Not That Good Grief

April 2020

I wrote this entry at the end of February, but didn’t publish it. I often write and erase. For many reasons, I have not logged into the blog in awhile. More on that later. This morning I finally circled back.

When I became a teacher, I became a student for the first time, really. From my very start, “Developmental Kindergarten,” I despised school days. I survived one day, and one year, at a time. Some years were pretty brutal. Around grade 3, I decided that when I grew up I would become a School Psychologist. I can’t recall what sparked the interest, our school did not have a person in such position. But I knew there must be helpers for kids who felt unsettled inside, like me. In contrast, my brother had long declared he would be the next Pat Sajak, a game show host. My mother loved to tell people that. It was easy to believe my brother could make that dream come true.

In High School, counselors began giving kids career aptitude tests to hone in on their skills and interests and to align them with the types of universities within their reach. Brutal. At home after one of those aptitude afternoons at school one day, I recall my father giving a little speech: “Those schools like to fill kids with a bunch of crap. ‘You can be president! You can run a company.’ Where are they telling the kids to go study under a plumber? You know how many kids become president or a CEO?? What a line of bullshit.”

My aptitude quiz made no mention of president. I can’t recall the jobs it did suggest. I do, however, remember a quiz in high school that put everyone into a dating pool and printed a list based on survey results; some sort of love match, with percentages. My highest match was a football player, 2 years older, who was rumored to beat his current girlfriend.

Around that same time, one of “the ladies” and I watched a made for TV movie staring Fred Savage, grown quite a bit from The Wonder Years. In the movie, he was a teenage boy who became possessive of his high school girlfriend. He ended up killing her and hiding the body. My friend turned to me after the movie and said, “I could see something like that happening to you.” Hmm.

When I was a small girl, I would imagine walking down the aisle at my wedding to meet a groom in a black tux. My own wedding dress style would shift over the years, but the vision of the groom never faltered. He was always completely blind. Not vision impaired, but completely blind. In my real life, I got married at 22 in a very simple dress, to my saintly mother’s dismay. To my joy, the groom was not blind. At least, not physically.

During my Junior year of high school, my dad took me to Motts for a day of neurological testing and evaluation. School, and much of life, was a struggle. My parents, especially my dad, wanted a fix. No quick fix was found, but it felt good for my folks to try.

Later, college proved a struggle, too. But I found my footings in new ways. Grades were never an issue, information absorption and anxiety were.

Anxiety has continued to weave throughout my life, but my information absorption improved upon discovery of topics I actually found impactful. In a curvy-about way, my first post-graduate job was a Preschool teacher at a school based on psychoanalysis. I found the methods and thought process intriguing. I found some of the 70 year old instructors completely loony, but I liked the cadence of their speech and strange follow up questions.

“Have we considered that the boy stole his father’s glasses in attempt to have his mother’s sight for only himself?”

Well, now that you mention it, no. No, I have not thought of that. I just thought the boy was being a turd…. but let’s unfold that mental origami box a bit more… I like it.

On Monday afternoons at the school, the teachers gathered around a conference table to learn from a gifted teacher and an accomplished leader in the field of child psychology. She had studied with Anna Freud, she has published many books and she drove me nuts in plenty of ways, but I was absolutely aware of the treasure of her knowledge. On Friday afternoons, an entire team of psychoanalytic professionals would consult with the teachers concerning their class of children. Those afternoon meetings, plus classroom time, taught me life lessons, possibly more educational practices and techniques, than any schooling I had previously attended for 21 years. As a teacher there, I wasn’t yet a mother. But that school prepared me in many ways to be a mother…..Sometimes an over obsessive mother.  But hopefully, a careful one, too.

As I gained knowledge at the school, I questioned a bit of my own childhood and mental health. Around the age of 4, it is documented that I stopped talking for awhile. I communicated my basic needs, but little else. My brain can’t remember it, but the proof of my muteness is on home video. The video is awkward to view and whenever I inquired more, my mother’s response have been statements like, “you were just quiet that year!” “We figured you were just thinking more!” “Dad took you to the doctor, he said you looked fine!”

hmmmm, ok.

If I had been my own student, my “teacher radar” would have been on “flashing light mode” for 4 year old me. The team of analysts would have asked 100 questions and name dropped Freud.

In honesty, I do not want to misrepresent my childhood and growing up. It was completely comfortable and packed with love and blessed experiences. But there was that struggle, on the inside.

When my voice became more confident, after adolescence, it also became more frequently heard. I am social and a verbal processor. I have been called, “too much.” My insides and outsides didn’t always match….they still don’t.

