avatarJenn M. Wilson

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Abstract

ref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantium">Byzantium</a> and <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/babylon/">Babylon</a>. I grew up under the shadow of spurious authority that I was supposed to believe in.</p><p id="c96d">I don’t consent to be ruled. Not by kings and not by fairytales. Every creature that rises under the sun is born free. To bend the knee, to a crowned head or a mythological symbol, is a rejection of what we are.</p><p id="85c5">All we will ever own in our time on the earth is our thoughts and the meat we’re made of. Any person or any idea that claims more than that has already started out on the road to tyranny.</p><h1 id="8996">Style over everything</h1><p id="6e98">Nothing about me is new. I have my grandfather’s nose, my mother’s eyes, my father’s hairline. Genetically, I’m a variation on a theme, a slight reordering of the same old ingredients.</p><p id="caa8">There’s nothing I can say that’s truly original. I’ll never have a thought in my head that hasn’t been thought before. Only the very greenest of writers are concerned with originality, <a href="https://diymfa.com/writing/will-editor-steal-my-ideas">terrified of their great idea being stolen</a>.</p><p id="136d">But you can’t steal what nobody owns.</p><p id="c567">The only thing that really interests me about people is how they express the ideas and feelings they have. It’s not the ideas that are unique, but the way we come to them. What’s most precious in the language of Shakespeare or the ideas of Plato is not what the author intended, but what the audience receives.</p><p id="8ee9">Ours is the most literate culture in history. But we’re told to write as though <a href="https://readmedium.com/want-to-sound-intelligent-write-plainly-and-simply-6d7acc5ddd71">we all suffered a head injury</a>. I disagree. If you can’t say something with style, it’s better not to say anything at all.</p><p id="c5d3">The <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=nero-bio-10">Roman Emperor Nero</a> murdered his mother and both of his wives. He used live Christians as torches to light the streets at night. He cheated at the Olympics. Finally deposed and forced to flee Rome, he killed himself. His last words were, “What an artist dies with me!”</p><p id="ce68">He was a terrible human being. But clearly, he had style.</p><h1 id="d557">Life is a game</h1><p id="4bd1">Like the <a href="https://evolution-institute.org/why-do-people-play-and-watch-sports/">unoriginal cliché I am</a>, I like to watch sports. But whenever I watch millionaires chase a ball around, I never fail to notice that no one looks like they’re having a good time. It’s life or death out there on the field, even though we all know it doesn’t really matter. The joy of the game is in pretending that it does.</p><p id="89b6">All of us will die and be forgotten. Even Shakespeare. Even Nero. In as little as 100 years, everything you ever worried about will pass from the earth forever.</p><p id="d972">In the Italian town I lived in for a while, there was a Roman milestone we would pass on the way to the supermarket. It wasn’t protected. It wasn’t admired. Such things are far too common in Italy to merit special appreciation.</p><div id="bb03" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-old-man-the-haircut-and-the-four-days-of-naples-f594e054ba99"> <div> <div> <h2>The Old Man, the Haircut, and the Four Days of Naples</h2> <div><h3>Google Translate won’t help you here.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*JQRaUvxTiHNI7YI6)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="383a">But as I passed, I would think about the tradesman who carved it thousands of years ago. Maybe he was excited to get the government contract. Maybe he was training his son to take over the business one day. Maybe he had bad teeth or an ulcer. Maybe his wife was sick. His head would’ve been a steady buzz of hopes and fears and dreams, just like ours.</p><p id="c87b">The stone he made is still there. But everyone and everything he worried about has vanished. So finally and completely that it may as well never have existed at all.</p><h1 id="40f5">We are part of the process</h1><p id="2f59"><a href="https://www.exploratorium.edu/origins/cern/ideas/bang.html">Every atom in your body was formed in the Big Bang</a>. Every part of you has existed since the beginning of time. I

