I Give Up

There are days where I just give up. I’m not what everyone wants me to be. I’m not what I expected of myself. Becoming a mom changed my life so drastically, so quickly, so devastatingly that I’m still, now merely adjusting to the ever-changing pattern that is my new life.

I watch other parents enjoying their children. Talking about their routines and how their kid sleeps through the night at 5 months. I look at my kid, food splattered, fussy, squirming. They see the bags under my eyes. They see the trouble I have catching my breath. Behind these tired eyes is a brain that has not stopped calculating things since it was awoken from its bare minimum level of sleep.  It’s risk analyzing, compromising, and falling short.

There are so many different things to measure up to today. My baby eats foods I didn’t mash myself, non-organic veggies and formula. That makes me a bad mom, right? My kid has “screen time” and I don’t always “engage” with her. That makes me a bad mom, right? I lose my temper when she’s been screaming for 30 minutes and I can't figure out why. That makes me a bad mom, right? I never cook anymore, my laundry is in baskets and not folded and put away, my house is a minefield of toys and random baby things. That makes me a lazy mom, right? I choose some days to nap with my child (who only gave me 4 hours of sleep the night before) instead of cleaning my house or doing the dishes. That makes me a lazy mom, right?

I watch my non-children friends go to bars, events and they still invite me. I almost always back out unless it’s kid friendly. Why? We don’t have any family near by. We have no form of “free” babysitting. Whatever event you’re inviting me to it may only be $20 to attend but you need to tack on $50-$60 for babysitting.  This addition pretty much prices me out of being able to go to your event. Plus add on the guilt of leaving my child and add on that I’m still somewhat breastfeeding (what I can produce) so I won’t drink. 

Social media is a joke. It’s not Mother’s Day unless you post about it. It’s not your anniversary unless you announce it. I see people doing cleanses, special diets and posting recipes. Half the time I’m eating some reheated crap over the kitchen sink while my child throws food at me and you want me to switch to Paleo? You think I should try this diet that requires I spend money I don’t have on products or only organic foods or only meat free from hormones? I don’t have time to boil veggies and mash them down into palatable food for my child but you think I have time to make a smoothie for myself ? Or meal prep? Or cook and eat only free range chicken on a bed of organic roasted vegetables? Those that do have diets that they actually stick to I applaud you. Right now if I get any food in my gullet I see it as a win. 

My other mom friends are battling their own routine issues or are working moms equally exhausted at the end of the day or are stay at home moms doing outings while I’m at work and unavailable once I’m free. Some moms seem so much more settled in life than me. They have careers and make decent money while I’m still struggling in the dirt rubbing my two pennies together.  Their children seem to make sense and are almost rational human beings. They have a bedtime routine that works. They don’t have the panic behind their eyes that I do.

There is this insane amount of pressure and new mom guilt. An over abundance of  “do this not that.” A weird amount of comparing one mom to another. This mom is already working out and running marathons. Maybe you should get off the couch. This mom still cooks dinner every night. Maybe you should time manage better. This mom doesn’t leave the house without her hair washed. Maybe you should get up earlier to clean yourself up. Good for those mom. Here’s what I’ve figured out: It’s okay to give up on what is “expected” of you.  To give up on your home looking perfect. To give up on friends that don’t understand the new stress you’re under. To give up on being anywhere on time.  To give up on pristine outfits. To give up on seeing the new releases in the theaters. To give up on being the perfect mother. There is no such thing. 

It’s not okay to give up on your kid or your path as a mother. There is no one correct way to raise a kid and no two kids are exactly alike. You go into parenting with the absolute best intentions and you somehow, someway make exceptions. Give up on whatever you need to so you can adjust your focus to what truly matters now: that screaming rebel child that wants you to pick her up.

First Mother's Day

I wasn't sure how this day was going to hit me. Would I be overcome with emotions? Would I be sad? Would I be happy? It was hard to tell. Mother's Day is a loaded phrase for me. Last year, when I was 5 months pregnant my husband tired to make it special for me. I was wracked with fear. I didn't believe I would get to meet this baby growing inside of me. I was certain this thing that I wanted so badly was going to be ripped away from me. I thought about my mother and tried in vain to remember what I did for her the last Mother's Day she was breathing.

On September 27th, 2015 at 22 minutes before midnight, Naneki came screaming out of me. I was so very happy I got to meet this little version of Tim and I. When I lost my mother at 13 to a slow leak brain aneurysm, I told myself if I ever had a girl I'd name her after my mom, Nancy who went by Naneki. Tim and I were told we couldn't have kids and after a year of attempting just that feat we were starting to believe our doctors.

Naneki's due date was September 26th. At first I didn't think much of this date. Then my older sister said "How great would if be if she was born on mom's birthday?" It took me a minute to register, to remember. My mom's birthday was September 27th, 1947. The day I went into labor, my father, who flew in from Hawaii, was actually in Seattle attending my uncle's memorial. My best friend, Francie was in Sacramento for a wedding and my Mother-in-Law was certain I'd be late and wasn't able to get out of work early to leave Boston. I knew. I knew she was going to come on my mother's birthday. It was just so cosmically obvious. I also knew it would be while everyone was out of town.

