Decay

I hear people say sometimes (and these people are usually high-school students with a romantic view of world history) that they wish they lived in another era. Maybe in the time of Shakespeare, maybe the roaring 20s, possibly just the 50s and 60s when real-life Mad Men roamed the earth smoking cigarettes and bedding married women. These times-gone-by would perhaps be a nice place to visit, but I for one could never live there.

Because in an era without advanced dentistry, I would not have a single tooth in my head.

At my first dental appointment, when I was only three years old, I had nine cavities in my baby teeth. Or so the story goes. Our local dentist worked out a plan with my mom to fill these a few at a time over a series of months and told her that I would probably have weak teeth for life, a trait inherited from my parents, who wore partials and full dentures.

Partially inherited from my parents. Partially inherited from drinking Coke out of my baby bottles as a toddler.

The plan went awry when I decided that the dentist's life had been too easy up to that point and made it my mission to even that score at the first filling. To this day, I don't know what possessed me. (Could it be...Satan?) I was a well-behaved child in every other venue. But for some reason, I took great joy in making drilling as difficult as possible for the good doctor and his staff. I screamed. I kicked. I refused to open my mouth. I cried about pain I had had way too much Novocaine to technically feel. After the first few appointments not going well, the dentist sent my mother home with a prescription for happy pills I was to take 30 minutes before each remaining procedure.

Yes, kids, I had a prescription for Valium at three.

His mistake was suggesting that the first dose be administered in the office by him so that the timing would be right. Have you ever tried to give a pill to a pissed-off cat? It was like that. Except that the cat in this scenario could yell louder.

My mother tells me I couldn't possibly be remembering this right, but I swear that at one point the dentist pinched my nose shut to get me to open my mouth and poured a dissolved tablet down my gullet. I admit this could be a hallucination, because, well...Valium for a three-year-old. But it was the most frightening moment of my life up to that point, so whether it was the medication or PTSD, I behaved angelically for every appointment thereafter.

Though that also might have been due to the copious amounts of nitrous oxide pumped into my nose. Either way, I spent most of my childhood dentist visits high. Drugs are bad, kids. Unless you have to get a broken molar repaired when you're nine, and then they're awesome.

This Monday saw me back at the dentist to get one of my oldest remaining fillings removed and replaced with a crown. The tooth in question had cracked, and my current dentist discovered a deep cavity underneath. While in the chair getting news that my tooth was more a disaster than previously thought, not sedated but kinda wanting to be, I had a flashback to my childhood dentist breaking the news of tooth decay:

You have some bugs in your tooth. I just need to dig them out with my drill. All you'll feel is a little pinch.

No wonder I fought this guy. Comparing dental decay to bugs? In your face? Not cool, dude. Not cool.

Hours later, still numb and swollen (my current dentist's philosophy is "enough injected anesthesia to take down an adult elephant"), I realized that every biting surface is now covered in composite resin or a porcelain crown. (Years ago, I lost the gold molar that gave me street cred. I looked like such a bad-ass when I yawned.) As these begin to fail, I wonder what will be next. I think of my dad, who had every tooth pulled in his first weeks in the army and who wore dentures the rest of his life. Of my mom, who had a bridge to replace most of the molars on one side of her mouth and failing crowns on her two front teeth. Of a host of aunts and uncles who don't even bother with such formalities and have fewer teeth than they do dogs sleeping under their front porches. Is that next? Will my worst nightmare, a recurring gem where I spit out my own teeth as though they're Chiclets, come true? Despite the wonderful advances of modern dentistry, are my genetically-inferior, Coke-marinated teeth doomed?

And will I ever regain full feeling on the left side of my face? Only time will tell, I suppose.

Maybe innovation in dentistry will keep up with my bad biters and I will become the first member of my family to go to the grave with all of her natural teeth. My parents, who sacrificed a lot of time, money, and sanity the first 22 years of my life to help me keep my mouthful of problems, would be as proud of this feat as of my college degrees. It was certainly a more painful and dramatic process. (And this is coming from a girl who suffered through a philosophy of religion class.)

If not, and if extractions are my inevitable endgame, one thing is for certain--I will not fight the Valium. Lesson learned.

