Too Much for One Suitcase

I remember the day my daughter Lucia was born. I felt an enormous wave of surprise and then joy. I was sure Lucia was going to be a boy because my mail carrier Denise always said that I was carrying a boy. She was so sure that it made me sure. “When you can’t tell you’re pregnant from behind, it’s a boy,” she said, “because girls steal your beauty.”

I remember being kind of appalled by that statement, but I was fond of Denise and decided to simply accept her prophecy and disregard the rest. I was in labor for forty-three hours. This was in the days of flip phones and fewer cell towers so we were not in touch with the outside world every second. While I labored in the hospital, no one on the outside knew what was going on.

Finally, in a fit of energy that came literally from the depths of my loins, I stood up, leaned on the extra bed in my room, and squatted Lucia out. “It’s a girl,” the midwife declared, and as I stood, legs trembling, they bundled her up and gave her to my partner to hold while I hung out a while longer to deliver the placenta.

When I finally held Lucia I felt like I knew her, like somehow she’d always been there. I was elated, comforted, that this little being would be familiar to me — I had been a baby girl once and worked my way through the stages of girlhood into womanhood. I would be able to understand and comfort this precious being. I would be a good mom to her.

Now Lucia is seventeen, at the edge of womanhood, the precipice of independence. I still remember as clear as yesterday the moment I first held her, first understood that she would be my daughter. It’s been hard lately. I’m the heavy, the rule-maker, the line-drawer, the boundary-setter. In the eyes of a young woman who feels ready to launch, I am a major spoiler.

Last week in a hangover of mother-daughter conflict, I was walking along the lake and I had the image of a suitcase, an old brown canvas suitcase with Naugahyde trim and silver buckles, stuffed with wrinkled clothes and too many shoes. The suitcase was too full to zip up and clothes were squirting out from all sides. This suitcase is Lucia’s life right now. She is bursting at the seams and I am trying to tuck her in, squeeze all her parts into the suitcase so I can zip it up and keep her contained. It’s not working. 

I’ve been thinking about that suitcase, about how it would feel to Lucia to be stuffed into a place she no longer fits. I’ve been there. I faintly remember the days when I didn’t understand why my parents had rules; I remember thinking the demands they made were arbitrary and controlling. The curfew, room cleaning, and nightly dinners made me mad and resentful.

A few days ago I caught Lucia in a big lie. She tried to cover it up but ultimately exposed herself and got busted. The suitcase was exploding before my eyes. While I waited for Lucia to come home from a friend’s house I panicked about how I would respond to her. My partner talked me through it —  she reminded me that Lucia needs guidelines and consequences, she coached me to stay calm, and reinforced the reality of the situation — that Lucia is still Lucia, she’s just being seventeen.

When Lucia got home we went upstairs to talk. “Do you want to say anything?”, I calmly asked her. Sitting on my bed, legs hanging over the edge, she looked at me and told me the truth about where she had slept the night before. 

We talked for a long time — about what a better option would have been to retain trust in our relationship, about what’s going on with her at school, about how she feels tired and overwhelmed in her life right now. I’ve imagined how insane it must be to be Lucia — school every day, a job both weekend days, homework, friends, college prep. It’s a hamster wheel of responsibility in a body that’s still figuring out what it means to be in charge.

The feeling I got from Lucia, even though she’d just been busted, was one of relief. “I just feel so tired Mom, like life never stops,” she moaned while lying on her side, perched on her right elbow. “That’s a message,” I told her, “and you have to listen to that. You have to set some limits for yourself so you don’t feel so crazy.” 

I understood at that moment that right now, as much as she wants to, Lucia can’t hear her own signals. There is too much noise and distraction and expectation. She’ll keep going, maybe until she’s in trouble. So for now I need to help her know her limits.

The conversation went far better than I had hoped. I felt, for the first time in weeks, that we’d truly heard one another. Shortly after we talked I went to sleep. The image that came to me was of Lucia floating in a large plexiglass box across the universe, swishes of stars all around, a beautiful dark sky, a great expanse. I imagined Lucia floating within the box, traveling somewhere. And in my mind, I knew that she needed to stay in the box to stay safe. 

