Fretting

Posted on January 14, 2016 by jessiepbraun

Helicopter parenting refers to “a style of parents who are over focused on their children,” says Carolyn Daitch, Ph.D., director of the Center for the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders near Detroit and author of Anxiety Disorders: The Go-To Guide (via Parents Magazine).

Define “over focused.”

In recent months I have felt myself “focused” on the kids more that usual. I would not consider myself a full-blown helicopter parent, but moving -as we did again in August – brings out my hovering tendencies. I know we are asking a lot of the kids to adjust to a change in place, a different school, new friends. So I am constantly watching them, checking in: Are they feeling adjusted? Are they happy? What do they need to feel at home?

I have noticed that it takes my kids about 4-5 months to really settle in after a move. It is at this point that the veil of anxiety seems to lift and they find their groove, their comfort zone, their routine. They morph back into their carefree, confident, snarky selves. Read: They don’t need me to hold their hand anymore.

Unfortunately once I am in helicopter mode, it is hard to turn it off. My blades are going too fast. For me, worrying is a bit of an addiction – once I start I can’t stop. My grandmother used to call it “fretting.” I get drunk on fretting and sometimes do stupid things I will second guess in the morning.

For example:

Episode #1:

It is the afternoon of Emma’s holiday chorus concert and we are scrambling to get ready. Emma has a cold. She is tired and nervous and indecisive about what to wear. She wants my opinion on her outfit but only if my opinion matches the decision she has already made in her mind but refuses to share. Because I am supposed to guess. I guess wrong. Twice.

She is very congested and demands tissues. I hand her a roll of toilet paper because I forgot to buy tissues. She blows her nose and it is impressive. She is a fountain of snot. How is she going to sing through all that snot? My OCD train has left the station. I have appointed myself the Mucus Manager.

We load up in the car and bring the toilet paper. She can’t bring toilet paper on stage – how will she blow her nose? I dig through my bottomless bag in search of tissues and my hand finds a travel pack I stole from my mother’s bathroom. It’s a Christmas miracle. Suddenly I am Mom of the Year.

I turn in my seat, victorious, arm extended, passing the tissues to Emma like the Olympic torch. “Look what I found!”

“I don’t want them.”

“But you said you can’t stop blowing your nose.”

“I don’t want the tissues, Mom.

“But you could just stick them in your pocket….”

“MOM.”

“Ok, ok fine, no tissues.”

I turn back around in my seat. A minute passes.

“Fine, just give me the tissues.”

I pass them back to her. We get out of the car and walk toward the school. As we open the double doors and she spots a group of her friends, she spins around and tosses me the packet of tissues.

“I don’t want the tissues.”

And with that, she takes off down the hall toward the chorus room.

But how is she going to sing through all that snot?

I am not proud of what happens next.

I should have just gone to my seat. But I don’t. I follow her down the hall and slip into the chorus room. I slink against the back wall, creeping behind the risers where the kids are finding their spots. What the hell am I doing in here, I think but it is too late, I am in the middle of the room. One of Emma’s friends spots me. Shit. She taps Emma on the shoulder and points. Shit. Emma looks at me with eyes that say “WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING. HERE.”

I hold up the packet of tissues and point to them. I mouth to her “I WILL LEAVE THESE RIGHT HERE,” pointing to the chair that holds her jacket. Then I gave her a thumbs up. Emma’s eyes get wide. Her friend snickers. This ship is sinking and I can’t save myself. The music stands feel embarrassed for me.

I find Phil in the auditorium and slink into my seat. I text my friend Julie and give her a play by play of what just went down. She replies with helicopter emojis.

Episode #2

Phoebe lands the role of Sally in a local stage production of A Charlie Brown Christmas. For seven Sundays she rehearses from 3:00-6:00; a big commitment for a six year old. We practice her lines in the car, before bed, while she brushes her teeth. She has two big scenes: one with Charlie Brown and one with Linus.

charlie SallyBrown

thumb_IMG_8225_1024 The big night arrives. I drop Phoebe backstage and we settle into our seats.

I try to be patient but I am counting the scenes until Phoebe’s stage debut, when she dictates her Santa letter to Charlie Brown. After what feels like an eternity she and Charlie Brown take the stage:

Sally: Dear Santa Claus: How have you been? Did you have a nice summer? How is your wife? I have been extra good this year so I have a long list of presents that I want.

Charlie Brown: Oh, brother.

Sally: Please note the size and color of each item, and send as many as possible. If it seems to complicated, makes things easy on yourself. Just send money. How about tens and twenties?

Charlie Brown: Tens and twenties! Oh, even my baby sister!

Sally: All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share.

She nails it. My smile threatens to break my face.

I can relax – the hard part is over. She only has one line in her next scene with Linus and it’s an easy one. I sit back and in my chair and let my butt cheeks de-clench.

