It has been at least two weeks since I finished Glennon Doyle’s new memoir Untamed, and I keep going back to this quote:

Mothers have martyred themselves in their children’s names since the beginning of time. We have lived as if she who disappears the most, loves the most. We have been conditioned to prove our love by slowly ceasing to exist.

Untamed, pg. 128

And then this quote, further down on the same page (I literally highlighted all but the first sentence of page 128):

What if a responsible mother is not one who shows her children how to slowly die but how to stay wildly alive until the day she dies?

Untamed, pg. 128 (apparently my favorite page of the memoir!)

Here we are on Day “Who The Fuck Can Keep Track Anymore” of sheltering at home, and I want to show my kids how to stay wildly alive, but I have so much guilt about taking time for myself.

Guilt that they are bored and I should entertain them.

Guilt that they are not at school, and I suck at homeschooling.

Guilt that I just want to write for two hours without being interrupted by constant demands for snacks, drinks, and boo boo kisses.

This is what I need: two hours, every day, to write. Not so long ago, I got that time when my kids went to school and camp. During vacations, I suffered because they would not leave me alone to write for even twenty minutes, let alone two hours. But I figured I could handle those vacations because eventually, they would go back to school or camp.

Now. Wow. Who the eff knows? After two months of non-stop parenting, I see that I feel like I am only allowed to write when my kids are otherwise occupied with school and camp. If they are home, then I must be available to cater to their every whim and demand. (Elaborate messy and time consuming art project? Of course!) The current situation is forcing me to reckon with the fact that I do not have healthy boundaries with my kids. I do not let myself exist as a woman with a passion for writing when they want me to do the fucking farm puzzle again. (To clarify: I have been writing but feeling guilty about wanting that time.)

When I had postpartum depression, I often felt guilty that I was somehow failing Pippa. I felt guilty when she had jaundice and we needed to supplement breastfeeding with formula. I felt guilty when I set her down to play by herself so I could make myself a sandwich for lunch. I felt guilty when she woke up and started crying while I was in the shower.

Guilt, guilt, guilt.

After I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, I read a lot of books about maternal mood disorders, and those books often listed “guilt” as a symptom of postpartum depression. Postpartum depression is a spectrum illness, which means there are many symptoms, and different moms experience different constellations of those symptoms. It’s like a Vegas buffet except instead of gelato and prime rib, you get anxiety and insomnia.

During my recovery, I told my therapist that I often felt guilty about asking Nathan to help with Pippa, even though he adored her and adored me and liked being helpful. My psychologist had me bring Nathan in for a session, and I admitted that I often thought Nathan was mad at me. I regularly asked Nathan if he was mad at me and he would laugh and say that he wasn’t. This was a compulsion on my part, a seeking of reassurance that backfired and made me feel worse. For homework, my psychologist forbid me from asking Nathan if he was mad at me. After a few weeks, the guilt I felt in regards to having Nathan help with Pippa faded and disappeared. I told myself that the rest of the guilt I felt faded and disappeared as well.

I think I was lying to myself.

I am starting to see that I may have resolved the guilt I felt toward having Nathan help with Pippa, but the rest of my guilt went underground.

Or, maybe it stayed above ground. Maybe I just tolerated guilt as a necessary part of motherhood. Maybe the degree of guilt I regularly felt did not seem worthy of notice in comparison to the hell that had been my postpartum depression.

Sheltering at home during the Covid-19 crisis has been forcing me to acknowledge some issues that I had previously been able to ignore. And I might as well write it here, so I can finally admit this to myself: I still feel guilty for wanting to stay wildly alive.

Despite all the work I did to recover from postpartum depression, holy shit, I still feel guilty if I am anything less than a martyr to my children’s wants and needs.

When I first read the quote that I cannot stop quoting — What if a responsible mother is not one who shows her children how to slowly die but how to stay wildly alive until the day she dies? — I remember thinking, “I suppose I have to stay wildly alive and bear the guilt, and maybe someday, Pippa will be able to stay wildly alive without the guilt.”

