See your future in tea... sandwiches??

Can you laugh at yourself? Be honest now. I’m not talking about a little snort of self-deprecation here. I’m talking about a full-on, no-holds-barred belly laugh… the kind which tells the world, “Yes, I’m a total jackass and I’m fine with that!” I was never able to do it. See, I’ve always had terrible self-esteem. Not something I’m proud to say - but it’s true. So, to compensate for it, I decided that I had no choice but to be perfect. Let me tell you… life as a perfectionist SUCKS. It’s not fun… and certainly NOT funny. If I made a mistake, I was mortified. People would think less of me! They’d think I was just plain stupid! They would realize I wasn’t perfect, dammit! That, in itself, was unacceptable. Even now, from time to time, I let my pride get the best of me and if, horror of horrors, I make a mistake, I’ll try to cover it and hope that no one’s the wiser. But then, I’ll do something that is just so ridiculous… so absolutely silly… so utterly boneheaded… that I have no choice but to laugh! The other morning, ‘round about 3 AM, I was standing in the kitchen making lunches. Yes, you read that right – I make lunches at 3 AM. That should qualify me for some sort of official “You Are Stupid Award” right there… but anyway… While my husband was getting ready for his early morning shift at work, I carefully prepared his sandwich, along with one for each of the girls. Since I’m such a perfectionist and overachiever… ahem… I’m able to kill THREE birds with one stone. I have a specific way of doing things – a weightier lunch for him, less for the girls. For the youngest one, I’ll often take the time to cut her sandwich in four little sections, like tea sandwiches, just because she likes it that way and she seems to eat better when I do. Then I go along, divvying up granola bars, cheese, veggies and dip, fruit, until I have everyone’s lunches portioned out. All the girls’ things go back in the fridge until it’s time to fill their lunch bags around 6:30. I pack my husband’s into a cooler bag and he’s out the door. Then I promptly head back to bed, where I am generally sound asleep before my head, and several other body parts, hit the mattress. That particular morning, everything had gone according to schedule. Or so I thought. At 6:30, I began filling lunch bags. Picking up a sandwich container, I started to pack the older daughter’s lunch first. After all, the sandwich was only cut in half, so that made it hers. Then, I moved on to her sister’s lunch… I picked up what I believed would be her sandwich container … but that sandwich, too, was cut in half. Where were the four little pieces??? Thinking I had somehow given them to her sister by mistake, I unpacked the first lunch and checked. NOPE! One sandwich yet, stubbornly, only two halves. In my as-yet-uncaffeinated stupor, I stood there trying to decide if (A) a sandwich could somehow reassemble itself whilst refrigerated or (B) if the 3AM alarm hadn’t gone off yet and this was all one of those dreams… you know, like the kind where you’re out in public in your underwear? Then it hit me. I realized what I had done. Within the hour, my husband was going to be sitting in the break area, all the other guys with their “heavy-duty, titanium, impenetrable by crushing force nor raygun” lunch boxes… and he was going to open his sandwich – cut in four little sections, like tea sandwiches. I felt the all-too-familiar lump in the pit of my stomach. The absolute panic of knowing I had made a mistake… and then… I felt something new. A gurgling, if you will. A sort of stirring that was making its way from the tips of my toes, all the way to the back of my throat. Then, the unthinkable happened… Out spewed a full-on, no-holds-barred belly laugh!!!!!!!!! When the convulsing and tears pouring down my face finally stopped, I poured myself that very-much-needed cup of coffee and, leaning against the kitchen counter, I accepted an invigorating and quite healthy dose of reality: Yep! I was a total jackass… and you know what? I’m fine with that! :)

Beyond answers

“Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do & die…” … Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892 “Why?” One word. A single utterance. Yet, in and of itself, the most unanswerable question in the universe. It’s a question that we even discourage one another from asking, perhaps because responding is just too hard. How many exasperated parents have resorted to “BECAUSE I SAID SO!” as the appropriate reply to “Why is the sky blue?” or “Why is it wrong to have dessert before dinner?” We are frustrated because, if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that we really don’t know. Yesterday, a young man approached the college my daughter is planning to attend in 11 short months. Dressed in a black trench coat and black boots, he was also sporting a rapid-fire rifle and two other weapons. He opened fire outside the school and then entered the building and continued shooting. He is dead, apparently taking his own life with a shot to the head, during gunfire with police. Why? An 18-year-old girl, Anastasia, who did nothing wrong except go to school like she was supposed to, is dead. Why? Multiple people are in hospital beds, recovering from gunshot wounds, reliving over and over in their minds the horrifying moment that a lunatic randomly aimed his weapon at them and fired. Why? I sat glued to my television yesterday afternoon. My sister had called me from her office, only moments before, and said solemnly, “My girl is not going to Dawson.” She wasn’t referring to her own 8-year-old little girl. She was referring to her niece. My daughter. In our family, the girls belong to all of us. And, yesterday, we felt the sickening panic of wanting to wrap them all in a protective cocoon and never let go. But how do you clip a butterfly’s wings? Tears filling my eyes, I watched the young girls running in fear for their lives. I stared at the college, the nearby shopping plaza, the old Montreal Forum where I shivered through many hockey games with my Dad. Every familiar image stabbed my heart. But for the grace of several months, one of those girls would have been mine. Most of us bring our children into this world because we want them… we need them… and we love them unconditionally. The mother of the shooter has described him today as “a good son.” That is the epitome of unconditional love. But love is not enough. Our children bristle at our rules. They fight our parenting almost every step of the way. Nature sees to it that they grow up, whether we want them to or not. At some point, every parent looks at their child and longs to stop time. “If you can just be three years old forever, I can protect you.” I cannot protect them. I can prepare them, I can guide them to be intelligent, responsible, caring citizens of this world but then, somewhere, a darkness explodes in a young man’s head and he alone holds the power to snuff out my child’s life. Why? Because he has “…an obsession with guns...” Because he wants to die “… in a hail of gunfire.” Because he “has met a handful of people in his life who are decent. But he finds the vast majority to be worthless, no good, conniving, betraying, lying, deceptive.” Because he wants the world to know that “Anger and hatred simmers within me.” He alone can make the decision that the child that means everything to me, means nothing to him. He alone, in a flash of light, can end my world. Why?