But then the scene with Linus begins and Phoebe is not on stage. I check the program. I check the program again. There is her name, clearly listed.

Oh my God where is she.

I turn to Phil and hiss, “Where is she???” Like he knows. Like he somehow telepathically received some inside information while sitting right next to me rifling through my bag for gum.

He looks concerned which freaks me out. Then he shrugs his shoulders.

Did she puke? Is she in the bathroom and missed the entrance? Phoebe has a habit of pooping at inopportune moments.

But what if she’s sick? What if she’s crying? Do I go back there?

I turn to Phil. “Do I go back there?”

We look around us and realize we are smack in the middle of the row. “Do I text Amy?” Amy is the director of the show and conveniently a good friend. Phil shrugs again.

With my index finger poised over the keyboard, a text from Amy appears on my phone:

thumb_IMG_8244_1024 2

As I am typing “do you need me? I can come back” I am already climbing over people, lunging and stumbling and excusing myself to freedom. Once I push my way through the auditorium doors and escape into the hallway, I take off in a full sprint. I weave my way through bags of costumes and kids waiting for their curtain call until I reach backstage. Then, I see her, her big blue bow askew, her hand pressing a wad of bloody tissues to her nose.

She turns and sees me. Her costume is covered in blood. Those blue eyes, so big and scared, fill up with tears like giant fishbowls.

patrick crying Crying for me is highly contagious. My tagline could be Dolly Parton’s line from Steel Magnolias: “I have a strict policy that no one cries alone in my presence.”

But I know if I cry we are sunk. I pinch my leg hard and force a fake smile as I crouch down next to her.

“Mommy,” she whimpers, “I have a bloody nose.”

“Yes, you did,” I say. “But it has stopped. You are ok now.”

She whispers, “Can we go home now? RIGHT NOW?” She clutches my arm with her bloody little hand.

“The play is ending – don’t you want to take your bow?”

She stares at me blankly. She looks like a cartoon character with PTSD. I realize this is the part where I have to step in and decide about the bow. She is cooked, she is toast. 95% of me wants to swoop her up and get her out of there, but 5% says: You are not actively bleeding so do the bow. Finish what you started. I have no idea if this is the right decision but I go with it.

She does the bow, sort of. She kind of lurks stage right, still holding the bloody tissues to her nose. Close enough.

The curtains close and she runs to me. The other kids are so sweet and supportive, giving her hugs and high fives. She forces a smile but wants out.

She grabs my arm and whispers: “Can we go home right now?”

With heads down, we weave our way through the crowded lobby. I spot Phil and give him the “wrap it up” signal with my finger. When we reach the car, Phoebe says, “Will you sit in the way back with me?” We settle into the third seat and hold hands. As the car pulls out of the lot, she starts to weep.

“I missed my scene with Linus.”

“I know. It’s ok. You nailed the big scene with Charlie Brown.”

“I sort of missed my bow.”

“No you didn’t! You went out there. You bowed.”

“How did you know I had a bloody nose?”

“Amy texted me.”

She turns to me in the dark; headlights from passing cars illuminate her streaky cheeks. “When you got her text….did you get up and leave right away?”

“Right away.”

“Did you run?”

I squeeze her hand, our fingers intertwined. “I ran.”

She sighs and rests her head on my arm. Suddenly she separates our fingers and presses my hand flat with my palm facing up. Then she places her hand in my open palm and wraps her fingers in-between mine. I begin to wrap my fingers around her knuckles but she stops me.

“No. You keep your hand flat. This is how I want to hold hands. With only me holding on.”

I smile, but at the same time my heart hurts a little. Both emotions -the joy and the sadness- are equally true for me in that moment; connection and separation sharing the same bittersweet space.

“Got it,” I say, uncurling my fingers away from hers. “I can do that.”

I can do that.

Why I Still Need My Mom

Posted on May 8, 2014 by jessiepbraun

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It was 7:00 the morning of Emma’s First Communion, and I already had been up for two hours prepping for the ~~intimate gathering~~ sacramental bender for 65 people following the ceremony.

My mom arrived earlier in the week, and we had been prepping ever since. We sipped coffee as our eyes scanned the room, our list-making brains doing their thing.

“The succulents don’t look right in that planter – they aren’t raised up enough or something.” I mumbled quietly to myself. Or so I thought.

But in the time it took for me to park Phoebe in front of Frozen, my mother had abandoned her coffee and disappeared. I looked out the kitchen window and there she was, in my backyard wearing her nightgown and robe, gathering bricks from my garage. Sweet Jesus. She’s collecting bricks to raise up the succulents.

My mom is a fixer, a do-er, a woman of action. She is also a listener – she hears your plight, and it becomes her mission to make it better.

