The Post-Modern Domestication of Me

I love being feminine.  I enjoy the art of the no makeup makeup look.  I like to wear shiny baubles in my ears.  I love to make certain that my mane is healthy and styled.  My closet is full of clothes and handbags.  I am a glitter and sparkles and polka dot kinda girl. I love to be chauffeured by my husband who will ensure that I rarely, if ever, have to pump gas. I adore that man!   

I love being a mom.  Every time I look at my son's face it amazes me that my heart doesn't explode with all the love I have for him.  Even when I'm correcting him I am thinking how heartbreakingly beautiful this little human is.

I love being a wife.  My husband is a consummate gentleman.  A soft-spoken sweetie pie.  We treat each other well.  We have ups and downs, we get over it. We love each other.

By all accounts it seems I have settled into the role that I see so many other women play out so beautifully.  Except, I don't fit here. 

My first images of womanhood are from my mother- who was perfection.  Seriously, our home was bleach and a toothbrush to baseboards kind of clean.  Sunday lunch from a crock pot.  Weeknight meals at the table, cooked by my mother, not from a paper bag with a yellow M stamped on it. Laundry perpetually clean, folded, and in my dresser drawers.

The other indelible image I have of what a grown woman should be is that of Snow White.  Disney's Snow White to be exact. My first Disney princess.  She sang while she swept up after all those little men.  Odd.  Like she was happy to be cleaning and cooking for them. 

This impression got me in loads of trouble when I was a young girl. I was sitting in a Salvation Army meeting in which a woman was singing in a rather operatic voice.  As the song finished, and at precisely the time when it is silent between the clapping and the next item on the program, I merely announced what I thought "She sings like a housewife."

Apparently this was the wrong thing to say as my mother immediately gave me "the look".  I simply meant that she sang just as Snow White does in the classic movie.  I believed that all women sang like that as they performed their housewife duties.  I knew then that I never wanted to be a housewife.  I didn't like opera enough to warrant it.

Eventually I did marry.  Oh, how I wanted to be the perfect wife.  What did that look like?  Food.  Make sure he has meals that he likes.  And desserts.  I have spent most of my life as a vegetarian.  My husband has spent his life on meat and potatoes.  I didn't know how to cook the meat, so I didn't.  I did know how to make brownies from a box.  So I stuck with that.  And I got fat.  Real fat.

So maybe cleaning.  Maybe that part of this wife thing I could do.  Alas, I fell short here too.  With my mother's example of perfection I found that if I couldn't make it perfect, I would give up in the middle.  I remember once when I crazily ironed sheets right out of the dryer to make them wrinkle free before I put them on the bed. And when I couldn't fold my fitted sheets into perfect squares I would cry and rumple them into balls and shove them in the linen closet.  My mother once bought me a little plaque that read: "Creative minds are seldom tidy".  Well.................

But once I had my son, things changed.  I felt that it was even more expected that I become "that woman".  The one who cooks for her family, has a clean and organized home, creates beautiful women's ministries programs, scrapbooks on the weekends, has obedient children who recite bible memory verses, is involved with the PTA, children's sports, and a host of other things.

This dreaded, horrible, flame-breathing beast is know to me as the "mommy club". Membership is exclusive and dependent upon you being able to do all the above mentioned activities in addition to maintaining the perfect balance between ministry and family but not limited to managing employees and ministering to congregants, or whatever your affiliated obligations, all while meeting the deadlines from the powers that be, while maintaining the perfect weight by diet and exercise and a multitude of other requirements that I'm already too tired to list.

It is obvious that I am not a member of this club.  Every time I walk to pick Zane up from school all the women in this club are in a literal circle chatting and nodding their heads while closing their eyes for effect as if to say "I'm such a wise wife and mother and you are too.  That's why we stand in a circle of mutual admiration."

I made the mistake on the first day of school by  trying to make conversation.  I could imagine them saying, "Don't make eye contact.  If you don't look at her she'll just keep walking".  And I did keep walking, thankful that I have not yet been overtaken by the beast.

This is nothing new.  So much has changed.  Yet so much is the same.  It is a new era of housewives.  We have dropped the unfavorable term and replaced it with euphemisms.  And yes, women's roles have expanded, we've gained some ground in equality, and yes, there are stay- at home dads too. 

