The Great Life Contraction

On By aftheadIn childhood, parenting, writing3 Comments
My daughter learning to drive

I sense a change coming.  At almost fifty years, for the first time, my life is about to get smaller.  I’m not sure how I feel about it.  Part of me is exhausted managing 17 people at work, boostering sports at the high school, parenting one child, managing one household, meeting with my writing group, trying to keep my body from falling apart, keeping a semblance of friendships, and contributing to two extended families.  My life is always full.  

The opportunities to do more are endless.  I could be a DECA judge at the high school or volunteer for the PTA; apply to an executive MBA or CTO program; run the women’s network at work.  They need me, while my heart longs to see my parents more or have a leisurely meal with friends. 

And there are so many people.  Work people, school people, sports people, family people, friend people, writing people, and neighbor people.  People I want to see and people who want to see me.  People I am obligated to see and people who think I’m obligated to see them.  Annual people like doctors and dentists.  Periodic people like sports, writing, and camping friends.  I could have coffee and lunch every day and still feel like I’m missing out on relationship connections.  With every new hire, new project, new school, new activity, or new interest my rolodex grows.  (A dated metaphor, but some of you know what I’m talking about.)

The first end is less then three months away.  My role as driver has a deadline.  There is no indication that my daughter will do anything but pass her test, get her license, and never need me to take her anywhere ever again.  Okay, I’m exaggerating, but this feels like the first official life contraction.  Sure other parenting tasks end, but for the most part they are replaced.  I don’t have to change diapers or mash up food anymore, but now I learn the nuances of lip gloss versus lip balm and make pancakes for sleepovers.  But driving is a task that grows as kids get older.  They have more activities that are farther away and take longer.  More friends and more opportunities to leave the house.  It’s not all a burden, because the parental time in the car is special.  The car is a safe zone where you find out secrets, hopes, and dreams.  I won’t have that view into my kid’s life anymore.

Driving also makes my life bigger.  I made friends with parents hanging out on the sidelines when my daughter was little.  I found new trails to walk as her sports took her all over the state.  Now, I wave to my kid’s friends when I do the permit driver switch at school.  I’m a basketball booster parent because the coach saw me after practice, and we got to talk for a minute.  Suddenly those relationships, experiences and interactions will be gone – abdicated to my kiddo to maintain.  

I love being a parent, and recognize this is the beginning of the great metamorphosis from hands on to hands off.  From loving a child to loving an adult.  Not far out are pre-college camps, which she’ll do solo.  My best travel buddy’s first travels alone.  Then college.  That’s the big one.  In two and a half years I’ll go from living as a household of three to a household of two.  No games to attend.  No parent teacher conferences.  No back to school nights.  Suddenly priorities in my life will go back to being determined by me – not a school schedule or a sports schedule.  

What will I do with myself?  I used to do this cool thing called working out, and it made my body and mind feel amazing.  But I usually did that with friends, and how do I find friends who run if I’m not going to soccer practice and running stupid one-mile loops on the concrete path around the soccer fields?  I like watching sporting events, but how does that feel when you aren’t surrounded by the parents and friends of the kids playing?  What will provide the rhythm to my days and years?  Where will I meet new people?  And do I really have to just hang out with my husband every day, all day?  

Honestly, I’m ready for a little space.  Time to return to things I love.  My writing has suffered.  I miss my close relationships.  I long for interactions that don’t have to fit into a smidge of time scraped out between activities.  Maybe I’ll actually be able to respond to work emails again?  (Probably not.)  Maybe I’ll be able to nurture friendships who have gone stale, or build stronger friendships with people whose lives don’t quite match my rhythms now?  I long for complex foods with spices and heat that fill the house with smells my daughter despises.

Where does it end?  Friends are retiring and I see how hard it is to maintain relationships between working and retired people.  Your lives become different, so I’ll keep losing friends as they leave the workforce, but will we reconnect when I retire?  My parent’s friends keep dying and their world gets smaller with every loss.  Is this part of the natural cycle of life?  Your world expands to a peak of fullness beyond comfort and joy beyond maintainability and then contracts back down to a tiny family unit then a lonely end?  What happens on the other side of parenting, of work, of health?

I’m hoping there is a time of contentment between now and death.  A time to be thoughtful.  A time to breathe and focus on the things and people I love, including myself.  A time when I do what I do because it’s important and not urgent.  A chance to want to do things and no longer have to do things.  I hold this hope close to offset the fear as the losses loom.  I am ready for some time alone, but I am not ready to be lonely.    

Make the Friendship Bracelets

On By aftheadIn Tickles my afthead, Uncategorized3 Comments

‘Cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned
Everything you lose is a step you take
So make the friendship bracelets
Take the moment and taste it
You’ve got no reason to be afraid

You’re on Your Own, Kid – Taylor Swift
Friendship bracelets from the Taylor Swift Eras tour piled on a table.
The bracelets I received at the Eras Tour

My favorite part of the Taylor Swift Eras concert was trading friendship bracelets. I love interacting with strangers, especially short, positive, meaningful interactions. I constantly embarrass my family by telling the woman at the drive up window, “I love your nails” or asking a random walker, “Your knit hat is adorable, did you make it?”

At first I didn’t completely understand the idea. You’re on Your Own, Kid on the Midnights album made it clear that I should, “make the friendship bracelets,” but to me, a kid from the 1980s, friendship bracelets were those woven things made out of embroidery floss. I could make one or two a week, but that wouldn’t yield many to trade at the concert. Then I figured out that in 2023, people were putting beads on stretchy elastic string to make Eras Tour friendship bracelets. Much easier. I made five, while my daughter started picking album names out of our meager supply of letter beads. My bracelets had no words. I did more research and realized that the words were the point. I was supposed to put album names, song names, and song lyrics into the bracelets and the bracelets were supposed to be colored to match individual album themes. Goodness, there was so much to be learned about the Taylor Swift community.

