Hangover Hero
- At May 26, 2011
- By Roxanne Snopek
- In Life, Roxanne Writes On
- 0
Now that I’ve finished my 100 days of Bikram yoga, I don’t know what to title my posts. I still did a class today… that would make 101 classes… if anyone cares… maybe I’ll start counting the days out of 365, as in, “how many yoga classes can I do in 2011?”
Hm. That’s an idea. Stay tuned.
In other news: I’m the goat-parent today. Yes, you read right. As of this morning, I had two out of three daughters miffed at me. (It’d probably be a hat-trick but the third doesn’t live here anymore.)
And the remarkable thing is, it feels okay.
I have a poodle-like need to have people not be mad at me. I’m a first-class conflict-avoider, a peace-keeper, a comforter, a pleaser. I’m not proud of it, but there it is. (I’d like to point out here that the Mennonites built a whole religion around conflict-avoidance, except they called it Pacifism, and it got them out of fighting in wars. We’re still a fairly agreeable lot.)
So for me to feel okay about this is… new.
But you’re probably wondering when I’ll get around to the “Hangover” part of this post. Alright, here you go.
Our 16-year old has been wanting to go to The Hangover II movie, which comes out tonight. She’d mentioned it a few times, but I guess I’d filed it in the “Think About This Eventually” area of my brain.
“Can you drive me and my friend to the theatre?” she asked yesterday, finally coming straight to the point.
“Sure,” I answered. “No problem.” Agreeable, remember?
“And, um, will you buy the tickets?”
“Why?” Oblivious, naturally. I was probably chopping vegetables or something.
“Well,” she hedged. “They might not let us buy them.”
“Why not?” Still not getting it. Or maybe I was distracted by onions.
“Hm… well… it’s a restricted movie.”
Aaaaand the penny dropped.
“Let me get this straight.” I looked at her enormous, blue, beseeching eyes. “You want me to sneak you and your friend into a movie that you wouldn’t otherwise be allowed into because the powers that be deemed it inappropriate for people in your demographic.”
“Uh-huh!” She nodded eagerly.
Now this is a girl who’s seen the first Hangover movie, in the comfort of our home, in the company of her parents. Yes, all the inappropriate content, the foul language, everything. Supervised exposure and open communication about such content has always been my policy. I figure being homeschooled for 10 years puts her behind the times, exposure-wise, so I think of it like a vaccine.
But actively participating in such sneakery? I could probably go along with it if it was just my kid, but her 16-year old friend? Whose parents I haven’t met? You never know what kind of crap could rain down on you. Not comfortable.
Which made her mad. Mad! (We have a close relationship, and she’s a pleaser, like me, so this was something of a breakthrough for both of us.)
But I held firm. Then I pulled out the crisp, rarely-used “Ask your father” card.
Her face fell. This was not the answer she was looking for. In her experience, Mom says yes, Dad says no. Mom encourages, Dad cautions. Mom says “why not?” while Dad tells you the 50 ways it could kill you.
But he surprised her.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll drive you and I’ll stay for the movie, too. In case you need an adult.”
I pretended to be surprised, too. I know he doesn’t get as many chances as I do to be the hero-parent. So today, it’s his turn. And he gets to see a movie that I probably wouldn’t go to with him. (I mean, I’ll watch it at home… if there’s nothing else on… but pay to see it in a theatre? Meh.)
And I get the TV to myself tonight.
Win-win-win.
Day 94 Free-Time Parenting?
In the paper this morning, I read about a 47-year old actress who’s cutting back on work because she needs “… a little more free time to be a mom” to the baby girl she and her husband have recently adopted to go with their four-year old son.
Now, she may be the Super-Mom of the Universe, I wouldn’t know. Maybe she just chose her words poorly. Maybe she’s read all the attachment parenting books, maybe she puts in more time than any other mom at her son’s preschool, who knows, maybe she’s wearing one of those tube-and-bag dealies so she can breastfeed her adopted daughter.
