The Great Unknowable Future

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Five for Friday

I am so scattered lately. So. Scattered. Is it the time change? Is it perimenopause? Am I experiencing the early signs of dementia? WHO KNOWS.

*sob*

Keeping Track of Things You Need to Do: This feels like the dumbest question ever (and yet I feel like I have asked the same or a very similar question before, which… well, it says a lot), but I am 100% serious: How do you keep track of things you need to do?

Back in the middle ages of 2005 or so, I kept a physical planner. At least, I’m pretty sure I did; I remember buying extra pages to insert into the planner. I am assuming that’s how I kept on top of tasks and meetings etc. When I worked in an office, everyone used Outlook to keep track of those things. I have a dim recollection of getting a little pop-up notification on my screen five minutes before my next meeting. For years now, I’ve been keeping all my appointments and things in my phone’s calendar. But more and more often, I find that I’m straight up MISSING things. I failed to show up for a doctor’s appointment last fall, which is super embarrassing, in large part because my husband finds it SO frustrating when people fail to show up for appointments with him. I have been *sure* that I already had appointments on my calendar, only to find that I had never scheduled them. The other day, I was supposed to attend an informational meeting and, even though I rescheduled plans because of it, and even though my entire family was aware I needed to attend this meeting, I forgot about it completely. If I make any tiny deviation in my normal morning routine, I will forget critical necessities for myself and family members. Let me tell you, I feel like I am losing my mind.

One thing that has helped, slightly, is for me to program multiple “alerts” into each calendar entry. So if I have a hair appointment, I put in an alert for a week prior to the appointment, then for a day prior to the appointment, and finally, for an hour prior to the appointment. This seems to do the trick. But, and this is CRUCIAL, it only works if I remember to program the alerts, which I apparently did not do for the recent informational meeting.

I don’t know why the second alert comes before the alert; it works out the way it should.

I am pretty sure I complained in recent months on this very blog about forgetting to take my regular daily medications, and I resolved that by a) taking everything at one time instead of some in the morning and some at night, and b) programming a recurring alarm into my phone, with the title “Take medication.” I suppose I could do that with lots of things, but also I am wary of having too many alarms. That seems like it will become quickly and counterproductively overwhelming.

I have spent way too much time thinking, plaintively, “But I used to be able to just remember things!” For whatever horrifying or normal reason, I can no longer count on “just remembering things.” What I *do* need to do is find a system, because I am tired of and irritated about feeling like a flaky dumbass so often.

Good Chips: It’s no secret around here that I love me some tortilla chips. My kid loves plain old Tostitos, but they have become prohibitively expensive over the past six to twelve months. I only ever buy tortilla chips if they are on sale or if I happen to be at Trader Joe’s when I am in need of tortilla chips. This restriction is how I discovered these chips; they were on sale at my local grocery store. And they are SO GOOD. Flaky and crunchy and light. Good flavor, good salt level. They taste pretty darn close to the handmade tortilla chips you get at a Mexican restaurant.

Workout Workaround: A few months ago, I strained my forearm. It has been painful ever since, and hurts even when I use that hand to lift something light, like a carton of yogurt. This means that I haven’t been able to lift weights, even though strength training is my preferred method of exercise. I tried resting the arm, I tried stretching it, I tried whining about it anyone who would listen. Nothing worked. But then I found this video with some specific massages and exercises for forearm pain. I wouldn’t say it’s fully resolved the pain, but it has helped SO MUCH. I have also decided that I can’t just never lift weights again. But instead of doing a few reps of heavy weights, I decided to seek out some workout videos featuring high reps of small weights. This one is my favorite so far. Some of the exercises strain my arm even with my lightest weight (5 pounds / 2.27 kg), so when I encounter one of those, I use no weight at all. I have been pleased with how sweaty I get during these workouts and by how shaky my arms and legs and abs get by the end of the video.

Summer Stripes: We have reached the portion of the year where I am longing for an all new wardrobe of spring and summer clothing. Not that the weather is cooperating; I went for a walk with a friend yesterday and had to wear gloves and my winter coat, and for the first half of our time together I was kicking myself for not bringing a hat and scarf as well. But the heart wants what it wants.

