i am not a violent person. or at least, i never thought i was. my family is about as pacifist as one can be–i didn’t even hold a gun until i was 29, and the most violent thing we ever did as a family was paintball and the occasional all-out warfare game of trivial pursuit. but the night of my psychotic break, i was forced to face the violence within me, and it wasn’t pretty. i wasn’t sure how to reconcile the nonconfrontational, loving person i see myself as with the monster i became on the night i literally faced my husband in a battle that his face lost to my right hook.

as i’ve evaluated that night, though, i have come to a few conclusions. first, there is violence within us all. we all lose our tempers: we yell at our children, we shout angrily at (or give the middle finger to) people who cut us off on the freeway, we sometimes hit walls or throw cell phones when things don’t go our way. true story–i once threw a cell phone through a wall. but for most people, containing the rage is a natural part of life. some people count to ten, some people do deep breathing, some people take their pent-up aggression out on a basketball court. i, on the other hand, let the rage fester.

anyone who has had or seen a full-blown panic attack might be able to understand what true violence feels or looks like–the shortness of breath may lead to hyperventilation and chest pains, which, for me, leads to rocking back and forth and screaming. some people, like me, feel like they are being suffocated by a wet plastic bag, which is why i thrash my head back and forth and claw at my face, leaving trails of angry red marks from forehead to chin. i pull at my hair, attempting to control the attack, to push it back, to master something that there is no chance of gaining mastery over. it is terribly frightening, both to experience firsthand, and to watch helplessly as one suffers through this. i have had multiple panic attacks, and each one left me drained, both physically and mentally.

i once had a therapist, who i saw when i started having these panic attacks, who told me not to fight them. she said, “you need to just let it happen. tell your body, ‘i am going to have a panic attack now, and it will be over soon.’ then just ride it out until it’s done.” i have yet to be able to accomplish this seemingly impossible task, and i have suffered greatly as a result. my psychotic episode started with a moment of panic, which, as usual, i desperately attempted to fight off. then came the throwing, the screaming, the punching, the thrashing. because i was unable to just “let go,” as my therapist cautioned me to do, i ended up shattering every view i’ve ever held of myself, leading to a total reassessment of my identity as i have known it for the last twenty-nine years.

how do i “let go,” though? how do i resist every inclination i have to fight this violence within me, which i have been trained since birth to repress, to push down because it’s not acceptable, not “ladylike,” not “normal”? how do i accomplish a superhuman feat, allow myself to surrender to the impulses that make me so abnormal (abnormal being the psycho i turn into when i attempt to contend the forces of nature that surge within me during panic attacks)? i don’t really know, but through observing others and listening to the advice of a handful of therapists, i am coming to see that it might be possible.

i go to the gym almost every day. i don’t really like exercising, and i hate the atmosphere of the gym that is most conveniently located to my home. it’s full of meatheads, garden-variety desperate housewives with rock-hard breasts and the immobile faces typical of Botox addicts, conventionally cute coeds with extensions curled to perfection and makeup poured on by the gallon, and the occasional normal person who just wants to work out and be left alone. but spending an hour to an hour and a half at the gym seems to 1) help me work out the aggression that lies dormant inside me, just waiting for the next moment of sheer panic to unleash itself, and 2) hold at bay the mania and depression that come part and parcel of the bipolar illness i live with every day. this seems to be a thing normal people do to control their violent impulses, and it has worked, at least in part, for me. 

every night before i go to sleep, i take three pills over the space of an hour or so: two doses of mood stabilizer, and one dose of antianxiety medication. these help me to fall asleep, as they act as a sedative, but they are not enough to quell the panic i feel during the hour or so they take to kick in. every single night, i lie in bed for about half an hour, waiting for sleep to take me away to the next morning. during that half an hour, i feel as though my face is covered in plastic wrap, and i must work through the feeling of slow suffocation, which is one of my worst fears, being a lifetime claustrophobic (the symptoms of which have multiplied exponentially since i started having panic attacks). i must force myself to relax, to breathe deeply, to calm my thoughts. i usually end up counting down from one hundred, back up again, and then back down again, in cycles, until i finally sleep. but sometimes, the panic takes over, which is usually how i end up folding laundry in my underwear at three in the morning. if i can’t breathe, i can’t sleep. and if i can’t sleep, i don’t sleep. at all. and when i don’t sleep, my panic attacks and other symptoms of mania or depression get worse.

so you see, i must ritualize my attempts to hide the violence within. but sometimes, i just have to let it go. i have to deal with the fact that i am not normal, and never will be. and speaking of normal, what the hell is that, anyway? does anyone feel normal? i doubt it. so we each find our own ways to deal with the abnormal people we are, and some of us are better than others at hiding the freak of nature that lives in every one of us. but sometimes, even you just have to let it go. so let it go.

