In keeping with the general trajectory of my life, wherein I do everything in precisely the wrong way, my husband and I have, since the beginning, made practically every mistake available to humans.

We met too young: he was 19; I was 21. I got pregnant about 47 seconds later (okay fine it was 3 months, but it felt like seconds).

And, just like any Meg Ryan movie, we got married in front of a courthouse on a cold December day, wearing all black, and our baby in a sling.

After reproducing and marrying, we decided to get to know each other, and realized to our great dismay that we only vaguely enjoyed one another’s company. We broke up like 9 times a week, often wishing homicide didn’t carry quite such a heavy sentence.

We drank too much whiskey in too many dive bars while attempting the dubious task of living a “grown up” life with no money, maturity or discernible future.

The recipe for success, as you can see.

And yet somehow, we’re still here.

Despite some really solid efforts to eradicate our relationship (burn it down, in fact, TO THE GROUND), we are still, 12 years later, a unit.

And I’ll be damned if we aren’t the happiest unit you ever did see.

By some miracle (of what must be a really twisted love god), we have a damn good marriage. I mean it. We’re like happy. We flirt, laugh, hang out, send gushy texts, don’t have affairs.

Friends have told me it’s “refreshing” to see a marriage actually working. [Um, yeah, it’s “refreshing” to BE in a marriage that’s actually working.] Occasionally they ask us how we do it. “How does your marriage work so well?”

And since it’s generally people who are just starting out in a serious relationship or recently married, I feel a little awkward explaining that ‘what we did’ was everything wrong and ‘what we’re currently doing’ is apparently, everything wrong.

You see they always say the most important feature of a lasting marriage is “good communication.” They say it’s the cornerstone of a healthy relationship. As if patience and understanding, “I” statements instead of “you” statements, no sweeping generalizations, no attacks or criticisms or name-calling form the HOLY GRAIL of marital bliss.

All of this came to mind the other day when I was tutoring a student in the writing center who’s taking a communications class, and I read the following in her textbook:

“Marriage counselors have long emphasized the importance of communication for healthy, enduring relationships. A primary distinction between relationships that endure and those that collapse is the presence of effective communication. Couples who learn how to discuss their thoughts and feelings, adapt to each other, and manage conflict constructively tend to sustain intimacy over time.”

And then it gave the results of a poll in America, in which they found “a lack of effective communication to be the primary cause for divorce.”

If this is true, what the hell are Mac and I still doing together? And why are we so happy?

Our “conflict-resolution” goes something like this:

Me, in a horrid, critical tone: “Why do you [insert behavior that’s only annoying me because I’m overtired]? I mean how does that make sense to you? I don’t fucking get it. You make me insane. I can’t take this shit anymore.”

Him: “Whatever, Janelle. Go to bed.”

Me: “No, this isn’t because I’m tired. This is because you’ve got something wrong with you and I’m sick of it.”

Him:  “Then LEAVE.”

Me: “I would if we didn’t have these kids. Where the hell am I going to go now?”

Him, looking like he’s about the break my face: “I don’t know. Go anywhere. I can’t fucking stand being around you.”

Me: “I can’t stand you either! You have NO IDEA HOW MUCH IT SUCKS TO BE MARRIED TO YOU.”

Him: “I want to hit you in the face.”

Me: “Go ahead. Fuck you.”

And then he walks away and I chase him down because I don’t want to miss the opportunity to converse in this constructive manner.

Him: “Get away from me. I mean it.”

Me: “I can’t believe I have to deal with this shit for rest of my life.”

And with death glares, clinched fists and dark thoughts, we stomp off in different directions and slam a door or whatever. We go about our business, really fucking pissed, thinking we should probably divorce. About 8 to 12 minutes later one of us (usually whoever instigated the whole thing (WHAT? Why are you all looking at ME?) comes back around and says something totally unrelated, such as “How was Rocket’s parent-teacher conference?” or “Did you pay the Expedition payment?”