I met a dear friend at that school where I taught, the friend I mentioned a few posts back about kicking cars. She is honest and loyal. Her listening skills are top notch. And her 2 children are the type of humans you would already describe as, “good citizens.” This particular lady is not tied to “the ladies,” or other friends, and I’m selfishly pleased in not having to share her.

One year, this loving friend lost her muchness. During that time, I saw the movie Alice In Wonderland. In it, johnny depp said to Alice, “You lost your muchness. You used to be much more muchier.” His words rang a little bell in my brain, Mad Hatter Johnny had just summed up my buddy. And because I have to talk everything out, I told her.  She looked a bit perturbed, but I knew it resonated because she called me later to say, “what did you say about my muchness?”

*sidenote: Anne Hathaway almost ruins that movie. Fast forward on the clicker when you see her.

Thankfully, her “much” factor boosted back over time, taking new shape, but forever true and good.

I definitely used to be much more muchier. I feel much more blah, and more sad, but any sparky muchness seems dim. My husband used to tell me to “call my dogs off,” at least once per week. It was a deserved statement. I have been known to use fighting words with no sense of guilt and howling words to proclaim dramatic scenes, even lovely ones. My dogs are now curled up in the snow…. indifferent to most situations and topics.

It is interesting the crooked branches and twigs we grow, over the years.

I was first introduced to the Helping Place, where the girls and I attend each week, when I was a teacher at that first school. During my second year teaching there, a small student lost their parent in an extremely public way. As a young teacher, I watched the other teachers in action. The staff at my little school were there for that family, so intently present. They were there when the freshly widowed parent shared the life altering news with their children and its rawness echoed. (my peers’ telling of that scenario at our Friday meeting that week continues to haunt me) Those teachers continued to be present for that family, as the echoes bounced around, for the following few years.

It was reported to our staff that the grieving family used a local resource, the Helping Place, I felt intrigued with the concept of a place that sat with grieving children. Over 15 years later, my kids now sit there. My eldest has bonded with one of her group leaders, a man with a hoop earring who doesn’t say much, but sits with her and smiles while she draws, or whatever. I’ve overheard my girl pray specifically for this man, a guy whom is quite different than me in lots of ways. But he is compassionate to my child, this grieving child of a judgmental mother, and I am thankful.

When I taught at the little school, I often told my own family stories of my students. The children were precious, mostly. My parents knew each of “my kids” by name. One of my students had a couple of challenges, physically. Personality wise, the child was fairly quiet, so I didn’t report about them often. But my mother always specifically inquired about that one child. She wanted to know that they were included, loved, that I was giving them extra. Years later, after that class of kids had long ago graduated our school and moved into middle school, my mom was still asking about that one child.

Feeling shaky and new on my first evening at The Helping Place, back in October, I ran directly into the parent of that little child. And I froze. They were a volunteer there, for those who grieve, and they didn’t remember me. I had not seen them in 10 years. Upon spotting them, I immediately thought, ‘my mother cared for your child whom she never met. she loved them through me.’ And it didn’t feel like a gift or a sign. It felt like more grief. Every week I see that parent, and depending on the day, I want to scream, smile, or cry. My mother was just so good. She drove me nuts in hundreds of ways. But no person, living or dead, could ever debate my mother’s goodness.

It is hard for me, at the Helping place and beyond, to be a student. Or a group member. I was trained to educate with a psychoanalytical perspective. I want to teach. I want to help. I want to move my body to Do Do Do all the things and collapse in bed. It is hard for me to be the helped. Once, I was a floundering student, who then only became a learner by teaching. Somehow, I have circled back to a big eyed, agitated, ruminator. My loop of visions has changed from a happy bride with a blind groom, to my mother on her death bed. Everything feels pretty hard.

It is easy for me to be real. Shmacting makes my belly ache. It is even harder for me to be vulnerable.

A couple night ago, my youngest was practicing typing. She decided to interview me and record her answers. She is my student, I’m her teacher; a comfortable combo.

She chose to focus on my childhood. One of her first questions was, “what was your favorite toy as a child.”

I replied, “A doll named Myrtle Sheryl.” And she said, “why???? why was it named that?”

I said, “It came on her birth certificate. In the box”

“Why didn’t you change that name?? No one would know!” she inquired.

“I would know.” And after I said that she closed her eyes for a few seconds while she said, “hmm.”

The name “Myrtle Sheryl” was likely on the short list of words I actually said aloud back then, a nearly mute 4 year old.

It’s interesting the branches and twigs our trunk develops over the years; to have my youngest sprout- shaped like me, stubborn like me, question my long rooted rigidity. It makes me say hmmm. But with my tired eyes open.