The Pursuit of Wholeness

Most of the blogs I half-heartedly follow on the Internet these days seem to imitate a commercial for Coca-Cola or Sunny Delight or some other summery beverage that, if consumed, will most certainly lead to the most amazing day of your life.

In other words: LIFE. IS. AWESOME.

Shiny, happy, people living their lives. Every mundane event photographed and photoshopped into happy, bright colors so unnatural your retinas revolt. Here is what we did, here is what we wore, here is what we bought, here is what you should buy. God forbid anyone share a real feeling; a fight with a husband, how they're stuck in a lull, how parenthood isn't all they thought it would be or otherwise type against the tide of shiny happiness because they'll get picked apart or analyzed to fucking death on some website where that kind of thing goes down. Or in the comments of their own blog. For what it's worth, I'm okay with the analyzing, it's as legitimate a part of the Internet as the shit being analyzed but, in the end, being scrutinized and analyzed with an extra large helping of snark has had a pretty detrimental effect on personal blogging.

Many of the good bloggers who used to share the sad, happy, scary, weird, crazy, stupid details of their lives are very obviously toning it down for fear of backlash. I understand. I've been on the receiving end of the backlash for many years and have definitely experienced great chunks of time where I felt so self-conscious as a result of the snarky comments about myself that I edited a lot of what I shared because I was so afraid of what some anonymous commenters had to say. It can be paralyzing. Even when you've been doing this for years.

Instead of heartfelt posts wherein someone divulges their deepest darkest secrets that just might help the rest of us feel a little less alone in similar situations we get collages of what to get for Father's Day. I don't want collages! I've got a billionty-five collages at my fingertips right over there on the Pinterest and the website I write for, Babble. I don't need your gift ideas, either. They're the same ones as on the aforementioned sites or on that other blog I just read because I don't know why and, by the way, do you honestly think I'm spending more than $100 tops on a gift? Fucksakes.

I want to hear about the fight you had with your spouse last night and the ever-changing complexities of your relationship or the fact that you suspect your ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend is stalking you or how you wonder if you're drinking too much or even how you ate an entire box of Pop Tarts for breakfast. Sometimes I want to see your bedroom makeover and your photos from your vacation but most of the time I just want you, unfiltered. That's why I started reading!

You are cordially invited to point me in the direction of any bloggers still intelligently, humorously and articulately laying it on the line instead of trying to portray the perfect person because those are the blogs I want to read. Those are the blogs that make me feel a little bit less alone in the continual struggle to feel fulfilled. And I don't mind sharing my struggle. I don't mind sharing the highs and lows, even when I get called "depressing" and "repetitive" like I was yesterday because it's part of life. If I write post after post here trying to be everything to everyone than I have failed in everything I meant to do when I started this blog; connect with other people going through the same shit I do.

This site, for better or worse, is a chronicle of the past nearly ten years of my life. From marrying a guy I barely knew to moving to New York City, landing my dream job, making new friends, my journey into motherhood and officially removing myself from the Mormon church record books and our eventual move to the home in which we want to raise our kids. I've shared my greatest joys with you, my lowest lows and the most embarrassing moments of my life so when someone decides to tell me "Carry on with whatever point you are trying to make with these kinds of posts. I used to read you, and then the repetitiveness of do I drink too much, I don't think I drink too much, am I crazy, maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm depressed, no I'm not depressed started being depressing to read" I decided to respond. The comment really bothered me.

Maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm depressed, I am insecure, I hate myself sometimes - this is what life is about. Figuring yourself out and trying to make it better. Do you have it all figured out? Or do you struggle with some of the same shit over and over and over again? Sometimes you get over one thing only to replace it with a new thing you need to work on. This is life. What do you really expect when you come to read this blog? I want to know. Do you want me to sand down the rough edges of my life so that you get an uplifting read every day? Bible quotes? Stuart Smalley affirmations? Would you rather I not wonder aloud if I'm drinking too much or open the closet and introduce you to the skeleton that is my occasionally debilitating insecurity and self-hatred? Would you rather I pretend like my marriage is the most amazing union since Prince Charming slid the glass slipper onto Cinderella's perfectly manicured foot?

