Badunk-thunk –pause- babump babump babump.

Thus are the terrifying stops and starts my heart makes.

I think it is broken and I’m terrified to find out if my suspicions are right. I can’t get the words out the right way when I’m sitting in front of my Dr.. I put forth my public face. The face that says ‘of COURSE I can help you with that!’ or ‘ I’m fine, how are you?’ –even though I’m sitting in my Dr.’s office wondering if one day I’m going to drop dead in the cereal aisle.

Ever since the Prozac, the cursed Prozac of the 57 lb. weight gain and much cursed addling of a creative brain, I have felt alien. I look at my swollen hands and face and it looks like me, but me struggling to pull myself out of the quicksand.

Hey I know that girl- she used to smile more.

I’m not just tired I’m weary. Just the sheer act of opening my eyes in the morning is difficult and daunting. Because I know that as soon as the day begins I’m going to be carried along by the current of the day, executing social graces and childcare, and inevitably falling short in some way. Always falling short.

It’s like my super power, falling short.

~If I do the preschool drive-a-thon, drive out to my mom’s for childcare, go for my 1 hour workout, pick up the 2 younger kids, do the school pick up, go home and provide snack….I’m exhausted and I don’t manage dinner.

~If I take time for myself, I leave my husband solo with 3 kids.

~If I go out for restorative laughs with my friends, chores are missed, and the husband scrambles to keep up and ends up resentful that I’m not home.

~If I skip my workout, I beat myself up, and my body stays the same.

~If I plan time to write and work on my freelancing I sacrifice sleep because it can often only be done properly once all 3 kids are in bed.

~If I take a blessedly warm shower for 10 minutes, someone will find a felt and draw all over the kitchen cabinets, or poo inside the house, or throw sand all over my hardwood floor.

~If I take the time to put on make-up I will be rushing and/or late for school pick up, for ball hockey, for my hair appointment.

~If I hire a babysitter somehow I always feel like I’m wasting money.

12 months ago I was strong, I felt vivacious and dreamed of decorating my body with gorgeous sensuous tattoos, of pin up hairstyles, and becoming a blogging phenom while raising my 3 boys.

I had a plan, a mental manifesta of how my life should play out.

Now I’m in triage.

And I’m so angry I let myself fall all the way down the well.

Oh, I have been here before and dragged my myself out of the muck by sheer determination and planning and by telling the assholes in my life to pound sand.

But I’m not sure if that will work this time. I’m actually not certain of anything at all. Well that isn’t true either. One thing that is a reoccurring theme is that there is a consequence for everything I do. A cost.

The last post I wrote cost me a lot of peace because I had the courage to speak my opinions. When I write, I write only with my heart so it makes me vulnerable to those who lack the tact and maturity of classy folk.

Having 3 children has cost me a lot more than that, and sometimes (all the time) I want it back.

I desperately want to nurture myself for a while and have someone else look after me.

There I said it. Let the raised eyebrows be primped and judgments are passive aggressive and all knowing.

I want to shelve adulthood for a while and crawl in to my childhood twin bed, with huge German down pillows and duvet covers with white clouds on them. I want, crave solitude and warm soup.

I need a time machine. Stat.

Ya know what? I do know one other thing.

I don’t want someone to fix everything for me. I don’t need a white knight on a valiant steed….I need a damn horse of my own.

I don’t need Band-Aids; I need someone to apply them with love.

I desperately need need need to be someone’s priority, and not their afterthought.

I guess that is another thing I know.

It isn’t the solution being offered, it is the spirit with which it is given that holds the saving grace.

Magic pills and powders, and self-help manifesting won’t work worth a damn if it is costing me more than I am able to give. I revel in arts like Reiki because I get to be so passive while someone else holds my worries for a while. They selflessly take on all my baggage so that I can heal, just even a little bit.

I’ve always been an advocate of selfless giving, endless generosity, and sacrificing for the greater good. But it seems that my ideals and I have arrived at an impasse.

Because I want to radically redefine what it means to be selfish. It is so much more than sneaking bubble baths during naptime, or squeezing in a workout while everyone else is still asleep. I want to forget about social mores and standards and live through my heart instead.

I want to find out what I want to be when I grow up, and then do it.

I want to be dynamic and glowing and strong and creative and flowing.

And care for.

And happy, stupid-crazy-deliriously happy.

Hold up. Here is another thing I know.

I can’t do any of this alone and none of this will get accomplished without an honest plan.

And so, I need to mine out what my grand audacious goal is. I need to write down my goals and possibly redefine some very deeply rooted values.

I need to stop thinking about what should be and concentrate on what could be.

I need cheerleaders and people that are willing to feed me soup.

I need to be elegantly contrary.

These things I do know…

True Dat.

Let me tell you a story about something that conflicts me.  It kills me actually.

Somewhere along the line, some time, some where, someone, forgot to teach my son to read. Or rather, didn’t take the time to see he needed it explained a different way.  As an obsessive reader and literacy lunatic, I can’t even begin to describe the disappointment and anguish I feel on his behalf.  I sniffed out problems in Grade 1 and I stood at the teacher’s door every day asking her how I could help, that I saw a problem, that reading equated to tears of frustration every night.  For whatever reason it was glossed over.

