The Overshare: I'm Fat + I'm Perfect
Happy Sunday! Over here trying not to wait for spring, hiding from everyone at my bedroom desk all bundled up next to the space heater as I honor my commitment to write at least 1 Overshare a month even though so many people need so many things from me and their needs feel more urgent than mine. Alas, here we are at the end of February. Ukraine. Pain. No more masks but not ready to stop wearing mine. After that last Overshare my husband said he won’t read it again. Ha! Fair. Not everyone wants to get private in public to eradicate shame and connect with humanity outside of the social media corporate prison. I get it. I still haven’t done my vision board, but I did paint this Sea Goddess on the back of my 2021 vision board with Seylah’s dirty paint brushes, and honestly, this is my vision board for 2022 because I believe she exists in another galaxy and this is how I want to feel all the time, even/especially in my dreams:
So…let’s dive in with ease:
THINGS MY DAUGHTERS SAID TO ME OVER THE LAST 6 MONTHS:
Seylah, age 5:
(In the bathtub squeezing bubble bath onto 3 folded washcloths making the entire bathroom floor wet omg but play is how we learn): “Mommy I’m making you a love taco! Do you want extra extra bubbles or no bubbles or all the bubbles?” Me: “I want it all!” Seylah: “Ok! You’re number 1, that’ll be 50 minutes.” 2 minutes later. “Ok, here you go! Eat it! No, really eat it! (I do, spitting out bubbles into the sink). “Good job. Ok. Now you’re in love with me. But you can’t kiss me. Germs.”
(At 6:30am climbing into my bed): “Mommy, are we going climbing today, tomorrow, or tomorrow tomorrow?”
“Don’t ever give these pajamas to someone else cuz I want to keep them and show them to my kids.”
“I wanna be a teacher and a mom. But not for big kids just like 2 5 3 and 4 year olds.”
“If you like getting dirty and muddy you don’t like being beautiful.”
“That sister right there is way weirder than I wanted her to be.” (Me: “Well, everyone needs a Nya.”)
“I wish I could go back inside your belly and tell you what it was like inside there.”
“You wouldn’t have married Daddy if you didn’t have me.”
“Am I levitating?”
“Mommy you don’t have to worry about me watching fighting movies I’m good with it.”
“I need to be cuter.”
“If I fall off tell my mom I love her!” (To her friend, screaming in delight, swinging very high on a swing).”
“Is this aerodynamic?” (re a toy plane)
“You know it’s a girl if they have long ash-lies.” (I refuse to correct this to eyelashes, like she still says “ornanges” and I’m here for it.
“She looks the most like Nya with one puff, I look the most like Seylah with two puffs.” (when I ask how she wants her hair done)
“Am I going to lose my hearing?” (After I mistakenly made her watch “El Deafo” thinking it would help her have compassion for those different from her and maybe even get her interested in sign language, but instead terrified her for days. Questions, so many questions laying in her bed, calling me back in over and over to ask another one. The irony of this being the most scary thing she’s ever seen while I stay mad at everyone for letting her watch TV for older kids….sigh.
“I’m fat. My legs are fat. My tummy is fat.” (After a playdate with a few friends who were leaving her out. She felt jealous and said, “Well after this I’m going to my Jaja’s and she lets me eat lots of candy and watch lots of TV”. And the girls responded, “Sugar makes you fat. Yeah. If you eat sugar you’ll get fat and explode and die.” Seylah went inward at this point, and found her daddy to hide in our bedroom until the kids went home. Mama bear in full effect over here. So complicated, to tell them their greens make them strong, sugar rots your teeth, but no one is telling them fat is bad. Where is this coming from? Am I letting her eat too much sugar because I didn’t let myself eat until I got pregnant at age 36? Like, I literally worked out so much in college I burned muscle instead of fat, punching and kicking to Billy Blanks on VHS alone in my dorm room asking my friends to bring me back an apple from the dining hall every dinnertime to avoid the “freshman 15”? We celebrate all bodies here, body positivity, body neutrality, even. Now she talks about being fat all the time. As if it’s a bad thing, and I keep working hard to teach her that it’s not. Every body is different, people eat differently, we are all made of love and stars don’t you get it?! I’ve made a point to only talk positively about my body in front of my kids. (Inside I still terrorize myself.) I make a point to eat everything in front of them. I know they hear more than I realize. Seylah is always listening. So I have that ice cream cone with them, I want us to have special treats, we love baking together, we need fat to survive, we need lollipops for quiet time in the back seat. I cannot protect them from this loud harsh world. And that’s all I want to do: protect them from everything that hurt me. Those comments to my sweet daughter who is in the 100% percentile for height and weight…that shit hurt man. And I know healthy foods are critical and so many foods in this country are so gross. And it made me so angry and sad and overprotective. We do this mantra where she repeats back to me every line - we did this after the playdate and hugged and she smiled and kissed my cheek. She is fine, so strong, stronger than me, but still, we need our mantra every day: “My name is Seylah. And I am perfect. Just the way I am. My body is perfect, my hair is perfect, strong, and beautiful, just like me. I love myself. Inside and out. Just the way I am.”
