leave it to beaver

what do you do when you have a traditionalist mindset with non-traditionalist circumstances?

for a kid who didn't watch tv much growing up, i have a very firmly implanted idealistic trope of what a "typical family home" is supposed to be.

i never watched leave it to beaver but i'm oh so familiar with the cookie cutter: mom, dad, boys, charming rancher on a quiet street, general shenannigans and tom-foolery ensue.

when i watch those types of shows one thing always stands out: how DONE everything is. the yard is landscaped. the living room furniture is a matching set. the house is all set up and DONE.

WHILE THEY'RE STILL RAISING YOUNG KIDS.

HOW?

i remember my dad telling me, YEARS ago, that setting up a house takes time. no one moves into their first apartment all ready to go. you start out with milk crates and assemble-it-yourself-furniture. over time you slowly replace the milk crates with a kitchen table and chairs. the press board furniture slowly becomes pieces that arrived in once piece- REAL furniture. you slowly hand down the hand me downs and get your own BRAND NEW couch (or several if you have furniture a.d.d. like me). 

THAT part i expected. but for some reason with my house it's different- i expect it to be finished. NOW. and i get endlessly frustrated at waiting to be able to afford different things.

what do you mean i have to PLAN to put in carpet? HOW MUCH is redoing the upstairs bathroom going to be? why can't i just PUT IN sprinklers? how much longer before the front deck actually falls apart before just threatening?

i feel embarrassed to have people over and i'm endlessly apologizing for the half finished state of things.

watch out for the back deck, it needs redone so there's not such big gaps.

sorry about the living room floor- best to keep your shoes on so you don't get a sliver.

oh, when you take a shower downstairs the hot is cold and the cold is hot.

when you lock the garage door you have to close it then push it back a little because it's leaning and not lined up right.

i know people say that when you're done with ALL your house projects it's time to move. and i know that as soon as you get the sink fixed the dishwasher goes on the fritz. OH, and the washing machine is leaking. OH, and the outlet upstairs quit working. OH, and the roof is at the end of life. OH, and the hot water heater needs replaced...

I GET IT.

i was up on the south hill this weekend, the "rich" section of town. there's BEAUTIFUL homes all owned by people my parents age. AND THEY WERE OUTSIDE WORKING ON PROJECTS.

so, what's my issue? why do i put so much pressure on myself to have everything done, barely 5 years after moving in, when people who have been in their home for 20+ years still have projects they're working on?

when am i going to learn to cut myself a little slack?

even growing up- it wasn't constant, but there were always projects being budgeted and waited on. the crappy sidewalk took several years to get around to replacing. at one point my mum ripped out all the flower beds and put in white rock. we built a storage shed in the back yard. re-tiled the bathroom shower. built a coat closet in the living room. added cabinets to the kitchen and cut in a dishwasher. redid some carpet/removed some carpet. switched from a pellet stove to a gas fire place. replaced washers and dryers. my own home growing up was never "finished."

in leave it to beaver or the brady bunch the kids are young and everything is already done. my mom bought her house when i was 9.

hell, even "newer" shows (showing my age now) like tool time or family matters or full house- the kids were all young but the house was already DONE. they already had the grown up furniture. they already had the fully equipped garage. all the pictures on the wall. the big back yard with a swing set and beautiful green grass.

and for some reason i think mine has to be.

i know i'm not a double parent household. i KNOW i'm not a double income household. i know that things take time and planning and budgeting. i now a complete bathroom remodel takes time. i know that installing carpet isn't cheap. i know that landscaping takes YEARS for the plants and the grass to fill in the way you want it to. i know that. I KNOW ALL THAT.

but i still struggle.

i often wonder when i'm going to be the gown up that i grew up with. 

when am i going to be able to take everyone out to a big family dinner? (uh, duh, your kids don't even have spouses yet, calm your tits.) when am i going to be the nice house on the block? when am i going to be the destination house with the big summer bbq's and people stopping by all the time?

and then i take a moment and LOOK at ward and june cleaver. look at mike and carol brady. tim and jill taylor.

they are not 35 with an 18 year old.

i started EARLY. i didn't have my 20's in college figuring things out and getting my shit together. i had my 20's with kids and making it up as i went.

maybe if i had waited until 27 or 30 to start having kid i would already have a house lined out and sorted. i would already have bought the furniture instead of diapers. i could have spent time landscaping instead of driving to practices and friends houses and school events.

don't get me wrong. NEITHER WAY IS WRONG.

