“Please tell me how you balance 4 kids, a husband, writing, and everything else you do. Are you an alien or something?” – Sammy

“How do you stay so damn awesome? And how do you find time and energy to keep being awesome every day?” – Charlotte

Dear Sammy and Charlotte,

I figured these were good questions to answer today because today I feel like giving up. It happens, usually out of sheer exhaustion. Last night I slept 4 hours. This week I haven’t slept more than 5 or 6 hours a night. This month we all had strep throat. Then most of us got it again, including me, this week.

As I write this, my head is pounding, my eyes are droopy, and my cheekbones ache. It’s a headache, I guess, wrapping around my face and skull, concentrating in my temples. It burns the side of my face. My eyes want to sleep. My brain, though, has other plans. I know that. Fucking insomnia.

They say “take power naps.” That sounds amazing. Somebody explain to my brain that power naps are a good call. “Nah, I’d rather THINK,” it says.

Okay, asshole. Let’s go.

I thought when I leased an office this would get easier. And it probably would have, had I not taken on a couple college classes as a last-minute decision, for reasons I’m not quite sure about.

For reasons in and out of my control, right now I find myself teaching college classes, teaching writing workshops, writing this blog and other projects, and taking care of four children every morning and every night, virtually alone. My husband has been working 2.5 hours away since February. He’s rarely home.

And today, today I want to give up.

I don’t, though. I don’t in the same way and for the same reasons none of us give up. How do I do it? How do we do it? We wake up and put one foot in front of the other, or maybe drag one foot in front of the other.

I’ve told my husband this year that his job has ruined my life. I don’t mean that. I said it in a fit of furious desperate exhaustion.

I do that. I say irrational things and feel sorry for myself.

I’ve yelled at my kids on the way out the door, with a hint of crazy, circling rage in a way that rocked me. I didn’t mean that. I sit down and explain.

I do that. I get angry, blame, lose my patience. Act terribly.

I get down. I get back up.

I write one blog post a week. Lately I’ve been pushing it to the 7^th day. I used to publish on Tuesday. You’ll note today is Friday.

I do that. I push things to the very end of the possible deadline because I FUCKING DON’T WANT TO because I’m uninspired and sucked dry.

I write badly. I publish things I don’t love. I don’t take myself too fucking seriously. I cut myself some slack. I trust I’m learning from all of it, that every piece of writing makes me a better writer. I write silly things. I sing in the car. I act like a fool.

The B.S. will pass.

It’s hard to create anything in the meantime, in monotony, the exhaustion and frustration, when all I want to do is watch “Mindy Project” and play Candy Crush. But I do it anyway, because if I sat around waiting for inspiration to strike I’d never write a fucking thing. If I waited for the muse to tap me on the shoulder I wouldn’t have written a word the whole of 2015, because the muse is hard to see through the haze of self-pity. Sometimes, as Stephen King says, we have to get down in the basement and do the fucking grunt work SO THAT the muse can visit us. We think she shows up uninvited. I believe we have to ask her to come, every day.

My job is to do the work in front of me and trust that the magic will show up.

(You got a better idea?)

I do that. I check out. I zone out. I whine. Then I show up again.

I’ve gotten a bunch of frozen food from Costco. We eat it when I’m too tired to move at the end of the day. My mom helps me drive Rocket to swim practice, Georgia to dance, Ava to piano. The laundry mocks me from every basket. I sit on the floor and read a story to Arlo. He makes the “milk” sign and I make a face. He nurses for 1-minute intervals. By the 6^th time we do it, I’m done. I feel guilty. I haven’t seen him all day.

Why can’t we just read books? Why can’t we just hang out? Shit.

I get up off the floor, because I don’t have it in me to nurse my flailing toddler every 70 seconds. I’m sorry, baby. I look at the clock. 5pm. Mac won’t be back for another hour. Dinner. Fuck. Dinner. I try to cook. Arlo clings to my legs, “me me me,” he says, to hold him. Me. Hold me. How precious. So goddamn precious. His tiny baby voice. I can’t, baby. I have to get some dinner on the table.

