The Depths of Toddler Despair

My three-and-a-half-year-old is deep in the pit of an existential crisis. I know that sounds adorable and precocious and like a good opportunity for personal growth for a Mama that purports to be mindful, and it is all those things. It is.

But, no jokes, no funny business, it's also hell. A three-and-a-half-year-old existential crisis involves some pretty horrendous temper tantrums. You can't really blame her, really: it's got to be awful to be in the grips of angsty ennui when you don't even know the words "angst" and "ennui." As nebulous and imprecise as they are, they at least provide some sort of structure for your feelings.

It's been a really tough week for us, these past seven days or so. She's been moody, operating on a hair-trigger that sends her from smiling and delightful to anger ball monster in a matter of seconds. There have been lots of thrown toys, lots of screams, lots of "NO!" regardless of what is being offered.

After her angry outbursts, she always starts to cry and then tries to burrow into me. If I ask her to stop crying, she'll look up at me with tear-stained cheeks and whimper, "But I'm really sad, Mama. I'm really sad."

It's heartbreaking.

But for seven days, I have been unable to get her to tell me what it is, exactly, that she's sad about. She's either ignored the question completely when its been asked, or mumbled some throwaway answer along the lines of  "I don't know."

Yeah, yeah, I know: she's my kid. She's MY daughter. This behavior makes perfect sense when you think about it that way, right?

Last night, after the fourth straight dinner-table meltdown, I took her upstairs to calm down. Time-outs weren't working, obviously, so I sat with her, instead - the two of us cuddled up in the rocker in her room.

And she said to me again, "I'm sad, Mama. I'm just really sad."

"What are you sad about?" I asked, again, with no hope or expectation of a response.

She lifted her chin, and the lamplight glinted on her wet, mottled cheeks. "I don't know who I am, Mama!" she wailed confessionally. "What's my fourth name?"

I was taken aback. What did she mean, fourth name? What was this about not knowing who she is?

"You're Genevieve Anne Findley. You're my snugglebug, and you are my best girl, and you are clever and strong and big and beautiful," I said to her. "Mama gave you three names. Genevieve, for St. Genevieve; Anne for Anne Shirley; and Findley, just like Mama."

She wasn't sobbing anymore, but there were still tears making tracks down her face, and her grip on my shirt was compulsively tight.

"But what about my fourth name, Mama? I should have four names," she choked out.

"Well, you think about what you want your fourth name to be. You think about all the names you know, and all the names you've heard, and when you find the perfect fourth name, you let me know, and we'll add it, ok?" This is me trying to be supportive in my absolute bafflement.

She snuggled deeper into my chest and stared at the wall. I stroked her hair. We sat and rocked, gently, back and forth, back and forth.

After what felt like an eternity, she straightened up and looked me dead in the eye.

"Bookwriter," she said. "My fourth name is Bookwriter."

"Absolutely," I replied. "Genevieve Anne Bookwriter Findley."

She squeezed out a tiny smile, and back we went to the dinner table, where she still didn't eat anything, but at least she didn't howl the whole time.

My three-and-a-half-year-old, who can't write her own name yet, wants to be a bookwriter. And is deep in the pit of an existential crisis. Perhaps some stereotypes exist for good reason. And perhaps all writers really are crazy, right from the very beginning. It would sure explain a lot about me.

With A Little Help

I have amazing friends. I don't think I've ever taken time to publicly give thanks to all of my amazing, awesome, funny, beautiful, kind-hearted, clever, creative friends.

So let's do that, shall we?

I love my friends. I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to meet and know truly wonderful people. I have been granted the grace of surrounding myself with good, interesting, artistic people. My friends are amazing and do amazing things. My friends write stories and prose poetry. My friends take pictures. My friends are artists and illustrators. My friends write about music and dream of opening patisseries. My friends are nuclear technicians and labor organizers. My friends design clothes. My friends run for office when they just can't stand how terribly awry things are going. My friends get quoted in articles about developing social networks for social activists. My friends defend children charged with crimes, and write books about history. My friends are encyclopedic pop-culture cranks.

I have great friends.

But beyond all the amazing things my friends DO, my friends are all amazing people.