“Come here mommy.” (After she choked on a balloon and Saxon saved her life last weekend. I am still shaking from this. I couldn’t find my phone to call 911. Nya was running around after me crying. Saxon was giving her CPR. She was so scared. We were all chillin’ on the couch talking and playing and suddenly he jumped up - he saw her face - her big scared eyes - I didn’t. He kept telling her to stop putting things in her mouth. I thought I was so vigilant. I’m usually the one to spring into action in a crisis. This time, I panicked. I’m ashamed. (She choked like this once before in her high chair when she was little little. I gave her CPR and the food finally hit the floor. I was super on it then. He was at work.) After the balloon incident, Seylah said she just wanted to be with me for the rest of the night. Daddy hurt her in the ribs trying to save her. After it was all over and she could breathe again, she laid down on the couch and motioned for me to come to her. She doesn’t like to snuggle like Nya does, doesn’t want to give hugs anymore, she likes her space which I encourage, so it’s always a treat for me, but I don’t want her to do it for me. She let me hold her. My tears made her face wet but she didn’t mind this time. Kids taking care of their parents when they are kids. Big no. And. We take care of each other. I’m in awe of her. I wrote a short story eerily similar to this incident - careful what you write? You Can Do Hard Things.
“I want two chicken fried rices.” (Ok baby. Whatever you want. I love watching you eat. Great job eating all your food!)
PS - Don’t sleep on Benihanas y’all. That’s our go to every time we have something to celebrate, and we always do! Get in that birthday club for real. And chew your food sitting down!
Nya, age 3:
“I want more cheese because I like cheese.”
“What? My brain is melting. Why? Because I watched TV.”
“I’m awake and I’m naked!” (first words out of her mouth in the mornings)
“I’m gonna poop on your head punk ass mommy.” (So, yeah. We’re working on parenting with intention. “Punk ass” did not come from me, so, yeah. Progress not perfection.)
“I need to go to the potty I don’t need some help actually I do need some help I don’t want to hold the bacon when I go potty actually I do want to hold the bacon ok I’m done now!” (Saxon: “Nya you don’t need to pull your pants down in the living room and waddle to the bathroom, take them down at the potty.”) You know she didn’t listen.
“Seylah - you made me have poop in my butt.”
“Sister’s a super hero and I’m a super hero. I’m my own superhero!”
(Looking at an old picture of Seylah rubbing dirt on my pregnant belly, I told her that was her inside my belly. She asked, lifting up my shirt: “But where did I come out? Is there a door in you?”
“Mommy I was so brave.” (After her first swim lesson - she was terrified and then ended up so happy minutes later. Watching them swim brings me to tears. There is something so…primordial…about my girls in water, womblike. Sea goddesses! Also ensuring they don’t drown cuz that’s another fear - and just them - being in their full alive beautiful strong bodies. I just love it. Every Saturday at 11am they swim, then we play. Mommy Saturdays. Boom.
“Mommy play with me. Ok. You’re a bad guy. You steal banks.”
“Everything looks like a ghost.” (Driving home at night in the snow. Seylah: “Nya you can’t see ghosts. It’s only a ghost if it pulls your hair.” Nya: “Oh, okay.”
“He has nipples!” (re: white man running in the street, sigh)
“Hey Bread I’m gonna eat you!”
“You’re the police and you can go now.” (When I come into their room to tell them to stop jumping on the bed, door closed, “Girl Party” playing loudly on their Alexa (Nya calls her “Alexia” and gets frustrated when she doesn’t respond).
“I wanna be mean to daddy with you.” (After I tell/yell at him to please put something back where it belongs because this clutter is making me insane and I have to write and I’m not writing, poor guy.)