“Ava! Come and get the baby please!”

5:30pm. He’s never coming home. Damnit I need help.

The house, thrashed. Dishes from last night. Kid shit everywhere. Why won’t anybody pick up after themselves? Homework. Georgia jumping on the couch. My phone dings. It’s someone reminding me of something I was supposed to do today. Swimming is in 15 minutes. He didn’t do his homework again. Are the animals fed? Ava, I’m trying to listen to you tell me about 8^th grade. But can you please take this baby? I don’t want him to get burned. Get ready for swimming. Eat your dinner. Get off the back of the couch.

6pm. The traffic must be bad today.

I stare into the distance or at the stove and curse the whole damn thing.

I do it badly. I do it strangely. I do it thrown-together-at-the-last-minute. I do it checking Facebook when I shouldn’t. I do it with the fraudulent filters of Instagram. I do it after the deadline. I do it without a clue. I do it with rage. I do it with gratitude. I do it with joy.

I DO IT BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK ELSE TO DO.

But I never, ever, do it with “balance.”

In fact, I’d like to drop-kick every motivational speaker out there who insists that if we would just FOCUS and GET OUR SHIT TOGETHER, life would roll out in smooth rhythms of creative genius and equilibrium.

Fuck their rhythms. Fuck their Earl Gray and candles. Fuck their rituals and “time-saving tips.”

My life is a cluster and my emotional state jacked up, anxiety-and-depression-prone, and the circumstances of my existence are about as consistent and predictable as a 3-year-old on hot chocolate. (If we were braver, we might all admit that life is just this way.)

Does this mean I don’t get in on the creativity? The art? The beauty?

No. Because this is where my humanity lies, and the great truth and freedom of my life is that even in my brokenness, my weakness, my contradiction and inconsistency, I get what I need. I get what I need to love my children. To work as a partner to my husband. To be an okay mom to a few beautiful okay kids.

I get what I need to write the words. I get what I need to take a breath, kiss, hug, cry, feel the softness of my baby’s palm against my skin.

I can’t see it today. I can’t hold it and I can’t define it and I can’t even remember it sometimes, but there is a power, a love, that keeps me going, picks me up, lifts my voice over the gray and haze.

In the end, no matter what, I know I have what I need to speak my truth, right here on the ground with the laundry and dust and baby, even if my voice cracks in tiny whispers, it’s enough.

It finds its way to you.

You throw me some magic in return. And we both keep going.

*******

Join me for a writing workshop in January.

Let’s write through the mess together.

Perhaps you’ve noticed I swear, sometimes a lot, in this blog. Over the years I’ve received lots of helpful suggestions, admonitions, and earnest warnings regarding my immoral and classless approach to life.

They’re all the same, these “arguments against swearing.”

Condescending, illogical, holier-than-thou bullshit founded on nothing beyond an unverified sense of superiority.

I wish they’d come up with something new, these righteous-diction types. But they don’t.

And since they’re always the same, my responses are always the same. That’s logical, right?

I love logic. Fucking great stuff. The internet should try it sometime.

Anyway, I think it’s time I address these claims, once and for all, so I can just link people here when they send me their heartfelt and irate diatribes.

“Swearing is a sign of a limited vocabulary.”

Lies. It could be a sign of a limited vocabulary, or it could reflect choices the writer has made based on her purpose, audience and context.

I have a master’s degree in English. I can write academic analyses about Foucault and Fanon AND say “fucking douchecanoe.”

Why?

Because context, motherfucker.

If you’re so smart and linguistically accelerated how come you never consider the context of writing? Why are you applying the norms of FORMAL ENGLISH to INFORMAL ENGLISH and calling ME the fool?

Hmmmmmmm?

To clarify: Sometimes we write academically, in which case we probably won’t say fuck. Sometimes we write for our jobs – probably won’t say it there either (unless you’re the Coen brothers). Sometimes we write conversationally, in which case we MAY use the word “fuck,” if that’s how conversation looks for us.

Not you, us.