Armed with all the rules and regulations, I first made bracelets with the title of every album, except one, following a more-or-less album appropriate color scheme. (My goal was to use beads I had, and I don’t like purple or pink, which is a problem in Taylor Swift land and I also didn’t have number beads, so no 1989.) Short album titles like Red and albums without the letter E like Midnights were great, because we didn’t have many E beads. Then I made ones with favorite non-E song titles like Karma and The Man. Then lots of bracelets with favorite song lyrics: “too loud” and “calm down” (from You Need to Calm Down); “be patient” and “power”; “clever” and “kind” (from Marjorie).

The day of the concert I went rogue. My endless reading of the Taylor Swift Eras tour Facebook groups taught me that some fans who didn’t get tickets were getting jobs in security, concessions, and merchandise sales. In a last minute fit of creativity, I made “concessions” and “security” bracelets. I left the house with thirty-five tradeable masterpieces on my arms.

The first bracelet went to a little girl with a “10th Birthday” sash around her shoulder. Her mom parked in the same parking lot we did, and they walked to the stadium in front of us, arms bare of bracelets. As we crossed onto the stadium grounds I placed a rainbow beaded “Eras” bracelet into the birthday girl’s hand, which was cupped in front of her as if she was expecting my gift. I said, “Happy Birthday” as she turned toward us. Her mom, who’d looked like a scary momma bear during the walk broke out in a grin. “Do you want to trade?” she asked and unzipped her fanny pack, which contained a shower ring filled with bracelets. Apparently not everyone kept their bracelets prominently displayed on their wrists, who knew!

In line to enter the stadium I traded my Speak Now bracelet with a single lavender glass flower-painted bead to a teen in a flowing lavender dress from Idaho and gave a Red bracelet to her mom. I overhead the girl raving how my special bead matched her outfit. Another little girl got my rainbow star “Eras” bracelet. She didn’t have any to trade, but her mom was so happy. “She’s five and this is her first big concert.” I explained to the five-year-old that this was my first big concert too. We traded with another mom and daughter who were originally from Chicago but had recently moved to a suburb of Denver and then we bonded over our no-line-cutting rule-following enforcement. When the gates open we lost each other, but for 20 minutes we were all best friends.

A lone older lady security guard at the bottom of the escalator got my “security” bracelet. As we raced to the top level of the stadium we found lineless concessions and happy workers. Our first purchase were two lemonades, and those cups with lemons kept our voices fresh the whole night as we refilled them with water over and over. I asked the woman who took our order if she was a fan and if she wanted a bracelet and she did! I gave her one, since she had none of her own. A few stands down was a girl who looked my daughter’s age, so I asked her if she wanted a bracelet and gave her my “concession” one. She beamed.

Back down to our section and a woman in a lavender suitcoat was issuing commands into a walkie talkie. Without asking, I dropped “The Man” bracelet into her hand and didn’t wait to see her response. I mean, of course she was a fan if she was wearing that jacket, but no need to distract her from her important work.

Bracelet trading began in earnest as more fans arrived, and ebbs and flows of trading groups would gather then disband. There were women that had made hundreds of bracelets, and they all knew a rule I had missed, that acronyms of song lyrics were not just acceptable, but encouraged. While my “be kind be clever” 14-letter bracelet needed some explaining, somehow everyone knew the 9-letter NBSKYFTBC was the opening line to “Marjorie,” used less beads, and didn’t require any precious E beads.

Never be so kind, you forget to be clever

marjorie, by Taylor Swift

My last (and favorite) trading happened when I left mid-concert to get the coveted quarter-zip sweatshirt for my kiddo. I missed two songs, but getting the shirt and extra stranger love made it worthwhile. I stood in line for 15 precious minutes with other fans who wanted a souvenir more than they wanted to hear All too Well (Ten Minute Version). I was outraced to the back of the line by a middle school teacher and her two elementary school teacher friends. I joked that I didn’t mind if they beat me, so long as there were still sweatshirts left. Then a gay couple from Utah joined behind us and we all had a lovely chat about their delicious looking dippin dots. Finally, a tired looking teenage boy called me up to place my order. He brought me my shirt and CD and looked to see if there were any last water bottles rolling around. There were not. As he scanned my purchases into his tablet, I noticed his wrists were empty. Over 2 and a half hours into the concert and he didn’t have a single friendship bracelet. When he told me my total I handed him my card and asked, “Hey, do you want a friendship bracelet?” I’ll never forget the look he gave me. It was like a kid on Christmas morning. The exhaustion fell from him, replaced with radiating delight. When he responded “Yes!” I slid one of my early no-letter bracelets on his wrist. It would look totally normal on a teenage boy, even after the concert.

My last stop was to grab a cold bottle of water for one last lemonade cup refill. I had two of my original bracelets left. A woman in her 60s took my order and wanted a bracelet when I offered. I gave her my second to last one, then got distracted by a teenager jumping up from where the food was being cooked and rushing to the register.

“Did you say friendship bracelets?” the skinny green haired teen asked. “Do you want to trade? It’s been slow since the concert started and I’ve just been sitting back there making bracelets but there’s no one to trade with.” They held up 7 loosely strung bracelets that were too big to be rings, but too small to fit adult wrists, made of giant plastic pony beads. They started explaining their offerings, “This one is for Speak Now, and this one is for Lover, and this one is for all the albums.”

I stopped them and pointed to the colorful bracelet that had a bead for each album, “I’d like that one, but I only have one left to trade.” I held it up – light green with cut glass beads and the words “one dollar”. “It’s a little random,” I explained, “it’s for the lawsuit that Taylor Swift filed in Denver, where she won, but only asked for a single dollar in damages.” The teen understood the message that everyone else had passed over all night. It was a weird Denver specific bracelet with beads that matched their hair. They held out their bracelet to trade for mine.