When I was a teenager, I resented her fixing. I thought she was trying to fix me. I thought she was trying to make me better – when really she was just trying to make things better….for me.

Now I am a mother, and I see things from the other side. Mothers are helpers. We help our children into the world, and then we help them navigate their way through it. We help them to stand, use the bathroom, write their name, ride a bike….the list is endless. The helping is easy – it’s the not helping that’s hard. The world seems so big and scary; danger and disappointment around every corner. It all feels so huge and urgent.

This is the bitch of motherhood. While we wish we had a magic wand to make all things better for our kids, sometimes the trick is not to fix, but allow. To allow and make space for their sadness, their failures, their odd but passionate love for t-shirts featuring animals wearing bedazzled sunglasses.

Some nights Emma cries when I tuck her in. She misses her friends in Massachusetts, where “she was one of the planets moving around the sun.” Now she is just a “lone planet.” My throat gets tight and my brain goes into fix-it mode: A new puppy, a trampoline, a call to 1-800-RENT-A-FRIEND….anything to make it better. But I can only listen, or cuddle, or on really desperate nights, promise to paint pottery at Color Me Mine.

And I think of all the times my mom must have felt this way: When I didn’t make the cheerleading squad, got teased for my bad skin, failed my math test ~~again~~, had my heart broken. How those events hurt her as much as they hurt me.

More. They hurt her more.

So I want to say thank you, Mom.

Thank you for all the times you drove me back to school to retrieve my flute from my locker, for staying up past midnight helping me with my First Lady report on Jackie Kennedy, my African Serengeti diorama, the Eqyptian pyramid out of sugar cubes. Thank you for changing “candy stripper” to “candy striper” on my college applications.

Thank you for saving every artifact of my childhood: my Lolly Dolly, my bound and illustrated story of Pete the Planaria, and my peach, taffeta 8th grade graduation dress. Even 23 years later, it still makes a statement:

Thank you for answering the phone 12 years ago when Phil called during our 24-hour “break-up,” and for telling him I was on a date with Danny Saland, even though I hadn’t seen Danny Saland since 12th grade, and for the record no one has called him “Danny” since 8th grade. It’s Dan.

Thank you for planting my tulip bulbs and for the buying/ironing/application of bed skirts (aka. “dust ruffles”) to my beds, things we both know would never happen if left under my tutelage. Thank you for reciting your cheeseball recipe for the 78th time because I always lose the post-it note I scribbled it on, for buying me a recipe box even though you know I will never use it, for mailing me a random newspaper wedding announcement of a girl from my Brownie Troop, an obituary of a priest I guess I should remember, and Bed Bath and Beyond coupons with a sticky note: “For the duvet cover clips.”

Thank you for spoiling my kids, for giving them rolls with lots of butter for breakfast but still making them eat broccoli for dinner, for hiding in a closet every time Emma comes home from school during one of your visits. Thank you for always having new Sponge Bob toothbrushes at your house so I don’t have to remember to pack them. Thank you for taking the girls to the Florham Park Roller Rink and ACTUALLY ROLLER SKATING, for buying them socks at Costco, for playing ONE MORE GAME of Old Maid…for loving my children so much that you cry when they cry.

Thank you for the times you let me reject your help. For letting me make my own ~~mistakes~~ decisions when every fiber of your being wanted to scream “NOOOOOO!” Like when I flew out to Chicago to visit a boyfriend you already knew was gay, or moved in with Phil before we were married, or chose cash over Waterford crystal as a wedding gift from Nannie. You stayed silent. Because some decisions aren’t meant to be fixed, but owned and assimilated by the person who made them.

Yet here you are, the Brick Lady in your seashell robe, risking back injury and neighborhood gossip so my succulents will stand tall and proud. And that doesn’t feel like fixing. It feels like love. And I need that as much at age 36 as I did at 16…or six.

Thanks for taking care of me, Mom. Please don’t ever stop.

Happy Mother’s Day xoxo

Martha, Martha, Martha

Posted on March 13, 2014 by jessiepbraun

During this season of Lent, I have been ~~trying~~ ~~failing~~ trying to start each morning with a short Bible reading and reflection. One that really hit me was Luke 10: 38-42, when Jesus Visits Mary and Martha.

The story (as I see it) goes something like this: Jesus and his friends are invited into the home of two sisters, Martha and Mary. Jesus takes a load off and Mary sits at his feet, waiting to hear what he has to say. Martha, on the other hand, is flying around the house, frantically cleaning and cooking and most likely muttering expletives under her breath.

The fact that Mary isn’t lifting a finger really starts to piss her off, and Martha says to Jesus: “Umm, excuse me Jesus, can you please light a fire under my sister, because this is crap. I still need to WetSwift the bathroom, and the taco dip isn’t going to make itself.”

