Yesterday, on New Year’s Eve Day, I was feeling deeply excited about the end of 2020 and the start of a new year, finally getting some things sorted and moving forward in my life.
Today is the first day of 2021. I woke up and had some quiet time while my mother-in-law looked after our daughter. We talked to my dad and his wife, and afterward, I made the mistake of glancing at the headlines, and quickly set down my phone. I started thinking about my goals and my current state. I recalled a regret I had forgotten about and spent a few minutes re-examining it, before remembering I’m trying to let go of my what-ifs this year. Then my husband called me down for our special New Year’s Day breakfast.
I sat at the table, and quickly learned that my beautiful, newly two-year-old toddler had discovered a new level of joy in doing the opposite of whatever she has been told. She has always had her moments of disagreeing, but this morning it seemed was a full-on Opposite Day in her world.
Most of the time, I can roll with her abrupt leaps in development, but today, I was in a funk, so I instead felt myself getting frustrated with her. She kept testing one particular rule, pushing her feet against the table and rocking her high chair back and forth.
After several warnings, I finally picked her up and said, “All done.” I took her to the kitchen while she wailed, then upstairs to her room. We settled ourselves down and then rejoined the group to finish our breakfast. Yes, I kind of sort of gave in.
Because I felt exhausted. More specifically, I couldn’t muster the extra energy required to be patient and creative, to figure out how to navigate her newfound opposition in a way that empowered her and gave her choices.
No.
I just wanted her to sit still, say Please and Thank you, and neatly finish her French toast with cinnamon sugar and maple syrup (yes, that’s right) without rubbing her sticky fingers in her hair as soon as I asked her not to, or dropping her syrupy fork into her milk cup immediately after I told her, “No,” and she could then finish her tidy meal by wiping her hands and mouth gingerly with a napkin before gazing at me and sighing, “I love and appreciate you so dearly, Mommy,” while softly patting my hand.
That’s all.
Instead, she ate a 20-minute-long single piece of French toast, I washed her hands several times mid-meal to minimize the syrup in her hair, and then dumped her forked-up milk (to much protest), before we finally went upstairs to get her dressed in her room (formerly, my husband’s childhood bedroom).
Z is a toddler, and therefore intermittently obsessed with order and chaos, so she promptly dumped out her box of stacking boxes while I closed the door. I laid down on my husband’s old twin-sized bed, and closed my eyes.
For a blissful 30 seconds, I heard her scurrying around the room, singing and chatting to herself, before she called for me, “Momm-my, Momm-mmy, Mommy!”
I opened my eyes to make sure she wasn’t in immediate danger and said, “Mommy’s tired, Z. I need to rest for a minute.”
She resumed dumping and reorganizing her boxes, and I thought about what I had said, and decided it needed a correction.
“Mommy’s tired, Z, and sad. Mommy’s feeling sad.”
She stopped what she was doing and came over to the bed to look at me. “Mommy’s sad,” she said, her blue eyes gazing down at me.
Here it comes, I thought, one of those moments with your toddler that makes you marvel at their insight and wisdom.
She pulled herself up on the bed, peering down at me, and promptly climbed over my face and chest, sticking a pointy knee into my rib cage, and her butt on my cheek, resting briefly while sitting on my ear, before discovering the cord of her white noise machine, pointing and announcing, “I want the This!”
I realized that I did, in fact, have to be the adult in the room, in spite of my mood. So I stood up. We got her dressed and left the house for her daily trip to the playground across the street.
“Mommy’s tired, and sad. Mommy’s feeling sad.”
After four years of pursuing an acting career, almost a decade of medical training that included providing mental health counseling, and now two years of being a mom, I’ve learned some things about emotions.
I’ve learned that some days, we feel really good, peaceful and/or empowered. Other days though, we feel sad. Sometimes really sad. Sometimes, there’s an obvious reason. Other times, we find ourselves searching for the cause. For me, these past few years, it’s usually grief for my mom, or now also for my stepfather, or a general sense of loneliness in my own skin, but sometimes it’s frustration with my lack of “progress,” whatever the hell that means. Not being where I hoped I’d be, or thought I *should* be. And there’s definitely a seasonal component to my moods.
But some days, or even just some abrupt moments, we feel sad (or angry, or scared) and there may not be a specific reason why. And sometimes, we can acknowledge the feeling, hold space for it, and let it pass. We don’t have to let it consume us.
It can be like weather. Like a cloud in the sky (thank you, Headspace app).
And. There are also those days where we have to dive into our sad and swim around for a bit. I’ll read or watch or think about something that makes me sob till my chest hurts. And that release is just that. It’s letting go and it feels amazing.
Some days, diving into it is the way to can clear our hearts and heads enough to realize what was actually making us sad to begin with.
Some days, when I know that I’m grieving, I actively seek the sad.
Some days, the sad actually feels good. Not in a self-destructive way, but in a feeling-all-the-feelings-that-make-us-human-and-are-therefore-equally-beautiful way.
Today, I couldn’t define what was causing my sad, but after our trip to the playground, I read something that made me cry, hard, and then I could let my sad go. Then, I could think clearly. Then I realized I wanted to write. I didn’t intend to write about sadness. One of the things I love about writing is that so often, it’s a surprise to me what comes out.
