…place your head between your knees… *

For about the fifth or sixth time today, I am finding it necessary to stop and BREATHE. This morning, we met with the accountant who is handling our taxes and the city’s lawsuit against us. He was reassuring in that he’s certain we will not have to appear in court on Monday morning. That was the good news. The bad news is that we screwed up our taxes big time. Apparently in ‘05 we really underestimated how much we owed the city; now we’ll have to pay the amount owed along with penalties and interest and all that great stuff.

I keep repeating to myself my (insane?) mantra: It’s only money. It’s only money. We’ll make more, we’ll use more, we’ll lose more, we’ll not starve, we’ll not be put out of our home. It’s. Only. Money. It is not our health. It is not our art. It is not something that cannot be replaced. It. Is. Only. Money.

This is maybe not the best mantra for someone running a business. Now, back to reconciling accounts.

*
(… and kiss your ass goodbye.)

I’ve been a little reluctant to post a new post after that sweet, sweet letter that D wrote me. I just kept coming back to my blog and re-reading it. I know that I am loved. I will be fine. We’ll get through, it, whatever it may be.

Yet life and its insecurities rage on. I don’t know if it’s safe to write about using illegal drugs on one’s blog, no matter how anonymous it is (and this one’s not all that successful at anonymity!) So I am only going to say this: that if I were to be the sort of gal who enjoys a puff or two of a relaxing kind of smoke from time to time when the kiddos are safely put away on their shelves, then now would be a pretty good time to seek such relaxation.

In fact, D and I are both pretty anxious right now. I hadn’t mentioned this before (probably because of denial, shame, or whatever) but we’re being sued by the lovely city of brotherly love. It’s because apparently our accountant made a mistake on our 2001, or maybe it was our 2002, tax returns. It seems that our city taxes were not filed, or not filed properly.

Since I’m someone whose eyes glaze over and ears seemed stuffed with fluff whenever taxes are discussed, I honestly don’t fully get what happened, or when, or why. I just know that our tax situation requires that a (new) professional accountant deal with it. In order to avoid the $5000 fine and being required to appear at a hearing, the city requires that we file (or re-file, if it was filed) no later than three days before the hearing. If we do, the hearing’s cancelled, the $5000 fine is avoided.

The hearing is August 11. When we’re in upstate NY on vacation. Talking to the accountant’s office today, he said they’d get right to it and work on our taxes. Um… please hurry the fuck up, ok? I mentioned to the clerk I spoke with that there’s this little $5000 fine we’re trying to avoid, and the little lawsuit we’re trying to have dropped… and the best he could say is that they’re going to get started on it right away.

Anxiety much? Now you can understand why I might just be interested in something that might take the edge off. Ease the freak-out a little.

I am also anxious about packing for our vacation (remember my little problem with packing for a ONE NIGHT STAY recently? Well how’s about a two week trip to the middle of nowhere NY where you have to drive 30 miles to get anywhere civilized?) I am perhaps equally anxious about preparing for next year and working as the after school teacher at this wonderful little school. It’s like being pregnant in a way. You get to this point where you suddenly remember OH SHIT! I’M GOING TO GIVE BIRTH! AM I READY FOR THIS?

The fact is I am NOT ready. I am far from ready. I also am not feeling ready for the simple daily life functions of getting my kids up daily, dressed, fed and out the door to go to school on time each day. I am not ready to pay my business bills, either. I really need to do much more, or else face serious consequences.

It’s also 11:52 AM and I am not ready to feed my kids their lunch today. I didn’t get them an adequate breakfast, yet, either, though they both ate something.

And here I am just lolling in anxiety to the point where I wonder if it would be a good idea to take part in some kind of relaxing herbal refreshment (what my pals and I sometimes called it when we were teens).

I need to get my shit together. Perhaps the first thing to do is get dressed and go buy some food. I’ll need some snacks later on if I go with the whole herbal refreshment plan, anyway.