Jesus says, “Martha, Girl, you need to RE-LAX. Sit down, open the wine and the bag of Tostitos and let’s get this party started.”

Ok, what he really said:

Martha, Martha you are worried and troubled over so many things, but just one is needed. Mary has chosen the good part, and that will not be taken away.

Can’t you just see Mary smirking? Jesus likes me more than you, Nanana-poo-poo!

Since our move a few weeks ago, I have turned into a major Martha. My brain feels jacked up on Coke and Pixie Stix while my body bounces around the house, frenetically “doing” but accomplishing nothing.

I wonder what was behind Martha’s “doing,” why she felt the need for everything to be perfect. For me, it’s Mommy Guilt. I feel guilty for putting the girls in a new house and school mid-year, so I am going to do WHATEVER IT TAKES TO HELP THEM FORGET ITS ACTUALLY HAPPENING. I stood for hours on Emma’s bed sticking glow in the dark constellations on her ceiling. When they climb into the car after school looking sullen and sad, my heart breaks. So I try and fix it (aka. stuff their feelings) with fro yo or cupcakes or a new book. I decorated their bathroom with a tulip border mural, and bought Phoebe a matching duvet cover that I will take out of the package as soon as I find the damn iron. As if maybe an ironed duvet cover will make her say, ‘Well alright! Who cares that I am in a new school with no friends? I have an ironed duvet cover. I have ARRIVED.”

But just as Coke-Pixie Stix bender always ends in a crash, so does a Control Bender. The I Can Fix Everything and Make Everyone Happy routine usually ends when everything falls apart. At once. And then catches on fire.

The unraveling began on Tuesday at midnight, when, 4 hours before Phil had to be on a plane to Boston, our ancient radiator in our 110 year old house decided it had worked hard enough. Water, water, everywhere. Sometimes, there are just not enough towels.

After dropping the kids off at school and getting honked at by 50 cars for screwing up in the car line ~~again~~, I waited for the plumber and the Peapod grocery order Phil had placed to “help out.” I was so engrossed in my radiator water management that I didn’t even look in the grocery bags until the delivery guy had left.

We don’t drink milk.

While I contemplated buying an extra dairy fridge off Craigslist, my sister-in-law Trisha stopped by. We chatted for a few and then, after complimenting her new car, I sent her on her way with two gallons of milk and some coffee creamer. When I returned 30 minutes later with my sullen children, the plumber was in the driveway and Trisha was walking down the street. Her new car had broken down around the corner. My first thought was, Oh man that milk is gonna stink.

While Trisha called a tow truck and the girls ran around me in circles shrieking, the plumber -let’s call him Frank- explained my radiator situation. In detail. Lots of detail. My brain was starting to short circuit. In an attempt to demonstrate how a valve works, Frank kept squeezing my bicep.

For the record, I am a “this is my box” personal space kinda girl. I could see Frank’s mouth moving, but I could barely hear his voice over the one in my head:

“The valve of a radiator blah blah blah: EXPAND, CONTRACT” (Bicep squeeze).

You just touched my arm.

“So the water flow depends on blah blah valve blah EXPAND, CONTRACT” (Bicep squeeze)

You touched it again.

“So the valve is what determines if you have FLOW or NO FLOW” (Bicep squeeze).

Three times now.

While I retained nothing about radiators, I got through the interaction without cold cocking Frank. Trisha returned to her car of rotting dairy products, and the kids and I went to the park. Jesus should have told Martha to take a walk. Nature helps get your head out of your ass.

While putting the kids to bed after a nutritious dinner of bagels and apple sauce, I sat down on Emma’s bed: “Hey Em, you know how you said you were nervous about the Terra Nova test? Well I emailed your teacher and she said that you are doing great and that…”

“Mom! Why are you bringing that up NOW? I wasn’t even thinking about it and now I AM.”

“Oh…I’m sorry….I just thought that…”

“Parents just don’t get it.”

That stung, I’ll admit. But I didn’t get it…she was right. She didn’t need me to fix it. She just needed me to listen.

Lying in bed that night, I thought about Martha and felt compassion for her. She thinks she’s doing the right thing, that caring for others is how she shows her love. Someone has to vacuum the dog hair off the couch and make sure the grill has propane. But when you become, as the reading says, “distracted with all the serving,” you start to miss the point. You can’t really be with the people you love if you are always in your head.

Jesus didn’t want Martha to be The Perfect Hostess – he just wanted Martha. And my kids don’t want The Perfect Mom – they just want me. Which I think for many of us is a hard concept to grasp. That we are exactly what our kids need just as we are. No bells, no whistles, no magic cape or fairy wand necessary. Just us.

As I put away all the towels used in the Great Radiator Flood of 2014, I found the iron in the closet.

And for now, that’s where it will stay.