Until this year when he finally got in with the Learning Assistance Teacher.  We’ve had meetings, and I now know that he scored near the bottom in reading comprehension for his grade in Grade 1.  Letters were like foreign objects to him.  And no song and hand sign routine was going to make them any clearer.  She assessed and begged for Mattias to get support then,  but he didn’t.  He was culled from the shortlist out of necessity because there are children with labels and greater learning challenges that needed the help more. Even though he couldn’t recognize 66% of the words he should have been able to.

In summation, there was no room at the inn.

His reading skills became my responsibility as a parent, solely.  And I failed miserably despite purchasing expensive phonics programs, french readers, and taking him out of all activities besides soccer.

My son, my ‘grey area child’, was left behind because of lack of resources.  I know he isn’t alone.

Now, a year later, he is allotted 30 minutes, 3 times a week, with a group of 4 other students to get the help he needs to conquer reading.  Unfortunately, it isn’t just basic concepts now, he has to catch up 2 years worth of literacy knowledge in one.

He also believes he is the dumbest kid in class, has lost his enthusiasm for school, has frequent tummy aches before school, is so insecure about his intelligence he actually thought he would get kicked out of school for being too stupid.

I not only have to contend with a reading issue but also must repair the damage done by a sadly broken and underfunded public education system.  I have to convince my son that he deserves to be in his classroom with his peers.  I have to coddle his self esteem at a time in his life when he should believe he is invincible.

I have had to listen to hour long, snotty, tearful breakdowns that no 7 year old, no one ever actually, should ever have about their self worth.

All because there just wasn’t enough time, teachers, and money when he needed it most.

The current educational climate leaves me feeling very under qualified to comment on the labour situation between the teachers and the provincial government.  The media spins and reports uninformative soundbites- Strike! Demand Wage Increase of 15%!  No report cards!  Job action!  Legislating Teachers Back to Work!

Beyond that curtain of repetitious noise, there lies a vast field of nothing.  Nothing to help effectively educate the people whose children are subject to the public system.

The government is worse.  They make pretty shiny distracting videos on YouTube that say….nothing.  No substance.  If this could be seen in the context of war, that shit is pure propaganda film.  Minus the goose-stepping.

They publish BC’s Education Plan online, which is beautifully laid out, has wonderful sentiments about progressive learning……without one single indication of how they mean to achieve it, or pay for it. Sure they mention ‘action steps’ to be taken but my question is this:

If we don’t have enough money in the coffers to properly fund the current system, how on earth are we going to pay for an even ‘better’ model?  A model that emphasizes technology while hardly providing relevant equipment to schools now?  A model touting ‘personalized’ education plans with increased ‘flexibility’….when they can’t even pay for a second Learning Assistance Teacher so that my child could have gotten timely support and not impaled his self esteem on educational cutbacks that go back to 2001?

Oh wait- ‘flexibility’ must mean that I, as a parent, and my child must increasingly overtake the responsibilities of the school system.  I should teach him to read, not school.  Silly Mommy, funding is for corporations and toll bridges.

“Students will play an active role in designing their own education and will be increasingly accountable for their own learning success.” -from The Plan, pg 5.

This could be a noble paradigm to get children to take ownership over their educational outcomes…..but it also alleviates the pressure off the government to sustain a standardized level of education.  With only 15.34% of our provincial budget being spent on our children’s education, it is no wonder we have to hock chocolates and Entertainment books and raffle tickets to buy the iPads the government so desperately wants for our ‘progressive, personalized, and flexible’ education.

Alberta has increased it’s funding for education by 62% over the last 10 years…..and here we can’t even restore the funding levels from yesteryears.  That makes my heart sad.  My child is worth no less than another in a neighbouring province.

Ah, now the contentious issue of wage increases for teachers.  Well considering we’ve axed 1459 specialist teacher positions since 2001, we should be able to find some change somewhere, yes?  Oh and the teachers haven’t had a raise since then either.

Put your hand up if you still make the same income as you did in 2001!!!!

No one?  Bueller?  Bueller?

Can you imagine NOT getting an increase in wages despite your increasing expertise in your field and continued training?  For 10+ years? (I stand corrected on this point, however, wages have not kept up with other provinces) In the Lower Mainland, where cost of housing alone has outstripped other major Canadian cities drastically?  Never mind the gas prices, increase in utilities, growing food costs, and choking student loan debts.  Their contracts don’t even keep up with the average annual inflation rate of 1.8% (approximated by my very quick and dirty math skills) since January, 2000.

Sure teaching is a great profession with a reasonable wage, but lets not forget they don’t get paid during the Summer vacation (as many believe) or if they do, their annual pay is pro-rated and reduced monthly accordingly.  Many take Summer jobs to keep up with loan payments and rent.

Some spend 90 thousand dollars on their education only to be told they aren’t specialized enough to be employable.

So yeah, I support a reasonable wage increase, even if it means my taxes go up $100 a year.  I’m a socialist like that.  I’m Canadian, I’m okay with funding social programs, especially if they teach my child to read. To succeed.  

My flame is burning down my soapbox and soon I’ll have no more words for what is currently happening with our educational system.  But I want to leave you with this;

Educate yourselves to the fullest extent.  Don’t let apathy excuse ignorance. Don’t sit quietly, cow-eyed in front of the news.  Read, take action if necessary.  It is much harder to recover something once it has been lost rather than maintain and improve upon what you already have.