“This is so cool,” they said, “I love it.”

People who aren’t Taylor Swift fans ask me what was so special about the concert and what’s so special about her music. After 3 plus years of pandemic nonsense, connection feels precious. It’s hard to succinctly describe the feeling of belonging when you can walk up to any of 70,000 strangers, offer a handmade bracelet and not be afraid. This concert brought people together from different generations, income levels, and geographies and gave them a venue for common joy. We interacted with strangers in intimate cathartic bursts and then sang together for three and a half hours. For me, the Eras Tour music put words and a voice to what I’ve lost during Covid and the concert provided a temporary community that felt like family.

It Feels like a Perfect Night

On By aftheadIn Best Day Ever, parenting, Tickles my afthead4 Comments

It feels like a perfect night
For breakfast at midnight
To fall in love with strangers
Ah-ah, ah-ah

22
by Taylor Swift

Full honesty here. I am not a legitimate Swifty. I haven’t been following Taylor Swift since her debut. In fact, I didn’t even notice when Folklore, Evermore or Taylor’s versions of Fearless and Red came out during the pandemic. But something was different when she released Midnights. What changed? I had a teenage daughter whose casual “listening to Taylor Swift in the car” became a shared obsession.

The Eras tour was announced and we attempted to buy tickets, but I didn’t know all the mysterious incantations — verified fan, Capital One card — needed to purchase entry to the concert. But I did know StubHub and Seat Geek, so once the scalpers bought up most of the tickets, I started a fun hobby of watching ticket prices to see if maybe, just maybe, we could go. I checked the price in other cities to see if it was cheaper to fly somewhere, get a hotel, and see Taylor in Pittsburgh or Minneapolis or Detroit. It was not. Every time I looked the prices went up past reasonable to extravagant to embarrassing.

My fatal flaw was mentioning my ticket searching hobby to my daughter. When her reaction wasn’t “MOM, you are SO lame,” but instead “I’d go to Taylor Swift with you” our fate was sealed and my hobby became a quest. I compared resale sites, contrasted seat locations and venues and finally picked out seats, only to have my credit card reject what was obviously a purchase outside of my normal tendencies. (Okay, I also shouldn’t have tried the transaction after midnight local time – every one of my actions screamed fraud to the banking AI algorithms.)

But after appeasing the credit card overlords, I dropped more money than I will ever admit on two tickets, a few weeks before my daughter’s fifteenth birthday. I reached out to our family and invited everyone to contribute, so the tickets could be from all of us. This was in no way an attempt to offset our extravagant purchase (because again, they cost a humiliating amount of money) but a way to let everyone be a part of what I hoped would be a keystone memory for my daughter.

Her birthday had the potential to be awful. First school then choir practice then basketball practice; she’d be gone from the house from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. The only break was a planned run to the DMV so she could get her driver’s permit. Luckily, she woke up to a family group text with a picture of the tickets. She’s not a screaming hysterical happy person, especially in the morning, but her birthday was saved and her dedication over the next two months to learn every lyric of every song in the set list showed just how much our gift meant.

The anticipation was amazing. We sang. We made friendship bracelets. I joined Facebook groups. I researched logistics. We bought our clear plastic bag for the stadium. We had something big to look forward too. Something big and ridiculous and fun, just her and me, and that wasn’t something we’d had since March of 2020 when COVID hit.

In the midst of the excitement I let worry creep in. What if we got sick? What if traffic was terrible and we couldn’t get to the stadium? Could we take water? Snacks? What shoes should we wear? Should we stand in line at the merch tent for 12 hours the day before the concert to make sure whe got the perfect memorabilia?

In the end, everything went wrong and everything worked out. My husband was going to drive and pick us up, but when we got near the venue there was a lovely middle school parking lot, so we paid the energetic attendant $25 and my husband took an Uber home. My daughter and I queued at our gate and raced into the stadium, but didn’t immediately get in the merch line, so I had to leave during the concert to get her the coveted quarter zip and Midnights CD (sadly my water bottle was sold out.) Our seats were behind the sound tower, so we couldn’t see anything that matchstick sized Taylor did at center stage, but the screen was huge and we saw the show of our lives. The girls next to us crammed 5 girls into 4 seats and they were lovely and sang their hearts out and traded friendship bracelets with us.

And everything was better than we’d dreamed. Our seats were club level, but we had no idea that meant air conditioning, easy access to food and bathrooms, and our own Taylor Swift Eras backdrop for an epic picture. The opening act, Gracie Abrams, is one of my daughter’s favorite and she played more songs than expected. We were in the last row of our section, so no one ruined the night by shouting the lyrics, singing off key, or spilling anything on us. I got to talk to strangers from Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico and trade bracelets with kids, teens, grown-ups, security guards, concession stand workers, and the guy who sold me merch.

There is so much wrong with this story. First, my ridiculously unfair privilege to spend the amount of money I spent to see a concert that I didn’t deserve to see. Facebook groups were filled with people pleading for tickets who have been fans since the beginning and couldn’t afford $700 for scalped obstructed view seats in the fifth level. Second, it’s disgusting how much StubHub, Seat Geek, and brokers made on Taylor Swift’s art and Ticketmaster’s complacent negligence. Finally, it made me sad that the concession workers – every single one I talked to was a Swifty – were in the venue but couldn’t watch the show, but only listen to the echoes of music through the concourse.

