I was too under-slept to notice when I put it on.  And maybe not church-y enough myself? Regardless, it was a church in Freedom, which if you haven’t been to, is the sweetest little Northern New Hampshire town to ever exist, which will be proven to you when someone hands you a homemade loaf of bread out of a cloth lined basket she had just in case a new person (c’est moi) arrived that morning.  (Right?  Sweetest ever?)

Side note: It takes a lot more than an inside-out shirt to embarrass me these days, but for some reason since it was in church it felt slightly scandalous, like I may as well have had smeared lipstick and mascara under my eyes.  

Introduce her new next door neighbor to her other next door neighbor as Mary:  I totally just did that. I was sitting outside writing the above to you guys, and a neighbor came over to talk to me, and in my HEAD, she said her name was Mary.  And she talked for a long time, and while she was talking, I was thinking how funny it was that her name was Mary.  And I couldn’t wait to tell you guys about it.  And then another neighbor came over, and I immediately said, “Oh, do you know Mary?” and my new friend Mary said:

Actually, my name is Vickie.

Continue to talk to you guys about Rite Aid even though you’re totally sick of hearing it: I have had some solo time over the past few weeks, and decided to use some of it to explore the trails around here – lofty ambitions considering I’ve been lost twice already doing this very thing.  But there was this one that I’d been dying to run on forever – because it looked so magical.  See here:
IMG_7496 (1)

 

Doesn’t it look magical?  And endless?  So, endlessly magical?

Surely, it would lead to miles of magical trails along the ocean.  Perhaps Narnia, or at the very least, Diagon Alley.  Surely, there would be bunnies and deer and other magical animals along the way.  Turns out, though, it’s less than a quarter of a mile long.  And had I taken a second to think through the direction (something I’m not regularly thinking through) – I would have realized where it was going to end up, which was Rite Aid.  

Avoid writing the story she’s supposed to read a week from today in Portsmouth: I’m story-stuck,  you guys, and therefore, a little nervous.  Like – not in everyday life (I think neighbor-Vickie already broke up with me because I forced her to listen to two stories, and we just met?  And then called her Mary?)  I think it’s just because it’s about quitting, and every time I start writing the quitting-stories feel especially tough, because they were quitting? And then I picture myself talking through them in front of an audience and the recurring dream I used to have about being naked in the junior high cafeteria pops in my head.  But Mary, you guys – she would totally have no problem with that.  Both writing the quitting story, and being naked in the junior high cafeteria.  

Maybe Mary should be my stage name?

Anyway – come next week, if you’re close to the Portsmouth area.  I promise I will wear my clothes, and they will all be on the right way.  I will not force you to stop at the Rite Aid on the way to 3S because they have wine coolers at the check out and Barefoot Spritzers and an American flag poncho that just looks like good times, I will simply buy you a cocktail in Portsmouth.

And – I won’t call you Mary.

xoxo,

Mary

Belly fat, loneliness and Prevention magazine: thoughts from a 38-year-old Mary.

Hey guys.

Today, I am 38.  

My mom ordered me Prevention magazine.  She didn’t tell me she did it, it just started appearing on my doorstep with things like ‘Lose the belly fat’ and ‘Walk your anxiety away’ and I thought I might have filled out something about either my belly fat or my anxiety while waiting for my annual physical, or in my therapist’s office?  Or maybe, Prevention just had census information and like *knew* I was at 40’s doorstep, waiting to cross the official threshold of midlife.  Prevention wanted to USHER me through.  Forever etched in my memory is a moment at one of my first adult-jobs, sitting in a cube, listening to a colleague of mine talk about dating a guy and thinking, ‘Man, I hope I’m not dating at 37’ – which was how old she was.

So, cheers!  I am not dating at 37.  Or rather, I’m not dating at 38?

I never made the connection – that not dating would mean either not-with-anyone or committed-for-life, I just didn’t, at that moment, envy the lonely-hearted.  And today, in truth – I am lonely-hearted.

I am typically depressed around my birthday – and each year I wait for it to hit, and then I spend time analyzing it. And each year I think I’ve got it totally nailed down, why it’s hitting me and what it’s about and how I will conquer it the next go ’round.

What’s true for this year is that I feel like I’m better.  Like – things make more sense.  I feel more Erin in a way that is comfortable.  Like, maybe I’m getting it? Not the birthday-depression – just all of it – life in general.  (And then I think by the time I totally get it, I’ll be 80, and wish we could live longer?)  I know I need sleep and I go to bed.  I know eating well will help me feel good.  I know that my body is perfect in its imperfection.  I know that running will kill (at least a little?) the endless time I could over-analyze what being 38 really means.  I know that being angry is about fear, and doesn’t make me feel good, and I know that over and over and over again, forgiveness is better.  I know that being right is not worth anything, actually, even if that’s hard to know that in each moment wholeheartedly.  I know that I don’t know what all of you are going through, and it’s unfair to judge anything, really – even if it’s hard to know that in each moment wholeheartedly.