Only when she got to her destination could she safely push open the walls of the box and explore. If she pushed one side of the box to open it before her destination, red lights would flash and a great siren would blare to alert her that she was entering the danger zone. 

As I drifted off to sleep I felt a sense of calm I haven’t in a long time. This teenager parenting gig momentarily made sense to me. Right now I’m the red lights and siren. I have to be the warning signs until Lucia gets to her destination (whenever and wherever that is); until she learns to listen to her own signals. 

I understood that the suitcase I had been trying to squeeze Lucia into was too small and confining. It was too dark and closed and stuffy. 

The image of Lucia in a more expansive galaxy helps me remember that Lucia is going somewhere, maybe somewhere far away. To get where she’s going, she needs to be able to see, to look around, to experience life. There is still a part of me that wants to zip Lucia into a suitcase and release her when her pre-frontal cortex is fully developed, but if I did that we’d both be miserable.

For now, I just have to stick with the idea that for the next little while, as Lucia travels across the universe of adolescence, I can help her by signaling the danger alarm for her. In not too many years I know that she’ll be old enough and wise enough to signal it for herself. 

Tunnel Vision

 

Parenting is a dark tunnel. They don’t tell you that the moment your baby is born. And even if they did there would be no way to believe it. The glow of amazement is too saturating; no darkness can permeate that moment right after your beautiful baby is born.

But adolescence is another story. A teenager’s job is to travel away, to move outward, following the umbilical cord of life away from one’s mother and towards the great wide open plains of life.

I parent in a way that I wasn’t parented, which means that I over-parent. Throughout my parenting life, I have been over-involved, over-engaged, and over-invested. I love being a mother. It’s one of my greatest accomplishments and constant delights. I never get tired of my daughter Lucia, even when she is impatient and irritated with me, even when she throws her clothes on the floor and leaves her bathmat in a wet, mildewy pile. I’m like a loyal golden retriever, always at the ready for some action. I pant for joy when I see her and lick at her heels for attention when she passes by. 

For many years this worked. My loyal, abiding presence was welcomed by Lucia when she was a baby and a toddler, and even a pre-teen. But now that she’s seventeen it’s an impossible equation — loyal dog and jet-setting traveler. 

Lucia is normal — school, work, friends, shopping, sporting events, parties. She’s living her life to its fullest, and that’s her job. And I am still here, lying in my dog bed, tennis ball in my mouth, ready to play. 

I know what I am experiencing is a universal experience for parents of teenagers. There is a natural grieving as parents watch their children leave the nest. The healthy thing for our children to do is fly away. 

I am working my muscles of patience and faith, trusting that this phase will evolve and Lucia will come back. Intellectually I know this truth, but emotionally it’s hard to be a lonely old dog. And scary. The unknown of Lucia’s life as she forges her own path is terrifying for me. There are days when I am filled with worry so fierce I have to close my eyes and count my breaths until the grip in my chest dissipates.

What came to me a few weeks ago as I meditated one morning was the image of a young girl at the end of a dark tunnel. The tunnel was like a coal mine, dark with a dead end. The girl was me as a nine-year-old. She (I) was far away, maybe 200 yards into the tunnel. I could see her and I wanted her to come closer so that I could take care of her, comfort her.

Since that morning, when I meditate, the same image appears to me. As I’ve tried to make sense of this vision, I realize that the girl in the tunnel is me, but it is also Lucia. Lucia is far away and I want to draw her nearer to adult me, to the light at the opening of the tunnel. I want her to come closer. I want to know Lucia, to understand and comfort her. 

But I am also the little girl. The feelings of fear, darkness, the unknown, are mine, not Lucia’s. My irrational parenting fear is that Lucia is lost at the end of the tunnel because I do not know her, do not feel her, or understand her right now. But I’m wrong. Lucia’s not in that tunnel. She’s in the light, her own light. 

Lucia is fine. She is finding her own glow of amazement out in the world. And that’s what she should be doing. She’s not lost. She’s glowing. She’s living her life without a drooling dog nudging her shins to throw the ball. It’s what I want for her. 

The truth is my fear is not about her, it’s about me. It’s the fear of the loss of my daughter. It’s the fear of change in my role as a mother. The dark tunnel is real. But it’s my tunnel, not Lucia’s.