— Alexis

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this is the most honest account i can give of my first (and i hope only) psychotic episode. i won’t give any analysis of what happened, just the details–i don’t want this post to be too long. i’ll talk about the implications of this episode later, maybe in my next post. if you’re at all uncomfortable with depictions of violence associated with mental illness, stop reading here.

the day i lost my mind didn’t seem all that different from any other, at least at the start. i had been feeling depressed all day and even a little suicidal, but that’s not necessarily abnormal for a person who’s been through two rounds of postpartum depression, been misdiagnosed with clinical depression, then rediagnosed with manic-depressive illness. i was struggling that day, yes, but i was dealing–or so i thought.

i was sitting in the den with sei, my husband, writing in my journal while he watched espn. then, from who knows where, i felt a terrible rage come over me, and i started to violently scribble in my journal, pen clenched in my fist like a child just learning to color. when i realized what i was doing, i closed the notebook and hurled it across the room, along with my pen. i then reached for anything else i could throw: a couple of books and my purse all went flying toward the bookshelf at the other end of the room. and then i put my head in my hands, pulling at my hair, feeling as though i could jump out of my skin. i didn’t know what to do.

but then, i had a revelation. all i needed was two glass cups. i needed to throw them into the street, hear them shatter, and my rage would leave me.

i jumped off the couch and ran toward the kitchen, grabbed two glasses out of the cupboard, and marched purposely toward the front door. sei, alarmed by my behavior, stopped me halfway there. he took hold of my wrist and asked me what i was doing with the cups, and i calmly told him that i was going to go throw them into the street. he told me no, i shouldn’t do that–i could hit a car, or a person, or that the pieces could somehow end up in our front yard and hurt one of our children.

and then, all hell broke loose.

i tried to make a run for it, but sei took hold of one of the glasses and used his other hand to push me back against a wall, restraining me there as i screamed at the top of my lungs: “you’re hurting me! i can’t breathe! let me go! i just need to throw these glasses, and then i will be fine!” he tried to speak calmly to me, to talk me out of my obsessive need to throw these cups into the street, but i was having none of it. he still had one hand on one of the glasses, but my other hand was free, and i threatened to throw the glass on the floor if he didn’t let me go outside. he continued to restrain me, speaking calmly, so i did it. i threw the glass on the floor as hard as i could, taking immense pleasure at the shattering sound it made as it exploded into pieces. i think i even smiled, maybe said, triumphantly, “see? i told you i would do it.”

at that point, sei wrenched the other glass from my hand, gave it to either my sister-in-law or my cousin (who were both in the room, looking on helplessly, perhaps crying), and used even more force to pin me against the wall, pushing his forearm into my neck. i continued to scream, mostly nonsense, but also just bloodcurdling shouts that shook the whole house and most likely woke the neighborhood. i was sobbing and thrashing, trying to get away, and then i started throwing punches. i landed one, hard, on sei’s chest, and about ten closed-fist right hooks to his face before he managed to stop me. he took my wrists and gently led me to the carpeted den, then laid me down with my hands pinned as he sat on my back. if you’ve never met sei, you should know that he’s no lightweight–he’s 6’3″ and weighs about 240 pounds, and i was holding my own against him, still bucking and screaming as though my hair was on fire.

through it all, he remained calm, talking to me and asking me to come back to him. “alexis, can you hear me? i know you’re in there. come back to me, my love. this isn’t you, but i know you’re there. come back.” i finally stopped struggling, and he got off my back and let me sit up. but i wasn’t back yet. i was still in a rage, still angry that he hadn’t trusted me enough to let me throw the cups into the street. as soon as i was free, i dove for a bottle of klonopin that happened to be sitting in my bag right next to me, opened the bottle, and threw back about sixty pills, right down my throat. yelling “no, don’t!”, sei rushed forward and pinned me to the ground again, shoving his whole hand into my mouth, scooping the pills out and throwing them onto the floor as i scrabbled to pick them up and put them back in. he called for help again, asking my cousin to gather the pills and put them back in the bottle. after assuring that none of the pills had made their way into my stomach, sei sat me up again.

by this point, my body was heaving with sobs, and i was struggling to breathe. i had no rationale as to why i’d tried to swallow the pills, but in retrospect, i’m almost positive it was an attention-seeking gesture that was only part and parcel of my psychotic break. it was that final measure that broke sei, too, and he sat on the floor, in tears, as he begged me to stop.

and then, it was over. the light came back into my eyes, and sei and i sat on the floor and talked for almost an hour, about what had just happened, about what we would do the next day, and whether or not my klonopin was too damaged for me to use it for the anxiety i was sure to feel soon after what had just transpired. it was the best talk we’d had in weeks, and as we made plans for the future i couldn’t help wondering what the hell had just happened.

and that was what happened on the day i lost my mind.

— Alexis

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charlie, my little love

the first time i saw charlotte, she was looking at me through the glass window of a pet store. she was all alone in her cubby, and she looked…human. as though she was regarding me with some sort of emotion, like expectation or suspicious. it freaked me out a little, since i’m not the type of person who thinks of animals as having human qualities. for example, i die laughing whenever that aspca commercial comes on and sarah mclachlan says, “hi, i’m sarah mclachlan.” first of all, it’s so pathos-laden that only the sappiest of people won’t feel they’re being conned out of their money, and second of all, like i said, i’ve never equated animals and humans in my mind.

