Change

The first fall leaf on the liquid amber has turned red and fallen. I noticed it this morning when I was in the backyard watering the grass. Living in Southern California, we miss most of the obvious tell-tale signs of seasons changing. According to the calendar, last Wednesday marked the first day of Fall, yet the weather reached 95 degrees and my son and I spent the morning at the beach. Since I can’t rely on the weather to tell me what season it is, I found the falling of this leaf to be a sure sign that fall is here. 

Despite the confusion Southern California weather brings, pumpkins are on my front porch. I’ve placed decorations around my house to give the illusion of fall, in the same way coffee shops and grocery stores indicate the season, letting people know that regardless of the weather, fall has arrived at our house. Like Mother Nature, we are slowing down and preparing for winter. We are getting ready to turn the year and welcome a new one. We are tying up loose ends. We are gathering seeds. We are letting go. 

The red leaf caught my eye as it lay perfectly intact at the base of the tree. A reminder that no matter what stresses or tasks are weighing on our minds, the world continues to turn, seasons change, and Mother Nature still laughs at all of our drama. 

First Day of School

My oldest started kindergarten today. For the last few nights I have been waking up in the middle of the night worrying about him. I usually wake up around 3 am and a never-ending cycle of questions swirl through my head. What if he’s too nervous to talk? What if he doesn’t make any friends? What if kids are mean to him? What if he is mean to other kids? What if he doesn’t understand what the teachers saying? *I should mention that he’s attending a dual language immersion program and his teacher will only be speaking to the students in Spanish.

My son is part of a group I like to call COVID kids. These are the kids who missed most of preschool because of the pandemic and are now entering kindergarten. Because they missed preschool, they also missed opportunities to socialize with kids their own age. Now, after being home for the last year and a half, I’m sending him off to full day kindergarten, 5 days a week, where they will be instructing him in Spanish. This is not good for my anxiety.

This transition is especially difficult for me because I didn’t have the best school experience. I didn’t have the worst either. I was one of those B students who got the occasional A (and the occasional C), and I was constantly afraid of getting in trouble. I was incessantly nervous, quiet, and I didn’t ask questions. School made really uncomfortable, and I just didn’t like it.

When I see so much of my awkwardness and anxiousness in my son, it triggers my own insecurities, and we end up feeding off of each others’ anxiety. I’ve tried to cope with this by pretending I’m not anxious. I take the “fake it ’til you make it” mentality and run with it. I compensate for my lack of confidence by feigning wild enthusiasm. My eyes get huge and I end up speaking in an unusually loud voice and smiling very wide. I don’t think I fool anybody, but until now pretending has been the only way I knew how to parent a child who struggles with the same things I struggle with.

But kids are the most amazing bullshit detectors, aren’t they? They see right through us. There’s no way of hiding our insecurities from them. In fact, most of the time they’re the ones pointing them out. So what happens when I sense that Ben is nervous, and I start pretending I’m not? In a way, I’m leaving him to fend for himself. To deny the truth of the situation, the truth of his experience, and pretend it’s not happening, is abandonment. He is nervous. I’m nervous too, but when I pretend that I’m not, I’m not teaching him to be resilient. I’m teaching him to hide his feelings.

Pretending got me through a lot of situations, but it never made comfortable. It never eased my nerves. It didn’t heal my insecurities.

If you’ve ever given a speech, performed on a stage, or done anything in front of a crowd of people, you are familiar with the feeling: butterflies in your stomach, accelerated heartbeat, sweaty palms. You’re nervous. But have you ever been backstage waiting to go on, and said to someone “I’m so nervous,” and they turn to you and say, “I’m nervous too”? The relief this shared experience brings is instantaneous.

BUT I’ve also been back stage with people who are not performing, people who will not go on stage, and when I’ve said, “I’m nervous,” their response is usually along the lines of “Oh, you’ll be great! Don’t worry.”

So what’s the different? Those who were performing with me on stage were leaning in and acknowledging the truth. Those who weren’t, were telling me I was going to be fine. Words of encouragement from a loved one can be very empowering, but only if that person first acknowledges the truth and often times the truth sounds like this: I’m nervous. This is hard. I’m scared. Up until now, I’ve been hiding feelings I don’t know how to deal with in a futile attempt to help Ben hide his own. This isn’t good for either of us.

Children have a way of healing us though. They are the best at highlighting our deepest insecurities especially when we see they have inherited our fears and our neuroses. We cannot hide from the truth of their insecurities, and the most triggering of these are the ones we share like Ben’s constant worrying and his social awkwardness. I so wish he could walk into rooms comfortably. I wish he could raise his hand and asks questions with confidence. I wish he could play with other kids and not worry about whether or not they’ll like him. I wish the same for myself.

What I’ve realized lately is that I cannot help Ben overcome his short comings without healing my own. So I’ve abandoned my wild enthusiasm, and I’ve started practicing staying calm and confident. I figure that if I could show him how I stay present, perhaps he will stay present.

This morning, I woke up before sunrise. I walked out to the living room, opened the shades, and sat down on the floor. Facing the gray skies, I placed my hands on my lap, and I meditated. I stayed there for a while. My thoughts swirled around. I could feel the chaos they brought, but I sank deeper and deeper underneath until I reached the stillness. The could still hear the thoughts, but they became muffled and distant like hearing a loud party happening down the street. You can hear it, but you’re not in it. I took this calm with me while I made lunches, while I dressed the kids, while I arrived (late) to the first day of school. And when we reached his classroom, and he turned around and looked up at me with tearful eyes, I was able to look back at him fully present and be the calm for both of us.

And I finally have an answer to all those questions in my head. Perhaps. Perhaps he’ll stay quiet. Perhaps he’ll won’t understand. Perhaps he’ll won’t make friends right away. Perhaps someone will be mean to him. Perhaps he’ll be the mean one. All things could happen, but one thing remains the same, every day I will pick him up from school and when we get home, I will be there. Fully present.

