I’ve gone through phases in my blogging life.
My first phase was this sort of, I’m going to surf the motherhood in the age of anxiety, slacker mommy wave. I was anxious, sure, but I found, thank God, that my friends are sellouts just like me. in my core I knew that all that anxiety was bullshit. I knew what really mattered.
I was trying to be, you know, as Flavor Flav would say, ironical. Or, um, just funny. While shedding, or looking for, some genuine light on the mommy condition, the human condition, and the condition of being me a globe trotting WT party girl turned mommy and management, in the heart of Dixie with its racism, reactionarism, and social grace. Hah hah, cheap blush wine on ice in a Backyardigans sippy cup. Hah hah, I’m so much better than this, such an oaty crunchy extended breastfeeding attachment parent swimming up stream in this culture, but somehow I still let Baby Einstein and Noggin babysit my kid while I try to recover some scraps of a life. This is how we sell out once we hit the brick wall that is Motherhood.
You know, that sort of thing.
My next phase was kind of, dunno, Bobcat Goldthwait-esque. My affliction, larded with sickening sincerity, was my schtick. Until my nerves took over, and my schtick was actually, well, sincere affliction, much of which I could not share because it would violate privacy or because my mom and half my friends read that blog.
So this time, I vow to stay anonymous, and to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Or, at least as much of the truth as I have time for.
Love is nothing, nothing, nothing, like they say. You gotta get up and work the people, every day. [Liz Phair]
I’m always experiencing zen awakenings. Okay, not always. But pretty often, for an exhausted working mom.
I’m also deeper into generalized anxiety disorder than I’ve ever been in my life. Attention Deficit? Depression? That’s FUN compared to where I am now.
And juxtaposed against marital problems which fucking wear me out, and my anxiety disordered view of my life as a working mommy and wellness/sustainable living gurette, are all these incredibly beautiful, peaceful moments of satisfaction, serenity, and beauty. Then there are the moments where I am pondering issues or cultural products (literature, movies) I can really get my teeth into. Even when I am pissed off, those aren’t bad either.
So… that’s what this is about.
Oh wait. I forgot to explain why good enough, why now.
I’m always experiencing zen awakenings. I said that, right?
One of them came a few months ago when my marriage counselor said, we have got to get that target off your forehead! She said we have GOT to get you OFF folk radar (She’s black. And awesome).
I can’t connect that directly to where I am now, but something inside me cracked, gave, at that moment.
I completed a three year course in energy healing, and I do believe that some people, or some moments, have the power to change one’s course, if one is smart enough to catch it.
I caught it. I’m not sure what it means. I may not make a touchdown. But I will complete the pass.
Good enough is what I am. That’s what my needs are, that’s what my beliefs are, that’s what my parenting and professional contributions, that’s what my frienships and social awareness are.
Actually, in fact, my parenting, friendship skills, social awareness, and professional contributions are fucking stellar. But because of my anxiety disorder, it’s never, ever good enough. Ever.
So I realize that what I need to be shooting for, is good enough.
I had a long, kind wrangle with my supervisor at work, today, about how the TLC I’ve put into my personal life, my extremely busy parenting and community building and activist and creative career, is actually what makes me such a fantastic buy for my employer.
I am tuned in to so many things that my employer absolutely cannot even begin to address, and I will bring them customers. My genius, to some extent, is simply ’getting it’, and I’m a strategic plan benchmarking, statistics raising jackpot.
I’m no Augusten Burroughs in Dry, of course, I wish I were. Oh I wish for the luxury of alcoholism, I do.
But the point is that I get a rough time from my employer because I have to juggle motherhood, wifehood, community, friendships as well as work. Work should be everything. But in fact, to do such a fantastic job at work– and I do– I have to be able to maintain all the other commitments I juggle til I am almost psyhcotic. And then when commitments outside of work come knocking, my job says, you want leave? So that you can be a parent and a friend and a community builder? Are you kidding?
And then I have a panic attack.
Because if I am not exactly the mother, professional, friend, wellness goddess, vegan, late thirties hottie, and culture maven– ALL AT THE SAME TIME– that I expect that I should be, the world *will* end.
If everybody isn’t happy with me, the world *will* end.
That’s where good enough comes from. Whatever it is, it’s good enough, dammit.
Some days, good enough might be that this is my fourth glass of cheap blush in two hours, like tonight, or one of those days where i obsess miserably about my relationships or my failures or my isolation. Other days, good enough might be that I just plod through and fall into bed, a complete failure at the gratitude I know my life deserves. Other days, it might even true zen or literary or emotional awakening. Some place in between the xanax and the transcendant, I sometimes find some small ray of light as a parent, as a librarian, as a spiritual seeker.
Doesn’t matter. It’s good enough.