we were in the pet store for no good reason that day; sei (my husband), my mom (who was visiting from out of town), and i were running errands with my cousin and two sons, who are five and three. we stopped at the pet store, which i do occasionally  so the boys can look at all the different animals. and then i saw charlotte, in the very last window, all alone all the way at the back of the store. she was white, with brown and black splashes in her fur, with a mostly black face, and those soulful eyes i talked about. on a whim, i asked the store attendant if i could hold her.

when he put her into my arms for the first time, i literally burst into tears. i’ve never reacted to anything that way, and i was just as shocked at my reaction as was everyone else i was with. she cuddled into my arms, and i didn’t put her down until we’d gotten home from the pet store, $675 later. sei said he knew he had to get her for me as soon as he saw me with her, overpriced pet store charges be damned. we named her charlotte, after the character from charlotte’s web, (though I secretly was naming her after charlotte york from “sex and the city”).

from that day forward, charlotte became my little sidekick. i would most often find her tiny three-pound body between my feet, whether i was sitting on the couch watching a movie, standing in the bathroom blowdrying my hair, or at the kitchen sink doing dishes. the sound of her little feet pattering after me became the music of my day.

i had been in a mixed state for much of the past six months. in bipolar terms, a mixed state can describe one of many things–either you fluctuate more rapidly than usual between mania (or hypomania, which is less severe than mania), and depression, or the two mood categories overlap, or some other combination of depression and mania happens either simultaneously or in order. for me, being in a mixed state mostly meant that i was very manic during the day, and very depressed at night. charlotte gave me something to do during the day, when i felt as though i was going to jump out of my skin, and she gave me something to do at night, when her warm body cuddled against my chest was all i needed to feel hope that my life was worth living.

and then, yesterday, she died; we’d had her for one week and two days. turns out, my favorite thing about her, that she always wanted to be between my feet, ended up being her undoing. i described the way she died on facebook (if you’re not my friend and would like to read the story, feel free to friend me (if you know me)), and i can’t write it again, but be assured that it was one of the most traumatic moments of my life, and i will never forget racing to the pet hospital as she lay on my lap, wheezing and coughing up blood, as i screamed at god for doing this to me; even though i wanted to hope that the vet would be able to fix her, i knew it was only a matter of minutes before she would be gone from me for good. and so it happened. twenty minutes later, i was kissing her head as they slid the needle into her little leg, and then she went limp. i screamed involuntarily as i saw the blood seeping slowing from her nose, then went and cried in a private waiting room while they cleaned her up and put her in a cardboard coffin.

sei, who had raced to the vet hospital from work, drove me home as charlotte sat on my lap in her box. she looked like she was sleeping, and when sei first opened the box he said over and over, “charlotte. charlotte, charlotte, charlotte,” as though she would wake up, and i finally had to tell him she was gone, as tears ran down his face. when we got home, tai, my three year-old, ran to me and said, “charlie is good as new?!” we sat the boys down together and broke the news to them. lotoa, who is five, immediately began weeping silently into sei’s shirt, while tai just sat and looked at charlotte’s body in her little coffin until he, too, realized what had happened and burst into tears. we explained to them that charlotte had gone to heaven, and that we would see her again one day, and that she wasn’t hurt anymore. these didn’t feel like empty words, and i was glad for that small mercy, that i actually believed them to be true as i said them to my sons. we let the boys decorate her coffin with sharpies, and they adorned it with hearts and pictures of our family together with her, as well as love notes–one of lotoa’s said, “charlie, i really hope i do get to see you again.”

then we buried her, in a flower bed in our backyard, just under the kitchen window, where i do dishes every day. we’re going to plant a tree there today. hopefully my boys will see that tree every day and be reminded of the special dog who saved their mother’s life every day for a week and two days.

i’m trying not to blame myself; i know it was a freak accident, and that it could have happened to anyone. it’s not easy, though, and last night, when i told sei that i’d never be able to forgive myself for killing our dog, he told me “never say that again. charlotte did what she came here to do. she found you, gave you hope that you can be truly happy again, and now she’s gone, and it’s no one’s fault. she fulfilled her mission, and it’s only a shame we didn’t have more time with her. seeing you with that dog gave me hope, too, because i saw the old you, a spark of the real you that isn’t manic, that isn’t depressed, that’s just you. that dog was a tender mercy.”

we spent $675 on charlotte, plus all the necessary items that accompany raising a puppy. she was worth every. single. penny. rest in peace and love, my little angel.

— Alexis

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One night about two weeks ago, I woke at three in the morning convinced of something. So I stumbled out of my warm bed, walked down the hall in my underwear, and regarded the six piles of clean laundry on my laundry room floor with suspicion. I knew there was something I needed to do about it, but I couldn’t figure out what. So naturally, I went through the entire six loads and picked out all the underwear and socks and put them into separate piles on the counter. Then I went back to sleep. I didn’t match the socks, didn’t fold any of the clean clothes, didn’t separate any of the underwear according to whom they belonged. I just became obsessed with the idea that there should be no socks or underwear in the piles, so I took them out. It made total sense to me at the time, but when I woke up the next morning and saw what I’d done, I was like, WTF, ALEXIS. WTF. 

