Welcome to the Rich Pageantry

My mother, a woman for whom there is no problem too large and no chaos too chaotic, looks knowingly and says, "Ahhh...That's the rich pageantry of family life."  Whenever my sister or I call her in the middle of a mess.  I can remember her saying this when I was younger, but I didn't really get it until I started directing my own pageant.  Why does everything always happen at once?  Just this morning, I was trying to blow dry my hair when my husband accused me of being cranky.  My stepdaughter was pouting and stomping around the house, asking if she could be placed in foster care.  My son was throwing anything he could get his mitts on and refusing to have breakfast, calling everyone a "stupid baby".  My husband had refused to believe the garbage was full enough to be put out on the curb and so I tromped out in the cold in my ratty bathrobe to wheel our garbage can with a hole in the bottom to the curb, hoping that none of the good looking college boys across the street would decide to go to school at that moment.  We were all running late.  I was scheduled to have surgery on my hand to remove a piece of wood (?!) stuck in my knuckle for the last year. 

The irony?  I wasn't cranky!  This is remarkable only because it is actually remarkable.  I think it's possible that I might have acclimated to too much happening at once.  I mean, what can you do really but laugh and say, "That's the rich pageantry- the RP."  It's a code word.  It encompasses parenting, being part of a family, trying to do too many things at once, daring to think of yourself as a person in the midst of a community, owning a house, struggling to be responsible, regretting what has already been lost, and looking towards the future, yearning for freedom.  Other parents and partners know what it means- you love the people around you and wouldn't trade them for the world, and at the same time fantasize about sitting on a beach with a good book and your own masseuse, by yourself (or maybe with Viggo Mortensen, in really desperate time...)

How you know you've been cast in the Rich Pageantry:

• You could be about to cry.  No, laugh.  No, cry.  No, laugh
• You stop being able to understand your native language.  People are speaking like this, "Wha wha wha wha wha"
• You look at your partner and think, "Is this your fault?  Is it MY fault?  Can I actually picture you naked?  Can I picture myself naked?"
• You want to call your parents and apologize.  For everything.
• You wonder if everyone else has such a hard time, or is it just because you're so limited?
• You wonder if things will get better or is this what you're going to do for the rest of your life.

I suppose that if you haven't had this experience, you could attribute these thoughts to depression.  But it's not the same, having experienced both.  Because at the same time, you're also thinking:

• I could not love these kids more.  I think my guts would explode if I did.
• What did I do before I did this?
• They are all sleeping.  All is right with the world.
• How did I get so lucky?
• I wish everyone I loved could feel the way I do right now
• My three year old thinks I'm a princess, and I actually feel like one.

This is a blog about managing life and giving up managing life.  It's about simplifying things that are already fundamental and also arcane.  It's the entire yes/no experience.