familiarity doesn't equal healthy

as we grow older and hopefully wiser, we become aware of ourselves. we sense our tendencies and personalities. our weaknesses and our strengths become actual weaknesses and strengths, not just these "things" we'd heard of when filling out personality profiles or talking about in job interviews. 

the things we don't like (and are aware of) we hope to not repeat. the things that we do like (and are aware of) we hope to repeat. it's simple. what's not so simple is recognizing what is and what isn't good. often what comes in familiar clothing is not good for us. it's the sneaky stuff, the old habits that come in different boxes or wrappings that fool us into repeating behaviors. it's that simple adage that i repeat to myself: "just because it's familiar doesn't mean it's good for you" which breaks the trance. not recognizing the familiarity of a toxic element, a behavior pattern, a weakness, is where it begins for me: that slow-seeming descent into an emotional tempest set at mach IV that feels like a hangover from a frat party when the haze clears. these hangovers can last for days. for me, it's what i do to myself that can be so much more profound and debilitating than any outside drug or element. 

i learned about my familiar weakness shrouded in a familiar strength one morning about seven years ago after i awoke from a near-paralyzing dream that changed the course of my life. the content of the dream is on the docket to be detailed in the next Great American Novel that i aspire to write, but that doesn't matter here. the dream set in motion a journey into surgical self-awareness and psychotherapy that saved me, very likely my marriage and my children from living with Joan Crawford. 

it was in those first sessions where my therapist revealed to me that i was on a mission to destroy myself one thread at a time, due to a habit; a way of living that was so entrenched in my being, so very much a part of my daily operations that i had no awareness of its insidious nature. 


everyone has their predilections, their habits and the things that exploit their weaknesses and destroy their strengths. i used to be like the tasmanian devil. i was aware of this. i used to cry-laugh about how i would come into a situation and leave everything upside down and tables strewn about the room with papers flying everywhere. inside, i desperately wanted to be like a daisy in time-lapse photography. i wanted to be slower, to reveal myself slower, to engage instead of bulldoze, to listen instead of always insist i was right, to speak instead of shout, to Adagio instead of march. 


being Taz came from a primitive place: i wanted so desperately to be seen, heard, appreciated and understood as a child that as i "grew up," i never noticed others noticing me. i had to turn it up to eleven. always. i realize now, that when i enter a room and no one looks up, it's working; i'm beating my addiction.    


i come from a lineage of people with very strong habits. we are mostly irish. my great grandpeople were sledgehammer slamming, hard-driving brogue-slingers who helped build the New York railway. i dig that. my genetic family's stores of physical energy and mental prowess are a thing of beauty in theory. in practical life however it means we have enough energy to think and over think and think some more and stir up stuff, most of it irrational, because of our thinking and remembering. sometimes that thinking is good, sometimes it's not good.

i don't believe the eldest of my line were heavy drinkers. their work ethic was insane and coming to America during the industrial age only inspired them for further ambition. the drinking might have occurred with the later litters as perhaps being born in America softened the genetic drive and allowed for more idle time which of course gave us more time to y'know: think.       

in keeping with my irish tradition of having too much of a good thing, i learned through my psychotherapy after that dream that i have an addiction. of course i thought that was total bullshit. i saw brilliant members of my family succumb to alcoholism, gambling, smoking, drugs and over-thinking. because my days of collegial over-drinking were behind me, drugs didn't hold much appeal for me nor did cigarettes and gambling required my giving away money on a hunch (my friends and family know never to bet against me because when i'm willing to put money down on anything it's because i KNOW i am correct) so my diagnosis of having an addiction was complete crap because i was on a mission to be sober, fit, hard-working, active and engaging. y'know: eleven.


my so-called (whatever) addiction (right) could be only one thing, that i was a "thinker." the problem with only my brand of thinking is that eventually, the blood supply to feeling atrophies and it creates a whole other level of thinking, where the tasmanian devil reacts and reigns. the bloodline to feeling (self-awareness, emotions and physical awareness) needed to be open for me to heal. 


