Category Archives: therapy in session

What it feels like to grieve

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I miss my mom. I miss my dad too. Both of them gone in less than one year. I learned in this past year, and more acutely, in the past month, that to grieve is to isolate yourself. We are each alone in our grief.

It’s a cliche but I did not realize that your heart can actually hurt from missing someone so much. Wishing so much.

It’s the wishing that hurts. Wishing so hard that your entire being start to contract, to collapse upon itself. A hole forms. The wishing does not stop and you are turned inside out. 

You have no control over when the fact hits you: when you’re waiting for the red light to turn; when you are standing on the checkout line at the store; when you’re walking to the subway station. When the waves of profound sadness hits you, you need to pause to take a breath. It’s a different kind of sadness, different from the kind that makes you cry. It’s deep like the ocean.

No, let me try again.

It’s like when you get hit by a giant wave and you go under the water. For a split second, it feels like you’re enveloped in a vacuum. Your descent soundless. The absolute quietness around you almost calming. For that split second, your eyes are wide open and you can see clearly. And you think to yourself, “I’m ok.” Then, you gasp for air.

 

 

 

Y’all are getting a piece of my mind when I am 80

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One of my most popular posts was dated from 2012, “With all due respect, I am fucking scared of getting old“. It has struck a nerve and attracted comments from folks who feel helpless against the relentless forward march of time and, I suspect, the world’s time-honored obsession with and worship of youth.

Almost five years later, I can’t say the same any more since the time has arrived, I’d say by whatever objective, social standards, people of my age would be labeled as “old”. It’s more like “I am fucking scared of being found out how old I am” and all the judgements that I could expect. My long, purple hair for one.

A couple of years ago a small boy yelled out as he threw a ball to a smaller boy standing near me, “Hey, dummy, tell that old lady to watch out.”

What? What lady? Old? I’m not vain or unrealistic. For the last twenty years my mirror seems to have reflected — correctly — a woman getting older, not a woman old.  Grace Paley, Just As I Thought (1999)

Right on.

The other night though it dawned on me that when I am 80, or maybe even as early as 70, I will no longer have to worry about what others think of me. I can say whatever the heck I want. For starters, I will be able to tell people in real life about this blog and my Twitter account, if I feel like it. I can do whatever I want (to the extent that my joints will allow me). I can finally be free… to be me. 

This revelation is liberating. I am now looking forward to getting old. 

When I am 80, I will be “cute” and “adorable” instead of “trying too hard”. I can proclaim with confidence, like Betty White, “I am a teenager trapped in an old body.” I am giddy at the prospect of giving people a piece of my mind. Or two. I am giddy at the prospect of living for myself, for once for fuck’s sake. 

Of course my dastardly fast-working mind is already chastising me for having to wait until then. Why can’t you be you now? What’s wrong with you?

STFU mind. If it were that easy I would have done so a long time ago. This is called hope. HOPE.

Until then.

 

Et tu, Brute?

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I am in mourning.

Yes, once again I am taking things that have absolutely nothing to do with me personally. Very personally.

I was being naive.

I just thought that geeks would be different.

Brains over beauty, right?

It is not even beauty per se. It’s youth that we are competing against.

In the end, you can’t fight youth.

Well, you can, literally, if you are Simon Pegg and his merry band of old school chums in the movie “The World’s End”.

As much as I laughed at the slapsticks in this movie starring my favorite duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and my favorite reluctant detective/doctor, Martin Freeman, I now think of Pegg’s character as a Shakespearean fool. One of those tragi-comic figures who in his outrageous conduct and verbosity states the truth that nobody wants to admit.

To make it brief, Gary King (played by Pegg) peaked in high school, and he’s been behaving the same ever since, driving the same car, wearing the same long black trench coat, listening to the same mixtape, while his high school buddies moved on and over their high school glory days. It was hilarious and at moments, endearing, to watch Gary trying to hold on to the residual of their shared youth.But it also made me wince.