Mother Tongue

My mother has been speaking to me in Tagalog. 

She must think I understand.

She must have forgotten that she never taught me how to speak it so how can I understand?

They didn’t want me to have an accent.

I had an accent because they had an accent.

They gave me their accent.

What they didn’t give me was their tongue.

And now when she speaks to me in Tagalog 

I pretend to understand 

Because I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t 

Because I know that not understanding means not belonging 

Fully

Filipino, even though I am.

It frustrates me when she speaks to me in her mother tongue

Frustrated and desperate

Because I am desperate to understand

Because once she is gone

Who will speak to me in Tagalog?

I Shaved My Head

“If someone had told me 5 years ago that you would have shaved your head, quit your job, and been called insubordinate, I never would have believed it” – Mat

Last year, I met this woman who sported a buzzed hairstyle. Like me, she was short and brown, but her hair (or lack thereof) made her look bold, striking, and like she didn’t take any shit. I LOVED it. Since then, I’ve had the idea that shaving my head would be fantastic. When schools closed and we were under quarantine, it seemed like as good a time as any to shave my head. 

I asked exactly 3 of my closests to weigh in and when all of them said “it doesn’t matter” and “who cares,” I was convinced. 

I thought really hard about it for 2 days, but like many of my ideas, once I decide it’s good, I must see it through. Mat refers to these ideas as “wild hairs.”

One bored quarantine afternoon, I turned to Mat and said, “let’s shave my head” to which he looked over at me unimpressed and said, “Okay.”

I let Ben cut the first few strands because he’s had adverse reactions to changes in Mat’s facial hair, and I wanted to avoid similar reactions to my newly shaven head. 

I tried to make it into a spiritual experience, but I think my excitement for the actual process wouldn’t let me. Everything was quite normal for the rest of the day. It wasn’t until I woke up the next morning, remembered what I had done and had a moment of panic. In the days following, I had several moments of panic. The back of my neck had never seen so much sun. My scalp felt abnormally exposed. Every time a breeze passed over my head, it felt like pins and needles on my scalp. Hats became my friends. 

I feel like I was looking for some life changing experience when I sought out to shave my head. None manifested. People usually go through drastic hairstyle changes after a breakup or other loss. Perhaps that’s what happened to me. After all, I was already in a life-changing event – the pandemic. The loss of normal sent me searching for a physical representation of this. What manifested was the sacrificing of my hair. 

Although the initial act of shaving my head didn’t elicit a spiritual experience, I believe this journey since has. I had good hair. This was a statement that would be reiterated to me over and over again as more and more people saw that I had shaved it off. I got all the reactions. People would say, “you’re so brave” or “you’re my hero” which is flattering to hear but also ridiculous. I have done many brave things, but I don’t consider shaving my head one of them. Which leads me to ask why were people, specifically other women, telling me I was brave? Is it because I went against societal beauty standards? Is it because my hair looked bad? Does this make me brave? Keep in mind the other people we call brave – paramedics, fire fighters, people who put their lives at risk. What about shaving my head puts me in this category? 

I don’t consider shaving my head an act of bravery yet several people continued to use that word. Is it because we fear the retribution of failing to meet societal expectations? As if going against beauty standards is an act of bravery because it’s somehow dangerous. I shaved my “pretty hair” so that makes me brave. Does it though?  Mind you, we were still early on into quarantine months. People were using the same word to describe nurses and other frontline workers. I was not brave, but something about shaving my head caused a bit of fear in other people. Something about my shaved head made other people feel something in themselves, and I find that interesting. 

However, I received other reactions as well. One of my favorites is when I walked into work and my coworker screamed “WHY DID YOU CUT YOUR HAIR?!” as soon as she saw me. She couldn’t contain her shock. It was the most startling reaction, but something about it makes me laugh. Another person said, “Aww…but you’ve always had such long pretty hair.” I discovered how invested other people were in my hair, far more invested than I was. People would look at my hair and say, “Oh, your hair grows so fast. It’ll grow back soon.” They were obviously trying to console themselves because I had shown no sign of remorse or shame in my newly shaven head. Yet, it made people uncomfortable.

On the other hand, I also had many women say to me, “I’ve always wanted to shave my head.” To which I would reply, “Do it!” and without fail they would list a series of fictitious reasons why they could never shave their head. “I don’t have the right head.” “My face is too round.” “My husband wouldn’t let me.” It was so hard to hear. 

I’ve found these reactions to be a testament to how deeply ingrained beauty standards are within our psyche. I had women tell me they wanted to shave their heads but couldn’t because of made up reasons. If these are the limitations that women are setting up for themselves, how much autonomy do we really have over our bodies? I know shaving one’s head is a trivial thing but if a woman says to herself “I’ve always wanted to shave my head but my face is too round, my head is too small, I need to lose weight first…etc.” what other ways is she denying herself? I can’t go out without make-up. I can’t wear that swimsuit. I can’t go swimming. These are the things we tell ourselves. I know because people have said them to me, and I have said them to myself. These are also the ways we allow the patriarchy to control our bodies.

This experience has taught me a lot about the way we see ourselves. I know we’re not going to erase beauty standards in one day but we can begin to challenge them. When that little voice pops up saying your waist is too something or your thighs are too something, inquire about it. Let’s ask ourselves, who told me this? Where does this idea come from? If it doesn’t come from love, we let it go. We say, “thank you for your concern, but I’ll take it from here.” 