But I don’t want to be a mother who feels guilty just for wanting two hours to write. I don’t want to be a mother who feels guilty for wanting to do the work she was born to do.

Somewhere along the line, some experts decided that “guilt” was a symptom of postpartum depression, and I think that calling “guilt” a symptom did a disservice to mothers everywhere. Because it was a symptom, I just assumed it would go away with my recovery, just like you stop vomiting when you recover from the flu or stop coughing once the cold passes.

But I am starting to see that the guilt I feel as a mother is much, much more than a symptom of an illness I once had. (And deeper, but beyond the scope of this post, I am starting to see that the illness I once had was so much more than an illness, and my postpartum experience was diminished because the insurance company needed a diagnosis before covering my Zoloft.)

A couple of years ago, I was reading Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins. About midway through, Robbins wrote about the meaning behind different feelings. I have to paraphrase, but Robbins wrote that we feel guilty because we did something wrong.

I remember sitting at my kitchen table and feeling like I had just been punched in the stomach.

I had felt guilty many times as a mother, and I knew that in all those instances, I had done nothing wrong. How could Robbins say that guilty = wrong?

Shortly thereafter, I chucked the book into the trash. (Hence, the paraphrasing above.)

Ok, wow, this is a long post! But here is where I am at:

• I believe Glennon Doyle is right. I should show my children how to stay wildly alive, instead of slowly martyring myself on the altar of motherhood.
• I feel guilty when I assert my right to feel wildly alive.
• But even though I feel guilty, I am not doing anything wrong.
• So the guilt must be arising from some toxic beliefs I have about motherhood.

Whew. That is my Covid-19 homework. As we continue to live with the uncertainty of sheltering at home, I have to reconsider my beliefs about motherhood.

I have to stay wildly alive.

Without the damn guilt.

As in-person camps in Pasadena close down, some virtual options are popping up. I do not know what our summer is going to be like, but I do know this: Thank you, but no virtual camps for us, thanks!

Julian has Zoom preschool three mornings each week. He usually attends 20-40 minutes of the hour. I have to be there for every minute, paying attention and helping him. It’s exhausting.

Pippa has Google school for forty-five minutes every morning. I have to be close by to help because something always happens. A screen closes. Volume goes bonkers. Or she just needs a boo boo kiss. It’s exhausting.

I received an email this morning about Girl Scout’s virtual camp. They will be delivering packages with activities. It’s very affordable. I briefly wondered, Should I? But my whole body cringed, revolted by the idea of more virtual activities that require my constant assistance. Just the thought of virtual camp is exhausting.

And these days, I don’t need exhausting.

I need rest and relaxation. I need weeks and weeks and weeks without distance learning because holy shit, it seems likely the 2020-2021 school year will involve more of this distance learning bullshit. I want to get outside with my kids, dig up worms in the garden, splash in the pool, and kick the soccer ball. I don’t want to spend another minute helping Pippa do virtual socializing. She hates it as much as I do, so why torture ourselves?

I do not know what Summer 2020 is going to look like, but it will definitely be an extended break from distance learning. And it will be an opportunity to lean into my intuition and do the things that work for my family during The Great 2020 Adventure.

I am currently reading Geneen Roth’s new book, This Messy Magnificent Life: A Field Guide to Mind, Body, and Soul.

I have already read two of Roth’s earlier books: Women, Food and God and When Food is Love. Both of those books were about the complicated issues that get wrapped up in food, eating, dieting, and weight. Roth’s ideas can be applied to other addictive and obsessive behaviors, but food is her focus.

Food is also my focus. I have been struggling with my weight for most of my life. In seventh grade, I remember comparing my legs to my friend Jenny’s and feeling bad on a soul-level because her legs were so much smaller than mine. And even earlier, in fourth grade, a classmate demanded during recess that all the girls reveal their weight; and everyone had a number below 100; so for the first time in my life, I lied about my weight.

I have used food to numb uncomfortable feelings like anxiety and loneliness.