The other person answers. A couple minutes after that, the bigger asshole (no seriously, stop looking at me. You don’t know. You don’t LIVE HERE.) occasionally mumbles some sorry excuse for an apology, like  “Um, sorry for being a dick.”

And then, “I love you.”

And that’s it. That’s how it goes. We just drop it, until it happens again, AND IT ALWAYS HAPPENS AGAIN. Because seriously, after 12 years with somebody, the crap that still annoys you ain’t ever going away. You can talk about it “constructively” until you’re actually out of air, and every word on the topic has been uttered, and every approach has been tried, but seriously, if it hasn’t changed yet, it ain’t never changing. (Yes, I believe that sentence called for a double negative.)

For example, I will always be better at multi-tasking, at looking at a situation and seeing what needs to be done, at taking care of the twenty-seven thousand things that must be addressed in our day-to-day lives.

Mac will always be better at not being an overbearing asshole.

To each his own I suppose.

So basically they’ve lied to us again. They lied about adulthood (it really isn’t that fun). They lied about motherhood (one word: Babycenter). And now, they’ve lied about marriage, telling us that unless we sit down in a perfectly calm manner, thoughtfully “adapting” to one another, listening with the attention of a thousand Zen monks, our marriage will fail.

BULLSHIT.

As far as I can see it, marriage is messy. It’s ugly. It’s disheveled and weird and clunky. It’s a whole lot a of tenacity thrown in with bit of romance.

You know what it is? IT’S FUCKING WORK.

I am absolutely convinced that the only reason Mac and I are still together is because we stuck with one another with an insane, [irrational] bulldog vengeance. We gritted our teeth and dug them in and JUST WOULD NOT LET GO. We weren’t happy. We were so far from happy we made Misery look like a love story.

And we were dragged through the mud. We were towed across the coals. There were times so dark I thought I wouldn’t survive.

And there are still times I’d like to bust his gorgeous face across my knee.

But there’s never a time I regret standing in front of that courthouse 12 years ago, marrying a man I felt in the depth of my soul was the one for me, devoting myself to him without knowing how to do so, trusting something, something that told me it would be alright. And I’ve never regretted holding on, even when the only thing keeping me there was the fact that we had already started this life together, and our kids were just so beautiful, our family just so dear.

And as it turns out, we were just babies, trying to find our places in the world.

And when we finally did, it turns out they were right beside each other. I know that’s not everybody’s story. But it’s mine, so I’m telling it.

So screw those damn chick flicks. Screw the 50-year honeymoon bullshit. As far as I can tell, marriage is lived in the trenches, on the ground, in the mud. It’s built on the ruins of mistakes and struggle. But when it finds its footing, when it’s withstood all that crap, when it stands like the mightiest brick house you’ve ever seen, my god it’s lovely.

But they don’t tell us that shit in movies. It’s either 50-years of wild sex and unbridled joy — or it’s divorce.

I don’t buy it. I don’t buy any of it. I think there’s more to the story. At least there has been in mine.

So to my friends who’ve asked “How do you do it?”, I’ll tell ya all that I know (though let’s be honest, it isn’t much):

Marry somebody you love, then hang on like hell, with everything you’ve got, until one day you let go and to your surprise, you find you’re carrying him, and he’s carrying you – with big, easy open arms, and the most fucked-up perfect marriage you’ve ever seen.

And relax, you can do it all wrong…

until it’s all right.

I think I may be a little late writing this post, except, maybe not. Maybe it’s better to write this a couple days after Black Friday, when the world loses its mind over shit it doesn’t need, and the day before Cyber Monday, when the world does the same, only online.

I would have written it on Thanksgiving, but I was too busy eating, everything. And then of course the day after Thanksgiving was not an option since I was super busy trampling the elderly and knifing people to save 40 bucks on a cell phone at Walmart.

As Melville said: “Ah, humanity.”

(If you can call that shit ‘human.’)

