Grown-Ass Woman Meltdown #1

So far, the musings on this website have been largely absent the fallback episodes that pepper my days.  Lest you think it’s because I’m sailing through my newfound roles and newfound co-habitating-while-co-working waters at a graceful and efficient clip, allow me to disabuse you of that notion.  Let me assure you that there have been many “I need a moment” proclamations followed by intentional deep breathing to allow me to recover and return to my day without losing my shit – inwardly and outwardly.  In fact, it’s probably because my fallback occurs many times a day in many micro forms, that I haven’t tended to write about them. After all, I am in the midst of learning-while-doing my new full-time job homeschooling a kindergartener and a fourth grader. It’s hard to find the time to document all the small episodes during which I don’t show up my Big Self.  Both, because the time is scarce and the fallbacks are plenty.

I consider these the fallbacks precipitated by ordinary triggers…I’m stressed, I’m exhausted, I’m overwhelmed, I-haven’t-had-60-minutes-to-myself-for-ten-days…  These are the catalysts for fallback that I think are marked by a slide to more habitual, less complex, less intentional ways of showing up.

Usually, it’s the big fallback episodes we have a hard time ignoring. The free-falls.

This weekend, I had my first grown-ass woman meltdown. Given that I’d been home-school teaching while co-habitating-and-co-working for a solid week before its occurrence, I consider this a win.  I numbered it in the title, because I am quite certain there are more to come. We’ll want to keep track.

It was my birthday weekend, the weekend we had set aside to celebrate. Let me start by admitting that I am a pain in the ass about my birthday.  I am an Aries. We like things to be all about us.  I have children, and a husband, cats, responsibilities.  Rarely in life, anymore, are things all about me.  On this one day a year (actually, two, because I expect this of Mothers’ Day, as well) I want to be celebrated and spoiled, and I want to do what I want to do.  (In truth, I have a philosophy that you get to celebrate a day for every year. There’s got to be some benefit to aging. Are you seeing the Aries here?)

We were supposed to go up the coast to stay in a beach cottage for a couple of days. These cottages are infamously impossible to secure, they’re in such high demand. Six months ago, I went online at 8 a.m. having done my research and set my strategy, and somehow the stars aligned, and I reserved a cottage. I was infinitely excited and had the next six months to savor the anticipation of what was to come.  We planned for my sister, Stephanie, to come join us from Indiana.

Then, Coronavirus.

Stephanie falls strongly in the immunocompromised category. After much sleeping on it and seeing how things progressed, we ultimately made the decision to postpone her visit.  She asked if we’d still be going.  I told her, “Of course!  It’s not like we have to get on a plane, and we’ll be in our own distinct cottage!” We’d cross our fingers for a future star-alignment in booking a cottage and have her come join us.  Surely, we’d be well past this by summer. [Expectations adjusted] This was three weeks ago.

Over the course of the next two weeks, our calendar cleared quickly. Sloane had a cold. Then, I got it. Then I got over it, but my husband got sick. Then, I got his cold. All the time, I’m thinking and telling people as we tried to determine whether to cancel our commitments or not, “I think it’s just a cold…but who knows?” Finally, the germies were eradicated, and we felt better.

Then the babysitter had a sore throat on the night we were planning to celebrate our March birthdays with friends.  We cancelled.  [Reset expectations]

All the while, we were still planning to go to the cottage.  It is only a couple of hours by car. We would be staying in our own self-contained space and hanging out on the beach.  This was the safest place we could be other than our own home. We had looked forward to dining at the beachfront restaurant, but this quickly dropped to a no-go with the introduction of social-distancing. Okay, we would bring our own food. [Shrinking]

A week out from our trip, schools were cancelled and people were told to work from home.  My husband was suddenly overwhelmed with work. I was suddenly a homeschool teacher. And, we were all up in each others’ space.  Boy, did I need this weekend away.

As the days passed, it was unclear if my husband would even be able to get a break from work on our trip. The beauty of these cottages (to me) is that they are bare bones. There is no tv, no wifi.  You spend time with each other and out in nature. You’re not doing anything else.  Sonnie asked if I knew how good the cellular signal is there. It was becoming clear that my birthday weekend at these coveted beach cottages was going to be Sonnie working while I wrangled and tried to entertain my children away from home, their comforts and luxuries. And, rain was in the forecast. [Smaller]

Last week, we shifted strategy again. I was to go up to the cottage on my own for a night. I could get some work done, or get some respite. It was becoming clear that we were going to be in this for the long haul, and I needed to mentally and emotionally prepare.  The family would join me for the second night when Sonnie would hopefully have wrapped up his work obligations.  Two-hours later, the day before we were to go, I received a cancellation from California State Parks. The cottages were closed through April 15^th.  The next day, we received the shelter-in-place order from the governor of California.