But for me there was so much that felt right after years of being afraid that nothing on this scale would ever feel right again. After my run to the merchandise line, during All Too Well (10 minute version), the logistics were finally complete, and I let myself escape into the joy of the night for a few eras. My daughter and I gasped at the heat of the flames that burned during Bad Blood. We cried together when Back to December was one of our surprise songs. I sang my heart out to the self-deprecating lyrics of Anti-Hero, a glorious anthem to the entire night, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.” As we left the stadium, we experienced a last magical goodbye as a coveted piece of confetti blew off a woman’s cowboy hat onto the ground in front of us. I reached down and captured one last memento of a perfect night.

Tipping Point

On By aftheadIn Uncategorized4 Comments

I always thought when you went over the tipping point that there would be a fall. Instead, I’ve learned when you go over the tipping point the point impales itself in your heart and holds you aloft writhing like an insect being prepared for a museum display.

Internally, I can’t understand why I’ve found myself stuck. All I’ve done is experienced two years of the pandemic in the most privileged way possible. I worked from home in my basement office while my husband worked from home in our bedroom, and my daughter attended school at home; then at home and at school; and now at school. We have money to pay for broadband, computers, masks, and COVID tests. I should feel lucky.

My mom is alive. I didn’t survive cancer. I don’t currently have cancer. My house didn’t burn to the ground. The opposite scenarios are all ones my friends have experienced since 2020. I didn’t get COVID. My daughter didn’t infect her grandparents when she got COVID. Thank goodness.

My co-workers think I’m a great boss and do great work. I’m working on a project to fundamentally reduce the climate change impacts of transportation system in this country. This week, my work was lauded by the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of Transportation. I am at a career high point.

I know mental health. I’ve lived with a partner with depression for 22 years. I experienced anxiety during this pandemic in a vicious cycle of chest tightening, worrying I have COVID causing additional chest tightening and more worry that I have COVID. I was seeing the therapist at my doctor’s office until she quit. She never suggested medication. I took the quizzes every appointment. I’m not jittery. I can focus. I can sleep. I am fine.

Sometimes feeling bad is appropriate. Sometimes the combined strain of the banal — lost friendships, loneliness, dead pets — and a literal apocalyptic existence leave you feeling kinda crappy. I just checked my favorite John’s Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard and 5,802,066 people have died worldwide. I was tempted to round to 5.8 million, but 2,066 feels like significant digits. That’s 2,066 sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, lovers, human beings. I can’t imagine 2,066 deaths much less the other 5,800,000. An antidepressant doesn’t make that go away. Every day brings new catastrophes. A quick scan of today’s headlines: war, border blockades, delayed vaccines for kids, and voter suppression. Awesome.

I’m supposed to work and achieve. I’m supposed to be a visionary. I’m supposed to lead, mentor, and manage others. I’m supposed to raise a healthy well-balanced child. I’m supposed to care for my family, my friends, and do not forget the all-important self-care. But what if self-care requires alone time to cry or scream? What if I’ve sucked up all I can suck and need to experience legitimate emotions during my endless daily cycle of bedroom, basement office, kid’s sporting events, kitchen, and back to my office for a few more hours before returning to my bedroom to sleep? When do I to take an hour, a day, a week, a month and fall apart because the world is a horrible scary place? And if I breakdown, then what? Do I pick myself up and start climbing to the tipping point again? This isn’t a brain chemistry problem. This is reality.

And here’s the thing. I’m not alone. If I look around there is a mountain range of impaled others. If I listen closely, I can hear a chorus of “I’m fine.” “I’m good.” “Doing okay.”

How am I doing? I am scared. I am exhausted. I am angry. I am stuck. And I don’t know how or when it gets better.

How are you?

Six hundred and sixty-two days

On By aftheadIn parenting, Rants4 Comments
Positive COVID test

We were so fucking careful for six hundred and sixty-two days. We canceled camping trips and school trips for fear of being infected. For fear of infecting others. We quarantined fourteen days before Christmas Eve 2020, just so we could spend a few hours with family without masks. My daughter played soccer games (outdoors), basketball games (indoors), and volleyball matches (indoors) masked. She wore masks at the beginning of cross country meets. My husband and I? We watched games and races apart from other families with our lower faces hidden behind our own masks.

It wasn’t enough. Six hundred and fifty-eight days of being safe and somehow COVID found my daughter. When you are careful, you know exactly when infection occurs, even if you don’t know how. We’d been quarantining after an exposure to a family friend. For five days from 12/26 – 12/31 my daughter didn’t leave the house, but when our New Years Eve plans were canceled because our friend (the same one we were exposed to) was still testing positive, I made a terrible decision, “Let’s just go to the hockey game. No one will be there.” Our first mistake.

My daughter and I put on our masks in the car. They stayed on the entire walk to the game and the entire game. No one was there. We got seats one row up and 6 seats over from the nearest people. People who didn’t wear masks the entire game. The woman in the group coughed several times. I glared at her a lot as if my mommy eyes could stop any germs. At the far end of the row, another group of maskless fans sat farther away, but didn’t show any signs of unhealthiness. Everyone was at least 10 feet away, probably more. No one was behind us to breathe their COVID-y germs down on us. We had masks on: my husband and I KN95s, but my daughter had asked to only wear a surgical mask. Our second mistake.

At intermission, we walked down through the concourse. My daughter had to use the bathroom. Our third mistake. After a moments hesitation, I followed her, deciding I would go too. We both went, but in stalls a distance from each other. We washed hands near masked women, and then went to visit friends at the game who we hadn’t seen in at least six hundred and fifty-eight days. They wore masks. We wore masks. We hugged, but they had COVID recently, so it was a safe hug, but we were near other people. I didn’t note the mask wearing of those strangers because I was so happy to see our friends again. Our fourth mistake.

We spent the rest of the game at our seats. Near the coughing woman. Near the maskless fans. My daughter sat between my husband and I in her less-protective surgical mask. After the game, it was cold, so we wore our masks all the way to the car, keeping our faces warm and avoiding the germs of the unmasked fans walking near us.