I think I have some kind of freakish aversion to packing. Unpacking, too. I just do not like it. I avoid it.

That is why, here I am, after midnight, without any clothes packed or organized, and maybe not even clean. And we’re hoping to leave for the shore First Thing After Breakfast tomorrow.

Part of the problem stems from not knowing what I want to wear. That alone can keep me stalling for hours. The other problem is when clothes aren’t washed and ready to be packed anyway. A huge pile of laundry in the hallway suggests it’s not very promising.

Plus the car is a mess (again!?) The only good thing about that is that most of the stuff in there is quite useful. I mean, other than the garbage. I can usually find a spare pair of undies for one of the kids should they happen to need it, by rooting around in the clothing in the car.

I just don’t like being disorganized, but at the same time, I am really mired by the messes that are in the way. They just stop me, in my tracks. I do something else instead.

I was actually extremely active today, which is weird because it was so damn hot. Not the kind of day where you feel like being out and about a lot, but we were.

Carla’s new filling has been bothering her, so we were off to the dentist this morning to have it adjusted. She did incredibly well, making only a few pathetic whines when the dentist used a noisy tool to reduce the size of the filling. Noises scare her, but she was brave and it was over pretty fast.

After the dentist, we headed to do some grocery shopping, and then brought it home and put it away. By then it was time to head to Annie’s occupational therapy. Annie did great work, as they always say at OT, and it’s true that she is a very cooperative kid. She throws a heavy ball, does animal walks, scoots on a scooter on her belly, and draws and cuts in the ways she is supposed to. We are trying to get her to increase her strength and use her hand muscles so that she can write more effectively. I wonder sometimes if it’s really going to be relevant in her future — how she hold the pen. But the therapy is covered by insurance, and much of it is fun, and she doesn’t seem to mind it, so I figure it may help. And it’s certainly not harmful.

After an hour of OT, we headed over to the swim club, and to my garden. With this hot weather, I knew my plants would be thirsty as heck, so while the girls frolicked and swam in the pool, I sweated like crazy under the sun in the garden. I am delighted to report that there are jalapeno peppers, purple greenbeans, itty bitty tomatoes, itty bitty eggplants, and a wee little pumpkin! There is also hope that maybe the bunnies won’t eat all of it before I get to! A few more cucumbers are growing nicely, and the pumpkin vines are lovely even if we don’t get a 100 pound pumpkin out of the deal.

After the swim club, we went shopping! And to McDonald’s to use the bathroom, which prompted my kids to beg for food (oh yeah, food! Right! Sure!) and of course an LPS toy with the happy meal. I convinced them to only get one happy meal, this way they’d not get two of the same toy again. (which is so boring!)

After McD’s, we headed home. It was a lot of stuff to do.

So you see, I had no time to pack. All day. And now, I’m kinda wiped out. But I’ll swing into action at any moment. Just you wait and see!

…that cup of ice coffee I enjoyed with dinner.

At some point during the weekend, I came to see everything around me as being at a level of filth that was just intolerable. The house had begun to look and smell like the inside of a car that has been on a cross country trip with four young children. I wondered what kind of mentally ill person was responsible around here, anyway? Who would let themselves live in this fashion? Dishes, piled up… flies were delighted but not me. I suddenly had this flash of shock as I thought about how it must seem to my kids, to live in such a messy place. I think it was getting on their nerves as much as mine, as they frolicked about and teased each other mercilessly.

I have a pretty low tolerance for when they are squabbling. I wouldn’t mind that much, but for the telling. Mom, Annie won’t give me back my half of the silly putty… Mom, Carla bumped me with her head! Mom! Maaaa-ommmm! It makes me say things like “well negotiate with her. Offer her something in exchange. Distract her. And if that doesn’t work, then GO TO YOUR ROOM BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT! Do you need a trip to the ER? No, so why are you trying to get me involved here??” (Mother of the year award coming right up! Sarcasm: just one more service I provide!)