Having a second child at that age is a questionable decision, in my opinion, but hey, maybe her 47 years wear better than mine. (Pretty safe bet, she’s an actress after all.)
Here’s what I do know: it takes more than “a little more free time” to raise children. Parenting isn’t a hobby. It’s not a spare-time deal, a “fun” thing to do once you’ve checked off all your other life goals.
Nor is it necessary. You don’t have to do it. In fact, if you’re waffling on the idea of reproducing, take the hint and Just Say No. It’s okay. The world will manage without your genes being carried forward. And you’ll get to keep traveling, guilt-free and unencumbered.
But most of us still discover parenting by surprise, catapulted into the fast lane of the Grown-Up Highway before we thought much about it. (Surprise, not mistake. No baby is a mistake.) And we’ve found that parenting is the best, most rewarding and most important job of our lives. And bar none, the most difficult. There’s no room for selfishness once a baby enters the picture. Or there shouldn’t be, at least.
As Peter De Vries said, “Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.”
The key is parents who step up and embrace the new maturity a child demands of them, every day, all day long. Not just the free time.
Day 89 & 90 Still on Track! And Inner Conflict…
Yes, that means I did a double day on Friday. It was a calculated risk; at the 9:15 am class, I noticed it didn’t feel as hot as it sometimes does.
“The heater’s not working right,” explained Dan. “It’ll be fixed on Monday.”
Hm, I thought. This is about the best chance I’ve got to do another class in a day without killing myself. So I went back for 3:30 pm.
“Weren’t you here earlier?” asked Angela.
“Yup,” I said. “So if I can’t do much, that’s why.”
But I ended up having a second strong class in the same day. It felt awesome. It completed my 90-day challenge without using my loophole-day on the front end… and… it means I can continue my challenge. New goal: 100 classes in 100 days.
Ten more days… piffle.
*
And today, I spent the day with a group of writers learning about novel structure with Michael Hauge. I learned two things in particular that struck me, as they have to do with Real Life, as much as they do writing. He said that a character arc is the journey a character goes through from living in what he calls his Identity, to moving into his Essence.
I love this concept. Our identities make us feel safe and protected, even if they aren’t healthy. Our identities are who we really believe we are – even though it isn’t, not really – and this ignorance is key, which is disturbing to me because I like to think I’m a pretty self-aware person. But I guess that’s why they call them “blind spots.” If ya could see them, they’d just be called “spots.”
Example: in The Titanic, Rose starts out completely in her Identity as a kept woman, the unhappy fiancee constrained by a man who objectifies her and a mother who sees her as a meal ticket. She clings to this identity, this persona, this mask, so tightly that she’d rather pitch herself into the deep blue, than change. She sees no way out, although obviously, she could just tell her mother and Cal to shove off. But that wouldn’t be something her persona would do, so she can’t. But Jack sees something more in her, and helps her see it herself. He sees her Essence, and helps her gain the courage to embrace this part of herself.
Example: in Jerry Maguire, when Renee Zellweger’s character says about Jerry “I love him for the man he wants to be, for the man he almost is.” (Loosely paraphrased, don’t sue me if it’s a bit off.) She sees beneath the mask he’s constructed, to the Essence of him.
We love to watch characters go through this development from shallow to deeper, from someone who’s immature, afraid, insecure, wounded, and who wears a mask to protect the tremendous vulnerability he can’t even admit is there, and become something more, something better.
That constant tug-of-war between living in one’s identity and living in one’s essence is what inner conflict is all about. I think most of us get that. Super-scary.
“You can be safe and unfulfilled,” says Michael Hauge, “or you can be fulfilled and scared shitless.”
Here’s the message to both ourselves, and our characters: “You can have everything you long for, or need on one condition: you must give up your Identity and live in your Essence.”
Can I write characters like this? Oh, how I hope so.
But more than that, I want to live it.
So what does that look like for me, I wonder?