This fall, a contributor to the DC Metro Moms blog write about living in the economy today and how it’s affecting her family. She writes:
Every day I keep an eye on the economic news, and I have a growing sense of dread and doom. We have tightened our belts in lots of little ways. Rarely eating out. Happily accepting hand-me-down clothes. Ever since the summer, I have been very conscious of saving on gas and electricity. We came close to buying a larger house a few months ago, but with the real estate market sinking around us, it seemed far too likely that we would end up owning two homes, a risk we just couldn’t afford.
But am I just putting a bandaid on a gaping wound? Is saving $15 at the grocery store with a judicious use of coupons or buying more clothes at the consignment shop and less at the mall going to make a difference? Is life as we know it on the verge of collapse? Maybe I’d also rather live in denial than face the scary facts.
Although it’s been a long time now that our little family has been finding every possible way to be frugal, it does seem like things are suddenly, drastically, harder.
What do you think?
ACTORS: Turtle and grampa (otherwise known as “Beeba”)
SCENE: Turtle is running around the house with a cowboy hat on his head.
Beeba: Wow, look at you, cowpoke!
Turtle: I’m not a COWPOKE, I’m George Washington, leading the army! [I swear, he really said this.]
Beeba: Oh, you’re George Warshington? [Note the mid-west/Ohioan "warsh" for "wash"]
Turtle: No, Beeba, it’s not Warshington, it’s WASHington!
Hahaha, this is so great. I’ve even been careful to curb my proneness to making fun of Warsh-talk in front of the kids, maybe out of some great maturity that struck after having babies (ha!). But, clearly, Turtle has inherited both his mom’s fine ear for languages and her ability to correct those around her ruthlessly.
Of course, I blame aunt Tee, because if anyone is merciless in the anti-Warsh movement, it’s her.
I posted just a few days ago on authenticity, and–honestly?–I did so under the impression that I had first posted this, below, waaaaaay back in October. October 13th, my “draft posts” pile says. Eek. So, to back-track a wee bit in the conversation, here’s the missing piece–what is authenticity?
I think this is a pretty darn cool definition of authenticity, myself.
My babies, according to official definition from the experts, are bunched–only 18 months apart. I’d only just stopped nursing #1 when we got pregnant with #2. We’ve had two in diapers for two years now (but that time if over, hurrah! now that Turtle is potty trained!), and it’s been a sea of ever-changing baby clothes as one grows out of something, one grows into it, and the littlest clothes are discarded in a sea of doll-sized outfits and lone socks. There’s no way you could think of them as babies now; Turtle is proudly off to school every day and Bug is more and more of a little girl in pretty much every way.
I think we’ve hit a little bit of a lull in the rate of change, at least for the kids. Thank goodness!
I have been thinking a lot lately about what it is to be authentic. Tied up in the many changes of the past year (leaving a job that made me unhappy but also composed a large part of my identity, going back to school, turning 30) is I think–I hope–a greater effort to live like the most authentic me. Socrates supposedly claimed that the unexamined life is not worth living; not leaving us with a detailed description of how to examine our life, however, leaves the figuring out up to us. I was in high school when I first read about the unexamined life; I don’t remember now when or where. I do remember thinking to myself that I had to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be, so that I could get on with being me. I think by now I’ve got it right: that this figuring out, this examining, IS life. It’s not something that you do once–Examine Life, check–and then spend the rest of your days living as your best self. Lightbulb moment.
Part of midlife is scooping up all the different versions of yourself that you’ve created to please folks, and integrating them into one whole, authentic person. This is tough work for me. I’m so good at assessing exactly who I need to be and when I need to be it. It’s really too bad that “alternating” eventually sucks your soul right out of your body.
In addition to curbing the chameleon action, the other part of integrating has been the very painful process of reconnecting with the parts of myself that I orphaned over the years. You know – the parts of ourselves that we abandon because they get in the way of who and what we need to be now.
The ever-eloquent and inspirational Brene Brown wrote these words in a recent post about accepting all your past selves, the insecure ones, the ones who did things that you would never do now, the ones who who brash and thought they knew-it-all, and letting them be.
Hard, too, is seeing your way to supporting those in your life to be their most authentic selves. Although our kids are still just little, they definitely have minds of their own. It’s a struggle to know when to exercise parental authority, when to let the kids make their own choices, and, even harder, recognizing when I’m cloaking a decision in this is what’s best for you when really it’s this is what easiest for mommy. I have always had a tendency towards bossiness; I can see that and own it. I have a younger sister who bore (bears) the brunt of it, and as I got older I learned to temper it so as not to p*ss off everyone around me. Where is the line between bossing and parenting?
Can I just claim HolidaysNeveredningIllnessEndingtheSemesterStartingNewSemester as one big excuse for my blog silence of the past 2 months? I really don’t have any better excuse. 
We did have a great time, though, on our Thanksgiving trip to Florida. We went to the Naples Zoo–again, yes. But when you’re little, every time it’s New! Exciting! with Alligators and Crocodiles!! Here we are on the little boat tour of the “monkey islands.”
I think you can guess from this next picture what the kids have gotten used to seeing mommy doing:
Lots of quality computer time! This laptop, incidentally, is the one I bought when I started my master’s program. It was–for the time–super light and small, and came with me to classes, the library, Starbucks, everywhere! In the 6 years since it has been dropped (more than once, thanks, honey!), wiped and software reloaded, it no longer runs except when plugged in, and the wireless card is only one more drop away from breaking in half. And yet–it still runs. Not very fast, and not on the battery, thus kind of canceling out part of the value of a laptop, but amazingly it runs! And now it’s time to be retired, to live out it’s life peacefully. Or, more likely, to be used as a paint machine by the kids unless it really does give out. Because this student has a new best friend…
<cue hallelujiah music>
Note: this is NOT my hand.
It (she?) weighs less than most of my books–even the paperbacks!–and is coming to class with me tonight. I’m so excited.