A friend pointed out to me last year that some days, our babies seem to just be in a bad mood, for no obvious reason. But of course. If we get to be in a bad mood sometimes, so do they. Right?
In fact, I had hoped that Z would inherit my husband’s laid back tendencies, but of course we both know that is not likely to be the case.
So I want Z to know that it’s ok to be sad (or mad or tired or scared), and that it’s safe to say it, and that I will always love her, no matter what.
There is plenty to be sad/angry/tired/scared about in the world. There is a lot to be grateful for too, and our family has a lot of privilege and a lot of good in our lives. But all of us have our hard days, weeks, months and years.
Sometimes, they happen collectively.
Today, on the first day of 2021, I see COVID, and I see our nation’s ongoing reckonings with race. I see the deep, deep divisions in our country right now, exacerbated by social media, conspiracy theories, loneliness and radicalization. It’s scary, and painful, and exhausting, and sad.
I’ve also had a lot of loss and change in my life personally in the last five years. A lot of new growth too. But there’s a part of me that really just wants to be wherever the heck it is that I’m going to be, and I’d like to be there now, please. To be finished with all this growth stuff. I know life is a journey, not a destination. Truly, I do know that, but some days, I just want to be at the damn mountaintop already. Because the weeds and the cliffs and the mud and the monsters are just wearing me out.
Fortunately, there are some glimpses of the peaks starting to show through the parting clouds. For me, for my family, for our country, for our planet.
Jarred, Z and I have had the gift of spending this past four months living in upstate New York with Jarred’s mother and brother, while we figured out our next steps. It’s been a weird blur, as so much of COVID has been, and has meant a lot of time together as a family. Z has had precious time with all of us. It’s also been a bit of treading water for Jarred and me. So while we are sad that this time is ending, Jarred and I are excited to be moving to our own apartment and back to Ithaca in a couple weeks. Our plan is to stay in the area for the next 12-18 months.
Yup. Back to Ithaca. Again.
It’s a soft landing where we have lots of room to grow.
At the same time, we are now entering the Long Grey, as I tend to think of Winter in upstate New York. It’s the seemingly endless window of time that extends from January 2 through roughly April, sometimes May, when the ground is slushy and wet and the air is cold, and everything is grey.
I was surprised to find that I missed the Long Grey the first winter that we moved to L.A. My body was completely disoriented by the constant, cheerful sunshine instead of gloomy skies that justified introverting and introspection. I was also pregnant, so the sunshine made me nauseous. But after that first winter, the second and third winters in L.A. were downright delightful. So I was apprehensive about returning to the Long Grey when we decided to move back East this fall.
In a moment very on brand for 2020, this winter’s Long Grey was preceded in our area by a record-breaking Big Dump in mid-December: 3.5 feet of snow in one night, necessitating hours of shoveling driveways, walkways and roofs. One week later, most of the snow has now melted, causing significant flooding, as well as ice, slush and general wetness.
But I’m going to try to make the best of it.
Because while it can feel stagnant, the Long Grey is still time that is passing.
It’s life that is passing.
So I am determined that my daughter is going outside almost every single day this winter, regardless of the weather.
I took her to the playground this morning. This playground was burned down in June by arsonists, hours after a nearby protest against racism. It’s an all-abilities playground, and shortly after the fire, enough money was raised to rebuild it, even during the pandemic, in a town that is struggling with poverty. It was completed in October. It’s beautiful.
This morning, the temperature was in the 30s or 40s, grey, cold, the usual. I wore my new Lands’ End stadium coat, a hat, gloves, a neck warmer and waterproof black snowboots. I put Z in her hat, mittens, coat and snow boots, as well as her snowpants because yesterday the playground was wet with melted snow and her pants got soaked.
Today, we were both decidedly overdressed.
But Z held my hand as we walked to the playground. She was happy, and played on the swings and the large, wooden xylophone. We realized one of our friends was also there with her toddler. The four of us played together on the slide and the see-saw.
The sun shone, just for a little bit.
It was fun.
Afterward, Z and I walked back to my mother-in-law’s house.
I found myself smiling as she pointed out all the things she saw and informed all the passers-by of her goings ons: “I’m going home! I saw Katie and Noah! There’s a airplane. Hi! Hi! Hi!” People couldn’t help but smile.
Then she asked me to pick her up, and I did so with pleasure, because she’s getting bigger and I was thrilled to be close to her.
A few minutes later, she asked me to put her down, and I again did so with pleasure, because my arms were tired and I was thrilled she wanted to walk for herself.
Tonight, when I put her to bed, for the first time, when I said “I love you,” she threw her tiny arms around me, clutching the back of my sweatshirt in both fists, and said it clearly back: “I love you.”
Sigh.
So this year, I will keep seeking to embrace this ebb and flow with Z, with myself, and with others. Taking time to accept and appreciate the times we will come together and hold on tight, as well as the times we will let go, and walk alone.
I predict that some days, I will be sad/angry/scared, and may need to cry really hard, then request extra cinnamon sugar and maple syrup, even as I rub my wet, sticky hands in my hair.
Other days, I’ll be playful and silly and want to swing and hug, and may accidentally sit on the ear of someone I love.
A lot of days, I bet I’ll do both.
