on apologizing

beautiful image courtesy webweaver.nu

I used to say “I’m sorry” too much. I used to say it for the silliest things, and sometimes I still do. But, for reasons I can’t identify to myself, I’m not so much of an apologizer or people-pleaser any more. (Those two things seem to go hand-in-hand.) It may have something to do with learning from a man I married who is (refreshingly) not a people-pleaser. (He’s a wonderful man, as you know, but he’s not about to apologize for his existence,  the way I used to.) It may have something to do with my kids. Having twins allows me to study the nature vs. nurture effect on a daily basis. They’ve shown me that the people-pleasing-thing is not so much about nurture, but rather, nature. Despite having almost identical experiences their first several years, one twin has it in him to be socially tuned-in constantly and the other, most times, seems socially oblivious. There are drawbacks and benefits to both ways. But when I once noticed the socially sensitive one saying he was sorry for things he ought not feel sorry about, I realized I better watch myself. I don’t want him learning it from me.

One of my best friends, who I’ve known since junior high, told me recently that I come across as more guarded than I used to be. It made me feel a little sad, but I also feel like the shift has been necessary for me to feel comfortable in my own skin. I think this has something to do with my shift as a people-pleasing apologizer. I certainly still want anyone who comes into contact with me to find me a nice, compassionate person. But, these days, I’m just now learning how to engage socially without feeling like my real “self”” has to disappear. Many times, this means not apologizing as a reflex like I used to.

What strikes me about how much I used to say “I’m sorry” is that I never said it at the times I really should have. Here is where I’ll lose some readers: I’m about to describe a dream. Creative writing teachers, including myself, always say dream sequences are very tricky to pull off; most time, you’ll lose your audience. So for those who want to check out now: Goodbye.

The dream was that I was standing in a field and the words I’m Sorry came flying silently out of my mouth in the shape of butterflies. Like, the “I” was the wide part of the left wing, and the letters kept getting narrower to the middle, and then they got wider again, until the “Y” was parallel to the “I” on the right wing. (Uhg, This is hard to describe.)

Anyway, the butterflies flew out of my mouth and fluttered around until they landed on flowers, which were also different people from my past. Some were near me in the field, some were further away.

I’ll never forget the beauty of the field in this dream and how peaceful I felt when I woke up. But then, I felt sad. Because most of those apologies landed on people I may never see or hear from again, or people who would not even want me to remind them of the past.

You know I used to write poetry, Katie. If I haven’t lost our readers after the dream sequence, I’ll lose them now, because I’m going to end with a poem I wrote about the dream. Double-whammy for cutting someone’s attention-span. I apologize. (hehe. get it?)

Too Late (2003)

If I could say I’m sorry

for those things of which I cannot speak,

things that may not be otherwise known,

maybe I would have

just enough peace

to get me to sleep.

Drifting off

in flight, mind soars

like those two little

words with wings.

All of the sorrys in the world

that won’t be said

escape and flutter and land

on those who wait.

it takes the whole damn tri-county area

When the twins were born, on Easter Sunday seven years ago, we lived next door to my mom. She lived in a tiny house and we lived in a bigger tiny house. They were both one-bedrooms, but ours had an extra little room that was big enough to be a grow room. We know this because when we moved in, the landlord’s only stipulation (no lease, no deposit, no last month’s rent) was that, if we grow pot, don’t do it in the upstairs room because “there’s a drainage problem up there.”

Anyway, no pot, but two babies. I would go over to my mom’s house in the middle of the night, after Chris and I had used up all we had of ourselves. (And that was even more than I would’ve ever estimated.) I’d be crying, delirious, and holding bottles of expressed milk. My mom would have already been over several times that day, but I begged her: “Please. Need. Sleep.”

She would grab her robe, slip on sandals, and come over to take a shift. She had recently quit her job, as a beloved teacher’s assistant at a juvenile detention center, in order to go back to grad school and write. She had the summer off that year, thank God, because I don’t know what we would have done otherwise. Chris’s parents lived 6 hours away and they drove up at least one weekend a month, but those middle-of-the-night breastmilk exchanges week after week may be a key reason I have enough mental capacity now to remember and write.