I’m grateful for a lot of things. The nanny, for example (AKA The Gift Descended Upon us From on High via Craigslist). My husband. My kids. Not having cancer. My home. My dogs. Bacon.

The standard stuff.

But you already know that. You gotta be a real asshole with some seriously limited perspective to not be grateful for the fact that some people love you and you aren’t suffering from terminal illness and you have a home and a Labrador with floppy ears and kids that think you’re alright.

Sometimes, of course, I am that real asshole with no perspective (and I whine and moan and cry because something isn’t going my way (OH POOR ME)), but mostly, as many of you know, I realize I’m lucky to have anything in my life, let alone the aforementioned bundles of goodness.

And maybe it’s for that reason that the thing I’m most grateful for, above all else, is the fact that I was once a total and complete failure.

I’m not trying to be cute. I’m not begging for compliments. I’m stating a fact. Four years ago I looked at my life and saw failure, in every direction. As a mother, wife, daughter, employee, friend, citizen of earth.

I tried to pull it off, I really did. But I couldn’t. I failed. One of the definitions of failure is “a state of inability to perform a normal function.” Yes, precisely. That was me.

And the “normal function” I was unable to perform was life.

Why was I a failure? Because I was maladjusted to life. Because I was immature, self-centered and full of fear. Because I relied on MYSELF, somehow not quite realizing I was the reason my life wasn’t working.

And for these reasons, I was a fucking drunk.

But I couldn’t admit it. So I blamed you and you and him and her and this and that until it damn near killed me.

Everybody talks so much about success like it’s the most important thing in life: Yay me! Go me! Look at these successes! And they’re all thankful for the way life has delivered them what they wanted. They’re grateful for having some neatly wrapped package of existence, all snug and comfortable and pretty. And for sure, that’s some good shit. Go team.

Maybe I’m just weird, but in my experience, the only real, lasting good in my life – the only solid perspective, lasting contentment, enduring peace or recurring joy – has been the result of failure, not success. My life changed when the agony of my existence became so thick I was forced to make a decision: change or die.

If there was a glimmer of success visible along any path of my life, I would have held on to that as proof of my own well-being, and I would not have changed. And I probably would have died.

But as it was I saw only disaster, so much so that even I couldn’t deny it, and upon that foundation of malfunction and catastrophe, a life was built, slowly, piece by piece, until it stands right now, firm and bright and beyond anything I could have imagined, and beyond anything success could have offered.

And so I owe it all to failure.

You, the fact that you read this, and the fact that I get to write.

And this life, all of it, a trip to Santa Barbara over Thanksgiving, when the world is celebrating the good, as it shines now, I celebrate the same, and love how it used to flicker dimly, in the dark recesses of a trembling mind, until it became all of this, and freedom.

do you see the pup?