Perspective

Sometimes, life is overwhelming. It's easy to get so caught up in all the things you have to do and all the deadlines you're asked to meet that you lose sight of one of life's most important truths:

Any day that you have a dry basement is a good day.

This time a week ago I was kind of an emotional wreck. I felt life had me boxed in. Trapped. Every second of every moment of every day planned out in advance with no time to enjoy life. By Tuesday night, I had told my husband that I felt ready to crack from the pressure of working full time, being a mother, being a swim mother, cooking, cleaning, maintaining an older vehicle, and dispatching the stink bugs and chipmunks trying so hard to invade my home. The kid had just shown me her right shoe, which was suddenly falling apart, and that one extra unplanned chore in an already busy week sent me over the edge.

I need a break. I can't keep this up. I'm burning the candle at both ends. 3-dimensionally. There are so many ends, and oh, they're all alight.

But God, or Fate, or Karma, or just plain dumb coincidence, has a sense of humor. And 24 hours later, I stood in a flooded finished basement, sopping towels at my (wet) feet, thinking about what an idiot I was that days before I was stressed out about just needing to run the sweeper down there.

Oh, what I wouldn't have given in that sopping-wet moment to be able to solve the problem with just 30 minutes and a Dyson.

It was pretty bad, but as is so often the case, could have been so much worse. We're out some of our saving-for-hardwood-floors money to pay for water restoration and the problem that necessitated the water restoration. And we still are not completely sure that we solved the problem, so simple tasks of daily living like running the dishwasher, getting a shower, and doing a load of laundry cause multiple trips to the basement to make sure we don't once again have a river running through it. Yet nothing of great monetary or sentimental value was lost. The carpet and drywall dried out quickly with the help of a couple of experts and do not have to be replaced. We can even be semi-happy about a couple of the side effects. The malfunctioning bi-fold doors that separate the laundry room from the finished room, which we have hated and fought with since the day we moved into the house, got just wet enough that we feel justified throwing them out and replacing them. And nothing compels you to scrub a concrete floor like a little standing water, so my laundry room floor now glistens and smells of artificially-scented lavender and chamomile.

Truth be told, this watery setback could have been a blessing in disguise. I realize now how ridiculously petty I was being getting so stressed out and worked up over the small tasks of life that everyone has to do. How self-important I was, feeling sorry for myself that I have a house to clean and a family to cook for and a kid who swims and outgrows shoes. It's a cliche to say this, but only a cliche because it's so very, very true--I should, instead, be over-the-top grateful that I have a house to clean, and a family to cook for, and a kid healthy enough to swim and outgrow shoes.

Because sometimes life hands you a pretty bad hand. And you wish your life could rewind to the day before, back to busy and normal.

While I am in no way glad this happened, I am glad for the relatively painless wake up call it gave me. I need to learn to recognize when my life is good and appreciate it. While I am busy whining and complaining and feeling a nervous breakdown is nigh because a headlight just went out on my car, there are others who, in that very moment, are losing their most treasured possessions to fire or natural disasters. Who are holding vigil at the hospital bedside of their beloved spouse. Who just got that call from their child's doctor, the call that changes the pattern of their lives forever. Who would give anything, anything, to have the most stressful thing they have to deal with that day be tracking down the correct auto part and a skilled person to install it.

So thanks, I guess, to God, or Fate, or Karma, or Coincidence, for not making your wake up call louder.

And please...don't try to contact me again for a while. My basement carpet would really appreciate it.

The Ends of Things

Every year when I have my last day with seniors, and we're at that moment when the bell has rung and it's time to say farewell, I always tell them the same thing:

Let's not say goodbye. I hate goodbye. Let's say, "I'll see you around." Because more than likely, I will.

When you work with some of the incredible young people I do, sometimes having them as a student for more than one year, goodbye is too sad and too final. I want to believe we'll stay in touch, that they will occasionally email or drop by or not get too annoyed with me when I run into them with their significant others (and eventually, children) at local restaurants and ask them what they're up to.

As I get older, I realize more and more that some goodbyes are forever. Some paths never cross again. It's more than my soft little squishy heart can bear.

And so it also goes with books and television shows.

