Jungletwins

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
-C.G. Jung

I’ve always wanted therapy and never been able to afford it, or maybe I could afford it if I re-aligned my priorities and stopped being such a cheapskate. Regardless, I am therapy-less, and have no one to helpfully point out to me my unfortunate habit of making the same mistakes over and over. And yes, I have always called them fate.

It’s buzzard luck. I love that phrase; it means bad luck that never ends. That’s what it is, it’s buzzard luck, and mean people, and that town that didn’t get me, my boss wanting too much and the kids acting out and not getting enough sleep and not making enough money and being too tired to write and the kids not eating a bite of the  labor intensive meals I make, and the IRS audit, and the huge loss we took on the house, and that old hag upstairs banging on the ceiling when I’m trying to bust out to Elvis Perkins in Dearland’s “Shampoo.” That’s what’s holding me back.

That, and all the events I need to plan for work, the press releases still to write, the reporters and designers to call and email and send chocolates to. And that play date- how could I have forgotten snacks again? The other Moms must think I’m such a mooch. And great, the Friday nanny quit to pick up extra shifts at Starbucks, and the new nanny has to get back surgery, and the new new nanny wants a raise. After one day. And I can’t find the mittens. There must be 10 pair and I can’t find even one. And the living room is a mess again, and why does this entire load of clean laundry smell like poop? Now I have no clean socks for crazy sock day (let alone crazy ones). Wait- did Lulu eat anything other than blackberries yesterday? Why is Mumu crying because her sweater has stripes? It’s a damn nice sweater. Don’t forget to take them back to the Pediatrician today for a second attempt at a physical.  Why couldn’t she get on the damn scale the first time? How could I have forgotten to return the 4 ft llama to Mumu’s class? Who forgets a 4ft stuffed llama? Where the hell did that koala in a sack come from? And why haven’t I written back to those people who wrote me beautiful emails about my blog? Why am I such as ungrateful asshole like that? Why haven’t I written any blog posts? Why haven’t I been leaving comments on other people’s blogs? Why am I neglecting my blog relationships? How could I have forgotten it’s International Night at school? Then Bring Parent to School Night, and Morning Brunch with the Principal to follow. Why is the car making that godawful sound every time I drive in the rain? Where can I find a mechanic that won’t keep it for two months then return it in pieces that I have to sell for scrap? Why did I not sue that guy six months ago? Why does my husband keep losing the Tom’s on Maine Kids strawberry toothpaste? It’s getting annoying.

When we first moved here we lived out of suitcases for months, waiting for our things (getting fuzzy with jungle slime) to finally arrive. I didn’t have any of my pots and pans and so mostly I used the kitchen for dancing. I would twirl to mixes my brother made me, and that’s where I heard Elvis Perkins. “Shampoo” is such an odd song, but really spoke to us at the time; my husband and I would drink wine and play it over and over, “Sweep up little sweeper boy, it’s you who’s got the wig on now..” Somewhere along the line we lost the sweeper boy, then very nearly lost the house. Lost everything, really. But lots of good things happened too – new careers, a great school, birthday parties, and riding our bikes to the beach. And what I’m now realizing is that none of that, good or bad, is buzzard luck or fate; it’s just life. It’s my life, and it is not holding me back.

My favorite part of “Shampoo” is the part where Elvis Perkins sings, “You are worth your weight in gold, you are worth your weight in sorrow, baby, though you may never know why.” That’s how I’m trying to think of life –  worth its weight in gold, worth its weight in sorrow- and I know why. My babies; I’m holding them right now.

I read an article weeks ago about a book coming out dealing with the longevity of marriage – what it takes and how much. It blew my mind, but probably not for the reasons the book’s author intended. It was full of titillating facts; it said people married in the long-term think about divorce 14 times a day. I find this mind-blowing. I’m dying to know what couples have this kind of time. Seriously. And this was about typical couples, couples with no abuse going on, couples you see at the grocery store and Target.