When I meditate now I try to envision an open tunnel, one with sunshine and light on the other side, a tunnel that leads somewhere exciting and wonderful, glowing golden fields leading to rivers and mountains and towns and cities. I imagine Lucia running towards the light, out of the other side of the tunnel. My heart smiles as I imagine her running free, finding great adventures and happiness on the other side of the tunnel. 

I Remember You. But I Don't Remember Me.

 

Last weekend I spent two days with my twin sister and three of our high school friends. We’ve only seen each other a handful of times over the years because we live all over the country in four different states and it’s hard to get together, especially as a group. To my surprise, everyone was able to coordinate their busy lives to make the weekend happen.

It’s been more than forty years since we became friends in a tiny high school on the south side of Chicago. We’ve lived all over the country and the world. Some of us have been married and had kids. Some of us have been divorced. We’ve lost parents and siblings. We’ve gone to college and graduate school. We’ve had jobs we’ve loved and jobs we’ve hated. We’ve each lived over half a century. The opportunity to come together and connect as older women was thrilling.

It was also slightly daunting. My twin sister told me that she almost texted us all that she had COVID on Thursday so she wouldn’t have to come. Another of the five said her daughter had to really egg her on so she’d follow through. I myself hemmed and hawed about getting on my 6 am flight after a long week of work.

But we did it. The five of us gathered at my mom’s house outside of Phoenix. We decided to hold our reunion at my mother’s house in part to offer her a distraction from the recent passing of my stepfather. I’ve been worrying about Mom being alone after over forty years of partnership. I thought bringing the old crew back would be healing for her. What I didn’t realize was how healing it would be for the rest of us.

We spent a total of forty-eight hours together. We drank coffee on Mom’s patio, hiked, shared meals, went thrift-shopping, and laughed. We sat outside in the sun or on couches in the living room drinking our coffee or our wine, sharing stories of our current lives and retelling stories from our high school days. We laughed until we peed. After a few hours, it felt like we were in high school all over again.

It was hard to believe that forty years had passed since we’d first become friends. It was obvious from the outside that we’d all aged, but energetically everyone felt fundamentally unchanged. As I watched and listened to these old friends, they felt utterly familiar — the dry sense of humor of one, the squinty-eyed cackling laughter of another, the overflowing curiosity of a third, and of course the life-long knowing of my twin sister.

They were all so familiar to me, yet as I thought back to myself, to what I was like at that age, I couldn’t place myself. It was as if I was a ghost. I wondered if I’d been like I am now — anxious and chronically planning, directing, taking charge. I wondered if my friends felt the same familiarity with me that I felt about them.

Why couldn’t I remember myself as a teenager? At age fourteen or fifteen or sixteen, I was so focused on the outside that I couldn’t connect with what was on the inside. I observed and studied my peers —  how to dress, flirt, eat, dance, and interact with my parents. I learned how to be from watching others instead of from feeling myself.

I thought back to how I was in high school. Our sophomore year I spearheaded a service group to help us bolster our college applications. In our senior year of high school, I planned our spring break trip. I booked the hotel, bought the plane tickets, and wrangled the troops to get us all from Chicago to Sanibel Island, Florida via Newark, New Jersey on People’s Express Airlines. I was the one who took more than the mandatory science and math classes because I thought it made me seem smarter.

And looking back to my younger years, I could see that I am still very much like I was in high school. I still plan the trips and organize the events. I still take on too much responsibility. This is me. This has always been me. When I was a teenager I felt too self-conscious, too different, to embrace this identity. But now I’m older. I’m wiser. I feel okay about who I am.

Over the course of the weekend, we all laughed with (and sometimes at) each other. My friends and sister playfully teased me for my over-planning and bossy approach. They grew irritated by my insistence that we create a shared album of the weekend on our iPhones. But it was okay. I could laugh with them because I wasn’t looking for my identity outside of myself anymore. Finally, after all these years I could see myself clearly. I could just be me.

Whose College Tour is it Anyway?

Last week I took my daughter Lucia to look at colleges on the East Coast. Lucia doesn’t want to go to college on the East Coast. Like many Pacific Northwestern kids, she wants to go to college in sunny California.