Currently, my heart is fixated on summer weight pants with a vertical stripe. I have tried buying several pairs of pants of this nature, but nothing – so far – has stuck. First of all, these pants sold out after I’d ordered them, but before I received them. Boo. They seem perfect. I am on the fence about these jeans. On the one hand, they are cute enough. On the other hand, they are jeans and I really wanted something light and breezy. On the other other hand, they are light and I feel like light colors emphasize the wrong parts of my body. These pants are cute in theory but look terrible on my actual body. These pants are pretty cute, and I like the material, which is silky. But they are black and I really want blue pants. Maybe I will order these.

The main problem with these pants of my heart, aside from them not looking great on me, is that I am now struggling to differentiate them from pajamas. I don’t really want to look as though I’m gallivanting about the world in pajamas.

Obligatory Cat Photo: My cat is weird and adorable.

He likes to hang out like this. Perfectly normal way to use the stairs.
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Weigh In Wednesday on a Thursday: Current Identity Crisis

Lately I’ve been feeling like I’ve outgrown this space. Which isn’t to say I have any real desire or intention to stop blogging. It just feels like I don’t know what to post, that anything I do write is inconsequential or boring or dumb or… I don’t know. 

I’ve also begun to dislike, more and more, my blog name. It fit me once, a long time ago. But I no longer feel like my identity is Doctor’s Wife, nor do I think my life is any different from anyone else’s, nor do I write a whole lot about the doctor’s-wife-specific aspects of my life anyway, and it just feels dumb and stale and cringe. 

One of the most memorable – and most sobering / terrifying – quotes I’ve come across is Annie Dillard’s “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” If I look at my blog archive as a catalog of how I spend my life, it’s full of posts about parenting, relationships, food, my cat, worries / anxiety, and day-to-day minutiae.

The things I write about here are topics that interest me. But do they add up to anything???? Sometimes the silly and frivolous things I post about feel so very silly and frivolous. Am I wasting my time, and yours, by dwelling on such inconsequential topics?

I want to write about deeper, heavier themes. And yet, many of them feel outside of my ability to discuss with any nuance or intelligence; many feel too personal, or too revealing of the private lives of people who aren’t me; many feel so heavy I fear I’ll drag us all down (and we have enough of that, elsewhere). 

More and more often, lately, I find myself thinking, What am I doing here? 

  • I write for this blog because I believe in the practice of writing. But shouldn’t I be devoting time and energy to my other writing, the writing that I’m neglecting all too often? 
  • I write for this blog because I love keeping a sort of loose record of my life. But isn’t it far too loose, when I’m barely delving into anything real? Will I revisit this in twenty years and think – my god, was my whole life really wrapped up in coming up with meals to make for my family???? Would Future Me be better served by writing a private, messy, no-details-spared journal?
  • I write here because I love interacting with you. But couldn’t I get the same feeling of connection by reading and commenting on your posts (which I do far too infrequently, let’s add that to my list of failings), or texting / emailing / calling you more often? 

It all comes back around to the simple problem that I’ve outgrown the “life of a doctor’s wife” conceit. If I find a focus or a point or a perspective, I could imbue my writing with fresh purpose. But… what would my focus be? I have no specialty or expertise, no original wisdom to share, no unique viewpoints, no secrets to offer. Even if I changed my blog identity, I would still be the same over-anxious, often-cranky, germ-averse, self-absorbed, quick-to-catastrophize, food-and-cat-obsessed middle-aged me. And, to be honest, even if I did have some area of expertise, I don’t know if I would WANT to write an “XYZ advice” blog, you know? I don’t necessarily want to be locked into one thing. I kind of like having a place where I can moon about my child growing up or discuss my dinner plans for the week or overthink gift ideas. If I were to suddenly to be The XYZ Blog, would I still feel able to post those things?