So what gives? I don’t have time to think about anything 14 times a day, no matter how disgruntled I may be. I think the problem is that there’s no secret to marriage, no revelations really, and all of these diet! marriage! success! books need some phony formula or discovery to get attention and followers. Marriage is awesome, but marriage is work, just like work is work- there’s no weird shortcut through your neighbor’s lawn that will lead to happiness.

One point in the book/article did resonate with me, however. It said the happiest couples are those that have their own individual pursuits, as well as a copasetic partnership; that those who relied on their spouses for fulfillment ended up lonely and bitter.

This is true. I get along better with my spouse, my kids, myself, since I returned to work. If I were smarter, I would have realized this earlier, and made time for my personal passions while I was still a SAHM. And its interesting, because I don’t enjoy work all the time- I find it stressful most of the time, but it is truly what I want to do.

I used to crew on a badly designed, beamy ass schooner off of Long Island (I say badly designed not because I have anything against beaminess  but because the friggin thing couldn’t tack on sail alone) and there was this Relief Captain one week who was telling me about her life in some crazy Caribbean island I can’t even remember the name of, and how much it pissed her off when tourists squealed, “You get to sail for a living! You’re so lucky! You must love it!” and she’d say, “Sailing SUCKS, but it’s all I know how to do.” Sailing was her true marriage, so much so that she wrecked  her actual marriage for it- thus completing the dyslexic version of Looking Glass’s classic 1972 ballad “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl).  Hey- you drink enough rum with strangers on creaky old schooners, you learn things…

Anyway, it’s work., it’s all work, what we love. And I think of that Relief Captain chick often nowadays, particularly when people say they envy me for having such an ”easy, stress free job.”One woman actually said that to me, and several, including my own mother, have expressed similar, albeit more tactful sentiments.  And I keep thinking- are you fucking kidding me? You think I have an easy, stree-free job? Are you working all weekend, every weekend? Are you organizing a fundraiser  to support a cause that breaks your heart, with a work load that breaks your back, and shitting yourself because you haven’t sold any tickets and you’re terrified you’ll run the business into the ground and let the cause, the artists, your employer, everyone- down? Because let me tell you, it sucks. But it’s what I want to do.

I’m seeing a lot less of my children. They’ve been my full-time job for the last 3 and a half years, but now I have another full-time job. Yes, my initial plan was to work only few days a week and retain my status as a SAHM. Plans change. Things change. I’ve changed. I wanted more, and as Mr. Hoots famously told Ernie, “You gotta put down the ducky if you wanna play the saxophone.”

After curbing all professional ambition for the last 3.5 years, I wanna play the saxophone BAAAAAD. So I put down the ducky (2 duckies). My husband is holding both duckies (and they are pecking at him furiously) until next week, when he has return to work for the fall term. The girls go back to school, and when they’re not in school, I’m not home, he’s not home, they’ll be with a nanny. 2 nannies (though only one at a time). 2 nannies for two duckies at various times throughout the week. It’s a big, beautiful, hypothetical plan I’m sure will fall to pieces when tested, and then we’ll have to papier mache those pieces back together and try something else.

One of the Nanny’s started weeks ago, and she’s wonderful. She’s not really a Nanny, she’s an art instructor. She’s been picking the girls up from summer school on Mondays, driving them to her house, and helping them paint with acrylics and glitter. They love it. They love her. Silly me, I thought they could only love me that quickly, not some random stranger. But no, and it’s for the best. Oddly, we all miss each other less than we thought we would. When the girls are focused on school, then paint and glitter, they aren’t thinking about me. When I’m focused on my work, I’m not thinking about them. We all find each other at the beginning and end of each day, and we all enjoy what we do in the middle, independent of each other.

But God I hope that second Nanny works out, or I’ll really be up shit creek.

