I should go climb into a hole and reread Dark Side of the Light Chasers. Tuesday I was Mommy Dearest. It all became a little too much: a sick father who is wasting away, a crazy mother who is torturing us all with her grief, a daughter who has the flu and cries whenever I leave her side and a new baby who still might not love me but freely covers me with bodily fluids of all kinds and can screech at decibels that can cause ear damage. Truly I had forgotten how moist and loud motherhood could be. Perhaps I have also forgotten how hard it can be, how lonely and how thankless at times. The Damn Husband called to tell me he was going to be late from work. Great, no problem, it can’t get worse.
“Are you having a bad day?” He asks with a lot of trepidation. He knew what was coming.
Can someone please remove all of my needs so I can parent more effectively? This will all go much better if you do. How about an instant dose of antidepressants that can turn me into Mary Sunshine for a few hours (or days) until I can find my footing again?
From Amazon.com Review of Dark Side of the Light Chasers:
‘We know the shadow by many names: alter ego, lower self, the dark twin, repressed self, id. Carl Jung once said that the shadow "is the person you would rather not be." But even if you choose to hide your dark side, it will still cast a shadow, according to author Debbie Ford. Rather than reject the seemingly undesirable parts of ourselves, Ford offers advice on how to confront our shadows. Only by owning every aspect of yourself can you achieve harmony and "let your own light shine," she explains. "The purpose of doing shadow work, is to become whole. To end our suffering. To stop hiding ourselves from ourselves. Once we do this we can stop hiding ourselves from the rest of the world."’
I am thinking about the woman who drowned her kids and understanding where her impulse came from.
“How could a mother EVER do that to a poor innocent child” my mother said when she heard the story. She shook her head and patted her chest, “Really, how …could… you… hurt…an innocent…child” said the woman who made welts so deep under my diaper that my older sister said it looked like I had 'OC' for Ocean City, (where we were living) tattooed on my behind. Hello, mom, what is that dark formation lurking behind you? Oh no, you don’t have a shadow. You just have a love for wooden spoon discipline on diaper-aged children.
I see the bad side of me that could so easily go south, but it hasn’t. We are a delicate balance of good and evil. Hello Dark Side, I know you are in there.
I am covered in snot and drool. Nigel screams and uses his hands and feet to push against me so I cannot hold him close. I close my eyes and think of giving him what he wants, of letting go of him- he falls out of my sight and I am free. For a second. Then I open my eyes. Then I softly sing in some obscure tune ‘no mommy won’t be crazy today’ and I place him gentle on the couch and find something to distract him. And it passes and we are all fine. Sometimes a version of this repeats twenty times a day sometimes not at all. I do the same with the damn husband (but I don’t sing him anything afterwards) A thousand times I have pictured smacking him over the head with my heaviest frying pan and watching him bounce around with stars circling him like in an old cartoon, boing boing boing boing boing. The feeling came on yesterday when I asked him to please order a new charger cord for my GPS THAT HE BROKE. The cord connector that joins it to the GPS is bent at a 45-degree angle and will no longer make a connection. He wouldn’t admit that he broke it (for the second time, he already ordered a new one once) and instead argued nonsensically that I broke it by hanging the GPS too high on the car windshield and it had nothing to do with the fact that he shoves it into a small compartment between the seats every time he parks the car because he is constantly paranoid that someone is going to break in and steal it. So, now a day later, I don’t think about the frying pan anymore but I haven’t forgotten that he refused to apologize for making the story up because he was at work and the other guys could hear him talking with me.
Me: You need to admit that this story is BS and you need to apologize.
Him: I will later. (in a casual voice)
ME: You don’t want the guys to hear, do you? Oh yeah, if they were listening I’m sure that story made lots of sense to them. Hanging a GPS cord straight down has often made it spontaneously bend upwards against gravity. I’m sure they've heard other similar stories.
Him: Okay, I will talk to you later.
I groan and push the end button on my cell as hard as I can wishing it made a load sound on the other end. I miss that loud emphatic sound of slamming down a land line phone. So much more satisfying.
I love the story Anne Lamont tells in her book Operating Instruction about not being able to stand her son’s screaming any longer. She thinks about putting him outside on the porch for the night. If he is still there in the morning she will consider it natural selection and bring him inside again. I love that she admits to thinking about this and I laugh because I know she did not do it.
It is when you deny your dark side that the trouble begins:
No, mom, I am not angry with you.
I love every moment of motherhood.
Oh no, I don’t mind, you take it.
I’m sorry I broke the GPS cord, sweetie. I don’t need another one. I’ll use map quest.
It was a big leap in my life when I finally got it about the Buddhist offerings each day to the hungry ghosts. They aren’t wandering around the world; they are inside of us. Here you go guys, a little morsel to keep you at bay, nice little ghosts, stay where you belong.
My mother, wayward priests, the woman who drowned her kids, did they go so far because they felt they were not suppose to have dark feelings and so they denied them? Like a balloon you try to push under the water so no one can see it, it is bound to explode out the moment you get distracted.
I once called a friend after she just had a baby. How is she doing I asked her husband when he answered the phone. Well he replied, she hasn’t held him by one foot and swung him in circles above her head, I think she is doing well. Fifteen years later this story still makes me laugh and the image can instantly change my mood when I become frustrated with my kids.
I don’t hit my children, drown them or swing them above my head. Thinking and doing still remain a world apart. I am doing my best to live my life, feel my feelings, sort out my past and change my current reality. I am imagining my world the way I want it to be and I am walking towards that goal one step at a time with an occasional few steps backwards.
Our answers are always around if we look for them and they come just in time. In an article by Tad Waddington in this month’s Spirituality and Health magazine I am reminded of the story about three bricklayers. The first one was trying to make a buck, the second was building a wall and the third was building a school that would educate children for generations
Same job different perspective. Where have I heard that before?
I am still covered in slime but today I am raising young minds that will change the world.
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