my drug of choice is a by-product of the thinking (i'll tell ya in a minute). it's free. it's available anywhere at all hours. you don't need to be a certain age to get some and you don't gain weight from it or lose brain cells from abusing it. you don't need a prescription. if you don't see any around, you just make it yourself. it's real easy: just lose your shit over the tiniest things. in fact, if you grew up with it, like i did, it's even easier to re-create it because you have some of its dust in your pocket or in some of the things you took from your parent's house to your house without awareness. objects have their own energy and they carry your memories and relationships with them, so if you have something around that came from a sad time, get rid of it or attach happy memories to it. i know this sounds crazy, but it's true.


my object of desire is Chaos. my therapist told me at the end of my first. session. ever. that i have a Chaos addiction. i have it right here in my notebook titled "Be The Daisy": "3.16.05: little surprise that i thrive in Chaos. love drama; need to step out of it. see how i create drama. 90% of actions are subconscious formed by patterns we endured / experienced as kids -- trick: to become AWARE and learn to avoid it." 


apparently since i moved out of my parent's place, i've had a bottle of Chaos on a shelf in every room of my house, including closets, bathrooms, the kitchen, workout areas and the shed. i have one in my car and i have a tiny one hanging from my key chain. i think there's an app for it on my cell phone (facebook). there's a little bottle in my purse. and i have a travel flask of Chaos for when i fly. it's FAA-approved.


most of the bottles are coated with a tell-tale layer of dust. the dust is a reminder to let the bottle, no matter where it is, gather more dust because that dust means i haven't picked it up, looked at it and wrenched off its cap or bitten off its cork to sip from it. i used to drink a case of Chaos a day for years before i started therapy. these bottles of Chaos are The One Thing in My World the cleaning ladies aren't allowed to make perfect. like a bottle of 100-yr-old scotch, you want dust on these bottles.


i just passed a bottle of Chaos on the way to get my therapy notebook. the bottle was sitting next to a crumb-covered dish my son left beside the computer keyboard. instantly i became irritated by the dish, felt my muscles prepare for battle, took in a deep breath to unleash my dragon and proclaim the broken rule (food near computer -- which wasn't really the problem, it was deeper than that: it was my feeling of insult from being unseen and disregarded) and demand correction. but i stopped myself, laughing inside at the irony of my near-collision with Chaos while in the process of writing about my addiction to it. i decided to let it go. i picked up the dish, nudged my son on the shoulder, gave the raised eyebrow, gestured the dish and he took it from me for prompt delivery to the kitchen. 


Chaos averted.


i'm not kidding: this shit's insidious. if it weren't for my awareness of my ability to lose my temper over little-seeming things (aka scars from my past), i'd never know about the Addiction to Chaos. it's because i grew up with it, was surrounded by it and trained by some of the world's finest Chaos fomenters that i became one myself. 


the opportunities for Chaos and (depending on the circumstances) its wingman, Ensuing Shame or Guilt or Personal Offense (which create their own Chaos in a family system) are everywhere: 

• be late for an appointment; 
• delay cooking dinner; 
• don't walk the dog; 
• put on a couple pounds; 
• sign up for too much / don't say no / don't delegate; 
• ignore the kids; 
• be offended when others are late; 
• have secret expectations; 
• distract yourself beyond ability to do anything predictable; 
• expect your friends to treat you the way you treat them; 
• fall behind on a project that no one knows about; 
• unleash venom disproportionate to the offense; 
• hold yourself up to unrealistic standards; 
• never allow personal mistakes; 
• give more in a relationship than you get; 
• have secret needs and expect people to understand your rage; 
• repeate old patterns of behavior with toxic people and expect them to change simply because you have. . . 

omigawd, it goes on and on. 


once the Chaos was outed, The Work began: i had to see patterns where it manifested and more importantly, where i created it if it were missing: 


Ooh, i like that chair where it is, and the table works just fine. the way the light hits the color on the walls in wonderful. what i think the room needs to feel more like home to me is my rage and Chaos: why didn't anyone ask me to help?!? you're all jerks.   