Support the people who hold little hands and make letters in to sounds, and sounds in to stories, and stories in to a lifetime love of learning.

I will not choose a dollar amount over the children of BC.  I will truly put Families First, Ms. Christie Clarke and Mr. George Abbott, as you so sorely have neglected to achieve.

If you have been moved, even a little, by what I have written please email our Premier or Education Minister. Ask questions until you have been satisfied.  Voice your opinion on what matters to you.  Speak out, because sending a rally cry after the fact is too late.

Our children are not chess pieces in the game of Budgets and Popular Politics. 

Thank you.

It is now my goal and greatest desire to become The Unmother.

Seven years ago I unwittingly surrendered my personal needs at the hospital door, as do most first time breeders.  I agonized over whether or not my son would need counselling because I put a bottle and not a breast in his mouth….and the rest of my personality just ran away like ink in the rain.

I allowed myself to be overshadowed by motherly duties.  I raised him to be juuuussst independent enough and then I got pregnant again.  Then again.  Then I stopped because I’m pretty sure my heart would stop if I had another pregnancy.

Max was four days old.  So little for a Hartman baby, vulnerable.

I, on the other hand, was so swollen that my cankles were just straight up calves.  I felt ‘off’ and when I spoke to the maternity physician, he downplayed me to a hormonal mess, and well, just fat.

“This level of swelling is normal for a woman of your size” he said as he almost killed me.

I remember feeling so sad that I’d let my body down to such an extent.  I remember looking at Max and wondering if all this shit was really worth it.  I couldn’t wear my own shoes or bend my fingers or go up the stairs without feeling faint.  Dejected, I laid down in bed to think and feel sorry for myself.

Then that same sweet voice that I know saved Mika’s life spoke, insistently.  I lay there with a circular argument running through my head but the conclusion was always the same.  Man is fallible, a doctor is merely a man with a standard education, therefor a doctor can be fallible.  Even if his ego doesn’t allow for it.

So, I hauled my carcass down the stairs- step by step and I became so so so tired. I felt like I could have napped between the 8th and 3rd stair.  I gathered my courage and keys and went to a walk-in clinic that I trusted.  In hindsight, I knew something bad was going on even if I couldn’t define it.  I had an internal knowledge, a red flag or flare or alarm bell blazing in my primal brain.

It took the walk-in doctor exactly 30 seconds of listening to my lungs to decide to send me to Emergency.  I am ashamed that I don’t even remember who he was because he probably saved my life.  Probably, possibly, perfectly in tune with a body he’d never met.

I sat at the Emergency Admitting desk at an awkward angle because I was trying to hide the grown-up tears streaming down my face.  By now I could feel something was very wrong with my heart.  It was reluctant to beat it’s normal rhythm…and becoming evermore reluctant and slow.  My normally low blood pressure had sky rocketed to 170/95.

I can’t forget the silence at the other end of the line when I told Mark he had to come to the hospital to be with me.  He is my steady ship, and he was sucked in to the storm too.  He left all 3 kids with a neighbour we didn’t really even like that much.

I still remember the feeling of seeing him walk through the double glass doors to the Emergency department. In that moment I knew this man was a part of my soul.  It was a recognition beyond explanation.  I knew that even if my heart just, stopped….that his would carry on for me.

I was admitted to the Critical Care Unit.  I was hooked up to a machine that would sound an alarm when my heart rate dropped too low.  It went off for the next 6 hours.  My average heart rate was between 40 and 45 beats per minute.  I was scared beyond measure as I sat there willing myself to have a panic attack because then it would briefly bring my heart rate up to 50.

Blood tests, chest x-rays, and waiting.  For 6 hours not knowing if I was going to die because no one would say anything.

I asked irrational questions just to pry some comfort from the doctors and nurses but they could offer nothing.

All I had was Mark holding my hand.  My steady ship, my anchor, the man that knew me and whispered hushed reassurances even though they sounded hollow.

In the end, I had to speak up.  I reached a point where I realized that the hospital staff was assuming that my swelling was more fat and cheesecake than a medical issue.  They were seeing an obese woman with heart problems….no surprise.  I finally cornered the doctor with the threat of disconnecting myself from all the machines and sensors.

“I’m fat, but I’m not THIS fat”  I spoke straight in to his eyes.

He held my gaze and finally checked my ankles for pitting edema.  Positive, really positive.  He was quiet for a moment and thoughtful.  He asked if I had had an epidural for Max’s birth.  Yes, I did.  He asked if they gave me a lot of IV fluids.  Yes, they did.

The nurse was looking at him trying to divine where he was going with this and he shook his head slightly.

“Get her some furosemide and lets see what happens.”

My blood pressure crashed down to normal levels within the first 2 hours. I fainted on my way to get more chest x-rays done to rule out a lung embolism.  My heart rate recovered.  I lost 16 pounds in the next 24 hours.  The IV fluids had overwhelmed my body and were basically drowning my heart.

My heart would have eventually grown too tired and it would have stopped.  I was a mother to a 4 yr old, a 28 month old, and a 4 day old.  And looking back, that was all I was.