Insomnia: Gettin’ Dumbah Everyday

Posted on February 5, 2014 by jessiepbraun

We are moving in 17 days. And while our previous move was only 18 months ago, I seemed to have forgotten one of the side effects of moving: Insomnia. Of which a side effect is forgetfulness. It’s a vicious cycle.

When I was paralyzed by sleeplessness with our move from Philly to Boston, I sought medical intervention. I was given a prescription for Ambien…and then blogged about it here. And, to be honest, I wrote the PG version. Ambien had other side effects that I will not discuss ~~because my mother-in-law is reading this,~~ but let’s just say Phil really misses the ~~crazy slut~~ alter ego that was Ambien Jessie. He misses her a lot.

But no matter how tired I am, I refuse to go the Ambien route. I can’t take the chance that I will answer an Evite with a 500 word run-on sentence that includes an in-depth analysis of a Scooby-Do episode and my social security number. Again.

That being said, I have to do something, because I am tired – to the point where I feel like I am losing brain cells. When I was 21, I went out on a date with a NYC transit cop, who was adorable but not my type. When I asked him to describe his typical work day, he said in a thick NY accent, “Basically, I just get dumbah. I get dumbah everyday.”

That’s me. Gettin’ dumbah everyday. The evidence:

Emma’s 2nd grade math homework has become too challenging. (17-8=…..wait…wait…I got this….).
When my mom calls and asks if I received the book she sent me, my response is: “No. Wait…maybe. That sounds familiar. Yes, I did.” The truth? No idea.
Any thing that crosses my path goes in the washer and dryer, including cash, tissues, my iPod, and this wool sweater that is now keeping Phoebe’s American Girl Doll nice and toasty.

While I have never been the most organized mom on the block, my current inability to retain basic info has forced me to rely on responsible (and nonjudgmental) friends. I’m the one in blue:

So when drugs are not an option, the only thing left is to examine one’s habits, which is annoying, because I have a lot of bad habits. But for the sake of this blog, let’s stick with two: Bedtime Ritual and Racing Thoughts.

Bedtime Ritual Every parenting book has a section on the importance for bedtime rituals for children: no screens, calming activities, limit sugar, keep the actual “time” consistent, etc. It dawned on me that while I am the Sleep Warden with my kids, I am a rebellious teen with my own sleep hygiene.

The biggest offender is late night computer use. The kids will be in bed, I will be cleaning up the kitchen and feeling exhausted. Ok good, I think to myself, I am on the right track. Just finish loading the dishwasher and then I’m getting in bed. But then….something happens. Suddenly there is a piece of information I simply must have before I can possibly go to sleep, some ridiculous, non-essential tidbit that will then open the Pandora’s Box of nonlinear Google searches.

For example: “How EXACTLY did Yolanda from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills get Lyme’s Disease” leads to…..

Research on the 47 species of ticks in California
Real estate listings in Malibu
The distance from Malibu to Joshua Tree
The inspiration behind the U2 album Joshua Tree
Is Bono’s real name Bono? (it’s Paul).

When I am satisfied with my groundbreaking findings, I’m all revved up by the evil blue light of the computer and I start vacuuming. One night Emma had gotten up to go the bathroom, and came downstairs: “Mom? Do normal mothers vacuum at midnight?”

I gave her a look that said, what makes you think I know anything about normal? Then I took her back to bed. As I was leaving her room, I saw this book sitting on her dresser.

It’s a journal Emma and I write in together a few nights a week as part of her bedtime routine. I grabbed it before closing the door, and sat on the stairs reading our entries. This one hit me….

….which brings us to

Racing Thoughts Little kids resist bedtime because they are scared of: monsters under the bed, the dark, bad dreams. I resist bedtime because I am scared of: moving, leaving our friends, the ocean, this house that I love, of the kids adjusting to a new school, are they going to need therapy, should we buy them a dog, should we join the Y, I forgot to order Emma’s uniforms…blah blah blah.

So, if my issues are not all that different from a kid’s issues, why not treat it the same way? This week I created my own firmly enforced bedtime ritual:

No computer after 8:30 PM
In bed by 10 PM
Read a novel. (No self-help)
Create a mantra: It’s going to be ok. None of this is happening right now. It’s going to be ok.
And the most important piece of changing one’s habits: Accountability.

That’s right. 14 days of good bedtime behavior and mama gets a new pair of jeans.

If none of this works, there’s always the Ambien my mother-in-law slipped in my hand during our last visit, you know, “just in case.”

Just in case I want to go streaking while riding a purple unicorn that smokes cigars.

Time will tell.

You Don’t Know Until You Know

Posted on January 23, 2014 by jessiepbraun

Last week I waxed philosophical about creating an attitude of abundance. Abundance is what I was after, and abundance is what I got. And then some.