my relationship with Chaos had become so much a part of my fabric of being that if i didn't sense it, i would make it. imagine: a quiet library. it's peaceful, calm and the energy is silent industry. that made me insane; everyone was so content ... NOTICE ME! i loved the idea of reading. . .  but the chairs were uncomfortable. the lighting was wrong. why won't that kid shut up? why is that person looking at me? eww. this book smells like filth. what's that stain from? gross, there's a hair in this book. these people can't do anything right so i'm leaving. NOW. in my 2-ton SUV in a self-righteous rage over the hair in a book and i'm going to scour the county to buy my own copy of the book instead of borrow it for no cost and then get pissed at myself later for spending the money when i know finances are tight; but then i'll blame that on my husband for not keeping me more on my toes...


see? i'm a pro.


or this old one: everyone is sitting on the couch watching a movie. it's a nice moment. but i'm begging for a phone call from my toxic friend who needed me to tell her how screwed up she was and how often she repeated her patterns so we can have a fight and i can preach and vaunt all my anger at her. i recognize right now at this instant as i type that somewhere in me, i subconsciously wanted out of the Chaos, not the relationships. i knew the relationships were sickening for me because i would freak in order to create divide. i miss the people. but people are their habits and when people don't change, you're stuck until you're not anymore. 


i have another note: "I need to abandon before things become "pattern-istic" and they repeat and I get sucked in and I explode. Are the explosions what do me in? No. They are what feeds me and this food is toxic." imagine getting energy from an explosion... that's some bad shit.  talk about Schadenfreude. 


so you see, Chaos also showed up as a repeating pattern in my relationships with Certain Types of Women based on my nearly constant tempestuous relationship with my own mother: i was constantly giving more than getting which of course allowed me to get pissed. i would actually seek out women whose energy was similar to my mother's: deeply smart, invisible, unavailable, distracted (unaware) and angry women. i became friendly with women who were not healthy emotionally and in more than one, our relationships became competitions where i had to get out because i was acutely aware of my addiction: Everything About Them Allowed Me To Ignore Myself. if i stayed with them in their states of distraction and huge self-unawareness i was dead; i wouldn't work on me and i would allow the rage at them (me) to foment. but i had only an on/off switch; no dimmer. i didn't want to be dead. The Work was showing me there was so much more to life, so i created drama that let us hate each other and end it.   


AA has its mottoes: 

• One Day at a Time
• Live and Let Live
• Let Go and Let God
• Easy Does It 

my own subgroup, CA, has sentiments very similar to those that are required for awareness of my addiction. my mottoes are:  

• Continue To Do What You Always Do and You Will Absolutely Always Get What You Have Always Gotten
• You Get What You Give
• You Do, And It Is Done
• Change And You Will Change; and two personal favorites of mine based on the brilliance of two men my parents knew: 
• "You're Not Mad at What You're Mad At" -Father John J. O'Connor; and 
• "You Don't Have to Get Out of The Trouble You Don't Get Into."  -Howard Clother (my dad's boss) 

the recipe for success requires daily, no: hourly, no: constant awareness which will eventually lead to new neural pathways in your mind (that's another blog post altogether) of feeling your body assess, notice and react to something. if it's quiet: ENJOY it. really enjoy it. just one small opening of self-awareness coupled with turning left instead of right; or calling later away instead of right away; or saying yes instead of no... leaving 10 minutes early instead of later... repeat. these small things can create a whole new way of living.


"there is nothing like the relief of changing your course on something because you've admitted you've bitten off more than you can chew. you can always change course: delay, think on it, let it settle and come to you when it's ready. forcing anything never works: you end up exhausted and what you've forced is distorted."

that was a status on my facebook GrassOil page a couple weeks ago. i wrote it because i was stuck on something that just wasn't happening. it wouldn't materialize in the way i intended. so, true to form: i thought about it in other ways. i massaged it into another shape altogether. i took a deep breath, told my quads and shoulders to gear up, took a running start and slammed myself into it. i was trying to convince myself to do it anyway simply because i said i would. it simply wouldn't be. i became frustrated and angry and almost took down the bottle for a sip. i stared at it; i heard it mocking me. calling me... "wouldn't a little sip fix everything? just one. then you can forget about what you're trying to do and create a whole new problem somewhere else to fix or obsess over... c'mon..."

i still haven't done it. i'm ok with it because the dust is still on the bottle. if i did it, if i'd made myself do it or something else just as pointless, the bottle would be clean as a whistle and the cork would be missing. 

the simplest of adages is this regarding my Chaos Addiction: "change begins with me." 

thank you. 

perfect mother? no. not even close.