You don’t have to say it. You can say “fudge” or “frick” or “darn it all” when you stub your toe. I grew up with Mormons. I know there are lots of ways to cuss-without-cussing.

Nobody cares.

No, wait. You care. You care lots and lots. You write me emails about it and craft essays wherein you pontificate on misguided judgment of other people’s speech patterns.

“Swearing is trashy.”

According to whom? You? Well you’ve already lost credibility since you don’t know the difference between formal and informal English so who gives a fuck what you think?

Okay fine. Let’s talk about this. What do you mean by “trashy?” Poor? Uneducated? Beneath you?

So, basically what you’re saying is you’re a dick.

And by “uneducated,” you must be referring to people who lack knowledge…is that kind of like people who don’t know that the “appropriateness” of language is contextual?

See, now I’m a dick. I’m making fun of you for calling yourself educated when you never learned a basic tenet of verbal communication. Not that cool, is it?

Let’s both stop. Let’s hold hands and be friends. Let’s skip under rainbows saying “fuck” and “frick,” respectively.

No? You’re still going. Okay.

“Swearing is immoral.”

Nope. You don’t get to lay down arbitrary morality rules for the rest of us because you have a religion or cult or deeply held personal belief regarding God and vulgarity.

Also, FYI, GOD FUCKING LOVES THE VULGAR.

Haven’t you read the bible? It talks all about sacrificing children, trading daughters for goats, drowning everybody in floods, and all kinds of other vulgar stuff. I hear you, though, he did not say “fuck” even ONCE in that entire narrative.

Good thing. Otherwise it would be super offensive.

“You’re just trying to be edgy to get popular.”

But but but the people I’m writing to talk like this too so they don’t think it’s edgy. Dude DUH.

“You’re isolating readers with your swearing!”

Wait WHICH ONE IS IT? Am I going to get popular or am I isolating people? You have to pick one you are so weird WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING HERE?

Oh right. It’s both. Because all writing has specific audiences and you are decidedly not mine, yet strangely you feel the need to “fix me” even though I, as the writer, am not writing to you at all ever even on Sundays.

See? You don’t like me. I don’t really like you.

Let’s just move on. Call it a day. Click on the cat video and chill.

No, you’re still on it. Fine.

“But you can get your point across without swearing which would appeal to the most people.”

Yes. Absolutely. And when I write something in which I want to appeal to the most people possible, I don’t swear.

You see how fancy this whole “considering audience and context” thing is? You should give it a shot, particularly right before you comment on my blog.

“You’re not acting ladylike.”

Lick my balls.

(Ooooooooops)

“You’re setting a bad example for your kids. “

Not really. My kids are smart enough to understand context. Ahem.

“But I don’t like swearing.”

Yeah well I don’t like fruit-flavored soda but I don’t go around demanding that others drink what I do because it’s obviously right since my taste is my favorite (ever heard of cyclical logic?). I realize that some people like that crap even though I find it foul and wrong on multiple levels and cringe at the mere scent of it.

In other words, my friend, all you have is a bunch of opinions about swearing that are just that: personal choices regarding how to talk. That’s it. Full stop.

I’ve made different choices. Neither of us is better than the other.

Kumby-fucking-ya.

The problem is that you go out of your way to belittle and diminish people because they see the world differently, come from a different place, write to a different audience, hold different opinions on morality and depth, even though they are not harming you in any way whatsoever SINCE NOBODY IS GLUING YOUR MOTHERFUCKING EYEBALLS TO THE PAGE.

You call us unintelligent.

And yet you provide not one logical or reasonable argument to prove your point. Your whole platform consists of: “I know how you should behave because I like myself a lot.”

This is not a convincing argument, even to my immoral unfeminine trashy-ass intellect.

YOU HAVE TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING BETTER.

Go ahead. I’m fricking waiting.

You see that? Feel better?

Me either. We can’t be friends.

Bye.

I love October and I love pumpkin patches. Can’t really explain why. Some things attract you for reasons unknown. Like Mick Jagger, for example. He’s not hot. And yet he is so hot.