i personally think waiting til you're older and more established to have kids is much, much smarter, but then i look at it and i woudn't have the energy now to keep up with them...maybe that's because they sucked out all my 20's energy. ha. six one way, half a dozen the other.

end of the day, second verse, same as the first: i just need to quit judging myself so harshly. give my self room to breathe and BE. i'm not *supposed* to be anything. i'm not supposed to have the perfect house. i'm not supposed to have the perfect decorating. i'm not supposed to have the perfect lawn. i can work towards those things. i can allow myself space and time and not feel like a failure for being perfectly normal. body, house, kids, whatever, i really need to learn to chill the fuck out and let myself just BE.

the mother's curse

i hope you have a child JUST. LIKE. YOU.

how many times do i remember my mom saying that?

guess what? i think they're both like me. but in very different ways.

last week the oldest spawn turned 18.

i'm officially the parent of an adult.

WHAT???

i still struggle with him. well, a one sided struggle anyway. he's still shutting me out.

i was talking to a good friend about how the kid and i have struggled over the years, where we're at now, and she laughed and said "are you sure it isn't because he's just like you?" or some version there-of.

she pointed out that he's wicked smart and very artistically gifted. later that same week, one of his grandparents echoed the same vein of thinking.

i'm some version of both those.

the oldest spawn also happens to be very opinionated, very outspoken, very passionate, and VERY stubborn.

well.

huh.

something about apples and trees.

then there's the "little" spawn.

"little" as in he looks me square in the eye now and long ago passed me in shoe size.

oy.

he's been on a campaign to get his ears pierced this summer.

after getting over my horribly sexist knee-jerk response of "...but that's for girls!" i asked WHY he's so hell bent on getting them pierced.

"because i'm tired of looking boring. i want to try something new and feel more like myself."

again with the apples and trees.

the small spawn and i had a discussion at the end of his counseling session a few weeks ago about why i push him so much to do certain things- meet new people, try new things even if you don't think you'll like it, go places even when you think you won't have fun.

spawn to counselor: why does she make me do things she won't even do?

me: BECAUSE I DON'T WANT YOU TO BE LIKE ME!

i see so much of myself in him- the not great parts. he already makes up other peoples minds for them. he already convinces himself of things before they've even happened. he talks himself out of things because he knows he won't have a good time or he won't like it.

HOLY CRAP GET OUT OF MY HEAD.

i could never ask that person out, i already know i'm not their type.

i shouldn't go to that concert, i won't have a good time.

i shouldn't hang out with that group of people, i won't fit in.



neither one of them may look like me, but holy crap are those my spawns.

so now the trick is: how do i teach them to cultivate and enhance the GOOD parts of me and recognize and mitigate the not so great parts?

who the fuck am i?

i'm having a medium to large identy crisis as of late.

i have these certain ideas in my head of what things are in relation to what they look like-

you know,

stereotypes.

you know what i mean? the hollywood casting sheet versions of people?

moms of teenager: middle aged, frumpy and tired with a boring neglected haircut and personal care routine.

moms of sports kid: sweater sets, khaki capris, mini-van full of sports gear and snack packs.

single mom: frazzled hot messes in yoga pants or painted up baby-daddy hunter.

country music fan: sleeveless tee shirt (or flannel shirts), home make jean shorts, dirty lifted 1980's rust bucket truck with rebel flag proudly displayed.

office manager: lumpy, middle aged, permed bowl cut, bargain discount suit, sad cat lady.

people with visible tattoos: bad ass artistic types or a member of a biker gang.

writer: obscure reference quoting, deeply intellectual, jacket with elbow patches, sipping camomile tea, glasses.

i am all of these, but i am none of these.

i don't know who or what the fuck i am.

how the fuck would hollywood cast me in a lifetime original movie?

i'm not a path forger. i'm not a trend setter. i'm not cutting edge ANYTHING.

maybe it's not so much an identity crisis it's more of a perception and acceptance crisis.

while sitting around the house this weekend like a slob, binge watching netflix parked on the couch after the kiddo headed to summer camp i started to wonder about what some of the other youth group kids have been saying to him, about how they perceive me and our home life.

he's been told a few times that he's living in an "unsafe and unhealthy household" because, from their religious standpoint, i'm not what a good mom "should" (fucking hate that word) be.

to some of the youth staff and youth group, a "good mom" is completely straight, married to a man, no tattoos, no cursing, no drinking, no piercings, "natural" colored hair, sunday morning, wednesday evening prayer group attending mom.

when they look at me, hell, when anyone looks at me, first appearance is anything BUT that.

i'm guessing (purely theoretical as no one has actually ever said anything to my face) when people look at me i can be a bit...intimidating? off putting?