I re-read To Kill a Mockingbird every few years because missing Scout, Atticus, and Miss Maudie becomes a physical pain that can only be relieved by a week in their presence. I have re-watched the entire run of Lost, even the dreary first episodes of the 3rd season. I can't bypass Friends, Scrubs, or Everybody Loves Raymond when I stumble upon them during channel-flipping because to do so would be akin to pretending not to see a friend from high school in line at Old Navy. (Which we're all guilty of doing. But not with the fun friends. The ones like Chandler, J.D., and Robert.)

My entire family said some sad entertainment farewells this weekend. On Sunday, Ainsley finished reading the final pages of the Harry Potter series. And just hours later, her parents watched the last hour of Breaking Bad.

How do we go on without Snape and Walter White in all their flawed glory? I wish I didn't have to try to know.

Ainsley still has the final movies. But after that, our entire family is finished with Harry Potter. Our  childhood is over, officially. When Jason and I finished the last book, our consolation was that our daughter would someday read them, and in her re-reading, we would relive the joy we had in the books.

We didn't think ahead to how it would hurt just as badly to leave those characters a second time.

The mood, then, was already grim when the kid's lights were out and the adults settled in to watch Breaking Bad. I did not have the ugly-cry-for-2-hours reaction I had to Lost. And I found this ending to be deeply satisfying. But still--endings. I like them not.

The kid already has said after the last movie is watched this weekend, she wants to read the entire Harry Potter series all over again. She misses the magic already. So as she wraps it up during Saturday family movie night, and perhaps finds herself in the same finality funk her dad and I found ourselves in on Monday morning after seeing Walt and Jesse for the last time, I will teach her one of life's most important lessons: how to say goodbye. And I will give her my words, for in this case, they are apt.

Let's not say goodbye, Harry Potter. Let's say, "See you around." Because more than likely, I will.

The One Where the Bleeding-Heart Liberal Goes to the Target Range

Several years ago, I wrote about my bucket list. I'm too lazy to link to it and it probably wasn't very well-written anyway, so just try to remember.

One of the items on it was...firing a weapon. As of yesterday, I can cross that sucker right off the list.

It was a big day. I first met my sister to sign off on the final paperwork to close my mother's estate. (The holdup after the sale of the house? A final $8 water bill and a misfiled IRS form. Incompetence for the win!) And then I just, I don't know...felt the desire to shoot something.

No, it wasn't that sudden a decision. A dear friend offered to help me put this one in the "Done" column weeks ago. It just worked out that I was able to celebrate life moving on (by holding a deadly weapon) after closing that particularly painful chapter of my life.

I was thrilled that the range we went to had zombie targets. So instead of refining my aim on a figure modeled after a living human, I could pump lead into something modeled after a theoretical dead human. This actually made it easier. Point a weapon at a real live man, even if he has broken into my home? Scary for me. Point a weapon at Osama bin Zombie? All in an evening's entertainment.

The first shot left me completely overwhelmed and frightened by the power I held in my hands. The sound and kickback were nearly enough to make me put down the firearm and walk away for good. This was not a toy. This was not a game. This was not a TV show or movie. This was a deadly weapon. Made for one purpose--killing. I felt neither worthy nor qualified to be responsible for an object and action with that kind of power. I am not sure what I expected. But it looks so easy in fiction.

The truth is that it takes intent to squeeze the trigger of a firearm. It took physical and mental focus and a fight against my most base human instinct--do no harm. That might have just been a paper zombie I was pointing a gun towards. But looking down the barrel, lining it up with his body, aiming, firing...I knew that whatever I did in that moment was irreversible. Destructive.

Lethal.

I am exactly as good a shot as you would expect. Which is to say I'm not a good shot at all. Against an extremely slow-moving Walking Dead zombie who hasn't fed in a while, I might be able to save my life. Provided ammo is plentiful and I get multiple tries and he eventually just stands still about five feet away from me. You know, as hungry zombies are wont to do. Against a 28 Days Later zombie, I'm still going to need a shooting partner with terrific aim and an infinity clip or I'll be lunch.

And against a living person who may or may not also be armed himself...yeah, I'd be a goner.

I did improve after going through a crap load of my friend's ammunition. And it wasn't so scary after the first few reloads. It became more comfortable, more natural.

