My bed is your bed and why not: Every living thing in this house winds up in my bed every night already

One day, these googly-eyed boys will demand privacy. Hmph.

One unexpected memory that sticks out for me from childhood is being allowed to stay up late to watch Saturday Night Live with my parents. I can't remember how old I was, but probably not really old enough to get most of the jokes, not that it mattered. We all knew I'd be asleep on the couch long before Chevy Chase tripped over something or Eddie Murphy hee-hawed his way through a Gumby sketch. 

But somehow, this routine really meant something to me. Partly, it was a privilege because my little brothers weren't allowed to stay up that late, but mostly, it was because I got to be with my parents by myself. I'd drift off to sleep to the sound of their laughter, one on each side, and even with my very limited wisdom, I sensed that these routine moments were the important stuff. When you're little, the adults in your life are your assurance that everything is OK.

So now, when both kids wind up in our bed almost every single night, and I can't quite stretch out because the dog has taken up the area where I'd like to put my feet, I can't help but smile a little. Anderson barely fits between us these days, one arm stretched out on top of me, one on Kurt, and David seems to think his feet belong in my ribcage. It can make for a fitful night. But I know how fleeting this is, and I'm struck by the magic power that seems to draw us all together so often, whether it's our bed or a small bathroom, dog and cat included. It's safe and warm, and a little claustrophobic, but mostly, it's a kind of love I couldn't have imagined.

I know in that really, really hot moment - seriously, they are both little furnaces - that they are both content in one of the happiest places they can imagine right now, right between mommy and daddy. I realize sleep-sharing to any extent isn't for everybody, and I've read about all the terrible outcomes we'll all face as a result of this "permissiveness," but I'm not buying it. We have sweet, independent, well-adjusted little goofballs and I'm not sure why their growth won't continue based on where they wake up each morning. I'm sure someone will fill me in via email or the comments below. ;)

At any rate, I have a feeling life will look a whole lot different this time next year. A lot can happen in 12 months. My goal is to keep recognizing the beauty in the seemingly mundane, no matter how much the big picture changes. We can't slow down the fleeting, but new things are always on the horizon. Here's to hoping the new things involve changes for the better, as opposed to angry, hulking grizzly bears that have migrated to the suburbs seeking revenge for all those times they've been excluded from a lovely forest pic-a-nic.

Wordy Wednesday

Marilyn Crook/Comedy Central press gallery

Stephen Colbert on grief: “The interesting thing about grief, I think, is that it is its own size. It is not the size of you. It is its own size. And grief comes to you. You know what I mean? I’ve always liked that phrase ‘He was visited by grief,’ because that’s really what it is. Grief is its own thing. It’s not like it’s in me and I’m going to deal with it. It’s a thing, and you have to be OK with its presence. If you try to ignore it, it will be like a wolf at your door.”

I found out recently that the great comedian and performer Stephen Colbert suffered an enormous loss when he was young - his dad and two of his brothers were all killed in a small plane crash when he was 10. It's one of those heart-wrenching scenarios too difficult to contemplate. Yet, here he is, decades later, proof that life is ever persistent.

His take on living with grief really struck me. I've never looked at grief through this lens, but I think he's on to something here. Maybe grief isn't something to "get through" and "move past" as much as it is something you have to learn to live alongside. I think we sometimes beat ourselves up for not breaking free, fast enough, from the losses that will dog all of us at various times. After a painful experience, surely it's possible to both heal and also move to a place of accepting grief as a natural component of life. Physiologically, even, there's got to be something important about grieving, since it's such a base, universal experience. When we're "visited" by grief, we'd probably do better to allow it in for a cup of coffee whiskey than to pretend it's probably just that really nice guy in the suit from the Church of Latter Day Saints out there on the doorstep, who won't be terribly surprised if we don't open the door. OK, maybe whiskey isn't the answer.