Speaking of focus, I already have a profoundly neglected book blog. Maybe I should shift all my energy to writing about books and writing. I love books! I love writing! Maybe writing about books and writing would mean I’d read more! And write more! But do I really have anything revelatory or interesting to say about the books I read? Could I write anything about writing except that I am very, very slow and mediocre at it? Plus… the book blog is “public” in a way this one isn’t, and I don’t feel entirely free to be me there. (And what does THAT say about me, that I feel more open when I am semi-anonymous than when people I know offline might be reading?) (And have things become extra complicated, now that I know several bloggers in my offline life, too?) 

Now that I have so many lovely “real life” connections, do I even need this blog anymore? It was a lifeline when I was a lonely newlywed, working from home in a new city while my husband was at the hospital all hours of the day. Many of those connections have grown and lasted and crossed over into offline friendships, and wasn’t that the hope all along? Have I achieved a goal, making the ongoing pursuit of that same goal superfluous? After all, I can continue to read YOUR blog, even if I stop posting on mine.

If I reverted to “just” a blog reader, would that feel like enough? Would I magically shift all the time I spend writing blog posts toward other, more valuable pursuits? Somehow I think I would still itch to get all the random silly mundane frivolous cranky food-and-cat-related thoughts out of my head.

But if I feel driven to do that anyway, why not share those random thoughts with kind people who will empathize and offer insights and make me laugh? 

As you see, I continue to travel in circles. 

Okay. Let’s see here. Is there anything concrete we can derive from today’s post? If you haven’t already clicked away from this drivel, perhaps you could weigh in on my current identity crisis by answering the following polls.

Well, that’s it. That’s the dumb post that’s been stopping me up, writing wise. If you made it through this meandering, whiny, naval-gaze of a post, I salute you. (And believe it or not, I cut 500 of the dumbest, whiniest words from it.) I hope posting it here allows me to move on.

Thanks, as always, for reading and understanding and weighing in.

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Times I Cried Watching A League of Their Own

Carla and I have been working our way through some of the family movies you suggested. So far, we’ve done Freaky Friday, in which I think Lindsay Lohan is excellent. Bend it Like Beckham which was more relationship-heavy than I remembered (and, dare I say, sort of boring?). Newsies, which has a banging soundtrack, and to which Carla said, “Why aren’t there any girl characters?” (She’s not wrong; by my count, there are four total women in the entire movie.) 

Most recently, we dove into A League of Their Own. I started crying pretty much right away. I don’t recall it being a tearjerker, do you? The tears welled up so often that I started making a list. (Um, mild spoilers if you have somehow not yet seen this absolute masterpiece of a movie.)

  • When Marla’s dad blamed her lack of femininity on himself, because he raised her alone after his wife died
  • When Marla left her dad, who was so supportive of her baseball prowess, but is now all alone
  • When Shirley Baker couldn’t find her name on the list, and then when another player figured out that Shirley couldn’t read and helped her find her name and they all cheered
  • When all the women were so excited to be chosen as members of the All American League
  • When Doris talked about how her boyfriend made her feel less-than because she can play ball
  • When Mae said “they ain’t closing me down”
  • When the Black woman threw a ball to one of the Peaches and nodded to the Peaches in a way that said, “Yes, I know I should be among you and it’s super shitty that I’m not simply because of the color of my skin.”
  • When the stands were full of cheering crowds
  • The first time the Peaches sing Evelyn’s song in the locker room 
  • When the telegram guy comes into the locker room with the telegram for Betty Spaghetti
  • When Dottie sobs with relief that the telegram wasn’t about Bob, and with worry for the potential that the next one might have his name on it
  • When Bob shows up at Dottie’s door and she can’t believe he’s there, in person, alive
  • When Dottie says “Can we just hold each other for the rest of our lives?”
  • When Jimmy gives Dottie the “baseball gets inside you” speech
  • The entire portion of the film devoted to the series when Dottie is up at bat against Kit, and Kit so fiercely wants to win and Dottie is so stoic and unflappable
  • When Dottie drops the ball and Kit’s team wins
  • When Dottie tells Kit the things she won’t miss from baseball and hugs Kit and tells her she loves her
  • When Old Dottie tells Old Marla she lost her husband just that winter
  • When Old Stillwell tells Old Dottie his mom died

