enduring the assault

I don't know how it happens. Or maybe I do. My childhood. My early training in dysfunctional stress management. The subsequent addictive behaviors and their inevitable withdrawal symptoms. The melt-downs upon which this blog is named after.

My whole life has been punctuated and punctured with spectacular displays of grueling self-hatred that sometimes I share with you, like now, since I've been blind-sided again, and feel desperate for the reassurance that I am not alone, desperate to make something productive of my pain.

Hope has given way to hopelessness. Happy delusion has disintegrated into what? Panic. A yearning to check out, to hide under the covers for the rest of winter until I feel safe to show my face again.

desperado

Just spent a masturbatory hour reading my first blog posts from four years ago. And I've discovered a third reason why I blog, along with (1) exercising my writing muscle, and (2) working to bridge the gap between us by honestly depicting the human condition. Number three would be to survey the distance I've traveled on this path, a path that at the beginning was so fraught with sleeplessness, diapers and self-loathing I doubted I would emerge from it alive.

Hamish is starting first grade tomorrow. Since he and Stella were born I have said, when they're in school full-time, my life can begin again. Well guess what? It's been going on without me all this time. All the Pema Chodron podcasts in the world cannot jar me from living in the past or the future. Eckhart Tolle, come bitch-slap me, please.

what can I do?

My dear Hamish, my miracle of a human, my child. Is. Such. A. Fucking. Nag. I have no idea where he gets it from. 

His new thing is upon waking, he says, "I hate to bring this to you Mommy, but what can I do?" I tell him to get dressed and brush his teeth. No. That's too boring. He screeches, twists, writhes on the sofa that used to look so stately and clean before two years went by in a flash. I tell him to feed Don Pepe, the blood-clot of a fish we're fish-sitting for our neighbors who are abroad. 

day of service

I'm glad I finally get that Martin Luther King Day is a day of service.

Bryan and I were happy to head to a local school and help in whatever ways we could and bring the kids along to teach them that helping people in need is not only important, but it feels good too. The kids were excited to write their names on name tags they got to keep forever and to get T-shirts emblazoned with pictures of Martin Luther King and Barack Obama even though Stella refused to wear hers.