Doing Things You Don't Want to Do...to Get to the Good Stuff

Yesterday my fifteen year old daughter and I were having this exact conversation.  There are lots of things she wants to do, but then lots of things she has to do to get to the things she wants to do.  And those, she's not so thrilled about doing.

I reassured her that we all feel the same way.  There are lots of things we all have to do to get to do the things we want to do. My husband stuck me with dozens and dozens of needles so I could get pregnant with her, for example. And during my pregnancy with my older daughter, I threw up every day for just about nine months, but then I got to have her.  I've experienced hundreds of rejection letters from literary agents and publishers, but in the end, I found a way to get my book published.  My husband had to work at a lot of bad/underpaid/sucky boss jobs before he got to work at the job he has now, where he is well respected, loves what he does, and has the autonomy he has always sought.

But still, all this didn't necessarily sit well with her. Doing math to get into college? Hardly seems worth it, at times.  Doing homework four hours a night? But why?  As a teenager, it feels like there's a whole, whole lot of bad stuff to get to the good stuff.  At least, I felt like that when I was a teenager. Most of the time, I wasn't even quite sure there would be any good stuff.  It was just like this: bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.....partially not so bad, a little less bad, bad, bad, bad, bad....

So how do we, as humans, slog through the bad stuff to get to the good stuff? Are we just programmed to do this?  And why do some people do this more easily than others?  Like, why are there people who give up on life and except a meager rationing of good stuff so they can avoid the bad stuff altogether? And why do some people deal with so much bad stuff that it hardly seems any good stuff ever happens for them?  And what happens when you have a whole lot of bad stuff in a row, and it feels like there never will be any good stuff? I'm just not so sure how it works.  All I know is that we have no choice but to deal with the bad stuff.  And then, hopefully, we'll get to the good stuff.

Remembering a Miscarried Baby

In my book, Child of Mine, the main character, Katie, suffers a devastating miscarriage. During a routine ultrasound, she discovers the baby's heart has stopped beating.

People are always asking how much of my book is true, am I Katie? The answer is, always, no. My infertility experience informed my book, of course. I think it was much easier to write about the medical part having been through some of it myself, though Katie and I had totally different issues, and totally different treatments. But still, there are scenes that are, no way around it, me.

The miscarriage was one of them.

Sixteen years ago today, I was due to give birth.  I had become pregnant after months of treatment, on a cycle that didn't even seem to be going that well. I was surprised by the positive pregnancy test, and then elated when, six weeks into the pregnancy, we were able to see a strong, steady heart beat.  Two weeks later, the baby was still growing and moving inside me.  My infertility specialist, who kept patients until they were ten weeks along, told me to make an appointment with my obstetrician. I was about to be released into her care.

Two weeks later, at nearly eleven weeks along, I was at my OB's office for my first prenatal visit.  I was feeling lousy; terribly nauseous and exhausted, but also excited.  My doctor did an ultrasound. This was normal, standard procedure, and immediately a baby, bigger than the one I had seen two weeks earlier at my last reproductive endocrinologist ultrasound, popped up on the screen.  Even though I had been through one successful pregnancy before, was by now an "old pro," the image still brought a huge smile to my face.

"When was your last ultrasound?" the doctor asked, moving the probe around.

"Last week," I said, still in awe over the baby, unable to stop looking at it.

"The reason why I ask..." the doctor said, still jerking the probe, harder it seemed now. "Is because I don't see a heart beat. I'm trying to wiggle the probe to get the baby to move, but it isn't moving, either."

The baby had died. Sometime in the last few days.

I had been alone at that doctor's appointment. It had never dawned on me that this could happen. I was frantic to reach my husband, who was hours away on business. This couldn't be happening to me. Didn't things like this happen to other people?

The next day I underwent a D&C.  A few weeks later, my doctor's office called. It had been a girl, healthy, it appeared. Like I had wanted.

