So Now What?

When the day finally arrived, it felt just as tense as any other day. But at exactly 4:01pm, my mom sent me a text that consisted of an explosion of random emoticons: a rainbow, a smiling face with tears, a dolphin, some confetti, a bouquet of bright flowers, a glittery heart, a smiling sun, another dolphin…Another text soon followed, declaring that she & dad has bought a chocolate mousse cake (their favorite) and a bottle of wine and informing me that I was expected to celebrate with them.

Meanwhile, in the basement space directly below my dining room table workspace, I swear I could hear my husband expelling a very long sigh of relief, even though he would not really talk about it that evening, would enjoy no cheesecake (my favorite), would make no toasts (in fact, I had already cancelled our winc subscription & and our adorable puppy had chewed the cord of our wine cooler, ending its life quite abruptly).

My children remained oblivious to what had occurred, as they wandered the world of Minecraft…

At 4:01PM on Friday, October 16th, I was no longer a full time teacher. I was, as stated in the paperwork, “released.” The days up until that point had been stressful, tense, exhausting; they were “regular” days of teaching during a pandemic. I barely slept, I over-thought, I over-prepared, I only nibbled at food (and certainly not at the right times), and the more I devoted to grading, the less progress I seemed to make.

At 4:01PM, I had “signed off” but I continued working. In fact, I continued to work - on and off - throughout the weekend. In hindsight I still cannot decide whether that is funny or disturbing. I did not allow myself to Netflix binge watch or take a nap or work on my “Women of Star Trek” puzzle. Instead, I felt obligated to assess as many lingering (late) assignments and enter as many grades as I could. On Monday, I got up at the “normal” time, took the dog out, came back in to wake up the kids, grabbed a mug of coffee and sat down at the head of the table. I attempted to plug in one more grade on a very late assignment that a student had “met” with me to work on earlier last week, only to discover that I could not longer log in to the electronic gradebook. I was angry. I tried to log in again. Third time’s a charm? Finally, I cupped my mug with both hands. It felt warm. The coffee was still hot. I leaned back in my chair, slowly sipped, and kept turning around the same thought around in my head:

So now what?

Ration

That coffee still ended up cold and unfinished on the dining room table. “Mom, can I have another waffle?” That was the needle scratch on the broken record that was my paralyzing, fearful thought. It was 8:03 and I still had a job, one that I had committed to taking on full time. I went over to the breakfast bar and smiled at Leo: “Sure, you can have another waffle…if that is really what you want…” Adima chimed in: “Leo, mom is trying to tell you that you should not have a second waffle because if you do, there will be one less waffle tomorrow and then you and I will run out of waffles and then there will be none left and we will be sad so that is why the word of the week is ‘ration’, which means to mind how much you eat.” Leo: “Oh. But what if I have one and I cut it in half?” Adima: “Hey Leo, that’s a great idea. You can have one half and I can have the other.” This may seem like it was a magical moment, one that perhaps is bringing a tear to your eye. Just know that the word of the week soon became the word of the month and that both kiddos would not be able to resist the draw of the frozen waffle, whether homestyle, buttermilk, or whole wheat. And I must admit that I struggled to apply the word, ration, to my daily existence, particularly when it came to who and what I gave my time to.

Stuffie, I Release You

For a brief period of time, I felt kind of awkward about having been replaced so quickly. The new hire was “onboarded” within a couple of weeks and I was outta there. But I soon realized that I, too, would be replacing someone…sort of. Leo Lion had served as my son’s designated “stuffie” buddy to whom he was to turn to in times of need during class. At specific times, his teacher would ask her students to go get their stuffie in order to engage in intellectual discussions about answers to questions as varied as: “what kind of ‘how to’ book should I write?” or “what kinds of shapes do you see in my room?” or “can a shooting star fall on someone?” or even challenging queries like, “what is something proactive that I can do today?”

Well, I am sure Leo Lion meant well and I know that he provided a lot of cuddle support but I am clearly more qualified to assume the position of Leo’s buddy. However, I am proud to state that as much as I wanted to gently elbow that lion off of Leo’s work desk, I decided to keep him around for “cuddle support.” His lion’s mane is uber soft. And to be honest, Leo and I really like that little guy. When we read books, he still occasionally grabs the lion, who for some reason is dressed in swim trunks, and whispers to him for help when he pretends to not know how to pronounce a word. Whoever claimed that three’s a crowd?

Jigsawing: Puzzling Over My Post-Job Identity

Over the 15 or so years I worked as an educator of various titles - tutor, assistant professor, visiting assistant professor, instructor, teacher - there are so many things I wished I had had the time to not just “do” or “get done. I wanted to explore, enjoy, immerse myself in order to eventually become “well learned” in something that interested me.