My husband and I were boosted, but kids my daughter’s age were not yet approved. The CDC wouldn’t recommend her booster until two days after she tested positive for COVID; six days after she was infected. All the times I’d thought poorly of people who were infected right before they could get vaccinated came back to me in a karmic vengeance. Our fifth mistake? Hard to say, because we hadn’t heard that boosters were imminent, but we did know it had been over six months since her shots, and we knew Omicron was raging. So yes, let’s count that as mistake five.

We went to another hockey game the next day. Same situation, but more fans. The guy next to me was drunk and kept leaning in to talk to me, touch me. We moved seats so I was out of reach. Could my daughter have been infected then? Sure. But neither me, my husband, our friends, or our friends’ unboosted kids got COVID.

On January 2nd my daughter’s phone pinged with a notification that she’d been near someone with COVID on December 31st. I didn’t get the notification, nor did my husband. The only time we were apart was in the bathroom. Could the state notification system have been smart enough to know that my husband and I had better masks than my daughter? Of course not. Right?

Monday, January 3rd, my daughter felt crappy when she woke up. A wicked headache and a bit congested. My husband had just recovered from a bad cold (not COVID, he tested three times). Maybe she caught it? Or perhaps irritation from all the residual particulates in the air from the fires that burned Superior and Louisville days before? She had no cough and no fever, but we tested her for COVID just in case. Negative, so she spent a few hours with my parents (mistake six), came home and went for an unmasked walk outside with a friend (mistake seven), and then went to her club basketball practice (mistake eight). At least she wore a mask at basketball, like always.

Tuesday she went back to school (mistake nine). Her head still hurt and she didn’t feel great. Of course she’d also slept less than 4 hours. I know because I slept with her. She was anxious about school and finally I gave up and joined her in bed so she could get some rest. All night we shared recycled breath. (mistake ten) “It feels like knives are stabbing my eyes,” she said as she got ready for school. I gave her a Tylenol, because I know how horrible a lack of sleep can make you feel: especially your eyes. Testing crossed my mind, but she was negative the day before and we only had five tests left (mistake eleven). I picked her up from school and she was feeling pretty good. She had an hour to eat a snack and change and then off to her school basketball practice (mistake twelve). After dinner she started feeling really cruddy, so we tested. Positive for COVID. My husband and I tested. Negative.

We felt terrible, and our penance was the COVID walk of shame. I told my parents their granddaughter had exposed them to COVID. She had exposed my immunocompromised father, the one consistent family fear of this pandemic. At least they were both vaccinated and boosted. My husband texted the parents of her (vaccinated, not boosted) walk friend. I emailed basketball coaches, and texted hockey friends. My final note was to school “friends”: the ones who hadn’t invited her to New Year’s, the ones who made fun of her for not going on their school trip, and ones who hadn’t bothered to invite her to any of their outings during the school break. (You know, those middle school “friends.”) I let all their moms know that my daughter was positive and had exposed their daughters to COVID throughout the school day. Everyone was either nice enough, or ignored my note. Was there a little snideness in their responses? A little smugness? Impossible to tell from email, but I know they found us overcautious, ridiculous, and exhausting for six hundred and sixty-two days. I’m sure at least one family felt a little secret joy that the uppity family was knocked off their pedestal. My daughter’s final penance? The recital all the “friends” were going to over the weekend was now out of the question. My kid couldn’t go because of isolation protocols. Another demerit. Another chance to get left out.

What was the tally of our even dozen mistakes?

  • My daughter, infected with COVID
  • Her walking friend, infected with COVID

As far as we know, that’s it. My parents were spared. My husband and I were spared. Both my mom and I felt bad enough to test three days after my daughter tested positive, but we were negative and both feel fine now. Did we have it, and our booster helped us fight off the infection? Who knows. No classmates or teammates were impacted. The family we infected has been careful, like us, during the pandemic, and they have been kind as our daughters go through COVID together. We’ve helped each other find tests and traded food ideas as our girls lost their sense of taste. The girls are happy to have an isolation buddy to do homework with via Facetime. As much as neither family ever wanted to end up in this situation we are making the best of things.

But my kid has a disease we know little about. She lost her sense of taste on day 6, so her symptoms aren’t decreasing. She’s still testing positive on day 7. No fever, and blood oxygen levels consistently above 96%. Protocol says she can go back to school tomorrow, but really? I’m going to send my daughter who doesn’t feel great and is testing positive to school? Sure she didn’t infect anyone last time, but do we push our luck? Push the luck of other families?

I’d love to say that I’m super zen about all this. That I can look back and say we were super risky, made twelve mistakes, and all that happened was our daughter and her friend got infected, but I’m not zen at all. I’m fucking angry. Look at my mistakes and tell me what parent, what person, which of you, hasn’t made the same mistakes. In fact, maybe you have made even bigger mistakes without masks or without testing. One of my mistakes was letting my kid go to the bathroom with only a surgical mask on. Should I have told her to hold it? Go when it wasn’t as busy? Force her to wear an N95 mask? What we did wasn’t a mistake. We followed proper protocol. She made another mistake when going on an unmasked walk outside with her friend the day she tested negative for COVID. Raise your hand if you’ve gone outside and talked to someone without a mask. I’m betting every one of you has your hand raised. And did you have a negative COVID test earlier that day? I’m guessing not. Now guess what? You gave your friend COVID. Fuck that. And sure, my kid was not boosted, but she couldn’t be. The damn CDC had to wait FOUR DAYS to approve the FDA’s recommendation and even those assholes waited until it had been over SEVEN months since the kids with the most responsible families got their kids vaccinated. This is all utterly unfair bullshit.