None of our friends had children yet, and though they showed up for us the best they knew how, there’s no way they could have known how desperate we were. We couldn’t afford help. I quit my job because it cost more to have two babies in childcare than I made in a day. Chris increased the hours he worked to pay for medical expenses (hospitals do not give “two for the price of one” discounts) and to save for a bigger place. Neighbors brought food. Family members sent money for diapers, cribs, strollers. A state agency donated car seats. We had love, support, resources. But it was so hard. We were scared and sad and confused because we weren’t supposed to be scared and sad and confused.

(Did I mention this pregnancy wasn’t planned?)

We have a different life now. I survived 18 months of debilitating depression, got help and began to recover. We learned that parenting is a slow, learned experience. We steadily squared away our finances and found a bigger house. I realized I wanted to focus on writing, went back to grad school myself, and after a few years of feeling like a failure as a mother, learned I’m not so bad, after all. Chris and I realized we had partners in one another that were worth fighting for. We had two little boys who blew our minds.

Our family of four healed together. We blossomed. We had another baby without the accompanying lifestyle transition. (I am here to say, going from 2 to 3 is NOTHING like going from 0 to 2.)

But then we moved across the country. Hello!

It’s been about a year since we gave up the luxury of having an established support system. Luckily, we live in a place where many of the families are in the same boat and become families to one another. But my mom just got here for the summer (she is back to teaching and has summers off) and the minute she walked through the door, a deep breath I realized I’d been holding for a year escaped my lungs. My shoulders relaxed by an inch. My stomach let go of knots I didn’t realize were there.

We always hear “it takes a village to raise a child,” but I’m not sure we really understand what that means. Young parents often feel isolated and lonely. This is why my generation writes so much about it: blogs, articles, books. We think the village must only consist of other people in the same stage as us: mothers of young children looking to each other for help and companionship. Young fathers doing the same. We make deals with one another: “I’ll pick up your Johnny from school if you can watch Suzy during my doctor’s appointment.”

But as much as I want to help my friends and siblings with young children and need the help reciprocated, I want to cry out at the constant negotiations. “WE ARE ALL SO TIRED! WE ALL NEED MORE!”

But the rest of the village doesn’t seem to want to hear it. (As an update in response to a comment below: sometimes it’s our own fault they don’t want to hear it…vicious cycles.)

I began a book by John Bowlby on attachment theory. (Not to be confused with William Sears, “attachment parenting,” and having a 3-year-old hanging off of his hot mom’s boob while they stare down the camera.)

In 1980 he said,

I want also to emphasize that, despite voices to the contrary, looking after babies and young children is no job for a single person. If the job is to be well done and the child’s principal caregiver is not to be too exhausted, the caregiver herself (or himself) needs a great deal of assistance…In most societies throughout the world these facts have been, and still are, taken for granted and the society organized accordingly. Paradoxically it has taken the world’s richest societies to ignore these basic facts. Man and woman power devoted to the production of material goods counts a plus in all our economic indices. Man and woman power devoted to the production of happy, healthy, and self-reliant children in their own homes does not count at all. We have created a topsy-turvy world.

I want to thank my village. You are helping our humble little family thrive and fully realize our existence. I am a better mother, as an individual and part of a unit, able to devote myself to the production of happy, healthy, and self-reliant children because of you. I promise to return the favor when I can.

To those of you still looking for your village: find it. Create one for yourselves, if you have to. There’s a chance they won’t come knocking down your door, but my hope for you is that they are out there. You need a great deal of assistance.

With love and compassion,

Maria

thankful for tutus

You’re getting me at a soft moment right now. I haven’t lashed out at any neighborhood kids in the past 48 hours. I haven’t had my routine interrupted by people laying unconscious on the sidewalk. I haven’t been cut off by anyone in a Beemer with a “Baby On Board” sticker.  In other words, I haven’t left the house yet today. (Chris and I decided, by the way, that I need to start a new category that chronicles life in Palo Alto. Be ready for this upcoming event!)