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t’s only the forms that change, not the raw material.</p><p id="0b3b">And chances are, not one of those atoms will ever be destroyed. Instead, they just move, recombining with others in different forms. <a href="https://www.tibettravel.org/tibetan-arts/sand-mandala.html">The colored sand of a mandala, easily wiped away.</a></p><p id="7ecf">There is only one law in the universe, and <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heraclitus/">it’s the law of change</a>. Not even stars live forever. It’s all flying apart, all the time. It’s all miraculous.</p><p id="9583">Our brief inglorious lives are just part of a process that began billions of years ago and will go on for billions of years more. There’s more grandeur and majesty in that than any chanted prayer.</p><h1 id="dc0e">All of our demons are gods in different light</h1><p id="9eea">No matter how little harm you try to do, you’re going to be the bad guy in someone’s story.</p><p id="0575">We mythologize our lives. We pick sides in the battle of good and evil and insist that good must win. But the glory of life is the struggle. Eyes that don’t see darkness can’t recognize light.</p><p id="0445">We all have our shadows. The nasty parts of ourselves we would like to ignore. But sometimes, our darkest sides are our best. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvarapala">The monster always protects the temple door.</a> It takes a demon to break through the fortress our minds can become.</p><div id="45bc" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/how-to-live-with-the-shadow-df93c6e7e7b9"> <div> <div> <h2>How to Live With The Shadow</h2> <div><h3>Shadow work isn’t easy. But the reward is a life fully realized.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*Odqmv8hD0rYZ50sJ)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="0c59">To participate in the sorrow of the world joyfully is the great challenge of human existence. To live your life knowing that your gods can easily become demons. And vice versa. The things that torment you, haunt you, rob you of your joy and strength, maybe the very essence of who you are. They may be the best thing about you.</p><h1 id="9b60">It’s easy to miss it all</h1><p id="c4cf">I write this as though I’m some wise philosopher, as though I’ve peered into the hidden heart of existence. But that’s not how I live.</p><p id="a45a">The world makes its demands on us. We need food. We need shelter. For that, we need money. Therefore, we need to work. Everything seems designed, deliberately or not, to distract us from reality. The bills. The car maintenance. Familial obligations. <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/57338/what-tps-report">TPS reports</a>.</p><p id="e5ae">All of these things claim our attention. That doesn’t make them inherently bad. The trouble is, our lives are nothing more than what we choose to give our attention to. When you live on a treadmill, you will quickly find a whole lifetime can pass by while you were looking elsewhere.</p><h1 id="ab57">Live like you</h1><p id="5093">Comedian Doug Stanhope <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Place_Like_Home_(Doug_Stanhope_album)">tells a story about a soccer player</a> who was hired by the NFL back in the 60s to teach players how to kick the ball. He didn’t know he was a genius, Stanhope says. He just didn’t want to embarrass himself kicking in the awkward, stiff-legged way NFL players did at the time.</p><p id="ac91">He kicked the way he kicked. Instead of conforming to the way every else did it. And now, everybody kicks like him.</p><p id="dd6b">People are basically stupid. Some are kind and some are cruel, but few of us are actively malevolent. We’re all just trying to survive a world we don’t understand. Ignorant apes squinting down the barrel of a loaded gun, unable to understand what we’re looking at.</p><p id="fa64">So when some other ape tells you that you shouldn’t do what you want, that your ideas are foolish, that your dreams aren’t worth chasing, ignore them. None of us know anything about anything. Live your life knowing it’s totally, completely, fully yours, and not for anyone else to dispose of as they see fit.</p><p id="7c61">There is no meaning to life other than what we bring to it. That’s what life means. So go out and live your life, not somebody else’s. Disregard anyone who tells you to do it differently. Especially me.</p></article></body>

Being Around My Kids 24/7 Is Making Me an Awful Mother

It’s bringing out the worst in me.

This smiling stock photo is the complete opposite of me. (Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash)

It’s the first Friday of the first week of virtual online school. My 7-year-old is wandering around the house and I’m screaming at her to get back to her desk because school isn’t over.

My bedroom is also my makeshift office and her first-grade classroom. I’m trying to teach her independence but if I don’t sit next to her little plastic IKEA desk during class, she’s a bump on a log. I guess the plus side is that she’s not one of the little assholes who unmutes Zoom and blows into their mic. How can a generation that can self-learn iPads and televisions be so fucking dumb when it comes to class technology?

As a type this, the teacher is playing an American freedom song and the kids are trying to sing along to words they’ve never heard before. I’ve never hated other children as much as I do this moment.

I should be sitting next to my daughter as she works. Her desk is tiny and while I’m small enough to fit on the matching chair, it’s uncomfortable. Most importantly, I can’t get my work done. Out of the 40 hours I get paid in a week, I’ve accomplished 20 minutes of meaningful work. Not only am I a shitty parent-teacher right now during class time, but I’m also a shitty employee.

To stop me from stabbing my ears with a ballpoint pen, I jump on Medium to write an article about this shitshow.

Eight months. It’s been eight fucking months of this damn pandemic. I wear my mask. I socially isolate. My kids aren’t on playdates, unless you count the cartoons on YouTube as real children. I cracked last weekend and for the first time since March, I took my daughter and her mask along to Target. Now I feel guilty for bringing her and risking the spread of Coronavirus.

I’m an introvert. Staying in and avoiding people is my ultimate wet dream. Staying trapped with three other people is my nightmare. In April, I kept my cool thinking this was just going to last a few weeks. Eventually, I threw out my patience like rubber bullets into a crowd of peaceful protesters.

Interrupted this typing to jump next to my daughter and remind her of every answer she wrote on her All About Me Page she’s sharing with her small group. I did a shitty job teaching her to read this summer. Or maybe I succeeded at teaching her NOT to read. Perspective, right? So here I am, whispering to her the very answers she wrote down in the first place.

Gratitude is not my strong suit. My kids are healthy. My husband and I not only kept our jobs, but we successfully transitioned to a work from home model. We can afford high-speed internet, food delivery, and every video subscription service on earth. My backyard has a pool which we’ve used a whopping four times this summer. I’m a dick for not feeling #blessed every day.

I’m just…tired.

So fucking tired.