Had I died, my children wouldn’t have known me because there was nothing beyond bum wiping and sandwich making on my resume.  Sure I was excellent at mothering but I sucked at Life.

This is one of my defining moments.  A frozen portion of my past that still makes me weep when I think about how I clung to Mark on that hospital bed.  I also remember that it was only by my own insistence that the doctor believed that I wasn’t just fat and unhealthy.  Even in that moment of seasick anxiety, I spoke and got results.

I don’t ever want my children to go through something so terrifying in order to learn to trust in themselves, in their individuality, their intelligence, their worth.

And so I am striving to become The Unmother.

I release my children from the slavery of over protective parenting because I want them to make mistakes.  I want them to own their experiences, good and bad.  I want them to be answerable for their actions and learn to take personal responsibility.  I want them to ride their bikes to the corner store because if we’re honest, the world is much safer than we give it credit for.  I will sit on my hands when school projects are late or not done at all.  I wash my hands of homework deadlines.  I will however preach work ethic….and doing for yourself, and respecting others.

I release myself from the ridiculous helicopter style parenting which martyrs parents on the ‘what-ifs’ of childhood experiences and robs children of becoming self-aware individuals.  I will greedily enjoy their adventures, especially if it means I can have 2 hours of uninterrupted time to write, or soak in a bath, or play a game of soccer.  I will speak my philosophy out loud.  My children are not my property but they are my job, and my job is to raise self actualized happy individuals.  If I take a step back from mothering and feed myself, then there will always be enough for others.  A deep well refills itself from the inside out.

Being a writer, a soccer player, an avid reader, a karaoke attender, sneaky cocktail drinker all make me more than a mother.  It is this study of my own personality which will demonstrate to my children the fullness and joy that is to be had in Life.  That desires can (and should be) be limitless and that no force (or parent-ahem) should hold dominion over their truest heart-dreams.  I need to take for myself as a woman to communicate my competence and worth so that my children will see that in themselves and others.

I want them to grow and dance freely, not with the help of the marionette strings of their childhood.

And because now I have a legacy of breathtaking heart palpitations that remind me daily of my most visceral encounter with fear, I must live my life to please myself and to empower those most precious to me.

And so I step away from the limelight and push my children forward in to the bright light.  They will shine without me…..because one day they will be without me.

But hopefully not for many many many years.

For the same reason you don’t go out and get yourself some chlamydia, you also shouldn’t live on bacon, or veggie chips and water.  

This evening I was trolling Facebook for the normal sundry.  Pregnancies, break ups, and other such delicious drama.

Shaddup, I had a migraine and Seinfeld wasn’t on yet.

When I happened upon a graphic being presented along side a number of ‘lolz’ and ‘duhs’ and a sarcastic ‘that chick on the bottom is hot’.

Sweeping generalizations clearly are the way to go when making judgements, yes?

In this one little picture we see so much of what is wrong with our culture.

It is shallow and oversimplified and a shaded pat on the back for the woman who posted it.  For tearing in to another section of society is both productive and feeds the arrogant soul, yes?

First and foremost, the person that posted this is clearly giving themselves an enormous golden checkmark for being in column A.  For only the virtuous shall inherit the abs (and the right to use baby oil apparently).

Clearly the woman in the above picture lives on vegetables and water alone.  Poor thing.  I would eat the fucking basket too if I were her.  And probably my own bikini….I don’t think they have carbs.

Secondly, why do we all need to strive to be like the ‘white-bikini-no-head’ woman?  Where did we cook up a nearly unobtainable ideal?  According to Stats Canada the average Canadian woman has an average height of 5 ft 3.4 and weighs about 153 lbs. (our American Lovelies come in at 5 ft 3.8 and 163 lbs)  I can guarantee you that a woman in that range does NOT look like White Bikini.  So why are we shredding our self esteem in the name of an ideal that is actually aberrant?  What force is strong enough to make us question our own health in the name of fitting in to a certain dress size?

Insecurity?  Media?  Men?  Other women?  The super perky 17 yr old gym attendant?

Sure we need to live healthfully, get exercise, sweat, have sex, hike, hold hands, laugh religiously, drink water, drink wine, dance, meditate, eat our vegetables.  We need to take responsibility for our health and treat our bodies (and minds….no one ever talks about minds relating to physical health) with respect.  

I mean there is a dude that ran a marathon eating only McDonalds for 30 days…so pow...fitness and health is clearly more above just what you eat.

Full Disclosure:  My badonkadonk looks like the column B girl.  I have cellulite and spider veins.  I am a size                           16.  If I wore a bikini it would look like my ass was having lunch too.

If I follow the wisdom of the above graphic, I would be worth-less, ugly, and clearly make regular atrocious meal decisions.  I would be subjected to judgment based solely on the size of my thighs.

Didn’t we used to do that to black, asian, gay….oh wait we still do that.

The problem is that the society at large takes no issue with uncalled for chastisement of people outside the aberrant ‘norm’.  In this case fat people….

I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to scream when I was in my early 20s.  I was at a bar, shaking my ass-Long Island in hand, some guy would be hitting on me, pawing at my curves, telling me delicious things about my hips…then he would turn and see another woman and exclaim “Holy shit- that chick is like 200 pounds!!!”.