I can't help feeling though that my own expectations of what a wife, mother, and minister looks like still resembles an outdated 1950's sit-com.  This has been manifested in recent months by Pinterest.  My personal boards more or less have begun to look like a manual for someone who is being rushed for the mommy club sorority. 

I have some beautiful friends who seem to pull all of these things off with ease. My mom was one such woman. 

I am not.

I don't want to be.  I am a good wife.  I am a good mom.  I am a good officer.  My laundry is presently dirty, lying in piles on the basement floor.  My bed is not made.  Meal planning literally depressess me.  Planning anything makes me have a panic attack.  I'm not joking. I won't go to the grocery store unless it's absolutely necessary.  I don't know what's for dinner tonight.  I don't like knowing what's for dinner.  It's more exciting.

For years I tried to be something that I wasn't because I thought that was what was expected of me. But it's tiring, and I've got a lot of things to do. So from now on I will try not to apologize for being who I am.  I am creative, messy, forgetful, and uniquely me.  I adore my husband.  He adores me.  I cherish my son.  He loves me. My guys treat me like a princess. Despite all my failings, that's what I am afterall.  A child of the King.











   

School Makes Me Puke!

     Tomorrow is the big day. The first day of first grade for my little guy. He has been as cool as a cucumber, oblivious to the fact that he is about to be regimented into the public school system. However, I am queasy.  Positively nauseous.

     You're probably thinking that this is some weepy, sentimental mommy thing. Nope. Not it. It is my firm belief that school makes me sick.

     It's not that I have anything against education.  I love learning.  I love teachers and think that they are grossly under appreciated and under compensated. It may be that I'm just allergic to organized education.

     I blame it all on my parents. My dad taught me how to read before I went to kindergarten. But that was nothing, he taught my older sister to recite, in order, all U.S Presidents when she was four. More than that, he also instilled in me a love of learning. So by the time I went to kindergarten, I could read while all the other kids were learning their letters.

     The teachers just didn't know what to do with me.  I remember Mrs. Gandy placing a pillow on the floor in the corner of the classroom with a stack of books. Fortunately for Mrs. Gandy I was a very dutiful, obedient, polite child and just sat there and read.  And read. And read.

2nd Grade
Still not thrilled with school,
 but at least I'm rocking an awesome corduroy vest!

     At the ripe old age of six this whole school thing had already let me down. I did not want to go to school. I did not like school. I was going to find a way to escape from this institutionalized nightmare.

    The night before first grade started I was having a puke fest.  This began a tradition that continued throughout elementary school. However, all the wretching did not earn me an extra day at home.  My mom, a.k.a. "the education police",sent me anyway.

     In middle school I abandoned the puking and ventured into bolder territory.  I simply locked myself in my room and refused to come out.  This worked until about 11 am when mom called dad at the office and had him return to the house to help her deal with me. You better believe I was out of that room before she put the phone down. And yes, she took me straight to school.

     All these years later I still have unresolved issues with school. Allen and I took Zane to his orientation last Friday.  The minute I stepped in the doors of that school my stomach lurched.  The smell.....the very same smell....THAT smell....what is that smell anyway?  The smell of old books, paste, and crayons (which smell an awful lot like body odor!) and, oh yes, FEAR. 

     We met again in that hallway on Friday, my fear and I. This time I won.  My stomach churned and my jaws watered, but it did not beat me this time.  As we were retreating leaving I was silently congratulating myself on a hard fought victory.  I had conquered my fears!  My victory was short lived though. Zane interrupted my personal cheering section by announcing that he was going to be sick.  He was totally telling the truth. 

     And all I could think was "That's my boy!"

       
 
    

Get Me To The Church On Time, part 2

We met Deborah at a Cracker Barrel near Social Circle, Georgia.  She was a charming southern belle, petite and friendly.  I was fine with the fact that my dad now had a girlfriend.  Even if it was a foreign thought.  "Dad has a girlfriend."  Still sounds kind of weird.  As odd as it seemed at the time I was happy for dad.  He wasn't so sad all the time.  He wasn't lonely anymore.

Dad called me in May and I instinctively knew what he was going to say.  I just knew.  And I was right.  And I was okay with it.  Okay.

In our visits since his announcement I don't hear my dad sobbing in his room at night.  Instead I find him often sitting on the floor of his bedroom talking on the phone to Deborah.  Talk about a role reversal.  I think I heard a literal giggle once which I mistook for a wimper and ran to see if he was okay.  Yep, he was fine.  Just giggling on the phone with his fiance'.