But amid such mess as was our house, the squabbling just kind of fit right in. I found myself recalling information I’d gathered way back in my grad school days– learning about how the environment that a person is in can really shape their behavior. Of course they were going to be miserable in this house in the heat, the awful humidity… with me being busy playing scrabulous washing the dishes and preparing meals

rather than playing with them, and with every surface for play already cluttered with toys, and laundry and quite possibly guinea pig turds.

Something, something, had to pull me out of this squalid existence. It feels like today we suddenly started to really tip the scales and head in the right direction. In fact, it’s been a solid week of chipping away at the dishes, the laundry, and sweeping up, and so forth. D helped a great deal with this long weekend of ours. The weather had a way of helping as well, because today was off and on rainy rather than perfect pool weather, so I didn’t get up to the pool (or my garden).

In addition to doing a bunch of laundry, D came up with an innovative way for us to communicate the things we’d like each other to do over the course of a day. He suggested that we each make a list of three items for the other — it could be anything you want your partner to do for you from Give a Backrub to Mow the Lawn to Put the Kids to Bed to Apply for a New Job. Anything at all. The rules: Only put three things on the list. Expect that 2 out of 3 Ain’t Bad. 3 out of 3 is a pleasant surprise. And 1 out of 3 is Not So Good.

So, I looked around and realized that the huge laundry clutter in our bedroom was really getting me down, and yet I had no desire to sort and put it all away. I put that as one of his 3 things, and lo and behold! He did that task. This then inspired me to further clean up our bedroom, and I swept the room out and cleared out under the bed as well. I would certainly never have done that if the dresser were still cluttered. You see? The environment of my bedroom was paralyzing me from doing anything to improve it, because the dresser was a hurtle that seemed too awful to tackle. My bedroom closet is still a horrible mess and a monolith that I am not sure I can tackle. But with the dresser clear, I feel a little more easy about giving it a try.

D had been wishing I’d cook up a big yummy dinner, with lots of leftovers for him to take to work over the week, so he wrote that on his list. Getting this information early in the day gave me a chance to think ahead: sure, I can cook dinner, I thought. Dinner is important to me, too, and I like cooking. This in turn helped me get focused on grocery shopping, and planning some meals for the week. I ended up making a big pot of curried chicken, a pot of basmati rice, baked BBQ chicken legs, and a big container of salad. I also prepped some things for tomorrow’s dinner.

What tends to happen to Drob and I, is that our creativity kicks in when we have a problem to solve. The novelty of a creative way to handle expectations is very helpful to me. I can deal with small, concrete wishes, written on a piece of paper in a way that I cannot deal with a houseful of chaotic needs ricocheting off the walls.

I don’t know if this will be something we continue long term– it often happens that we have a good system going that Really Works until, that is, it stops working. Then … we try something else.

In my dream world, there are all these Very Clever Solutions to Life’s Problems… I find My Little Ways and teach the secrets to successful and happy living to my kids. I tell them all this Wise and Awesome stuff and they are able to help run the household like a well-oiled machine.

The truth be told, I really hope to someday be able to have some level of organization that I can pass along to my kids. How can I expect them to clean their rooms, or find their shoes, if all around them is a constant whirlwind of chaos? In short, I can’t expect that of them, in that circumstance.

There needs to be a system in place, and it needs to be consistent and simple. And when I forgot to do it, there needs to be a fail-safe way of getting back on target.

So far, though, I don’t have this magic bullet. I just have my creativity, my unreliable energy levels, and a husband who is a lot like me. And I have coffee. That counts for something, as surely I am going to need it in the morning.

Here I am, a week into my summer. A full week or so I estimate it.