Gary was the King back then. A real badass. In high school. We all know how that turned out: you graduate, you get a real job, you move on. Life happens. Reality sets in. Welcome to the real, fucking, world. We all did it. We moved on.

Gary though is different. He is committed. He’s been forestalling the march of time in his own way – you know, the car, the clothing, the hair, the mixtape. He refuses to “move on”.

Is this pathetic or heroic?

I winced because I could relate to Gary and I probably should not have admitted to that. In life, it’s always the former. Only in movies and in literature would we have been convinced of the latter.

 

It is something to do with death and time and age. Simply: I am eighteen in my mind I am eighteen and if I do nothing if I stand still nothing will change I will be eighteen always. For always. Time will stop. I’ll never die.

Nadie Smith, NW: A Novel

 

 

CODA:

[SPOILER ALERT. PLEASE STOP READING IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE AND YOU PLAN TO.]

 

 

To be honest, now that I’ve been chewing on this movie over and over in my mind, the ending of the movie depresses the heck out of me. Not because it portrayed a post-apocalyptic world… No. In fact, during the last scene of the movie, I felt happy for Gary – here he is, leader of the five musketeers. King again finally. He looked so truly fulfilled in the final freeze frame, his eyes glistening with excitement and purpose.

I find it depressing exactly because of this: that the ONLY thing that enabled Gary to defy the rules of growing up/old was literally the end of the world, that it will require a deux ex machina (an alien invasion for example) to stop life from turning into a long, drawn-out requiem for youth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Losing

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I have lost 30 lbs. since last summer.

There. I said it.

I don’t know why I have been feeling too embarrassed to tell you this. I feel guilty. What’s with all the “you are beautiful the way you are” “girl power” blah blah rah rah Dove marketing speeches I tend to meander into. I did not come clean earlier because I am worried that you will somehow be mad. Somehow it feels like I have committed betrayal.

It all started last May when they were getting a Weight Watcher group together at work. Have I told you that my office has 500+ people and most of them are young and female, above-average-looking and most importantly, thin? It took a llllooooonnnnngggggg time to get 15 people (the minimum for a WW group leader to come onsite) to sign up. I thought, “Why not? I have nothing to lose [ha ha].” I was lucky that the WW method of counting points turned out to work for me. It was difficult in the beginning of course considering how an ounce of vodka is 5 points and I had only 29 points per day to spend. What saved me was the “rule” that all vegetables and fruits count as zero point and therefore I filled myself up with apples and bananas in the morning and ate a lot of grapes throughout the day. At night I ate a lot of egg whites and fish which I loved.

I eventually got a hang of it: counting points forced me to become aware of everything that went into my mouth. [Stop giggling, you pervs!] I learned to make mental trade-offs: “Do I want to have this piece of cheap cookie now or do I want a shot of vodka later?”  I started eating healthier with less carb and smaller portions without going hungry and found myself with lots more energy. When we left for Taiwan last August to visit my family I’d lost about 15 lbs.

I was excited to be home even more because I thought that my family would notice my weight loss and would, you know, say something nice.

What was I thinking?

I tried to brush off the usual comments about my “American” size –  These comments were laid upon me by everybody, I mean, EVERYBODY, sometimes even strangers (grandmothers with good intentions lest I lose my husband due to my not keeping myself in good shape…) every time I went home. you’d thought by then I’d gotten used to them.

Pardon the cliche, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was when a female relative greeted me with this line, “Come let me see how much fatter you are since the last time I saw you.” It sounds a lot worse in English. In Chinese, it could be interpreted as a good-humored tease, showing affection and familiarity. But what the fuck? I’d lost 15 lbs before I came home. How much thinner do I have to be to make you people happy?!

The thing about teasing by your Chinese family is that you cannot get upset. If you do, people will be offended that you cannot take a joke, and that somehow is a sign of poor upbringing.

“You bring dishonor to your family.” <– Ok. That was a joke.

I gritted my teeth and smiled while she spun me around.  As soon as she’s done “inspecting” me, I immediately accused myself so I could rush to the bathroom and quietly sob behind the door.