I have, instead, been thinking about gratitude. I mentioned here that the Polonchek clan has a dinner-time ritual of telling one another what we’re thankful for before eating. We started this because we wanted our kids to look less confused when other families bow their heads for grace. (I was also trying to sneak in my own agenda on conscientious eating by acknowledging life that’s lost when we have meat, but apparently kids can take only so many harangues about dead animals before they say, “Can you think of something new to be thankful for?”)

We wanted to have a grace-like ritual of our own and it’s become something we all look forward to. Especially Sola, who has just begun to understand the routine. She’s the one who reminds us now, as soon as I set down the food. “It’s time for thankfuls!”

“I thankful for dresses and tutus and Star Wars Legos.”

Every time.

So I found myself, last night, saying something to a friend about appreciation. Let’s call her Emma. Now, I’m not sure if Emma knew what I meant when I said it, because I didn’t really know what I meant until I thought it through. But Emma and her husband have sacrificed a lot through the years to create the kind of life they want together.  First of all, she’s Canadian and he’s American, so there’s the whole border-thing with the fighting, the prejudice, and the ethnic conflict.

(Seriously, it did take longer than necessary for the United States Government to decide that this quiet, creative, peaceful woman is not a threat to national security. And, P.S., SHE’S A HOTTIE.)

They have worked jobs that didn’t fulfill them. They have driven cars that rattle. Emma has had health problems that have landed her in the hospital. They have moved around two countries trying to find their place. When they finally settled in southern California, they and their three young children lived for years in houses that have the square footage of our minivan and features like a combo kitchen/bathroom. And to live in these tiny houses, her husband worked longer hours than is healthy for anyone. So when she told me last night that they found a bigger place with a gorgeous view, I was so happy for her. “You deserve it,” I said. (Like the people with a bad view deserve THAT? Sometimes I say dumb things.)

She said, in her beautifully humble way, that she can’t quite believe it yet when they pull up in front of their new rental in the hills of Malibu. “But,” she said, “We do appreciate it.”

“Well, then you have it. Appreciating it is what it’s all about.”

Now, there are entirely too many ambiguous pronouns in that statement. What do I mean by so many “its”? If I were a freshman English student, I would get a C with that writing, at best.

Here’s how I can explain what I mean, but you have to allow me to get sentimental about my kids and my husband, something I try to make a point not to do. (Is it sentimental if it’s sincere?) (And, to clarify: if you are a parent and you haven’t felt the way I’m about to describe, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU OR YOUR INSTINCTS. You are fine.)

For a long time after becoming a mother, I heard people say, “Appreciate every moment, because it goes so fast!”

Yeah, yeah. Well, it took some time to get used to the mom-thing (the boys are seven this month) and during that time, I knew I was supposed to be full of appreciation, but you can’t force these things. Now, though, I get it. Now that I’m more comfortable in my own skin and everything that skin represents, I have brilliantly gleaming moments with my children and husband, on a regular basis, when I’m present with them and know, I’m living one of the best moments of my life. 

It’s the kind of moment that is shaping into a distinct memory while you’re experiencing it. Like once when I was 19 and having my first real summer out on my own. I was living on the east coast, bought my first car, had a fun job, and a new boyfriend. One weekend, this boyfriend and I were snoozing on a blanket on the beach in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We didn’t know the tide was coming in and the people around us had all packed up and headed back up the beach without bothering to wake the sleeping people who, subsequently, were shocked awake by a wave crashing over them. Well, we were fully clothed and freezing, but it was a lovely moment because of the warm sun, the sticky salt, and the high only new romance gives you. While we shrieking and laughing and scrambling to collect our things, I remember knowing that I would remember that moment and it would make it onto the “life’s best” list.

And now, with this family I have—this husband and these children I’m all wrapped up in—the brilliantly gleaming moments reach inside an even deeper place, a place I didn’t know I had until I feel it ache with gratitude and appreciation and thankfuls. It swells inside me like a tide rising and suddenly I’m shocked awake by my own life, hitting me with a force that leaves me shivering in the sun.