Imagine going to the beach and not being worried about what you’re going to wear or who is going to be judging your body. In order to do this, we need to stop judging ourselves. Let’s free ourselves of these self imposed limitations – the lies we inherited when someone told us our faces were too round or our arms were too big. We’re always going to be too tall, too short, so loud, so quiet. Remember this, there will always be someone in the lunchroom talking about how they need to lose weight and someone else who is being told they need to put some meat on their bones probably at the same time. The point is you can’t win, and your body is not a game. It is sacred and more importantly it is yours. To have and to hold ‘til death do you part. So treat it accordingly. Feed it well. Cherish every bite. Take it outside for walks. Give it permission to be seen in a bathing suit and let it go swimming. Look at it with tenderness. Sit with it in stillness so you can both be reminded of your divinity. Protect it at all costs.

Summer is approaching, loves. Put on a swimsuit and take your body swimming. Life is too short and you are too precious to not play in the water. 

Speak Your Truth

Here’s to women who won’t back down. 

…women who are teaching old dogs new tricks. 

…women who are still unlearning themselves. 

…women who will not let their bodies be an apology.

Last Friday I had a really hard conversation with a family member. This much loved family member told me, in front of my children and other extended family members, that they noticed I was “getting bigger.” They said they were concerned about my health and insisted that I take better care of myself. I felt my shoulders tense and my heart rate accelerate. I asked this person how they knew I wasn’t healthy since they have never asked about my blood pressure or anything health-related. They said it was because I used to be thinner. I told this person that when I was thinner I was taking illegal diet pills and throwing up after most meals. While this information temporarily shocked them, they didn’t relent. They claimed to know that women let themselves go after getting married because they get so busy with their children. I told them that ever since I started valuing myself in my entirety and recognizing my worth outside of my body, I spend less time worrying about my looks. They said they just wanted me to look good. Finally, I told them I didn’t want to talk about my body. They said they had a right to talk about my body because they are my  (relationship to me).

At this point, I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins, but the children were asking to go play so I took a beat and walked outside with them. Humiliated by having this conversation in front of my children, I told myself I would wait until everyone went home to cry, which is something I have done before because of this same conversation with the same person. I’ve mentioned in past posts that when I was 25 years old I stopped purging and taking ephedrine and subsequently gained about 15 pounds. It was then that this family member commented that my arms were getting big. Since then I’ve made it a point to wear jackets and cardigans with every outfit. I’ve stood in front of my closet on hot summer days trying to figure out a way to cover my “big arms” and still be comfortable in 95 degree weather while their comments play on repeat in my head. 

This isn’t the first time this person has made comments about women’s bodies. I’ve witnessed this family member make comments about the weight of other women in our family. This behavior isn’t new which is why I decided that I couldn’t let the conversation end there. I collected my thoughts and returned which was already difficult because this family member is not one to have lengthy conversations – something I’ve always craved from them. Despite all this, I went back in the house and with a shaky voice I said, “I love you, and I want to keep having conversations with you, but I will not talk about the way I look.” They were very respectful and open. We ended up having a very productive conversation where I showed them how detrimental and misogynistic their actions were. They thanked me for my honesty and promised to do better. 

Not really. I wish that happened. In reality, the conversation went very poorly. They got very defensive, still insisting they were coming from a place of good intentions. I stood my ground. I continued to explain that their good intentions are harmful. They began attacking my character. I started crying. Through the tears, I told them they are not allowed to talk about my body. I was setting boundaries and this person did not like that. In a very all-or-nothing fashion, they said they will not tell me anything ever again about my looks and that even if I look good they will not tell me. Like it was a threat. 

Decades of patriarchal and misogynistic delusions have convinced people that they are entitled to not only have opinions about women’s bodies but that they have the right to speak these opinions out loud with little consequence.

This is not true.

This is why I returned to continue this conversation. This is why I couldn’t let it go. Like many other women, staying silent is my go-to reaction and the reason I cried because using my voice is new and uncomfortable and painful, but I want to move forward in my life in ways that are authentic even if they are not comfortable. I want to move forward in ways that serve me wholly – mind, body, and spirit. Someone who does not nurture my mind and spirit has no right to tell my body what to do. 

The desire to own and control beautiful things is the mentality of the colonizer. My thin body was something people coveted. As if the size of my body had some kind of value to them and because they admired my body that I’m somehow obligated to maintain it for them. The body is not a commodity.  

I’m telling you all this because I know there are people out there who are making peace with their bodies – who are learning to heal and love their bodies for the first time. This post is for you. You are changing and growing. Inevitably there will be times when someone who knew the old you will think they can treat you in the same old way. You will have to choose how to respond. Maybe you won’t be ready. Maybe you will and you’ll have a hard conversation. Maybe it will go well. Chances are it probably won’t. It didn’t go well for me but the way I saw it I had two choices: I could stay shocked into silence then wait until everyone left and cry while feeling fat and unworthy OR I could say something. So I said something, and yes I cried and I felt uncomfortable while it was happening but despite the tears I never felt unworthy. The tears stemmed from the pain of having to defend my body and self worth to someone I love so deeply. I was hurt that I wasn’t being heard but I took comfort in knowing I was speaking. 

Maggie Kuhn said, “Speak your truth, even if your voice shakes.” To this I would add, “and tears stream down your face.”

I didn’t wait until everyone left to cry. Instead I chose to have this hard conversation, one that made my heart beat fast and tears run down my face, but when it was over so was the pain. When everyone left, I didn’t cry. I was at peace knowing that even if I made everyone uncomfortable at least I spoke my truth. It was either them or me. I could bite my tongue and show “respect” to my elder by not talking back, but I know what happens after that. I shoulder the weight of their harmful words and those words live inside me. I hear these words when I’m getting dressed or looking at my body in the mirror, and these words…they aren’t just words – they are shame vocalized. Each time I had stayed silent, I was agreeing to carry this shame within me as a penance for my body fat. Not this time. I traded in my comfort for my voice, but when it was over there was nothing left to internalize. I had protected my peace.

