"I'm a Pusher Cady"

What's that movie, Something’s Gotta Give? Pretty sure I have never seen it and I couldn’t even tell you the plot nor the actors but I would assume it’s about a burnt out person doing too much until it all comes to a head and they then learn some kind of valuable lesson. I am whoever that main character is and the lessons just keep on flowing. Fuck.

In a very Portland fashion I very much identify with a rubber band at the moment, a broken one. No, one that is more than broken, one of those really old rubber bands that feel kind of crunchy and gross but they still stretch a bit before giving way under pressure and exploding into a million, billion tiny pieces. That’s what I identify as, an old crunchy, stale rubber band. 

I feel like for the past 5 years I/we have just been going, and going, and going. 

I initially had written down every obstacle and challenge we overcame in the past few years, but I think that was more for me than for anyone else, kind of a ‘see, I told you it was a lot’. Some kind of written validation that this crisis is real. It doesn’t actually matter what we did though, yes it actually was a lot as proven by the aforementioned list, but the point is that all of the doing has gotten me here to some kind of crux and mental and emotional identity crisis. That moment where you look your weathered, tired, sad self in the mirror and say, “Well, what are you going to do now?” is currently happening, and that sucks because I wasn’t really planning on any kind of identity crisis, it just wasn’t on the docket and now that direct sad sack in the mirror has not only shown up from literally nowhere but is also aggressively catching me off guard. I can not express how uninterested I am in an identity crisis right now. 

For the first time since the death of my mother I am unable to ‘do’ my way out of this problem, the whole

my mom being dead part you see. It’s causing quite a rift in my day to day existence. The best way to explain it is that scene in The Family Stone when Sybil, the mother, tells Everett that he can’t fix his way out of her being sick by being perfect? I am pretty sure that I deeply relate to that, like reaaalll deep. Everyone always thinks I am Amy in the scenario of The Family Stone, but as of late I am Everett, that confused coward. When my mom was actively dying I was freshly postpartum, still doing work on the weekends at one of our accounts, working out and training for my 5th marathon. Yes, my 5th marathon to be run 5 months postpartum…idiot. Before this moment I would never have said that I avoid hard things but as I look back it seems even if unintentional I avoid hard things by achieving, which in itself has got to be some kind of trauma response. I really thought it was a healthy way to be but I am pretty aggressively second guessing myself lately. 

Doing and achieving has kept me pretty steady for most of my life, got me through my mom’s first bout of cancer, got me through the childhood trauma of my first step-dad and the alcoholism of my father. Doing and achieving have very much saved my life and my sanity since I can remember. My mom died and I chose to get pregnant two months later in the hopes of having a daughter in February (our birthdays were 6 days apart) to recreate a similar connection and relationship that my mom and I had. I literally decided to make life as a solution to death. I am sure people have done wilder things but that shits insane. It’s like putting a bug under a magnifying glass in the sun, what does it do when it’s scared or uncomfortable? Me? I climb mountains, search for new life challenges, adventure, literally anything that results in a small victory so I can feel good about myself and what I have accomplished. Honestly, writing about it, it seems like a pretty ‘healthy’ solution to trauma, but I once told Carmen that Anthony and I are the ‘good kind’ of codependent so I am self proclaimed a bit delusional. 

Regardless, it has recently proven not to help, like at all. I assume it’s a lot like one day when the drinking no longer ‘helps’ in the life of an alcoholic. No matter how much I keep doing and conquering here in Portland

I am still overwhelmed, ultimately sad my mom is dead and miss her very much, which is exponentially frustrating. It’s like having magic one day and the next you’re like, “Wingardium Leviosa” and nothing happens because your wand is suddenly broken. My wand has never been broken, I have literally never had a challenge I could not achieve but to be fair I also never present myself with a challenge that is too big to achieve. I quit swimming in high school and I completely fell apart thinking I was a quitter and loser for not just bucking up and getting through it. I am an awful swimmer to this day. Two kinds under two was a challenge I knew nothing about and that would be one thing but the death of my mother coupled with it, I have all the sudden gotten in over my head with no one to guide me. She is dead after all, and there is this bizarre panic setting in that says, “Uh oh Clark! Our wand isn’t working and our pilot has jumped ship, what the actual fuck?!” 