Like this morning I didn’t know it entirely when I listened to the woman in front of me at Starbucks place her (extremely intense) order.  Or when the Starbucks lady heard Mary, instead of Erin, and wrote that on my birthday-cup-of-joe.  I suppose I could be a Mary?  

I know that I have infinite capacity to love.  I know that if a relationship didn’t work out it doesn’t mean that I am unlovable, even if that’s so hard to know today, when I am celebrating my birthday alone.

So I allowed myself an hour to cry – because while most of the time, I feel like I’ve got it – all of it, that is – on the big days, like a birthday, I’m a little lonely.  And it’s hard to admit to being lonely.  And I feel like admitting the hard to admit stuff is important, because I think being lonely is okay – and it doesn’t mean I’m not happy with my life in general, or didn’t get celebrated like the queen I am today, because I did.  I am currently surrounded with wine, flowers, and cards.  And in general, I am a happy girl.  I’m writing while sitting in the sun with a glass of really good wine, in a comfy chair, surrounded by flowers, listening to the neighborhood.  I love where we live.  And I love my daughter.  And I love my job, my colleagues that showered me with birthday love today, and my family, and have an incredible community of friends that are supportive and compassionate and artistic and creative and who I learn from all the time.

So thank you for a lovely birthday, community.

Thank you for the hugs, wine, cards, and the flowers – for the Maine sweatshirt, for the unicorn-filled messages, and the lantern, and the amazing banner from the Art Institute (that is one for the books) – and just thank you for the love.  It helped this lonely girl celebrate another trip around the sun and was a good reminder that I have an immense amount of things to be grateful for.

xoxo,

Mary.

The dark side of Maine: Brown Helmets are Hot, and I’m getting a buzz cut. Or: who cares?

Can I tell you guys something?

I want a scooter.

Really, really badly.

Don’t you think that would be the best?  Something more eco-friendly to pop around in?  Then I can stay within the safe confines of Kittery and Portsmouth and the Rite Aid on Shapleigh Road.

For.

Ever.

I’m thinking something like this:

Capture

But I think the one I can afford looks like this:

Capture

My mom told me it was NOT VERY SENSIBLE ERIN to get a scooter, which of course means I will be popping around Kittery with that pink radio flyer any day now.  Watch out, Rite Aid customers.

In other news: I’m thinking about shaving my head again.  Because I got my Maine license (finally) you guys.  It’s really not good.  It’s like – I’ve finally found the dark side of Maine, and it’s my license.

In the same vein as shaving my head, I almost put it as my profile picture.  Because fuck it right?  Why does your profile picture have to be a super cute picture of you?  It’s like – to a much, much lesser extent than shaving your head of course – a powerful way to confront your own vanity.  But, much like the razor got stuck in my hand, tears streaming down Anna’s face while she yelled that she DID NOT WANT TO BE THE KID WITH THE WEIRD MOM my gaze is stuck on ‘upload new photo’ and the picture itself.   I actually didn’t think it was that bad, but then I showed it to my coworkers.  At first, no one really said anything, which caused me to be like:

But you guys.  That’s not what I look like, right?

Right?

In Real Life?

For real you guys?

In Real Life?

It’s not that bad, right?

While they quietly turned to stone.

And then I realized that one of them was frantically googling – until she said “FOUND IT!  THIS is what it reminds me of” and backed away from her computer screen so I could see what she pulled up:

Maine

……..

……..

And initially, I was like NO WAY YOU GUYS!  But then, this:

Capture

And further, this:

Capture

I know.  You can’t even tell where I am in that picture, can you?

Breaking news: Anna just came up behind me while I was typing and pointed to the picture and said OH MY GOODNESS YOU LOOK JUST LIKE THAT WOMAN MAMA!

The hits keep comin’.

Here’s what I think though, staring at the perfect brown helmet that is my head.  Even if I don’t shave it – ever (even if I really, really want to) – I can kill the blow dryer, because it’s killing my hair anyway?  And maybe just cut it super short, like a BUZZ cut.  Or wear wigs on a regular basis.

Or shave it.  Because why not.

Or leave it exactly how it is.  

And that is actually, what I look like, when backed up against a wall at the DMV, awkwardly talking to the unpleasant woman that’s telling me where to stare, pretending I’m so laid back I don’t even need to review the picture (and then asking her to take one more shot?).  And I look different when I’m happy (and who is legitimately happy at the DMV?) or devastated, or excited, or scared, or turned on, or brushing off my knees after tripping in the woods on a run, early this morning.  I just don’t have those moments as properly documented as the government required one.

And who cares?  Brown helmets are hot!  And I mean, just look at that picture.  So am I.