Destination Discipline

“Christmas means carnage!” – Babe (the pig)

I’m old. I know I’m old because I’m sitting in my kitchen the day after Christmas–ignoring the carnage in my living room–and watching a fat, ugly squirrel steal the peanut butter and walnut suet from my kitchen window. I should be in bed asleep, but I have arthritis and gas. The first wakes me up and the second wakes my husband, so there’s no point hiding under the covers. (No one ever tells a young bride about the agonies of undercover farts–but they really should! Instead of rice at weddings, we should throw gas-x, but I digress.)

I need coffee. I need coffee like a gazelle needs to run. I puttered to the kitchen this morning, stared lovingly at my coffee maker and then boiled water for green tea. You see, coffee gives me anxiety and insomnia–as if I don’t have enough trouble sleeping already. So, I poured a delicate little cup of Jasmine tea with stevia instead, and Friends, it’s just not the same.

But I survived Christmas.

I cleaned the house, bought the presents, baked the cookies, cooked the feast—and everyone left happy. There were no family fights, no eye gouging, no hair pulling and only minimal dog anxiety. And that was because one of my son’s asked me to dog-sit his giant blue tick coonhound puppy while he went with his girlfriend to their family celebration. His poor pup thought he had moved to Alaska to hunt Moby Dick and was never coming back so he ran around the basement peeing all day. Or barking. he also thought he was a Bumpass Hound (see A Christmas Story) and kept trying to steal the turkey off the kitchen counter. So, when we sat down to eat dinner, I locked him in the basement with my boxers and he lost his ever-loving mind. Best Christmas memory, my 14-year-old blessing the meal while the dog barked and bellowed loud enough to shatter our eardrums. My son later told me this is why they own a shock collar. Funny how he left that at home. (For all you animal lovers out there, I’m not saying I would have USED it. At least, I don’t think I would have.)

Right now, there are some folks thinking I’m a stinky Christian because I should probably be expounding the merits of Jesus incarnation but I’m sitting here nursing a sinus headache while bellyaching about greedy starlings. These damnable birds are destroying my feeders and what they don’t steal, the squirrels get. That might be why my son and I enjoyed watching the Cooper’s Hawk pluck and devour one unfortunate speckled varmint a few days ago. Serves it right for existing. If you don’t have a bird feeder–think of starlings as the avian playground bullies that steal your lunch money every single day. Everybody is happy when they get their comeuppance.

The thing is, I love Christmas. I love it the way I love running–it feels awesome when it’s over. I just lay there panting and nursing my hip. Wait, my hip didn’t hurt before Christmas! Am I really old enough for an aching hip? Good grief.

I did enjoy watching my granddaughter open her jammies and hat. I didn’t even bother to get her toys this year. The parents always go all out for a first child, and she is no exception. She could swim laps in all the gadgets and gizmos she has at her house and I don’t feel the need to compete. But I did have a philosophical moment amid the frenzy of wrapping paper and cosmic exclamations; we sure do know how to ruin the future Christmases of every child in the world. How, you ask? By making everything so stinking wonderful. It’s all downhill from here, folks. After a person reaches ten or twelve, it’s all over. Like my Uncle Dan said (in a well-timed Christmas text), “Santa’s not real. It’s your parents.”

How’s that for Christmas spirit?

Right about now there is somebody reading this thinking, “There goes that privileged white girl prattling on about the luxuries of sitting in a warm house with plenty of food and presents while some unhoused person is shivering in the cold with a hungry belly.” Send him to my bird feeder. He or she or THEM (after all, I want to be sensitive to those whose pronouns don’t match my own) can fight the starlings for the peanut butter and walnuts outside my sliding glass doors. They can stand on the warming mat I put out for the possums. If they’re really stinky, I’ll let them in for a bath–but don’t try to use the bathroom sink, my husband won’t hook up the vanity (in my only bathroom) because it doesn’t match the new tile he installed four months ago. That’s probably why I’m sick. I have to walk all the way to the kitchen in my house to wash my hands–with no water pressure. Did I mention my husband is a handman? He promised he’d hook it up for the holidays but…he got sick and stayed in bed for two weeks. See, this is the difference between women and men; when men get sick, they lay in bed and moan for days and years while women take some Advil and decongestant and do what needs to be done. Sorry, digressing again.

Not that I don’t believe in “the Christmas spirit”. I still get that “magical feeling” when the tree lights up for the first time. I truly love when I don’t have to make a trip to K-Mart to buy new Christmas lights (yes, I am miserly enough to keep fixing old strands of lights). I even got three whole ornaments on the tree this year and two of those were ones I forgot to put away last Christmas. The third was a gift from my mother. (Thanks, Mom!) As much as I hate shopping, I enjoyed foraging through aisle after aisle of crafts shows over the past few months for those special things ‘hand made with love’ by some other old ladies because I work for a living. My personal favorite was the goat milk soap. I was so excited about that I asked the Goat Lady how she makes it. She replied with glee, “First, you milk the goats.” I’m still chuckling over that one. And nothing puts one in the Christmas spirit like baking Christmas cookies. Every year I say I’m not baking cookies because I can’t eat them and then I bake them and eat all of them between December 26th and New Year’s Eve. Did I mention Christmas mean carnage…? Carnage on my waistline, that is. But maybe I’ll do better this year. Maybe I’ll learn discipline this year–after all, I’ve got a whole week left. If that doesn’t work, that’s what New Years Resolutions are for.