If you are ever in a position where you have to choose between defending your self-worth and keeping others comfortable, choose yourself. Every. Time.

Heart to Heart

Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time outside in the garden. I can feel the gentle approach of spring, and I’ve been preparing by planting seeds for new crops and cleaning the backyard so the kids can essentially make a mess of it again. They are finally at an age where they can play together and that means I get some time to tend to the garden. Being outside gardening while the kids are running around reminds me of my childhood. As a child when I wasn’t watching TV, I was outside digging for bugs or exploring within the boundaries of our backyard.

Growing up my father spent most of his time in the backyard either building, fixing, or planting. Over the years he collected a lot of seemingly random items and stored them there. Doorknobs, a bucket of keys, locks, copper piping, and plants just to name a few. The man had hobbies. Later in life, when building became too strenuous, he devoted most of his time to gardening, and my parents’ backyard became somewhat of a plant nursery. The concrete backyard was lined with plants growing out of pots, buckets, coffee tins, and even the occasional planter. There were plants hanging from other plants, succulents growing out of the same pot as tropical plants, and beautiful plumeria trees. The most incredible plumeria tree grew in the front yard just outside my bedroom window, and when it bloomed it was magnificent. Taking cuttings only when he wanted to propagate, he let it grow wild, and wild it grew. Branches grew out of every angle, creating a sculpture of plumerias. Passersby would walk up to the house just to capture a photo of the plumeria flowers which wasn’t an easy task. They had to get really close in order to not get the toys and other randoms things he hung from the branches in the photo.

The backyard was a reflection of my dad. At first glance, it may seem like the collections of tools, plants, and boxes of soap were all random. If you didn’t know any better you may have even written him off as a hoarder, but if you spent some time out there and looked a little bit closer you would see the complexities and expansiveness of both the collections and the man. 

My dad is curious by nature. He spends a lot of time in deep thought probably wondering about his plants, tenants, investments, or maybe he’s making plans – thinking of ways to fix something. He’s also a dreamer. This combination drove him to start businesses throughout my childhood. When he wasn’t starting a small business or singing at choir rehearsal, I knew where to find him – in the backyard sitting on a stool he had built, leaning over a plant or sorting a bucket of keys or doing something else with his hands. He didn’t talk to me much but when he did it was to teach me things. Oftentimes I would be in my room watching TV when I would hear his booming voice call for me, “JL, come here!” I would peel myself from my bed and walk to wherever he was. Arms folded, hip jutting out with all the attitude of a teenager, I would stand next to him as he taught me how to reset the circuit breaker or how to replace the refill valve in the toilet. I didn’t like the interruption and I didn’t like leaving my bed, but I liked that my dad knew how to fix things. I took great comfort in knowing that if something broke all I had to do was give it to him and he would find a way to fix it. Before I had Youtube, I had him. 

Despite my dad’s helpfulness and resourcefulness, I was very bothered that he didn’t engage in heart-to-heart conversations with me when I was younger. Being labeled as “talkative” at a young age, it’s no secret that I like talking about feelings. At my most comfortable, I am direct and explicit with my emotions. I probably watched too many 90s sitcoms, but I fully bought into the American family values TGIF was selling. I wanted parents who regularly showed affection, who “talked out” their problems and were vulnerable with little effort. I wanted to fight with my parents only to have them come into my bedroom, sit at the edge of my bed, and apologize to me. You know, like they did on TV, and when they didn’t I thought something was wrong with us.

What I didn’t realize was that life isn’t a TV show. I also didn’t recognize that not only were these sitcom families fake but they were also portraying white American families. I was setting the expectations for my immigrant parents based on 90s sitcoms. Not once did I take into consideration that our lack of communication could be based on the fact that we didn’t speak the same language or that their lives had been exponentially more difficult than mine will ever be, but that was the goal all along, right? For my life to be easier than theirs had been, for me to not know hunger or poverty, and for me to be safe. If only I had understood this as a child, but I didn’t and the cultural divide resulted in an environment where we rarely spoke about our personal struggles and when we did have conflict, more often than not, it was explosive. 

Like so many men from his generation, my father is a man of few words and rarely are they about his feelings. Though he has remained silent on most things, I have pieced together clues about his life and I can see there has been a lot of struggle. How could there not be? He was an immigrant, coming to the US in his mid 40s, formerly working for the biggest electrical company in the Philippines, but he had an accent and he had pride which made for a difficult transition into the workforce especially in California in the 1980s. He went from a high ranking position in the Philippines to working the occasional construction job here and there. Not one to give up his dreams, he started several small businesses and like many other displaced Filipinos all over the world, he searched for community. Not only did he find his community, he built it. He bought a house and rented it to other Filipino Americans who became somewhat of a second family to him. They speak the same language and come from the same soil. They share lived experiences of life in the Philippines and I imagine this comradery makes life in the diaspora a bit easier. 

I’ve let go of my expectations for my father. I understand that he is not a sitcom dad and I actually prefer it that way because it means he is 3 dimensional. He is brimming with ideas and constantly making plans and it was displayed in the way he occupied the backyard. All the plants he grew and propagated were to give away to his friends. He collected piles of soap and canned goods for balikbayan boxes to be sent home to his family in the Philippines. When I was younger he brought home a large chalkboard and a school desk and for a few weeks I did my homework outside next to the pool. He built us a swing set using plumbing pipes, and when he left the ladder out my little sister and I would climb on the roof and play on top of the garage. He cared for us in the same way he cared for his plants. He tended to us and fed us but for the most part he let us grow wild, and I can thank him for showing me how to get my hands dirty.