Maybe it’s the simplicity (of pumpkin patches. Not Mick. I don’t know Mick that well.)

Maybe it’s the month marking the end of the relentless Central Valley of California heat. It’s still 80 during the day, but the nights. Oh god, finally the nights are cool.

It’s the rows of orange and the corn mazes. It’s everyone picking out just the right pumpkin. It’s the wagons. It’s definitely the wagons.

So this year, while driving by our favorite pumpkin patch announcing its opening, I told my kids with not a small amount of glee that we will be visiting the pumpkin patch nine times this year. George was all FUCK YEAH but my older kids were like “come again?”

“Yes. Nine times. It’s happening GET INTO IT.”

Then I called my husband and told him my idea and he too was into it because he’s beautiful and why have kids if you can’t mess with them. I decided seven times was enough. I posted on Facebook my brilliant idea but a friend told me he’d unfriend me if I didn’t do nine and since he posts the best photos ever of guinea pigs in capes I couldn’t let that happen. So nine it was.

I made up a hashtag called #kidpumpkintorture.

Mac and I calculated we would have to go twice a week. And we did.

We were TOTALLY ON TRACK.

For a week. One week.

Then we got strep throat. One by one.

We made up for it by going to three places in one day.

Then most of us got it again. That was last week.

Now it’s November 1. We’ve been to seven. Maybe we can get to a couple places this week, when they’re still open, or maybe we missed the goal of our made-up pumpkin patch challenge.

Seven is pretty good, though, considering we were sick for two weeks and my husband is home three hours a day five days a week. It’s been that way since February. I’m fucking tired of it. Over it. Done having our family torn up. Done feeling sorta alone. We’re a team, goddamnitmotherfuckers.

On trip #4 the baby bawled and wailed on the tractor. Sometimes Mac and I argued. Sometimes the oldest raged. Pretty sure the whole strawberry field heard me when I yelled “Get back here!” as she stormed off to the car. The 5-year-old lost her shit when Mac combined her half-eaten basket of cherry tomatoes with the other basket. We had to listen to that all the way to trip #6.

It was like everything we do as a family: So perfect in advance. So messy in execution.

Still, many evenings after work and school this month we’d look around at the crap all over the floor and dishes in the sink and say “Well we’re never going to meet our goal if we don’t go today.”

So we’d head to the corn bath.

It was silly. It was frivolous.

It was really freaking fun. Sorry. I can’t do my ‘adult’ work today because I made up a pumpkin patch challenge and I’m oddly attached to it.

That’s it. Just fun. Done for the sake of doing it. For the fucking hell of it. Because we can. Because it’s weird. Because we’re together and we’re a family and there’s NOT ENOUGH WEIRDNESS EVER.

It all feels redundant, you know? Monotonous. Yeah, I’ll say it: It gets BORING.

I drive. I cook. I clean I write I post on Instagram and it all looks clean and well-filtered and as promised. I wake up so tired my face hurts. My eyes burn. I stare at the road and my eyes blur for a moment. Another 1.5 hours of driving around picking up and dropping off kids. 17,345 loads of laundry.

Monday Tuesday Thursday another day week month. Fuck it let’s get lost in a corn maze.

It’s a small and maybe cliched thing, but as I walked out the door to spend two hours at a pumpkin patch with 150 other things “to do,” I remembered my power in creating my own reality, that we’ve got to throw some fucking nonsense into the mix.

So much reason, all the time. Work. Work. Pay bills. Repeat. Someone suggested I “live for the weekends.”

Oh fuck me sideways there’s not enough time for that. On earth. In life.

I guess sometimes I need to get a little ridiculous with the people around me, devote myself to made-up things, watch my kids’ faces as we drop responsibilities to meet the requirements of a “meaningless” invented Facebook challenge.

This wasn’t about my kids, though. This was about all of us.

As we walked in one of the last trips, I said “Aren’t you kids glad we’ll always have the memory of the Great Pumpkin Patch Challenge of 2015?”