A month later, treatment allowed me to conceive again.  Nine months later, I gave birth to my gorgeous daughter, now fifteen.  She (and of course, her older sister, who is nineteen) are the loves of my life.  I can't help but think, sometimes, that the other baby, the one who died on a cold February day when I was completely unaware, was making room for my younger daughter. But I know that's just my mind, wanting to find a reason in an unreasonable situation.  And though I can't imagine ever having any other younger daughter than the one I have, with her smile, her laugh, her zest for life, her creativity...I do think about that other baby sometimes, and feel sad.  I couldn't do anything to save her.  And yet, as her mother, that's exactly what I was supposed to do.

9/11

Anyone over a certain age remembers exactly where he or she was twelve years ago today. We remember the weather here in the New York area -- unbelievably beautiful blue skies, no humidity, a feeling of fall crispness in the air.

And then we remember the cacophony of pictures coming across our televisions.  How to make sense of the burning buildings, the people jumping, the smoke, the ash? The people who walked, looking like zombies, the empty field with a huge hole in it. We witnessed mass murder.

Some people were closer to it than others, of course. My sister was eight weeks pregnant at the time, her son just a toddler.  She was at her home, fifteen minutes from mine, and by the middle of the afternoon, or maybe it was that evening, she called me to tell me Mike was missing.

Her husband's name is Mike.

It took me a few minutes to realize that she meant her friend Mike Davidson, a young man she had known her entire life. He had recently gotten engaged, had bought his first home.  He was working at Cantor Fitzgerald, and he was among the dozens in their offices above the fire with no means of escape. We will never know if he died of smoke inhalation, (which I hope for) or whether he died as the tower tumbled to its base.  His body was never recovered.

I was worried that my sister would miscarry from the stress over the next few days. She faced rumors that he had been spotted, she watched for him to come back, but he never did.  A few weeks later, then visibly pregnant, she went to his memorial service. She insisted on going alone.

He used to call her every year on her birthday.  He worked two jobs to save money for his house and his new life.  He was always smiling and happy.  He left behind his fiancee, his mother, and his brother. And friends. And people who knew him. And people who knew people who knew him.

I watch the coverage every year, to hear his name, to see his picture as they read it. I expect it now, his name, but I'm always still a little surprised when it's read.  I watch the specials about 9/11, and I know it happened, but it still seems less than real. Then my sister posts Mike's picture on her Facebook account, and his name is read, and it is real. He died. He died a horrible death.  So many people did. Never forget.

The Beauty of a New Year

We're celebrating lots of New Years this week.  We dropped our older daughter off at college for her sophomore year a few days ago. As you might imagine, drop off the second year isn't nearly as intense an experience as drop off the first year, but it still took over five hours of driving (each way) plus hours of shopping, organizing, negotiating, and putting together furniture.  The entire time my husband was busy screwing side A into Side B and Piece 1 into Piece 2, I imagined our daughter using this same very cheap furniture in her first apartment after she graduates. Ah, I realized, the difference between Freshman year and the Other years is that you can see beyond...you can see a time your child will be self sufficient, and you can see that she has the confidence and attitude to eventually become that self sufficient adult. Freshman year is the Dress Rehearsal.

Then there's my younger daughter's foray back into high school a few days from now. She'll be a Sophomore this year, a very transitional year, I discovered the first time around, from the young person who walks into high school at fourteen with no more than a middle school education and the I'm-desperate-to-fit-in smile and leaving four years later able to drive, vote, and marry.  Sophomore year, college and adulthood are still a far off dream, testing means the PSATs, which aren't that significant, and all the driving is still up to the weary parents. Sophomores are still children, but they will get the idea soon enough that adulthood is, indeed, closer than they think.

And finally, tonight is Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year.  I love the practice of this holiday, a time when we are to reflect inwardly on our personal goals, at areas in which we want to improve, at our faults and our weaknesses. From now until Yom Kippur, in ten days, we will reflect more than usual. Then our slates will get cleared and we'll start again, ready to make better choices this time around.