If you looked at the backyard you’d probably think you were looking at a bunch of junk, but if you took a minute to step outside and walk around you’d see some rare and beautiful plants and an arrangement of canned goods, dried food, and soaps lovingly collected with the intention of being packed up and sent back home to the Philippines. 

If you saw my father out in public, you would see him wearing mismatched clothes most likely covered in paint stains and driving an old car. You wouldn’t be able to tell that his man could remodel your entire house or tell you how to start your own donut shop. You wouldn’t know you were standing in the presence of an expert bowler and karaoke connoisseur. You would just see an old man, but I see a man who has lived many lives, and if you look closer you’d see it too.

There’s so much I didn’t understand about my father growing up – so much I missed, but I don’t want to miss anymore so I’ve redefined what it means to have a meaningful conversation. It’s not fair to ask him to tell me his vulnerabilities and his fears. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to handle it if he did. Now though, I regularly have heart-to-heart conversations with my dad about plants and plumbing. We can talk with ease about oil changes and investments, and occasionally he tells me a story about growing up in the Philippines. My dad is in his 80s and if I want to feel any kind of closeness to him it should on his terms. What I’ve come to understand is that meaningful conversations vary from person to person. I like to sit and talk about what’s in my heart and relate it to the world. He likes to sit and talk about his world and from there I can relate it to what’s going on in his heart. I am explicit, but my father is a metaphor.

Stay at Home (Mom)

It’s been five months since I left my classroom to be at home full time with my kids. In many ways it’s exactly how I expected – I know all the details about my kids day-to-day lives. I know what they eat and how much TV they’re watching. I know their favorite games and current interests. What I wasn’t expecting is how lonely it is. The absence of adult conversation and interaction has left me deprived. I find myself being all too willing to spill the tea with my 90 year old neighbor as we stand on our porches and yell pleasantries to one another. “How’s your grandson’s new baby?” I ask her genuinely interested. We stand several feet apart. She’s usually dressed in a nice pair of slacks and a sweater completed with a necklace and earrings. I’m usually in a pair of cheap leggings and Mat’s red High School Musical hoodie from his last production. She’s a classy lady, and I’m a mother of 2 young children. Our outfits are appropriate. 

I realize now that leaving my full time job to be a stay at home mom during a pandemic is a recipe for loneliness, and it’s possible that I might be feeling lonely because of the pandemic and not because I’m at home with the kids. However, in addition to loneliness I’ve been experiencing some other strange feelings as well. In between the endless amount of activities I set up for my kids throughout the day, I find myself asking what the hell I am doing? There’s no doubt that the pillow forts, bubble parades, and backyard camping excursions are providing my children with fun and entertainment during this pandemic, but how much of an impact am I making on my children? Does any of this matter? Is it worth the money I could be making right now?

I naively thought that leaving the classroom would free up all this time and that I would be swimming in empty moments I could fill any way I choose. It’s not the case. The hours from 8 to 3 are no longer spent teaching, but they are spent chasing, tickling, cleaning, cooking, and doing the things my children choose. Being the main caretaker for my kids is still really challenging even though I’m their mother. I knew I wanted to be the main person who raises them. I’ve known that for the last 5 years, yet here I am with the opportunity to be with them and I keep questioning my own qualifications. When I’ve lost my temper and realize I should have handled things differently, I wonder if my kids would be better off if I went back to teaching and they spent their days with someone else. When things are really tough, like when my two year old won’t stop screaming or my 5 year old punches me with a closed fist, these are the thoughts that I entertain.

Teaching is an on-your-feet profession. Speed walking to the restroom during a 15 minute recess because you’ve spent 10 of these precious minutes helping two of your students sort out an argument is all too common. Teaching is answering emails while eating lunch in your classroom in the dark because the buzz of the fluorescent lights drives you mad. Teaching is everyone wanting you at the same time. That part is not unlike motherhood. 

Being at home is different in that I have the luxury to go to the bathroom whenever I want. I didn’t realize how luxurious that is until I started teaching. Staying in pajamas until 9 is pretty awesome too and while my kids try and rush me to get them snacks or build them a pillow fort, I am not living each day according to a bell schedule. When I was teaching, one of the biggest stressors was getting out the door in the morning. Mat would leave for work before me and I had to pack the kids in the car along with Ben’s backpack, my backpack, the diaper bag, my lunch, water bottle, and coffee. Most mornings it was a shitshow. On more than one occasion, I completely lost it and was driving to school in tears. 

Not living my life by a bell is a huge improvement in my day, but it’s also very eerie. The time restraints, the teaching, the problem solving, the emails, the constant running around, the rushing….I’m free from all that, but in its place is a void where “the busy” used to be. It’s like my mind doesn’t remember how to function unless it’s at top speed and the prior chaos is still reverberating in its place. It’s as if I have to detox from the daily hustle. When I was teaching everyone wanted to talk to me…about lesson plans, students, assignments, attendance, etc. Here at home, there are entire days when I haven’t received so much as a text message. This stark contrast has me questioning how important I really am.

Which leads me to the most uncomfortable question: What is my worth now that I’m not bringing in a monetary income? Yes, I know that my worthiness is not tied to finances or weight or anything external. I know that in my head, but do I feel it in my heart? Not always. Would the average onlooker see the value in the diaper changing, the hand washing, the disciplining, and all the other mundane yet priceless details that go into raising a child? No. 

Outside of Mothers’ Day, our society doesn’t really acknowledge motherhood, which makes sense because our society functions around the economy, and it’s all a numbers game. Companies need results that can be charted, predicted, and evaluated regularly. I’m not a company though, nor am I a business, and I’m not providing a service. I’m raising my children and how I perform can’t really be measured daily, weekly, or even annually. So if I want to feel any kind of worth, I have to reevaluate the meaning of success. I can no longer judge how successful I was that day based on my productivity level because, Lord knows, there have been days when it feels like I haven’t done anything. Therefore, I have to look for other things, like how present I was, how much I played, how many times I traded a tongue lashing for a deep breath, how many times I laughed, how many times I made eye contact. 

