The Highlight Reel

I remember when my first daughter was born.  After a few weeks or so, I needed to get out and get an eyebrow wax.  It was such a small thing on one hand but an enormous one on the other.  I told my husband that I would be out for 15-20 minutes.  He told me that he was taking a walk with our newborn in the stroller.  “Ok,” I said, “but it is almost feeding time, she might get fussy on the walk.”  “She will be fine,” he responded.  “It might not be the right time,” I said with one last ditch effort, and continued, “I’ll be home in 15 minutes and then feed her, and then we can go out for walk together.”  “Nah,” he finalized, “she will be fine.  I want to take my daughter for a nice walk” Uh huh….

After a quick 15 minutes, I was on my way home.  As I turned toward our block, I spotted my husband walking our brand new daughter in the stroller, but he wasn’t walking, he was running.  He was pushing the stroller and running toward our house.  I laughed out loud wishing there was someone else there to witness it.  I knew she was wailing and I knew his idyllic image of a beautiful walk with his new baby was squashed like pulp. 

We live in a new world; a world where we experience everyone’s best moments.  We used to just be able to gawk at Hollywood on Oscar night.  We would see their beautiful gowns and beautiful relationships and wish we could live just a moment in their lives.  We would see a flash of perfection knowing it wasn’t real.  Now, we are envying Joe Shmoe, a passing college acquaintance when he puts an image on Instagram of him smiling with a shot of tequila in his hand…living the life, thinking THAT is reality.  Wait…we think….why aren’t we having a shot of tequila, living the life, at 5:00 pm on a Tuesday?  My daughters are screaming for dinner at that very moment, hanging off my leg.  Argh! No, what we see is the highlight reel.  We see ideals.  FLASH!  We see his best foot forward.  FLASH!

We don’t see him take the shot and cry because he is alone and the only way he knows how to cope is to drink.

We all have images of how life should be.  Are we in the perfect marriage, do we have the perfect children, the perfect group of friends, the perfect life??  The answer is probably an astounding no to most, if not all…for most people.  Nothing is perfect.  Couples fight, children cry, friends’ gossip, and life is never what you think it would be.  It’s hard to notice it because it seems like everyone else is living the “perfect” life putting picture after picture on Facebook and Instagram of where they are when they are having that ideal moment.  What we don’t realize is that they are ONLY posting their best times, and they are NOT posting every minute of every day, the pebbles and stones of life.  We are getting the BEST moments, the moments that they need to boast and that is ok.  We just need to be aware of it.  For singles, it’s at the bar with a group of friends.  Cheese! For couples, it is dining at a fancy restaurant sharing a bottle of wine with their faces pressed together, for parents it is at Disney with their 3 perfect kids hugging Mickey Mouse.  Week after week, month after month we are seeing only the best.  We don’t see that same group of friends passed out on couches from too much drinking and then a splitting headache hangover the next day.  We don’t see them walking the walk of shame, lonely.  We don’t see the couple fighting over which restaurant to choose, walking away from each other in a huff silently cursing one another.  We don’t see the kids screaming and rolling around the ground at Disney.  It is what we don’t see, that we should really look at.   To truly understand reality, we have to recognize the in-betweens.

I think of the highlight reel and then I think about my husband’s walk with our newborn.  I know he thought it would go differently.  I know his image was squashed in an instant.  I know he saw other Dad’s pushing the strollers thinking that would be him now; an easy, relaxing stroll with his baby.  I know reality is never like the images we have in our head or what we get from everyone else.  Reality has grit.  Ideals are just that, ideals; something to hang on to when we are having a bad moment.  If only my children wouldn’t cry in public, if only my husband would take out the garbage, if only my wife could be a better cook, if only I could have a life like my coworker from my first job, she seems to be living.  If only my family was like _____’s family, it looks like her kids are always happy??!!

No.  Reality is quite different.  That coworker could be having money trouble; the perfect family could be battling a serious issue.  We see what we see.  But, let’s be real here.  We don’t see reality. 

We make our choices.  We decide what to do with our lives.  We are here in this moment, because we chose our path, our reality.      

Why don’t we make the most of it?  Why don’t we ignore everyone else and what they are doing and live our lives the way we know how?  Live in the moment.  Choose to be happy.  Understand reality.  Be aware of the highlight reel.  Be ok with the garbage piling up, your children crying, and knowing this is your life.  But, being happy, because you only get one life and it might not go as planned and it might not seem better than someone else’s, but it’s yours.  Love it. 

After I fed my newborn baby, my husband and I went out for that walk.  We walked to Starbucks and around our neighborhood.  We walked for 2 hours.  We had a fantastic time as a new family.