We tend to place way too many qualifiers and limitations on acceptable emotional responses, at any rate. We're too hard on ourselves when it comes to concepts (and once-pretend words) like "normalcy," and we're way too scared of that wolf at the door. Not only is there not a one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to dealing with mental stuff, there also isn't an ideal endgame for everyone.

What feels like coping to me might look like not enough progress, to you. But you can't fully understand the totality of another person's process. The older I get, the more I understand that I can't fully understand any other person. I can get close, maybe, in a few, select cases, but we don't get to climb inside other people's brains to check out the mechanics (at least not yet - Monsanto has something new coming out in our national corn supply, I've heard). All anybody can do is to keep moving forward. If we're honest and patient with ourselves, we figure out how to live with pain as we go. Sometimes we need a little help, and that's OK, too, so long as we're working toward fully turning toward the things that hurt.

The best I can do in the  meantime is accept you at face value, and encourage you to live an authentic life, even when that means your authenticity might make me uncomfortable at times. Something about authenticity brings out vulnerability in other people, according to all the Brené Brown I've read. And that can be scary, but also valuable. In fact, I'd say grief is one manifestation of vulnerability, which is key to fully embracing this imperfect life. It's all part of the sometimes frightening circle of Truth.

It's a lot to contemplate. I'm sure 8 out of 10 psychiatrists would tell me that my B.S. in political science and a lengthy interpretation of a Stephen Colbert quote doesn't actually qualify me to psychoanalyze all of society in broad, sweeping strokes. But 8 out of 10 psychiatrists would also have 8 different answers for why I cry every time I read Green Eggs and Ham to my sons. It's just what I do.

Knowing that I'll never have it all figured out is a gift that never stops giving me the future embarrassment I'll feel when I read this 3 years from now. Future Sarah, please don't be too hard on November 2012 Sarah. This was before that really huge thing happened with Oprah, when we all found out the true meaning of life. And to think we once thought it was free cars and Flamin' Hot Cheetos!

Things and Stuff

Our first Christmas together. The more things change...

I've accumulated a lot of Things in my 37.8 years on this watery orb. Much like a certain redheaded mermaid, I've got whozits and whatzits galore. Few of them hold any real meaning, and even then, it's probably truest to say that only a few of them trigger real feelings or memories. This knowledge won't stop me from pulling the trigger on the next adorable, kitschy owl-themed trinket that catches my eye, but at this time of the year when the ray gun is stuck on ACQUIRE in so many ways, I'd like to reflect on a few material objects that bring me joy on a regular basis. They aren't the most valuable things I own -- that honor would go to my collection of human hair and teeth, otherwise known as my baby books.* Style-wise, these objects are probably the antithesis of modern elegance, but I've always been a big fan of the misfit toy.

For instance, this mug:

I got this from my mom for my 10th birthday, which means my Sarah Mug would be well into its first career as a lion trainer if it had been born to lion training parents instead of winding up in that kiln in Korea. My mug could drink a beer with me. My mug has had a beer with me, actually. My mug has held hot chocolate with big, sticky marshmallows on a cold snow day in 1987. My mug has forced me to smile after reading its cheerful, cheesy poem at 5:12 a.m. while I bounced a colicky newborn on my knee and wondered if it were possible to be more sleep-deprived but technically conscious (it were). Recently, I let my once-colicky, now 6-year-old not-really-a-baby drink grape Powerade from it when he was sick.

Somehow, though I have moved 15+ times since receiving it, I've managed to keep track of this thing and not even crack it. And yes, it's special because it was a gift from my mommy when I was 10, and because they spelled Sarah with an "h," but it's also special just because it has been there as part of the background for so long. 

This squirrel basket:

My Grandma Bricker kept her candy in here. When I was very young and my Poppy Bricker was still alive, he would always bury a chocolate underneath all the Brach's Butterscotch and tell me they didn't have any. So of course I'd dig around in here, and lo and behold, there it was. Now that I'm older, that memory holds increasing weight. I know the overwhelming feeling of making a little kid beam with joy over a simple thing. I'd rather have this silly squirrel basket than any "real" family heirloom.