My kids are too small to make their meals or do their laundry. They’re too young to do online classes without close supervision. My older son has autism (albeit high-functioning) so we juggle his insurance-provided behavioral therapy with the additional speech, behavioral, physical, and occupational therapies provided by his school IEP. I’m not sure what I regret more: not teaching them this summer how to type or not teaching them how to tell time. I should be #blessed that this realization allows me to jump on Amazon and buy wall clocks for both my kids.

Keeping track of my work schedule and two kids’ school schedules is mentally taxing. My work inbox is inundated with third-party emails offering therapy and “stress-busting” techniques. How am I supposed to do online therapy? I’m trapped under one roof, how can I bitch about my family when they’re right there and I have no privacy?

Had to stop typing to run to my son’s room, open his email, and find the invite for his online behavioral therapy session. He tried arguing with me that I had the time wrong. He insists today is Monday. No kid, it’s Friday.

Everything feels like it takes ten times more effort than it should. Every meal feels like I’m tasked with a five-course meal. I’ve given up this week; if my husband doesn’t order them food, they’re stuck eating Goldfish crackers all day. Within the first week of the pandemic, I switched to disposable cutlery and paper plates to make my life easier. The environment can suck it right now, I’m in pure survival mode. There’s no time for dishwashing during an apocalypse.

The exhaustion also comes from a lack of mental stimulation. I’m doing a million things and yet, I’m doing nothing at all. I used to be an arts and crafts nerd but those days are over now that the office is taken over by my husband and his hoarding tendencies which were previously hidden by keeping his crap at work. Every day used to have lunches with friends or coworkers; now my only social interaction is once a week for a walk with one friend. Zoom happy hours are few and far between since the novelty wore off by Month 2 of Coronavirus. I can’t even read a fucking book because my kids need constant attention.

If my kids aren’t doing school, they’ll opt for zombie time in front of an iPad or TV. I yell at them to play with real toys, but that’s only when I catch them in the first place. This house of four people has six laptops, three TVs, two Kindle Fires, three iPads, a Nintendo Switch, and dozens of cell phones that even without service, still have Wifi. Regardless if I take away one electronic device, ten more pop up.

When I manage to wrangle the electronic devices, they then whine and cry for me to play with them. They don’t understand that we’re still working. And our working days are much, much longer since we aren’t productive during the day because we’re stuck helping them with online school and homework. My kids are past the point of wanting to play with each other and they can’t go on playdates with other kids. Cue the parenting guilt because there’s just no time to play with them.

Even when I carve out time to play with them, I fucking hate it. There. I said it. I fucking hate playing with my kids now. Last night I was desperate to finally open the nine Amazon boxes sitting on my bedroom floor all week to declutter but I promised my daughter I’d play with her. We played Barbies but because I’m a shitty parent, I played “Barbie is so tired, let’s get her and Skipper into their PJs so they can crawl into their Barbie Dream House bed!” I’m not even taking the time to enjoy the precious free time I have with my kids.

It’s 10:35 am. I have twenty-five minutes to finally eat breakfast or take a shower. I’m choosing a shower because I can inhale a granola bar during the kids’ next classes.

This is where experts and you, the reader, tell me to be gentle with myself. These are unprecedented times, this is tough, I should practice self-care, blah blah blah. What I really should be doing is stop my online shopping and save the funds for my kids’ future therapy sessions. When they look back, I suspect they’ll remember mom as a fucking basket case.

I had the best of intentions. I really did. I did the mandatory baking when flour was as precious as toilet paper. I did the movie marathons. I went so far above and beyond with homework last year that my son’s teacher called him out for having the funniest assignments she’s ever seen. I filmed endless scripted videos (which still sit, unedited, because my kids refuse to give me the time needed to compile and edit that shit for their unreleased YouTube channel). I tried teaching them chores in hope of making my life easier.

I got burnt out.

The ultimate icing on the cake? During this lockdown I occasionally hired help. It totaled maybe four weeks out of the twenty-nine but still, I had four weeks of help. These helpers returned to work and school so I’m left on my own again. Plus, no one tells you that having a nanny or a mother’s helper is another level of work; being an employer on top of all my other roles is another level of complexity.

I failed even when getting help.

It’s finally the end of the school week. I messaged the teacher to tell her that I do normally have my act together but I can’t get everything submitted by 3 pm on a Friday; she’ll have to accept getting everything by 5 when I’m done work. My daughter and I sit down to complete two online tests.

I let out a huge sigh and finally focus on her for the first time today. I cheer her on as she answers correctly. She happily tells me about how she likes the test interface and I encourage her to tell me more. A language arts test is the first time today that my daughter and I are finally bonding.

Hats off to single parents out there. I raise my glass of nonexistent wine to parents of infants and toddlers who can’t use television as a form of emergency babysitting. If any of you have managed to keep a Mary Poppins attitude throughout 2020 with your children, then you are nothing short of a miracle parent who deserves an award.

My only coping mechanism has been my pool of other parents. So many email groups, Slack groups, and text groups to help us survive. It takes an army to raise a child and right now, my troop is virtual and at least 6 feet away from me.

Cheers to parenting and the new school year, my Medium friends. I wish I could fist bump y’all but you know…pandemic germs.

Parenting
Pandemic
Relationships
Self
Mental Health
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