When I was 10 or 11, my mom told me to do my chores before
she left for work in the morning. It was summer so we were out of school. I had
this habit of watching TV all-day and waiting until the last possible moment to
get my chores done. I knew the sound of my mom’s Pinto and would spring into
action as soon as I heard the putter of that pathetic motor coming down the
road before it turned into the cul de sac where we lived. Over the years I had
figured out how to get most of the dishes done or most of the family room
picked up from the time I heard that car until she walked through the front
door. If she came home and I was doing my chores, I'd get away with it.
On this particular summer’s day, she came home around
lunchtime, which was unheard of even though she worked less than 10 minutes
down the road from where we lived. I had sprung into action as usual and was in
the middle of vacuuming when she came in, but most of my chores weren’t done.
For whatever reason, she didn’t tell me that morning that she was coming home
early to take my younger brother and me to Fairyland at Lake Merritt that day.
Since I didn’t have my chores done, I was left behind to finish them.
Even thinking about this now, over 35 years later, my body
shivers with remnants of rage and abandonment, with a healthy amount of
betrayal thrown in but only in hindsight. I don’t actually feel these emotions
now, I have let them go, but my body remembers the experience and the fragment
of an image of the sunlight on the huge weeds in the backyard and the sound of
the door slamming behind my mom still pierces my mind.
I spent the rest of that afternoon giving back everything my
mother had ever given me by taking everything out of my bedroom and stacking it
in her room. It took me hours. I have a vague memory of my older brother coming
home, seeing what I had done, and telling me to put everything back, but I’m
not sure if that’s what really happened. The point is that I spent a hell of a
lot effort and sweat trying to get back at her and expelling my anger, which
turned out to be absolutely futile and made a huge mess of my room.
What stays with me or what I’m trying to explore is the
overwhelming sense I get that I’m always being tested and that I’m always
getting caught before I can finish vacuuming the family room floor. If I had
just known today was Fairyland day, if I just had more time to finish, if I just
had more money, more resources, more….
I know enough rationally to understand that there are events
and circumstances in my life well beyond my control, but the Fairyland paradigm
has found deep roots in my emotional psyche – and it is a very muddy tangle:
·
Most of the time I feel like the world is going
to pull the rug out from under me any way, so why put in any effort in the
first place
·
On the flip side, I have huge amounts of guilt
for my procrastination and laziness
·
When I do apply myself, especially with great
rigor, I get unbelievably anxious
·
And with the rationale of an 11-year-old, I
wonder where and to whom do I return my life when the rewards of good work
never materialize?
I can’t be bitter or ungrateful. I just refuse those
options. I’ve been around people who are bitter and ungrateful about everything
and I can’t go down that road. It’s
the one shred of light in my life. I honestly see the world as being good.
It’s me who isn’t worthy of it, not the other way around.
Letting go of anger isn’t easy, but letting go of the
helplessness that spurs the anger is a very welcome change and one I’m trying
to employ. My mother never had any clue what that day did to me. I don’t think
she even knows that I stacked every outfit, every book, every shoe, every
everything that I had at the ripe old age of 11 in her room and then moved it
all back while she and my little brother were gone. Over time, I've come to realize she had no intention of causing the tidal wave of rage and powerlessness that
still makes me shake, but I’ve blamed her for that quaking ever since it
started. And I have felt helpless to change it for just as long.
So today I’m left wondering – what if I had just done the
work? What if I had just turned off the TV? I don’t agree with my mom’s parenting
style – and a little follow through back then would have been invaluable - but I
can either blame the world for my missing out because I don’t know what’s at
stake or I can just choose to do the work.
I find it interesting how much my psyche resists this train
of thought. I find it amusing how my ego throws up snippets of memories of
people who tell me how productive and what a hard worker I am. They see the
marvel of someone who can do last night’s dishes in the 4 and 1/2 minutes it
took my mom to drive down the block, into our court, up the drive way and walk
through the door. They don’t see the 3 hours of TV I watched before she came
home. I find it a little bewildering how much of me wants to be lazy so I’m at
liberty to blame rather than taking the risk of applying myself (and still
possibly getting nowhere).
I read a blog on Tuesday about becoming a writer. It said if
you want to become a writer, read every day. Write, every day. 1,000 words a
day. I have had an idea for a novel in my head for 7 months and most of the
free time I’ve had since then, I’ve spent scrambling to get work and on
Netflix. Yesterday, I woke up and read and wrote. By 2pm, I had written 1203 words
(100 of those words are the beginning of the novel and the novel drew up the
memory that started this post).
Today I woke up with a headache, scared and depressed. It’s
just part of the cycle I’m in. I
hadn’t published this yet so I thought, fuck it, I can just give in to this feeling of despair.
But I really can’t let this swallow me whole. If I want this cycle to change, I
have to change it. So today I wrote about how some Google changes to secure search will affect online marketing data. It doesn’t matter, I wrote. I
changed today when it wasn’t easy, when I didn’t want to, when my heart wasn’t
in it. It makes me realize the luxury of motivation.
I don’t know if I’ll get to go to Fairyland if I get
anything done – I may not even like Fairyland (I’ve never been) – but I at
least want to be the master of the effort. I don't want to be at the mercy of not knowing if I could have done better because I didn't bother to try.
I also know that starting is easier than persevering, which
is part of the reason I’m saying this out loud. If I announce my intentions,
then giving up isn’t just lack of commitment in my head, it’s real.