It’s interesting, I played the saxophone for years, but never got any good at it. Mr Hoots could tell you why: “You’ll never find the skill you seek till you pay your dues…” If you learn anything from my blog, let it be this: Take all your parenting advice from owl puppets and Mick Jagger; everyone else is talking rubbish. So anyway, I wasn’t “a natural” at the sax, or parenting, or even my current job. I made, and am making, tons of mistakes in all three pursuits. The only difference with the latter two is a willingness to pay the dues, something mandatory in raising children and starting new jobs.

So my situation isn’t perfect, but it’s working, because we’re all working at it. Not very cleverly put, but I’ll leave the poetry to Mr. Hoots and the Stones- I’ve got work to do.

Yes, it’s true; I’ve been cheating on my blog. It started with neglect, progressed to adultery. It hasn’t even been 24 hours, and already I’m confessing.

The abridged version of the whole affair: I started a new job; they hired me to work 1-2 days a week. After I had worked for a week, stuff happened, and suddenly I was offered a full-time position. Sweet.

I love the new job. It’s difficult, it wears me out, it taxes all 3 of my brain cells (the only survivors of the toddler twin parental brain implosion of 2010), but I LOVE it.

It’s in art, which was my field, my life, up until the twins were born. It’s glorious to be back, though to be fair, I cannot currently be called a success in the field, not in any way, shape, or form. I keep reminding myself that it’s been less than a month, and Rome wasn’t built in a day. My strategy is to bust ass (my ass), using every ounce of knowledge, creativity, and determination I can muster, and hope for the best.

And start a blog.

My new employers have given the go ahead, but they don’t have any experience with blogs, and I get the impression they think it will have no impact whatsoever on the business. They’re probably right. I did a fair amount of research within the field, however, and found that just about everyone else has a blog, so it’s certainly worth a go.

I wrote my first post yesterday, puts tons of tags on it, and already it’s had a grand total of……wait for it……1 hit!

Not a promising start, but I will persevere.

And if you are kind-hearted enough to check out my new blog (still under construction, pretend not to notice), thus raising its stats–which let’s face it, could not be worse–I would be most obliged. And if you leave a comment, I will love you forever.

Email me for the link: jungletwins at gmail.com, or leave a comment with your email here, and I’m email it to you

I got an awesome email the other day from Care.com, a quiz entitled, “Do you Need a Housekeeper?” Well, I don’t need a quiz to tell me I do, and I don’t need a banker to tell me I can’t afford it, and I don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows… because I have Bob Dylan.

But anyway, it’s all “the blanket,” (am I the only one who loves “I heart Huckbees” ?) so it all comes together and means something important.

Around November I wrote a blog post about how much my life sucked, and how my shitty ass car had broken down at a major intersection and had to be pushed to the nearest place, which happened to be the entry way to the swakiest spa in town and I waited an eternity for the tow truck while all these snooty spa ladies looked down on me.

Thursday night I drove into the parking lot of that spa, walked inside, and got a manicure.  It wasn’t meant to be symbolic, not really. I had a business meeting Friday afternoon and wanted my nails to look reasonable, and after calling around, the spa was the only place with an opening Friday, so I had the first manicure I’ve had since my wedding. I doubt anyone at the meeting noticed, but I felt better about myself, and that counts for something.

I feel like I’ve come full circle. The SUV is finally in the shop (though its been there over 2 wks, which thoroughly terrifies  me), I have a new wardrobe of business-y clothes and I go to work most days. Things have changed. I have a new job I love, that’s in my field, that makes me excited and confident and able to afford the occasional manicure and babysitter. And it’s becoming such a big part of my life, I now have to extricate myself from my other job, which is tricky, and I feel bad for leaving, but I feel good about feeling wanted, and about not giving up when things were terrible.

And now the house is sold (at a huge loss, but at least it’s gone) and hopefully, with a lot of work, we can buy another. I feel like I have come full circle. There is a lot of work to do, there are many things still to be settled, there is much trauma from the 5000k + miles move still to overcome, but for the first time, I feel like we can have the life, the opportunities, the contentment we hoped we could.

And honestly, I enjoy my children so much more now that I’m working 32 hours + a week. I feel a bit guilty writing it, but it’s true.