After I posted last week’s blog, a tsunami of emotions came flooding in. I felt too full: of feelings, of information, and to-do lists. I felt like Knuffle Bunny on the spin cycle.

Emma was ~~getting pummeled by~~ riding the same emotional wave. When she came downstairs in the morning, I had to guess the Mystery Mood: excited, sad, annoyed, bitchy, sweet, angry-cat-that-hisses….it was a real mixed bag.

Over the weekend, our friend Todd, (aka. Todd-the-Bod for his muscular physique) came for a visit. Todd is one of our closest friends from Philly and he is about as lovable as they come. Picture a giant teddy bear with enormous biceps and expensive hair product who laughs at all your jokes and calls you “sweetie” and basically makes you feel amazing and beautiful. That’s Todd-the-Bod.

Oh, and he plays with your kids like the Super Nanny on meth. He is every kid’s dream visitor. Emma loves Todd-the-Bod.

I did not tell Emma that Todd was visiting because he recently separated from his wife. Because, she’s 7……right?

Despite Todd’s piggy back rides and scavenger hunt, Emma, in her current state of Knuffle-Bunny-on-the-spin-cycle, was unhappy with the amount of “adult talk” going on in the kitchen that was taking up her quality time with Mr. Todd-the-Bod.

She protested by not going to bed. Up, down, up, down, up down. “MOOOOMM!” Rub my back. I need water. My shirt is making me hot. My pajama tag is itchy. I am ready just to strip her naked and call it a night when she says: “Is there something going on you’re not telling me?”

My heart dropped. “What do you mean?”

Her blue eyes met mine in such a penetrating stare I almost stopped breathing. “Where’s Mrs. Todd-the-Bod?”

Oye.

“Well, you know how _____’s parents aren’t together anymore?”

“You mean….Mr. and Mrs. Todd-the-Bod are getting….a DIVORCE?”

“Yes. But he’s doing ok. He’s just a little sad. Being with Dad is helping him, I think.”

Then, the tears. She wailed, “Why didn’t you TELL ME!? Now I feel like such a JERK!”

“Huh? Why??”

“Because I would have been so much NICER to him! I wouldn’t have STALKED him to PLAY like a HONEYBADGER!”

“Oh Em,” I sighed. Then a quote from Maya Angelou popped into my head:

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.

“Hey, Em, you didn’t know. But now you do know, ok?”

She sniffled. “Ok. Leave the light on – I might draw a picture for Mr. Todd the Bod, ok?”

Hours later I went up to check on her. Emma was sprawled across the bed, lights still on, and there were drops of green liquid on the floor. Is this paint? What the hell?

Then I saw this on her desk:

If I thought I had an abundance of emotion before…holy shit. Wow. Empathy. Compassion. She gets it. They should put this in the baby book: First Tooth, First Step, First Undirected Act of Empathy. I was a proud momma.

I snuck it down to show Todd and his eyes got misty: “How did she know?”

“Know what?”

“That Sunflowers is my favorite painting. I stood in the Van Gogh museum for hours looking at it.”

That gave me goosebumps.

Many St. Germaine cocktails later, the weekend came to a close, Todd-the-Bod returned to Philly, and my steady state of feeling overwhelmed returned. As I drove to Phoebe’s parent-teacher conference, I jotted things down on the back of a Starbucks napkin at red lights: Call pediatrician/find new pediatrician. Cancel paper. Call the vet to pick up Ellie’s ashes. Then I started crying. I can’t believe Ellie is ashes. Oh no, God, please don’t let me cry in a conference ~~again.~~ Help me not be a hot mess. Everything is hitting me at once and I am starting to unravel.

The teachers were running behind, so I sat down at a kiddie desk. Another mom -we did not know each other – was also waiting and we started to chat. We did the basic mom intro: Who’s your kid, do you work, yada yada yada. I mentioned that we were moving to PA in a few weeks.

“Oh wow!” she said. “You have a lot going on.”

“Yeah….it’s good….but kind of overwhelming. My mind just keeps running like a ticker tape, you know ticker-ticker-ticker all day long.”

Stop talking, Jessie. Find your filter.

I reeled myself in and we kept chatting. We had some things in common: I freelance write, she is an editor. She has worked for a non-profit, I once volunteered at a grief center.

She paused, then said: “What made you get involved in the grief world?”

“I don’t know, I was just drawn to it.”

“It’s just interesting you bring it up,” she said. “because I had a son that died of a brain tumor eight years ago. He was 3.”

“Oh my God. I am so sorry.”

And I’m telling this women how overwhelmed I am. I’m such an asshole.

“Thanks. People ask me all the time how I got through, and I don’t know, I just did. I mean, what choice to you have?”

I just nodded, tears for this nameless woman pooling behind my eyes.