As someone who has always struggled with her Judaism -- is there a God? Who wrote the Bible? Why does religion cause so much tension, at times? Why should I believe X,Y, and Z? Can I be Jewish without believing X, Y, and Z? -- I still enjoy the celebration of our New Year. I like the food -- you can't go wrong with Challah, apples and honey, and other traditional fare -- and I like the idea of being able to start over, something I have done repeatedly as a mother and a writer. In my next novel, my main character, a twelve year old girl named Hannah, also struggles with her Judaism.  Does she have to be Jewish just because her father is a Rabbi? What about the fact that she is Chinese by birth, and therefore, not biologically Jewish anyway? Can she embrace another faith even though she's not sure it's any "better" than the one she was adopted into?

Questions of faith, of hope, and of the future. These are what are on my mind this new year.

End of Summer

Summer may be on the calendar for another month, but in my house, it feels like the end.

My older daughter came home from her job as a camp counselor at a sleep away camp and is now in the process of switching everything over to college mode -- securing a new job at school, making firm decisions about her classes, getting excited about her new roommates....next week we'll make the five and a half hour drive to drop her off.

My high schooler is finishing up summer reading (Note to my town's English department: She did not like the required reading this summer) and working on the essay that must be turned in the first day of school. She's finishing her math packet and getting excited about the Fall Show her drama group will put on. Her official schedule is up online, and one of her classes is Driver's Ed. (I won't say more about that, for now.)

It's still hot out but the stores are showing winter fashions, and Halloween is already making its way into Target. (Really? Isn't it just a tad too soon?)  And I feel myself growing more blah every day.

I hate winter. There is no way around it. I don't find one thing pleasant about it, unless you count my daughter's birthday.  Cold weather makes me extremely uncomfortable, from the constantly chapped lips to the need for many layers, from having to heat my car up for a few minutes before I get ready to drive to wearing a heavy winter coat everywhere I go.  I hate the dreary landscape and the snow. For me, there is just nothing positive about winter.

Further, I do not understand people who love winter.  People who say they can't wait until it gets cold. People who love to do winter sports, like skiing and snowboarding, so they're freezing and sweating all at once.

I hate winter sickness.  From colds to the flu and then to the most dreaded, the stomach virus, I can't stand it.  The scratchy throats, the stuffed up noses, and the fevers. I hate the cost of heating my house, and the fact that I can never quite get warm, even if the heat is on 72.

I hate the snow and the ice. I hate driving in it, walking in it, and shoveling it.  (Luckily, my husband does the shoveling.)

So by now, with the sun setting earlier and earlier every day, with school in just a couple of weeks, all I'm doing is dreading. Dreading the six months -- October until April -- that I'm cold. I'm already looking forward to next spring.  And taking my jacket off. Wearing flip flops wherever I go.  Eating in the outdoor seating areas at restaurants. Smiling, because finally, it's summertime again.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is another emotional area I lack clarity in.  I don't forgive -- or maybe it's that I don't forget -- easily.  I'm always amazed by the family members of murdered loved ones who tell the murderers they forgive them. And they sincerely seem to mean it. I wish that were me, but it's not.

I am wary after being hurt. I want to be the kind of person who says, "That's okay; I understand." But I'm not.  If you bump into me, that's okay, I get it, you didn't do it on purpose. If you forget to show up for a lunch date, hey, it happens.  But if you mess up big time, I'm going to be hesitant.  And at some point, I'm likely to say to myself, "I don't trust this person anymore."

This happened with an old friend a bunch of years ago. She'd hurt me before (in similar ways) -- I'd assumed, pretty unknowingly -- and I'd always let it go.  I tried to focus on the things about her that I liked.  She was funny. She seemed to be loyal. She appeared to embrace values that I really appreciated.  She had a lot of energy and was always ready to help somebody.

But then she did something that hurt me so much, I couldn't get over it. I tried to get over it. I tried not to let it color our friendship. I tried not to focus on it every time we talked, or saw each other.  But I found that as time went on, what happened was the opposite of what I thought was supposed to happen. The wound was supposed to get smaller, not larger, and I was supposed to start forgetting. But I hadn't.  I just kept thinking about what she had done, and thinking about how I no longer trusted her, and thinking about how deeply it had affected me. It had changed my opinion of her.  It had invalidated the things I liked most about her.  And I couldn't get past it. The friendship ended.  And the friendship really ended because I wanted it to, not because she didn't try to keep it going. She did.

