I am scrolling through my mental Rolodex.

Can't call her, I say to myself, she's got troubles of her own. Can't call her, she's worn out with my story. Can't call her, she's as lost as I am.

Alright then, I get to pace around here, hoping the confusion in my head and my frayed nerves will let up.

Depression has been a part of my life since girlhood. It only became clinical after my first child 10 years ago. I got professional help and, to my utter surprise and delight, completely recovered. After many years, my husband and I found a rhythm.

Then we decided to have one more child before I got too old. Our boy is almost two, healthy, gentle, a real love. I did not suffer postpartum depression again right after he was born.

But, folks, it's back.

Not as extreme as before. The onset of this one coincides with my husband's bike crash and subsequent wrist surgery and five month disability leave. We are at each other and both of us are exhausted.

The old demons in the closet have taken the opportunity to come out for a few more bouts. With any luck, he and I can put away some of those demons (his, mine, and ours) for good.

I am not sure how it works for him, why he sticks around. But I know why I grind through each day, sit through another therapy session, walk up steep hills to raise my serotonin levels, and listen attentively to anyone who seems to possess a speck of wisdom.

It's those two beautiful children who occupy this space in time with me. I know they need me. They desperately love me, as I did my parents. If I can just hang in there, things will get better, and we will have some real fun together.

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: beautiful children, demons, depression, fun, husband, Rolodex, Vicki Inglis

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I’m a mom who’s ready for school to start up again. Not elementary school -- dental school. My husband’s on break for a week before he starts quarter number five of his twelve-quarter program.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that he gets to hang up his shirt and tie and spend some time with us -- especially since during the school year I’m relentlessly on duty at home while he’s relentlessly on duty at school or studying.

During this break, we’ve been able to do some meaningful activities together; camping at the ocean, riding bikes along the bay, cutting out paper coconut trees in our son’s kindergarten class, drinking homemade lattes on the sunny porch.

He’s gotten to do some meaningful activities for himself, too; tuning our bikes (which I had no idea needed tuning), organizing his tool box (which of course was spread out for several days over said sunny porch), and surfing the Web a lot in his underwear.

But when our kids pulled off their shirts and pants on Saturday to run around the house in their underwear yelling, "I'm Daddy! I'm Daddy!" I felt we’d all seen enough of him for a while.

I found myself eyeing that shirt and tie, happily looking forward to another kind of break.

By Anjie Reynolds

Labels: Angie Reynolds, bikes, daddy, dental school, elementary school, husband, lattes, mommy needs a break, need a break

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Labels: Adult Protective Services, Alzheimer's, British, cappuccinos, confused, death camp, guns, husband, Kleenex, Lorrie Goldin, psychotic, saint, Suicide, three children

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I'm seated at a table outdoors somewhere -- a swank L.A. eatery? Something occupies my hands. I'm making a pair of earrings, slicing frilly lettuce, or ???. . .

Ted Danson sits across from me and another man is to my left. I feel their eyes upon me. Interest, desire, that thing -- you women know. I feel shy, a little scared.

“You forty-four?” Ted asks.

“No, forty-two,” I respond too quickly. I immediately avert my eyes.

Time bends again. I lose myself in that primordial dream state.

Suddenly, I feel self-conscious again. I look up. Ted Danson is stretched out on a chair next to me, naked, skinny and hirsute. He searches for my approval, or better yet, my enthusiasm. I look away, trying not to laugh out loud.

Back to primordial fluid dream state.

Now my husband sits opposite me, his eyes fixed on something he’s working on -- eating, patching a tire tube, or ???. . .

“You happier with just the kids?

“No,” I state emphatically. I still want us to be an intact family.

“I am.”

This jolts me awake. Anxiety gnaws away at my solar plexus as I lay in our queen-size bed without him. He’s staying with a friend. I try to get back to sleep. I stuff a small, hard throw pillow beneath my stomach and the bed. My head’s bent at a sharp right angle, my ear pressed against the mattress. It’s a technique I have developed over the years.

