Month: May 2024

gratitude-a-thon day 3011: a perpetual shooting star

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I just read an article in The Atlantic about one of my favorite people–Suleika Jaouad. At only 22, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She began writing a column for The New York Times called Life Interrupted, about what it was like to be young, facing cancer. People connected with her, all sorts of people, and when she was done with treatment she drove across country with her dog and visited people who’d she corresponded with through her column. Then she wrote a book about it called Between Two Kingdoms and it and she stole my heart. She’s written and spoken about her health journey in many prestigious places, and married her old camp bud, super star and all around cool guy, musician, Jon Batiste. In 2021 the leukemia returned. She had another bone marrow transplant, while Jon hit mega stardom, which is beautifully illustrated (plus so much more about this miraculous being) in the documentary American Symphony, and in which they learn that she will have to have to have chemo for the rest of her life.

But she doesn’t just persist, she fucking thrives!

And this is why I follow her every move, because she is spectacularly inspiring– all HOPE AND POSSIBILITY in an “Oh Fuck” situation, a lightening bug doing the Watusi in a black-out, a solution seeker, an art maker, a life liver, a modern day Rumpelstiltskin, spinning manure into 18 karat gold.

I often think about how people presented with perfectly miserable circumstances can still wake up in a positive place finding even the most minute bit of light shining through the teeny tiniest crack. This is one of the things that most fascinates me. Obviously, it’s easy to throw up your arms, give in, allow yourself to be swallowed up by unspeakably difficult things, but those who can march their way through the combat, actually finding meaning and joy on the way, figuring out how to slay whatever beast they’re up against while still showing their pearly whites–those are the people I am in awe of.

Knowing how to live your best life even when your best life kind of sucks, takes brilliance and courage and patience and acceptance and fight and an Herculean life force. Gratitude to Suleika for being all those things plus so much more and teaching me (and I suspect a million other people) that there’s always a way to find a luminous path even in dark, black woods.

gratitude-a-thon day 3010: call your mother

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Things I did to become a mother:

  1. Have a year of tests, only to find out that the dull pain in my abdomen, was endometriosis. Or as the gynaecologist who did an exploratory laparoscopy told me, “Your insides are a mess, you’ll never have a baby
  2. Went to an in vitro clinic where the doctor made me think my “advanced age of 32.” was a dealbreaker and I ought to start looking for an Assisted Living facility stat.
  3. Spread my legs for more men with medical degrees than a sophisticated gold digger.
  4. Found a doctor whose vast infertility knowledge, surgical skills and kindness were as stellar as his bedside manner.
  5. Monitored my ovulation like the IRS monitors our tax records.
  6. Had sex with my husband even when A) We were having a fight. B) I wasn’t in the mood. C) I would rather have a full mouth of gum surgery.
  7. Was asked to “scooch down” more times than my math skills allow me to enumerate, became intimately acquainted with the vaginal ultra sound machine, kept the pregnancy test people in biz, had a hystosalpinagram, a miscarriage, a D&C, depression, anxiety and more sleepless nights than an infant mom.
  8. Cried more than all the new borns in all the nurseries throughout the Continental United States.
  9. Went to a 12-week mind body course with other women experiencing infertility, including an ex-therapist (!) where we’d share resources, do daily meditation, and cognitive restructuring, and sometimes just cry.
  10. Quit my job, hopped on a plane to Key West, drown myself in margaritas and had fun and constant unplanned sex with my husband.

Things I did while pregnant:

  1. Had more nausea than an entire group on a whale watch during a day of rough seas.(Five months worth for my first pregnancy and 8 months worth for my second, and that’s only because I gave birth a month early.)
  2. Craved watermelon, fettuccine Alfredo and McDonald’s supersize fries. And ate them with more gusto that group of drunken frat boys in Vegas.
  3. Worried incessantly I’d miscarry until the babies were IN. MY. ARMS.
  4. Wondered if I would actually be a good mom.
  5. Marvelled at my Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade-sized boobs and gargantuan stomach, while saying goodbye to my girlish figure.

Things I did when my kids were little:

  1. Stared IN AWE at the amazing humans I made with my husband. Fingers, toes and all the stuff!
  2. Managed not to actually hurt, insult, or maim anyone, despite a serious lack of sleep for 5 years.
  3. Breastfed while my nipples bled.
  4. Tried to keep up with my super-charged, inquisitive, A.D.D son. Forced my daughter to wear her hair on top of her head like Pebbles Flintstone.
  5. Kept every piece of paper either of my children drew anything on, like it was a Picasso, Monet, or John fucking Singer Sargent.
  6. Became a fixture at the park, like the slide and the swings.
  7. Made friends with other moms, some who I loved (and some who I didn’t).
  8. Took 1,088,4442 pictures of everything my kids did, just to get one great shot. (Ah, life before the iPhone.)
  9. Clutched my children’s hands with a death grip when we were anywhere near traffic.
  10. Read lots and lots and lots and lots and LOTS of books about, and to my kids.
  11. Played ref so my children wouldn’t kill each other, and worried incessantly I had the only brother and sister in the history of families who would never get along.(I WAS WRONG!)
  12. Figured out how to make interesting dinners consisting of pasta, hotdogs and bagels.
  13. Had, made, and monitored playdates, which we just called, “Wanna come over after school?” when I was little.
  14. Threw family dance parties to the likes of Bruce and Talking Heads.
  15. Went to the beach, (where I obsessively worried they’d drown).
  16. Attended every game, recital, play, parent night, school picnic, auction and teacher meeting there was.
  17. Stopped pursuing a big career, and settled for a smaller one.
  18. Learned more about myself than any graduate degree, job, Einstein, Confucius, or Stephen Hawking could ever teach me.
  19. Volunteered at school so much the staff thought I worked there. (I am still waiting for my pension.)
  20. Felt a kind of love that is indescribable, unbeatable, and so fucking big, even the Container Store doesn’t carry anything large enough to hold it.

Things I will always do for my kids:

  1. Be available to them. In the middle of the night, in the middle of a work thing, a vacation, a show, a surgery, sex, a migraine, an imaginary meeting with Barack & Michelle, Taylor Swift, Oprah, or James Taylor.
  2. Give them advice when I should just shut my pie hole.
  3. Think about them all day and night, every day and night.
  4. Want them to learn from my mistakes, but know that in a ridiculous catch-22 where your kids refuse to do anything you tell them to do, they have to make their own.
  5. Worry about them around the clock in every time zone.
  6. Be as wildly proud of their every move, as I was when they achieved freedom from diapers.
  7. Know that they have the moral character to care about other people, work hard and love deeply.
  8. Wish for them all the fun, adventure, magic, love and fulfilment available.
  9. Be there, even when I’m not.
  10. Know that, no matter what I’ve accomplished, or will ever create, Jake and Ally will always be the absolute best thing I’ve ever done.

To every single mom out there:

Whether you’re a bio mom, or an adoptive mom, a dog mom, or a guineau pig mom, a dad, aunt, sister, or friend mom, you’re amazing. Now go, and do something you love today. MWAH.