And now, here I am at dad's house helping clear away and make room for Deborah and her things.  This is the last time I will stay at dad's house.  The next time we visit it will be dad and Deborah's house. 

Mom's closet will now be Deborah's closet, filled with her clothes and shoes and stuff.  My mom's closet was always one of the most fascinating places to me.  Even as an adult I loved to look in mom's closet.  She had clear containers for everything, all labeled and lined up perfectly.  Her clothes always seemed so diminutive.  She always had to have her clothes altered to accommodate her petite frame.  There were always treasures in mom's closet.  Containers of brand new toothbrushes and toothpaste just waiting for the forgetful guest.  Little hotel soaps and shampoos.  Small gifts already wrapped in a little box labeled "Courtesies/Thank You Gifts".  There were also Hershey bars hidden away in there.  Anything I needed I could find in mom's closet.  But now it will be Deborah's closet.  Maybe she'll keep some of the toothbrushes in case I forget mine.

My daddy's getting married Saturday.  And I'm okay with that.  Mom and Dad loved each other deeply.  My dad loved my mom.  He still does.  Him getting married doesn't diminish that love or somehow make it less than it was. 

During my mom's first battle with cancer she talked to me about what dad would do if she didn't make it.  She said that dad would have to get married because he would need someone to take care of him.  And that's why I'm okay with all of this.  Dad has someone to take care of him.  There's less for me to worry about.  There's someone to make sure he goes to the doctor and doesn't eat expired food and makes sure that he washes his sheets on a regular basis and doesn't start collecting cats.

More than that I think it is a beautiful blessing that God has allowed one man to find love again.  Thank you mom for loving dad in a way that was evident to me and helped to shape my belief in love.  Thank you Deborah for loving my dad and helping to show me the resiliency of the human heart.

Get Me To The Church On Time

My daddy's getting married Saturday.  I'm "okay" with this statement.  For the past few months I've been asked by several people how I feel about it.  Well, I feel okay about it. I'm a little fearful of feeling too much beyond that.  I'm fearful of opening my heart to feel emotions deeper than just "okay".  If I let one emotion through then they all may start to  think they can just waltz right in whenever they want and start banging around in my heart again.

So here's a little background and recent history that may bring this into focus.  My mom passed away in February of 2010. She fought a short, second battle with cancer and then she was gone. One thing you must understand about my mother is that she was an angel.  She was a living, breathing, walking around in the flesh saint of God. Truly. Her motherly attributes were manifested in how she loved her children.  And other people's children for that matter.

She was adored.  She was beloved.  

Mom in the early 70's.

And then she was gone.

Everything was different.  Every memory and thought of my mom was accompanied by a very real physical desire to throw up. My siblings and I all tried to comfort one another in cycles of crying hysterically, awkward sibling hugs, crying quietly, telling a funny story to ease the thick tension, awkward sibling hugs, random physical comedy, crying hysterically.........



Mom and Dad

Dad was worse off.  My mother died in his arms on Valentine's Day. In those moments following her passing, dad held her while we stood around weeping.  He began to recount to us the story of how they met, fell in love, got married, endured hard times, pulled through rough patches, celebrated life and children and grandchildren. Mom was 17 when they married and dad was 21.  He often says that they grew up together through their marriage.

Dad's grief was evident and tangible. Perhaps having a degree in grief counseling propelled him to attack that grief full force.  And he did.  We worried about him at times.  He wrote to my mother every night in a journal. He still may write to her, I don't know.  At my last count he had filled over 20 journals with letters and musings written to my mother. 

There were other events that made us worry about dad.  He grieved openly, and sometimes loudly.
It was often difficult for me to know how to offer comfort and solace to this grown man.  My stalwart, wise, emotionally reserved father sobbing for hours in his room was not a situation I knew how to handle.

Then he began to turn a corner. The grief was still there, (it always will be) but where it once slashed and gored and mutilated it now throbs and gnaws and pulses.

On a visit to my dad's house earlier this year he said he wanted us to meet one of his friends. I was thinking that it was a compatriot, a buddy, a fellow widower that he had found to play chess with or visit Civil War battle sites with, or what ever it was that old guys like to do.

I was genuinely surprised when he said "It's a lady friend". And then we were off to meet her at a Cracker Barrell halfway between his house and hers.



To Be Continued...........