I have used food to fill an emptiness that I thought was hunger but was actually the dissatisfaction I felt when I was not my authentic self.

I have used food to keep my hands busy during social situations.

I have used food in dozens of ways to avoid the work I am meant to do during my one precious life.

In her new book, Geneen Roth puts into words so many things that I have been trying to understand. She writes:

… the way we eat is always a primary gateway to the mind that creates the suffering about it.

This Messy Magnificent Life, pg. 4

Amen! I have been dieting, and then not dieting, and then thinking “I should be dieting,” and then dieting yet again, since I was fifteen. I had friends who were dieting much younger than that. My first proper diet was Weight Watchers. Since then, I have done Weight Watchers several times, both in person and online. I have also tried Jenny Craig, South Beach, paleo, counting calories, some variation on the Mediterranean diet, and the crazy program detailed in The 4-hour Body. I’m sure I’ll remember a few more diets later. I have met with two different nutritionists and read countless books and magazine articles about healthy eating and exercise.

I have lost weight.

I know how to lose weight.

But then I always gain the damn weight back, and with a vengeance. I gain weight because I eat too much, and I eat too much not because I don’t know how to eat, but because I have emotions and beliefs that compel me to eat.

Before I continue, full disclosure: I am currently using the Noom app. I have lost 13 pounds since late February. Noom is great. It dives into the psychology of eating. It also addresses the bad habits that get created around bad eating. I think I still have to work on my relationship with food, which means I have to work on my relationship with myself, but I also have to work on my actual eating habits. Noom is helping with the healthy eating habits. Geneen Roth is helping with the deeper dive into my mind.

Before I end this post, I’d like to share another quote:

The million-dollar answer to the question of why weight loss is so difficult to maintain, is that along with the exaltation of being thin come less positive feelings. The lightness that accompanies an unencumbered body feels vulnerable. And if we’ve used our weight in any way, even unconsciously, to keep us safe, the joy of weight loss can be overlaid by a wash of terror. In my experience, one of the unspoken reasons why many people don’t maintain their weight loss is that they don’t want to be thinner more than they want to stay protected. Or hidden.

This Messy Magnificent Life, pg. 28

I had to read that paragraph five times in a row before I could keep reading. I have not been at my “right for me” weight since my 20s. I am now 41. The summer of 2004, when I had just graduated from law school and was studying for the bar, I weighed 135 pounds. At the time, I felt fat! But looking back at old photos, I know that was a very healthy weight for me.

I remember feeling so vulnerable at that weight.

There are a lot of reasons I felt vulnerable at 135 pounds, but this jumps to mind: when I have weight to lose, I can blame all the difficulties of life on my weight; when I am at my goal weight, I have to address the actual reasons for any discomfort. And shit, that is terrifying.

But I have reached a point where addressing my deeper issues is less terrifying than not addressing them. Those deeper issues are keeping me from living my best damn life, and I don’t want to live my life running from whatever “my issues” are. Ever since I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, I have done a lot of work and slain a lot of personal monsters and here is the thing I keep learning, over and over.

The monsters? They might seem terrifying when they are lurking in my subconscious, but once I shine the light of my attention on them, they are never that scary.

I am excited to keep reading This Messy, Magnificent Life and shine some light on the monsters I have been avoiding with food.

I want the record to reflect: this is tough.

I am deploying all of my self-care tools to thrive while sheltering-at-home during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This is still tough.

Yesterday morning during my walk, I thought I should listen to the new episodes of Unlocking Us With Brené Brown. I really like the show. Last week, two new episodes dropped about the art of apology. When I saw what the episodes were about, my body tensed. I thought, This does not sound like the sort of thing I have the energy for right now. But I made myself hit Play. I love the podcast, and I love working to be a better person. If I just listenend for a few minutes, I would surely get fired up.

After ten minutes, I realized I was just not in a place to absorb the lessons. I switched to NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour. For me, that show is a reliable source of brain candy, and damn, I needed some brain candy.