I was diagnosed in August of 2012 with bipolar-I disorder, which, in a nutshell (haha I said nutshell; get it, because sometimes people think bipolar people are nuts?) can be found here. Basically, I cycle back and forth between two significantly different moods: mania and depression. Mania is characterized by elevated mood, flight of ideas, delusions of grandeur, decreased need for sleep, irrational behavior (hence the socks and underwear fiasco) and many other symptoms, some less and some more severe. Depression is marked by loss of pleasure in normally pleasurable activities, hopelessness, loneliness, and a general sense of unwellness. These are very broad descriptions, and I encourage you to look into the illness more, since it probably affects someone you know (and maybe that person happens to be me).

When I first started telling people about my diagnosis, I was terrified. What would people think of me? Would they look at me differently, think I was incapable of being a good mother, report me to immigration? There is so much that is still unknown about manic-depressive illness, and therefore it is still highly stigmatized in our community (especially the Mormon community I happen to be a part of). But to a person, everyone was kind and loving, and most of all concerned for my health. I did get a couple of “Oh, that makes sense” responses, which might have offended some people, but didn’t offend me–after all, I make penis jokes in public and think the word “balls” is funny, regardless of the context in which it is used. In fact, sometimes having someone casually attribute my illness to my personality, rather than the other way around, made it easier for me to tell more people. If I were going to be telling them something that wasn’t so shocking to begin with, where was the harm, really?

That being said, talking to my friends about a very scary and inexplicable illness is completely different from putting it out on the internet. This is the first time I’ve announced in a large forum that I’m manic-depressive, so it’s understandably scary as shit. But I’m doing it because I have a mission. Just like when I started blogging about postpartum depression way back in 2008 when half of my friends (many of whom had just had babies) didn’t even know what the symptoms were, I know that I have been blessed with this curse for a reason–to give back. I need to make people aware of just how perilous the situation is for manic-depressives, and how very underserved they are by the medical community. Bipolar is a highly deadly disease, resulting in numerous suicides every year. Even though the illness is incurable, it is highly responsive to treatment, and most people with manic-depressive illness can live completely normally (read: not in a mental hospital, since “normal” is highly subjective these days). Unfortunately, though, bipolar is often misdiagnosed as some other mood disorder, as its symptoms present in very similar ways to other (much less serious) illnesses.

I feel as though it has become my mission to speak out about this illness, if I can prevent even one person from suffering the excruciating mental and emotional pain that comes with it. And I’ll do this regardless of what people might think of me. I don’t really care, honestly, as long as my family isn’t hurt, and I have spoken with my husband at length about how to approach this blog, and he is completely supportive. His support is all I need, really.

I can’t talk about everything tonight, obviously, since it’s after five in the morning and I probably have some underwear somewhere that need finding or a crevice of a toilet that needs to be scrubbed with a toothbrush. But I will be blogging frequently now, if only for my own sanity and pleasure, since I’m not sure anyone checks this blog anymore. But I must say one thing: I am Alexis, and therefore, even though I will be talking about very, very serious things, I will also be talking about menstrual cramps, my sons’ fart jokes, stepping in dog crap, and how much it bothers me when adults bring children into places they shouldn’t be (like the midnight showing of Les Miserables, for crying out loud!). In other words, I will still be me, just with a little crazy thrown in. I hope that’s ok with you.

— Alexis

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well…this is embarrassing. i haven’t blogged in over six months. but i miss writing for fun (as opposed to the writing i do for school, which is less “fun” and more “chinese water torture”), and i’m getting too wordy for facebook–i’m at the point that i have to revise my status updates for length, which is a sign i should be blogging more often. it might also be a sign that i need to get a life, but whatever. so i’m back to my old internet home, and hopefully you’ll pardon the virtual dust; i’m in the process of changing things around a little bit, but it’s happening slowly because 1) i don’t have much time, and 2) technology hates me. this is all assuming anyone will even read this blog anymore, which is a pretty bold assumption, considering six months of silence in internet time might as well be a million years. it’s fine, i like to live on the edge, so i’ll just keep typing and pretend i’m not talking to myself.

there’s a lot that’s changed in my life since i last blogged regularly, but i’ll try to spread the updates out over a few posts. for the purposes of what i’m about to say, all you need to know is that i just finished up my first year of graduate school in byu’s english literature program, where i am emphasizing in rhetoric. in addition to going to school full-time, i also work as a graduate instructor, teaching freshman writing and rhetoric at byu. up until i started school in august of 2011, i’d been a stay-at-home mom for over four years; i have two boys, ages five and three. i also have a husband, but his age is irrelevant.

life as a working/student mother is complicated. the emotional stress that accompanies managing a family is compounded by the pressures of academia and professional life, and my attempts to balance everything i want to do often leads to nightmarishly long days, followed by hellish nights spent in a haze of literary and rhetorical theory reading assignments and my somewhat-coherent ramblings rendered as literary or rhetorical criticism, which my professors are nice enough to read and give me feedback on. however, this process is made bearable, and even rewarding, for me by my family and friends, who are all incredibly supportive of my goals. i am thankful for the opportunities provided to me by the love and generosity of the people in my life.