Sometimes success is simply making it through the day. The success of a stay at home mom is not quantifiable. Like teaching, you often don’t see the fruits of your love until many years later. Maybe you don’t see them at all. Years from now, when my children are inevitably faced with difficult decisions, I hope that something I said will have resonated with them and guide them to their answer, but I may never know. I may have planted seeds but what they do with their bloom is entirely up to them. There’s no test that I can give them. There’s no way they could fail at their lives. There are always do overs, always second, third, and fourth chances as long as we have air in our lungs and love in our heart. 

If I wake up tomorrow, I will be given another chance at success. If everything goes well, at the end of the day, there will be toys strewn about the house, my daughter will have changed into 5 different outfits because she got messy painting or playing with water or insisting that she feed herself applesauce, and there will be bits of craft supplies scattered across the dining room table because my son has made more paper bag puppets or some other craft. There will be success. I just have to train myself to look past the dirty dishes and piles of laundry to see it.

Mr. Mig

On Tuesday Mat went back to school for hybrid teaching. Working from home has definitely been a struggle for some couples. Sharing the same workspace and seeing each other all day long can be exhausting. For us, it has been heavenly. We love being together with the kids all day. We consider it a fleeting moment in our lives where we get to be together everyday. We also happen to be the best of friends. 

I was lucky enough to fall in love with someone who I actually like as a person. Early on in our relationship, we broke up briefly. I don’t remember all the details, but Mat refers to it as the “beef jerky incident.” When we got back together I remember thinking, “He’s the best person I’ve ever met, and I’m going to marry him.”

Seven years and 2 babies later, it’s still true. He’s the best person I’ve ever met and he keeps getting better. 

Being at home together has been such a blessing. He sees us playing in the backyard through the bedroom window. He comes out for snacks, and we get to have lunch together. 

It’s been a privilege to witness who my husband is as a teacher. Until now, we would come home and exchange stories of things that happen in the classroom, but now I had the chance to see him teach first hand….and let me tell you, it’s better than I’d ever imagined. 

He still finds ways to bring joy and laughter to his students through Zoom. One time told me that he loves teaching because some days it feels like he’s doing stand-up comedy. I was curious as to how this came across to his students. Stand-up? In the classroom? How? 

Today I was painting the living room and listening to a podcast. I actually stopped my podcast because I heard him singing from the bedroom. He was singing “Shiny” from Moana with the joy and spirit of a 5 year old child. Half an hour later, I paused the podcast again so I could listen to him sing a deep and thunderous rendition of “Happy Birthday” to one of his students. And the laughter. So much laughter coming from that room. 

I assume he’s teaching them something, but honest to God, even if he wasn’t would anyone really care? During this pandemic, don’t we need joy more than anything else right now? The joy he is spreading is his own. He has always been someone who is just happy. Things excite him. He’s interested and endlessly curious about the world and the people in it. He’s happy. 

He is a masterclass in creativity and play, a necessary counterpart to my type A, neurotic self. He keeps us light. We’re going to miss witnessing the joy he brings to his students every day, but my god, what a treat to have seen it at all. 

“Sexy Lady”

About a month ago a friend text me a picture of myself and a message that said, “sexy lady.”  The picture was of a 19 year old me laughing in a bikini. When I opened the text message and saw the picture I immediately closed my screen and put my phone away. I never responded to the text. It wasn’t until last week when I reopened that text chain that I finally realized why I had such an adverse reaction. 

At 19 years old, I was fresh out of high school and in so many ways I was still new to the world. I had always been kind of a reclusive person, and I didn’t know how to navigate friendships with women without feeling like I was in competition with them. Having to feel like I was constantly competing with my friends led me to lash out in catty and passive aggressive ways. One of the many gifts of the patriarchy. 

I didn’t drink in high school so there was a whole world that I wasn’t exposed to. Once I started drinking, I made friends. Albeit they were party friends but some of them turned out to be genuine. So I drank, I partied, and I started dating. 

In the picture, my 19 year old body is thin and tanned. I’m wearing a bikini, a belly button ring (it was 2005!) and I’m laughing – I seem happy. My face is relatively the same, but everything else about that 19 year girl and who I am today is different….and I’m so glad. 

When I look at this photo I’m reminded of what life was like for me during those years. I was broke – both financially and emotionally. I was participating in a toxic and abusive relationship. It was the kind of dangerous relationship where we would break up and get back together, and I was afraid that I would spend my entire life stuck in a cycle of loving and hating and hurting this person. Even though I wanted better for myself, I didn’t think that I deserved better and so I kept going back. I was addicted to the drama of the relationship. This age is also when I started to actively engage in an eating disorder.

Growing up I had always been skinny, and like every little girl’s body, it was scrutinized and up for discussion. My small body was praised. A nickname for me was payat – a word meaning skinny, and like any child, I grew to like the positive attention.  Around 18-19 years old though, I started to fill out. I was no longer a child, and there was more meat on my hips than ever before. It was also the era of the “low-rise jeans” which look good on exactly no one. Yet everyone wore them along with a belly button ring making me feel like the extra 15 pounds were intolerable. 

First, I tried to starve myself. I would see how long I could go without eating anything at all. Sometimes this meant not eating a full meal for days at a time. There were times when I would wake up in the middle of the night from hunger pains. In a moment of desperation, I leaned over the side of my bed clawing at my backpack for the food I was supposed to have eaten at school but did not. I tore open the bag and ravaged the food. There I was in the middle of the night eating and crying. 

