LammChops's Open Salon Blog

Nobody Cries for No Reason

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:04:49 -0400

She flung her arms around my waist and laid her head on my chest – my chin rests easily on the top of her head and I breathe in her scent – pencil shavings, breeze, and the dog.

She lifts her chin and trains her gaze upon me with her saucer sized black eyes – she doesn’t allow me to look away. “Nobody cries for no reason mom,” she says in her older-than-her-years-you-can-tell-me-what-is-wrong-voice. And I hold her a little too tightly – because right now she is all there is for me to tether to. And I am ashamed to put that burden on her. Will she look back on this day and remember her mom being so needy?

Some day – but not today – I will tell her the reasons.

I have had a lot of these moments over the years – sometimes they come out of the blue – sometimes I can track a trajectory that leads to it – but the one constant is that it is always going to happen to me sometime. I’m like everyone who battles with depression – I would do nearly anything to shake this albatross from around my neck.

Therese Borchard, author of “Beyond Blue” and “The Pocket Therapist” writes in an article on The Huffington Post about the moment when she first realized that she struggles with depression – but as she relates it it took her many years later to come to grips with it being actual depression and cease resisting the labels, medications and therapies. Borchard said she was a freshman in college and was struggling with staying sober. Her therapist pointedly surmised that her lack of sobriety was a way for her to cope through life – getting drunk wasn’t the issue – but it was how she coped with the real issue. And her therapist said that there are better ways to live than coping through life.

I don’t remember when I first realized for myself that I might be depressed – I remember a dear friend pointing out that might be the cause of why I couldn’t seem to breathe. That dear friend saved my life that day as we dangled our toes in Lake Michigan. Before that moment I wanted to wade out into the surf and keep walking until the water took me over and I was no more.

It is the guilt and shame of being depressed and not having anything concrete to pin it too that makes this journey so much more difficult. When my friend pointed out the possibility of depression I had just less than a year before completed the adoption of my son from Guatemala – I had married a wonderful man just 5 years earlier – we lived in a brand new house – we both had good jobs – all was so right with my world that how dare I not be over-the-moon happy.

And yet I wasn’t – in fact I was so far from happy it was - depressing.

But I sought and received treatment and the ship righted for a time anyway. Anyone who struggles with depression will tell you that it will dog you until your last day and what worked once may not work again. It is a never ending cycle that once the course correction takes place threatens to run off the rails at any given minute. It is hard to stay vigilant in self- care when you also have others that depend on you for their care and comfort.

I am finding that to be the case right now.

In fact, my mind is swimming right now with all sorts of issues and what to do’s and I know some of it is depression, some of it is the path I have picked recently to cope through life, and I feel like I’m circling the drain waiting to either drop through or struggle to the edge of the sink and hang on. It is so tempting to drop through – succumb and give up the struggle.

That little boy is a teenager now and he has a sister and they both depend on me for stability and comfort – I am the anchor in their life. And I am ashamed and feel guilty that I even have the slightest inkling that I might want all of it to be over. But that is how this insidious disease wreaks its havoc upon your life – it screws with you so all you can think about is how wrong you are for feeling so bad all the time, and how inadequate you are as a human being because you can’t get a handle on it and pick yourself up and charge ahead.

Wrong and inadequate – and loathe to self.

I’m exhausted and yet I cannot sleep – I am hungry but I can’t swallow – I’d cry but the tears won’t come.

I Didn't Play with Barbies

Wed, 1 Feb 2012 11:02:24 -0500

I didn’t play with Barbies when I was a little girl.

That set me apart from nearly every other little girl on the block who had their own set of Barbies, complete with Ken and the Dreamhouse.

I really don’t know why I didn’t play with Barbies – my mom never pushed them in my direction, but she didn’t forbid them either. I didn’t ask for Barbies from Santa – kind of a shoulder shrugger I guess.

But Barbies influence is everywhere – still today – hair, clothes, lifestyle – Barbie had it all and most girls wanted what Barbie had. I am reminded of the bumper sticker/keychain/cigarette lighter available at most convenience/truck stops, that comes with the moniker “I want to be Barbie – That Bitch has Everything.”

So Saturday night was kind of the teenage version of playing Barbies – I chaperoned the school’s annual Sno-Ball Dance. The teenagers handled this event in the same way they handle most events – group think along the gender divide. The girls dressed to the nines – including mani/pedis, hair and make-up. The guys with dates wanted to look presentable so as not to embarrass their date – but not too presentable so as not to embarrass themselves.