This tiny red lantern:

At my other grandparents' house, there is this little shelf in the spare bedroom where I'd always sleep when I visited, and on this little shelf are all these tiny trinkets, some of them gifts from me and my brothers when we were very small. My grandma still has an ugly little rock there that I gave her when she was in the hospital at one point long ago, and one of those weird little naked babies that fit in dollhouse cribs. I gave that to her at some point, too. I'm not sure of the origin of this little lantern, but it was there as long as I can remember, so at least 33ish years. I was at their house not too long ago, and we were reminiscing about days long gone, as we often do, and which invariably winds up focused on some childhood antics performed by me and my little brothers. I said something about the little shelf in there, and my Poppy, who is in his 80s, sick, and not always too coherent these days, said that reminded him of something. He'd told me when I was SIX that I could have that little lantern some day. So I took it home, and here it is. Love.

There are some other Things that bring on the Stuff around here, too, like the first gift Kurt gave me (a stuffed weasel) and the $2 sterling silver rings we got together in Chinatown in Chicago almost 13 years ago. A tiny hat that kept my first baby's little pumpkin head warm when he was born. Lots of pictures. My later-in-life college diploma. Monk and Roger, the stuffed animals I carried around when I was 5. My Grandma Bricker blanket. A silver perfume bottle from one of my oldest friends. A little clay vase from Barcelona. A mother's day card where the only word spelled correctly is love. 

I don't need these things to reminisce, and I'd imagine I'll hold on to less and less of them as time goes along. But they are a good reminder that when it comes to gifts and the things that endure, it's the thought that counts. I know it's hokey. But just like that prissy mermaid, there's little more important to me than being a part of the larger world, whether it's family, friends or community. I think that's probably true for almost every single person on Earth, too, no matter our differences or status. People do better when they have other people in their lives, even in the worst situations. Beloved objects conjure up memories of those people.

I hope I don't sound all sanctimonious here. I'm not above snatching up that Cyber Monday deal on a DVD I'd like to acquire or anything. I'm just making the case for the little things at this frenzied time of year, especially after this particularly painful election cycle has finally, thankfully, ground to a halt. We can't predict which little things others will imbue with their own personal meaning, or even if it's our intangible gifts that will mean the most. But it's a sure bet that all that guilt associated with the gift-giving season is a wasted emotion.

Now, tell me about your favorite nostalgia-inducing objects. I'd love to hear about them.

*Why is not creepy to collect your child's hair and first lost teeth in a book, but as soon as you start storing these items in shoe boxes in a dusty cellar, you're getting profiled as a potential serial killer?

Gratitudinously yours

Available on etsy.

I like the annual November trend where people spend time reflecting on the gifts in their lives each day in November, a nod to Thanksgiving. But I’m pretty bad about sticking to a schedule (you may have noticed I haven’t updated this blog in 8,000 months), so I’m going after this in one fell swoop and I’ll just trust that you believe me when I say I try to practice gratitude on a daily basis. If you don’t believe me, I can probably live with that, too.

1. Waking up every day as part of my imperfect family. I’m grateful that my little family is healthy, even if we include a hardiness that allows for my boys’ very healthy full-throttled screaming on a near-daily basis. I’m thankful for the Super Nanny, who taught me the proper time-out technique that keeps us all a (relatively) safe distance from the brink of insanity. I’m especially thankful that I am number one on my kid’s top ten list of most beautiful women in the world, including Princess Leia and all of his grandmothers and even his aunt and two of my best friends, Jo and Melinda.

I’m also grateful for a husband who gets me, who loves us in both word and deed, and who is uncommonly patient about irksome quirks. For example, people who have a really hard time sitting in the passenger’s seat and not completely freaking out. I have heard about people like that, and he’s really understanding.

I also count my blessings when it comes to extended family. We are way more than lucky to live a life surrounded by supportive people, who are not only interesting, smart, and loving, but on whom we could call, and have called, for help in even the most asinine situation.