Yesterday you got a post about my self-hatred, today you get this rant and tomorrow you get vacation photos that will make my life seem as perfect as the person who posts Father's Day gift idea collages. Next week you might get a post about how complex my relationship is with my dad. Who the fuck knows? But, just like I told a commenter yesterday, don't like it, don't read. I don't say that to be a "bitch" as I was immediately called, I say that because it seems like a completely rational response to someone telling me they dislike my blog because it's depressing and repetitive so they don't read it anymore but, oh hey, I just popped back in to tell you how disturbed you are. Why are you here? CHANGE THE CHANNEL.

I wrote yesterday's post in an attempt to articulate a low-grade self-hatred I've had for most of my life. It flares up every now and then and I usually manage to tamp it out with the self-confidence I have in certain areas of life. It's a constant balance. Something I think we all deal with on one level or another and so I wanted to share it with you. Like I said, I was called "deeply depressed" and "disturbing" and told pills are the answer.

Know what I find disturbing? The knee-jerk reaction to suggest pills to someone expressing periodic sadness. I realize that pills have worked for millions of people, including my husband and I think that's great. I also think that people, Americans especially, have been trained to believe that the pursuit of happiness (or even just the avoidance of sadness) is the ultimate life quest. It's in the Declaration of Independence, for godsakes, so it must be one of life's top goals. But I'm not buying it. I think that, just like stick figure supermodels convince us we're never thin enough, the importance placed on being happy all of the time leads us to believe our natural sadness is wrong. We end up feeling lonely when we don't feel the happy that everyone else is feeling, or pretending to feel. A lot of us end up feeling like we're broken and need pills to fix ourselves.

Sadness is as much a part of life as happiness. As self-described psychologist and social researcher, Hugh Mackay, said in the comments on yesterday's post, "The idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying 'write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep' and 'cheer up' and 'happiness is our birthright' and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say 'Quick! Move on! Cheer up!' I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word 'happiness' and to replace it with the word 'wholeness'. Ask yourself 'is this contributing to my wholeness?' and if you’re having a bad day, it is."

Preach it, bother.

You there, sitting behind your monitor or scrolling through your phone reading this; are you happy all the time? Most of the time? And even when you are happy, do your demons still nip quietly at your ankles? Do you have a case of the blahs today? Do you feel overwhelmed by life sometimes? Do your bills stress you out? Does the news depress you? What about the world's sickening focus on celebrity? Do all the people behaving badly on reality shows give you anxiety? Do you worry if you're on the Internet too much? Did you have a fight with your spouse last night? Are you still not speaking? Guess what? ME FUCKING TOO.

It's okay. It's normal. You aren't broken. Pills aren't necessarily the answer. You might just be ebbing in the flow of life. It's par for the course. You can't ride the roller coaster without going up, down and sometimes even upside down. Yesterday I shared a down. Tomorrow I'll share an up. If you want to read a blog so bright you gotta wear shades, you're on the wrong site. That ain't ever gonna happen here.

You can read about the abortion I had at seventeen. You can read about my ill-advised relationship with an older, married man. You can read about my attempts to discover my sexuality. You can read about the time I crapped my pants in the park. You will hear about the time I hit our car with a shovel and you'll read about the petty arguments too. You will hear about the times I'm so depressed. You can read about the times I'm content. If you find the depressing stuff depressing move along! Or leave a comment and expect a response. In a world of heavily moderated comments I continue to publish every, single comment on this site - unless it's ridiculously inappropriate - so I welcome the discourse. I have been so appreciative of all the amazing feedback given to me by readers over the years but sometimes, if a comment doesn't sit right with me or I feel someone has completely misconstrued what I wrote, I'll respond.