Usually I give up easily. I don’t ever remember myself being the type of people that turn rejection into a motivating force.

“You don’t like me? Fine. I will just crawl into a dark corner and die. Take THAT!”

Something clicked however last summer as I sat wide awake in our hotel room at dawn while the kids were still sound asleep. [Btw, THANK GOD for kids that do not suffer jet lags!] I started taking full advantage of the decked out gym and spa at W Taipei. I was on the machine for an hour in the morning. I went back to the machine for another hour in the evening, sometimes after midnight because I resented those beautiful people that were frolicking in the bar area surrounding the beautiful swimming pool. [I know this does not make any sense at all. Just work with me…]

Maybe that’s what did it. The 10 days of serious workout regiment kicked off some weird biological thing inside my body. Long story short, instead of gaining weight from stuffing myself with all the awesome food that I had missed (I was not going to let those people stop me from eating. Hell no! Carb or no carb!) I ended up shedding more lbs during the trip.

I will be honest even though I fear I sound like a hypocrite: I do like looking at my pictures more now. They look more like what I’ve imagined myself to look like all along. [Yes, I will also confess that I am a Narcissist.  So there!] Instead of deleting every single picture with me in it, I will do that to only 80% of them. Yes, possibly I have also become more vain: without telling people back home that I have lost weight, I started posting pictures of myself on Facebook. An actual announcement and especially the explanation of how would equal defeat in my mind, an admission that they have somehow won. Also, deep down I fear that some of them would probably have said, “Oh, you’ve lost weight? I did not notice. How much did you lose?…”

I was hoping that people would get the idea.

Oh no you didn't

I hope you regret it now because I was cute before and now I am just fucking gorgeous.

 

 

What was I thinking, really?

My mom called tonight.

“So and so was showing me your pictures from Face Book. She said that you seem to have lost a lot of weight. I said, ‘Nooo. Did she? Nah.’ Did you? You didn’t right? You look the same to me.”

I shut my eyes tightly and took a deep breath.

I said nothing.

Nothing.

 

Note to self: Always bring Kleenex

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I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. Maybe for once it’s really not me that’s at fault. Maybe it’s The 2012 Best American Short Stories collection that I have been reading. I have cried suddenly and uncontrollably over several passages. None of them were overtly sentimental. Certainly for a collection of this caliber you would not expect a blatant tearjerker. Melodramas are considered to be uncouth and frown upon. Perhaps it’s the understatement, the deliberate nonchalance that tricked me into reacting to them so violently on a subconscious level. An unadorned sentence described in passing the disjointed human interactions plainly yet accurately so much so that I had to pause to feel it inside the hollow of my body. I caught my breath as I caught the profound sadness.

Then, while she is sitting on the toilet, she sinks into the special sorrow of peeing while your mother is out cold on the floor next to you.

She dreams vividly, then can’t call up the dreams on waking, but carries through the day their emotional tone, an echo from the blackout chasm of Darlyn’s free fall. She can hear her soft scream as she tumbles down again and again. This is the harrowing/fabulous form in which love has come to her.

From “The Last Speaker of the Language” by Carol Anshaw, originally appeared in New Ohio Review, which you could read here.

And then the tears came.

The tears came unrelentingly. They flowed with little effort and I was amazed at how much water was stored behind my eyes. The gentle, continuous flow made me wonder whether I was indeed crying. I sat there, with tears falling in silence, until I was caught by an urge to just give in.

Let it out. I said to myself. Just bawl your eyes out. Fling yourself on the bed and bury your face into a pillow. You know, the way you cried when you were a kid. When you broke your favorite porcelain doll that played Für Elise when you wound the knob on the bottom. Or when you came home from school after yet another day of nobody making eye contact. Or when you missed your parents while you were staying at a relative’s house and your cousin was being a brat and was mean to you.

When was the last day I had a good cry like that I don’t even remember.

