Man, depression sucks.  Really just plain sucks. 

Today I’ve slept most of the day and been a totally ineffectual mother and I’m still exhausted.  I feel like I could sleep for a year.

Wallace was playing a game where we had to ask each other repeatedly how we were, and having to say about fifty times that I felt good just broke my heart.

Of course, duh, I did, because it was a game, but man…

In summary: I’m not doing so well. I imagine that it may continue for some time.

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Last night, because it had been about five days since I last did it, I stayed up until two in the morning cleaning.  I de-Christmassed most of the house and instantly felt much better.  The tree is still up (which is what Wallace cares about) but everything else is packed away for the year.

I cleaned and did a thousand loads of laundry and basically put my house back together.  Today’s job is going to be going through Wallace’s toys and making space for the six billion new ones we have.  Also vacuuming.  And drinking tea.  Cookies may figure in there somewhere, and likely a Bob the Builder movie.

Life is getting back to normal.

Ahhhhhhhh.

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Slowly, bit by bit, I’m pulling myself back together. 

Man, I think that this year I’d have fallen apart after any Christmas.  I was totally built up for a crash, and I knew it was coming, and there was nothing for it.  December 24 - Lovely time, December 25 - Lovely time, December 26 - Teetering on the edge, December 27 - CRASH.

Over the course of today (assisted, no doubt, by the four hour nap that both Wallace and I partooook of) I have noticed my sense of humor begin to peek it’s nose out from behind the corners and chuckle.  Thank God.  Nobody should be that friggin depressing on New Years.

How are you, Peeps?  Recovering?

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Under my own theory, my sweets, that I should not write about difficult experiences until they are funny, thereby ensuring that I’m removed enough to take away the personal, I should not be telling you about Christmas until next week.  Not because it was bad at all, it was a good Christmas.  I can say with absolute certainty that everyone was as well-behaved as any of us could possibly be.   I would wait until my thoughts are clearer, but ya’ll keep emailing me poking me with your own versions of “WELL!?!” and so here I am.  Please bear with me if it’s all a little confused.

I’m including myself 100% in the behavior statement, by the way, meaning that I think I had only one moment of proper screaming-bansheeism and forced everyone to leave to go have a “nap” only once.   I think that everyone did the best they could and if it was as hard to put up with me from the outside as the inside, everyone did a fantastic job.

Really, most of the holiday was spent surrounded by family and having fun.  When you cram all that neurosis and history into one room for two days you’re going to get minor sparking, but the events were so minor they aren’t worth mentioning.  Also, each of us comes at the family mix from our own brand of crazy, so the stories I’d tell would be vastly different if told by another family member about the very same moment. 

We are the blind guys in a strange country feeling up an elephant, I’ll tell you what.

Instead, what I want to impart is how special it made us feel to have everyone agree to visit.  I want to tell you about the moments when we were all sitting around the table talking and laughing and everyone was there and my great uncle, Wallace’s namesake, was telling everyone who would listen that Wallace has his eyes.  And he totally does.  Wallace has his great-great-Uncle’s eyes.  They are blue, not green, but have brown near the irises.  True, dark brown.  Those are Uncle Mario’s eyes.

There was enough food to feed said elephant and several more besides.  The kids were painfully, utterly adorable and I will so show you pictures that will make your heart break.  Wallace had the time of his life and is still coming down from the experience.  He is totally and utterly smitten with his cousin Jojo, and here are some of his Cassonovistic gems from the holiday:

“You wook vewy nice!  I wike your sweater!  I wike your batpack.  I wuv you!”

I was buckling him into his car seat and we had this conversation:

W: Mommy is not my heart.

Me: Mommy is not your heart?!

W: Daddy is not my heart.

Me: Daddy is not your heart?!

W: Jojo is my heart.

Okey dokey there, Don Juan.  I get it.  You kiss the ground she walks on.

For her part, Jojo is incredibly wonderful to Wallace.  At a very mature seven years of age, she obligingly followed him around for most of the weekend, put up with his clumsy attempts to win her affection, and helped him join her in several games that would undoubtedly been easier on her if she’d just ignored him.  I know that I tire of, “Mommy!  Mommy! Come here!” long before she tired of, “Jojo! Jojo! Come here!”

She was a real sweetheart.

