Category Archives: book

January 22, 2013 · 1:03 pm

Dreams

Do you watch Cougar Town?  The comedy used to be on ABC but now it’s on TBS on Tuesday nights at 10/9c (in case you’re wondering what happened to it).  I like the humor on the show.  That, and they drink a lot of wine (like normal people) (okay, like me).  Courteney Cox’s character, Jules, actually has a name for her wine glass.  Big Karl, I think.  Ha!

Editor’s note:  There is such a thing as too much Botox and lip augmentation.  It really must suck to be over 40 in Hollywood.

In the first episode of the new season, Jules has a dream where Grayson (Josh Hopkins) does something bad.  We never find out what he did (in the dream), but Jules believes it to be real and insists that he apologize.  Funny, right?  Because dreams aren’t real.

I had a terrifying dream the other night that felt so real that I woke myself up.  I dreamed I was on an airplane dangling in the sky…dangling as in about to fall…fall as in about to crash.  It was nighttime and all I could see were stars outside the windows.  I had no idea if we were over land or water.  There were other people on the plane but I didn’t know them.  I was me.  In other words, I was exactly who I am in real life – a Crazy Mama who spends too much money on owl tchotchkes.  As the plane was about to drop (and just before I forced myself awake), all I thought about was myself and that I didn’t want to die.

My family is my life, my livelihood.  Aside from a few precious hours during the day when I run or write (or watch Cougar Town), almost everything I do is for my family, Dylan and Riley especially.  So, why didn’t I think about my loved ones in the harrowing moments before my (dream) death?  Why didn’t I have gorgeous flashbacks of my childhood, my wedding day, and the births of my boys?  Just like Jules, I woke up wanting to blame someone for what happened.  The difference is that she smacked Grayson and I wanted to smack myself.

I struggle every day with the intensity of love I feel for my boys and the resentment I sometimes feel about losing myself in them – about putting their wants, their needs, and their everything above mine.  It’s not their fault.  I made a series of choices that led me to the off-kilter, unbalanced world of Stay-at-Home Mama-hood.  I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, but I sometimes wonder what I might’ve accomplished had I chosen a different path on the spectrum.

Guilty Mama alert!

I told Mike how selfish I felt about not thinking about the people I love before the (dream) crash, and he reminded me that it wasn’t real.  He also suggested that maybe the dream wasn’t about dying at all.  Maybe it was about writing the book and feeling – for the first time in a long time – that I was, in fact, doing something just for me.  He also thought it was silly that I was tormenting myself about it.  Silly, indeed, but I’m far too good at it to pass up such a rich opportunity.  He’s right.  The Book is all mine.  It’s my dream and my burden, and it’s forced me to give myself completely to the writing process, which is new, unfamiliar, not surprisingly guilt producing, and every now and then as terrifying as, for instance, being on a plane dangling in the nighttime sky.

Thankfully, it was just a dream.

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Filed under bad dreams, book, Crazy Mama, owls, Stay-at-Home Mama

January 1, 2013 · 10:47 am

Resolution

I have one New Years Resolution this year.  Just one.  It helps that I painted my bedroom this past weekend, a “to do” that’s been on my radar for over two years.  It also helps that reading and running (mind clearing and creativity producing activities) will (hopefully) aid me in achieving my solitary resolution.

Here goes… My singular (monstrous, exhilarating, terrifying, crazy-ass) New Years Resolution is to write a book.  The Book.  There.  I said it out loud.  The current working title is Holy Crap, Am I Really Doing This?  (For the record, I’m also considering The Runaway Mama.)

This isn’t the first time I’ve had an idea to write a book.  No, my brilliant botched book proposals go way back.  Mike jokes that I was born with a book idea.  For instance, I Didn’t Go Through The Tunnel: A Memoir Of A Cesarean Baby.  Or, Coping With An Older Sibling Who Wants To Murder You.  (It’s a true story that my sister stuffed a box of raisins in my mouth when I was a baby).

For all of my inspiration over the years, I never expected motherhood to be the thing that finally gave me my voice.  In honor of The Book, here is a list of all of the failed (but earnest) book ideas that, for some reason or another, led me here.

First, there was an untitled “how to” book about being young, living it up and paying the bills in The Big Apple. The only snag was that my parents were supporting my Bloomingdale’s and Bumble & Bumble habit and paying half of my rent every month.  Then came Lift Your Leg From The Foot And Other Life Lessons (a working title), a book about all of the life lessons I learned in the dance studio.  Good idea, but it’s taken years to realize all of the lessons and I’m not nearly done.

Later came the idea for a book of poetry on the sadness and regret I felt about morphing from an aspiring modern dancer into a public relations professional with a cubicle.  (Rent and health insurance was a bitch!)  One of many problems with that book idea was that I’m not a poet.

You would think the depressing poetry anthology was my rock bottom.  You would be wrong.  Next came the idea for A Year of Un-gratitude.  It was just after 9-11, everything was scary and kind of sucked, and I was one pessimistic, CNN-obsessed chick.  The flaw?  I couldn’t sustain the cynicism.  Believe me, it was a grim time, but I was also newly engaged and planning my wedding.  On September 1, 2002, I had a New York City wedding with all of the personal touches I wanted, and not surprisingly, I had a novel idea to write How To Plan The Wedding You Want.   Because there weren’t enough of those books on the shelves at Barnes & Noble!

Soon after, my book aspirations went dormant.  In the summer of 2004, when we packed up seven years of New York City/Brooklyn life in less than three weeks to move to Miami, you might suspect I had an itch to write a “starting over,” “surviving new city culture shock,” “kick-starting a nonprofit career,” or “making new friends at 30” book.  I didn’t.  In 2005, I tried to write about my molar pregnancy, but my emotions were too raw.

As it turns out, this blog was my awakening.  For more than two years, it’s been an incredible opportunity to make all of my experiences – including the ones that inspired my crappy book ideas – relevant.  Even if I wasn’t actually born with a book idea, perhaps I was born to write a book.

“Everybody has a calling, and your real job in life is to figure out what that is and get about the business of doing it.” – Oprah Winfrey

In 2013, I’m getting about my business.  I’m writing a book.

Dear marathon, five ten pounds, family photo albums, scrapbooks, and backyard garden:

We’ll meet again in 2014.

Sincerely,

The Runaway Mama

What are your resolutions for 2013?

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Filed under book, motherhood, New Year's resolutions, New Years, Oprah, September 11th