Then last night, Nathan asked what I wanted to watch after the kids went to bed. I picked the movie Bel Canto. I read and adored the book years ago and thought I would enjoy the movie. The book involves a hostage situation in South America with an opera singer, and oh, it was such a lyrical story. I wanted to revisit that lyrical place. But within fifteen minutes of starting the movie, I realized the movie was going to be a little more intense than my sepia toned memory of the book. After all, it involves a hostage situation in South America. Nathan asked if I wanted to watch something else. My body screamed, Yes! Let’s watch something pleasant! But then my brain thought, I should watch this movie. (One of these days, I will learn to associate the word “should” with alarm bells.) I soldiered on for another fifteen minutes.

Then I waved the white flag and asked Nathan to switch to Fleabag. Again, I needed brain candy.

I have to keep reminding myself that we are living during an unprecedented moment in history. I want to get comfortable with uncertainty but holy shit, there is so much uncertainty. I want to go with the flow, but where the fuck is the flow going? And why does it sound like there are waterfalls ahead? Has anyone checked this river for waterfalls???

I am doing everything I can to be my best self during this adventure. I can try to be positive and call this The Great 2020 Adventure, but it’s still a fucking crisis. It is still draining to be living through such uncharted territory with two small children who want to go back to school already and see their friends. Sometimes it helps to call this an adventure. But sometimes, I need to remember this is a crisis and it is okay to feel drained and grumpy.

Sometimes, my best self just wants happy, entertaining podcasts and television shows. If that is the medicine that helps me get through this crisis/adventure, then that is the medicine I am going to take.

The difficult movies and podcast episodes will be waiting for me on the other side of the pandemic.

Pass the popcorn and brain candy!

Yesterday I blogged about the uncertainty of Summer 2020. Our trips have been cancelled and summer camp is looking like a bust. I wrote about how I am trying to get comfortable during the uncertainty. Personal growth! Transformation! Yeah! And I am still trying to do that today.

But.

I had another idea.

What if I just accepted the inevitability of the worst case scenario and then made plans for that? What if I harnessed my desire to plan ahead to help me deal with the Covid-19 uncertainty?

So first, I thought about the worst case scenario for Summer 2020:

• Nathan will be back at the office
• The kids will not have any school or camp
• Fun things like the zoo and aquarium will be closed. We might not even have play dates with friends.

Of course, this is not actually the worst case scenario. I am creative. I can think of plenty of shittier situations!

As is so often the case, my challenges (parenting during a pandemic) arise from my blessings (my healthy radiant children). But even though I know I am blessed to have Pippa and Julian, we are all still going a bit crazy after spending over seven weeks sheltering-at-home. Pandemic parenting is no joke.

Since we started sheltering at home, I have been trying to live in the present moment. Today I realized that might be a helpful mindset in ordinary times, but these are not ordinary times. By focusing on the here and now, I have allowed myself to wallow in a big pit of denial. It’s a perverse type of bargaining: if I just enjoy today, and focus on the here and now, then surely this will be over in a few weeks.

But my pre-pandemic mindset is not serving me today. Instead of having my hopes constantly crushed, I need to accept the current reality. My kids will be home with me all summer and our ability to go fun places will be very limited. And also: the 2020-2021 school year will probably involve more distance learning.

That’s a lot for my brain to digest. But it’s also a relief to finally accept the present, albeit shitty, reality. Maybe later I’ll be pleasantly surprised when things are better than I expect.

So that was Step One: I considered and did my best to accept the Summer 2020 Worst Case Scenario.

Then I moved on to Step Two: plan for the Summer 2020 Worst Case Scenario.

I opened a new document on my laptop and wrote a two page list of things we can do to stay happy and busy over the summer. This was comforting. I also wrote down my self-care absolutes: daily journaling; blogging; and one hour for revising my fantasy novel. The kids will be allowed to watch television so long as they leave me alone to write.

Speaking of television: I will be ignoring all the screen time recommendations. This is a pandemic. I am not trying to win some expert’s approval about how much time my kids spend watching Netflix shows.