Yesterday in yoga, I got a gift. I didn't ask for it; it came to me. The preceding evening, I posted on my facebook walls (GrassOil and my personal wall) that day's events: 

"So it has been a long day. Thing 3 bumped his head hard enough today in P.E. to warrant an ambulance ride to Inova Peds Unit, which I will happily leave all my money when I die, for multiple tests, including CT scan, xray and EKG. He was released around 1pm with a favorable & cautious prognosis: no sign of concussion, but no stunts either. An hour ago, I was hugging him, gratefully, and he said, in his dry way, "Mom, it's late. You need to go now. Turn out my light and close my door." I guess he's better already."

The gift in yoga came from my teacher, who is also a fb friend and a physical, touchable friend offline, on the actual planet we share (I can't go there: "IRL / in real life" - to me, this is all real life).  She openly asked me how I was doing because she had read my status about Thing 3. Her knowing eyes bore through my façade of panache and I said, "OK, now." She explained to the other yoginis (this class is awesome, populated with all manner of women in all walks of life) my status and then paused, with a knowing and loving glance at me to close with, "Molly is the mother of three boys. It's a busy job." 

The women collectively, "ohhhh"d at my experience. Lovingly and without the fruitlessly competitive and dismissive, "been there done that" patronizing tone. They all visually hugged me and graced me with gentle smiles.  With a small smile, I hugged them back and said, "Yes, I am a mom of three boys. I'm a lucky girl" and I meant every freaking syllable of it. 

RANT: Being a word freak, I hate that "been there done that" and "it's all good" response that people make automatically toward other peoples' circumstances. It's so dismissive and isolating. I want to say and believe that people mean no harm, but I have also say, that most people mean absolutely nothing when they say it. In fact, they're saying, "I don't care. Don't tell me your freaking problems because they're not my problem."  In my personally invested mind I say, "No, actually, you haven't 'been there or done that' because you're not me. Your child is not my child. You are not in my shoes and it's not 'all good.' The fear or sadness I felt then, even though things are OK now, have stripped a layer from my confidence; have stolen minutes from the restful sleep I will have in years to come. That my son had to experience a CT-scan which apparently can create conditions where 1:1,200 children can develop some form of cancer is not really... 'been there done that' for you unless you're me and he's yours. Granted the sun can TV can do the same thing, but that's part of a regular existence.  And that 'it's all good' because he didn't have a concussion is really not 'all good.' The kid was terrified of this gigantic machine, so don't go dismissing me with your been there done that it's all good  bullshit. RANT OVER.

The gift was that my yoga teacher Saw Me. She gets me. She Knows What It's Like. 

That same day, I met with my therapist and she heard me recount this yoga experience and what happened with Thing 3.  She wrote down something.  I hate it when she does that. This post is the closest I'm likely going to come to a public indictment of my mother for her parenting style (which was very unique): she was a mix of Augusten Burrough's mother in "Running with Scissors"; "All in the Family's" Edith Bunker and "Roseanne"'s Roseanne.  My mother (who is still with us) suffered from some pretty heavy mental disorders (which were unknown about in the 1960s and 1970s) and her own screwed-up mom. While those disorders and her history do not absolve her of her special brand of caregiving because many of her flaws were avoidable, they help me recognize that her particular style of childrearing was not because of anything I did (this is something that I've only recently begun to accept).  As a result, my style of mothering has been to sorta wing it in reverse from what she did. While I made it and am here, there are parts of my person that are woefully undernurtured and as such, I am tuned to feel exquisitely inadequate, perfectionistic, insecure, snarky and defensive about any error, real or imaginary, I manifest.  To fight those urges requires vigilance.  What's even more ironic is that I am both at times gullible and distrustful, go figure. 

So, when someone Gets Me or Gets You, regardless of your maternal status, it's no small gift. They Get Us because they Too Have Lived Like We Have.  They know how hard we've worked to Just. Get. By.  