So if, like me, you're interested in exploring the range of emotions every, single one of us experience in life, talking about life the way it really is and what we can learn from it, then pull-up a chair, stick around and let's talk about the pursuit of wholeness.

Slow Burn

I am filled with self-hatred. I know it's all the rage to pump up yourself, and hopefully others, with a blog post featuring beautiful photos and Stuart Smalley self-affirmations but I feel like being bitchy. Feel like being bitchy? I imagine Serge thinking as he reads this. You are bitchy.

You make me bitchy! I think right back at him.

I make me bitchy.

Everyone makes me bitchy.

I try to smash my self-hatred into the corners of my mind, especially where my children are concerned because I don't want them to feel like me when they're adults: a shell of a person, someone slowly suffocating herself with a constant internal dialogue outlining all the ways in which she sucks. But I'm probably fucking them up a million ways to Sunday that aren't to be realized until a 17-year-old Violet reveals them to me in a tearful barrage after I won't let her go to Mexico for her senior class trip.

I am not depressed in the traditional sense. Overall life is really good aside from those 3am wake-ups wherein I itemize every bill that needs paying and then move onto ruminations on the cancer I probably have and what happens when we die. This is more of a slow burn, the fire ignited many, many years ago. At birth, probably. Guilt, hatred, anger. They're like a pack of those annoying yappy dogs, Chihuahuas, constantly nipping at my ankles.

Each meal I stuff in my gaping maw brings a side dish of self-contempt because I usually overeat, continuing to shovel it in even when I am full. Swallowing beer means swallowing guilt. Each episode of The Real Housewives viewed is a syringe of shame injected directly into that big fucking artery in your arm, the brachial, I think.

Same thing when I buy those goddamned magazines and fill my head with a bunch of useless celebrity information: all the celebs are too fat or too thin, on their way to the top of the heap or free-falling into the gutter and I stuff that in my big, stupid face along with a shame bag of Doritos.

Amanda Bynes did what? Has Kim Kardashian announced her baby's name yet? Nigella Lawson's husband choked her in public? Michael Douglas says he got cancer from oral sex? Do I really need to know this? And I kind of want to swallow the cool steel of a revolver and put myself out of my misery but then I have another beer and tell myself the entire world is this way and what kind of fancy pants am I to turn against the tide? Am I one of those "We don't own a TV?" people? Hardly. I've got three of 'em. And DVRs to match. I can watch all of the things all of the time. Society needs me to do it. Someone needs to sound the alarm that signals Teresa Guidice and her husband Joe need to be put out of their misery. And by that I mean stop casting them in the series. Or someone could cut their brake lines. Either one is cool.

My mind is full of unnecessary nonsense, celeb statistics coming out my ears and yet I do nothing to remedy the situation and that causes the most shame of all. No, wait. No. The most shame is caused by the hours I spend on my rapidly expanding ass sucking down nonsense on the Internet. I once spent an hour reading YouTube comments in horror. Are these people for real? They are walking among us? They should also be put down like tumor-riddled elderly dogs. Guidices first and then anyone who ever left a racist, homophobic, hateful YouTube comment. After reading the YouTube comments I had to spend an hour cleansing my soul by watching people with cochlear implants hear for the first time and then there went my whole Wednesday.

Don't even get me started on my CNN obsession. News is just as bad as a trash mag addiction. Worse, probably, because we've generally viewed news as respectable, okay, not respectable, but it's generally considered to be a rung or two higher on the journalism ladder than E! News but I'll be damned if CNN isn't Entertainment Tonight only instead of featuring the latest Hollywood noob they're featuring the latest political douche. Also? do I really need to know about all of the bad things all of the time? Give it a rest, CNN, is what I'm saying.

The whole world is making me bitchy.

Basically I have the tortured part of the whole tortured artist thing down pat. It's the artist part that escapes me.