“But you do the best you can, right? Life is crazy. And now we are in the process of adopting a baby boy, so it just gets crazier!”

And I’m the one who is overwhelmed. I’m such an asshole.

The door to the classroom opened. It was time for her conference. We finally exchanged names, and clasped hands for a moment before she turned to go.

“Hey, best of luck with everything,” I said. She winked and closed the door.

I sat there alone for a moment, stunned but her story and horrified by my own self-centeredness. God, why am I such an asshole?

Then I thought about Emma’s sunflowers…about her lambasting herself and the advice I gave her, and now here I was, wedged into a child sized-chair doing the same exact thing. Anne Lamott wrote:

I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox, full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools – friendships, prayers, conscience, honesty – and said, Do the best you can with these, they will have to do. And mostly, against all odds, they’re enough.

I believe that God had me cross paths with this woman, but not so I could scream “ASSHOLE!” while I jab my eyes out with a pencil. I think His intention was to open my eyes a little wider, to see a littler farther, beyond myself and my own stresses. I think He says what any loving parent would say: “Hey, relax. You didn’t know. Now you know. And now you can do better.”

Some of my stresses are still real and significant. But when I open my eyes a little wider, I see that they are not that significant. And some are not actually real at all. And then I can breathe again.

Eyes wide open.

My Dog Is Dead and We’re Moving: How to Choose an Attitude of Abundance

Posted on January 16, 2014 by jessiepbraun

“My dog is dead and we’re moving.”

This was how Emma greeted her bus stop pals on the first day back to school in 2014. Happy New Year!

But that’s my firstborn. In all of her 7.5 years, she has never been one to sugar coat things, and she tells the truth. The whole truth and nothing but, whether you’ve had your coffee yet or not. So put on your helmet.

Our dog is dead, as you already know, and yes – we are moving. AGAIN. When I told my friend Kathy she said, “You move more than an army wife.” Yes, except we are not nobly sacrificing ourselves for the good of this country, nor is Phil out in the trenches fighting for freedom and justice for all. He is fighting to make “validation sexy.”

But hey, if he didn’t, who would?

Alas, it is a position within his current company that sends us back to our beloved Philadelphia – 18 months, 2 rentals, and 1 house purchase later.

This was a bit shocking at first. We have only been in this house for six months.

I’m still unpacking from the last move. It was only a month ago that I got one of those silverware drawer organizers at Bed Bath and Beyond. Opening that drawer gave me such pride in my attempt at organization. But now, as I reach for a fork – destined to be thrown back in a moving box – I think, I can’t believe I actually used a tape measure for this shit.

I am not going to lie, I spent a day ~~or three~~ in my snowman pajamas. I wondered if Phil had unconsciously manifested this re-re-location by never changing our license plates.

I just felt so…..torn. Sure, there are many benefits to moving back to Philadelphia: family, old friends, the Phillies, WaWa….

God I do miss WaWa.

But, even a 24 hour store that has everything from Midol to mac-n-cheese cannot compare to this:

Yet compare is what I continued to do.

In high school, I had a friend who was trying to decide between two colleges: Tulane and JMU. They were both great schools and she was having a hard time choosing, so she made a comparison chart. I only remember the first bullet point:

Tulane: Smelly

JMU: Not Smelly

She went to JMU.

I began to notice that both Phil and I were taking the Smelly-Not Smelly approach in order to feel better about our decision. For example:

Boston: Crazy Cold

Philly: Normal Cold

Boston: Lobster Rolls (no thanks)

Philly: Soft Pretzels (yes please)

One night over a ~~bottle~~ glass of wine, a rapid-fire compare and contrast ensued: Boston doesn’t have a Liberty Bell! The ocean is too cold in the winter! It’s a 30 minute drive to Target! I hate clam chowder!

Our Bash Boston list became increasingly more shallow and sophomoric, yet the negative energy ~~and booze~~ continued to fuel our bad behavior. We finally hit bottom when Phil said, “The women at Lululemon in Philly are hotter than the women at Lululemon in Boston.”

Oh, Phil. That’s just weird. Way to ruin the game.

With the Bashing Phase over, I moved into the Avoidance Stage. I stopped going for runs along the rocky cliffs. I drove circuitously in order to avoid the scenic route through the harbor, where, on a clear day, the sun reflects off the water and the lighthouse stands proud in the distance.

The Avoidance Stage came to a reluctant end when I ran out of episodes of The Real Housewives of Anywhere. I had no where left to hide. Now I had to actually let myself think and feel again (dammit!) and ask myself, Ok, what is going on, here?

I was scared. Scared of feeling sad. Scared of missing this truly magical place and the people in it. Scared of never being as happy as we have been here.

Then I read this line in a daily reflection book by Julia Cameron:

Life is what you make it.