Which, come to think of it, might be the most unsettling part.


Some other observations from this experience--


We shared the range with several people firing guns of the variety where you don't really need to aim and squeeze so much as point and spray.

"You got him 4 times in the chest that time, babe!" I heard a guy tell his girlfriend.

Seeing as how you fired about 100 rounds in that thing's general direction, I should hope so, I said. But only in my head. Because that gun was SCARY.


I guess I thought we'd all be separated from each other in some secure, concrete fashion, seeing as how we were all in a room with only one way out, trapped with a bunch of complete strangers holding guns and ammo. That was not the case. I worried, sincerely, that I was either going to accidentally shoot someone or get purposefully shot myself, because again, POOR AIM. I was a terrific target for any crazy who maybe decided blue paper forms were a little boring and not nearly bloody enough for true shooting practice that day. It's a miracle that there's not a daily headline along the lines of, "MURDER AND ACCIDENTAL SHOOTING AT LOCAL FIRING RANGE. AGAIN."


Also, gunpowder smells. Two showers and multiple hand washings later, and I still think I smell it on my hands. I worry for the respiratory health of anyone who practices regularly at the range, especially if that's part of their job. But I guess if you have that job, you kinda have bigger job hazards. Like death. Law-enforcement-type people--I respect you more than ever.


After all this, will I do this again? Or was this a one-and-done? Would you judge me if I said I would like a second shot (!) at it?

Because I think I might.

Because of the zombies.

Enough.

Another young life lost. Eff you, cancer.

A girl I went to school with, who kicked my ass at track practice during my short tenure in that sport, who fought with everything she had, who leaves behind children too young to be without their mom, died from breast cancer this week.

It's made me sad. And then angry. Because I just don't understand why cancer has to take the good ones. Why can't cancer take out the assholes and let the rest of us be?

God knows there are enough of them.

Seriously, can you imagine a world where Osama bin Laden died a slow, painful death from anal cancer shortly before his 38th birthday? We'd live in a better place, wouldn't we?

Instead, cancer takes the good people. Our mothers and fathers. Our sisters and brothers. Our spouses, in the prime of their lives. Children. Those we love. Those we need.

Life's not fair. I know this. I've said this to my own daughter. But that's cold comfort when someone dies before their time, and the only thing they're guilty of is cell division gone amok.

Meanwhile, there are murderers and rapists and sociopaths and genocidal maniacs who live to be old.

Go pick on them a while, cancer. Do the world a favor.

But leave the rest of us alone.

Swim Mom Boot Camp

If you wonder where I went this summer, and why I didn't post, it's because I went to Swim Mom Boot Camp.

I started this season as a proud but reasonable human being who swore that we would not let swimming take over our family and our lives, that we would do the bare minimum to meet the requirements of the kid's team and her dreams of moderate success. I ended the season more animal than woman, a creature subsisting on tumblers full of Starbucks and the tears of other swim clubs' children. I screamed "GO! GO! GOOOOOOOO!" from crowded and overheated bleachers until my voice gave out. I wore team colors and spirit wear. Hell, I even bought a team coffee mug perfect for carrying spiked coffee to Saturday night finals.

I sold out. I drank the Kool-Aid. I made small talk with other swim parents who were one click to the right of being complete strangers. Small talk! I don't do that.

I even (gasp!) bought my daugher a fast suit.

When I look in the mirror, I barely recognize my own tired face. This could be because the humidity inside heated natatoriums steams the mirrors. But I'm going with the whole fatigue and shock-and- awe thing.

I was willing to do all this because I believed that Ainsley's success this season would be the last success she'd see for a couple of years. The plan was that we would devote ourselves wholeheartedly to swim for her last season in the 10-and-under age group, for once she aged up to the 11-12 group, things would be harder. She wouldn't be expected to make cuts and finals. We could, as we had done in previous seasons, allow ourselves to fade into the background.

But funny things happen when you play the game. You rise from obscurity and make yourself known. Sometimes it's impossible to just fade back into apathy and mediocrity once you've shown coach-type people your potential as both an athlete and an athletic supporter. (Ba-dum-dum.) So instead of going back to being bleacher wallpaper and middle-of-the-packers in the first year of this new age group, the kid done got herself, and by proxy, us, promoted to the performance group. Where the kids are expected to truly compete. And the parents to participate. And not miss practices, and swim in every meet. And sign our names in blood on the dotted lines.