I had not anticipated the tears as I opened up my Kindle after the plane took off. Something caught on the edge of my neurosis I guess and I simply came undone. At first I ignored the tears and wiped them away surreptitiously with my fingers. Again and again. I stopped reading and closed my eye, willing the deluge to stop. Still the tears continued. I wanted to stay away from clichés such as broken faucet, waterfall, fire hose, but really these would be the most effective way of making you understand the trouble I was having, sitting on a packed plane.

I tilted my head towards the window and angled my body away from the person next to me, worrying that the telltale movement of wiping my face with the heels of my palms would give me away. I soon discovered that not wanting to cry on a plane is very much like not wanting to cough in a movie theatre: Alas, your needing to control it somehow only makes the urge uncontrollable and worse.

Next I was heaving for air. My shoulders trembled. My chest rose and fell. My hands moved like windshield wipers.

I hope nobody notices what a mess I am.

On the other hand, I was wishing someone would have handed me a Kleenex.

I would have started bawling. So it’s probably good that nobody did.

How to Rock [Fake] the 20s [Out]

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Maybe it is because the release of the movie trailer for The Great Gatsby (2013) starring the Titanic “I am the king of the World” guy, the roaring twenties is certainly a popular theme for holiday parties this year. Based on the limited sample size of three, I confess: Two of the company parties (in different offices) I was fortunately enough to be invited to were of “The Roaring Twenties” and “Speakeasy” themes. And the hotel we will happen to be staying in on New Year’s Eve also will be a roaring twenties party.

So here is a tutorial on how to rock the 20s…

#1. Be white.

Ok, I am being facetious.

#1. Don’t tell your co-workers at a retro theme party that as a matter of fact if we were in THE era, you would not have been allowed to be in the same room as they, unless you were working as a waitress.

Hey, just want to get it out of the way.

 

#2. If you are a gentleman, wear your 3-piece suit and a gangster hat (i.e. expensive-looking fedora). You are done! See the gentleman in the picture who’s pointing his gun at me. Pretty sure he did not even have to dress up for his gangster acting gig.

#3. If you have short hair, wear a pretty elastic beaded headband the “wrong” way. Find any earrings that are dramatic and preferably in the Art Deco style (or, in fact, any geometrical shape will do. i.e. no hoop earrings…) at your local Marshalls and T.J.Maxx. If you have medium to long hair, you could be all professional actress-y and do the Finger Waves or Pin Curls. Or you could be lazy practical and tie your hair in a pony tail, tuck the tail inside the hair above the elastic band, stick 100 pins to keep the tucked hair in place and call it a day. See the crazy wombat on the right in the picture.

#4. You don’t need a dress strictly in the 20s style. Something with a simple silhouette will do. The key, I found out accidentally after the effect, is to have a nice, classy shawl.

#5. Take advantage of the fact that women did not know about “F* Me Heels” back then and spare your feet on the dance floor. Wear low heels with t-straps or some Mary Janes also look right for the occasion. I ended up with these.

#6. Scour your local second-hand stores for a beaded purse. I got mine for $12.

#7. Costume long black gloves, $8. Costume cigarette holder, $2. Going all out in lalaland, priceless.

 

#8. Take advantage of this opportunity to try out the “smokey eyes” makeup techniques from YouTube. Don’t fall asleep while watching this lady taking frigging 20 minutes to do her eyes and then think that you could just wing it. Don’t even attempt to draw in your eyebrows. Unless you have had practice before, let’s just stay away from the eyebrows. I don’t care if women in the 20s had strong eyebrows. If only we all looked like Louise Brooks and her amazing eyebrows!

#9. Make peace with your eyebrows.

#10. Perhaps you should consider getting enough sleep so the black circles under your eyes will not become augmented the night of the party and conveniently blend in nicely with the smokey eye look and turn it into a rabid raccoon look. Or, if you are Chinese like I am, it would be a nice panda look.

  Ta da!

 

 

 

 

#11. When you walk into the second party and immediately realize that you and your date are the only two people who actually dress up for the theme, don’t panic.