You survive the grit because it only makes you appreciate the sweet that much more.  That is reality.  My husband got his ideal walk.  If we snapped a picture and posted it, we would look like we didn’t have a problem in the world.  You wouldn’t see him running with a wailing newborn, you would see our ideal moment from our highlight reel.  But, we didn’t take a picture, because some things are amazing and personal…

A day at the park with smiles and laughter, dinner as a family when my husband gets home early, getting to the bottom of the laundry, seeing a friend at the park and chatting for an uninterrupted moment, chatting with my mom on the phone for an hour, having a glass of wine with a friend and having a heart to heart on a Tuesday. 

These everyday moments are images on my hightlight reel.  People don’t see it because I don’t snap and post.  It isn’t fancy or flashy but it is mine and I’ll take it.

Retreating into Corners

I read that Huffington Post blog, What We Mean When We Say We Need a Break by Amanda King (see below) and I thought, Yes, I get it.  I’m with her.  Moms need mental breaks.  I was so pumped by this blog, I asked my husband to read it. It triggered a debate/ borderline argument.  From his point of view, he felt slighted.  In our family he is the main provider and he felt his day-to-day stresses were sloughed off with a jaunty disregard and an off-hand wave of thank you. I disagreed with him in a ‘cross my arms across the chest’ kind of way.  After all, the blog was written about how the mom feels about her short breathing space in the middle of her otherwise sealed way of life.  We both have our point of views.  They are both acknowledged in the post. 

And then I remembered about 2 months ago, I had a long few weeks and I was DONE.  Not in a bad way, just in a normal way from a mom with 2 young kids.  You know, in need of a mental break.  I couldn’t even motivate myself to wipe a butt over the weekend.  I left my husband for that.  He kind of did everything from soup to nuts that weekend, bless his soul.  We were at my parent’s house, which helped.  I just sat.  At the end of the 2 days, I found my husband upstairs in a back room with the door closed.  I opened the door at 8:30 pm and looked at him.  “Now you know why I retreat into corners,” I said.  He laughed.  He got it.  2 days and he got it.  “I’m sorry I didn’t help much.  I just needed a break.”  He understood.  More importantly, he sees how hard motherhood is.  Not parenting.  Nope.  Motherhood.  Being the mom.  Maybe he does get it?  Or maybe he just wants recognition as well…

I concede all of us need a short rest while in the middle of our lives. I reflect; take a breath, a break.  I do it often.  It is the only way to survive.  Before children and marriage, I used to shut my bedroom door, light a few candles and watch “My Best Friend’s Wedding” over and over again.  I used to fall asleep watching the same 3-4 movies.  I wrote in a journal, let calls go to voicemail, and found my balance.

Now, I don't have that kind of time.  When my husband walks in the door from work, sometimes I disappear.  Literally.  I’ll hear them saying in the background, “Where did mommy go?  Where’s mommy?”  I’m off in my corner.  I call it, Retreating into Corners.  That is where I’ll be.  That is where mommy is, in her time-out corner.  I’ll hear them.  I’ll kind of roll my eyes and say to myself, “Please don’t find me.”  Or I’ll hear, “awww, how cute, show mommy how cute you look.”  I want to say, “I KNOW!” I’ve seen it all day.  Now I need to NOT see it.”  Don’t find me.  I’m hiding in the closet.  Or, I’ll be in the chair with a book…next to my bed with a computer on my lap…sitting in the basement staring off into space. “Honey, what are you doing?” “ “Just sitting,” ie. leave me alone.

For me, retreating into corners is my way of shutting out the fights over dolls and toys.  Forgetting about how many times I am fulfilling requests and answering questions.  I try and tune out catching spilled milk before it happens and whatever else drama I try and avoid throughout the day.  My husband's way of retreating into corners or getting that so-called break is playing golf, watching football, toying with fantasy football, sitting on the can, and/or ignoring the trash can for a day.

We all need a mental break; men and women alike.  They need to know we understand.  We need to know they understand.  We ALL need to find our corners.  Whatever we do in our corners is well…up to us.

Nothing has changed. This has been the argument since the beginning of time.  Even though we argued about it, I know we both understand each other.  In the end, we just want understanding.  It’s a human need.  It is called empathy.

I wonder what Mrs. Cavewoman would say to Mr. Caveman, maybe how dark the cave is, how her little cave rugrats were testing her cave patience from sunup to sundown, how she couldn’t get the lice out of all the hair and fur lying around… how he was gone too long hunting game and fish, how she had to light the fire to keep out the wild animals at the door…Maybe just maybe he understood even as he labored home with the winter’s store up of food on his shoulders, maybe he winked at Mrs. Caveman and took the kid’s berry picking or kicking the stones around the barren ground, just maybe…

And then Mrs. Cavewoman would pick up a pictured stone to read, put up her hairy feet and watch the sun go down content with the thought that he understands.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amanda-king/stay-at-home-parent_b_2558642.html