advice | Wrinkles and Dust

I binged on youtube videos when I should have been showering and cleaning.

On a healthy day I think celebrity culture is insane, and we would all be better off just living our own lives instead of checking in to see what our favourite actor was wearing or what they said about anything at any time. My personal experience with it has led me to believe that too much of it can cause a huge gap between real life and the tactfully projected life through pictures and statuses, and can make one feel lacking in just about every aspect of life.

Today I saw celebrities get standing ovations for raising their kids without the use of a nanny. I saw women clap and cheer at a man who was working, while his wife stayed home to raise their new baby at home. I saw Ellen Degeneres learn that an epidural didn’t mean ‘natural’ in the birth world. I heard people with more money than some countries talk about the hardship of planning for their kids’ future. I watch these videos like I’m watching a train wreck – I want to look away out of respect because what I’m watching is so terrible, and nobody should be seen like this, and yet I’m forced to look because it’s so unbelievable that it’s hypnotic.

I imagine that if I were a celebrity, after having lived my non-celebrity life up until now, I would likely be too embarrassed to talk about some of these things as though they were so novel. If somebody cried because I discussed my decision to have a home birth, I might feel more compelled to send them some information on continuing education rather than the remarkableness of my decision. If Ellen Degeneres learned that my husband and I had decided to raise our kids on our own without money, but with a blind understanding of the importance of quality of life, I fear she might fall off her chair and give away more iPods than she’s allowed. I wonder if being at a gala of great importance would be overshadowed by a cluster of people hanging on to my every word as I explained things like grocery shopping without a car in a Canadian winter, or nursing in public or my daughter asking if she can wear a head scarf one day because she has so many muslim friends at school. I’m not sure I would be able to take all these people seriously if parts of my life that seem so simple, so necessary would be celebrated as though I was the only person in the world doing it.

I’m sure there are celebrities who grin and grit through their teeth at these stories they have to tell, knowing that a great many people have also opted to not have nannies, in less comfortable circumstances, and I have a lot of admiration for them. It can’t be easy to talk like you are the first person to discover that breastfeeding can speed up weight loss after pregnancy, but there she is, enlightening the audience, and you have to hand it to her for having the balls to maintain the interview rather than get serious and tell Katie Curic that her questions are stupid.

All of this to say, today if you are working and budgeting, or raising some kids or getting into a fight with your partner, just imagine the applause an LA audience would have for you if you had more money, a couple of red carpet pictures in People Magazine and had dated Chris Pine. As I scrub the slow cooker and try not to slip in the oily bathtub because my daughter decided it would be fun to put baby oil in her bath last night, I will be imagining the reaction of a room who can’t believe I live this way, and how hard they would be clapping at my strength and endurance. If I have a room of applause following me around in my head all day, I might actually be able to get through it a little easier. God Bless LA audiences.

Dear 31 year old Miriam. Here I am, your 98 year old self, writing to you. You need a little boost.

I wish deep fatigue for you. So deep and so layered that when you manage to get a solid 8 hours of sleep you feel even more exhausted because your body has been teased with the notion of being rested. A little sleep at this point will almost kill you, like a meal for the person who hasn’t seen food in months. This fatigue is so heavy you negotiate the pros over the cons in closing your eyes at a red light. Just a little shut eye because your eyelids feel like they weigh more than your brain – which isn’t saying much because your brain feels like feathery mush – but you get it. They’re heavy. I wish this exhaustion on you so that you may come to understand yourself on a whole new level. A new personality exists under your rested self, and guess what? That personality is pretty shitty. Angry. Unreasonable. Stupid. So stupid you would catch a few winks at in intersection. If you suffer for as long as I wish upon you, you will have time to turn that shitty personality around. You will have time to tweak it, to reason with it, to find a place of peacefulness despite the lack of sleep. This new you will come in very handy for when you are rewarded with a decent nap, an uninterrupted night, a weekend away. You will find you have new depths to your patience and you have a deeper appreciation for everything. Everything. You will notice that the sidewalk is made of cement and you will be thankful. So long you have gone without noticing anything, that now the world seems like an undiscovered planet. It is my wish that you wake up because you have been awake for too long.

It is my wish for you to have to care for another person. Child, parent, distant relative. A person in need. A person who would die without you. Once in your whole life. I wish for this for the sake of learning what you are capable of. To learn what sacrifices you are willing to make. To be turned into a mad hatter because you cannot do what you please, but rather must respond to another person’s needs. For this wish, it must last long enough that you begin to think about how you can provide self care within limitation. Limitation creates space, and what used to look like a need to party; a need to shut people out; a need to shop; a need to run away – turns that need on its head so you can look at the real issue. It is my wish that by virtue of your being needed by another human, the first thing you do in the morning is something for somebody else. This must last long enough so as to create a habit of giving first thing in the morning. This allows that on the days you miraculously have nobody to care for, coupled with your new thankfulness because you have woken up due to wakefulness, your day begins with utter gratefulness. To begin your day either by giving, or by being grateful is the result of having another person in your care.

I wish for you to be taken down a peg or two. I wish for you to come to a moment in time when you see all the things around you as things. Whether it’s your house or your car or your clothes or your job or your mismatching dish set – one day you will finally see them as separate from you. This moment will be hard, and everything will lose it’s value. Everything you have worked for will be meaningless in the material world and you will feel lowered. But then you will hear that your house is full of laughter. Or maybe your favourite song will come on. Maybe you will feel filled up for no reason and not worry about how you just realized everything else is worthless. Maybe you will feel alone, or lonely, even in a crowded room. This moment, this awareness will change how and what you value. Knowing what you truly value will give you a meaningful life.

Calm down Miriam. With any luck, all my wishes will come true and you will be fine. Love, Miriam