2. Friends, i.e. sounding boards, support systems, hilarious companionship, sources of baked goods and fruity adult beverages. People who care about you, not in spite of your various flaws or just because you always feed the meter when you go downtown together, but just because you are you.

3. The Intangibles. No, not that movie about Al Capone. I’m talking about those often unnoticed bits of human interaction that do more to keep the world turning than anything we could actually measure. Interpret as you will, but I want it noted for the record that I’m grateful for these moments:

That time when I allowed someone else to be gracious and kind instead of commandeering the situation and trying to save face.

That time a stranger stopped by our table at a restaurant, told us we have a beautiful family, and then paid for our meal before she left.

That time we paid it forward.

That time my 6-year-old made my gravely ill grandpa well up with tears when he shook his hand after losing the peg game.

That time my dog visited that same grandpa and just laid her head on his lap the entire time, as opposed to doing her usual routine of leaping around the house knocking things off tables with her perpetually happy tail.

That time my baby boy told me he wasn’t a baby anymore but that he would pretend to be one if it made me feel better. It did.

The sound of crunchy leaves.

The way the hills pop up around my city whenever I return from out of town, from every direction.

Snort-laughing.

The unexpected gifts that grief brings.

Being a big sister, a future aunt, a granddaughter, a daughter, a mother, and more, and recognizing that despite the days when it doesn’t quite feel like it, that I’m a part of something more than this.

But also, I’m grateful that I’ll never have this all figured out, and that I have so much more to see. I’ll never really grasp how tiny our lives are in the grand scheme of the universe, or how fleeting the existence of the human race really is. Astronomy totally freaks me out. I’m also grateful to have grown up in the ‘80s, because phrases like “totally freaks me out” come out so easily.

Really, though, I’m just grateful to be here with you.

Emotional mountain climbing

 (Subtitle: Where you don't even get to burn calories but you still might pull a hamstring)

The peaks and valleys of Glen Nevis. Bods/Creative Commons

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could."
– Louis Erdrich, The Painted Drum

I came across this today on a beautiful blog post about a woman in New Zealand who just passed away from breast cancer, and the sentiment could not have come at a more poignant time for me. 

Call this irony, or hypocritical, or yet another example of the failure of modern sensibility thanks to the Internet, but I woke up sure that I needed to share on my blog, with strangers from around the world (all 113 of you), that I have been feeling withdrawn. I'm too exhausted from psychoanalyzing myself to decide whether this is an idea I should feel ashamed about, leaving me in the all-too-familiar position of being completely past the point of possessing even one singular shit to give. I am quite simply overflowing with stress, angst, worry, and guilt.

It's what we do. People, I mean. I could probably make a solid argument that it's more a symptom of my X chromosome, but I personally think we are just more chatty. Both sexes tend to take on a heavy burden when we come out of hiding and participate in the world. My participation lately has led me to a place of utter sadness, in so many ways. It doesn't matter how many times I assure myself there's little point in fretting about things I cannot fix, or even improve. My heart is heavy, and it has led me to near total withdrawal. I'm not reaching out to people I love who may need it, because I feel so overwhelmed, and the fact that I'm not reaching out only makes things worse. It's a bad cycle.

Are you still with me? Has my cryptic, angsty vent triggered your involuntary eye roll? I get it. I have a good life, a privileged life versus a full 2/3 of the world's population and most of the population in this country. Things could be a whole hell of a lot worse. I guess this is the guilt portion of our show. I have it good, but I'm so preoccupied with worry about so many people in my life, including myself, that I'm not even enjoying the gifts I've been given (or have earned by way of elbow grease, belt-tightening, and lifting up my mythical bootstraps, depending on your ideological perspective). Any way you slice it, I'm feeling pretty guilty about feeling angsty, and what the hell is that about? I suspect it's my unproven theory that the people around me will be better off if I appear to be keeping it all together.