#12. Charm the actors hired to be a gangster and a British Constable (yes, do ignore the fact that there is a British Bobby at a Speakeay party) so greatly that they grabbed you as soon as you walked in the door to have pictures taken with you, not with your camera. While you are at it,  become simpatico with the actresses/flappers because of your awesome Louise Brooks choker.

#13. Yes, it’s ok to let the gangster kiss you on the cheek as he points his gun at you. (What you gonna do about it anyway?)

#14. When someone you know upon recognizing you actually bursts out laughing, and instead of approaching to say hi and telling you how awesome you are for having the guts, turns in another direction, stay cool.

#15. Make belief that you and your date are at some random bar surrounded by strangers (which may as well be the case, the part about “being surrounded by strangers”). The only difference is — Everything is FREE! Have more fun than everybody else around you.

That’s the best revenge of all: happiness. Nothing drives people crazier than seeing someone having a good fucking laugh. — Chuck Palahniuk

 

 

And finally, as always, channel Louise Brooks wherever you are.

 

For two extraordinary years I have been working on it – learning to write – but mostly learning how to tell the truth. At first it is quite impossible. You make yourself better than anybody, then worse than anybody, and when you finally come to see you are “like” everybody – that is the bitterest blow of all to the ego. But in the end it is only the truth, no matter how ugly or shameful, that is right, that fits together, that makes real people, and strangely enough – beauty…

— Louise Brooks on writing a memoir

 

How to Suck at Tipping

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I know that I suffer from a severe case of liberal guilt and that’s why I don’t think I can truly relax in places where there is a clear demarcation, often times physically, between the privileged and the underprivileged. You can accuse me of being a hypocrite if you want. I would not know how to defend myself. So there. 

I am in Shanghai now on a business trip. I never feel truly comfortable when I am in China because people mistake me easily for a local (I can fake a Beijing accent when speaking Chinese vs. my natural, Taiwanese-accented Mandarin Chinese) and yet they could tell that there is something off about me. They’d ask me where I am from. When I explained that I grew up in Taiwan and now live in the US, inevitably there would be lots of questions about the comparisons between Taiwan and China, the US and China, and the topic always leads to, uncomfortably at least for me, how I have a much better life.

“You went to good school.” They’d conclude with regret or longing or something in their voice, if the person I’m speaking to is from outside of the upper-middle class.

The hotel I am staying in provides massage services until 2 am. It sounded like an awesome idea: travelers with jet lags will LOVE to be able to get a massage when they have trouble going to bed anyway. So I called the extension and booked a 60-minute acupressure massage session in my room.

“So where are you from?” My masseuse asked as she tried to figure out in which direction I should lie on the bed. I was still confused because she had come in with nothing. Where’s the oil? The lotion? The blanket? The towel?

“Taiwan? Wow. It must be a lot nicer over there.” I tried to deflect the conversation by suggesting that people love coming to China nowadays because of the opportunities.

“More opportunities?”

“Yeah, you know. More land. More people…” My voice trailed off as I backed myself into a corner. Sure enough, she told me that she’s not from here. “We came from [another province].” Instinctively, I understood that she’d meant “we, the masseuses working at this hotel”. She was here, like many other migrant workers from rural China, by herself leaving behind two children and aging parents.

She told me about the farms back home, how before she got married at 23 she was already considered to be an old spinster, how massages were unheard of because god forbid if the neighbors got wind that either you got a massage from a man or you gave a man a massage.

She said that she wished she could visit Taiwan some day. I suggested jokingly that perhaps she should visit other places before Taiwan if she ever has a chance. “But when will I have a chance to visit another country? It costs so much!” I simply forgot how much it costs to travel, to fly on an airplane overseas. My plane tickets to Shanghai cost almost $2000 USD, which translates roughly into 4 months of her wages if she works every single day.

Finally came the question I dreaded the most, “How much are you paid over in the US?” (Yes, people do ask you this question sometimes.)

