Fifty Things That Aren't My Fault Read online

  “She’s getting married and you aren’t!”

  “She’s having a baby and you aren’t!”

  How many beautiful showers did I leave and immediately eat my 1,500-calorie souvenir gift bag of Jordan almonds before I even got to the first stop sign on the way home? How many pounds of self-pity have almonds already added to my life? Perfect, I think, patting today’s Almond ’n’ Fruit Granola Crunch baby bump. Perfect, somehow, that almonds did this to me now, when I’m so solidly committed to making smart choices. As if there weren’t enough lessons in humility at this age.

  At best, almonds are part of the required regimen of a new heart-healthy food plan . . . but I’ve proven way too many times what happens when I try to eat the “recommended” amount. At worst, almonds have slipped into the new heart-healthy naughtiness snack industry, in which so much bad-for-me weight is gained on good-for-me food. Pinto bean and flax chips. Goji berry brittle. Quinoa crackers. Spinach açai smoothies. Food I don’t even like but commit to in abundance because of the antioxidant-rich, nutrient-dense, immune-system-boosting ingredients.

  I’ve worn the unfairness all over me. There are millions of options for the food that goes in the mouth. Still only one option for the type of weight produced once it’s swallowed. Shouldn’t baked organic beet chip fat look more attractive than Cheetos fat? Shouldn’t a box of gluten-free, fruit-juice-sweetened carob cookies produce healthier-looking pounds than Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? Shouldn’t too many sprouted ancient grain muffins look hotter in yoga pants than too many red velvet cupcakes? Shouldn’t Almond ’n’ Fruit Granola Crunch not count at all because it’s so healthy? Unanswerable questions in this unimaginable time when we can somehow be so bad while we’re being so good.

  I must appear a little confused . . . or maybe I’ve just been standing in one spot too long, because a passing stock boy asks if I need help finding something.

  “No, thank you,” I reply, holding my head high and my stomach in. I turn my cart toward the front of the store and gesture with the flattened bag in my hand. “Best that I just move to the checkout line and pay. I have a growing family and everyone will be getting hungry for supper soon.”

  31.

  FOUR KINDERGARTEN MOMS AND A BOTTLE OF PINOT GRIGIO

  I told my mother it wasn’t safe for her to drive anymore and I took her keys away!”

  The happy chatter at our dinner table stops abruptly. The other two friends and I stare with disbelief at the one who just spoke.

  “You took your mother’s keys away??” the friend on my left asks incredulously.

  “Keys and driver’s license!” the first friend proclaims proudly.

  “Just like that??” the one on my right asks, shaking her head.

  “Oh, there was unhappiness, but I told her I love her and wanted her to be safe,” friend number one says with a shrug and raises her Pinot Grigio in a toast to herself.

  We were kindergarten moms together. Bonds don’t go any deeper than that. We perched like nervous mama birds on teeny chairs at the kindergarten orientation open house a lifetime ago, when the children we sent off to college last fall were all five years old. Perched there with knees folded up halfway to our chins, bending us into almost fetal positions, which couldn’t have been more perfect for exactly how we felt. We did our bravest half-smiles while our eyes flicked from face to face, searching for signs of anxiety that matched our own: red-rimmed eyes, tooth mark dents in lower lips, heartache written in lines of dissolved mascara down cheeks. Brows stiff as we prayed this would be the right school, the right teacher, the right friends. Hands clutching the information sheets that were passed out, as though hanging on for dear life to a list of school supplies would somehow keep our babies closer.

  We found one another that day, fourteen years ago, the four women having dinner together right now. We all wore the exact same mismatched combination of hope and terror to the kindergarten orientation open house. Four first-time panicked moms feeling equally unready for the next step.

  The kindergarten at our elementary school was its own cute separate one-room building, painted red and white on the outside, like an old-fashioned schoolhouse. It even had a steeple with a big brass school bell on the roof. An unbelievably sweet and innocent oasis in an otherwise ego-packed, traffic-jammed suburb of Los Angeles. Not that that helped. The sweetness of the place might even have made it more jarringly cruel when the teacher said it was “Time to say goodbye!” ten minutes into the first day of school. She patiently watched us do the opposite of the “firm and cheerful!” goodbyes she’d coached us to do . . . and then came to the tiny tables where we sat wrapped around our little ones and, one by one, helped peel apart the weeping mother/child teams who couldn’t do it on their own. I remember looking at her as if she were a crazy woman and clutching my daughter even more closely when she got near. Did my daughter have a harder time saying goodbye than the other children because I had a harder time saying goodbye? Of course she did. Did I care? I did not. I couldn’t believe anyone actually expected me to leave.

  When the teacher finally got us out the door, I stood outside the kindergarten building with the Panicked Ones and pressed my face along with theirs against the big picture window, searching for a glimpse of my girl. On day two of school, the teacher covered the picture window with construction-paper pictures the children made the day before. On day three, we climbed on benches, stood on tiptoe, and peered into the high transom window above the window she’d covered. On day four, the principal was summoned to remove us, the custodian took away the benches, and we were shamed into going home or to our offices. Most of us. There was a rumor that one mom sat in her car in the school parking lot for the entire year so she would never be more than fifty yards away from her child. It wasn’t me. That was my big kindergarten triumph. The mom camped out in the school parking lot wasn’t me.