1. I feel like people should stop telling me to clean up my language on my blog. I mean, if I haven’t done it by now, what are the chances I’m ever gonna fucking do it?
2. Speaking of language, Georgie is using some really innovative variations of it. She calls her pajamas her “bananas.” She inserts the article “a” in strange places: “Look at A me,” or, when you ask her how old she is, “A two.” And sometimes, “Go A nigh-nigh.” So that’s not adorable, at all.
3. Do you guys ever listen to NPR on the topic of America? I did today. By the end of the show I came away with three facts: 1. Climate change is coming and we all shall die an Armageddon-like death; 2. The economy is in a state that makes it virtually impossible to address climate change, and therefore we will all soon die an Armageddon-like death; and 3. My best move is probably to build a home out of hay bales and solar panels, in Denmark, and invest in some sort of arsenal to defend my family from the upcoming apocalypse.
4. I realize these things may be true, but they’re scary. Why can’t I just live with my head buried so deep in the sand I’m just SURE we’ve got nothing to worry about? Because that doesn’t help, Janelle.
5. Since I haven’t written this list thing in 2 weeks, I have to tell you about what we did 2 weekends ago. We went to this place in the Sierra foothills called “Apple Hill.” We went there to hang out and get apples. Imagine that. Anyway, we were there for about 10 minutes when it started hailing, then snowing. It was like FREEZING. Ava was in flip-flops. Whatever. She’s ten – not my problem if she makes stupid decisions and her toes freeze off.
6. No really. I’m serious. I am a firm believer in letting kids experience the consequences of their own decisions, particularly when it’s a kid capable of saying things like “Do you know what my teacher did today? She used a malapropism! She said ‘pitcher’ for ‘picture.’” You know what a malapropism is but you can’t figure out how to wear weather-appropriate footwear? I don’t think I can help you.
7. Anyway, so we get there and it snows and the kids start flipping out and playing in it, and we drink hot apple cider and have a snow-ball fight. Then, the yuppies from the San Francisco Bay Area started trying to drive their BMWs up the hill, slipping all over the fucking place, until one of them crashes into a tree and my badass husband had to help them out.
8. That was Sunday two weeks ago. After that I had a week of hell. I’m pretty sure I’m never going to actually graduate. I’ll just have 99% of a Master’s Degree, but not the actual thing. Won’t that be swell?
9. Oh, and a goat was born at the ranch. Have you ever seen a baby goat?! They’re stunningly adorable. Obviously, they brought it in the house.
10. If I told Tyler Durden how much I like the iPhone I recently purchased, he’d probably say “You are not your fucking iPhone.” But then I’d have to respond, “Right, I can see how you might think that…but have you ever actually had an iPhone?”
11. But this past Saturday we had Ava’s Harry Potter birthday party. She turns 11 next week. I’ll get all weepy about that later. I need to tell you about this party first. So the little girl started planning this thing at least 6 months ago. Not kidding. She had it all figured out, down to the FOOD. Everybody who came had a character. She planned the “classes” we would teach. My husband whittled each girl her own wand. My mom and I made a “sorting hat.” We provided them all capes and pins based on the results of the sorting hat (Gryffindor or Ravensclaw!). Mac was Snape; my mom was Professor Trelawney; I was Professor McGonagall. We were all dressed up. I did the sorting hat. My mother the “divinations” class. My sister-in-law was the dude at the store who gives out wands. And Mac was a VERY MEAN Professor Snape, who the kids just couldn’t get enough of.  My mother-in-law made all the food (and I mean ALL of it).

It was an amazing party. Ava said it was the perfect Harry Potter party and it was everything she had hoped for.

I felt like telling her she was everything I’ve ever hoped for, my little Hermione Granger

“Gryffindor!”

the wands Mac carved. best daddy ever?

Mac beams a kid.

and…the goat.

Have a great week, all.

xoxo

Sometimes people ask me what I plan on doing after I finish my M.A., and sometimes I answer honestly, which is of course “I don’t fucking know.” But other times I answer by explaining my “plan,” which at the moment, is to apply to PhD programs in English literature, with an emphasis on American Studies. And quite often, the response I get is something like this: “Are you sure you should be putting your children through that?”

It just happened the other day. A fellow grad student asked me that very question. I looked at him dead in the eyes and responded “If I were a man, would you be asking me that question?”

He laughed and said “no.” And then I told him he was a douchebag and we both laughed. And to be honest, I wasn’t really offended, because I don’t really get offended that often, but especially when people say stupid shit and then own it.

As hard as this may be to believe, I frequently say stupid shit.

But I must admit it got me thinking. I’ve been surprised by how many people have responded to me with that exact question when I tell them my “plan,” (I’m putting that word in quotation marks because come on, really? a plan? Can you have a “plan” with three kids and a husband and personality like mine? My first “plan” was to get an M.A. in English…in 2-3 years. IT’S BEEN SEVEN. Case closed.).

And the thing that really got me thinking is how that voice, “are you sure you should be putting your kids through this?” has been like a low hum in the back of my mind for the past 11 years, yammering the same message in relentless monotone: “But what about your KIDS? What are you doing to your KIDS?”

You know why it hurts? You know why the question stings?

BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW, people, and I never have.

I have never known what’s “best” for my kids. How the hell should I know?

I’m not them.

Okay. Fine. I know a few things. I need to love and nurture them, teach them what it means to be a decent human. I know I need to tell them the truth, hold, hug and kiss them, own my shit when I screw up with them, too. I know I need to take them places, expose them to the world, ask tough questions, make them work, teach them some fucking manners. I know I need to help them find out who they are, whatever that looks like, and back the hell off in case who they are doesn’t match who I think they should be…But  mostly, all I really know is that my job is to help them grow into the people they are meant to become.

Beyond that, I have no idea what the hell I’m doing here.

And yet, people continue to ask me these questions as if I’m supposed to have some sort of answer. I’m supposed to like KNOW. Is there some sort of guidebook I’ve missed? Were other mothers endowed with a mother-compass, guiding their feet along a well-marked path toward the Promised Land of perfect children developing into perfect adults?

This woman once wrote on my blog “You’re only as happy as your saddest child.” When I read it, my stomach did a flip on itself, because quite frankly I think that’s the biggest crock of bullshit I’ve ever heard, and its implications made me a little sick.

The happiness of my children composes my own? Nonsense.

That’s the most insidiously selfish statement I think anybody has ever told me in regards to parenthood; it’s the most fucked-up thing I can imagine putting on your kid. Imagine that: “Hey kids, you are not only responsible for your own happiness, but you are now also responsible for MINE. So don’t blow it! ”

In other words, you are not free to live your life, because I’m dependent on you for the worth of my own, which means if you blow it, you’re not just ruining your own life, you’re ruining mine. So just remember that, kiddo, when you’re out there trying to navigate the insane waters of existence: YOUR MOTHER will never be happy unless you’re happy – so add that to your burden, please, as if life itself isn’t quite enough.

Um, thanks, but I unsubscribe from that theory.

Sorry, world, but I am not defined by my kids.

There. I said it.

There are these children in my home, and I love them with every shred of my being, and I am devoted to them with all my heart, and I try my best for them every day, but they are not me.

And I am not them.

And there’s this side of me that has other plans, and it always has, and it isn’t quite fulfilled through the making of lunches and cleaning of houses and doing of homework. I care about the parent-teacher conferences, but they aren’t the most important moment of my week, ever.

I am not ripping on stay-at-home moms. I feel silly even writing that disclaimer, but I need to be clear. What I’m saying is that I believe with all my heart that the greatest gift I can give my children is an example of a person who has grown fully, into herself, becoming the person her heart yearns to be, walked the path her soul has carved, bravely, firmly, lovingly.

Whatever that looks like.

If it’s getting a PhD she does it completely.

If it’s raising goats and canning pickles on a farm in Vermont, she does it completely.

If it’s working as an administrative assistant at a law firm 45 minutes away, she does it completely.

If it’s home-schooling 5 kids, making lovely dinners for her husband each day by 5pm sharp, served with a smile and warm heart…

Then by God, she does it completely.

And she does with everything she’s got, with all that she is, like there is nothing else in the world.  She does it like a warrior. She does it like a champion.

She does it like a goddamn rockstar.

Because those kids will watch that, ladies, and they will learn. They will watch it and they will see a human brave enough to live, brave enough to drop the ideas of the world, shake their expectations, brush their judgment off her heart like a bit of dust on the shoulder of an old wool coat.

And they’ll learn, as she moves, as she struggles, as she walks out the door to write that paper, as she comes home after one more day of what has become a bull-dog like devotion to her cause, as she straightens the pillows on the couch, tucks the baby in, falls exhausted into bed, one more time, they will learn:

To thine own self be true.

Like a boss.

To thine own self be true.

And I guess we’ll know then, someday, when we watch our kids soar into themselves without looking back, with the strength we found in the moments we didn’t know, didn’t know what was best for them, but held on anyway to the truth in ourselves, because there was really nothing else to do.