I gave a lame response of how salaries may be higher in the US but our costs of living are higher and also we have to pay more taxes. Lots more. She didn’t seem to mind my not answering her question.

“I am paid 100 yuan a day. I did so many massages today but I will still get 100 yuan.”

I was surprised. And embarrassed somehow. In my panic, I also wished that I had pretended to speak no Chinese. Then I felt extremely guilty and ashamed of myself.

“You know, you are smart [why’s she so sure of that?] and you went to good school [ibid]. Me? I don’t know how to do anything. No skills. No brains.” She said, matter-of- factly.

Fortunately for me our conversation veered off when she got to my derrière. She said jokingly, “You look so thin but oh your [backside] is so big!” I was not offended the least because I was so relieved.

“Hey. That’s what they call Son-bearing hip, ok? All the grandmothers loved me when I was young. They know I’d be popping out boy babies.”

“Oh, my butt is huge too.”

We bonded over son-bearing hips. And thick thighs. Yes, once I turned to lie on my back, she was surprised by how “there is no meat on your face”. She proceeded to wonder out loud how it’s possible that I could have such thick thighs since my arms and my mid region looked great. I wanted to hug her for the compliments. These were sincere and not backhanded at all.

By the end of the session, I had determined to give her a great tip even though tipping is a complex matter in China. Yes, hotel workers cater to Westerners may have come to expect tips, most Chinese are not accustomed to it. Some people actually resent the thought that “foreigners are training workers in China to expect tips from all”.

“I don’t have the exact change. How about you bring these to them and keep the change. Will they let you keep the change?”

She looked utterly confused. “Don’t you have exact change?”

“No. I am sorry. That’s what I meant though: go downstairs with the money, and keep the change. If I give you these bills, will the change go to you at all?”

“Oh no. No. They’ll never give me the change.”

“Ok, here’s what you are going to do: Give them the bills. Tell them I asked you to bring the change up to me. But then just go home.”

Now she looked scared. “They may catch me leaving with the money… I will bring the money to your room.”

As she hurried out, it dawned on me that this might not have been the best idea because what was I trying to prove? What was I trying to do to this poor woman so I could feel better about myself?

A knock on my door.

“Hi. Good evening. Here’s your change back.” Standing there, holding out the money was not my masseuse but a better-dressed, more cosmopolitan-looking young woman.

Somehow I was not surprised. Of course they wouldn’t allow her to bring the change back to me. I was saddened, imagining my masseuse’s disappointment caused by me.

Why did I try to meddle in somebody’s life?

Another knock on my door.

“Oh, I was so scared! Did she bring you your change?” Now she’s embarrassed. “I just want to make sure that you’ve got your change. They told me that I could leave. So I made a turn when nobody’s looking and came upstairs.”

Giving someone a tip should not made either the giver or the receiver feel as if they’re having an illicit affair. I was really upset at “them” by this time. The irony did not escape me of course.

Her eyes widened as I pushed the change into her hand. “What are you doing? You are nuts.”

“Well, you know. I used a coupon and I think you the person who did all the work should enjoy this reward and not me.”

 

It’s now past 3 am here. I am not sleepy at all. I don’t know what I am trying to say by recounting my encounter with my impotent conscience.

Maybe I am hoping that one of you will call me out on it as an atonement.

 

All Charisma and No Confidence

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I have signed up for some training courses offered at work, one of them is called “How to present with confidence”. Yes, at 40+, I still struggle with opening my mouth in front of a group larger than 5. It’s a miracle that I even survived this many years in corporate America. Someone overheard me and commented, “Is this the same as the course ‘How to present with charisma?'” “Nope. I am not qualified to take the charisma class,” I joked.  I then made everybody laugh when I said, “Actually, I am all charisma and no confidence.”

I thought about this throwaway punchline on my 2-hour flight back home. (I am trying to read Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom and unfortunately my brains seem to want to think of anything else but focusing on that book…) We were laughing because it is impossible, right? to have charisma when one does not have any confidence. Doesn’t charisma come from a surplus of self-confidence?