When I realized I couldn’t starve myself, I decided that purging would be a better idea. I tried that for a few years on and off but it felt too inconsistent to me because I couldn’t always find the privacy to purge. Then I discovered diet pills. Somehow I got word of a vitamin and supplement store that illegally sold diet pills containing ephedrine, and so for the next 2-3 years I was faithfully taking 1-2 ephedrine pills a day. I also started working out with a personal trainer and who introduced me to clenbuterol. Working out and taking clen gave the illusion of a healthy and toned body. Women used to ask me what I do to maintain my weight. I would lie and tell them that I had a personal trainer and that I ate healthy. I didn’t tell anyone about these pills except for the 1-2 people who were taking them too. 

Throughout the years I was taking diet pills and occasionally purging after a big meal, but I was afraid of what this was doing to my body, especially my heart. Around 24 years old, I stopped taking the pills and eventually I stopped purging. Then I gained weight, and people started to comment. A family member said to me, “You’re a woman now” while looking at my body. Another person commented that my arms were getting big. How do you tell these people that you’re actually the healthiest you’ve ever been because you’ve stopped poisoning yourself? You don’t because you are a girl and girls are raised to be nice and polite even if it means letting other people make you feel like shit. A better question is: Why do people feel entitled to comment on a woman’s body? The answer: Because girls are raised to be nice and polite and we learn that it’s better for us to be uncomfortable than to make someone else uncomfortable. This is always to our detriment but we get used to it. Soon a majority of our day is spent in this uncomfortable state and we don’t even notice. 

These comments were hurtful, but it was the idea that people were looking at my body long enough to notice changes and then had the arrogance to comment on it that made it unbearable. I started to hate my body for gaining weight. I started to cover it up with loose clothing and flowy dresses. I started wearing spanx all the time. My jeans didn’t fit anymore but I kept them in the closet in the vain hope that one day I would fit into them again – that one day I would be worthy again. 

The hatred I felt towards myself and my body motivated me to work out and restrict my eating habits. It was just another form of an eating disorder. I worked out hard and ate very little especially in the months leading up to my wedding. I lost weight and gained muscle without the help of any pills but my eating habits and obsessive workout routine were not sustainable – mostly because it was motivated by self-hatred. Despite how motivated I was to starve myself and work out every day, there was still a part of me that held onto love. Deep deeeep down, I still held love for myself, and the more I loved myself the more I let myself eat. 

It wasn’t until I got pregnant with my daughter that I realized I didn’t want this baby girl to grow up hating her body. I’m aware that gender identity is different than sex and I don’t want to impose any kind of stereotyping on either of my babies, but the idea of raising a girl unlocked a lot trauma for me. I thought about what it meant to be a girl and how in some sick way your body doesn’t belong to you. Unrealistic body expectations and the constant objectification of women were so detrimental to my spirit and my mental health. I wanted better for this baby. I began getting in touch with my feminine energy. I celebrated everything female. I noticed Mother Nature everywhere and longed for it in abundance. I meditated every day, and when my daughter arrived she was a force. She is 2 now and remains wild. When I ask to hold her, she says, “No. Mila is free.”  I used to tell people that I made her that way. Now I wonder whether she made me this way and that maybe her presence inside my body compelled me to walk barefoot in grass and sit under the trees. 

It was her. It was my daughter and the idea of raising a girl that compelled me to question what it means to be a woman in this world – how your body is always up for discussion, how you’re taught to accommodate even at your own expense, how your dreams and feelings come last, and how your God-given intuition is disregarded as “emotional.” I wanted better for her and that meant wanting better for me. 

I’ve spent years healing the trauma and dysfunction of my youth through therapy, meditation, and the goodness of people from my inner circle. I’m starting to find love within myself and for myself. However, I still find it difficult to not be ashamed of my body. My face still gets hot thinking about running into people who I haven’t seen in a while and wondering what they’re going to think. I used to imagine what they would say about me, “Oh she’s gained weight. What happened to her?” I wish I could tell you that it didn’t matter, but I am trying to undo a lifetime of body shaming narrative and so I’m patient with myself. When shame or hate enters my thoughts, I no longer fight them. I welcome them kindly, tell them I am no longer in need of their services and show them the door. I practice self-love every damn day. I didn’t really recover from an eating disorder…perhaps my body did, but it’s my spirit that recovered from decades of shame that started in my youth and violently took over in my 20s. 

Therefore, the picture of my 19 year old self thin and unabashedly sporting a bikini and willingly posing for a picture is quite triggering. That’s why I didn’t immediately want to look at it. That’s why I put it away. Also, the words that were sent with the picture “sexy lady”…there is nothing sexy about this picture. I wasn’t having good sex. I didn’t know how to advocate for myself in any area of my life. I was dead broke and couldn’t stand being alone. This is a picture of a child. 

Yet, to someone else that picture might seem sexy. I’m 19 years old. I wasn’t technically a minor, but I was still a child not yet prepared to defend myself against the patriarchy that had been feeding me lies my entire life. In fact, there were a few years in my 20s where I embodied the patriarchy in a desperate attempt of “if you can’t beat them, join them” mentality. Fortunately, the universe seemed to equip me with the right friends, sisters, partner, and therapists so that I didn’t have to live in the chains of misogyny anymore. I’m hesitant to say that I have recovered because it’s an ongoing process, but I’m on the other side of it.

So what’s beyond misogyny and the lies of the patriarchy? There’s sisterhood. There’s joy. There’s an innate power in feminine energy. There’s truth. There’s love. And there’s good sex. 

This journey to self love is arduous, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world because it would mean sacrificing my voice and power. It’s so painful to receive that picture of myself at 19 years old, in a child-like body with severe mental health problems and hear someone refer to it as sexy. It fills me with so many emotions from despair to rage. 