one of the opportunities i am afforded by the time i spend at school is conversation with adults, which was an uncommon occurrence when i stayed home with my children. i was talking to a male friend a few weeks ago about some issue involving women in the workplace, and after i made a point favoring equal pay for women he rebutted with, “ugh, you’re such a feminist.” my response? “NO I’M NOT!” i was offended at his implication that i was somehow unfeminine because i wanted my work to be valued as equal to that of a man, and i didn’t want to be identified with the stereotypical ranting, bitchy feminist we see typified in hollywood and other mainstream media. i was relating this experience to my classmate and close friend the other day, and she said something to me that i don’t think i’ll ever forget. completely without judgment in her tone, she asked me, “do you believe in equality for women?” i nodded. “then you’re a feminist, alexis, and we need to stop fearing the term. we need to use it. we need to take it back.”

if i’d heard someone say this before last august, i might have dismissed it as the oversensitivity of a militant feminist ballbuster manhater. after all, what is “feminism”? it’s just a word, right? what can one little word really mean? now, though, after having spent countless hours in the study of the way words work and how entire cultures are formed around their connotations, i realize that words have nearly boundless power, both for good and evil. and feminism has been a power for good the world over when it has been used as tool to incite conversations about the ways in which women are treated differently than men, for no other reason that history demands it be so.

as i’ve thought over all this, i’ve come to a few realizations. first, that i am a feminist, and i always have been one, regardless of the fact that i refused to identify myself as such, for whatever reasons. second, that being a feminist doesn’t make me anything different than what i’d thought myself to be before i started using the “f” word. i still love to play sports, spend too much money on lipgloss, worry about my weight, offend people with my big mouth, watch byu football (and any other byu team), hang out with family and friends, travel, read, write, and a million other things, some of which might be called characteristically feminine, some masculine. none of these qualities are what makes me a feminist.

i am a feminist because i want to live in a world where i am afforded the same choices and opportunities as my male counterparts, assuming all variables are equal. does this mean i would choose to do something perceived as being “a man’s job”? not necessarily, but i’d like to have the choice to do so, and be compensated equally as well as any man would be for the same job. i am a feminist because in my home, i try not to constrain myself, my husband, or my children by enforcing what i see as arbitrary gender roles that are harmful, not helpful, to the construction of our identities. i am a feminist because i want to be able to express my opinion honestly without being told “you’ve got balls, for a girl,” and because i want to not be flattered when someone tells me that. i still have a lot of work to do in that area; it’s difficult to undo the effects of an entire lifetime of hearing praise constructed in masculine terms.

none of this is to say that i hate men, or that in order for me to be happy men must be miserable. this is a common misconception of feminism’s aims, and it has become a stereotype for a reason–there are plenty of feminists who are also manhaters, but i feel this has less to do with feminist ideology and more to do with personal experiences these women may have had with men. i have been lucky, especially as an adult, to have had many males in my life who’ve allowed and encouraged me to pursue the things that would fulfill me, regardless of what the world might tell me is suitable for a “woman in my position” to do. it has been the influence of these men, my husband in particular, that has shown me what wonderful rewards can be reaped where feminism is sown. sei, my husband, might not  consider himself to be a feminist, but he most definitely is, for he sees in me the potential to be anything i want to be, to have anything i choose to work for, regardless of my gender.

this post is getting obscenely long, but i wanted to be sure to mention one final thing. i am a feminist, yes, but i don’t mean to imply that i think men and women are the same. i understand there are inherent anatomical, biological, and even emotional and intellectual differences between men and women that are, in many ways, non-negotiable. i do not lament these differences, but celebrate them for their contribution to the richness of male-female interaction, which would be dull indeed if we were all the same. however, difference does not require inequality, which is what women must compensate for every day, whether or not they realize this counterbalancing is taking place.

i want to live in a society where i don’t need to waste my time and resources making up for ground lost simply because i wasn’t born with a penis. and that’s why i’m a feminist.

— Alexis

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i was in church today when i read a flyer with this quote on it:

Motherhood is not a hobby, it is a calling. You do not collect children because you find them cuter than stamps. It is not something to do if you can squeeze the time in. It is what God gave you time for. -Rachel Jankovic

my first thought was, wow, that’s so powerful and so true. i need to remember that more in my life–i should start putting my kids first more often.

and then i was like, wait.

first, a disclaimer: i don’t know who this rachel jankovic person is, and i honestly don’t have the time or desire to find out. i understand i’m not doing my bloggerly duty when i post an entry without having done an adequate amount of research, but it’s been a while since i wrote an uninvestigated, unfiltered rant on something, so i figure now is as good a time as any.

in case you don’t know me, some background: i have two children, ages four and two, and for the last four and a half years up till august, i was a stay-at-home-mom. since the end of august this year, i have been attending graduate school, working, and pretty much neglecting my housewifish and motherly duties–to a shameful degree, really–as i attempt to make something of myself. something having little to do with my family, other than that i would like for them to be proud of me. but i’m not deluding myself: i know going back to school is mostly about me, and i’ve come to terms with that. in other words, i’ve done the “dedicate self in entirety to family” thing, and now i’m doing the “must. talk. to. adults.” thing, so i’ve seen both sides of the coin. not to say that i’m any sort of expert on anything (other than which kind of skittles are the best–that, i have a lot of experience in), but i feel qualified enough to speak for myself.