Twenty minutes takes me to a deep sleep, thankfully devoid of dreams, until morning.

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: dream state, Dreams, hot guy, husband, L.A., Vicki Inglis

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I watched my husband, Keith, brush the hair away from my five-year-old daughter’s forehead last night as he read her Pirate ABCs. His voice growled as he did his best Johnny Depp impression. Miranda nestled next to his chest, looked up at him, smiled and snuggled closer.

I walked out of the room, tears welling in my eyes. My dad never read me a bedtime story. Not once. That wasn’t our bedtime ritual. Even though I was only six, I remember it clearly.

You see, Lyle Dennison didn’t read to his kids. He he was too busy being an Oakland cop. And when the job had been too much for him, he was busy hoisting a few Manhattans at the neighborhood tavern.

But we did have a bedtime ritual. He would come home, collapse in his big comfy armchair, and yell “George, take off my shoes.”

I would be in my room, in my pajamas, reading. Slowly, I would walk down the hall and enter the living room. “Hi Dad,” I would say quietly, trying to get a read on his mood.
If he was a happy drunk, then I could sit by his chair and watch McHale’s Navy. But if it had been a hard day, it was safer to be quiet, pull the shoes off and leave. Otherwise, there could be hitting, pushing, yelling.

Usually, it had been a hard day. “George, hurry up, I’m tired,” he would growl. I would bend down and untie the shoelaces as quickly as I could. I would pull them off. His feet usually stank. I stood up and walked quietly away as his head lolled back on the armchair, unconsciousness waiting around the corner.

I don’t remember where my mom was when this would happen. My older sister, Kathy, tried to stop it once and Dad just growled at her to leave me alone. And I don’t remember how long this ritual lasted -- I just remember how scared I was.

And last night, standing in my daughter’s room seeing the love and trust on her face as she snuggled next to her dad, I realized how far I had come from that dark ritual.

By Georgie Craig

Labels: fathers, Georgie Craig, husband, Johnny Depp, yelling

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My husband has taken the kids camping and left me to have a precious twenty-four hours to myself.

It is a gift.

I walked them to the SUV, gave kisses and hugs and waved as the car descended down the hill. Then I opened the gate, skipped down to the house and ran inside.

I noticed something unusual.

Quiet.

I liked the sound of it.

I checked e-mails without fear of being interrupted.

I read four stories online in The New York Times.

Four!!!

Then I felt guilty. The running To Do List in my head noted we were out of everything: paper towels, napkins and, perhaps more importantly, dinosaur chicken nuggets, my daughter’s sole source of protein. It looked like I’d have to go to Costco.

Just the thought made me tired so I decided to take a nap -- because for once, I could. As I walked to the sofa, a thought occurred to me – you’ve been given a present – open it.

Costco could wait. Suddenly, I was no longer tired, I was energized! This really could be all about ME, instead of Mimi, Jay and John.

I love them beyond human comprehension, but sometimes the requirements of family can be taxing. Sometimes, I just need time alone.

I changed course and drove to the DVD store. I luxuriously walked from one end of the store to the next without having to go to the children’s aisle first.

I could get an adult drama. Capote. I could get a comedy. The Squid and the Whale.
I felt like the little parent who could.

John had given me this gift once before. Then it was for two days. I remember the first twenty-four hours I was giddy with freedom. By the second, I couldn’t wait for them to come home.

I knew then that my single days were over. But I could pretend now.

I popped in the first DVD. With my cat curled in my lap, a blanket swathed around us, I would enjoy this private time.

By Dawn Yun

Labels: By Dawn Yun, Capote, cat, DVD, family away, free time for mom, husband, movies, quiet, THe Squid and the Whale, time alone

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Binkley was a mean cat, the kind who lives forever out of spite.

When my husband mentioned in passing, “Binkley’s limping a little,” I did not expect a cat that dragged her leg bone behind her like a scavenged drumstick.

When the vet’s x-rays revealed a shattered leg in the hardest place to fix, I learned about feline osteoporosis. Binkley’s usual hop down from the bathroom counter would cost at least two thousands dollars, with no guarantees, not counting follow-up visits and medication.