Um, no jackass…I’m 200 lbs.  Now kindly put your hands back in your pockets.  Trust me, they’ll see more action there.

Our perceptions have become totally skewed as a culture.  We don’t even know what a healthy woman actually weighs.  We haven’t a clue how body frame or genetics play a role in body size.  What does authentic health even look like?

I quite confidently say it doesn’t have to look like White Bikini. I know gorgeous healthy women that weigh 260, 210, 152, 122, 102….and all of them are different shapes.  Slim, Round, Amazonian, Sleek or Pin Up Curvy….we are all divine in our femininity because we were created this way.  Simply, if we were born with big breasts, no breasts, it is right.  It is so right to rock the body we’re given.  Love it for what you accomplish through it.  Acknowledge that cookie cutter expectations are legion myths.  Move on.  Judge not.

Thirdly, it is implied that larger gals aren’t attractive.  They’re not sexy…which is fine since clearly big girls don’t bang anyways.  I know many men who would disagree.  I know even more who have fallen hopelessly in love with a non-white bikini woman….and can’t keep their hands off them.  I remember when my husband and I first started sleeping together, I would always shyly dress in the bathroom afterwards.  One day he just said out of the blue that he like what he saw and that I shouldn’t feel embarrassed about my body.  10 years and three babies later, he still has my back…no matter how much back fat it carries.

Sex isn’t a dress size.  It is Connection. Enthusiasm. Soul Fucking.  Dedication.  L.O.V.E.  ( and spanking, that can be fun too)

Anything less is just an empty spasm in a barroom bathroom smelling of urinal pucks and stale cigarette smoke.  Don’t sell yourself short baby.  Wait for the one that brings the fireworks.

We need to stop assigning value according to appearance.  We need to stop generalizing.  We need to stop making others feel like shit just so we can feel better about ourselves.

We all occupy the same space, a community.  Use your manners, play nice, wash your hands, remember the Golden Rule.

Because if we are not building up the community we live in, we are acting to erode it.

 Some stretch with obligatory cheek.

This year has been uh, transformative.  It took me from believing that I was a stretched out pair of granny panties to knowing that I could be a pair of little and lilac and lace boy shorts.

2011 was the year of letting go and learning.  It held surprises, some downers fo sho, but I choose to look at the inspirations I was able to glean from the day to day.  In retrospect the year’s events are a series of dots which now beg to be connected to form a picture.  A image of summation if you will.

I started this year with weak friendships and little support beyond my knight in shining armour husband, Mark. I was floating lonely.  Once I finally realized that I needed to take responsibility, shed the fair-weather friends, and redefine myself outside the roll of ‘mom’….usually repeated eleven billionty times a day, I opened myself up to possibility.  And possibility kicked my ass, and then took me out for dinner.

2011 was the year of Delicious Inspiration and rebuilding of my core beliefs and realizing that I really wasPin-Up material if I spend some loving time with an elliptical.

It all started with a straight shooter photographer who Twittered me in to letting him design my website. Dutifully rolling his eyes whenever I said “No one will read it anyways…”.  Evan pushed me to write publicly and laughed exactly at all the right places.  His encouragement made me brave.

Next came a woman I can only intro as the Fabulous Ms. Diels.  She was a mom at school who didn’t look like any of the others.  We were in yoga pants and she was in pencil skirts and fire engine red stiletto boots. (which I still covet and drool over).  She is a sex goddess, a confessional writer, and inspirational teacher. She let me know that writing is an art form, editing is essential work, and that I need to rock a pencil skirt, stat.

And so I wrote about the real me.  The ugly, offensive, and absolutely fabulous stuff that was percolating in my heart.  A funny thing happened on my way to Authenticity and truth of heart;  I made mad-love amazing friends who LIKE the fact that I am slightly unbalanced and totally open about it.

Wendy et all.  They taught me not only that colouring outside the lines is fun, but essentially human.  I learned about autism from her amazing blog and the joy in consuming Tupperware cocktails while picking blackberries from aggressive bushes.  Namaste heart-friend.

Dawn, oh Dawn you are one strong ass bitch.  You taught me that even when life gets messy that it can still be damn good.  You also gave me the balls to get more tats because you wear your ink like its jewellery from Tiffany’s.  Our walks are better than Prozac to me.  Cheers!

Kristina- you made me wanna let my inner badass out.  She was begging for it, even while I had my soccer mom face on.  I don’t see you much and I want to change that.  Your chutzpah inspires me to buy $400 wheels, wear victory rolls, and persevere through any physical challenge.  Bitches on Wheels in 2012 baby. You also reconnected me with my homegirl Corrine, who was my right defender for 13 years, and now can still share an appreciation for the finely honed soccer thigh with me at Whitecap games.

Lexie you are a straight talkin’, ass kickin’, kid wranglin’, bestest walkin’ partner.  I bow to your hockey knowledge.  And I extra love the fact that you willingly look past all my scrapes, bruises, and unrefined language.  I am also intensely jealous that Ryan Kesler stood that close to you.

Kasia, we haven’t always been close but know that your determination to better yourself and serve the community motivates me to do the same.  You aren’t afraid to admit that you need to change yourself, love yourself as you are, share yourself.  May your business flourish and take root in 2012.