Our life here in Scituate has been awesome and abundant because we decided it was going to be awesome and abundant. When Phil’s work brought us to New England, we literally picked a town off the map of MA and said, “This feels right -let’s try here.” This was huge for us, having always lived near family and in familiar places. Sure, there was some lonely moments, but we dedicated ourselves to believing our own bullshit: “This is going to be GREAT. This is going to be the best thing we’ve done YET. We are going to meet some amazing people.”

And you know what? It was. And we did.

But this move back home to Pennsylvania holds the same possibility of abundance and awesomeness – if we choose to invite it in.

Emma said at bedtime, “What if I don’t make any friends?”

“That’s impossible,” I said.

“How is it impossible?”

“Everywhere you have ever gone, you have made friends. You made friends in the sandbox, at the playground, on the beach, in school. You make friends because you love people. So all evidence supports you making friends again in Pennsylvania.”

She seemed to accept this as plausible. I think because I used the word evidence.

Acknowledging the good you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance. -Eckhart Tolle

Life is so good right now. And there was a time where I might have said, “Well, this is as good as it’s gonna get. I’ve filled my happiness quota. It’s all downhill from here.”

But this line of thinking made me a miserable f***k.

So I’m adopting an attitude of abundance. Instead of assuming every blessing will be my last, I will assume there are an infinite amount still waiting for me…for us.

I am still sad to leave.

But I am even happier to have been here.

What We Can Learn From Newlyweds

Posted on January 9, 2014 by jessiepbraun

Last weekend my niece Nora got married.

When I first thought about writing about her wedding, my working title was something like “Advice to Nora on Her Wedding Day.”

But then I looked at her face in this photo, and decided: Yeah, looks like she’s doing ok. Pretty sure she doesn’t need any advice from me.

In fact….I have a sneaking suspicion it might be the other way around.

Any marital advice I would give – while perhaps true and hard-earned – would be a real buzz kill. I remember when my dad used to wax philosophical on marriage to my sister and I at the dinner table.

“Girls,” he would begin, in-between bites of Shake n’ Bake chicken, “the key to a lasting marriage is COMMITMENT. CO-MMIT-MENT.” Because sounding out words to teenagers really brings your point home.

Phil and I are married 10 years this July.

We are definitely committed. In fact, at one point I actually was committed. (Well, not exactly committed – it was self elected – but still. It was a facility.)

Phil and I work hard at our marriage, because we like to work, and we like things to be hard. I blame our collective German, Irish, and Catholic lineage for the fact that we feel the need to suffer for happiness. If we are not digging deep into our “shame barriers” or “upper limit problems,” we are clearly being complacent, and need to spice things up by throwing in some conflict. Gotta keep all the tools in our therapeutic tool box nice and sharp.

And, in fairness to us, I believe there is value in this level of dedication. We have seen a marriage counselor – we will call him George – on and off for years. Frankly I am in awe of how couples make it without a George. He has given us a whole new language with which to communicate. With frightening regularity, we say things like: “Is this really about me, or is this actually about a primal unmet intimacy need?”

Because healing your childhood wounds is hot. Hot like a hemorrhoid.

At the wedding cocktail hour, I gave Nora and big hug, and said, “Wow. You look beautiful….and really happy.”

“Oh my gosh,” she said, her face flushed with excitement. “I AM SO happy. Dan is such a great guy. I just feel so lucky.”

As she moved through the crowd to greet her guests, I thought about the perfect simplicity of Nora’s words.

In her book Marriage Rules, Harriet Lerner describes young love as the Velcro Stage:

In the Velcro Stage, we automatically focus on the positive. We know how to make our partner feel loved and valued and chosen. We may find our differences interesting and exciting, and overlook the negative.

Life is hard. There will always be reasons to have conflict, whether it be illness, death, financial ruin, or a spray of pee on the flipped-up toilet seat. There will always be something wrong with our spouse (and us), because we are not perfect people. If it’s the flaws we are looking for, it’s the flaws we will find.

But Nora reminded me that if I look for reasons to feel lucky, I will find those, too.

So in the spirit of feeling lucky in love in 2014, Phil and I each composed a list entitled “Top 10 Things I Love About You.”

Reading the list made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and Phil of course sobbed like a schoolboy (see #2). I highly recommend writing a list for your spouse/significant other. Don’t even tell him/her that you’re doing it. Just write it in an email, on a post-it note, on your hand, wherever. Just get started. It will put some pep in your step, and in your partner’s as well.

Life is difficult enough without looking for more reasons to be pissed off. Instead of trying to fix what is wrong (which makes you feel heavy) young love reminds us to see what is right (which makes you feel light).

In 2014, choose to feel light.

No Cigarettes, No Bologna

Because marriage is all about compromise and throwing stuff

Tag Archives: Jessie