And a lot of the girls dresses were along the lines of “YowZaa” and “what father allowed his daughter out of the house looking like that?” and the whole thing just made me kind of sad for the girls.

I know what they were going for with the dresses that you could not bend over in lest you show (hopefully) your panties and the 6-inch stripper heels that you didn’t bother practicing to walk in before the big night. Lots of clomping around in the manner my grandmother used to refer to as “walking like an old plowhorse.”

They want to be Lindsay Lohan out clubbing. They have seen for years the images of what Hollywood wants you to think sexy looks like – it is short dresses, sexy hair and stiletto heels. Even wholesome Hannah Montana cum Miley Cyrus got away from Billy long enough to show some thigh and mix it up with the older boys.

But when you throw all of that on 14, 15, 16 year old girls – who just hours earlier had been cheering at the side of the mat in a pleated skirt, sweater and Nike cheerleading shoes – you get what looks like playing dress up in clothes from mama’s closet. And really there isn’t harm in playing dress up for one night – it is heartening to know that at their tender ages they haven’t truly grasped the nuances of true female sexuality. They still think it comes from a tube of lipstick and a short skirt.

It made me want to cry a little though –I understand it well – the feeling that you need to grow up – because there has to be more to life than being a teenager – you don’t realize until too late that the years to be a teenager are so fleeting – it is here and then it is gone – never to return. Can’t get those years back – can’t un-ring a bell – toothpaste doesn’t go back in the tube.

I caught myself humming a little ditty as I was walking home long after all of the confetti had been swept up, the tables taken down, the punch bowl washed and put away – “Hold onto 16 as long as you can – changes come around real soon - make you women and men”

You said a mouthful there John Cougar.

http://youtu.be/h04CH9YZcpI

The Puppy

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 15:01:14 -0500

The leash lengthened and the puppy started to prance around the yard. I was so excited – I never got to do anything like this before – be in charge of something that was alive.

I’d tried many times over to help my mama with my baby brother. But, she didn’t need me to clean out his nose with a q-tip. We ended up a mass of soggy flesh and damp clothes when I tried my hand at wrangling him out of a dirty diaper and into a clean one – pre-paper diaper. As my own live baby doll he wasn’t very cooperative.

The heat fell like a blanket on the trailer park that late August Saturday afternoon –it was the kind of late day sun that made the tin roofs of the trailers pop – like when Daddy popped the top off a Pabst Blue Ribbon after work.

I spent most of my waking hours barefoot – my berry colored feet were ashen after all of the circles I turned in the needley grass that day following that puppy around. I didn’t care how hot it was – my hair was pulled back in a tight pony tail and what wouldn’t stay back was plastered to my forehead and neck. My cheeks were red and my mouth was dry but I was so happy – getting to be in charge. I didn’t want to let go – not for pop or popsicles or a rest in the shade.

I had been warned several times to pay attention, make sure I didn’t let go of the leash, stay in the yard. “Be careful – don’t let the puppy run out into the street and get hit by a car,” was one of the last things I can remember my mama saying to me that afternoon. I was a fairly rule abiding youngster – there is no way that I would run out into the road and into the path of an oncoming vehicle. And my mama knew that much too. She had also expressed some doubt about letting me free in the yard with the puppy. We didn’t have puppies, or kittens or anything that was alive but the people.

The adults found shade and chattered – keeping half an eye on me while I skittered around behind the puppy – leash in one hand, red balloon in the other.

It became one of those days – a day I will always remember but one that it will take decades to determine why the memory stayed so long.

It started as a low rumble coming from the top of the street – the silver car was barreling down our gravel road too fast – kicking up rocks and exciting puppies.

About the time everyone realized a car was coming down the road, going at a faster clip than was allowable in our little park, it was too late to stop what was going to happen next.

I know it all happened fast – the car came, the puppy ran toward the road, I let go . . .

All of those reasons for being careful materialized in a flash before my eyes– while I watched the puppy tumble under the tires of that car and then lay life-less in the road.

And I knew from that moment on – not being careful enough, cautious enough, strong enough, good enough could have disastrous results.

Just one more . . .

Fri, 7 Oct 2011 16:10:05 -0400

Just one more . . .