I sound awful, right?

But the thing is, I do believe there are some unforgivable trespasses.  And I do believe that for each person, that line of unforgivability (a word I'm making up) is different.  I checked in with a few people after I found I could no longer tolerate this person in my life, and they all assured me that they would be wary to forgive, too.  But still, I wanted to be better than that. I wanted to understand this person's position and accept it as valid. And I felt like not forgiving her invalidated her position, which was wrong of me.

But maybe I didn't invalidate it. Maybe she was entitled to her position, and I was entitled to mine, and maybe I was entitled not to forgive her and move on.  Is forgiveness the same as "bringing things back to the way they were before" or is forgiveness something else altogether?  Is forgetting really, truly, "I don't think about this anymore," or is it another way of saying, "Though this happened, I no longer hold it against you, and I trust you again." If so, I don't forgive and forget. But maybe there are some things that can't be put aside. And at the same time, maybe after the event, trust is erased and then it has to be rebuilt.  And in some instances, you can choose to re-trust, and in others, you can't. And is that okay? To hold different people to different standards? I just don't know. What about you?

Learning to Cope With Rejection and Failure

As an author, I've dealt with rejection and failure more times than I can count -- agent rejections, publisher rejections, readers telling me they didn't like my novel -- and I've gotten used to it, mostly. Now when a rejection comes, I feel maybe a tiny sting, and then I move on.  In the beginning, though, it was rough.

One of the most important things we can teach our children is how to deal with rejection and failure in their lives, and this means that we must let them be rejected or fail.  As parents, this is extremely difficult. We can't stand to see our kids suffer, and since so many of us view our children as extensions of ourselves, their rejections or failures can sting as though we are personally experiencing them.

A few years ago, when my daughter was in middle school, a mother came up to me, infuriated. Her son had not made the middle school soccer team. "Imagine how he feels," she fumed, "when he has to walk by all of these kids who are not as good as he is, who got on the team, and he didn't make it." What I read from that was that she was embarrassed that her son hadn't made the team, and she couldn't bear to think he wasn't as good as she thought he was.

My daughter had a recent failure.  She came home, crying, and I felt awful for her.  It was one of those embarrassing things she would have to live with.  But I'm convinced that it will help her in the long run to be a better person, to make good decisions, and to work hard. So many parents seem bewildered by their children's failures or rejections.  A child doesn't make a sports team, and it can't be because the child wasn't as good as another child, or didn't behave well, or whatever the case, it has to be because there was some strange force conspiring against the child. (And there may have been, but then again, it's a lesson to be learned.)  Or the child doesn't get invited into a prestigious group, the advisers must be manipulating the system. By the time the child is ready for the college admissions process, he or she and his or her parents may have no real idea about rejection and failure, how and why it happens, and how to cope with it.

Two years ago, my daughter was beginning her senior year of high school. I remarked to a friend that I was going to spend the entire year locked in my house, because I knew how dramatic some of the parents were going to get over the college admissions process. I was right. Parents whose children had never, in theory, been rejected from anything, could not cope with their children not getting into the more rigorous schools on their lists. And the kids were horrified because they had never been rejected by anything before. And, sure enough, the parents insisted, these rejections had nothing to do with the child; they were sure to be about anything but the child.

College admissions rejection is the first really big rejection for many kids.  But it is bound not to be the last -- not getting the job, being passed over for the promotion, being broken up with by a serious girl or boyfriend.....there are times we are all rejected, and childhood is as good as anytime to learn to cope with it; in fact, I think it's the best time. So parents, when your child is rejected, don't cover it up as someone else's mistake.  Teach your children to accept that no one is perfect, including them, and that rejection, while not fair, happens.  Being rejected is not the problem, it's learning to deal with it.