The Christmas presents were unreal.  I got a new ipod Nano with a sound system to dock it in (W00T!),  the complete collection of Calvin and Hobbes, hard-bound (W00T!), a Sonicare Toothbrush (W00T!), several awesome books (W00T!) , Egyptian 800 count cotton sheets (W00T!), and generally totally made out like a bandit.

The real hero of the day was, again, TT.  He’s like being married to Superman.  The man woke up the day before Christmas Eve feeling not so good.  On Christmas Eve he was undoubtedly sick.  On Christmas morning he had the martian death flu and should not have been out of bed at all.

Instead he got up, made breakfast for everyone and sat around being appropriately social.  Then while I went and took a nap, he peeled spuds and carrots for an hour and cooked up the most gorgeous standing rib roast I’ve ever tasted in my life. 

Honest to goodness, he should have been flat on his back and refusing to participate with anything, and instead he stepped up to the plate and wowed me once again.  He’s still not feeling particularly well, but is also coming down off his own Christmas high while coddling me through some predictable KP-style post-holiday breakdown behavior.  He’s a God.

Me? I’m a predictable mess.  The holidays are rough and this one was no exception.  There were some major happy moments and a lot of melencholia and behind the scenes disquiet. I know that some people were unhappy with some things and I know that there’s nothing I can really do about that, and that it would have happened regardless who was hosting the event.

I don’t know.  Anyone standing outside the event would have called it a major success.  I hope that sometime soon I can feel that way.  Until then I’ll just sit over here in my mentally bozonkers corner and count my toes and weep for no reason.  Okay?  Okay.

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Recovering from our Massive Christmas.

Merry Merry to you from Speckblog!

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I had my first full, sobbing breakdown last night, Peeps.  It’s been building for a while and was not even remotely unexpected. 

I was talking with Nana Poopyhands on the phone the other day and telling her all about the folks I know who have a hard time with the holidays.  Nana pointed out that I myself have a hard time during the holidays.  Instantly I had one of those telescoping moments and knew that she was absolutely right.  It wasn’t something I would have said right up until she pointed it out, yet when she did I knew that it was true.

I adore the holiday season.  I love the lights, the tree, the presents, the songs… all of it.  I adore it. I also am harder on myself during this time of year than at any other time.  I know there’s this myth of a plus for a divorced kid being the two Christmasses, but I can tell you right here and right now that that’s a crock.  I would have given up almost anything during the holiday season to skip the endless back-and-forthing.

When do you come over? Well, when are your sisters going to be at their mom’s? Who’s getting you for dinner? Are you going to eat two Christmas dinners? Who’s going to have to drive the kids?  When/where the church thing? How long? How many? How much? And the unspoken wail underlining all of these exchanges on the side of every single person, “Why is this so much TROUBLE? Why does it have to be so HARD? Why can’t we just have a normal holiday like normal people?”

I’ve carried that sense of needing to be totally fair with time through to today; the desperate need to NOT be a pain in the ass to others no matter how it puts me out. 

Christmas is beautiful, and it also highlights the fractures and fissures that run through me and my existence.  There is no being whole at the holidays and I don’t think there ever will be, really.

So at this time of year I’m joyful with excitement, overwhelmed with beauty, and crushed with worry, regret and self-doubt.  My thoughts start to fracture and make less sense as my brain begins to bob and weave so that any hits that come through are glancing blows. I won’t feel them until the season is over, at which point every emotional bruise will sting and ache and throb and I will cry and cry with the knowledge that it wasn’t right this year either, and it will probably never be right.

So yesterday I bought new clothes that I loved and felt good about for a few hours, then when I got home utterly hated and despised the way I looked in them, sure that someone would laugh at me for being terribly fat and ugly and imperfect. 

Last weekend I was on top of everything and the house was spic and span and today it looks like a tornado has come through, the laundry is piled up and I didn’t wrap up Wallace’s Christmas gifts to his teachers because the two seconds it would take suddenly seemed like too much effort.

I’m painting my nails at work even though tonight when I get home I’m going to clean so they will peel and get all messed up, and that I need to paint my toenails for a Saturday night party and can’t do that without stripping and redoing the paint on my fingernails.  So why did I do it?  I don’t know.