I’m pretty teary these days. I always tend to get emotional around Carla’s birthday (although less so the past few years, which I thought was a good trend; maybe “turning ten” feels like such a big deal, it’s bringing up extra stuff?). I cannot believe she’s hitting double digits. I cannot believe I’ve known her for a full decade. I cannot believe she is about to head into her final year of elementary school. She brings me so much joy and fills my life with so much light and love and energy and glitter – literal and metaphorical – and I just want time to slow down. 

Some people try to talk me out of these feelings. It’s good that Carla is growing up. It’s what she should be doing. It’s better than the alternative. And to those people I say: yes. You are right. I am so proud and overwhelmed by happiness that I get to watch this person grow and change and become ever more herself. It is a precious gift and one that I do not take for granted. 

And yet I am unabashedly sentimental about Carla of yesterday. I want to feel unborn Carla kick against my hand pressed to my stomach. I want to cradle fresh-baked-loaf-of-bread Carla in my arms and watch her head loll, milk-drunk, against my shoulder. I want to trail toddler Carla down the sidewalk, stopping as she points out every acorn, every leaf, every ant with wonderment and glee infusing her squeaky toddler voice. I want to watch kindergarten Carla spin in her twirly skirt and second grade Carla slide down a snow-covered slide and fourth grade Carla play her guitar. I want all of these things at once, just as much as I want to see what middle school and high school and college and parent Carla will be like. I can hold both of those things – the joy and nostalgia, the excitement for what is yet to come and the grief for what no longer is – in my heart and I can give myself space to feel it all.

We also watched A League of Their Own on the day we put in an offer on a new house. I could feel it, that this was OUR new house. It has everything we could want – a mudroom! a crafting space! room for so many books! – and more. It’s in a beautiful neighborhood, with kids Carla’s age in houses on either side of the house and across the street (the one thing our wonderful current neighborhood lacks is kids her age). It has walking trails and ponds and a playground. And there are so many dogs, you guys. So many dogs. It’s pretty close to perfect, and we put in a competitive offer, and I had a good feeling we would get it, but then we had to wait. Watching A League of Their Own was as much a way to distract myself as it was exposing Carla to the great films of my youth. So I’m sure at least some of the crying was less about the characters’ situation and more about the opposing forces of wanting something so much while also being deeply afraid of letting go of the wonderful thing I already have. 

Because when we say hello to a new house – a house we want, and love – we have to say goodbye to the wonderful house we live in now.

It’s just a house. But. This house is so inextricably tied up with Carla. With Carla and the rapid passage of time. 

My husband and I decided, here, in this house, that we wanted a baby. I walked from my bathroom down the hall to my husband’s home office and announced I was pregnant. We painted our baby’s room the perfect shade of pale purple and carefully chose art for her walls. We brought baby Carla home to this house. I slept on the floor in front of her crib countless times. I sat with her on the carpet in the living room, pointing out the sliding glass doors to the wonderful goings on in the yard: the squirrels and bunnies frolicking in the grass, the sun moving over the lawn and peeking through the hedges, the leaves of the oak tree shifting overhead. She learned how to walk here, how to ride a bike, how to swing and blow bubbles and do multiplication. This home was our refuge during the lockdown of 2020. It’s housed ten thousand make-believe games, a hundred thousand art projects, countless hours of singing. How can I leave this house when it’s so full of Carla? So full of versions of Carla that exist only in memory and the molecules of these walls?

Letting go – even when it is a good thing, even when it is the way things should be – is so hard for me. Maybe it is hard for you, too. If not, I envy your ability to leap across the gap to the next thing, confident that you will find footing on the other side. 

As always with anything: Things could change, things could fall apart. As it stands now, we close on our new house in July and will likely move in August or September. This will be Carla’s last birthday in this house, the house she’s lived in her entire life. I am so excited. I am so sad. I hold both of these feelings at once in my heart.