Now I get to worry about long COVID, and what long term impacts this virus will have on my daughter. Will she still be able to run? Play sports? What about even longer unknown impacts? I get to worry because there are no hospital beds and if she takes a turn for the worse there will be no oxygen for her, no ICU, and sure as hell no treatments. For making a dozen mistakes, I get to be that parent. The one who risked her kid’s life, her families’ lives, and her friends’ lives for a hockey game. Except, I didn’t do anything that any safe family hasn’t done this pandemic. And I’m angry as hell for all the people who haven’t been careful, who haven’t worn a mask, and who haven’t been vaccinated so this damned virus keeps mutating. Every selfish person who just can’t bother to put something over their nose and mouth and get a nothing-short-of-miraculous-vaccine is culpable for my kid’s illness. At least as much as I am for making what I admit is one bad decision: to go to a hockey game with Omicron raging.

For six hundred and sixty-two days we were careful, responsible members of society and this just sucks. If I was a toddler I’d be pounding and kicking on the floor screaming a tantrum of “it’s not fair.” As a fourty-seven year old, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that you’ll find me there tomorrow.

A family with masks on and a sunset behind them.

It’s been a year

On By aftheadIn Uncategorized5 Comments

It’s been a year since I’ve worked in an office building.

Since I’ve watched my daughter play sports without she or I wearing a mask.

Since I’ve been inside a bookstore or library.

Since I’ve hugged my brother.

Since I’ve eaten in a restaurant.

Since I’ve stayed in a hotel.

Been to the airport.

Been in a bar.

Been in a mall.

Been to a funeral.

It’s been a year without parties I didn’t want to attend.

Without gatherings I didn’t want to host.

Without organizing carpools.

Without a school band concert, play, or art festival.

It’s been a year of talking in tiny computer windows.

Talking to myself, constantly present in my own tiny window.

Talking to family on badly oriented devices.

Talking to no one, because I’m on mute.

To my cats, standing on my laptop.

To friends via text, anxiously watching for the …

To coworkers’ upper bodies.

It’s been a year since I was embarrassed by my messy house.

Since I worried about what I was wearing.

Since other’s opinions mattered more than my own.

Since I learned how to say “no”.

It’s been a year of being afraid my parents will die.

Being afraid I will die.

Being afraid my husband or daughter will die.

Afraid that I will get my loved ones sick.

Afraid that I will get my friends sick.

Afraid of how angry my friends would be if I got them or their loved ones sick.

Afraid of killing someone.

It’s been a year of change.

It’s been a year of learning.

A year of disappointment.

A year of endless family.

A year lacking friendship.

A year with no physical contact.

Of unacknowledged losses large and small.

Of eyes opening, hearts breaking, and injustice.

It’s been a year of distance

dread

introspection

protest

riot

judgement

anger

fear

anxiety

death

history.

It’s been a year.

The Four Passover Questions – Thanksgiving 2020 Edition

On By aftheadIn Best Day Ever, Tickles my aftheadLeave a comment

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency requested submissions that reflected how surreal Thanksgiving will be this year. I submit, but sadly my piece was not accepted. I worked hard on it though, and it’s timely, so I figured I’d stick it up on Afthead for grins. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Hold on sweetie.  Let mommy light the candles.  Go wash your hands, then you can ask the questions. 

How is this Thanksgiving different from all other Thanksgivings?

I’m glad you asked, young child. This Thanksgiving is different from all other Thanksgivings in every way imaginable.  Our health is being threatened by a virus; our democracy is being endangered by the current fascist-curious administration; racists, bigots and misogynists are swarming out of their bunkers; murder hornets are apparently a thing; and Alex Trebek died (he’s Canadian, but we still were thankful for him and mourn his loss). 

Now, you may ask your four questions as this question was a meta-question and does not count against your quota. 

Mommy drinks a glass of wine.

On all other Thanksgivings we eat turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes.  Why on this Thanksgiving do we eat only mashed potatoes?

I’m glad you asked, young child.  On all other Thanksgivings, the meal is a communal endeavor.  Family members brings their individual talents to each dish’s preparation.  Mommy is excellent at making mashed potatoes, so I make mashed potatoes every year.  Grandma makes the stuffing and Grandpa sticks that sausage-y goodness into the body cavity of a turkey and bakes it up golden using his magical paper bag trick. 

Did you notice Daddy wasn’t mentioned in the “meal preparation talent” list?  Yet he thought he could handle the Thanksgiving turkey.  But, since he neglected to take the plastic bag of giblets out of the turkey before putting it in the oven, now both the turkey and Mommy’s pathetic attempt at stuffing are ruined.  (No, we didn’t notice the bag when we were stuffing the turkey, because putting your hand in there is gross.  We didn’t dig around exploring.)  What are giblets you ask?   Turkey guts.  No, that question doesn’t count against your four-question limit.  

Mommy drinks a glass of wine

On all other Thanksgivings we eat sweet potatoes with marshmallows.  Why on this Thanksgiving are there only marshmallows? 

I’m glad you asked, young child.  This Thanksgiving, we do not eat sweet potatoes, because they remind us of the unnatural hue of our president.  We refuse to even hint at accepting his totalitarian regime by enjoying the sweetness of the orange potato. 

We eat marshmallows because of our recent realization that our family enjoys an unhealthy amount of white privilege.  The eating of the marshmallows symbolizes the destruction of all squishy white racists – McConnell, Pence, and Graham to name a few.  The sickness we feel after eating an entire bag of marshmallows reminds us that too much whiteness is largely responsible for the mess our country is in right now.    

Mommy drinks a glass of wine.

On all other Thanksgivings, we don’t have any dips.  Why do we have two dips this Thanksgiving?

Did you have to ask, young child?  Can you not smell the burnt plastic?  Mommy and daddy are not adult enough to pull off a real Thanksgiving.  While essential grocery store workers are at the store today, they are getting COVID at a frightening rate, so we don’t want to risk their lives by rushing out and buying another dinner that we would probably ruin anyway.  We made do.  We are like the fucking pilgrims, with no native Americans to bail us out. 