The oldest two immediately responded “What do you mean? We’re totally doing this next year.”

So much for the torture portion. Oh well.

Why have parents if you can’t mess with them?

Really, why even be alive?

Okay, Internet. We have to talk. Again.

You must knock it right the fuck off with your timely and earnest warnings to “moms and dads” to BE ON THE LOOKOUT for Ecstasy pills that “look like candy” and may be put into their kids’ trick-or-treat bags.

What the hell is wrong with you?

Have you never done Ecstasy?

WHERE WERE YOU IN THE 90s?

Okay. Clearly we have different histories. No worries. I’m willing to share. Take a moment to follow me here.

Nobody is going to put Ecstasy in your kids’ fucking Halloween candy.

First, that’s a waste of Ecstasy. Ecstasy is expensive. Nobody gets it so they can dose children. WHERE’S THE FUN IN THAT? The whole point of Ecstasy is to relax in a cuddle puddle of 3-12 dear friends smoking cigarettes, drinking vodka redbull, and expressing deep adoration while stroking each other’s forearms.

NOT THAT I’VE EVER DONE IT.

No but seriously. Please. Pull it together.

They are also not going to accidentally give it to your kid. Why? Because people with drugs know what they look like. Very, very well. Ever get a Valium prescription? Yeah. That shit’s nice, right?

Would you ever confuse your Valium pills with Sweet Tarts and hand them to a tiny lion on your doorstep?

No. Of course you wouldn’t.

BECAUSE THAT IS NOT A THING.

Furthermore, people with illicit substances know where they are located AT ALL TIMES and therefore will never, ever have this happen:

Jane: “Honey, where’s the ecstasy we were going to take tonight?”
Bill: “Oh, shoot. Well sweetie I just don’t know. I brought it in from the car with the Lysol cleaning wipes and put them somewhere but it’s totally slipped my mind!”
Jane: “Darn! Well we need some candy for trick-or-treaters.”
Bill: “Let me look in the pantry……here…”(Comes back with Ecstasy pills). “Hand these out!”

Look. I get it. You were busy building a foundation for life while I spent time gazing into the eyes of my new girlfriend and dancing with glow-sticks. We all have our paths.

But still. There’s no excuse for this sort of fear-mongering weirdness. We don’t just get to MAKE SHIT UP to worry about. We can’t just invent things to post on Facebook because it’s fun to have The Super Critical Safety Message.

You know what I’ve found?

People are generally good. People generally do not want to maim my children or dupe them into taking psychedelics.

People in general want to smile at their costumes and hand them a Kit Kat bar, without even a razor in it.

People are generally good.

Even the monsters with Ecstasy.

Roar.

P.S. I don’t do drugs. I don’t even drink. I did however take a boatload of substances for 10 or so short years there in my 20s. Unless my kids are reading this in which case I did not. In fact this isn’t even Janelle have a nice day bye.

You know I don’t give advice, but there’s this one area of life I have so mastered so fully (SARCASM MOTHERFUCKERS) I feel it would be a disservice to humanity to not share.

And that area is: LOSING WEIGHT.

Look, I don’t want to discuss feminism or women’s bodies or getting comfortable with my fatness or whatever the fuck else we all sit around discussing. I KNOW there are fat yogis balancing on their heads, powerful as hell. I KNOW there are women super okay with the rolls of their belly but I also know that those women are not me.

I am neither a fat yogi nor a woman comfortable with her belly.

I feel like shit. My back hurts. I look at myself naked and sorta want to puke. I KNOW I HAVE INTERNALIZED BODY SHAMING NARRATIVES OF SELF HATRED.

I’m not proud. I’m merely stating the facts: I am overfuckingweight and I don’t like it. I’m overweight because I eat too much and believe in the futility of eating one’s feelings yet do it anyway because THAT’S FUN.

Also, I don’t exercise enough.

I wasn’t always overweight. While they were trying to find what was wrong with me (during my active alcoholism), they gave me a bunch of psychiatric diagnoses and put me on 7 to 11 different psychotropic drugs at the same time. I gained 70 pounds in 3 months.