Which is not to say we're all perfect. No one's perfect, not even my wild, amazing, eclectic bunch of friends. But we're all good. Basically. We all want good things, for each other and ourselves and everyone else in the world, too. We all want a better world. And because my friends are so amazing and creative, they are all making that better world in their own amazing, beautiful, perfect ways.

But beyond all the amazing things my friends do, and the amazing people they all are, the thing that I am most grateful for today is that my friends are my friends. They are people that I can drink with on a schoolnight. I can have involved conversations about totem vegetables with my friends. They will try headcheese with me. They will give me tips on turning my life into a Wes Anderson movie (that are actually very helpful). They will watch The Young Ones with me, warm on a couch and content to just gape at the screen and ask, "What the fuck is going on."

My friends are good friends. They listen and laugh and sigh and make every day so much better than any day has any right to be. Except that every day, for everyone, should have such good friends in it. My friends gift me with giggles and thoughts and ideas and inspirations and hugs every day. I have the best friends. Everyone should have friends like this.

Here's to my amazing, wonderful, beautiful friends. And yours, too!

Chickenshit.

I promised, promised, promised myself that I wasn't going to blog about my personal relationships anymore. I really, really did. And I meant it.

It can be seen as more than I little passive aggressive, after all. And in truth, it probably is a little passive aggressive. It's a passive way of expressing my discomfort and anger with the things that go on, a way of expressing my negative feelings while still avoiding all conflict.

I'm conflict-avoidant. Really. I'm not a screamer. I don't pitch fits. I'm really quite meek, a little white mouse. I sit and I nod and I smile and I try to understand what's being put before me, not just what's said but also it's subtext. I try to understand not just the words that are being presented to me, but the context of the lies.

There are always lies. Everyone lies. I lie, although I like to think that I lie less often and less virulently than a lot of people. Maybe that's just me lying to myself; I'll let other people make that call.

But I think I have to break my promise not to write about my personal relationships anymore. I have no other outlet. Some things have to be said, and since I'm a chicken shit, this is how I say them. Perhaps, at some point, I'll get over my pathological need for harmony enough to say them to the offender's faces, and I truly hope I get to that day. But right now, in this moment, I need to say something, and this is the only medium available to me.

Here's the absolute, God's-honest truth: EVERYONE LIES.

And, contrary to what my meek and smiling and understanding face says to you, I am not taken in by your lies. I know you're lying. I'm allowing you to do so.

I know everyone lies, and therefore, I trust no one. I don't trust you. I don't trust you when you say you really like to spend time with me. I don't trust you when you refer to your "ex"-girlfriend. I don't trust you when you tell me that you'd like nothing more than the opportunity to take care of me. I don't trust you when you tell me your marriage is in good shape. I don't trust you when you tell that you're not angry about anything. I don't trust you when you tell me that money's fine.

I know when I'm being lied to. By everyone.

Some of these utterances are the most egregious of falsehoods; others are merely stretches of what is probably a pretty solid grain of truth. They are still ephemeral promises of a solidity that will never materialize. You are not fooling me. I will not cling to your promises like rafts in the vast ocean so that I can drown later on when they disintegrate as I continue to try to clutch the dreams you've given me in cold, cramping, deadened fingernails.

I trust no one. I trust no one's words.

If you want my trust, you earn it. You earn it through action. You earn through unflinching honesty that is ugly and scarred and scary and embarrassing. You earn my trust. It's not an easy task: I'll tell you up front. Many would, I am sure, claim that it's impossible. It's not.

It is possible for me to trust. But you have to quit lying to me if you want that to happen. I am capable of unimaginable feats of forgiveness; I promise you. I have ben forgiven for some pretty awful things in my life, and I know what a gift it is and what a benediction. Because I know, I can forgive. Because I have been shown that it's possible to let go of awful things, I know that I can do it.

I've forgiven people some pretty awful things, too. I don't hold grudges. It would be disingenous to say that the things others have done to me have left me unaffected, because without a doubt my experiences have colored my extreme distrust for the words of others. But holding myself protected and remaining angry are two very, very different things.

I let go of anger a long, long time ago.

So this is what I'd like from the world: stop it. Just quit telling me falsehoods and half-truths and let me have the ugly, unvarnished, unflattering truth. I can handle it. And I'll love you even more for it than I would for the prettiest, most comforting lie.