The vet assured me I could pay on the installment plan.

“Absolutely not,” my husband responded. “She’s old, she’ll scratch us to a bloody pulp when we try to give her pills, and even if she makes it, what happens the next time she takes a drink from the sink? It’s time to put her down.”

Our youngest daughter, Ally, was easily persuaded. She was tired of fighting her way downstairs past Binkley’s claws every morning. I hesitated, but only out of guilt for my wish to be free of litter boxes and shredded pantyhose.

Emma, fourteen years old, was the lone hold out.

“I’ll pay for it!” she sobbed; surprisingly loyal to the cat I had to nag her to feed. “She shouldn’t have to die just because you don’t like her.”

Immobilized but far from terminal, Binkley purred between hisses as we debated her fate. The vote was three to one. Logic trumps passion, particularly when it holds the purse strings. Really, though, I agreed with Emma.

I remembered my own devastation when I was not quite her age. We had to give away our cats because my father’s allergies landed him in the intensive care unit for a week. He would have died had he tried to stick it out another day. Even so, the family joke was that it took twenty-four ballots to break the tie in my father’s favor.

With Binkley, no lives besides hers were at stake—just money and convenience. Still, spending thousands of dollars on a nasty, old cat seemed absurd. I admired Emma’s passion, though, and wondered where mine had gone. Did I misplace it somewhere among piles of bills and laundry? Maybe it was just another permanent casualty on the long and compromised road to maturity.

As the arguments and tears crescendoed through the weekend, I worried what lesson we’d be teaching our children. At the very least, I imagined that Emma might someday pull the plug on us at the nursing home because she had better ways to spend her time and money. This struck me as only fair.

I despised my husband for his unsympathetic resolve. He despised me for my waffling. “You’re just making it worse,” he accused me. Secretly, I knew he was right, and how relieved I’d soon feel if we put Binkley to sleep. On Monday, I called the vet.

Emma refused to go to school that morning until I promised to schedule the appointment for the late afternoon. When she came home, she gathered Binkley in her arms and barricaded herself in the bathroom.

“I won’t let you kill her,” Emma screamed.

But what could she do in the face of my treachery? Defeated, Emma relinquished her grasp a few minutes before the vet closed.

“I hate you!” she choked between sobs as I fled downstairs.

I eased Binkley into the cardboard carrier for one last trip.

I eased her out again onto a fluffy towel atop the stainless steel exam table. Votive candles glowed from two crystal orbs while Windham Hill played softly in the background. As Dr. Griffin slipped the needle through fur and skin, she assured me that she would make the same choice, too. Stroking Binkley as her feistiness drained away for good, I half let the music lull me into agreement.

“That wasn’t so bad,” I thought wearily on my way home from the vet. But as Lady MacBeth discovered, a murderess cannot long enjoy peace.

The garage door clattered open on what looked like a crime scene. Bikes lay helter-skelter on the cracked concrete. The trashcans were upended, their rank contents strewn from corner to corner. Drifts of kitty litter crunched underfoot. I slammed the door and sprinted upstairs.

“Emma? Where are you?” I beseeched the silent house.

I never should have left her alone. It was bad enough murdering Binkley—what had I done to my own daughter?

Under normal circumstances, Emma was a steady child, but her calm demeanor masked a fierce will. When I praised the drawing she brought home long ago from her second-grade art class, she took a pencil and scribbled out her masterpiece. It was ruined, but at least it was hers. Now, frantic about what destructive self-assertion I might discover beyond the trashed garage, I searched the house from top to bottom.

I found Emma at last, crumpled and crying in a corner of the basement. She let me hold her, and we rocked together for a very long time. I stroked her soft hair until her sobs drained away. I, too, felt bereft. Not so much for Binkley, but for the girl I no longer was who now inhabited my daughter. I admired Emma’s rage: I wished I still had her passion, her conviction, her noble heart.

We buried Binkley on the hill.

When we were finished, I said, “Let’s clean up the garage.”