Deep breath.  It is what it is. I shall garden.  That will fill me up. I made plans to secure my supplies. I relished every moment of the drive to and from the garden center. I talked to a friend on the phone. Without anyone interrupting me. Without anyone needing something. Without having to move on to the next on-the-fly instructional activity for one-child before having to pivot to do the same for the other. It was 45-minutes of bliss.

I returned home and walked in the door to find Sonnie setting up video chat with the kids and their cousins. And fixing lunch.  I was texting the friend I had been on the phone with in the car to let her know we needed to postpone the video chat with our kids that we had planned. Sonnie snapped at me, “Can you please help out here? The kids need drinks and napkins.”  I went to the bathroom to do the requisite 20-second hand-washing.  When I came back and did as requested, the kids already had milk and napkins.  Sonnie snapped again, “You weren’t doing it, so I took care of it.”  I walked off, pissed.

I sulked around, folding the baskets of laundry that I had not gotten to through the week, putting clothes away, picking up the crap that had piled up as a result of four of us being in the house all.the.time.  There was a persistent negative loop playing in my head.
“This is my birthday weekend, and this is what I’m doing? This is what I’m dealing with?”  I couldn’t help thinking of what I was not doing. I was overwhelmed by the stuff, the people, the options for respite and renewal and celebration that had been swiped from me, one-by-one over the past weeks.  Life had shrunk. I was shrinking with it.

I was mad at Sonnie for having snapped at me when I took 30 seconds to do what I am supposed to do in this world of Coronavirus, fear and uncertainty. I was mad at the world for this being our reality. I was angry that all I had been looking forward to the past month had been stripped away.  Woe is me. I felt myself getting smaller, angrier.

I could see all of this happening.  I knew it was not all true, or all fair, or objective.  I knew this was not my higher Self. I knew I had much to be grateful for.  Yet, I could not access anything else in that moment. Immediately, I began to take it out on Sonnie and the kids, ordering them around.  “I want you to pick this up. Why is this here? I am not your maid.”  Sonnie asked, why are you yelling at us?  I broke down in tears, “Because this is my birthday weekend and this…” (signaling with my hands to the clutter, dirty dishes, kids blankets and stuffed animals and school work and craft projects all around me) “is what it’s come to.”

Sonnie does not share my insistence on birthdays being all about the individual who’s just returned from another trip around the sun.  He certainly doesn’t subscribe to the day-for-every-year philosophy.  However, he married me these many years ago and knew what he was getting into.  We take the good with the obnoxious, I suppose.  So, he, Townsend and Sloane did the only thing they could do. They moved in for a mommy sandwich. [In the event that this is a term that is specific to our family, and you are now picturing either cannibalism or a favorite lunch, let me clarify. A mommy sandwich is a family hug with me in the middle.]  And, in their offering of grace, I was able to find a little grace, too.  That’s how it works, I think. Someone’s got to go first.

Now, I cried through writing this, because I do feel shame over being such a self-focused pain-in-the-ass in the midst of so much real, felt loss and devastation.  I have much to be grateful for. This is even more apparent as the shutters close and the doors are boarded up all around us. AND, my experience is true and real, too. And, I suspect there are a fair number of us out there who are experiencing our own versions of this.

The inclination is often to write that episode off, move on, think the circumstances have shifted, and to fall into the trap of saying “that was not me.”  “There’s nothing to see here, folks.” But, let’s be honest. That – that person in her smaller self who was self-focused, self-righteous, and mean – that was me, too.  Just as much as the generous, grateful, loving, compassionate, perspective-taking self is.  And, if I don’t accept the full messiness of myself, I deny what it is to be human. The light and the dark. The beauty and the ugliness. In the place of denial, there can be no growth.

So, I practice.  I practice being honest about the messiness of me. To myself. To you. I practice reflecting on myself in that small space. What was the context? What were the triggers? What felt at risk to me?  What did I feel I needed to protect? I resolve myself to learn from this. So I can show up better.

“Let me not squander the hour of my pain.”

–Rainer Maria Rilke

Because I’ve researched this, because I’m writing a book about this, because I’ve been in the company of and exploration with other wise and generous souls, I’ve acquired some tools to help me do this. If you are also committed to learning and growing through your fallback, I want to share these with you.  In the coming days, I will be undertaking my own exploration of the multiplicity of characters that make up my full self and that seem particularly inclined to come on-stage in the context of my present life…life in the time of pandemic. In the coming weeks, I will invite you to join me in exploring the characters that populate your cast as I offer these exercises and tools to you.

I hear whispers on the wind…a calling, an imperative for us to come to know (and re-know) ourselves more fully and authentically as we simultaneously come to know and re-know the the shifting nature of life as we know it.  So that we may do something with this knowing. For self. For others. I hope you will join me.