However, deep down I knew I was kidding on the square when I threw out this line. I have been known to be charming on many occasions, but I never ever feel truly confident.

Is it possible to fake confidence and/or charisma? And if you fake it, is it still confidence / charisma or is it something else altogether? Could it be possible that charisma sometimes comes from one’s unawareness, unassumingness, and humility? Something more akin to quiet grace?

But of course, I already know this definition of charisma is, at best, marginal, if not considered outright incorrect, in a course titled “How to Present with Charisma” and the business world that propagate such courses.

Head. Desk.

I am unrepentant though, and probably will continue to be even after taking the “confidence” training. And I will continue to smile at the thought that I am all charisma and no confidence. Secretly, of course.

 

Lucky

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Before she started telling you the story, she would have said, before anything else, “This journal entry has a happy ending.”

The red light on her phone was blinking. Somehow she’d missed a phone call when she knew that nobody would be calling her. Not on her cell anyway. Her husband was out of the country, her children only TXT now, and her mother would only call the landline (because she’d never bothered to give her her cellphone number) and always when it was way past bedtime (because figuring out time zone difference becomes a lot harder once day light savings time change is (not) taken into account)

The unfamiliar number shown had the local area code. With smart phones nowadays our relationship is discreetly judged by whether you show up as a name (from Contacts) or as a mere phone number. The persistent blinking red light indicated that the person had left a voice mail. She was annoyed. Really. Who in this day still leaves voice mails? She dreads checking her voicemails on the very few occasions when some un-indoctrinated people leave them. The problem is they never ever come out clear. Press 1 to repeat the message. Press 1 to repeat. Press 1. Often she ends up pressing 7, reasoning that if the message is important enough, the person will surely call back.

It was a call from some doctor’s office but she could not make out which. She did not think twice when she missed another call from the same number later that day. The call showed up as a mere number and therefore automatically deprioritized. Funny how stupid her logics sound in hindsight.

She jumped when her phone suddenly rang in the midst of the somber silence as she and her children huddled in front of the television, watching the retelling of the horror in Aurora, CO, unfold.

Hello. You need to go in for a follow-up. It’s probably nothing. But we just want to make sure. They noticed something… that looked… calcification…

She held her breath and blinked. She’d forgot about the mammogram the day before.

The doctor wants you to schedule an appointment with the hospital right away and she will fax the order in. Call me right back and let me know the time.

She knew that the doctor’s office was concerned when they waited to hear from her. She went back to sit in front of the television at first as if she had just received a phone call from a telemarketer. The chaos on the screen made her comment out loud how fragile life is.

Oh.

She remembered the call and what it could possibly mean. She wanted to cry.

What if? No… It can’t be, right? No way this is happening to me. Maybe I should be freaking out now? She asked herself. Let’s see how good I really am at compartmentalizing.

She shook her head violently. Stop thinking about it! There is nothing you can do about it except waiting until Monday morning.

When her mind immediately, out of habit, presented silver linings to the worst case scenario, “I can finally quit my job!” I am such a fucking idiot, she chastised herself, ashamed and worried that if her friends who had fought and survived knew this was her first thought, they’d be offended by how she’s trivializing the whole thing. It’s not a fucking excuse! This is no child’s play. For some people, this is real. Too many people actually.

She shook her head violently. Stop thinking about it! There is nothing you can do about it.

She did not tell anybody about the phone call. In fact, by Monday, she herself had forgot about the follow-up appointment and almost missed it. She woke up late on Monday morning because for three nights she stayed up channel surfing. She cried through Brideshead Revisited.

At the hospital, the technician made her stay for the result. Just in case he needs to see something more, she said.

When she pulled her book out from the purse, she felt guilty for not feeling anything. Maybe I should cry, she wondered, what’s the proper behavior at a moment like this? When the radiologist walked into the gowned waiting room and called her husband’s name, she was startled by how scholarly he looked. Almost bookish. Like a professor. He blurted out even before their hands parted, “Everything looks fine,” and smiled. “I didn’t want you to walk down the hallway wondering.”