I am discouraged at the moment. The weekend was busy, and we spent it doing mainly fun things, camping out at our swim club and hanging out with friends from a community group that we are part of. Swimming, gardening, camping = fun! Hitting my ankle by accident with the claw end of a hammer while trying to pry a tent stake from the ground, not as fun at all. Going to the ER to see if it was broken last night, was actually not bad at all. I was greatly relieved to learn that the hammer had not managed to fracture any bones. In fact, it didn’t hurt all that badly at first, so right after I hurt my ankle, I went swimming, packed up all the camping stuff into the car and put in a few hours in the garden. It was after doing all that, about four hours later, that the pain got so severe that I wondered if I had somehow fractured the ankle, as I could no longer walk on it.

Today I can walk again, so that helps! It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it did yesterday, when I could not walk. It is still quite tender, though. Gladly the pill I took for the pain seems to really work.

But I am so overwhelmed. My home is a wreck, still. It’s been a full week since I finished camp and I am still not anywhere near caught up. My long distance service has been shut off because I neglected that bill for so long. There are late fees on nearly every bill I pay (for the business I “run”). I discovered flea bits on my cats and need to get them some anti-flea stuff, that liquid I squirt on the backs of their necks from time to time. My recycling piles are over-flowing. My hedges are too bushy. My lawn is tall and tickle-y when I walk on it. Everywhere I look, be it upstairs, downstairs, in my email (overly full inbox), in my bookkeeping software, everywhere…. it is a mess.

I am having so much trouble just seeing where to begin. And of course, tomorrow we are back at OT for Annie. She has three sessions each week. And both girls are starting twice weekly swim lessons tomorrow. Plus, I’m supposed to do home exercises with Annie as well. I want to. I know it will help her.

When am I going to take care of business? When am I going to transform this place from a dung heap to a live-able home? I hate how things are. I feel so discouraged and overwhelmed. I need a huge bustle of energy to come along. How can I make this all happen?

One little thing at a time, I guess.

The whole middle of my body, from somewhere near my ribs down to my belly button feels like its filled with some kind of heavy, dangerous substance. I have to hold myself steady to keep it from tipping out of my in some way. My hair is screwed onto my head. My arms are clenched and ready. My eyes are weary but wary. My heart feels like it is doing a loop-dee-lou, racing around, while I wonder if I should sit or stand, walk or lay down, write this blog post or make a list of things to do.

Anxiety.

I am anxious about the camp I’m supposed to teach in just a few short days. I am not prepared at all. I don’t have the materials for it yet. I don’t have the snacks. I don’t even have all the activities planned. In fact, a lot of people who’d expressed interest in going to camp are now saying their kid won’t come. So I don’t even know if this is going to work for the school, as in financially. Which was a condition of offering the damn camp in the first place.

I have to confess I really don’t think I want to do this. I am really afraid of failing. I’m afraid it will go badly, and then I could really not get the job for next year.

The Personnel Committee has still not met with me to discuss anything about next year; the staff didn’t say peep, either. So day to day (and this is the last week of school: TWO days left of me teaching after school), I am unsure about my future. Will I have this job in the fall? Are they waiting to see if I do well in the camp program before considering me for the job?

They could just decide to tell me that they aren’t going to re-hire me for next year and that they’re doing a new job search and I need not apply. That’s how unsure I feel. That’s how anxious. Pit of Tension in stomach, lump in throat.

AND YET. And yet, tonight I went to the eighth grade graduation ceremony, which was incredibly sweet. I cried a little for each and every graduate, out of the feelings of love so evident in the comments of the parents, friends and staff. This school really is wonderful in so many ways. It feels more like a church than a school; it’s a community of people who share certain values and work together to raise their kids into beautiful people.

The graduation ceremony left NO ONE out. I even got a rose! I was SO shocked to be appreciated publicly, not just once, but twice! One of the parents took great care to acknowledge the after school teachers (3 of them, including me, who ran the program during her children’s time at the school) and to recognized each by name and to thank each of us for giving her kids a safe and comfortable home after school.

And then there was a part of the ceremony where the graduates gave a rose to each current staff member, even office staff, and spoke a sentence or two about the contributions and efforts of each member. Including me. Yes, including me. I was so touched to be included.