and what does myself have to say? myself says that rachel jankovic has fallen out of the cuckoo tree, and maybe hit her head a couple (hundred. a couple hundred) times on the way down. i don’t disagree with the statement that motherhood is a calling. no indeed, i do not. it for sure is–for some women. for others, motherhood is a one-night stand, or an unexpected blessing that may have come from a tragic circumstance; an accident that turned out to be the best decision ever made, or perhaps a choice made on a whim. i don’t mind that rachel chooses to define motherhood as a calling for herself, but why must she make women who’ve stumbled onto motherhood in a totally different way to feel like they’re somehow failures?

and then she has to go and say that motherhood is “what God gave you time for.” and to that, i blow a huge raspberry. as far as i’m concerned, God gave us time on this earth to prove OURSELVES. and yes, part of proving myself in this life is doing right by my children, and i do agree with her that we will be held accountable for the way in which we raise our children. however, my children are separate people. got that? they are different human beings, rachel.

but the big no she di’int comes later in her post:

We should run to to the cross. To death. So lay down your hopes. Lay down your future. Lay down your petty annoyances. Lay down your desire to be recognized. Lay down your fussiness at your children. Lay down your perfectly clean house. Lay down your grievances about the life you are living. Lay down the imaginary life you could have had by yourself. Let it go.

ummm…no.

there are so many things wrong with this paragraph, i’m not even going to try to make sense of it–i know that’s a major transgression in terms of persuasive writing (or at least that’s what i tell my students day after day), but i have enough faith in whomever reads this to at least understand where i’m coming from.

like i said, i don’t disagree with the basics here. i am with rachel in the sense that we should live more humbly, be happy with the blessings we’ve been given and strive to serve others. but what she’s talking about here is wholesale martyrdom, and i don’t know why that’s appealing to people, but it’s not what God is asking of us, at least not right now. perhaps there will be a time when i will be required to lay down my life for my faith, but that day is not today, and why would i want it to be? why can’t i relish the everyday that i experience right now, and hope that tomorrow will be even better–that i will get an A instead of a B+, that i will have time to clean my house, that i will fight less with my children? none of those improvements would come to pass if i were to “lay down my hopes,” as rachel suggests–my hopes are often the only thing spurring me on to be better, to be the best, which is what i want to be, whatever rachel jankovic might have to say about that.

i don’t know, perhaps i am misunderstanding or even willfully misinterpreting this woman, and if so, my bad. i’m not going to say i apologize, because i really don’t. i’m not sorry that i disagree with her, and honestly, i feel like i was kind of holding back, if only for the sake of trying to sound less biased than i really am. if i were being completely uninhibited, i would’ve just said “this is stupid” and left it at that. look at me, being all reserved and stuff. lawlz guys, i’m a grownup.

— Alexis

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one day during the middle of last week, i was running out the door at 7:45–i had class at 8–and i was even more harried and wild-eyed than usual; i hadn’t finished the reading for my 8 am seminar, nor had i done the reading for my 12 pm seminar. i’d gotten down the stairs,  shoved all my books, papers, and assorted other crap into the passenger seat of my car, when i realized two things: 1) i was FREEZING because it was 35 degrees out and i’d forgotten to put on a coat, and 2) i had two different shoes on. i was seriously tempted to just carry on my merry way, but i capitulated to my nearly crippling vanity and booked it back up the three flights of stairs to my condo, ran to my closet to get the right shoe, and was back to my car in under two minutes. i was halfway to school when i realized i’d forgotten my coat again. and i was sitting at the conference room table, surrounded by my fellow grad students, panting from running up the stairs with my aforementioned mountain of crap, when i realized that i was only wearing one earring.

and that pretty much sums up my life as a mother/graduate student/freshman writing instructor/zombie.

a couple of things (among many) i’ve learned since going back to school:

1. there are some things that can be explained by the words “because i said so.” this includes the following: why the sky is blue, why we can’t buy a cat, why it’s a bad idea to eat three snickers bars and two packs of string cheese for breakfast, and why girls don’t need penises. this does not include the following: why a rhetorical analysis paper should involve only very limited use of the first person, why critical reading is essential to the teaching of writing, and why irony doesn’t need to be a part of life’s every observation.

2. treats make everything better, and not just for my toddlers; turns out, donuts work as bribes for my children, the freshmen in my class, fellow grad students, and tenured professors alike.

3. sleep is overrated. and i say this mostly because if i were to start thinking about sleep in any other way, i would just drop out of school now. seriously, i sleep never.

4. teaching is so, so, so much better than i could have imagined. when i first started school, i was terrified that i’d be an awful teacher, or even worse, not like teaching (actually, i suppose it’s debatable which of those two is worse, but let’s go with it). thankfully, my fears were totally unjustified. i love teaching like a fat kid loves cake. or like i love cake–tres leches cake, to be specific.

5. byu is awesome. this is something i already knew, but am having the privilege of relearning. the school gets a bad rap from ignorant people for being an insulated haven for conservative whackjobs, and though i’d guess there actually are some conservative whackjobs here, i haven’t met any of them yet. i am consistently humbled by the amount of talent and intelligence that congregates here, from the faculty down to the freshmen, and i feel truly blessed to be a part of such an amazing university. not to say that i don’t sometimes cry in the fetal position (or fall asleep on the floor under my desk in an office shared by like 60 grad instructors) because school is frickin hard–i totally do that. but i’m just glad i get to do that a school as awesome as byu.