Somewhere around age 9, I concluded that it was somehow wrong to ever feel anger, sadness, self-worth, or to express any emotion that wasn't 100% positive, or at least carefully measured. Why that is, I don't know. I blame hormones, or possibly Madonna's seminal Live a Virgin LP. I'm sure a shrink would pinpoint some noteworthy experience like getting boobs too early, or a stressed home life, or my dog dying at Christmas when I was 6, or that one time I sipped from a glass of water and discovered it was Sprite. That will leave a scar. The fact is, I don't know and I'm not sure it matters. I only know that it sucks and as I veer dangerously close to 40, I'm pretty weary of feeling that way.

I used to have a big problem with people who make it a point to live their lives in vibrant color, throwing caution to the wind, making an ass out of themselves in the loudest, most public ways they can muster, calling people out on inauthentic BS, all in the name of honoring themselves above all else, at least some of the time. These days, I envy them for holding a spark of something I seem to have lost along the way. I get why the "old people" seem so embarrassing to younger generations. It can be off-putting to share time with someone who has looked at all the social conventions for several decades and concluded too many of those conventions were utter conformist bullshit.

I'm not sure where that leaves me. This isn't Dead Poet's Society up in here. This is my blessedly ordinary life, in which I'm blessed with beautiful children and a doting, brilliant husband. What talents I have, I'm squandering. I'm harder on myself than anyone else ever could be, and that's not a badge I wear with pride. I prize kindness above all other human traits, but I can't seem to muster any for me. I'm pretty sure I deserve a little kindness. I made eye contact with a homeless man the other day when I gave him the 38 cents I had in my pocket, so...

Maybe what I really need is a vacation/whisky bender. Who's in? I'm sure I'd be a wonderful travel companion, what with my penchant for bursting into tears over magazine ads for wholesome snacks your family deserves and my well-honed ability to quietly avoid anything smacking of honest emotion. Road trip!

In truth, I'm probably coming down the other side of my latest exercise in emotional mountain climbing. I'm pretty sure the peak was the day I spent rewriting humorous essays into dark parables about "the collective hopelessness." I suppose it's time to take another stab at the world of antidepressants, but the thought alone exhausts me. I may actually prefer the peaks and valleys to the flat line of meh. I prefer the occasional Earth-rocking thunderstorm to month after month of fog. That said, I'm bone-weary from all the mountain climbing, too. I'd greatly appreciate any insight, dear readers. The options in my comments section will always include Anonymous. So, really, feel free to vent about your own struggle with the mountain, or tell me to suck it up, or tell me how you found balance. I'm listening.

Walking Up Dry Run Road

My Grandma Bricker, who loved to wear red, in the 1980s.

My Grandma Bricker was born 99 years ago today -- June 13, 1913. A Friday, even. I've never felt particularly suspicious about Friday the 13th, but my grandma would have certainly called that entire concept stupid (though probably in a more measured way).

Growing up, my grandparents were integral. My parents were very young, and I spent lots of time with both sets. When my Poppy Bricker died I was 6, my first little brother was a newborn, and I started spending even more time with her.

She taught me to play gin rummy and Scrabble (and never let me slide with any suspect spelling). She taught me how to make gravy and what a Bob White sounds like. She waged an endless battle with the moles that would leave a fortress of dirty mounds all over the yard, a battle that would eventually culminate in her shooting at the little jerks with the shotgun she kept in the pantry. She was pretty much bad ass.

Women born in 1913 didn't typically have career aspirations, but my grandma graduated high school from the same building I would later attend primary school, and then she became a nurse. She was the head nurse at Our Lady of Mercy in Mariemont when I was born there in 1975, in fact, and one of the first people to ever lay eyes on my newborn wrinkles.

She lived through the 1937 flood of the Ohio River, and wound up stuck on the Kentucky side for a few days while working at St. Elizabeth Hospital. She lived through the Depression, two World Wars, Vietnam, and maybe most important, several incarnations of the Reds teams she would yell at while listening on her AM radio. We did so many things together, but mostly we walked. Up and down Dry Run Road in rural Clermont County, Ohio, up to Galley Hill Rd and all the way down to the bridge my great uncle built.