But my nephew goes to college in Boston and there are 78 schools to look at in that city alone, so it was as good a place as any to start. Lucia goes to a large, public inner-city high school. She gets little to no individualized attention, and because of COVID, the quality of her educational experience is more severely compromised than it’s ever been.

I think of college as a long-awaited opportunity for her to finally sink her teeth into some good learning, to find some intellectual, cultural, and social stimulation that she is not getting in high school.

Don’t get me wrong. My daughter loves high school. She loves the social aspect of it. She’s engaged and involved, but it feels like she’s got one foot out the door; like she doesn’t really take it very seriously because she knows it’s just a stepping stone.

I remember when I went to college. The course catalog was thrilling. There were so many choices and topics and areas of study I hadn’t ever contemplated. I was thrilled and delighted and relieved that learning could be so exciting. I took Urban Sociology and Cultural Anthropology. I took Spanish Literature and Metal Design. I studied abroad for a year in Spain. Though it wasn’t necessarily easy, college was absolutely eye-opening and educational and it changed my life.

As we visited different universities and colleges in and around Boston, some small, some large, a few somewhere in between, I found myself experiencing those same feelings I’d had in my youth — the plentitude of opportunity thrilled me all over again. We heard about internships and special dorms, dual majors, and summer abroad programs. There were gap semesters and community service programs. The opportunities were staggering and I wanted my daughter to have them all!

The college I loved the most for my daughter was a small, women’s college outside of Boston. The two sophomores who conducted the orientation were articulate, happy, informed, and grounded. They were organized and humble and confident and light at the same time. They loved their small college and sang the praises of the opportunities they’d had and would continue to have during their tenure there.

When we finished the orientation my daughter said, “Let’s skip the self-guided walking tour. I’m definitely not going here.” My heart sank. What did she mean? It was so perfect. Everything about it was idyllic. I wanted Lucia to have that special utopian experience where she’d be one of just a few hundred freshmen, where she’d be gently guided through the newness of college with kind loving hands. Or maybe I wanted that’s what I wanted for myself.

The next morning we went to a large in-city University. The students who led the orientation were equally engaged and competent and resourceful and thrilled to be at their University. At the end of the orientation, we did the walking tour. Even though it was freezing and a blizzard, we followed the student guide through campus, trudging through a foot of snow to see the buildings, the dorms, the dining halls. “This is one of my favorites,” Lucia said. 

I still liked the small women’s college better. But Lucia’s reaction to the big university helped me see that my lens was skewed. In seeing her love this seemingly opposite experience of what I wanted her to have, I experienced a flash of something I feel more and more lately — that my daughter is not me. There are many ways that she is like me, but there are just as many ways that she is not.

It was bittersweet, walking around all of those campuses with my almost-grown daughter. Each tour was a reminder that Lucia is almost done living at home, that before long my reign of influence will be a mere blip in her peripheral vision. If I had the choice to go back to being seventeen and choosing a college I might choose that small women’s college outside of Boston. I think that environment would have worked really well for me. But Lucia isn’t me. She’s her. And she’s going to choose the college that works best for who she is, no matter what I think about it.

Menopause: Another Perspective

Deep Sleep came back. The night after I wrote, Oh Deep Sleep, Where Have You Gone? it returned. I am sleeping through the night again. My FitBit tells me this is true. My scores have been between 80 and 90. I am waking up refreshed, full of rest that comes from the world of deep sleep, ready to welcome the day ahead. It’s a true gift. I feel like a magical fairy has blessed me with Deep Sleep again.

I’m at the age where I am waiting for things to fall apart. I am waiting for my hair to turn fully gray. I am waiting for my knees to give out. I am waiting for my belly to round like both of my grandmothers. I am waiting for my eyesight and hearing to go. I am waiting for longtime faithful companion Deep Sleep to leave me. Everyone says it’s going to happen. Friends, family members, doctors, random shop clerks, started warning me when I was 48, then again when I turned 50. And now I’m 53 so surely I am just biding my time until all of these things happen to me. 

These years of warnings are why I was so prepared to end my relationship with Deep Sleep. I set myself up to expect that losing Deep Sleep was inevitable. Some of the things I was warned would happen have happened. My hair is getting gray and my belly is much rounder than it used to be. My hearing seems fine but I’ve graduated to progressives. But my knees are great most days and my cherished friend Deep Sleep came back!