Know how people do all that spring cleaning and throw away all the shit they've been hoarding in the dark nooks and crannies of their homes? I want to do that with my body and mind. I want to puke it all up like a bad dinner of shellfish at a questionable restaurant. Hours and hours of heaving until I am weak but relieved.

Except I have no willpower. Probably I am trying to fill a void with all of this shit. What void? I dunno. Doesn't everyone have some kind of void at least some of the time? Are we all fulfilled all the time? If you say yes you're a liar.

Tomorrow: beautiful photos and self-affirmations, I swear! Okay, fine. One completely, totally life-affirming photo to tide you over:

Kill 'Em With Kindness

We are Jersey Shore bound. Which means we are probably living (dying) through yet another version of the video you're about to see. Pray for us.

New Friends

I've drilled it into Henry and Violet that they should introduce themselves to kids they want to play with. Violet has taken to saying, "Hello there! I'm Violet and this is my sweet brother Henry! Wanna play?" When she introduces Henry she sweeps her hands in his direction like a The Price Is Right model introducing 'a new car!' Cracks me up every time.

Thoughts. I Have Them

Oh, hi. I've spent the past three days moaning in my bed while curled in the fetal position and no, that is not meant to describe any kind of sexy time with Serge.

So sick.

Who gets the flu in June just days before a week long beach vacation they've been planning for months? This girl!

A couple things I've observed about television lo these past few days after watching hour after endless hour in my effort to forget the pain. THE PAIN. I'm probably dying. But wait. Thoughts. I have them: It's so much more tragic when good looking people die. I heard a reporter on Dateline say "they dismembered the couple and remember, this was a good looking couple." Because, you know, if the murderers had dismembered a really ugly couple it wouldn't be as tragic, might not even warrant an episode of Dateline because it's not sad when non-good looking people die. Also, avoid walking around in 'broad' daylight because that is when most people are kidnapped. As opposed to regular daylight. Especially if you aren't good looking because no one will care when you're gone.

Serge and I watched the first episode of The Bachelorette last week and I purposefully didn't watch it this week. So proud of myself! Watching that first episode was a kind of one-night stand and we all know that one-night stands are best left in the past. Much like calling a one-night stand for a second date, going in for episode two would be prolonging what I know to be nights of cringing and awkwardness that will ultimately end in dissatisfaction at the end of the season when I would look back and wonder why I wasted so much time on something I knew wouldn't end well. Moral: let one night stands be just that and don't get sucked into The Bachelorette, it can't end well even if it ends well.

If you're a parent who watches cartoons with your children, or pretends to while surreptitiously checking your phone, I highly recommend Little Bill. It's on Nick Jr and was created by Bill Cosby. The stories are based on his Little Bill book series, set in Philadelphia and feature Bill Jr. learning a lesson or moral. Unlike the jarring Dora and Diego whose loud and horrifying songs will worm into your head and eat your brain for days, Little Bill is about a real little boy living with his family (not the globetrotting Dora whose parents obviously deserve a visit from Child and Family Services) and the background music is smooth and jazzy, the perfect soundtrack for trying to catch a few extra Z's after pulling your toddler into bed in the morning and cranking on the cartoons. Not to mention Little Bill's mama is voiced by Phylicia Rashad who, in case you grew up on an island, played the velvety-toned Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show. I just want Phylicia Rashad to pull me into her lap and rock me to sleep while telling me stories or even reading the phone book, is what I'm saying.



Finally, after feeling all down about dropping my gym routine I read this thing Serge wrote over on Babble and it was exactly what I needed. Especially when I'm about to wiggle into my first swimming suit of the season. It's my new favorite thing he's ever written. Society's conclusion about what is considered the ideal body for each era is so arbitrary and yet it causes most of us so much pain and self-hatred as we struggle to reach that ideal. Your body is beautiful because it's YOUR body and it's all you've got. So smack that ass and work it, y'all. I've got to go now. My joints aren't used to being in a sitting position. Tell me something funny. Make me laugh. Entertain me. I demand it.