Neither Here Nor There

I’ve realized that the older I get the more set in my ways I become.  I’d like to think there was a time when I rolled with whatever life threw at me, that I took life’s unexpected trials and tribulations with cool aplomb. 

Now?

Life changes tend to throw me into a twist.  This is not to be taken as: any change gets my blood pressure up.  No, I like change, I like variety.  I consider myself a life-long student of, well, everything.  My interests are many and if anything I struggle with being decisive. 

What I’m talking about are all the major life changes and transitions that have been occurring, and that continue to occur, with some regularity.

Just when I think things are settling down, falling into a rhythmic pattern … WHAM. 

I am a homebody at heart.  I love to get out, explore, socialize, experience, but I equally love being home, nurturing my space and psyche.

Having children throws any kind of “normalcy” out the window when it comes to a predictable life (this is a plus), so I suspect part of my craving for stability comes from the ups and downs of raising kids.

In addition, the toll that living in L.A. for nearly ten years took on me cannot be underestimated.  And now, I find myself pulled back to this place yet again.

L.A., for me, is like living in limbo.  In all my time here I never felt a connection to place, never felt a sense of home.  Were it not for our family of friends here, I may have very well gone off the deep end.  This place is sensory overload and it takes mere minutes “out there” for my blood pressure to tick steadily up.

Moving back to Grand Rapids was a shock on many levels.  I’d acclimated to L.A. life, and not in ways I want to model for my children.  People here rarely acknowledge one another; everyone is in a my-ass-is-on-fire hurry nearly all the time.  After awhile I found myself acquiescing, accepting this as normal.  

We lived in an apartment complex for seven years and knew the names of three of our neighbors.  Most wouldn’t make eye contact, let alone return a simple “hello.”  It took me two years to figure out that a classmate I took a photography course with back in Michigan lived in our complex.  When I approached her to (re)introduce myself, she was initially standoffish and rude.  Only after I quickly launched into my explanation (“you were in my Photo 1 course with Pete Taylor, remember?”) did she let her guard down a touch, and two minutes later was offering to make lunch plans with me (she moved out of the complex shortly after; we never did have lunch). 

It’s taken me awhile to shake off this mentality, to believe that people around me can be (and are) genuine on a daily basis. 

I mean no disrespect to the wonderful people who live in L.A., to the handful of people we came to know and love during our time here (in addition to all of our friends from film school that trickled out to “live the dream”).  For me, it’s more about the cumulative energy that exists in L.A.  I feel it, and it wears on me.  It seems everyone wears a protective barrier at all times, and finding a way through that is exhausting … not to mention frustrating.

So when Vinny got the call to work out here for several months, it was with a cautious heart that I agreed to come.  It’s what we need to do for our family right now, so really, there is no question, but it was extremely difficult to leave “home,” because for the first time in a long time, a place actually feels like home to me.

Most people don’t get this.  And it’s something I’ve tried to explain numerous times, usually to no avail.  Any of my writer friends know that the concept of home continually crops up in my work; it’s one of my obsessions (this originally stems from all the moving I did as a child).

Now that I have children, I want them to have a strong sense of home.  There were so many things we were looking forward to this fall/winter: celebrating Eli’s 2^nd birthday (today!) with friends and family, hosting Thanksgiving, experiencing our first Christmas together as a family in our new home, and experiencing Michigan’s Fall and Winter among them. 

We will surely make memories out here in L.A., and I am thankful that we have such a solid foundation of friends here; they truly are part of our extended family.  But I can’t deny that this particular transition has been difficult, and that on some days I am not being my best self.  Between the travel, Eli being sick, stubborn adjustments to the time change, and just a general sense of “where the hell are we,” the kids have also been struggling.

The other day, after taking Eli to the pediatrician and getting drops for his ears, I set upon the task of administering said drops.  I was wary, unsure of how he would respond.  In true Eli fashion he took it in stride, even seemed to enjoy getting “bubbles” in his ears.  He now asks for them, points to his ears several times a day wondering if it’s time for his bubbles.

He once again reminds me to slow down, take a breath, and take it all in stride.  He reminds me that just because we’re here it doesn’t mean our life is on hold until we get back home.  We already call the apartment here home because it’s where we all are.  Together.  Even though my mind tries to make it more complicated than that, it really is that simple.   

Bink Be Gone

It was time. 

Eli is nearly two, and from my perspective, has an unhealthy addiction to his bink (aka pacifier, or as Eli calls it, his “B”).  We’ve cut back his use to nap and nighttime.  Even so, I feel like he’s at the age to give it up.

How to go about it?  And when?

I struggled with these same questions when it came to potty training.  From a practical standpoint, it makes the most sense to undertake these challenges when there aren’t any other major changes going on in our lives. 

However, the last year has seen: Vinny getting a job in Detroit (meaning a temporary move from L.A. to Detroit), me getting pregnant, buying a house (one of the most stressful experiences I’ve ever endured), going back to L.A. after Vinny’s show was done, giving birth to Sophie, moving cross-country seven weeks later (finally, to our house in Grand Rapids), and now, Vinny is back in L.A. for work with us to follow him there shortly (another temporary move).  I can’t remember another time in my life when there has been so much upheaval/transition/change in such a short span of time.

Thankfully, kids are resilient.  Eli, for the most part, has been an absolute trooper through all of these adventures, and just this last week has officially moved out of pull-ups at night and is in training pants full-time.  I’m not one to brag about my kids, but this little guy is awesome.  He surprises me in wonderful ways at every turn, always catching on and adapting to any given situation much better than I would expect.

I’d been figuring I would wait until we follow and join Vinny out in L.A. before attempting Project Bink Removal.  Eli’s been a bit clingy and moody since Vinny left (understandable), and the bink seems to be a source of familiarity and comfort for him. 