As women age, there is an elusive magic suitcase full of unpleasant expectations awaiting us. We are prepped for all of the bad things to come. We are told in myriad ways that this, older age, is the end of the line, the stop where all the bad stuff comes. But that’s a bunch of bullshit. That’s some weird patriarchal concept designed to make women think that their only value is in their ability to procreate; that once those years are over it’s all downhill (but that’s another essay).

C.S. Lewis’s book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was one of my favorite stories growing up. Lucy and her three siblings are sent to the country to escape the Blitz during World War II. They stay with the professor, a friend of their parents, in a foreign town in an unfamiliar house. There, Lucy and her three siblings find a wardrobe that leads to another land. 

The adventures the kids had — both wonderful and perilous — drew me in and carried me away. What if menopause is like the first stop in Narnia? It’s scary. It’s foreign. There are strange creatures and mysterious events that make us feel lost and scared and alone at times. But there are also mystical, magical adventures that make us feel welcome and happy.

There are evil characters — like the White Witch — hot flashes, sensitivity to alcohol and coffee, hormonal mood changes. And there are good ones like Asian the Lion, the brave King of Narnia who saves the children. In the land of menopause Asian would be that strong inner sense women have at this age. It is the roar of knowing that it’s time to change jobs or shake up a relationship. 

And then there are Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, the kind couple who welcome the children and make them feel at home. In many ways, menopause feels like that. Finally at home, free from the heavy socializing, trying to achieve more, do better, get noticed. It’s nice to feel like it’s enough to sit at home and have a cup of tea. 

And for me, there’s Mr. Tumnus, the faun, who, in my menopause land, represents Deep Sleep. Mr. Tumnus is at first the kind and welcoming, nurturing and caring companion to Lucy when she arrives in Narnia. But Tumnus is under the control of the White Witch and thinks of betraying Lucy, forsaking her to the evil side of Nania. In the end, though, Tumnus’ conscience is restored and he leads Lucy back home to her wardrobe where she can rest safely with her siblings. 

Lucy and her siblings escaped to the wardrobe. Their life, war-torn, sequestered away from their parents, friends, and all things known to them, was already scary. Narnia was an escape, a place to be somewhere different, to be someone different. 

Menopause is like going to another land in a lot of ways. But like Narnia, the new land isn’t all bad. When I think about what came before menopause, life on the other side of the wardrobe, I feel delighted to have an escape from all of that. There’s good and bad here, but it’s also sometimes magical. 

Euphoria- More Willies than Boobies

I’m watching Euphoria right now. People warned me against it because I have a seventeen-year-old daughter. I’ve heard people say that it glorifies drug use and casual sex. As a mother, it is horrifying to watch, but besides the Molly, Fentanyl, excessive drinking, and access to prescription pills, the thing I am most surprised by is the number of penises I have seen on Euphoria.

Zendaya plays Rue, the star of Euphoria. She plays a complex, troubled, amazing sixteen-year-old who struggles with drugs, happiness, and the general bullshit of being alive. I love Zendaya. She went to the same high school as my nephew so I feel close to her, kind of like I know her a little bit.

Rue is exactly who I wish I had been in high school without the drugs. She’s her own person — independent, brave, defiant, and sensitive. Swirling in Rue’s orbit are all kinds of other teens — jocks, mean girls, basic girls, outcasts, bullies, and everything in between. And they all seem to drink excessively, take ridiculous amounts of drugs and have sex constantly. But it’s a really good show. The acting is amazing even though you are constantly shocked by a random penis on the screen.

I have never in my life seen so many penises. It’s true that I am a lesbian so that limits my exposure, but I’ve seen thousands of breasts in my life. And that’s not because I’m a lesbian. It’s because I watch TV and movies.

Since I was young, breasts have been part of what’s on the screen. If not the full breast, then cleavage. You don’t see men’s balls squirting out of their shorts at the rate that women’s cleavage is in full view ALL. THE. TIME. And full frontal of women’s breasts barely register to most of us anymore because we’re so used to seeing them constantly.