I did do a lot of praying over the holidays. These were truly reverent prayers, “God, please help me not to murder my son or my husband this year. Help me to forgive as I’ve been forgiven.” This was especially reverent as I gave my son the gift “not throwing away every single Lego on the floor of every single room in the house.” One would think the floor was made of metal and Legos were magnets.

And that, my friends, is how I survived Christmas. Prayer. Advil. Green tea. And while I know I will soon find myself in a luxuriously hot Epsom salt bath with an old boxer dog slurping up bath water while I listen to a Voddie Baucham sermon, I will cherish the gifts this Christmas is still giving to me; mom’s homemade fudge, the memory of my son grinning over the new shelving unit I spent hours shopping for on Christmas Eve, and my friendly little neighborhood wren. He reminds me that no matter how many starlings steal the peanut butter and walnut suet, he just keeps singing. And so will I!

“The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.” Mark Twain

When I was little, I used to dream I could move things with my mind. You see, I fell in love with Charlie McGhee, the girl from Stephen King’s novel, Firestarter. She was special. She could start or control fire with her mind. She was so special, in fact, that the government would do anything to get their hands on her. She was the product of a special project meant to enhance human abilities and (while I don’t remember all the details of the movie) I assume they wanted to replicate that “gift” by creating super soldiers so they could burn Russia to the ground and end the Cold War. Or not. Either way, Charlie was super cool. I wanted to be like Charlie. And not just because I liked to burn things. She ignited within me the hope that I could be, well, more than just a boring little girl.

I also wanted to be like the Bionic Woman. Lindsay Wagner could run super-fast, had a fabulous figure, and was highly desired by men. After all, isn’t that a woman’s purpose? (That’s what I got from the 1980’s.) When I grew up, I wanted to be that.

As an adult, science fiction has erupted around me like a Mogwai in water. The superheroes of yesterday’s comic books are now the movie stars of block buster action flicks. It seems I’m not the only person alive who wants to be something “more”. We’ve got Thor and Captain America and even Wolverine (one of my personal favorites but only because—Hugh Jackman! But I digress).

I don’t think adults are helping the situation. They often put tremendous pressure on children by asking them, “What do you want to be when you grow up? A fireman? A ballet dancer? An insurance salesman? Oh wait, no one ever asks about that last one. How about a used car salesman? So, when children do grow up and land a career in law enforcement—for example—they quickly discover the pay is lousy. And while the elected officials are always asking for tax increases to give our LEO’s a raise or better equipment, the budget somehow always falls short (even if there is moolah for a super fancy new greenway for bike traffic).

Shoot. I accidentally put on my Cynical Sally hat. Sorry about that. Where was I?

Why did I think there was something wrong with being “just a little girl”? I didn’t even grow up in the era of contouring. (Look it up if you don’t know what I’m talking about. The Tick Tock videos are fascinating). Worse, try taking your tween daughter to an event without her beauty ritual. It might be easier to wrestle an anaconda.

I’m not even thinking about women’s equality or gender fluidity or any of that. I’m talking about my existence as a person who felt somehow “less than” because I didn’t have that “something special” that made me somehow more interesting. I couldn’t do backflips (thought I longed to do gymnastics) or memorize vast swatches of poetry, or win blue ribbons for running fast. Shoot, I couldn’t even make the final round at the spelling bee–even though I read circles around my peers. Gee whiz. What a loser.

Social media has exacerbated this phenomenon. Parents laud their super star kid whose soccer team took home the trophy, ran a triathlon, or baked a world-class cake. I’m over here like, “My kid didn’t burn the house down today” and I’m trying to be all cheery about it because my patio has the black burn marks to prove he got the fire gene from me.

So, what do I mean by asking such a silly question like, what is your superpower? It’s not like we can actually be Superman or Cyclops. Shoot, I’d even settle for being able to breathe under water but that’s not going to happen. The thing is, I think the basic human condition is one of restless wandering until we discover why we exist. Knowing our superpowers is helpful in this regard.

For some people, their superpower is charity. I know a lot of people who have money and like to give it away to help others in need. This is a beautiful thing. And while some people would abuse the caring nature of others, I consider this one of the more blessed powers one can harness.

Some people have a superpower of positivity. They have a ‘sunny side up’ disposition that enables them to see good where others see only negative. They are the motivational speakers of the age and they wield their sword accordingly.

I could likely make a very long list of good things that people do to help others, but I would like to ask a question that goes a level deeper. What would be your superpower if you had no special ability in yourself at all outside of existing? May you feel like a plain Jane or John and you sell used car insurance. Maybe you have no perceived gift at all other than the ability to drive responsibility. Does you even count? What if your only superpower is never missing a day of work? (Remember when one got a certificate for perfect attendance in school? Funny how when we grow up all our focus is on vacation. Wait—was this a tactic taught in grade school to engender drones who never call in sick?)