-Taste before I roll down the edge and put the chip clip back on the bag

One more greasy, salty crunchy taste and then I’m done.

I reach into the bag and feel the slick package under my hand – and I find one perfect chip – but I know that isn’t enough so I shuffle some more – my blind hand sliding through what is left in the bag – searching for a friendship chip – one that is folded over on itself.

And then I’ll be done

I wonder why I opened the bag in the first place –

I crunch and pack and crunch and pack until my mouth is full of salty, greasy mush

And as I swallow I think I can reach for just one more chip and then I’ll be done.

I will be sated and I can walk away from the enticements contained in the bag.

I won’t need that crunch anymore or the satisfaction and comfort of the empty calories.

My jaw clicks as I crunch and I think maybe that annoyance is enough to force me to put away the bag – throw it in the trash even though it is half- full.

I take a swig of Diet Pepsi and hope that the new taste will cleanse my pallet – wash away this taste in my mouth.

Grease has coated my fingernails and the salt is stinging a hangnail I just pulled off with my teeth.

My stomach starts to swim with the chips and the Diet Pepsi and I think maybe now I am done

I wipe my greasy hands on my jeans – push the bag away - Walk out onto the porch and try to find a worthy star to make a wish upon – I ask for an end – I ask to be able to pass by the chips – look at them and remember how salty and divine they tasted, but not want to taste in order to remember.

Worry on the wish a little – try to qualify that I don’t want to forget everything – I just want not to want.

I feel foolish for this wish – it’s just a bag of chips – the banquet that I attend is lush with abundance and fortifying sustenance – an offering of everything that I need

I scold myself for not wishing to stay at that table longer

My appetite is whet by the chips – the banquet is the life-blood

And then you follow me out onto the porch and we stand in the hot July air – your hand holding the bag – tempting me to reach inside – insisting there are still chips in the bag and not just handfuls of crumbs and that a little more salt and grease will truly satisfy my need

And then I can walk away?

Fernsy's Open Call - My First Post EVAH

Tue, 9 Aug 2011 12:08:44 -0400

This is in response to Fernsy's Open Call to repost the first post EVAH - it really wasn't that long ago for me - Feb. 15, 2011. Thanks for the chance to share again.

How I Got My Husband to Clean the House

I think I have finally found a way to get my husband to unload the clean laundry basket instead of fishing around the bottom of the pile for a clean pair of jeans -

The mere mention of periods and puberty by our 10 year old Raisin sent him packing to the bedroom with that look that said "So glad it's you for this one and not me" and because he isn't known for just sitting around idly - he put away the clean clothes.

But I digress - or as Raisin likes to say "I have breasts"

My 10 year old is convinced she is "getting puberty" and because I am still allowed in the bathroom while she is bathing - she isn't far off the mark in her self-assessment.

So why not pick Valentine's Day as the day to get all of her questions answered - which boiled down to just one - Does it hurt?

Hhhmmm . . . I pondered this before answering - does it hurt?

Well, baby, yes and no.

Does it hurt to actually have a period - not a lot. The mechanics of it are simple enough. And if you are inserting correctly and are up on taking care of yourself - you will be fine. We had a live demonstration - and I'm still not sure who was more traumatized.

But it's all of those other things about this foray into young womanhood that caused me to pause.

Yes, some things will hurt. But only afterward -

First love - followed by first love lost

BFF's that change - and maybe you won't be ready to change with them

Being good at something - and then realizing that you aren't the only one with that particular talent

So many things that I can't prevent you from experiencing. Let me rephrase - so many things I don't want to prevent you from experiencing.

You have to love and lose - friends, fellas, family

You will change - sometimes for the best - sometimes for the worst

You probably won't see any of this coming - despite my best efforts to stand on the sidelines sometimes cheering, sometimes cautioning, sometimes all out waving the red flag in your face and grabbing your elbow as you drag me with you as you run by.

I have to stop myself from saying "yes, it will hurt and darn it you will like it." Or rather you will endure and persevere and be better for it - at least that is what I wish for you.

So I stop myself - stick with the no it doesn't hurt a bit - get her settled into her bed that is chock full of stuffed animals and relax a little knowing that the execution on her childhood has been stayed at least for today.

And then I can't help but ponder the question again - will it hurt?

Yes, baby, and quite possibly it will hurt me more than it ever will you.