I have always sought balance and from that, I felt that a genuine sense of growth would follow. But my job (whatever it was) seemed to always surround and envelop me. I know, now, that much of that was my doing. It got to a point where I was so stressed that I started to forget what even interested me in the first place! If someone were to ask me, at a party perhaps, what I like to do for fun, I would have been screwed. Luckily, I did not attend parties (another sign of imbalance).

But honestly, there is one activity that I have always enjoyed over the years, since my girlhood summer days at Oma & Opa’s house. I love working on jigsaw puzzles. My first memories of puzzles are from my summer vacations with my maternal grandparents in Emden, Germany back in the 1980’s. In their cozy living room, I discovered Ravensburger 1000+ piece puzzles that depicted country landscapes and flower gardens. I remember how much I loved the smell of the box and the pieces. I would spend hours on those puzzles in near silence, except for the quite imposing grandfather clock that would tick each second and gong each half hour.

Fast forward to 21st century Maplewood, New Jersey. I’m seated at the cedar table in the dining room. The box & the pieces don’t quite have the same smell and the sounds certainly are different. My dog is chewing on a piece of elk antler or my kids’ squeals of minecraft joy press down from the ceiling or the bumble bee like buzzing of my husband’s flight simulator vibrates up through the hardwood floors.

My husband finds it inconceivable that working to find one particular irregularly shaped piece among hundreds (sometimes more than a thousand) to wedge into a specific spot is something that calms me and brings me pleasure. Somehow, working on a 1500 piece puzzle at the end of a long day has always relaxed me, repositioning my thoughts away from work. But it is still something for me to work at - a task, something for me to complete. I feel a drive to finish it and god forbid if there ends up being a piece missing!

Ironically, now that my primary job is to be a good mother, I no longer work on puzzles. Perhaps I somehow feel guilty doing so, while my husband toils in his basement office.. Perhaps it is because I now see it as a diversion, as something I can get “caught up” in for hours, a form of procrastination. I now think: Shouldn’t I be doing some other work? Shouldn’t I be taking a course to learn a new skill? Shouldn’t I be seeking a part-time job? Shouldn’t I be giving my small business idea another try? Shouldn’t I be writing and figuring out who I am now?

It is only now, as I struggle to write this piece, that I realize that my avoidance of the jigsaw puzzle in my post-job moment reveals a lot about who I am. I am someone who is afraid to relax “too much” for “too long.” I am someone who, for some reason, feels this intense need to be useful and productive on a “serious” level so that I can be perceived as responsible and respected. To work on the puzzle now (when, ironically, I have more time to do so) is to be lazy and selfish. I often wonder if I am the only person who lives her life this way but regardless, I know that I want (and need) to make a shift.

The prospect of setting aside some time every day to puzzle and that being okay — this is what I think will bring me closer to realizing who I am and who I can be. My husband actually says that he enjoys watching me play (although he feels absolutely no impulse to join in). He tells me that I wear a slight smile as I lean over the table and scan or organize similarly colored pieces into piles. Whenever a find a home for a piece, I have this habit of kind of slamming into place, like when certain folks bang down a domino. As I get to the more challenging parts of puzzling (fitting in pieces of sky or shadow or grass), with each singular victory, I sometimes take a sip of wine or some sweet cocktail that is often nearby. On those nights, I reach my stopping point once the glass is empty.

Now that I am no longer working a job, I feel, well, puzzled. There is some space now but I don’t know how to fill it. I just know that I crave a better balance. It’s about doing the scary things in order to piece together my own potential. For me, the scary thing is to dump all of the pieces onto my table and start sorting things out…and to take my time.

“Swimquest” was my Mindfulness

There is something sweet and sort of intimate about my six-year-old son holding onto the shoulder and arm of his swim instructor. He holds on for support; he holds on cause he trusts him (which took a couple of lessons) and there is a vulnerability at the same as there is a kind of affection. The man is funny, charming. He found Leo’s funny bone. He makes Leo forget about the fact that Leo is in four feet of water and is putting his head under that water over and over again (something that still kinda makes this 44 year old nervous).

I wonder at my response to seeing my son clasping onto the side of this man, a stranger really, who Leo obviously likes but who is not his father. Part of me wants my husband to be the one in the water…

And then I feel bad about feeling that way.

Meanwhile, in the next lane, sweet almost-thirteen-years-old Adima is smiling and laughing and probably not fully realizing she is slightly infatuatedwith her swim instructor, a nice looking young man who is kind and patient.