By Lorrie Goldin 

Labels: grieving, husband, Lorrie Goldin, sick cat, teenagers

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I've spent the morning crying for a high school friend.

She was a junior when I was a sophomore, and we were in a couple of clubs together. Really down-to-earth, gorgeous, sweet girl. I haven't seen her since she graduated.

Today on Reunion.com, I read a message she posted last May about her brother. Her brother was a year ahead of her. He was an adorable jock kind of guy and they were good friends throughout school.

Her post said that her brother had lost a three and a half year battle with brain cancer. He left behind his loving wife of fourteen years and their two daughters. And, I noticed in the message, as if it couldn't get any worse, one of his surviving daughters has leukemia.

I wrote my friend an e-mail in remembrance of her brother and to send her and her family my wishes for love and healing. She wrote back quickly to thank me, and then told me her grief was made even more unbearable this August when her eight-year-old boy drowned on vacation just four days after the one-year mark of her brother's death.

Her e-mail told me some days she can't even bear to breathe but she's got two other daughters to care for so she just keeps going for them.

God, I couldn't stop sobbing.

After my first child was born, I was shocked by the fierceness of my love and my desire to protect him. One day, as he slept in my arms, I found myself crying over him, begging the gods that his presence in my life would not be temporary.

Since then, my prayer has broadened to include others closest to me -- my husband and my daughter -- but, always, it is my desperate plea. And I know that as I sit at the computer crying for my friend, it was her plea, too.

By Anjie Reynolds

Labels: a child's death, Angie Reynolds, husband, leukemia, Reunion.com

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My Christmas shopping exploded when I met my husband.  I’m the third of eight children and our family gift traditions were simple.

My husband had only his father, his brother and his brother’s girlfriend.  But their tradition was (and remains) to buy each other five or six gifts.  And then there were “gifties” for the close friends that are his extended family. 

And my husband-to-be never started shopping before December 20^th.  His routine was going to a big mall, feeling so totally overwhelmed and freaked out that he became paralyzed and went home nearly empty handed.  The real shopping happened between noon and six on Christmas Eve.  I played along the first year and hated it, but somehow felt it was my role to support his holiday routine.  He loved having me with him.  

I introduced the idea of a shopping list during our second year together.  He thought this was terrific.  I’d list the names and pencil in gifts as the shopping progressed.  We even brainstormed a few ideas before we hit the mall.  When we wrapped up the buying on Christmas Eve, he said this was the smoothest year ever. 

I was exhausted.

Once we had a son, I knew things had to change. I was determined not to do all of his shopping and more determined not to be at the mall on the weekend before Christmas.  I scheduled my mother to come for a full day of babysitting in early December.  Although this felt like shopping on Labor Day to my husband, he complied and we did the lion’s share of our shopping and had a nice lunch and dinner out.  Kind of a combined date night/shopping extravaganza.  During our newlywed years, this new holiday tradition was one we embraced.

This routine worked for several years and then evolved into an annoyance.  My husband felt I was taking over by scheduling when he had to shop.  He didn’t feel like he had enough say in what we bought or where we shopped.  He didn’t feel like going on the day my mother appeared.  He’d rather wait until the right mood hit.  He claimed I had not even told him that my mother was coming.  (What I say and what my husband hears and remembers is another story. I absolutely adore him but he is a man.)

I have shopped early and alone the past few years.  I am happy.  I am done well before December 20^th.  I am more relaxed and enjoy holiday parties without a shopping list running in my brain.  I don’t shop for my husband’s brother or for myself.  When my husband begins panicking on December 22^nd over what he needs to accomplish before December 24^th, it’s his problem.  He kinda likes the new me and kinda doesn’t.  

He likes that he does not have to do as much since I  shop for our son, our nieces and nephews and our friends.  He doesn’t like that he has no say in my gift selections.  He recognizes that the train has left the station and he is a passenger, not the conductor.  He finds great and creative gifts for me, bought at trendy, hip neighborhood boutiques where I can never justify shopping but love getting gifts from. 

It’s mostly all good.