What my therapist ended up writing down was this: "She fears turning into her mother."  And that's why she earns the big bucks. That concept is nothing new: I'm sure many women reading this very word right now are guilty of desperately hoping they are not like their mothers. I feel I've cornered the market on that sentiment, but I know in some ways I am very very similar to my mother. It's the anger; anger from neglect as a child.   

this is my mom and me in 2008

Then, what my therapist said to me was this: "You Are Not Your Mother." I've suspected that but it doesn't mean I've quit trying.  Reversing the "be your mother" trend has been tantamount to a crusade for me; an all-out war against myself and my femininity. I am the only daughter in my family, and thus I am the most similar to my mother in my family.  For me to win this war, I became my anti-mother: tough, hard, self-neglectful, realistic, honest and true, stable, openly self-critical and vigilant.  Y'know what? It has been exhausting! 

We're all overcompensating for something... 

My war meant that I'm totally interested in health, exercise, laundry, cooking, playing with my kids and sorta neglecting mySelf.  I don't do the aforementioned with the intention that it pleases me, I do so in the spirit of service to my family because it was so lacking in the world where I grew up. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy the efforts, it's just that the motivation is skewed.  When I exercise, it's to stay fit for my family because my mother never did.  When I run myself ragged running errands it's because my mother didn't.  When I show up somewhere 15 minutes early to pick-up my kids, it's because my mother didn't and sometimes she didn't even show. Or when she did, she was altered.  When I am self-reliant it's because my mother wasn't.  The good news is that I'm finally am OK with what I've become despite it all.  And since beginning therapy, I've learned to loosen up a bit on myself and allow myself to be OK with just being OK.  I'm reading a book, The Emotionally Absent Mother: A Guide to Self-Healing and Getting the Love You Missed by Jasmin Lee Cori, which has been very helpful. 

In keeping with the inadequacy theme, I posted someone else's blog on my fb wall last night, "9 Quick Tips for Keeping Your Home Feeling Serene and Organized." It wasn't fiction.  A friend from high school, a great gal whose two younger children are close in age to mine commented, "I need to work on #9" (making your bed). She and I went back and forth for a couple rounds because I sense we both share the same space of trying to figure this stuff out: that a mess in the house means the kids are having fun (really? that's ok?); that dishes on the table mean the family has been fed (doesn't it also mean lazy?); that an unmade bed means someone had somewhere safe to sleep (not that they're getting back in it real soon?); that a dining room table covered with homework means minds are being challenged (not irresponsible from not cleaning up?)... OK whatever you say. (My inner anti-my-mother mother is cringing.) I've got to prepare for the cleaning ladies ...

I grew up with a fair amount of chaos -- our house was forever disheveled but for entirely different reasons than those cited above.  My mother seldom cleaned the house, our cleaning lady, Betty Sortino, did.  She was awesome.  She had tobaccoffee breath, jiggled her leg to rock me to sleep on my bed, shared her Hershey's bars with me, read me bedtime stories and taught me lyrics to "I Shot the Sheriff."  So, the optimistic proposal of a messy home being a happy home leaves me twisting my neck like a confused labrador retriever unless Hershey bar wrappers and Clapton are part of the picture.

Like me, my friend is a Stay At Home Mother (SAHM), which is a misnomer if I ever heard one. I am not a stay at home mother. We are a collective runerrandskeeptheenginerunningdashinforasecondtodropsomethingoffgoingtothemarketthekidsforgottheirhomeworkcanicallyoubackinanhourgottatakethekidstochesstennissoccerbasketballguitarorthodontistfillthetankdogneedsshotssodothecatsgethimtotutoringgottagotothedoctor --oh yeah, what about lunch and a potty break for me?-- mother. 

On the FB thread, my friend said someone she knows suggested that we SAHMs treat our SAHM-ness as a job: that we shower, dress as though for work, do our hair and apply make-up and all the rest, so that we will see our domestic experiences as ... Oh God, what is this the frigging 1950s?! Someone finish this sentence! I am stumped! Can this be true - a female recommended this?! I guess we're supposed to do even more to somehow bring more vapid value in what we're doing to look good when we're doing it even though we may be miserable or lost or battling the feeling that what we're doing is not good enough.  Hey, ladies, if you're gonna go to war with yourself, don'tcha wanna look great?! So the take-away is to lie: to look like we've been at the office all day even though we're not bringing in any extra money because clearly staying in our yoga pants with crazy hair in a ponytail is unacceptable. People can get fired for that.  My friend, like me, also tries to get her exercise in so any attempt at that means the hair and make-up has to wait and exercise for me happens when I make it because I'm not totally organized (in that way, I'm a carbon copy of my mom). 