Um…..

And I’ve never quite been able to regain control. But I can’t blame that completely. Sure, that’s how it started, but once it happened I began the spiral into Fuck It All I’m Already Fat and started eating with wild abandon.

I’m not particularly unhealthy. My blood pressure is low. My blood sugar normal.

But I feel like shit.

This is just me. This is not a statement on all fat women in the world, or America. Or even my town. Or even one single other person.

I’m sure if I were a better, more enlightened human, I would

A. get okay with my body as it is; or,

B. do something about it.

I’m working on B.

But I kinda suck at it.

Once, a few years ago, when I was about this weight, I got super pissed off and done with not changing and I lost 40 pounds over a year or so and felt amazing.

Then I got pregnant again and gained it all back that was nearly 2 years ago the end.

Nice story, right?

I hate that story. That story can lick donkey balls.

Sorry. I should be more feminine.

I should stop apologizing.

I AM A FAT APOLOGIZING WOMAN FULL OF ANTI-FEMINIST GUILT AND BAD LANGUAGE.

Okay here’s the deal: I’m trying to lose weight to feel stronger and more able-bodied and in less pain AND to feel more comfortable in my body and clothes.

Here’s how it’s going:

4am: Wake up but against my will. Nurse tiny creature next to me and beg him (in silence of course) to go back to fucking sleep

5am: Breathe a sigh of relief that tiny human fell back asleep, roll over to do the same

5:15am: Wonder why I’m not asleep yet

5:30am: Wonder why I’m not asleep yet

5:45am: Meditate with the vigor of a thousand warriors because JESUS FUCK I NEED SLEEP

6am: Fall asleep

6:30am: Hear alarm go off, want to die

6:36: Get out of bed after looking at phone for 6 minutes even though I know that’s a super bad way to start the day

6:40: Do 7-minute workout thing (dude it’s an app and it rocks and I’ve actually been doing it!)

7am: Eat a healthy breakfast because today is going to be a good clean eating day!

7-10am: Drink 47,000 gallons of coffee but without sugar

10:30am: Healthy snack

1pm: healthy lunch

3pm: Drive around 12 small nations to pick up kids

3:15pm: Realize I’m fucking starving

4pm: Realize I’m dizzy from healthy snack deficiency

4:30pm: Get home. Open fridge. Eat something healthy but wish there was something more filling and also healthy

5pm: Start making dinner

6:30pm: GIVE UP BECAUSE IF FOOD DOESN’T GET IN MY MOTHERFUCKING BELLY RIGHT NOW I MAY DIE OR KILL YOU AND I’M SO TIRED AND I CAN’T EAT A DAMN GRILLED CHICKEN BREAST AND SALAD AGAIN BECAUSE BORING AND FOOD IS COMFORT (NO IT ISN’T) BUT IT KIND OF SEEMS LIKE IT IS SO…

6:45pm: EAT IT ALL,REGRET IT

7pm: Realize I basically negated all my day’s efforts because it’s the night calories that REALLY matter and ohmygodJanelle you suck and you’ll always be fat and nobody likes you.

8pm: Get upset with myself for fat shaming body shaming self bashing and blatant lack of self love.

10pm: Resolve to do better tomorrow.

11pm: Go the fuck to sleep

Then, DUDE CHECK THIS SHIT OUT: I do slightly better tomorrow.

That is actually happening and it’s real. I’ve been making tiny changes and little nudges here and there and I’ve lost 10 pounds over the past 6 weeks. What?

Every day, I’m trying to be a little healthier than the last, and if I eat everything in a 5 mile radius during one meal, I try to get back on track for the next without mentally assaulting myself until I’m lying lifeless on a cold stone floor.

And I see now that a big part of this is realizing that I deserve health and attention and wellness and compassion (lord I sound like a fucking life coach), and tiny changes ultimately result in a new place entirely.

And that feels damn good.

So yeah, success. Or something. Fucking rock it.

Slightly more than yesterday.

Do you ever wish you could see yourself the way your kids do?