Deidre, you are one helluva creative soul.  I have never met someone so authentically ‘glass half full’ and it glows from within you.  Thank you for letting me expand my writing toolbox, encouraging me…and actually liking the finished product.

Admittedly I haven’t always been exactly a double-rainbow of joy and sometimes (gasp) even forgot why I bothered to write.  Then I would get a reminder tweet, witty-snarky-sweary comment from Michelle Yost, or email from my Fargo FanGirls @sarahmml, @lala_k, and @Amazongrace.

I would come back to the truth that my writing is important to others, if not myself at that immediate point in time.  I have been humbled and shocked on to my ass by the impact my words have had.  I have received private emails with very personal stories, public gratitude, and sisterhood support in my times of gloom.
In fact, something I wrote even became a touching verse tattooed on a reader’s wrist. It means ‘It will always go on…’. Something I need to remember myself and will get inked in 2012.

2011 is my year of Gratitude, for the good, the bad, the shocking, the experimental writing, the new steps taken, the new soulmate friends made, the unearthing of my self worth long buried in motherhood and expectations.  So thank you, thank you, thank you.

And a Big Fat Mwah!

I suppose I should have taken a hint when my 4 year old started to knead my stomach, 4 people deep in a pharmacy line up, and told me he liked how soft my boobs were.

Ginger: The Fluffy Years

I’ve been noticing things lately that make me slightly sweaty.  Cold sweaty, down the centre of my back. Suspicious. But Denial is a happy companion on the Fat Ass Express, in fact the bastard may indeed be the conductor. Choo-Choo!  (chew-chew?) Who-Who needs bigger pants????  Me.

I stepped on the scale today and laughed until I nearly puked.  At least had I puked it would have been another 6 ounces I wouldn’t have to worry about losing.

But that sweet little voice of leisure and excuses has led me down a path and left me without a courtesy sachet of breadcrumbs. Which truthfully is good since they’re carbs and I would probably eat them anyways.

“Naw, the back of your calf always jammed up against your thigh when you sat down.”

“Of course, you always had a muffin top over your undies, ESPECIALLY the maternity ones from 2 years ago.”

“Chins are overrated.  It is much better when it all just kinda blends in with your neck.  Now that is smooth and sexy.”

I’m sure that even my feet have gotten fatter too.  Balls.

Sigh.

I have a strict policy of authenticity, personally.  I expect it from anyone I expect to spend any amount of time with.  Bullshit pedlars who compare square footage or paycheques or children or penis savvy need not apply.  Although the penis savvy stories can be educational.  I want to represent the real, the vulnerable, the scarred and the fucking fabulousness of women and so I admit for all to read that…

I weigh a whopping 260 pounds.  What?!?!  When the fuck did this happen and why did I not notice that my stomach has got a double chin now?

I went to a hockey game and had to butter my thighs to fit in to the damn seats.  Yeah, that is kinda a heads up.

But Denial just put his back in to his work, and I continued popping the meds that were making me gain weight.  I desperately clung to a glimmer of a ‘cure’ for my IBS.  I was okay with the 10 lbs I had gained the first 3 months….I was feeling good, so a little more in the bra cups was just gravy for Hubs.  The problem is that in the next 4 months I packed on weight quickly, like faster than my first boyfriend if you get my drift. Pow!

I would wash a pair of jeans and then they just.wouldn’t. fit. again no matter how many contorted squats I did while wearing them in a dark bathroom.  I had to go back to wearing my maternity undies so that I wouldn’t get muffin-top-tummy under my fancy new (and pretty damn near magical) sweater dress.

Truthfully now, I feel ashamed because even though I advocate sexification at any weight…I feel awful and fat and ugly and almost like I might spontaneously start sprouting hair from inappropriate places and talking to my cat all too much.

I wannabe sexy, curvy, rubenesque.  I wanna walk in to a room shoulders back, cleavage out, hips wide, all pencil skirt and snakeskin heels.

But no Spanx, those things are fucking evil.  I had them on at Christmas and I think they twisted my bowels because I damn near exploded when I finally rolled them fuckers off.

I think I’m more of an old school corset, garters and stockings girl.  Possibly just as uncomfortable but damn, EVERYONE looks good taking that shit off….and you will gleefully have it taken it off you which is much more pleasant.

I digress.

Ok- so I’m not feeling the sexy because I’ve gotten too big for my britches, literally.  Understand that my discomfort has nothing to do with the number 260 but everything to do with how I feel.  It my personal threshold that when my ass surpasses the perimeter of my computer chair that I need to spring in to action.

If you’re 260 and rocking it, keep doing it, and doing it well.  Much love.

Because sexy is a state of mind, even if pop culture wants us to think the answers lie between magazine covers.  In the real world sexy lives between the ears, then works it’s way down.

And so my goal isn’t to lose weight per se but to get my swagger back.  Sure, I’ll lose weight because it’ll happen naturally along the way.

I don’t want to be a size 10, or even 12.  I don’t have an ideal weight beyond ‘somewhere between 180 and 215′.  I don’t believe in denying myself foods and dieting because I believe in balance and enjoying decadence.  Seriously, life is too short to hate the food you eat.

1~My goal will be to be active- running, walking, dancing, yoga, sex (yes that counts in my world) almost every day.