*sorry this post took so long to put up. i promise to be better.

— Alexis

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i haven’t posted for five months. FIVE MONTHS. as far as a blog goes, five months might as well be five hundred years; for all i know, the people who read my blog might have all stopped using the internet or maybe been victims in a small-scale zombie apocalypse. hopefully that’s not the case, though, because i have a very fragile ego, and i’m not sure if i’d be able to go on blogging at all if all my readers were newly-made zombies and were therefore too busy eating people to read my shallow musings.

in any case, i come back to my blog in the spirit of meekness. i spent five months away from it, thinking i just didn’t have enough time to write about the things that make me go hmm or that piss me off or that make me laugh, and thinking that if i wasn’t spending time blogging, i’d be able to spend more time with my kids or learning how to sew or at least pretending to care that i don’t know how to sew. turns out, not blogging didn’t lead to my doing any of those things i thought blogging was keeping me from. i mostly spent a lot more time eating my feelings and taking my issues out on my husband.

i started grad school a month and a half ago. it has been even more insane than i thought it would be, but i’m not complaining; i feel exquisitely lucky every minute of every day. honestly, i’m still a little bit in shock that i’m finally following through on something i set out to do. i am learning so much, i’m inspired by my classmates, professors, and students, and i am consistently impressed by what an amazing man my husband is (as i type, he is bathing our boys, playing the guitar to them as they splash–the acoustics are good in the bathroom, i guess). but as giddy as i am to be in school again, i miss writing. which is kind of funny, because i write all the time for my classes, but i do (miss writing, that is). i miss the act of creating just for creation’s sake, of writing to express my feelings without consulting a syllabus first.  i didn’t fully realize this until i stopped blogging, but i got a lot of satisfaction from my blog, and much of it came from the fact that i was writing for fun almost every day, which is a luxury i’m really pining for at the moment.

so i’m back, whether you like it or not. i may be writing about some new things, since my life is on a slightly different course now than it was five months ago, but i’m still the same old me (although now that i say that, i’m not sure whether or not that’s an endorsement or an indictment).

i’m so excited to be back!

— Alexis

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today i’m 28 years old, and usually i make a huge deal about my birthday and bully sei to the point of a nervous breakdown, but this year i wasn’t so concerned. i was wondering why that was, and as i wrote in my journal this morning (yes, i still do that, and yes, i still write with a hot pink pen like i did when i was 15), i think i figured something out. in the past, i looked forward to holidays like christmas and my birthday (that’s right, i refer to my birthday as a holiday) for months ahead of time because it made me feel special when people fussed over me and bought me presents. the external validation was so important to me, and it never came so fast and thick as it did on my birthday. nevermind that people are almost obligated to be nice to someone on their birthday; i just liked feeling loved.

my pretty much insane and obsessive need to be appreciated on “my special day” really drove sei up the wall. where he comes from (samoa), birthdays just aren’t a big deal, at least not the way they are in the u.s. after the first birthday, which usually merits a big celebration with the entire family, the day passes without much fanfare. but in a society rampant with materialism and gotta-have-it mentality, a birthday is just another excuse to spend money, and i totally bought into that. sei didn’t understand why i would get so crazy about having the perfect birthday, but he always went along with my demands–whether or not he agreed with them–because he knew it was important to me. still, though, i know he still doesn’t completely get it.

i don’t really get it either, i guess. i always thought it was such a big deal to me because i’m just a vain and superficial person. while this might be partly true–i do like “things” a little too much, and i need to work on that–i saw today as i wrote in my journal that something much larger was at play. this is the first birthday in a long time that i’ve felt content. not just happy, because i’m generally a happy person, even when i’m depressed. but content. you know, like life could just stay as-is and you’d be pretty much all right? that’s how i felt this morning when i woke up. sure, there are things i want to accomplish and i’m no fan of stagnation, but for today, i feel like i fit. i fit in my life. on every other birthday for as long as i can remember, depression colored my perception so much that i felt uncomfortable in my own life, as though i was guest-starring in someone else’s role, and not doing a very good job of it, at that.

this past saturday, i got a letter from byu saying that they were offering me a graduate instructorship, which means i would be teaching a freshman writing class during my first year of grad school. i was completely ecstatic, since i was sure i’d bombed the interview (but when does anyone walk out of an interview and think, “nailed it!”), and this job is the job, you know, the job i’m hoping to get after i graduate. i applied to school in the first place because i want to teach at byu, and this really felt like a great first step in the right direction.

so i was all dancing my little jig and smiling ear to ear, and sei said something like “wow. things come so easily to you.” his tone was completely civil, but i was offended for a minute. i took it to mean he thought i don’t have to work for anything, and everything is handed to me with a side of fries. just the thought irritated the crap out of me, because i’ve never thought of myself as a person who just coasted along in life. i was getting ready to junk-punch him when he clarified that he thinks it’s cool how lucky i am, that i’ve been able to get everything i want. a little better, but still–i didn’t like the implication that i just snap my fingers and the world falls into place.