And that pretty much brings us up to date lol. I am screwed and abandoned and also awkwardly in charge. So there apparently is no Mount Pisgah, or park, or Turkey Trot or continuous Peloton schedule or any activity really that can undead my mom, and I am not sure what I am more upset about, being abandoned in my most crucial time of need by my life partner or realizing that my coping mechanism that has suited me my entire life 1. Is obviously not actually very healthy and 2. Doesn’t even work anymore. Again, I am like poor Karin in 5th grade learning from small assertive Jasmine that Santa Clause isn’t real. Who said it was okay to take that dream from me?

If my life was a wonderful and funny indie film the last 9 months of my life, ironically the gestation period

of a human, have just been a compilation of me trying, and trying, and achieving, and succeeding, and doing more and more, and yet I am wound so tight and the reel gets faster and faster with more and more attainable achieved goals until my delicately dressed character falls to the ground exhausted and sobbing and finally willing to give up (she looks great though, the magic of movies). I am like the stead that has finally had their spirit broken, emotionally decimated and exhausted, like the guy in The Last Rodeo, amazing film, a must see by the way. 

Side note, one time my sisters and I went to see War Horse in theaters with my mom and we walked out to her crying, she said that she was like the war horse, always in battle and just continuing to fight. I laughed and made fun of her, what a ridiculous comparison but as I write this, that must be where I got it from, my mom, the war horse, she literally never stopped. It drove me crazy about her, her back would be hurt or she’d be sick and she’d insist on helping or working. It drove me nuts that she wouldn’t take care of herself. As I write this it brings tears to my eyes to know that I am so much like her in this way and then it makes me sad that my initial thought is always self sacrifice for the comfort of others. Shit, I guess the war horse doesn’t fall far from the mare. Is this some kind of generational trauma I have to break because I don't specifically like that or feel very comfortable with the thought that what I saw as my mom’s greatest strength was simply a survival mechanism. I also cannot express enough how hard it is to have realizations about your dead parent that you can;t talk about or take back. I would like to say sorry for making fun of her, she really felt that about the war horse and it was true, I was just too happy, because she did such a good job as a mom, to know how she felt or how to comfort or reassure her. Tom Petty says that the waiting is the hardest part but the finality is the hardest part.

A few nights before my mom passed she was really scared, just like in that scene in The Family Stone when

Sybill says, “I’m scared Kelly, I’m scared”, and I said something along the lines of her being tough, she’s so tough its amazing the to know the level of strength she has from what she had been through, and she almost scoffed and said, "I don't want to be tough, I never wanted to be tough. I don’t want to know these limits.” And right, who wants to be pushed to their cortisol max literally every day of their life? When she got seriously comfortable with Tim and felt safe she became this kind of princess that I did not recognize and initially did not like at all, what does she mean she needs help hanging a picture or changing her oil?! We have been proud doers our whole life, we ain’t need no man. It’s not that she didn’t need a man, she just never had one until she had Tim. Living with her and Tim probably started to break a lot of toxic survival traits. I am all about the independent woman if that suits you but have you ever asked your step dad and husband to move the heavy furniture, or hang the pictures, or fix the light, or fridge, or toilet? They may not do it right away but they do do it and it sure is nice. My mom got to finally experience and live the life of a Queen that she always wanted and deeply deserved and I don’t think that undoes all the bullshit of her entire life but it sure makes for a very special and sweet end. 

My sister just mentioned that it is currently the year of the snake, a good shedding of the skin is in full effect and I have never identified more, well to the snake shedding and a dead rubber band lol. So I guess that’s what I'll do, I'll strip down to this new skin, I hope it’s shiny and cute, and start anew since I haven’t yet found a new attainable challenge, unless summiting Mount Rainier is doable with toddlers? We’ll keep it on the books as an option for summer and I’ll run it by my new therapist but until then I guess I’ll just try exploring all these new feelings but it should be known that I don’t like it and do not recommend it.