  Pinot Grigio and Pellegrino are passed around the table, dinners served. We’re still reeling from the announcement that one of us got keys away from her mother and are in interrogation mode:

  “How did you get her to do what you wanted??”

  “How did you know she was ready??”

  “How did you avoid the meltdown mine had when I barely broached the subject??”

  We asked these exact same questions when our children were five. And here we are again. We were first-time parents to little children; now we’re first-time parents to aging parents. And exactly as unprepared for the next step as we were then. Only now there are no information handouts, no irritating teacher telling us “it’s time,” no parenting-the-parent classes. Not that we would listen to advice. When our kids were in kindergarten, none of us wanted input from the experienced moms in the class who were on child number two or three. Even though they’d been through exactly what we were going through, they had NO idea what we were going through. Our kids were different.

  “My daughter can’t carry her own backpack. Her arms are too little!”

  “She can’t use her words. She’s too shy!”

  “She can’t sit still. Her imagination is too special!”

  “She can’t sing along. She has a hypersensitivity to sound!”

  Mom after mom, making pitiful excuse after pitiful . . .

  Okay, fine. Those examples were all me. But we all wrestled with our own challenges. Of all the moms, Beth and I were probably the most independent women and the worst at letting go. I remember hearing another mother mutter that she couldn’t believe such self-sufficient women were raising such clingy daughters. Our girls screamed the loudest and longest when we took them to school and flung themselves back on us the most desperately when we picked them up.

  A couple of weeks into kindergarten, instead of rushing out of the room into our arms, our daughters marched out confidently holding hands, declared that they’d decided to be sisters, and asked us to leave so they could stay longer to play. Beth and
I sobbed some more, but wrapped ourselves around each other this time, not our girls. We were useless helping our daughters take the next step. They took it on their own and showed us how it was done.

  We could use some leadership lessons now. All the kindergarten moms at this table could. We’re right back at zero. Perched on pretty restaurant chairs this time with a great big load of the exact same fears as well as brand-new ones. As hard as it was to watch our little ones grow up, it’s even harder to watch our parents go the other direction, to have all the developmental milestones go backward. Absolutely no clapping, cheering, and making videos when our aging parents move into the next stage. Mom and Dad could run, now they can walk. Then it’s a slower walk. Then a slower, wobbly walk. Then a walk with walker. Then . . .

  My eyes flick from face to face searching for signs of anxiety that match my own. No one bites her lower lip now for fear of chipping expensive dental work . . . we’ve converted to waterproof mascara . . . brows are stiff for possibly different reasons . . . and my friends are sharing other kinds of unrelatable success stories . . .

  “A woman in my office just moved her mom across the country into an independent living community a mile from her house,” the friend on my left offers with a sigh. “That’s like getting a spot in a neighborhood preschool!”

  “My yoga teacher got her dad into a place that has levels of care so he can transition to a different area as his needs change,” the friend on my right says. “Like getting into a preschool that goes all the way through twelfth grade. Her dad will be safe forever. Her dad is IN!”

  “I know someone who just did it, too,” the third friend adds. “Moved both parents into a senior care condo. She said they’ve made friends, do all the group activities, have their own spots in the dining room, are regaining confidence and mobility . . . It’s like a Montessori senior living center!”

  The bottles make another round; wine to three of us, sparkling water to the fourth. We all reject guidance now, just like we did when our children were little, for pretty much the same reason: Ours are different.

  “My mom and dad can’t move! They’re too attached to their home!”

  “They can’t eat in a group dining room! They love cooking and cleaning up!”

  “They can’t join organized activities! They hate activities!”

  “They can’t be with a bunch of old people! They don’t think they’re old!”

  Okay, fine. All my examples again. But I know my friends all have their own challenges with their parents, just like we all had with our children. We’re all trying to navigate between helping too much and not enough. We know the day Mom and Dad accept that they’re too old to do some things will be the same excruciating day they’ll actually be too old to do those things.

  By the end of her second glass of wine, the friend with the car keys doesn’t look triumphant anymore. “It was the worst day of my life,” she says, retelling her story with tears spilling over this time. “I only made it sound easy because I want to remember it differently than it happened. I didn’t ask for Mom’s keys. She handed them to me because she said she got too scared to drive. She couldn’t even get her driver’s license out of her wallet by herself. I had to help, and then I hugged her like I did my son when he was little. It was just like when I had to help him move to the next stage. He was so afraid of feeling himself changing, just like my mom. I had to help them both let go of who they’d been.”

  If we didn’t learn enough humility in kindergarten, we’re learning it now. Little pieces of the people we love keep going away, and we’re powerless to stop it. Superman couldn’t remember how to tie his necktie last Easter . . . Mom got appointment dates mixed up . . . Jacket zippers are becoming impossible . . . Every little task takes longer, more details need to be repeated. More and more, our parents will need us to figure out what to do and when to do it to help keep them safe.