I guess we’ll know, then, when we watch them live in freedom, and find ourselves doing the same, that it was “best,” for them.

And for us.

1. So the other day Ava says “I hope Jill Stein doesn’t win the presidency, because I want to be the first woman president.” Before asking her exactly what she plans on doing as President, I had to address my more pressing question, which was how the hell my 10-year-old knows about the Green Party candidate. (Cause God knows WE aren’t discussing that stuff around the dinner table…I’m not that contentious of a mother.)
2. So I ask her “How do you know about Jill Stein?” She looks at me like I have seven heads, responding “Mama, she’s the Green Party candidate.” “Yes, Ava. I know that. But how do YOU know that? You’re ten.” And this kid responds “Oh, I read your voter’s pamphlet. By the way, what are you voting on Prop 32?”
3. Um, it’s a bleak day in paradise when you realize your kid is a more educated voter than you are.
4. Speaking of the elections, they’re a pretty big deal, for me, personally. Far-reaching, immediate effects. Since half the people I know are evidently moving to Canada if Romney gets elected, and the other half are leaving the country if Obama stays in office, no matter what happens I’m losing half my acquaintances. PRETTY BIG SHIT I guess.
5. Also, according to my Facebook feed, we’re also screwed in other big ways. If Obama stays in office, we are all going to end up paying 99% percent of our incomes to support new Socialist systems, nobody will ever be able to buy a house again, and for sure, in the next four years, there will be nothing left of America. On the other hand, if Romney wins, all women will suddenly find themselves banished to the home, gay people will be deported to a remote island off the coast of Fiji, and the 1% will take over the nation while the rest of us wither and die, slowly, in refrigerator boxes.
6. I’m sorry to joke, but I have to, because I’m sick of the election hysteria. Just vote for Roseanne Barr and move on. (I’M KIDDING PEOPLE!)
7. On a serious note, many of you asked what happened to my dear friends’ little dog, Rusty Bear. I apologize for not writing it last week, I should have. I guess I didn’t want to let the sad resurface, and I forgot now thoughtful and compassionate my readers are. You remembered. And you asked. Last Monday morning, Rusty Bear was found passed-away alongside the freeway about a mile away from my house. His dad said he was “going home.” And I guess in a way, he has. RIP little fella. Say a quick prayer, lend some positive energy to Cara Lyn and Roy, from wherever you are, my friends who lost their friend and beloved companion.
8. Now I feel weird writing anything else. It was such a sudden tragedy. Hold on to what you have. Love it now.
9. Speaking of loving things now, we did Halloween. I love it now. I didn’t really love it then. Ava was a jellyfish. Rocket was a Lego mini-figure. Georgie was a ladybug. They were adorable. It rained on us while we attempted trick-or-treating. I was in a terrible mood. I was stressed-out about my own shit and wrapped up in myself, selfishly. I kept trying to get out of it, but I just couldn’t. I hate it when that happens during important events. At one point it occurred to me I was being nicer to the people who answered the doors (complete strangers) than I was to my own family. More on that winning behavior later.
10. Yesterday my son woke up a little before me. We cuddled as always, until he popped up and announced “I’m going to make my own breakfast!” He darted out of the room. I followed about 5 minutes later and found him in the kitchen, beaming, with a cup of coffee in his hand. “I made you coffee,” he said, “I just have to put the milk in!” He was so proud. He couldn’t stop smiling. He looked so confident, bolting around the kitchen in his boxer shorts and insane hair.

There are moments when you look at your children and you just can’t believe how good and real and solid they’ve become.

In spite of it all. Or perhaps, because of it all.

Lately I’ve been struck by how sensitive and thoughtful the boy is becoming, how he’s becoming just like his dad…everybody’s talking about shit they’re grateful for. I’m grateful for that.

Anyway, have a good week.

And don’t forget to fucking vote.

YOU determine which form of apocalypse our country faces!

here’s to the sensitive boys.

would it ruin the moment if I told you he thinks farts are funny?