I am no longer 19 years old in a child’s body. I am 35 years old in a woman’s body – a woman who is raising her children to recognize their inherent self worth, a woman who is no longer in competition with other women, a woman who has rediscovered her power, and I think that is freaking sexy. 

The Right Words

Trigger warning: This entry discusses pregnancy loss.

When I got pregnant with my first child, it was not on purpose. I was terrified. As per usual, I tried to combat fear by over-planning. I convinced myself that if I read enough baby books, I could make this transition into motherhood as seamlessly as possible. I had all these plans to give birth without medication. I thought milk would just flow abundantly from my breasts and that I could sleep train him in 10 weeks like my co-worker claimed to do.

Then I had my first child. I tried to sleep train him but I ended up messing up his sleeping habits. I tried to nurse him, but he was losing weight at every wellness check up. Everything was failing. I was failing. Therefore, I was a failure. It was some of the deepest and darkest moments of my life juxtaposed with the light and love of a newborn baby. Eventually, I went back to work. Someone else was taking care of my baby, and I was so busy at work – too busy and distracted to acknowledge the Earth shattering experience motherhood had bestowed upon me. 

I’ve been pretty open with my experience with postpartum depression when I gave birth to Ben. It was shocking, terrifying, and horrible. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, yet whenever a new mom tells me that she is doing really well and things are going “smoothly,” I can’t help but feel like they are either lying to me or I am insane. There is always struggle, and I’ve formed my strongest relationships while sharing them. 

I got pregnant again (on purpose this time). Mat and I had decided that we wouldn’t wait the 12 weeks to tell people I was pregnant. We waited just a few days after we found out ourselves. I thought I’d tell the people closest to me. If I miscarry these are the ones I would want to confide in anyway.

At my first prenatal appointment, the nurse took my vitals and listened for a heartbeat. No heartbeat. She left the room and came back with the ultrasound technician. It seems like any time you’re in a doctor’s office and they have to leave to get someone it’s not a good sign.

“It’s still early,” they said, “Come back in two weeks. Maybe it will be strong enough to hear it then.” 

There would be no heartbeat then. I knew there wasn’t going to be. I walked out of that doctor’s office in a haze, not fully processing what was happening. My doctor told me that I technically hadn’t “miscarried.” He said something about the fact that the heartbeat had never showed up means it wasn’t a miscarriage. He even had another name for it, but I can’t remember. All I know is that several weeks later, as I was watching TV, I felt cramping in my uterus. These cramps grew and strengthened into full labor pains, and an hour later I pushed out something the size of a golf ball and bled for several days afterwards. But it wasn’t technically a “miscarriage.”

Now was the time to confide in the people who I had told. Except I didn’t. I told a few people there was no heartbeat. They responded with what I call greeting-card responses. “I’m so sorry for your loss” which would be enough except it was followed with “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be,” or “trust in God” or “You’ll get pregnant again when the time is right.” It got to a point where I stopped telling people and decided to let them figure it out when 9 months had passed and I wasn’t giving birth. 

And these responses are so automatic to us, but we know they just make us feel even shittier. We know they aren’t enough, yet we keep using them because it’s all we’ve heard. But what if there was another way?

My favorite response was one word. One word that didn’t try to lift me up from the depths of despair. It was one word that showed up next to me in the gutter. 

I sent the same text to the people who knew that I was pregnant. I had literally copied and pasted it. I got several responses, but only one of them actually made me feel better. A single word. Followed up with a simple sentence. It goes as follows:

“Fuck” and then “I’m sorry.”

Fuck. I’m sorry, she said. In those three words she had reached across the molecules that divide us and connect us and sent her soul to sit with me, and I knew she was there. She couldn’t help me out of the gutter. She had never been in this kind of mud before, so what did she do? She sat in the mud with me. I imagine her saying, “alright, this is what we’re doing,” and gathering her hair into a ponytail, pulling her pants up, and sitting herself down in the mud right next to me. We didn’t have a lengthy conversation after this text. All I needed from her was that genuine reaction, and that was enough. 

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” 

-Jack Kerouac

This moment made me rethink all the words of comfort I had ever offered and the time I’d spent curating a message that would offer the most support. Sometimes I couldn’t find the “right words,” and ended up not saying anything at all. I realize now that I’m not going to have the words. How many text messages have gone unsent or acts of kindness that have gone unperformed because I couldn’t make it perfect? How many times have I used the generic statements of sympathy in a clumsy attempt to comfort? More times than I can count and more times than I’d like to remember. 

I’ve missed opportunities for genuine connection because I’ve been too worried about showing up wrong and not be able to help when my only intent should have been to show up genuinely. My friend is not a poet. She wasn’t trying to mend my heart. I had literally just come from the doctor’s office where he recommended that I make an appointment for a D&C. She couldn’t mend my heart because it wasn’t done breaking. So she let it break, and she stayed close to be a witness so that I didn’t have to be alone. 

We’re not here to save each other. I don’t think we can, and I don’t think that responsibility should be put on our shoulders. Perhaps we’re here to help each other save ourselves. I think we’re here to witness each other’s strength and weakness. We’re here to carry pieces of each other’s lives so that in times of despair we can mirror the type of love and heroics that we never see in ourselves. 

At some point, we’ve all been down in the gutter and many people have tried to fetch us out. Maybe the typical words of sympathy don’t hit as hard because we aren’t ready to get out yet. Sometimes we need someone to plop themselves down in the mud with us and make themselves comfortable so during our darkest days we won’t have to be alone. 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to show up perfectly for people only to mess it up in some way. The ridiculousness of thinking someone in darkness needs perfection still haunts me. Having lived through moments of darkness, I understand now that someone in darkness doesn’t want perfection. Someone in darkness wants truth and authenticity. Someone in darkness wants you to say, “fuck, I’m sorry.” 

And it’s enough.