Here I sit, holding my 7.5 month old daughter, who has my mother's name, who was born on my mother's birthday and I can't help but feel grateful. Nene has not been an easy child. Not by a long shot. While perfectly and beautifully healthy, she has had a laundry list of issues. She fights sleep like she's some kind of opponent in a Rocky Balboa film. In the early months, her gas and acid reflux made her scream for hours on end. I was very scared to leave my house with her. Things have mellowed out a bit in the last month or so. She's developing like crazy crawling, pulling herself up to standing, experimenting with free standing and relying on balance. She talks, she mimics, she fake sneezes and coughs. She actually smiles and laughs these days. Something we didn't see much of in the few breaks from the screaming when she was a newborn.

My husband is in the kitchen making me breakfast. My dogs are nestled beside me. I hold my daughter tightly and all I feel is thankful. Life could be so much worse. While I don't have my mother physically with me anymore, I can look back on how she handled us 4 girls. I can pull from those memories and carry on those odd songs, those silly responses to questions and that loving attitude. I don't know if every Mother's Day I will feel this appreciative. I'm pleased that this year, my first year, I'm able to reflect and enjoy my trials and tribulations as a mom. Maybe next year I will be sad and remember my mom or I will be stressed out and missing the point. This year. This year, though. I am happy that I have had the opportunity to be mom to this squealing, screaming, laughing ball of me.

Happy Mother's Day to all you veteran moms, first time moms, short lived moms and grandmas. You're more important to someone than I think you'll ever realize.

Looks Like Rain

My mother had such faith that I would be a good mother. That I would be good at this thing called life. As I sit on my couch 27 weeks pregnant. As I struggle. My mom enters my thoughts a lot. She had four kids, all girls, all about three years apart. She had her first when she was 33 and didn't stop until she was 42. She died at 49.

Through most of my life, I've felt like I let her down. I'm the only one to leave Hawaii. I got an education and still only make $30K/year. I'm in my second marriage. I made horrible life decisions. I honestly never thought I would have a kid. In fact, until I was about 27 I never actually WANTED kids.

Yet here I am, life growing inside of me at a rapid rate. Three months to go, almost 7 months down. I rely on my mother, a lot. She's not here physically but I think about how she handled us girls, how we each managed to have her undivided attention at times, how she shaped us. It's really hard to wrap my head around the fact she won't meet her granddaughter. I do think, however, that she had her hand in all this. Naneki (Nancy in Hawaiian, which was my mother's name) is due a day before my mother's birthday.

Losing a Same-Sex Parent at a Young Age

“It's just like waking up,
In that second and a half,
The bliss of not remembering,
Before it all comes flooding back.” – Ben Folds

Yes, everyone dies. Yes, sometimes it is sudden. Yes, you are never prepared for it. At some point you lose someone you love, whether that someone is a friend, family or even a fur baby, it hurts and cuts deep and is so permanent.  

Here’s the part where my story may differ from some. I was 13 when I lost my mom. When you lose a parent as an adult you have memories to hold onto, you have a life. When you lose a parent as a teenager, pre-teen or child, you have scraps of memories. Little pieces you try to cling to and you hold on so tightly they tend to crumble to dust. Some days I can remember my mom’s laugh, other days her scent but most days, it’s a wash. I can tell you she dyed her hair a red-brown color and wore green contacts over light brown eyes. I can tell you she was a cardio queen and taught morning aerobics up until the day before she died. I can tell you she hated western medicine and doctors and believed in healing crystals which helped contribute to her downfall. I can tell you I loved her with all my heart. I can tell you it hurts everyday like a scab you can’t stop pick at and it festers and leaves a scar as a constant reminder. Some mornings I forget she’s gone, or that I’m grown up or that I grew up without her.

Most of the time I just feel guilty, because I don’t remember her, because I’m supposed to, because I hold a torch for someone I was only just beginning to know. My mother shaped me and molded me, even put me in the kiln but I wasn’t done yet, I wasn’t ready. I had just started puberty. I had no mother to walk me through hair and makeup, clothes and shaving, bras and tampons. Some people tried to help, but it was hard and there was pain in their eyes. My dad, tried, but he’s a man. If I ran out of deodorant or shaving cream he told me to use his. I spent one year of my teens smelling like Mennen without a bra and rarely shaven legs. I spent another year shaving everything including my stomach and chest because I didn’t know any better. My hair was a mess, my sense of style a disaster and it has taken me years YEARS to find the woman inside of me. To understand my looks, my skin tone, everything. Losing my mom meant losing my guidance and I had to feel my way through adolescence. My mother wasn’t there to tell me there’d be other boys or spend the night letting me vent with cookies and ice cream and movies. It was just me. I was angry for a long time. But it’s no one’s fault, there is no one to be angry at, my mother had a brain aneurysm. She had a blood bubble that slowly leaked into her brain. It amazes me how a little bit of blood can destroy a life, a family, a child.

