Let me just tell you that the honeymoon phase of not weighing myself and not smoking is officially over. To top that off, I’m in the middle of what Dr. Brene Brown calls a “vulnerability hangover.”  I’m also in the middle of feeling slovenly and missing the hell out of those cancer sticks.  But 11 days and counting.

Such is detox.

Now on to the business of life.

What’s up with the boobs on the cover of Time Magazine?

I had somebody ask me today—somebody who has been reading this blog, ‘are you okay? I mean, are you OKAY, really?’  ‘Yes’, I was thinking ‘I’m fine.  I don’t have my boobs on the cover of Time Magazine. So, yeah, totally fine.’ 

I don’t have much today besides that. I wrote a very long treatise on friendship but then thought the better of it.  Suffice it to say that I rode to Hell (Hell, Michigan) and back with my 2 good old friends Heather and Mary Lou yesterday.  Better than Prozac.  Not quite as good as American Spirits. But I’m sure the day is nearly at hand when that opinion flips.  (Just kidding, girls.)

I will go to church tomorrow and have brunch with my Mom and Dad.  We’ll celebrate Mother’s Day.  Whoopdeefriggin’ doo.  That holiday is forever tainted by the memory of somebody saying, ‘why should I get you anything for Mother’s Day? You’re not my mother.’  Enough said on THAT topic.  Said individual did not say that to me.  Because if they had, it would be a good bet that you would henceforth be able to recognize them from their distinct lack of teeth and their overall deadness.

In writing that, I just remembered that my own husband missed a crucial Mother’s Day 5 years ago. It was the first one with both of our kids. Missed it completely. In all truth, we weren’t really speaking then.  In fact, a few days in advance of the actual holiday, in a heated argument, he actually said that my nanny was raising the kids because I was taking a 2-hour break on Tuesdays and Thursdays to go riding.  I was still nursing both kids back then so I would often plan to go riding but end up pulling over on the side of the road and just sleeping.  Then just drive home.

I doubt that qualifies as being an absentee parent but we all think what we must in order to justify saying really nasty things.  Often men say and do things like that around Mother’s Day (I’ve heard from other mothers) out of their own guilt from their own absence. They have to go to work and in so doing, they think they miss all the good stuff.  They probably do miss some. But they also miss the mounds of laundry, vomit, diapers, nursing, mastitis, oh yeah speaking of that, having your nursing boobs on the cover of Time Magazine. 

They also miss having to defend every parenting decision, defend staying home, defend going back to work, defend natural birth, defend C-sections, defend breastfeeding, defend not breastfeeding, etc. All that and they miss feeling horribly guilty the minute they take any time for their own sanity. They miss out on the thinking and worrying all day every day about the fruit of their labor.  That doesn’t even include the actual labor or the nine months or the forever jacked-up body.  Attachment parenting? Sh*t! I’m just trying to stay hinged myself.  I have decided that, first and foremost, we mothers must 1) stick together and 2) we must attend to our own wellbeing.  Attachment is contingent upon having something to attach to.

The ride did help. But as you can see, I am a long way from cured.  I told Jeff I’m probably going to need to ride to Hell and back again tomorrow so I can continue to recover from my original, non-metaphorical journey there. 

 

He said, ‘well, it IS Mother’s Day. You can do whatever you want.’

The nursing bras and breast pump have been bronzed and put on the shelf.

Hooking up the rig. We ride at 2. 

(I’m bringing the saddlebags just in case my guilt wants to tag along.)