I’m so happy and so utterly crushed and miserable.  I have The Troublemaker who is my rock and who has my back unconditionally, and a gorgeous son, and have a great holiday planned, and yet I have nothing.  I’m back to being nine and knowing that it’s all gone wrong.  I’m back to the moment when all of our Christmas ornaments were stolen from our storage area in the crappy apartment we lived in right after the divorce; just another casualty of the way the things I knew and understood had disappeared.

I’m happy and I’m miserable and lost.  I cry randomly and I break into cold sweats in the middle of the day.

PTSD is a bitch.  So I paint my nails and cry for no discernable reason and write you long, rambling, pointless posts that go nowhere.

*****************

Dear Self,

PTSD sucks. Life has changed and the goodness you’re feeling is not made up.  The house looks great, the tree is great, the animals are great, everyone is going to love their presents.  It’s going to be warm and happy.  It’s okay to feel that way.

Life has also not changed and you are the same fractured person you were years ago.  That pain doesn’t need to be ignored, mitigated, thrown away or denied.  The pain is still there.  It’s okay to feel it.

Oh, self, I know that it’s hard.  It’s hard to look in the mirror and not like what you see.  It’s hard to feel such self-doubt in the face of so much love from your husband and son.  It’s hard knowing that these things leave you open for criticism from strangers and family.  It’s hard knowing that there will surely be judgment and because you are not perfect and can never be, the judgment will be based on fact and undoubtedly, in one way or another, despite all your work, you’ll be lacking.

But it’s also going to be fun.  I tell you the bad things truthfully and so here are some good things; you are pretty, weight or not.  Your laugh is infectious.  You deal with a high level of worry and stress with knowledge and grace.  You are allowed to be joyful and miserable at the same time.  Cry if you want to cry, it doesn’t hurt anyone.  You will not be perfect, but the correlation between perfect and happy is one that someone else has created, it’s patently untrue.

You are not perfect.  You are love.  You can feel however you feel.  And the truth is that I love you.  I love you so much.  You are a good person. 

So Happy Christmas, me.  Your son is going to have the best day ever.   Your husband loves you.  How wonderful are these things?  They are so wonderful we can’t breathe. The only thing you have to do to be worthy of their love is accept it and return it to them.

It’s okay to just be, the good and the bad.  Just be.  Know that I love you and that we’ll be okay.

Love,

KP

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GAH!  I hate this when this happens, Peeps.  I have this idea that I want to talk to you about, but it started out as sort of a general idea, then it got more specific and bigger and bigger and now I’m all wonked out and don’t know if I need ot pare the idea down, or whether to just write a book about it, or to make it multiple blogs.

It’s about magic, and happiness, and it’s going to be rockin when I’m done.  Unfortunately I’m currently in stare-and-drool mode.

However, because I’m always thinking of you and love you very much, I’m going to give you this link that Nana Poopyhands gave to me.  It has sound, but is work and kid-safe and plenty o’ fun.

White Chirstmas

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Back at the Ranch…

Wallace has been on a hot streak with the ladies lately.  One of his teachers always gently pinches his cheeks when she sees him (he’s got extremely pinchable cheeks) and the other day I arrived at school and she said, “Are you here to take our Wallace away from us?  Don’t do it!”  She then went on to tell me that she’d walked into class that day and bent down to say hello and when she did he gently reached up and lightly pinched her cheek with a twinkle in his eye.

She laughed and wailed, “None of the kids has ever done it BACK before!  It was SO CUTE!  My Wallace!”

Last night when we picked him up, Miss Tiffany (who is, admittedly, shockingly beautiful) pulled us aside and told us laughingly that Wallace had fallen down, when she picked him up he threw his arms around her neck and gave her a big old kiss on the cheek.  Again, a first time for her.  She is now utterly devoted to the wonderfulness that is our child.

He’s taking them down, one by one.  I swear it’s genetic.  His dad has the same power.  In two years he will OWN that school.

Smile, twinkle, flirt and they all fall before you.  Damn those Poopyhands men!

***

On a side note I got the official word today from the official person that makes the official decision that the statistics class I took 100% meets my statistical-taking requirements and I officially never have to take statistics again.  W00T!

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I has been awarded a prize!

Bella gave it to me because she totally wants to be my friend and also because she thinks I was totally brave, totally.  Having read some of the blogs of my co-winners, I can safely say that I think I’m the crassest and least talented amongst them, but I can also safely say that I’m better reading than a Bazooka Joe wrapper.