i am not petite. at all. throw in a few visible tattoos, piercings, half shaved head, blue/purple hair...i joke that i'm totally fine walking around downtown any time because no one wants to mess with the plus sized tattooed chick. street kids don't ask me for cigarettes, people don't bump into me on busy streets, there's generally a pretty comfortable bubble that surrounds me wherever i go. 

my brother asked me after the last tattoo: who i was rebelling against and when i would stop?

i'm not a rebel. never have been.

i got my cartilage pierced in college 17 years ago because there was a girl that graduated with my brother (gennessee, super cool name) that was gorgeous and cool and she had one, so of course i needed one. i got my nose pierced after my divorce because it was something _i_ wanted to do and my divorce was all about getting away from someone that told me what i could and couldn't do.

ok. maybe a *bit* rebellious. more reclaiming identity than rebellion.

my tattoos are a version of story telling, not rebellion. they're pieces of me and what i believe and what i've been through. my hair- who the fuck knows. why not cut it and change it? i LOATHE looking in the mirror and seeing boring and frumpy. i work VERY hard to maintain my shallow, superficial appearance. always have. i suppose when you have a mother that only points out flaws you think that's all ANYONE can see and you desperately want to fix it. i don't want to be a lazy, people of walmart joke. i don't want to be known as the girl with the perpetual ponytail. i don't want to be the mom living in yoga pants and a sweatshirt. i want to look nice. i want to look well kept and polished. to me, in my super shallow vanity smurf mind set, having colored hair or a non-standard hair cut shows that i put time and attention into it. it's not the same ignored/neglected haircut from the last 100 years. it shows i'm trying. i keep up the color. i try stupidly hard to do a style every day. i make it a point to get a haircut or change when i find myself using alligator clips more than a few times a week.

BACK TO THE POINT. if i ever pretended to have one.

I LIKE ME. for the first time in a VERY long time, when i look in the mirror I LIKE ME. funny how shaving off 3/4 of your hair can change your self perspective so much. I LIKE MY FACE. like, REALLY like my face. for the first time i don't qualify what i see: oh, you look nice with your hair pulled up this way. oh, you look nice with your make up done. oh, you look nice...WHATEVER.

i keep waiting to look in the mirror and have my usual range of "yuk" to "well, this is as good as it gets" reaction, but it hasn't happened. I LIKE WHAT I SEE. i feel like myself for the first time in a LONG, LONG time. not to sound trite or cliche, but maybe for the first time ever. i like my face. i don't feel like a drag version of my brother. or a passable version of myself. I LIKE MY FACE.

but.

there always has to be a but.

i can't figure out how liking my face blends with the rest of me. and it's the dumbest fucking thing EVER.

can a person with this haircut wear western boots?

WHAT THE FUCK DOES HAIR HAVE TO DO WITH SHOES?

but do you know what i mean? can "edgy" and "hick" co-exist? bullshit like that?

how can i be all the things that i am but not BE any of the things i am?

the amazing women of my book club were very quick to call bullshit when i brought this up- they reminded me that punk rock got it start in bluegrass. i am woefully under-educated when it comes to things like the history of CBGB which stands for COUNTRY, BLUEGRASS, BLUES (*headdesk* moment). OF COURSE PUNK AND COUNTRY CAN GO TOGETHER.

i know, in my head, that for every stereotype there's a thousand people that break that stereotype. i know writers that don't live in a secluded cabin in the woods. i know other moms (even ones of teenagers, gasp) that aren't stuck in frumpyville. i know people with tattoos that aren't societal degenerates. i know stereotypes are as wrong as often as they're right.

i think i just need to get the fuck over myself. tell that little (huge) virgo voice that needs a crisp, clean, precise label on everything to just shut the fuck up already. quit fucking worrying about what other people see or think. THEY AREN'T THE ONES LISTENING TO MY THOUGHT SHIT STORM AT 3AM. and if i like myself and quit fighting myself, that shit storm gets so much quieter.

funny thing that, IF I LIKE MYSELF AND QUIT FIGHTING MYSELF MY SHIT STORM OF SELF HATE GETS QUIETER.

whoda thunk?

so, to wrap up, today's lesson? just fucking love yourself already.

i'll accept my award for captain obvious statement of the day now.