“There’s a drum in my heart.”
“You sound like Elsa but don’t sing!”
“Mommy why are we in the bath?”
Before school: “I don’t wanna go to school!” After school: “I had a great day at school!”
“You’re the one who made me sick.” (After she barfed all night, on everything, on me. That night Saxon and I were making a song together in the living room - Nya would not go to sleep, she wanted to kick it as an only child for a while, I get it. Finally we put her in our bed. He went in to check on her and she was covered in barf. I cannot believe she could sleep like that, and it terrified me to think she could choke (choking!) and I would have no idea, playing with harmonies in the next room. And Saxon said: “That’s why you check on them.” Sick children stop time and remind me of what’s important, providing yet another opportunity to practice acceptance and get honest about what I can and cannot control. The world doesn’t care about your kids being sick…home from school another day….you not sleeping. But I do. I see you.
“Does that jellyfish have a face?” (asking Pa during Songs and Stories with Grammy and Pa on Zoom, every Sunday morning!) Seylah wanted to learn about the immortal jellyfish, and I did too. Makes me feel so good to know it can be life saving to revert back to a former stage to survive and rebuild yourself back up. Nothing dies, it just changes. Alchemy baby.
QUESTION OF THE MONTH:
What am I resisting? Notice resistance. Notice where I resist ease. I like to make things hard and complicated. But what if the goal was to make things as easy as possible for myself? #Goals.
THERAPY BREAKTHROUGHS OF THE MONTH:
1 - I’m scared of everything I want. When I got invited to perform at a music festival in April (more soon on that yo!) I wanted to be so excited - dream come true type shit for real - but I immediately thought of myself alone as a woman, on the shuttle alone, in the hotel alone, not just lonely, but terrified of rape more than death. I wish trauma would go away.
2 - I’m the one who wants to be out more, to connect with more people, to be intimate with more people. He could care less. He wants to be home. I am used to men loving me by being possessive, violent and angry, and ignoring me. He is all love and the best human in the world. I love him more every day. And I need more friends. I’ve been in my own solitary confinement as an only child and I get my energy from people and he needs me to get that energy from other people because he’s at capacity. Having more friends means being a friend and I am doing my best to build community when I’m not hiding/working in this bedroom office.
Basically, be less needy, have more sex. Love is relaxation and I’m in charge of my own relaxation. Got it.
OTHER THINGS:
-My two best girlfriends stopped being friends with me when I got pregnant/gave birth. I realize now that our platonic relationships were romantic, and we were in love with each other, and my pregnancy was a betrayal. I forgive us for stumbling through those times, and wonder if I’ll ever talk to either of them again.
-Doing anything in the snow feels huge, like back in the day, going to the laundromat in New York - after that I was like, welp, the day’s done, what’s up for tonight?
-Forehead hives are a good omen. Something good always happens soon when I get one, and I’m gettin’ a whole lotta forehead hives lately.
-Sex isn’t the reason for season anymore, and that’s ok. I had kids. I procreated. I am in a new phase. I am grieving that time in life where you literally go out to have sex, everything is about that, wondering what will happen, who you will meet. I loved that time, and hated it. Now this is a new time. I don’t know what time it is just yet, but I am more excited than sad now.
-The diaper bag is now my briefcase when I go anywhere else to work. Sam Gary Library baby! Come see me in one of those private rooms in the back!
-My girls have a great grandpa who was a real life cowboy in Southeast Texas. My dad’s dad. It’s complicated. Race doesn’t exist, but racism does. He watched the WNBA and his best friend “Six” was Black, whom he gave all his land when he passed. And he used all the racist words. I wonder what he would say about my family. And some of my happiest times of my whole life were running around on the ranch, riding horses barefoot, herding cattle with him and his friends, listening to their stories drinking Folgers in the back office after a day of work that I knew weren’t true but it didn’t matter, helping Grandpa feed the animals before dawn, listening to the cows yaw in the dark as I slept next to my snoring Grandma under the clicking slow fan, before I knew about all the violence and evils. I want these nature experiences for my girls. I want them to be free to run wild and fearless like I did through the tall tall grass. It was his birthday February 18th. Happy birthday Grandpa.
Lastly - my debut Baby Luck EP drops next month on Plump Records and I am ready. Like, I really am very ready for this to happen. And I feel this way about it!
Ok. See you in March!
Love, blessings and boom!