I said to my friend, "I don't garden, clean, fold laundry, drive all over and workout in pleated khakis and pearls and a double-breasted jacket or workout in Anne Taylor" so, um, her friend's well-intentioned (and completely unrealistic) advice made me feel even more inadequate. I can't imagine a bigger waste of emotional energy, time and effort than to dress for success when you're just gonna go to the grocery store (although living in Fairfax County, I must admit I've seen it).  Maybe I'm wrong. 

  

I added that there are those of us who like to be with kids and are super domestic and eagerly play "tea party" or "army men" under the dining room table with the kiddos. As much as I love those -moments- I'll be honest: I never aspired to engage in them.  Does that make me a bad mother? I don't know.  I'm a big believer in a child's need to develop "independent play" as well as group play and by golly, if I'm gonna be playing, it better involve dice, cards and tokens and cash not tea cups, teddy bears or army men and sandboxes. 

A couple years ago I clipped a Daily OM meditation for the day called "Tending the Hearth."  It quells my nerves and helps me remember that what I'm doing --even if the house is a mess and the clothes are clean but not always put away-- is of value. It puts the brakes on my inner argument that I'm inadequate for the five minutes after I read it until something breaks or crashes and snaps me back to first-responder reality. 

A joke my friend once told me: "I was a great parent before I had children." 

Motherhood, parenthood, whateverhood is tough, regardless of your circumstances. Granted, I'm not a mother in Africa suffering from famine or disease, but stress is stress is stress. I'm not diminishing my stress if I honor the stress of my sisters in Africa. Even though I like my first-world existence, I'm not so sure an African mother would want my problems. Wayne Dyer once said, "you can never make anyone richer by making yourself poorer." I dig that; that's why I haven't given everything away. 

When you are a parent, your unrivaled unbridled love for your brood can only be equalled by the same degree of protection of your sanity and your precious wisftul recollections of the life you had Before Children. Nothing makes a mother or father crave the life they had Before Children than the screaming fights and unrelenting repetitive verbal waterboarding of an insistent 11-year-old child feigning illness and fever who wants to stay home from school because a test is on that day's docket. Nothing will make you second guess your decision to not put whiskey in your morning coffee sooner.

So am I a perfect mother? Hell no. But I'm trying to be less-than perfect. I'm figuring out that I'm doing OK and that book I mentioned above is telling me where I'm screwing up because I see where I'm repeating patterns I learned and observed.  I've also learned to appreciate the parts of my mom that are good because if I don't figure out some good things about her, I'm sorta screwing myself because I am 50% her.... I've become better about liking pink but I'm not a girly-girl and that's totally OK. 

No one's asking for advice, so I'll tell you what works for me: tend the sadness and sorrow from your childhood, allow it because it can't get better unless you honor it; don't dwell, but don't bury it. But if you're a parent, stay aware.  Read books, blogs (here's a blog, sorta sad, but it's clinical about unattentive parents) and learn.  Your kids will forgive you if you ask and honor on your commitment to them to make it up to them.  They won't however, ever trust you if you lie to them about it. Remember: their big brains have a ton of bandwidth and they've got memories like little elephants.  Do the best you can and be the best you can be. Put aside your fears of your inadequacies and remember you can learn a lot from your kids if you let yourself hear them. 

Kids didn't ask to be born into our baggage, our inner wrestlings and inner battles. They didn't say to God (or whatever you believe in), "Hey, gimme that really awesome person down there. Yeah, the one in the Porsche.  She looks like she's had no troubles or sadness. Oh, a person without disappointment, sadness or troubles doesn't exist? Oh. Well, how about that one? She looks soft." So by virtue of that, we must do our utter best by our children.  We must put down the phone, step away from the computer, be patient, be clear, be honest, express our needs, put down the drink, slow down the car, get out of bed, smile when we speak to them and be that person they know we can be.  Be that person they need us to be.  

this is my mom, me and my gramma in 1969.