The humid air rushed into her lung when she pushed open the heavy door to the garage. Her breath suddenly caught in her throat. She fled into the car and shut the door before the violent tears came.

You are such an idiot, she murmured.

Keep on Fighting

23 Replies

Motherhood in the beginning is sickeningly isolating, especially if La Leche League gets their hold on your conscience. Your partner may be super duper awesome and really do the concept of 50/50 co-parenting justice. BUT. When you are up at night alone (because someone has to get up to go to work so you can pay for the diapers and shit) with a crying baby that simply will not go to sleep without putting up a fierce fight, yeah, it really sucks. You (ok, I) feel so helpless, abandoned even. Day after day. Night after night. Waiting for that tyrant who took over your existence to relent and show you some mercy.

I don’t think I’ve ever properly recovered from that trauma of isolation and abandonment. And I believe this psychological scar greatly contributes to my loss of faith in the myth of motherhood and my subsequent cynicism. Paying lip service to what a great sacrifice it is to be a mother is the society’s way of keeping our mouths shut: Yes you are all awesome superwomen. Without you, the civilization will end. Now STFU and make me a sandwich. Nobody in power (yes, balding white male I am talking about you) gives a shit about making it easier for women who maybe want to be mothers and something more.

 

By now you probably have heard of /read the article on The Atlantic penned by Anne Marie Slaughter, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All: The Myth of Work-Life Balance”. Dr. Slaughter is a professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. She served as Director of Policy Planning under Hilary Clinton from 2009 to 2011. Eventually she did quit the high-demanding job that frequently kept her away from her children, a fact that spurred the authoring of this article.

The premise of this article that has been shared and re-shared, lauded, debated, and of course, critiqued, thousands of times could be summed up in this:

Women of my generation have clung to the feminist credo we were raised with, even as our ranks have been steadily thinned by unresolvable tensions between family and career, because we are determined not to drop the flag for the next generation. But when many members of the younger generation have stopped listening, on the grounds that glibly repeating “you can have it all” is simply airbrushing reality, it is time to talk.

I still strongly believe that women can “have it all” (and that men can too). I believe that we can “have it all at the same time.” But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured. My experiences over the past three years have forced me to confront a number of uncomfortable facts that need to be widely acknowledged—and quickly changed.

 

Although the article does not end in a despairing note, the hope it provides, the solutions suggested — necessary changes in policies, laws, representations, and cultures, simply seems too far to be within imaginable reach. Nevertheless, I actually felt relieved after I read this, that I have not simply been a whiner, or been less fortunate in terms of my choice of a spouse, or timed having children incorrectly, or not been committed enough. It is also good to know that “wanting to have it all” has been grossly exaggerated into “becoming a super human”

I’d been the one telling young women at my lectures that you can have it all and do it all, regardless of what field you are in. Which means I’d been part, albeit unwittingly, of making millions of women feel that they are to blame if they cannot manage to rise up the ladder as fast as men and also have a family and an active home life (and be thin and beautiful to boot).

When in fact all we are asking for is to NOT to have to make compromises that our male counterparts in marriage/relationship (i.e. fathers of our children) are less likely to be asked to make, and when they do make those compromises, are less likely to be judged or criticized for it.

I have no wisdom to part with nor intelligent comments on the debate that has been raging on somewhere out there.

One minute I am all Let’s take over the world mother-f-ers. The next minute I wish I had never got into my head to be somebody when I grew up. [Please don’t leave angry comments about how being a mother IS somebody. You know that’s not what I meant. Take your mommy war and agenda somewhere else please.]

Why do we tell our girls to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, mathematicians, that they can be all that they want to be, if in the end, should they get married, they are expected to bear children, and should they become mothers, they are expected to become perfect mothers?

There are regrets that I would never dare to have, What-if questions that I would never dare to ask. If I get to stand at the crossroads of life, which would I choose, hypothetically? And which hypothetical answers will hurt whom and how much?