2~I will eat mindfully and reeeeaaaaalllly enjoy the naughty foods.  By giving myself permission to eat guilt free, I will remove the psychological clusterfuck of cravings.  If I DO have cravings I will gratefully dive in to the caramel dip.  Life is more fun when you get sticky once in a while.

3~I will however go on a moderate online diet.  Which means limiting time of FB, Twitter, and other random time-wasting sites.  I find I spend so much time answering one chime or another that I lose time that I could be meditating  or something valuable to my mental health. (but never laundry-blah!)

The end result?  My reward?  Mmmmm, besides becoming bombshell material of course.

I will get a pin-up photo shoot done when I gots ma swagger back.  And I will share it online….audaciously proud of whatever size I happened to be.  Promise.

This ain’t no Jenny Craig transformation, its The Snakeskin Heels and Pencil Skirt Diet.  Hear my rally call…

I am Joan to them, except I’m double-fisting McDonald’s fries not Manhattans.

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Her thumb made dewy circles on the outside of her Manhattan, her eyes drifting out the kitchen window. The red geraniums on the window sill looked violent against the lawn.  It made her tremble inside for a barely conscious reason.  Halfway through her Three Martini Lunch, Joan thought about the semi congealed jell-o cheesecake in the fridge and laughed giddy with rebellion.

“Fuck it.  He can make the damn chili cheese jubilee.” Grabbing her Parliament cigarettes she plunked herself at the melamine kitchen table to smoke and paint her nails and wonder why she didn’t want to get laid anymore.  Smoke wove a silky path through her tired curls and she imagined she was anywhere but in her kitchen.  Waiting.  Drifting.  Resentful.

And sorry it was too late to start the chili.  The fallout, oh, the fallout of the fickle female condition.

Oh dear, if only she hadn’t forgotten to pick up her Valium.

***********************************************************************************************************************************

Numb it, drug it, and don’t you damn well argue.  Take your pills, put that lipstick on, and make a quiche Florentine that is to die for.  Don’t fight biology.

Thus spake the common medical wisdom of the 1970s, and despite measured leaps forward since, women are still view as victims of their inherently hysterical natures.

Shit, I don’t even know where to go from there…it seems so blasphemous.  So cursory.  A dismissal of the complexity of woman.  And man.

We’re in a lock down of gender stereotypes that serve no one.  Woman are a fondue fuckery of an internal life with superficial external motivators outside their children and marriages.  Men must perform stoically, efficiently, aggressively….preferably with a football in hand and a gun rack on the Ford.

Women shouldn’t say the word fuck.

Men should only ever want to fuck.

To be outside of these parameters is non-normative, weak minded, aberrant.

************************************************************************************************************************************

So you can imagine how self sabotaging it can be to have a mental illness, a vagina, and a potty mouth.  A trifecta of awesome.

I have had a friend admit to others, at a party, that they thought I was crazy.  Ouch.  Really?  Would they have made that comment if I’d been an assertive male speaking truth?   Well I guess I/he would have been labelled a pussy for having panic disorder though, and I guess having a vagina would have been a negative for the poor bastard too.

Whoa wait, why does the word pussy mean both vagina and coward? What an uneasy partnership, one that exposes the musty truth surrounding gender.

Even modern day psychiatric professionals treat women as more susceptible to their weakened hormonal biology. Check out antidepressant commercials, they’re heavy on sad women and knowledgeable male doctors.

“Abilify….if you’re a chick with depression and need a man to pull you out of your deep well of self loathing.”

Sigh, that wasn’t very mature I’m afraid.

But I’m so tired of the stigma.  The no-one-can-win stain of having a less than perfectly normal brain.  (Less than normal?  See?  Language can be a loaded gun that reinforces baseless societal norms.)

I’ve now tried 14 different medications in an effort to fix my less than perfect brain.  I’ve weathered bad trips, debilitating nausea, tremors, electric shocks in my brain….and I didn’t even get to drop acid.  The side effects were awe inspiring, and yet all I have to show for my dedication is a super sized ass from drugs doctors claim ‘shouldn’t cause weight gain’.  Uh yeah…

Luvox- 60 lbs, Celexa- 80 lbs, Prozac- 35 lbs.

One doctor told me I was probably ‘eating too many potatoes’.  Speechless, he was so fucking lucky I was stunned speechless.

I’ve been on the medication roller coaster because the ONE medication that does help me, is a kissing cousin of Valium (mother’s little helper of the 70s).  Before finding my current and magically delicious doctor, I was dispensed these pills in scant groups of tens.  I was given side-eye glances and asked if I needed addiction counselling.

So I’ve been thinking, endlessly for the past weeks.  How did I get here?  Where is the GPS to sanity?- Oh probably on my disconnected iPhone, yes?  I talk to myself in circular arguments (maybe I am crazy?),and get swallowed by apathy, and then brush myself off, I smile, I sigh, I heartily endeavour to find good sources of avoidant behaviour.

Fall, Fail, Fly.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

Since drugs are out for me, and becoming an alcoholic conflicts with my vomiting phobia, I’m left with…well…me.

Beyond my beloved coping mechanisms (Seinfeld re-runs, Grumpy Old Men movies, writing) I am left with my own perspective on my mental illness, or should it be wellness?