And: we will make zero efforts at this distance learning bullshit over the summer. We will read when we want to read. That is easy. We are a family that loves to read. If Pippa wants to write, she will write. If Julian wants to practice his ABCs or count, sure, we will do that. But I am not going to enroll the kids in online classes that create more work for me. The coming school year might be full of all sorts of shitty distance learning, so I need as much relaxation over the summer as I can possibly get.

It is the first week of May and normally, I would already have a good idea of what our summer was going to be like. Actually, I had it all planned out months ago, in January: a long weekend in Las Vegas for our annual reunion with my dad’s extended family; then a few weeks of summer camp for the kids; Fourth of July week in Nebraska; and then more camp for the kids. Somewhere in there, we would have a couple of free weeks as well for lazy mornings and fun outings.

Unfortunately, that thing we call “normal” left the station weeks ago.

Las Vegas is not happening. We have decided that after all we have been through, it would be irresponsible to visit a destination like Vegas. Plus, most of our relatives already said they are not going. It’s not much of a family reunion if your family is not there.

Nebraska is also not happening unless things change dramatically. We just do not feel comfortable flying and then exposing not only ourselves but our extended families to Covid-19 germs.

Summer camp is the big wild card. Pippa was registered to attend two different camps. Camp #1 cancelled its entire summer program a couple of weeks ago. Camp #2 is still apparently all systems go… but that could change at any moment. Julian is slated to attend summer camp at his preschool, but who knows when schools will be allowed to reopen.

I am getting a lot of practice at living with uncertainty.

It’s not easy. It’s not comfortable. But I do not have much choice in the matter, do I?

My brain wants to plan ahead. That’s not my fault. It’s biology! Our cave ancestors had to plan ahead to make sure they had enough to eat and did not get eaten by a saber tooth tiger. Shit, even squirrels plan ahead! That’s why they bury nuts — they are saving up for winter. If squirrels are planning for winter, then of course I am going to have some biological instinct to plan for summer.

For me, planning ahead is generally an act of self care. I have to write or I lose my sense of self. I learned that the hard way when I was committed to a psychiatric hospital for postpartum depression. A turning point in my recovery was when I finally set pencil to paper and started to write. I can miss a few days of writing from time to time, but I have learned to plan for my writing time to make sure I feel like my most authentic radiant self.

But right now, planning ahead more than the current week feels like a special kind of torture. It reminds me of all the things we have lost. It’s a bit like rubbing an open wound. Just don’t do it!

My biological instincts are sound. If I was a squirrel, I’d have the best damn acorn hoard possible for winter. But now I am living in a situation that is forcing me to live with great uncertainty. And this is what I have noticed so far: when I resist the uncertainty generated by Covid-19, I feel shitty; when I surrender and live in the current week, and accept that I do not have control over all the variables of my life, I feel okay — even, I dare say, great.

This is something magical about being human. The squirrel is going to keep racing around, burying acorns, no matter what its circumstances. But I am not a squirrel. I can pay attention and get curious about my thoughts and feelings. I can connect the dots: trying to plan for Summer 2020 makes me feel anxious and bitter; surrendering to the uncertainty feels better.

And then.

The magic happens.

I can decide to override my biological instinct to plan ahead and surrender to the uncertain flow of life.

I am trying to do this during the pandemic. Some days I am more successful than others. But even on successful days, I have to make a conscious decision to override my desire to plan again and again and again, because damn, my tendency to plan is basically mingled with my marrow and blood.

But I can do it. Slowly, persistently, and patiently. I can change the way I think. I’ll stop feeling the urge to plan for Summer 2020 several times a day (okay, by “several,” I mean “several hundred”). Eventually, I’ll just think about Summer 2020 every few days, and I’ll quickly release my desire to have solid plans for the months ahead.

Unlike the squirrel, I can change my thoughts to help me get better with uncertainty.

And since uncertainty is one of the few certainties of life, that might not be such a bad thing to learn during The Great 2020 Adventure.