Yes, fucking is a bad word.  I’m sorry.  But you LOVE French onion and fake cheese dip.  Why are you complaining? 

Yes, firemen are also essential workers, which is why we didn’t let daddy fry the turkey.  No, hon, it wouldn’t have worked better that way, you just would have fried the damn bag of giblets. 

Mommy drinks a glass of wine

On all other Thanksgivings we sit upright at the dining room table, surrounded by friends and family.  Why on this night are we alone reclining in front of the television?

I’m SO glad you asked, young child.  This year it’s just our little family for Thanksgiving, because infecting grandma and grandpa and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends with COVID might ruin our chance to spend future holidays together.  Reclining alone in our living room shows our despondence at society’s collective failure to protect each other, and listening to our friends Troy Aikman and Joe Buck commentate the Cowboys game is the closest thing to adult conversation we….

What?  Ohmygosh, yes.  We want COVID to pass over our family, just like we learned at Zoom Passover this spring.  Wow, you were really paying attention.  No, sweetie, you don’t need to paint blood on our door.  This is a different kind of plague.  No, I don’t think there will be any frogs.  I’m sorry I know you love frogs.  Shhhh.  I’m sad and scared too.  Here, eat another marshmallow.  

Mommy pours a fifth glass of wine.

Is this cup of wine for Elijah?  I don’t think Elijah comes to Thanksgiving.  Well sure, you can open the door, just in case.  Guess what? Question quota is full.  Mommy is all done.  Let’s have some pie.  Yes, I’m sure Elijah likes pie. 

Photo by Rebecca Freeman on Unsplash

My White Privilege

On By aftheadIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

zack-nichols-KCRtdzk-_90-unsplash

When I turned 16, one of my dad’s friends surprised me with a visit.  He drove up in his sports car — it was a Corvette I think — and asked me if I wanted to take it for a drive.

He was a cop.

Years later, I chatted with a friend who is black about learning to drive.  She explained how in her family, as she and each of her siblings started learning, the family sat down to talk about what to do if they got pulled over.  Put your hands on the wheel.  Don’t get out of the car.  Tell the cop where your license is and ask for permission to get it.  Return your hands to the wheel.  Tell the cop where your registration is and ask for permission to get it.  Never drive without your license, registration and proof of insurance.

I was baffled by this family ritual.  I never had this conversation.  Why did their family have this conversation?  The few times I’d been pulled over I tried to act cute and flirt a little and I’d never even gotten a ticket.

She explained to me that cops kill black people.

My lovely friend with her lovely family who was just like mine — if you don’t see skin color — had to learn how to minimize her chance of being killed by the police.  The police did not take her for a ride in a sports car.  Other black friends have assured me that they also had these conversations in their families.

How lucky am I?  I was in my twenties before I realized that police weren’t just nice guys who helped you when you locked your keys in your car, again.  That’s white privilege.  After the conversation with my friend I was forced to examine and continue to examine what advantages I have just because of the color of my skin.  I can hail a taxi and it will stop and pick me up.  I will make more money and I can get instant approval for a mortgage, a car loan, or a credit card.

I’m trying to learn and trying to see what advantages my white skin gives me.  But while I am learning, I don’t need to worry that I’ll be shot while jogging, sleeping, or hanging out in my apartment just because of the color of my skin.  White privilege.

Maybe you are just now seeing your white privilege for the first time.  It’s uncomfortable.  It’s unfathomable.  It’s true.  If you don’t like it, you have an obligation to inform yourself, call out injustice when you see it, and make improvements where you can.

I’m just beginning to understand how I might stand in the gap.  When hiring I ask my team if we really need another white man, or if we should go back and look for more diverse candidates.  That makes other people uncomfortable, and leads to hard conversations, but nothing will change without questioning the status quo.

Along the way I will make mistakes.  I will say stupid things.  I will apologize, and try to do better.  I will realize horrible things about myself, my family, and my world.  But I won’t avoid learning these things because change can’t happen if we hide from the truth.

My daughter?  She’s learning along with me.  She has heard me talk about what black lives matter means, and why it’s not all lives matter.  She knows that there are good police and bad police.  When I make donations, I tell her about the ACLU, the NAACP, and bail bond funds.  I teach her why it’s important to see skin color.  I am teaching her how to ask questions and how to respectfully take criticism when her white privilege is exposed.  When she learns to drive, I’ll teach her what other families learn and help her see the injustice of racial inequality.  She assures me, with the confidence of youth, that she and her generation will do better.  I hope they do.

Photo by Zack Nichols on Unsplash

It’s Okay

On By aftheadIn parenting, Uncategorized6 Comments

img_8386I read because I love stories.  I love being transported into another person’s world and perspective.  Occasionally, reading helps me understand life.  Last week I was finding respite from the chaos of real life, reading Sarah Gailey’s new book When We Were Magic, when I came upon this gem:

Paulie pats my thigh.  “It’s okay,” she says, “It’s okay to be upset at upsetting things.”  I’m struck by the sentiment.  “It’s okay to be upset at upsetting things,” I repeat, and Paulie taps her fingers on my knee in a pattern I don’t follow.

Anyone else had a rough couple of weeks?  Two weeks ago I was diagnosed with arthritis in my left knee.  The constant ache and sharp pain waking me up in the middle of the night had a name.  My daughter didn’t make her middle school soccer team.  Last year when I asked her why she played soccer she told me, “Because I want to play in middle school.”  One dream crushed, she rebounded to play brilliantly in a club tournament , but lost in the finals.  This all happened before I knew it was okay to be upset at upsetting things.