i thought to myself, i’ve had my share of trials, right? i’ve paid my dues, and i’m sure i’ll pay more, so i deserve all the good that comes to me…right? i never really came to a conclusion, and just pushed it out of my mind for the moment. it still irked, though. but this morning, as i wrote my annual birthday wrap-up of the previous year, i realized sei’s so right. so, so right. whether i’ve had a hard life or not (and many people would say not), i am an incredibly blessed–or lucky, if that makes more sense to you on a metaphysical level–woman. because as the saying goes, bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. if i just assume that i fall somewhere in the middle of the good-bad spectrum, all things considered, my life has been pretty amazing.

why, though?

i don’t know.

it sucks that some people seem to consistently draw the short straw of life. but i don’t worry too much about those people, mostly because i believe in a justice that extends beyond the bounds of earthly life. i think the people who have the most difficult burdens are the ones who are best equipped to deal with them, and will be rewarded accordingly in the hereafter. as for me, though, i’m not sure why i have it so good. i’m just thankful. and i’m going to hold on to this illusory serenity and preserve it for those moments of strife when i’m tempted to wonder “why me?”, because that question goes both ways, as i’ve realized today.

i guess that’s a lesson 28 years in the making–i’m thinking maybe i need to be demoted to the remedial life skillz class. so that’s why today, i don’t need a big to-do, because i already feel appreciated and loved and blessed. like i said, sei was right–i do have everything i want, and i couldn’t ask for anything more.

— Alexis

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tonight when sei and i were going through our night time routine with our boys, the four year-old volunteered to say the prayer. he thanked Heavenly Father for the usual things–a good day, his brother, etc.–then asked for the standard blessings–for him to be good, for everyone to be safe and sleep well. then he said something new: “and please bless us to be together forever.” i opened one eye to glance at my beautiful son, who was sitting on my lap, and instantly teared up at the image. he was sitting, arms folded around his stuffed winnie the pooh bear, eyelashes lying gently on his brown cheeks as he closed his eyes in a most fervent prayer.

i know religion isn’t for everyone, and God isn’t for everyone. but i don’t think any parent–or human, for that matter–can deny the awe children inspire when they truly believe in something, no matter what it is. my son genuinely believes that he is going to live forever with his family; even more importantly, he actually wants to be with us forever. i can’t quite explain the inadequacy that flooded my entire being when i heard my son pray for an eternity with me; in an instant i remembered every mistake i’d ever made, silently repented for my flaws as a mother, gave thanks that i’m not in this parenting thing alone. and in that same instant, i marveled that despite all my weaknesses and all the times i could have been more patient or less critical or more loving, my son still sees me as fit to accompany him into the eternities. after hearing this honest expression of my baby’s trust in my abilities, the weight of my responsibility as a mother hit me all over again, same as it did on the day he was born.

during a recent talk given at a worldwide lds conference, one of the leaders of my church spoke about parenting. among other things, he mentioned “difficult” children. he said that some children are just more challenging than others, plain and simple. then he said something that really struck me, for many reasons: he said that in his opinion, these children are sent to us because we, their parents, need them. i immediately thought of my older son, who i have a complicated relationship with. the truth is, this boy is nearly exactly like me. not only do he and i share many physical traits, he is also the apple to my hyper, inattentive, precocious, willful, inquisitive, affectionate, stubborn tree. i’m convinced that he gets along so well with sei because sei has learned to deal with me over the years, so dealing with a toddler version of me isn’t so different. i, on the other hand, apparently would have a hard time getting along with myself, if my relationship with my son is any indication.

not to say that i don’t love my son. quite the opposite, actually. i have loved and adored this child since the moment he was just a twinkle in my eye. i admire him, am blown away by his intelligence and fiery personality, and every day i find new reasons to marvel that this beautiful creature belongs to me. unfortunately, this love doesn’t translate into a perfect mother-son symbiosis. in fact, it is often only this complete adoration of my son that saves him from hourly 30-minute timeouts. we butt heads constantly, and if i’m not always on my guard, he knows just how to get his way, or to get out of trouble. it’s frustrating beyond measure, and i often question whether or not i’m doing right by him, if maybe i’m not meant to be his mother. it’s not uncommon for me to think that maybe another woman might have done a better job as his mom.

but then i remember the words of that wise man’s talk, that maybe these “difficult” children come to us because there is something we need to learn. in other words, maybe i’m the difficult one. maybe my son, perfect and innocent being that he is, is molding me into the woman i am supposed to be. this idea has revolutionized my world. although i still struggle to keep my calm when my boy is having a particularly unruly moment and must literally bite my tongue to prevent myself from telling him to be quiet when he’s asked me 84 questions about why tyrannosaurus rexes have such short arms (i still fall prey to that temptation occasionally), i see these experiences as opportunities for growth. the more belligerent he is, the more i must turn my criticism inward and ask myself what i’m doing wrong, what i need to change in order to be a better mother.

and if i still can’t bring myself to take the care that is necessary to lovingly explain to my child that it’s postulated that t-rexes’ arms were used to constrain prey during a kill, i’ll remember my son’s prayer. i’ll remember that he wants to be with me, forever. me.

and i want it to stay that way.

— Alexis

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