Don’t get me started on getting the Christmas lights up on the house.  It’s the one decorating function I refuse to do.  It’s all about compromise, right?

By Marianne Lonsdale

Labels: Christmas Shopping, husband, Marianne Lonsdale, Wife

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My talent for losing things is coupled with an inability to locate those misplaced items.

I mainly lose keys, wallets, glasses, and important letters that must be mailed today! Since I’m the kind of person whose heart starts thumping at the threat of potential tardiness, missing car keys and wallets tend to result in an anxious, but unproductive, searching frenzy that makes my entire family miserable.

For the past five years, I’ve held onto the belief that this is all due to hormonal changes from pregnancy and too much multi-tasking. It isn’t anything that intensive yoga and a few more years won’t correct naturally.  

In the meantime, “locating missing items” is at the top of my husband’s list of responsibilities. Once (OK, maybe twice), I searched the entire house for my car keys, throwing sofa cushions across the room, emptying wastebaskets, buckets of bath toys, and even frisking my own children.  

That night, my husband went straight to my purse.

“Obviously, I’ve looked in there,” I snapped. “I’m not a complete idiot!”

Calmly, he reached into the side pocket and removed my keys.

“Oh,” I said.

After that, when I called my husband at work, he’d answer by saying, “What did you lose?” or simply, “Inside pocket of your jacket in the closet.”

Even though his almost paranormal ability to find things is essential to my sanity, it is still completely irritating. After all, it feels a tiny bit condescending when I’m digging through the closets surrounded by jackets, shoes and assorted athletic gear looking for swimming goggles and my husband pulls them out of a swim bag.

Couldn’t he at least pretend to be surprised?

Last night, I gathered together the necessities before leaving for The Writing Mamas Salon. “Honey, where are my licorice mints?” I asked my husband.

“Bedroom. Top of the bookshelf,” he responded from the kitchen.

Right. Of course.

In the car, I rummaged through my purse looking for my glasses.

“Bye, Mom!” my four-year-old son, Kai, called from the deck.

I rolled down the window. “Can you ask Daddy if he knows where my glasses are?” I asked.

“Up high, in the place for glasses,” Kai told me as if I’d just asked him the location of my car.

I glanced at the sunglass holder above the rear-view mirror and then back at my son.

Tentatively, I opened the holder and my glasses fell into my hand. No way.

“Thanks,” I whispered looking up at Kai with new respect.

He shrugged. “I’m just a good finder.”

Maybe it is time to stop making excuses and admit that I am just… not.

By Maya Creedman

Labels: forgetful, husband, Maya Creedman

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It’s 11 p.m.

I know where my kids are.

My daughter sleeps upstairs. I waited patiently for her today at her school’s carnival after she ran off with some friends.

“Sorry I ditched you, mama,” she said.

“It’s alright.”

“Yes, but you seemed a bit lonely.”

“I would have let you know if it wasn’t okay.”

When we got home, we read half of Tin Tin’s Adventure in America before she went to sleep with her stuffed toy dog, Twyla.

My son is asleep in the crib six feet away. He looks like a slumbering cherub in sky blue zip-up pajamas.

I don’t know where my husband is. He’s gone to a twelve-step meeting and has probably gone out with some group members after.

I have finished Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead after several months. Besides enjoying it for its literary beauty and confident self-declaration -- a little heavy on the poetic rhapsodizing at times -- I made myself finish this book to bolster my own faith in God.

Then I did some Sudoku. I have spent many hours completing these puzzles and a few tossing out the ones that were too hard and not fun anymore.

Sudoku occupies my mind without loading it with more bits of information that stir up emotions. I have enough emotions currently.

My husband and I talk very little these days. The counselor says its okay because he is too angry and the situation too volatile.

Sometimes, even simple exchanges turn into some sort of accusation or generalized negative comment on his part, and some lamentable defense on my part. Neither of us feels better. Will we make it?

I am lonely. I am tired. I am weary. As alway --  I will survive, and thrive.

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: counselor, Gilead, God, husband, Sudoku, Vicki Inblis

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