But then yesterday we got back from my parent’s place right at naptime.  Eli had fallen asleep in the car, and was groggy as I took him up to bed.  It struck me as the perfect time to simply not give him his bink.  As I laid him down he looked up and said, “B?”  I shook my head no and told him to cuddle with his frog and his night-night (what he calls his burp cloth, what he’s always clutched and kneaded instead of a regular blanket).

He didn’t have the energy to protest.  It felt like a huge victory.

Then came bedtime.  I figured this would be more challenging and it was, barely.  He didn’t get upset, or fuss, or whine.  He kept asking, “B?”  And I kept saying no, telling him he didn’t need it anymore.  Today at naptime he asked for it once and that was it.

The whole thing could have gone much worse. 

But it didn’t.  So I wonder, again, if we are the ones that make these hurdles so difficult.  Here I was, so worried that Eli was going to be upset, inconsolable, that he’d cry, throw a fit, etc.  I worried that taking away a source of comfort was going to disrupt his sleep, and he’s been such an amazing sleeper that I am afraid of messing with the equation.  To top it all off, I always worry that he won't handle one more change on top of all the other changes that are occurring.  I assume at some point he will hit his limit.

Instead, he’s fine.  Like everything else, he just rolls along with it. 

Having children teaches me profound lessons all the time, something I am very grateful for.  I’m not sure at what point in life we make the shift, and often come to expect the worst outcome in any given scenario. 

I don’t consider myself particularly negative.  But instead of thinking that the bink extraction would go without a hitch, I had built myself up to expect that any/all of these horrible outcomes may occur.  Of course I’m relieved that things have gone much smoother than expected, and I think that expecting any given situation to go without a hitch is a bit unrealistic.  However, I do feel foolish in that I allow myself to waste time and energy building something up to be bigger than it needs to be. 

Instead, I could have told myself: pick a time and let’s just see how it goes.  Ultimately, that’s exactly what I did … I just need to get better at skipping over the rather unhelpful internal conversation that takes place before arriving at that point.

Lesson in this case?  Do, don’t think. 

Sad to Know Happy

I was talking to a good friend the other day and she mentioned she was thinking about having a baby.  She had questions, and I assumed they were going to be of the “what is it like to be pregnant, give birth, etc.” variety.  But no.

She wondered how my relationship with Vinny changed once we had a baby.  If we were ever able to carve out time just for us.  And I have to say, these are excellent questions, questions that perhaps people do not ponder enough before having children.

I don’t think anyone is naïve enough to think their relationship with their partner won’t change once they have a child.  But I do think, in all the excitement that comes with potential parenthood, that this topic is often forgotten about altogether.

This is something I thought about often before getting pregnant.  I treasured my pre-baby time with Vinny, the freedom we had to do what we wanted, when we wanted … or even better, to do nothing at all.  Lazy days were our favorite, as were spur-of-the-moment camping trips we took on occasion.  These things are not so easily accomplished (if at all) with a little babe (or two) in the house. 

I found out I was pregnant with Eli at my acupuncturist’s office.  I was late, she knew we weren’t being careful, and she was as giddy as I was, insisting I do a pee test in her office.  The line on the strip test I took was indiscernible to my eye, I wasn’t convinced it was positive at all, but she jumped up and down, “You’re pregnant!  Girl, you’re pregnant!” 

Then you go into shock.  On the drive home I was overwhelmed by 100 different emotions.  The one that took me by surprise was the sadness that flooded in.  Even on that first day, in all the shock and happiness and awe, I already felt sadness for my relationship with Vinny.  I knew at that moment that our lives would never be the same, and that I was going to have to let go of the way our relationship was to move into what it was about to become.

I’ve rarely shared this experience.  The few times I have I’ve been met with either a brush-off, “of course your lives are going to change, duh,” kind of response, or, even worse, a look of concern (not for me, mind you, but because I was experiencing an emotion that wasn’t pure happiness).

I’ve never regretted our decision to have children, but I also think it would be foolish to ignore the feelings I had, to not allow myself to grieve the relationship (as it was) ending to become something different. 

The relationship has become something different, something better.  Seeing my partner as a father has only reinforced all the reasons I love him in the first place.  And seeing him love our children so wholly and purely has made me fall in love with him more deeply, something I didn’t necessarily think was possible before we embarked on this adventure (and a true, unexpected bonus).

There are still moments when I feel sadness for what once was.  But we do find time together, however fleeting.  And we both look forward to taking the kids on new adventures with us, soon. 

When someone asks me a question like this, I don’t hold back.  I have no qualms about being honest.  Choosing to become a parent is one of the biggest decisions you can ever make.  Once it happens, there’s no going back. 

Did I chastise myself a little that day in the car, moments after learning I was pregnant and feeling sadness?  Yes, I did.  I had that “what is wrong with me,” moment, wondered why my brain had to go there in the midst of something so thrilling, but then let it wander there all the same.  I was pregnant, dammit.  My emotions and hormones were already making me a blubbering mess, and I have learned so many times over that when I feel something I need to let myself feel it.  Quashing my instinctual responses only serves to make me less pleasant down the road. 

When I became pregnant with Sophie, there was again shock, thrill, happiness … and sadness.  This time, it wasn’t for what I was losing with Vinny, but with Eli.  I knew the time to give him my undivided attention was drawing to an end, and he is an incredibly fun child to hang out with.  He still is, but the dynamic has certainly shifted since Sophie was born, as is to be expected.

I’ve come to learn that when my mind knows it can’t “go back” to how things were before, especially when I am happy with the way things are, there is always a bump in the road.  It’s generally a large bump, and it just takes me awhile to figure out how to get over it.  What’s on the other side is worth the journey, but I’ve realized it’s okay to take my time getting there.