Daphne's back home

As you know, I adored my babies.  They were the sun and moon.  I wanted to spend every moment with them.  Bill and I fought every day on the way home from work because he wanted to stop and get the mail and I resented the extra 15 seconds away from my darlings.

But about the time they hit their teens, I developed a severe case of late-onset postpartum depression.  The symptom was an overwhelming desire to kill them.  It is not as uncommon as you might think.  I fought it successfully keeping my eye on the light at the end of the tunnel.  Until the time Daphne got pregnant at 17.  The light blinked out.  No emancipation for me.  Oh, the irony of realizing that if I had just given in to my urges I would probably be up for parole by now.  That not killing your children is the real life without parole.

So, I have been in a real funk lately.  The late-onset postpartum put me at high risk for its sister disease nonpartum depression.   Nonpartum depression is one of those diseases that no one talks about.   Unlike the empty nest syndrome, which is socially acceptable, nonpartum is considered unwomanly and shameful.  It is caused by the realization that no amount of rehab is going to get your kid out of your house.

1000 words, more or less

I had a conversation with a friend today that covered 30 years of lost contact.  It sent me searching for a photo I knew I had stored away.  My friend probably doesn’t remember the exact moment this picture was taken, although the date should be pretty obvious.  I am sure he didn’t realize his image was traveling much of the world over the last three decades. 

There are a lot of photos in my box.  I can't bear to throw away a picture, even of a person I don’t remember.   After all, at some point that person was important enough for me to want to record his or her existence in my life.  And of course, there is always the chance that one day I may have the same trouble recognizing myself. 

For me, digital images are not as personal as actual printed photos.  Being photoshopped out of a jpeg doesn’t make the me cringe the way I do when I think of my face being cut out of a picture and run through a shredder.  And the thought of being stored digitally on a hard drive somewhere is not at all the same as imaging paperdoll-sized versions of me living in shoe-boxes in closets, or tucked away in attics or even, dare I hope,  staring out from the walls of Debi Alkire shrines.

Some Days Just Aren't Funny

So Daphne left for detox/rehab.  I have no idea how long she will be gone.  This time was different.  I didn't take her, I didn't talk to the doctors, I didn't get phone numbers or the address to send letters.  I could not listen to ways to be a support system again.  I don't want to be.  I have been trying to hold that life together for nearly 23 years and it is falling apart again.  I have invested too much time and money.  I can live with my role in getting to this point - I did the best I could every day of her life.  I believe we have reached the point of diminishing returns.

Her life is her job now.

A Cry for Help

I work from home most days, going into the office two or three times a month.  That sounds great and it is, but there are some drawbacks.  The drawbacks are not inherent, but I am weak.  I have a friend who also works from home and she has all the self-discipline in the world. I know she has all mine. She gets up, works out, showers, gets dressed, goes to her home office and gets to it.  I sleep with my laptop so I can just roll over and power it up.

I am pretty sure shaving my legs was the first thing to go.  No one tells you that is the first step down a slippery slope.   Next thing I knew I was sleeping in my work clothes, or more accurately, working in my pajamas.  Then I realized there was a real energy saving opportunity here.   That's code for no showers.  Once I stopped washing my hair, well, brushing it seemed pretty silly. 

You are probably thinking my house must be spotless though.  Yeah, not so much.  I am also not ripped from working out, am not particularly well read and I don't spend hours visiting the elderly. My whites are gray, I don't sort my laundry and my sink is always full of dishes.  This blog is taking a lot out of me too.
 
But yesterday I went into the office.  I showered, washed my hair and got dressed.  We went out to lunch.  No one had on sweat pants.  Gosh, it was nice.  I cried all the way home.

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than That

Remember that scene from City Slickers when they each have to tell the best and the worst day of their lives?  It is not as easy as you might think.  My worst day I know without any thought and maybe one day I will share that with you.  But best day?  That is a lot harder.  Though I did think it strange when they disallowed "the day your kids were born" since that was "too easy".  I can only figure that was because they were men.  20 hours of drug-free labor would not be my best day in any universe.

I have had a lifetime of really great days that in an ordinary life would be the best day.  How to choose? I remember camping on the river with friends in high school and saying that even if someone would show up with a giant million dollar check I could not be happier than I was at that moment.  That was a great day.  I have had many, many days like that.  I have traveled, I have much better friends than I deserve, and a loving, if totally dysfunctional family, there were incredible happy days with my kids (more before, less lately), I  love my job and work with amazing people, and I have been deeply in love for a minute or two.

But the very best day, without any question, was front row, 45-yard line in Phoenix, Arizona, the day WVU beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.   I know you non-WVU fans are thinking, "Shallow", but you weren't there!  It was transcendental, happiness on an entirely different plane.  There was a woman near me pregnant with her first child and I pitied her for the let down the motherhood was going to be compared to that game.  Okay, a little shallow.

Of course, I have been chasing the dragon ever since, bowl game after disappointing bowl game, the curse of all WVU fans.  But it was worth it for that one joyful day.

The Trials of Fatherhood

I sat down with the grandkids a few days ago and watched some home movies of their mother as a baby.  Daphne was about a year old when Bill and I bought our first video camera.  The thing about home movies is that they really tell you a lot about yourself.  Here is what I observed.  I was a nut job.

At one point, I watched myself closely trying to figure out what I the heck I was doing.  Daphne was sitting on the floor, because, let's face it, she never did much more than sit at the floor at that age.  I was very close, almost hovering, but at the same time, kind of moving in a loose circle around her.  Then it hit me.  I was orbiting her!  She had very little mass but an enormous gravitational pull, at least on me. I know that Bill was a good  father, but clearly we were not on the same page about home movies.  Poor Bill was in a lose/lose position. He was either the cameraman or the one with the baby.

If he was the cameraman and shifted off Daphne for even a second I was on it.  I am sure at the time, I considered it a gentle reminder of our combined purpose in life of documenting every moment in our child's life. Now it sounds a lot like nagging.  If he was the one with Daphne the only thing I ever said was "You're in the way.  I can't see her."  And yet for some reason, this man wanted to have a second child with me!  I haven't had the guts to look at those movies yet.

Enabling - Just Another Way to Say I Love You

As I take a break from writing Cullen's book report to do some laundry, clean the kitchen, put my grand-kids to bed and write this blog, I remember a stress relieving exercise given to me long ago by some well-meaning therapist.  The exercise is to build in your mind your dream home. My dream home was a cottage on a cliff with a view of the ocean.  It was very small, with only one bedroom and a library.  There was a flower garden and a tiny yard.  One day it struck me that what were not there were my children.  I was all alone in the house.  Now my children were very young at the time and I still loved them obsessively.  But I am an introvert at heart and have not had a minute to myself for nearly 25 years.  It is starting to wear on me just a little bit.

I have no hope of ever getting my kids out of my house.  At some point they went from being the wind beneath my wings to the cement shoes on my feet.  My parenting principle was simple enough, figure out what my mother would do and do the opposite.  I was the Anti-Mom.  I completely forgot that my mom raised me, so she must have done something right.  I couldn't wait to get out of the house.  And if the speed at which my room was reclaimed for a younger sister is any indication, the feeling was mutual.

My daughter, on the other hand, has proclaimed her willingness to reside in my basement with her children forever.  My son, who is probably NOT going to get into a college, says all the right things about leaving but I have noticed a considerable lack of follow up on that talk.  So if we measure the success of the parent by the outcome of the child there are a lot worse things than being raised by my mother.  Apparently one of them is being raised by me.