  Four kindergarten moms fourteen years later. We raise our glasses and toast how far we’ve come. We toast the hope, faith, and senses of humor we’ve helped one another keep, the wonderful little people we somehow raised. We toast the long, humbling, challenging road ahead and how much easier it will be for all of us because of the deep connections we made with each other from our tiny perches at the kindergarten open house all those years ago.

  And then we toast the day we hope is years from now—when the children we’ve protected for so long will have the strength to help us do what we’re trying to do for our parents. What for now we’re perfectly able to do for ourselves: One by one, three of us take our car keys out of our purses and hand them to Beth, our designated driver. No one’s leaving this restaurant without a safe ride home.

  For now, we know that besides our children, besides our parents, we’re also the guardians of ourselves. We have to be. The work of the kindergarten moms is far from done.

  FIVE ALL-NEW REASONS I DIDN’T EXERCISE TODAY

  I have to find a new gym where no one knows me.

  My yoga pants make my rear look big.

  I don’t want to blow my knees out.

  I’m not happy with my socks.

  I have to start on a Monday or it doesn’t count.

  32.

  JOYFULLY PREPARING FOR THE CELEBRATION OF DEATH

  On February 5, my sisters and I gathered for our mother’s birthday to witness the signing of the “Do Not Resuscitate” form.

  Not for her. That’s another story. She signed the DNR form for her computer.

  “If this contraption starts to die one more time, that’s IT!” our mother declared. Our mother, the kindest woman on earth, the patient, loving, selfless saint who never gave up on anyone, who could breathe hope and health into anything. “I’M PULLING THE PLUG!” she yelled, eyes flashing, directly into her computer’s screen.

  “AND I’M HELPING YOU DO IT!” Dad announced. Our gentle, compassionate dad, who rescues worms on the sidewalk and puts them back in the grass, who got up every three hours to feed an injured baby squirrel we found, who’s always been willing to go anywhere, do anything to help something survive. Dad was over it. We watched him sign the DNR for his laptop a few months earlier. Dad was ready for the end. Dad was almost looking forward to the day he could haul the lifeless electronics out to the curb.

  We have all suffered too much.

  The emergency trips to the Genius Bar, only to be told the fault was with our parents, not the equipment . . .

  The long line of specialists we found to make house calls who got everything going again until the moment their techie vans pulled out the driveway . . .

  The community college computer classes Mom’s taken over and over . . .

  The instruction books Dad’s studied like a flight manual . . .

  The desperate long-distance middle-of-the-night calls to my sisters and me: “I was trying to find Mollie Alstott’s address and I clicked the little gizmo on the right and then everything disappeared! It all went blank!” . . .

  The hours and hours my sisters and I have spent trying to coach from across the country: “Just double-click on the contacts icon on the bottom . . . No! Mom! . . . the one with the little picture of the . . . What? You did what?? Now you need to drag it down from . . . What?? I don’t know where your cursor is! I’m in California! Can’t someone in Florida find your cursor???”

  The user-friendly replacement computers we’ve bought our parents caused even more suffering. Everything about them was just different enough that the skills Mom and Dad had finally perfected were useless. The new, updated machines made them feel even more inept than the old, outdated ones.

  Mom and Dad have friends who Skype with relatives in Europe every week. It makes them feel ashamed. They have friends who share photo libraries as easily as sharing popcorn. It makes them feel incompetent. Their grandchildren could do more on their computers when they were two
years old than Mom and Dad can do at age ninety. It makes them feel like ninety-year-olds.

  And so my sisters and I gathered around Mom’s desk as a special gift for her birthday. We laid the official DNR form in front of her, just as we had for Dad’s computer a few months before. We witnessed the signing of the form. We pledged that none of us would disobey either of their wishes and try to do anything to revive any electronics ever again if they started failing.

  Mom and Dad looked so relieved.

  “We hope our computers will croak together,” my kind, loving mother said.

  “When one starts going, we might need to give the other one a little assist,” my gentle, compassionate father agreed.

  “When it’s over, I will write the obituary,” Mom added. “On a nice piece of pretty notepaper with a ballpoint pen.”

  “And I will put a stamp on Mother’s envelope, drive it to the post office, and hand it to a U.S. Postal Worker to put in the day’s outgoing mail so it can be delivered to the newspaper!” Dad cemented the deal.

  “And then . . . ”—Mom smiled and Dad smiled back—“then things can finally get back to normal around here.”

  33.

  LEFT AT THE ALTAR

  At last. I was ready to take the vows again. Finally open to the kind of healthy, wonderful relationship I’d seen so many others have. I was done blaming past failures on everything and everyone. Ready to embrace a new life and devote myself to making it work.

  Preparations were done. Announcements were made to family and friends. The moment came. The person officiating the commitment ceremony looked down at her papers, then back up at me with an approving nod, and spoke the two words that abruptly ended it all: “Bone health.”