It sounds foo-foo but I really think that, in my case, it is imperative that I shake things up in the way I see myself.

Currently I would describe myself as: fat, lazy, unhappy, uncreative, stuck, ungrateful, disconnected, muted, unrefined. (You have no idea how much I wanted to edit this confession out.)  I’m wholly buying in to the culture-crap surrounding women, depression, anxiety, and medication.

I need to see the light that shines but also creates these shadows.

I’m fatter than I’d like because of the Prozac, and I can change that.  I’m not lazy, I’m detoxing. I’m not stuck or muted, I’m contemplative.  I’m not disconnected, I’ve gone underground as a protective healing measure.

Sure I might be Joan double-fisting benzodiazepines on some days and McDonald’s fries on others.  I might use too many commas but I’m tentatively sticking my toes in to the ocean of no-regrets.  I want to be free.  I want to inspire.  I want to write. I want back in to the Big Booty Club.

And honestly, some days a Manhattan or glass of Shiraz can gift us the respite we need to put on our lipstick and not kill our loved ones at the dinner table.

I ain’t lost, I’m just wandering.

No regrets baby girl, no regrets.

**** Admission of fault ****

This piece is not a judgement ( although it kinda sounds that way) of those that find success with antidepressants, or any medication for that matter.  I fully support anyone who is experiencing mental illness and their personal journeys of success and ass kicking.  To truly paralyze the power stigma has over our culture we all need to speak our stories.  Mental illness is more common than we realize and we are much less alone than we know.

There are many uses for black lace panties, especially if they have the stretch. 

I could tie my loverman to the headboard.  I could wear them with nothing but his white dress shirt.  I could trail them down his chest….

but mostly those motherfuckers just line my lingerie drawer.

The ardent pre-kids coupling is long forgotten and has been replaced by being mindfucked by a determined 2 year old who thinks he should wear the same pants every day. Sweaty and sticky are no longer the adjectives of a glorious Saturday night. They now belong to road trips and car seats, family dinners and windows, soccer practices and kitchen floors.  My Saturday nights now end at 10 rather than just get interesting.

Well actually, hubby’s night ends at 10 while I give him the death glare for his bizarre snoring whale songs.  I swear one night he will die in his sleep with my fist in his back.

Ahem.

For a while there, I was worried.  My lingerie went from gossamer to gone.  Just dust through my finger tips, memories.  I doubted myself, my marriage, my man.  I felt lost in my new role as a wife and mother.  I was much better as a bang than I was a maker of love.  I mourned the ferocious sex of yesterdays while abiding the average loving of a solid partner.

Where the hell did the romance go?  Where is my fairytale, my riding each other off in to the sunset?

It died when 3 births blew out my girlie parts and I surrendered woman in favour of mother.  It breathed it’s last gasping breath while watching my husband mop up vomit in the livingroom.  It was starved the year we went to the Emergency ward 12 times in one cold season and didn’t sleep for 9 weeks.  It was eroded with each pound gained.

It was gone. *poof*  No hot sex for chubby mommy.

I didn’t experience a celestial epiphany but more of a sweet slow dawning.  The sex hadn’t changed, but I had.  The storybook expectations I hid in my heart were false gods.  The False Idols of Good Fucking.  Figureheads of Twilight movies and the sweaty backseats of cars and rainy outdoor make-out sessions.  Beginner stuff.

I have discovered in my lack of spontaneity the art of soul sex.  Deep, almost agonizing pleasure.  No more are the bone-cracking flash fires but now, now, there exists a chimerical ember than burns white hot and silent.  It sees the sexy beyond the yoga pants and t-shirt and greasy hair and broken glasses.  Hairy legs and all.

It blinds you to everything but raw sensation.  This type of banging sustains you like honey on the tongue during a famine.  It is closing your eyes and still knowing every contour of your man’s cock, or your lady’s labia.  Shimmying just. that. way. by memory because it makes your lover lose themselves to reality.  You become the only thing they know and remember.

Then the return to ember, forever patient and outliving even the most heinous children, in-laws, and tax returns.  This is good married sex.  It sometimes comes in feasts but most often peppered throughout a full life.

I consider my spawn part of a whole, full life.  I am willing to admit that doing my dinner dishes now constitutes fore-foreplay. I don’t need the backseat quickies because we’re savvy and installed a lock on our bedroom door.  Seriously, who doesn’t want to play massage-y oil-y games with a man who just folded all your laundry?  Or one that looks at you in all your unwaxed glory and still wants you like his mama told him not to?  I know this bitch does.

I surrender my need for flaky fictive fucking standards and yardsticks.  I don’t need the hype anymore.  Jacob or Edward?  Who the hell cares?

I have a loverman who engages with my root quintessence and makes me sing.  Frequency, approach, technique are all insignificant players.  Propaganda.

Reclaim your sexuality from the vapid minds of Hollywood, the minds of grand fiction.  Instead of deriding yourself for a less than Tiger Woods sex life, or the baby weight, or the once-a-month-sneak-a-screw behind a locked bathroom door….

Fuck meaning, literally fuck it.

“I love my husband, he loves me, when we do manage to get together it’s amazing, so leave me the fuck alone! We’re building a life here, not dating”~ Wendy