I have trouble doing justice to protracted profundities.  It’s not that they aren’t accurate or meaningful, it’s just that I tend to start feeling bored and writing snarky notes to others during the sermon.  I know deep and abiding things about myself, but if I think about them too much (and frankly I tend to think about them more than your average bear) my vision turns all navel-gazey.  So it means a lot to me to get this prize, because I’m more pragmatic than poetic, and it validates me.

I have other things to say to you, but I’m sort of gathering together the thoughts like fireflies.  I will unleash them in a blinding manner shortly.  I will also give five others the Lion award.

In summary: WATCH THIS SPACE.

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I promised I would share with you, Peeps, so here you are:  Wallace and Santa, together at last:

Note bell of death:

Also, here is a picture that Wallace drew in class yesterday.  In case you can’t tell, he’s very much into drawing “train track” right now, which is usually a single line kind of loop-de-looping in ever decreasing circles.  In this case we can tell that he was trying to come up with a more elaborate explanation for his teachers, because they wrote it below his masterpiece (click it to see the large version):

“It’s a wagon.  It goes beep… beep… beep… It spells that Mommies and Daddies are friends.”

Beeeecauuuussee…

I love the randomness of his statements right now. 

Here is another example of his current typical artwork when his medium is something other than brown crayon:

NOW THE MEME

I promised ELEE at hello, self ages ago that I’d do this meme.  It was invented (as was the below graphic) by our newest Speckblog Peep, Burgh Baby.  She’s awesome and will put all your Christmas prep to shame.  Go visit her.

Here we go:

My favorite childhood Christmas gift: I’m not even sure that this is a real Christmas memory.  It must have been a birthday gift, but…  When the Cabbage Patch Kid craze hit in the 80’s I was totally along for the ride.  We must have gone to get one around my birthday in September, but they had a wait list a mile long, so we signed up and shortly afterward I forgot about it.

Later that year when the Christmas lights were twinkling and snow was on the ground we got a call from Toys R Us that our lot number was up.  I remember going into the warehouse with the convayer belt.  You had to point to the one you wanted and I remember choosing a little blue-eyed, bald boy dollbaby sucking on a pacifier.  He was wearing a green set of overalls, a white polo shirt and a white hat that covered his face.  He had the most cheerful smile.

I distinctly remember riding home in the back of the car with my new baby boy, Norman, held tightly in my arms.  Back then their heads smelled like baby powder, and I sniffed him and sniffed him.  To this day the smell of baby powder takes me straight back to that moment, where everything I’d ever wanted was in my arms.

Interestingly, about 20 years later, I had an extrordinary sense of deja vu:

My favorite adulthood Christmas gift: Wallace was technically a birthday present, so he doesn’t count.  Although, he was one of sorts.  AHEM.

Um… my favorite adult gift?  Um… 

Basically, I’m wildly spoiled.  I can’t think of any Christmas where I didn’t get awesome gifts, or get exactly what I wanted, but I also can’t think of any one thing that I was pining and pining and pining for and then was given to me.

I was touched when my dad put a thing of silly putty in a fancy box and sent it amid the other presents.  When I was a kid all I wanted in the whole world was silly putty (and I had tons of it).  I told my parents that it’s what I’d buy if I had a million dollars.  I remember being very, very touched that dad sent silly putty to me.  It was an in-joke present.  I loved it.  Now I’m waiting for that baby brother or sister and/or a pony.

A gift wish for the future: Really, all I wish for is health. Health for my family and my friends.  Mental health and physical health.  Health health health. 

However, if I have to choose something material I’d like to think that someday The Troublemaker and I will go on some sort of dream vacation together.  A cruise or a trip to Italy or something where just to two of us go and have fun somewhere warm.  That would be wonderful.

Now I tag three people: (Feel free to jump in even if I don’t tag you)

• I tag first, Mayhem and Magic, who writes about her two internationally adopted sons.  Yes, we have a Christmas card from them and YES it is awesome and hanging proudly in our dining room.  Go ahead, be all jealous.  I would.
• Secondly I choose Artemesia, who is very successfully raising a boy with Austism Spectrum Disorder who is now getting calls from friends and hanging out with people and being flirted with.  She is also generally sassy.  I love that.
• And last, but never least, Lori from Deucespruce, whose site is picture-riffic with her adorable little Lou and also Lori’s cool knitting projects.

Go do! And report back!

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