quit worrying about stereo types and what i think things *should* be. quit worrying about what people i've never even met think of me. quit trying to be what some article or google image search has tried to convince me i *should* be. stop analyzing myself to the millionth degree. stop with the lists and reasons other people should hate me. stop with the lists and reasons why _I_ should hate me. i don't have to be happy. i threw that in at first then realized that's putting a lot of pressure on myself. i can be healthy and not "happy," i can have off days and still self care. i can change my look and still like myself. i can gain/lose weight and still be ok. if i am or if i'm not someones expected idea THAT'S OK.

i just need to be healthy. i just need to keep liking me. just as i am (thanks bridgette jones).

i just want a hair cut...

i have stupidly thick hair. we've always had a hate-hate relationship.

there is ZERO risk of me going bald outside medical reasons or radioactive spider bites (was spiderman bald, or was it just his outfit? i know deadpool was bald...).

my hair has always been...something. let's take a trip back in time:

back when it was manageable

so long. so blonde. even a bit of curl

second grade. LOVED this haircut. mum HATED it.

5th grade: year of the glasses AND the bad perm

8th grade: the era of hot rollers.

senior pictures.

i can say i tried it at least?

YOU'RE WELCOME.

oh man. so many train wreck pictures. so hard to just choose a few.

but HAIR. i grew up in the era of apple pectin shampoo and conditioner by the gallon from shopko and mom would add water to the conditioner when it ran low to make sure to get all of it. we had ONE curling iron in the house...the kind with teeth that feathers as it curls (or snarls up so you're scared you're going to have to cut it out). i DID have a crimper. super 80's. but growing up my hair was...there. i guess. i tried to do things with it, but if i washed it, it was wet and frizzy ALL DAY. if i didn't wash it, it was greasy and limp. if i hot rolled it, i looked like a brunette version of annie. if i slept on pink sponge rollers...i can't even go back to that dark place.

hair has been hair.

i tried the 90's flip out style which did NOT work well with my OCD and need for perfection (that was a brutal drivers license). i've tried short, long, hilighted, permed, colored, natural...PURPLE even. i've tried layering, thinning, asymetrical cuts, the reverse mullet (long in the front, short in the back). i have blow driers, flat irons, curling irons, curling wands, curlers, hair brushes, bobby pins, banana clips, hair combs. i have studied every "how to" when it comes to beach waves and simple manageable styles, all to no avail. i couldn't rat my hair if you handed me a costco size white rain and the best ratting comb.

currently i'm stuck in this not long, but not short, but not straight, but won't hold a curl, always dry and flaky but still oily and gross with split ends purgatory.

so now i'm venturing into the unknown: pixie.

maybe.

if i can get over hating myself.

the sound track in my head sounds something like this right now:

listen fat ass, your face is approximately the size and shape of a water balloon that's about to burst. not to mention all the acne scaring. and, let's not forget, current acne. you KNOW that if you get a pixie, it will show ALL of that. you can't hide your family jowels behind hair when there is no hair.

you know fat girls look terrible in pixie cuts. ok. maybe not all fat girls, but YOU will.

you think you'll be able to manage it more when it's short? that's what you thought when it was long. it will be super easy to braid or twist or style and go! how did that work captain alligator clip? YEAH. QUEEN OF FRUMPYVILLE. that's right. you think short will be any easier? sure, it may dry faster, but you still don't know how to DO hair. it will still look like a hot train wreck mess. AND your fat face will stick out and look like a DOUBLE train wreck.

you can't pull off a pixie. that's for people with CUTE faces. not people that look like a twin to their older brother.

you can't pull off a pixie. that's for young girls.

you can't pull off a pixie. YOU JUST CAN'T.

and what about when you want to grow it out? WHAT THEN? DO YOU KNOW HOW AWKWARD IT WILL BE?

there's SO. MUCH. HATE in my brain hole right now that it makes tina fey scripts look cuddly and loving.

and the pictures. OH. MY. GOD. THE. PICTURES. i can't imagine anything to draw. i can't imagine pieces of art to create. i can't imagine what remodeling or rearranging my living room would look like, but HOLY SHIT CAN I PICTURE HOW BAD A PIXIE CUT WOULD LOOK.

i'm fully, 100% convinced that i will look like a gremlin and a light socket had a fat adult baby. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT.

the pictures in my head are TERRIFYING. it's like every bad selfie vacationed in Chernobyl then mistook deadpool's oxygen deprivation chamber for a tanning bed.

BUT I'M GOING TO DO IT ANYWAY.

life is too short. so what if i look terrible? it's happened before, it will happen again. and i'll have plenty of pictures to show grandkids in the future when they're living on mars in their space suits and don't have to worry about doing their hair.

i'm sure the self hate will be raging away all weekend and through the actual haircut on tuesday. but, you know what?

there's always hats.