If your person wasn't there for you to begin with, become the person You've Been Waiting For. 

Thank you. 

when you're five years old

when you're five years old, you don't know about tomorrow. you know that bump down in the sidewalk when you're in the wagon goes like this: ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum-DUM. 


when you're five years old, you know the path to the park like the back of your own hand. if you cared to learn about the back of your own hand, if you could see the skin beneath the dark gray, dried sparkly dirt. 


when you're five years old, you don't worry about an hour ago. you worry about whether Wyle E. Coyote will catch the Road Runner, big brother says so. 


when you're five years old, anyone over 4 feet tall, with clean hands and brushed hair is met with suspicion until they pick a better hiding spot than you. 


when you're five years old, you don't care about the president. you care about what's your dessert in your TV-dinner. will it be the apple turnover or the cherry pie? you also plan to eat that first because you know they'll make you eat your veggies first if they catch you.  


when you're five years old, you don't care about china. you care about what you'll be for halloween. and if old mrs. neill will give out pennies again instead of candy. you hate it when she does that, even though your parents say it's better than candy. 


when you're five years old, you see everyone's bellies before you see their faces. some bellies are big and you bump into them and others have belts, sashes, purses in front of them. 


when you're five years old, your hands are dirty, sticky sweaty, nimble and strong. they can make mud cakes with your eyes closed and top them with the poisonous red berries your mom told you not to eat. 


when you're five years old, you know which tree branches are the strong ones and which branches are not as strong. you know which branch to stand on for launching paper airplanes to get the best loft. 


when you're five years old, you don't go to school, you go to kindergarten and that's better than school. 


when you're five years old, snow is just like dirt except that it's cold, wet and clean.  snow-cold is never really cold and wet, red hands from soppy mittens don't feel bad until they come off.


when you're five years old, a glass of milk and a peanut butter and bacon sandwich tastes better than candy and you don't care for anything else for weeks. no, really, you don't. even if little brother makes a barfy face. 


when you're five years old, cleaning your room is stupid and under the bed is a secret hiding spot. oh! that's where your bear went! 


when you're five years old, brushing your teeth is boring so swishing your mouth with toothpaste works just as good. 


when you're five years old, ski wax is great for putting up posters. 


when you're five years old, any blank wall space is a canvas and people look like eggs and don't have bodies; their heads are their bodies and their arms come from where the ears are on other peoples' drawings.  


when you're five years old, a spoon is a shovel and a fork has too many points, so you push part of the fork against a wall to bend a point.  now it works.


when you're five years old, a tennis ball is big. throwing a tennis ball very far is hard.


when you're five years old, a cat's back is as high as your knees and picking them up takes all your muscles.


when you're five years old, the wind outside sounds like a monster. 


when you're five years old, crayons melt on the furnace vent.


when you're five years old, your Big Bird record player makes fun noises when you rub the needle against a washcloth.


when you're five years old, you can't reach the faucet, so you put your stomach on the counter and hold your breath to reach to turn on the water. 


when you're five years old, the attic is haunted and you don't like to pass by its door on your way to your bedroom. 


when you're five years old, a dress over pajamas is suitable for trips to the bank with dad.


when you're five years old, you hold everything with two hands and you stare at it if you're walking with it and it has water in it.  


when you're five years old, banisters are the quickest way downstairs for teddy bears in blankies. 


when you're five years old, the inside curve in the back staircase where you can't be seen from the top or the bottom is the best place to hide when you're gonna get in trouble. 


when you're five years old, bedtime is for tearing your favorite pages out of your Babar books and sleeping with them. 


when you're five years old, doing your own hair is mandatory. if you don't like your bangs, you just cut them and they are gone. and bangs can never be too short. even if mom disagrees.


when you're five years old, you have your front teeth, unless you lose them during a game of cops and robbers with your big brother when you slip and fall and have to rush to children's hospital to have them taken out. 


when you're five years old, tricycles are for babies. big wheels are for winners. health-tex vested pant-suits are The Best for meetings, mary janes are better than sneakers and speed rules. 

this is me when i was five. 

if you're not five years old, remember these things for your friends who are five years old. maybe they can remind you to loosen up, cut your own bangs and feel how cool it is to be a kid.