Last week was finals week.  This was the first quarter in my almost three years of graduate school that I took two classes.  For ten weeks I’ve been a demon.  The pull of work, parenting, sports, pets, life, plus two graduate school classes – Geodatabases and Advanced Geospatial Statistics – was a grind.  I was awful to my friends.  I was negligent to my family.  I was a drag on my projects at work.  Everyone had been warned that this was going to be unpleasant, and it was on everyone.

If I finished successfully, I was going to celebrate.  With those two classes finished I would only have two more classes left before my degree was complete.  I was going to go have a drink with friends.  I was going to apologize to my family, maybe go get ice cream.  There were going to be donuts at work.  Pizza too.

I finished Saturday, March 14th.  No one went to the office on the 16th.  There was no one to celebrate with.  Getting ice cream with my family seemed irresponsible.  COVID-19 hit and social distancing had started and my ten horrible weeks was transitioning into a different unknown horrible with an unknown timeline, but by then I’d finished Gailey’s book.  I was angry and annoyed and frustrated, but I knew it’s okay to be upset at upsetting things.

Now, I sit in the same horrible chair I sat in for 10 weeks doing homework and I wish things were different.  I wish my knee didn’t hurt.  I wish my daughter had known the joy of making the team or winning the tournament – especially now when soccer looks unlikely until fall.  (Please, let there be soccer in the fall.)  I don’t wish I would have been kinder during my 10 weeks of school, because I just don’t work that way, but I do wish I could have had a moment of joy.  Sharing with others the accomplishment that I’d done something really hard really well:  99.4% average between both classes – a not humble brag.

I wish my kid could see her friends.  I wish I could see my friends.  I wish my dad took the health risk of this disease more seriously.  I hate that I have to keep sitting day in and day out in my homework chair, but now it’s my office chair, my school chair, my writing chair.  It’s the only chair my butt is going to reside in for weeks? Months?  But I am so grateful for the escape of books.  That I can go to world where life is different.  Where I can find wisdom from a bunch of magical teenagers:

“It’s okay,” she says, “It’s okay to be upset at upsetting things.”

Adult Failure

On By aftheadIn Uncategorized3 Comments

I’m two years into a graduate degree.  Two years with one year and 10 weeks to go.  Yes, exactly.  Yes, I’m counting.  I’m studying for a Master’s of Science in Geographic Information Systems, or making maps on the computer.  Overall, I’m loving the coursework and learning new things.  I’m hating that it gives me very little time to write.  My family hates that it makes me an unholy grouch to live with.  Balancing 32 hours a week of work, school work, and volunteer opportunities, while trying not to be a terrible mom, wife, sister, and child make my temperament less than jolly.

Imagine my thrill when the final project for my last class was posted.  A class I hated.  A class on which I spent over 20 hours a week.  A class I struggled to understand with a professor who I just didn’t gel with.  A class in which the technical text book used! lots! of! exclamation! points! incorrectly!  The final project announcement said, “I need to see some layout & design, professionalism, communication of ‘a story’, creativity…”  The project assignment said, “Tell a story about what is spatially living in this location.  Keep it short, straight to the point, and fictional if you want.”  The professor wanted a story?  A story that could be fictional?  Suddenly, my least favorite class had a silver lining.  I could write a story as my final project.

I dug in, I got creative.  I researched mythical creatures.  I thought about fonts and colors.  I agonized over the compass rose.  I came up with conflict and history and theme.  I made a map-story of which I was proud.  Right click on the below and open it in a new tab or a new window if you want to see how awesome it is.

Final Lab

As a kid, you have plenty of measurable opportunities to fail.  You can fail tests, fail homework, lose at soccer games.  Success or failure is quantifiable: less than 60% = failure; less goals than the other team = fail.  As an adult, failure feels more nebulous.  Plenty of times I feel like I’m failing as a friend, a parent, a wife, a child, a sister, an employee, or a writer, but it’s just a feeling.  This class gave me a chance to experience quantifiable failure as an adult.  My final grade on the above project?  50%.  A big fat honking F.

How did I get an F on such a masterpiece?  Oh, let me tell you.  He said that the map I created looked too much like the sample map he used as his example.  We used the same layout, map on the left, and color scheme – blue for water; shades of green, brown, and yellow for land.  So minus 25% for using his map as a guide and using appropriate cartographic colors for the land areas.  (The map had to be this size, so where in the heck else was I going to put it?)  Anyway, in his mind, 25% off for being a copycat.  Then, he said my final work product was just a map, and it would be enhanced by “some ‘pictures’ of the the pixies working at night or graphics showing how the brownies export the farm products.”  Really?  Maybe I could just throw on some 1990s clip art?  Great idea prof!  Minus 25% for wanting to create a tasteful uncluttered communication piece.  Got it.

Here my friends is the glory of doing graduate school in your 40s.  Did I like this class?  No.  Do I like the professor?  No.  Did my family have to listen to me rant endlessly for the two assignments I got bad grades on – this one and the other 50% I got because I’m unable to present information to decision makers in the correct manner.  (I’ll have you know, my real job involves near constant communication with decision makers and I AM VERY GOOD AT MY JOB.  But I digress.)  Yes, my family had to listen to me say bad words.  However, as someone in her 40s,  I know that this guy is just not a great teacher for me.  I know that this class is not a subject in which I excel.  But do you know what?  I’m still proud of my map story.  I like the idea of dryads and gnomes emigrating from the Mt. Adams fires and the Fairy Council trying to find homes for them.  I mean, they could be building walls to keep them away, but they are not.  Good for them.  Good for me.  I give myself an A+ for taking a crappy class and a crappy assignment and doing a little something with it that feeds my soul.  Actually I get an A++ and a gold star.

And you know what?  I still got an A in his damn class by 0.15%.  Not such a failure after all.