And the mom in me struggles with the images of him gently touching her arm as he guides it or re-positions it to show her the proper stroke formation (or whatever). During one lesson, picking up on her playful obsession with jumping & diving, he picked her up in the water and flung her into the air. She was beaming and laughing afterwards: “that was so much fun!” And I was feeling a bit of heat at the back of my neck.

But mostly, I sit in the plastic Adirondack chair during lessons and I feel calm, relaxed. I barely touch my phone. The pure joy that my kids experience in the water, it ends up washing over me and I experience a kind of mindful meditative state. It is unlike anything I am able to achieve at home when I lie in bed in the dark room, listening to an Australian man talk about how the part of me that overthinks just needs to focus on this one thing: breathing in and breathing out…

It’s too bad that each 10 week session now (in our pandemic moment) costs over 1k for each child. As the big red digital clock glows 11:28, I take the last two minutes to once again log into my checking account to stare at my remaining balance. Pure joy for my kids and mindfulness for me: how much is it worth? Maybe I can sell my car…

My Glass (well, it’s actually a water bottle) is 3/4 Full!

Now that I no longer work a job (although I will continue to emphasize that, as a SAHM, I work hard), I see my glass as more than half full. And I am mildly embarrassed to admit that I have mostly been a “glass half empty” person. But that is changing. My glass is actually a stainless steel 20 ounce Contigo water bottle that I decided to fill only 3/4 of the way (more on that in a bit). So the Contigo starts out on my nightstand and first travels downstairs with me a little before 7am. From there, it ends up at various locations over the course of the day. It might rest next to the little chair that I sit in (off screen, of course) next to Leo’s desk during parts of his virtual school day. It may end up precariously positioned on the narrow window sill in the living room, right next to the faux leather chair that I settle into to read. It shakes and rattles slightly, here and there, in the cup holder of the treadmill as I grunt my way through a “too brief” 20 minute 4.5mph run at only a slight incline. And in the evenings, it often ends up sharing space with the ridiculous number of remote controls that dominate the small ottoman in the family room. I like that spot for it, as I can’t seem to miss it as I watch TV and feel the temptation to gulp down some juice or perhaps a glass of wine. The Contigo is there, when I reach to press the mute button during commercials or flip channels. And so I take a few more sips…

Why 3/4 full? Well, I have always struggled to meet the daily minimum of 64 ounces of water per day (and I’m still not there now) so I am trying to psych myself out by always filling it not quite to the top. For some reason, I am more likely to empty the bottle that way. And then I refill it, eyeballing it to the 3/4 full mark. It has become symbolic of a new approach that I am trying out. I always put pressure on myself to finish things. For example, I am a notorious list maker. I have been known to sometimes make lists of lists (figure that one out). I have been over-ambitious with these lists to say the least; suffice it to say, I have rarely checked off all of the boxes at the end of the day and when I have come close to doing so, I usually add a couple more tasks that I “forgot” to make note of that morning. The long and short of it is is this: I am a self-saboteur. And I need to chill out with the lists and the all or nothing approach. Good grief. So this is why I stick to 3/4 full and it feels pretty good so far because my water intake is increasing.

Honestly, there are only two other times when I drank so much water per day on a consistent basis and those two occasions were when I was pregnant. In fact, in a dusty storage room at 321 Bergen Street in Newark, there is probably an equally dusty 128 ounce BPA free water jug amongst stacks of novels and anthologies with a warning scribbled on it: DO NOT DRINK! For Baby. Thanks. I remember, joyfully now, the days of incessant sipping (sometimes gulping) because I knew my history with dehydration (I once ended up in the ER because of it) and was concerned about putting my baby at risk.

Water. Something I somehow convinced myself I didn’t have time for or perhaps, if I am honest with myself, I often “forgot”to drink it. And let’s face it: if you are young person of some degree of privilege (as in you have easy access to clean water) and have so many other options, water often seems…boring. And as an adult, particularly after entering the public Education sector, my water intake would suffer for another reason. Anyone who is (or was) a teacher might know what I am referring to. Like so manyteachers, I often taught back to back classes with only a 2 or 3 minute passing period. And my classroom was usually located as far from the female restroom as possible. I recall days when I would make the long journey (picture of many scenes from The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings) only to discover that the door was locked or that there was a line or - gasp, there was no more toilet paper and/or hand soap. But I digress…I do remember one of my colleagues - a dear friend - and how, based on our schedules, we would often cover for each other by watching the other’s class when our bladders were in emergency mode. She drank a lot of coffee and I loved my homemade fruit smoothies. Need I say more?

But here I am now, at home, with access to a working bathroom on every floor (putting one in the attic was hands down our greatest improvement of this house). I am spoiled and so, clearly, my water bottle is more than half full. And I although I often still misplace it (just as I do my cell phone), my searches for it only seems to make me thirstier.