I’d been sitting there, in the back row, with tears streaming down my face, overwhelmed with emotion about all the love these kids are surrounded by. When suddenly I heard my name — and was so surprised. I did NOT see it coming at all. It was clear to me that even though it’s been only a few short weeks, I am making an impact on the lives of kids and their families. To be appreciated publicly? That is such an unusual feeling for me– usually I feel I am on the outside looking in, or else hidden from view. Ignored or overlooked, or generally taken for granted.

In spite of the kindness and the inclusion of today, I also sat there watching the other teachers. I sat alone. They all had each other. They are a group, and I am not really a part. They are full time, while my job is part time. They all have staff meetings together: I can’t go to the meetings most of the time, since I am watching the kids in after school. My personality doesn’t do well with feeling left out — I am just not quite secure enough for that.

Plus, apparently with all the people around, I got distracted and must have left the window open in the room where I teach, because one of the lead teachers kind of scolded me about it just before graduation. The school wasn’t empty when I left it to walk over to the other building where graduation was taking place — and this must have distracted me from doing my usual doors and windows check. Figures that the one day I forget, this particularly strong teacher would notice and take the time and energy at graduation to scold me. It left my stomach feeling, well, like it does now.

I’m filled with dread. Do I get to keep this job or not? It is so hard being left in the dark on this issue, with the ambiguity continuing and continuing. And every day that I work in the job, I’m trying to do a good job but I’m also so nervous. I feel like I’m being watched and judged. And camp is the final exam.

There’s so much going on, I want to scream. There are end-of-year potlocks to prepare for, and when will I do that? I have from 9:30 am tomorrow morning, until about 2 PM when I have to head to work to: prepare for two potlocks, buy supplies for camp, buy snacks for camp, plus take care of the usual things I have to take care of. I am overwhelmed and miserable.

And I don’t even know if I’m wanted for this job for next year!

And I’m working for two weeks from 9 am to 5:30 pm FOR NO ADDITIONAL PAY even though I have NO ACTUAL OBLIGATION TO DO SO. But I feel I was pressured into it: If I didn’t do it, they’d have even more reason to NOT re-hire me for next year. So I am trying to be good, and do it, and do it well, and cope and manage it all.

Pit of tension. Super pit.

They Love Me. They Love Me Not. They Love Me. They Love Me Not. Well, what is it?

To: Myself

Re: Changing anti-depressants

Please note that changing your anti-depressants and having your job reviewed at the same time is probably not a good strategy. Note this however: this too shall pass.

In spite of the difficulties, I do love my job.

Nevertheless, on days like today, when it’s warm but not hot, and the ground is nice and moist from yesterday’s rain, I would normally have had the leisure time to do some gardening after picking the girls up from school. I would normally be able to be there for them, to get C to do her homework after school, and to get together some dinner for them at a reasonable hour.

This doesn’t happen too well if I am not home after school! I miss being able to cuddle and hang out with my kids in the afternoon. I miss having that extra time at home when I am not scheduled to be working.

It suddenly dawned on me this week that I have two jobs now. Well, three, if you count “Mom” as a job title. No wonder I am feeling kind of overwhelmed. I was struggling to get things done before I was working in the afternoons and early evening. Now I have even less time to do my freelance / business keeping — and it shows. The bookkeeping is in an atrocious state.

There are bills unpaid, late fees, work unbilled… It is not good.

I feel stretched and sad and I’m second guessing myself. Should I really take on this job as After School teacher? Is it worth it? Is my family’s loss of my time and energy in the afternoons and evenings worth the pay I get from teaching? Does my own personal satisfaction with the work make up for the fact that I miss my old life?

I think it does. It is just so hard to adjust. I keep reminding myself that summer is nearly here. Then I’ll have dropped to one fewer job and I will be able to garden and play and cuddle and cook. And work on my business bookkeeping.