I kid you not--the invitation to join this group actually said, "If you accept this invitation, you are putting swim above all other activities." It's worded like a fricking commandment. Thou shalt have no other gods before swim.

It's intense. And stressful. And time-consuming. There were days this summer that I looked at my husband and said, "I can't do this anymore. I need my life back."

And yet.

There is unspeakable joy in watching a child celebrate an unexpected top-10 finish. Ainsley was not one of her team's superstars who always won everything, so her underdog and most-improved status made every trip to finals all the sweeter. I got to watch my kid's team win state. I saw the pride on Ainsley's face when she told me that her coach singled her out for praise during an extremely difficult practice set. I stood breathless on the shore of a lake as my only child swam a kilometer in open water, with the kid telling me after that it was both the hardest and best thing she's ever done.

It was a lot of work for her. And for us. But never in my life have I had more concrete proof that hard work pays off.

It all started over again last week as Ainsley had her first practice in her new age group. She was thrilled, and ready for a new challenge, and committed to being the best swimmer she can be. I was mostly overwhelmed.

But I've been to camp. I've got this.

And suddenly, everything changed.

Ainsley only just turned 11, and I know adulthood is still years away.

But for the rest of my days, when I look back on the summer of 2013, I will see it as the summer when my little girl grew up.

Some of the changes were physical. We had to go bra shopping and have discussions about how to shave. (Some of you know that I am not the best role model for this, but I'm all she's got. Let the tourniquets begin.)

Others were more subtle. Her sarcasm has become more frequent (and more annoying, because it's generally aimed at me.) She's been a little more moody, a little more dramatic. The first month of summer, all she wanted to do was run and play outside. By the final weeks, all she wanted to do was text her friends and read or watch Harry Potter. Particularly the third movie, which is arguably the one where you realize, "Hey. These kids are no longer kids." How fitting.

Her metamorphosis shouldn't have been surprising. She just started 6th grade, after all, and that is officially middle school. In-Between Land. The horrifying time in a young person's life when she has one foot in the shimmering world of adolescence and the other firmly stuck in the quicksand of teenagery. She's young for her grade, though, and I thought we might get one more year of true, joyful childhood from her before crossing that bridge.

Alas, she outgrew herself right on schedule.

So this Christmas will be the first Christmas that Santa doesn't come. And, she claims, the first Halloween with no tricks or treats. (I can't help but think the lure of chocolate will change her mind.)  For her birthday, the only requested item in the "toy" column was a Magic 8 Ball. The main thing she wanted for her 11th was to have her best friend over to eat pizza and watch a movie.

Goodbye, Chuck E. Cheese. Hello, girls' nights in.

With so much innocence lost, I feel more compelled than ever to cherish those rare moments when I look at her and see the little girl beneath the slimming face, deepening voice, and abandonment of childish things.

One day this summer I checked on her while she was taking a post-swim-practice nap. It's been years since she last napped regularly, but two-a-day swim practices made them a necessity for several weeks this season. In her dark and quiet room, decorated with black curtains and neon-bright peace symbols, I found her curled on her side, holding her precious stuffed elephant tightly under her chin.

In sleep, she wasn't talking back to me. Or rolling her eyes. Or being moodily sarcastic. Her flushed cheeks and deep breathing took me back to her toddler days, when a shared nap was our favorite hour of any summer day. In that moment, she was my sweet little girl again. The one who watched The Goodnight Show on PBS Sprout every night. The one who danced to Wiggles songs and asked me to play Laurie Berkner CDs in the car. The one who wanted to be a different Disney Princess each year for Halloween and who believed wholeheartedly that when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.

I knew the moment, like childhood, was a fleeting joy. So I did what any nostalgic mom would do.

I gently wiped her damp hair from her forehead. I brought her summer quilt up to cover her chilled knees. I kissed her flushed cheeks.

And then I grabbed my phone to take a picture.

For if I've learned nothing else this summer, I've learned that the sweetest moments of childhood are gone before you know it. Grab them while they last.