Losing a same-sex parent at a young age means you don’t only lose your guidance, you don’t only live with guilt for not remembering, it means you also; don’t know how to respond or how to act. My husband told me at his father’s funeral, he didn’t cry and everyone thought this 11-year-old boy was brave. I didn’t cry at my mother’s funeral and everyone thought I was a heartless, cruel child. I’ve cried many tears for my mother over the years. What people don’t understand is as a child you have no coping mechanisms, you have no clue what you should be doing. You are in SHOCK. The gravity of the situation doesn’t hit you for YEARS. As a kid you barely understand your numbers and ABCs let alone death. Something so permanent, so absolute and final how can you expect a child to understand that? I cry at the drop of a hat, over anything, commercials, movies, breaking a glass, but my emotions are bewilderment even to me. I could mechanically tell you about how my mother died and what I had to do to survive without a tear in my eyes and usually with a smile because I know you’re just curious. My emotions have been severed and reattached and so they don’t work like you’d expect. You could be pouring your heart out and I will be dry eyed and supportive but maybe we could be shopping for clothes and I just start crying for no apparent reason. I never learned how to express correctly, how to be appropriate. My mom’s funeral showed me that people judge you constantly and it also showed me that it’s okay because I won’t force feelings, I’m me and that’s all I can be.

Today marks 15 years since my mom passed away. She’s been dead longer than I even had time with her. Each year the anniversary hits me a different way. Some years I completely forget, other years I am overjoyed thinking about the time I did have with her, some years it hits me hard and I can’t contain myself and other years I remember but am neither happy nor sad, it’s just another day. Losing a parent at a young age turns them into a ghost, they are a pale comparison to the person they were or we think they were. They are in your peripherals. They are misty and ambiguous. There are only so many pictures or videos to remind you of someone you can just see the outline of, like a mirage. When the pictures run out, when you've memorized them, when you look at yourself in the mirror and try to pull traits, there's not much more you can do. Some days I remember her voice and think I hear it in mine. Today, I remember everything, the way she clicked her tongue, the way she lost her temper, the way she danced, the way she laughed, her perfume, her outfits, her walk, everything. Tomorrow I might not be so lucky, best to hold on to today.  

Losing and Finding

My mother passed away July 26, 1997. She was 49.

It has been almost 15 years since my mother passed. The hole she left still gapes and bleeds. That’s a long time for anyone to go without the strong guidance and love of the woman who bore you. Over the years, I have collected woman. Strong women – physically, mentally and emotionally. I have looked to these women, not as a replacement for my mother though I often saddle them with the title of “Mom,” or “Ma.” I look to these women as my life. This is my way to show my appreciation for the women in my life who I could not bear to be without.

Throughout the years I have had many women come and go. The friends and family who have remained true in my life, who have at one point or another supported me, advised me, loved me and been on the other line of a distraught phone call; have steered me into becoming the happy, healthy, wonderful person I am today. The people I chose to surround myself with are the people that reflect not only myself but Nancy Adele Arciero, my mother. There will never be a replacement for her, ever. I remember how she was, how she'll always be. She was always smiling, she danced hula, taught aerobics, was involved in our schools, was a substitute teacher and could light up a room. For some people who knew her, she stood as their only true friend. Our house had an open door policy, as my house does now.

To name off every person and explain why I cling to these women would be misleading and dishonest to all of the accumulation of women who have guided and shaped me over the years. It’s not one, it’s ALL. There are the constant women who I interact with almost every day either through phone, email or in person. Then there are the woman who I want to interact with everyday, who I know I can call on if I need it, who offer advice when I ask, who have taken me in when I’ve fallen, who have helped me up when my life was a smear on a highway.  

If you are one of my closest confidants, if I tell you “I love you,” do not take it lightly, because I don’t. I cherish every moment bathing in the glow of a woman who is different than me, who has shown me another way, who has struggled and shared with me their past, their life and their misfortune. To the women who have listened to my stories without judgment, without reprimand, without “notes,” I thank you.

Losing a parent is never easy, for me, losing my mother was like being lost in the woods. I didn’t know which turn to take to get me home. The paths winded and curled and some were mere circles. I still don’t understand the finer points of make-up, hair, clothing, shoes and even my own feelings and self. I can tell anyone the stories of my life without shedding a tear. I am very good at detachment. Losing my mother set my life down a path I wasn’t ready for, as losing a parent does for anyone at any age. It was only because of the women I found to carry the torches at night that I was allowed to develop. They let me make a wrong turn and find comfort in their arms. They pushed and prodded and moved me in such profound ways that though I am still in the woods, I can see the forest for the trees and I have made a home in the wilderness. I have forged myself from fears and missteps; heartache and failure. Being lost in the woods is no longer a prison, it’s a choice.

My father will always be my best friend and my first love. However, being a woman is nothing like being a man. I am not a man, so I sought out those to teach me. You all have given me pieces of yourself. Little jigsaw puzzle pieces. I have used those pieces to fit and form and create a mother. A mother who is spread throughout the world, who comes from all backgrounds, all walks of life and all experiences.  Throughout the years it is my friends and family, MY WOMEN, who have given me back what I have lost almost 15 years ago. I can’t express my gratitude, but this was my attempt to do so.