EDIT: I want to clarify that the teacher I spoke to about as close to a supervisor as any one else at this school, where co-operative values indicate that the staff work together through a consensus and there is no principal. Also it was depression talking when I said “hate”. The teacher never used that word: she just said that the kids didn’t like me and felt like I came across as angry at them too easily and when they were not expecting it. She also said that I “replaced a teacher that they liked…” which implies, to me, that they *don’t* like me. She wasn’t sure if they disliked me personally, or if they just felt like they were suddenly stuck with a program where it was great for little kids but not for them.

I agree, with the gist of the comments: Shock! Middle schoolers who don’t like a new authority figure! The worst bit about this piece of feedback is how late it was in the coming. Now they’ve had it in their minds (and yes, there’s a lot of conforming to one another) that they don’t like me or After School. It is hard to change that, but I have to try.

At this school, these middle school kids apparently like all the OTHER teachers… just not the new one (me.) Who happens to be the mother of a “little kid” (second grader).

— end EDIT —

Here I am, the night before Mother’s Day.

My house is a mess.

I have two hours worth of cleaning at my daughter’s school that I have to do before the weekend is up.

My mom is coming to visit tomorrow morning, and sleeping over tomorrow night.

I have mother’s day presents for my mom, and mother-in-law: but the catch is I haven’t planted the flowers in the hanging pots I bought yet.

I just put my kids to bed about 10 minutes ago (yes, wow, that’s awfully late for them, isn’t it. Hmmm…)

I just started a brand new anti-depressant and I am on the lookout for brain zaps.

I met with a teacher that works at the school where I work just this morning to review how my job has been going. She was a kind of emissary from the rest of the staff who’d had a meeting and voiced their concerns and comments about my job performance so far. I found out that a) I’ve been showing up to work at the wrong time b) there are rules about the kids’ limits that nobody had bothered to tell me and c) it turns out that the fifth graders all hate me and hate going to after school. That was hard.

Of course, it’s not all bad with my job. The younger kids adore me (that’s the kindergarteners, the first graders, second graders, and third graders. The fourth graders are not quite sure. The seventh and eighth graders get along with me ok. It’s those damn middle school kids. The ones who pout and roll their eyes and won’t talk to me. They won’t tell me what they want to do but they also don’t like anything I suggest. The only thing they like is sitting together on the bench and chatting. I let them do that. They like that, but otherwise they hate me.

So: grades K-3: I’m great. 4: I’m not sure. 5-6: They hate me. 7-8: They like me. My feelings are a little hurt, but I am trying to rally myself to just keep trying. I’ll talk to the teachers of the kids who hate me and ask them for advice. Wonder what they do to not be hated by these pugnacious tweens with attytood.

As I go around cleaning here and there, thither and yon tonight, I have one thing on my mind. It’s the pouty face of the tween girl in my after school program most weeks. What can I do to get through to her?

Today I saw my doctor, who is a young-ish man who seems really smart and kind. I trust him, which is unusual for me.

I made the appointment this morning after running to the bathroom to pee repeatedly yesterday and again in the morning — ooh, that burning feeling. If you’ve never had a bladder infection, lucky you.

While at the doctor, I took the opportunity to review my anti-depressants with Dr. Niceguy. It has come to my attention that I am kind of hanging on by a thread lately. Tired, having trouble focusing, doing the minimum to get by, fretful, etc. The good doc has recommended a new medication, and I’m game to give it a try.

It is just so frustrating to feel like you’re stable and then realize that  you have slipped once again. To make matters more freaky, Dr. Niceguy mentioned in this overly casual way that I might have some “brain zaps” due to withdrawal from my current medication.

Uh. Brain zaps?

Apparently this is a “classic withdrawal symptom” from going off my medication. It’s like having little electrical jabs in your head.  Frankly, this freaks me out a little.

But Dr. N said that it wasn’t very likely, and that the new medication can be stepped up a little more quickly if the brain zaps get me, and it would clear right up.

I just hope that the medication works. On the plus side, he said this was a type of anti-depressant that might “make you feel like you’ve had a cup of coffee”. That sounds good!