And I loved her.

Her presence in my early life, especially, still guides me. She was not one for sentimentality, but we spent an important time together, when I was adjusting from life as an only child to that of a big sister, and she was grieving the loss of my grandpa. She always sang "You Are My Sunshine" to me as we sat on her front porch, and I would lean against her tall, strong body, pretending not to notice the tears when we got to the "the other night dear, as I lay dreaming, I dreamt I held you in my arms" verse.

At her funeral, people came from everywhere to talk about what an amazing woman, friend, example of kindness she had been for them, especially nurses. And the thing is, with my grandma, it was more deed than word. She was unlikely to express a lot of sentimental phooey, but when it came to being non-judgmental and accepting, she simply was. When it came to encouragement, she just expected you to suck it up and live your life right, to not waste your gifts. She was softer with us grandkids than anyone, I think, but even we did not get a free pass in the Suck It Up department. She grew up poor, no doubt, but we never heard about it. She canned the vegetables and fruits from her yard and sewed clothes and quilts from every scrap (we all have at least one Grandma Bricker Blanket), but it was never a big production. It simply didn't occur to her to waste stuff, but it wasn't in her nature to guilt us into following along. You just didn't do that at her house.

I did manage to get what I think is the only Grandma Bricker spanking on record. I really did not take her seriously about leaning way, way, way over that second story railing. I don't think I went within 10 feet of that thing from then on, and it wasn't because I was fearful of another spanking. It hurt so much to realize I'd disrespected and disappointed her, a weight I carry to this day whenever I have a moment of self-reflection after doing something stupid. She forgave me almost instantly for the railing incident, as she did with many other mistakes I managed to make as a teenager and young adult, especially. I shook when I had to tell her I was getting a divorce at age 22, but she didn't flinch. She said "well, things happen" and we went on from there, the breathing on my end much easier.

I don't think I ever heard her express self-pity, which made it that much harder when she lost her sight toward the end. No longer could she spend hours making quilts, playing cards, or working crossword puzzles. It seemed like a cruel joke from the universe to me at the time. This woman had given so much to so many, and her wants were so small. She was angry about it, and I was, too. There's no point or moral lesson I've learned here. It still pisses me off.

As she approached 90, I was approaching 30. I'd been married and divorced, had lived in Chicago and Michigan, and had been remarried 2 years when she died. She made sure she was able to attend the wedding shower my family held for me in town, and before she left she made sure someone found me so she could tell me she loved me. I hugged her harder than you are probably supposed to hug an elderly person, but I think she hugged me back even harder. I'm so glad Kurt got to meet her, though I wish he'd experienced a real Grandma Bricker meal in the house my Poppy built on Dry Run Road.

She died in 2004, just weeks before Kurt and I left for the UK for 6 months to study abroad. It made the trip both harder and easier, and I felt guilty for feeling a little peace about not having to worry about her while we were over there. It was bad timing for my grieving process, in a way, but in another, it was her memory I conjured up while riding ferries off the coast of Scotland and hiking up the hillsides outside Urquhart Castle looking down on Loch Ness. She wasn't there, but we walked together. I knew she would have been proud that I was out in the world, walking beside someone I loved and who I allowed to love me fully.

I'm the sentimental fool she never was, but I've finally forgiven myself for it. I know she'd be proud of that, too. I realize now that my affinity for my grandparents and my emotional attachment to memories of childhood spent with them has much to do with the state of things in my family today. I don't harbor resentment for the way things have turned out, but I would be lying if I said I didn't miss having an intact family without the sadness that seems to touch so many interactions these days. It hurts my heart. But I'm so lucky to still have so much living family, even if they are scattered to the four corners of the country. As dysfunctional as things can get, my heart still bleeds Bricker, and always will.

Miss you so much, grandma.

Me and both grandmas, 1978.