I don’t know if the producers and directors of Euphoria are showing so many penises because they are trying to shock the viewer or if they are doing it to change the narrative of what we’re used to seeing or if they have a completely different motive for being so penis heavy.

But for me, as a woman, the carefree showing of schlongs feels like a great shift in the balance of what we’ve seen for decades. I’ve seen WAY more penises than breasts in the four episodes of Euphoria I’ve watched. And the breasts I have seen have mostly been covered by bras. My favorite part of the penis- heavy show is that I have never seen Rue’s (Zendaya’s) breasts, and she’s the star! A beautiful woman, and the star of the show and they haven’t shown even a peek of her breasts. That makes me so happy.

You might be thinking, “eew, I don’t want to see so many penises.” And if that’s your reaction then don’t watch Euphoria. But if you want to see something totally different, then try it.

The experience has given me a lot to think about. For example, do those actors feel exploited because their junk is flying all over the place on large screen TVs and laptops all over the world? Do men and boys watching the show feel a little more exposed and vulnerable to see images of ding dongs that are bigger or smaller or fatter or skinnier than theirs so casually displayed? Maybe.

Girls and women have been in that position forever. We still are. I find it refreshing that in Euphoria the shift has been made. The focus is off the boobies and onto the willies. It’s about time. 

Oh Deep Sleep, Where Have You Gone?

Oh sweet, Deep Sleep, where have you gone? Why have you left me? How can I find you again? I used to fall asleep easily and wake up with the light. I would close my eyes, go somewhere far away, unknown, mysterious, and peaceful and wake up with the satisfying sense of having arrived safely at my destination.

For the past few weeks, my sleep has been regularly interrupted. At approximately 2 am every morning I jolt into a wide-awake state and I’m up for hours. It’s like a hectic layover in a crowded airport. I’m busy, distracted, and irritated. It feels loud and chaotic and relentless. I lie impatiently through the layover counting the minutes until I can get back on the plane to the final destination. 

I finally do fall asleep again. Sometimes I’ll take myself on a guided body-sensing meditation. I’ll move from my eyebrows to the tips of my toes to all points around and between. Then I’ll go to my breath, my thoughts, my feelings, and sometimes back to my body until I drift off to sleep. Sometimes I’ll count backward from 1000 by threes or sevens. Sometimes I’ll choose a word and run-through of every word I can think of that starts with each letter of the word. Sometimes I give up any magical technique and take my book into the guestroom to read.

I always fall back to sleep eventually. I can feel it happening. I can feel the exact moment when I have crossed over and I am heading back into sleep. I’m aware of it. My body feels tingly. I can feel my grip on the chaos loosening. And then I’m back; back on the plane, safely buckled in for the night. 

But it’s not the same in the morning. In the old days, the days when I rested deeply, I felt different in the morning. Just a month ago I laid my head down, settled into the familiar mattress beneath me, my favorite soft pillow, and fell deeply into another realm. I miss it — that sense of being swallowed by the darkness into utter stillness and peace. 

I miss that long rest I used to experience, that powerful absence from the duties of my life. I long for that feeling of being neither here nor there. In Deep Sleep I was suspended, not in the day before and not in the day ahead. 

I’ve been waiting for this phenomenon of interrupted sleep to happen. I’m 53. Menopause is breathing down my neck. I’ve heard countless friends talk about this exact thing. I’ve read books, listened to podcasts, prepared myself. But now that it’s happening, now that I’m here, I feel desperate. I took my nightly visits with Deep Sleep for granted and now that they are gone I am bereft, unmoored. I just want her back.

Where are you Deep Sleep? How do I bring you back? Will you ever return to me? Oh, Deep Sleep, how do I restore the wonder of your presence? 

I can sense these last few weeks of estrangement from Deep Sleep is just the beginning. Somehow I know this time that my interrupted sleep is not a temporary pattern. It’s not stress or too much coffee. It’s bigger and I will have to address it. 

I am going to have to do a little work to figure out a way to bring Deep Sleep back to my nights. On my list today is to talk to my new doctor. Maybe I need to start a little estrogen-progesterone cocktail. Maybe I have to cut out caffeine or stop eating sugar. Maybe blackout curtains will help. I’ll do whatever it takes.

I didn’t know how much I’d miss Deep Sleep until you were gone.