The question that used to bother me was: am I special even though I don’t have a special ability?

In the workplace they call people like me a “worker bee”. I’m not a boss. I don’t have an awesome intellectual ability to crunch numbers or retain cool facts. I don’t have the best clothes or shoes. Sure, I could make up a superpower for my coffee mug that reads, “My superpower is not killing people who ask what my superpower is.” I try to show up on time and do my job and then I go home and make dinner that nobody likes to eat. One would think after all these years of cooking, someone would say thank you. Alas, saying ‘thank you’ is not my husband’s superpower. Does that make me a terrible spouse? Does falling asleep in front of the television make me a terrible mother? (I should have been reading a book to my child). I’d like to (at least) say I’m a perfect neighbor but someone got offended that my house needs to be painted and reported me to the city. I get to go to court in December.

This weekend I discovered my superpower and it made me very happy. I discovered it quite by accident. I was sitting on the back patio while my husband rambled on about something random when I heard a high twitter in the top of my tulip tree. (Say that five times fast!) It was the brown creeper! I know it because I looked it up after observing it scale the tree from bottom to top in search of bugs. So, when I heard it tweet, I said, “There you are. I hear you.” Then I started to mimic its whistle.

My husband said, “What on earth are you doing?”

I said, “I’m talking to the birdie.”

He said, “But I was saying something important.”

I said, “I know you. But you were talking when the bird starting tweeting so I couldn’t hear anything else you said.”

To which he rolled his eyes.

I told him, “I am so in tune with nature that when the creatures make a sound, I can’t simply ignore it. I have to make the sound back.” Mostly this applies to birds, but I’m not immune to mimicking other beasts. Therefore, my superpower must be “Bird Mimic.” Bet you didn’t even know such a superpower existed.

Sadly enough, I was ridiculed online by an owl expert when I bragged about calling in the great horned owl in my neighborhood. The owl and I exchanged hoots until he finally flew into the Sweet Gum Maple tree in my backyard in search of his new friend. Mr. Expert Owl Man said, “It’s very dangerous to hoot at owls because you might give them a false sense of security.”

The thing is, this superpower gives me great joy. I may be overstating it, but I feel it gives my life meaning and purpose. Certainly, God wouldn’t give me this superpower if he didn’t intend for me to use it. Even if all it does it lift my spirits, certainly that is enough. When the birds tweet, it makes my heart sing. Shouldn’t I somehow thank them by tweeting in return?

I bet you didn’t think this is where the blog was going.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that we all have unique talents (superpowers). It may take us nearly 48 years to figure them out. They may not be what is popular on the television. They may even invite rebuke from family members who don’t want to hear bird noises at 6am coming from the other side of the bed. (I’m totally kidding, I would never do that!) The point is, we don’t have to be what others expect or even like to enjoy our superpower. We can wield it at any given moment. And when we do, there is a resonance that thrums through our being that somehow helps us know “this is the reason for which I was created. This is why I exist!

Finally, just to round this story out, I would like the dear reader to know I have another superpower. I have officially achieved Firestarter status. I may not be able to light or control fires with my mind, but I have mastered the art of making brilliant bonfires that warm the soul. They go especially well with marshmallows, chocolate bars and graham crackers.

So, I’ll ask one last time. What is your superpower?

I was strong today, but I didn’t feel strong. In fact, I spent the day praying, “God help me.” Help me not to lose my temper. Help me not to lose control. Help me keep walking when my feet are so, so weary. But most of all, I was praying for hope.

My son had a really bad day today. That’s saying a lot for a bi-polar child with no impulse control. He screamed a lot. Cried a lot. Said a lot of really horrible things. And I didn’t know what to do other than speak peace to him and pray over him and wait for the mood to pass. Yesterday he screamed because I asked him to put the laundry away. Today he screamed for 2 hours because I asked him to help me take the dog to the vet.

I began this blog as a way to help other people by sharing my own stories of learning discipline. Learning how to control my impulses around food has been the challenge of my life. But nothing compares to standing near a rampaging teenager who is hell bent on destroying me. I feel rather naked sharing that here. Broadcasting to the world how hard it is to live with someone who has a mood disorder. Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy. Maybe I am. Or maybe I’m just tired.

It’s been a really tough week, but I’ve continued to exercise and eat right. When a co-worker put cake in front of me yesterday, I didn’t even think about eating it. I made a homemade cookie cake with icing and homemade chocolate Legos as a decoration. I didn’t eat that either. I’m resolved to stay sugar-free. I suppose I am resolved to be patient with my son too. But it is really, really hard.

He was suspended from school for smacking a girl we know well in gym class. That means he’s home for over a week straight. It feels like there is no hope for parents of children with mood disorders other than to sedate them. That’s not helpful. So we go to coaching and counseling. And we visit doctors who try to give us what seems so fleeting.

Hope is a feather blowing in the wind. Today, it blew away.

Maybe tomorrow it will land in my hand.

So, I pray again, “God, you are the God of broken people. You love us. You sent your Son to shine light into our lives. Please shine your light into my eyes because the way seems so very dark. I believe in you and I’m weary. Please help me hold on. Amen.”