Category Archives: Motherhood

Hey guys, it’s me.

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I haven’t written in so long.

Not literally. I’m actually writing more than I’ve probably ever written before in my adult life because when the kids went back to school in August I took a look around and realized that I’d spent the last few years getting everyone’s mental health in check and now I had time to return to being me. Not Harmony the mom, but Harmony the writer.

Here I am!

For work, I’m writing other people’s stories; this is the where I share my own.

In March of 2020, my oldest son tried to hang himself. He was 11 years old. My youngest child witnessed the entire thing–she’s the one who alerted me. She was 6 years old. Our middle kid, who was 8 at the time, was in the house but didn’t see it happen.

When we walked through the hellscape that came after, we knew this wasn’t a situation that would easily be resolved with a little medication and therapy. There were multiple people involved, and it’s not easy to find someone with the skill set to help a 6-year-old process the kind of trauma that comes with hearing your older brother say “I’m going to kill myself.”

But the pandemic came, and it smeared a suffocating layer of trauma and worry across our already full Trauma and Worry Plate, and all I could do was focus on doing the next right thing. Which for me, meant not relapsing, because the very last thing these kids need is a drunk mother.

Since then, we have rotated between so many different types of therapies (occupational therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, intensive outpatient therapy) and experimented with so many combinations of medications (under a psychiatrist’s care, obviously) that I consider myself sort of a pro at this sort of thing. But then last year, Asher decided to go and have a total OCD breakdown that almost landed him in the hospital because he wasn’t eating or sleeping, and I turned all of my energy to him. It took almost an entire year of intense work, but he’s so much better — and now he’s seeing a therapist virtually that specializes in pediatric OCD, because HOLY FUCKBALLS IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND A THERAPIST WHO CAN SEE KIDS WITH OCD.

Now that you have a little background, I’m just going to tell you: I’m not sure if I have processed any of this shit. I see a therapist and I do my best to be honest, but there is only so much time and energy I have in a day to devote to falling apart. I have to do it as I can.

Apparently, kids operate the exact same way.

Pepper with her cat, Daisy.

Asher never spoke about the incident with Maverick at all. I tried to talk to him about it, we carefully watched and listened for any sign that he was disturbed or needed to talk or ask questions or share concerns.

Nothing. Crickets.

Three years passed. And then, one random Friday night at the pool several weeks ago, Asher fell apart. He ran home to find his brother and threw his arms around him, sobbing. He kept saying “I just needed to see that he was okay.” It actually relieves me to see him talking about it, because as long as he’s sharing, he’s not bottling it up inside.

Asher just started giving us hugs this summer!

Which leads me to my next point: Pepper and Maverick’s relationship. He felt terrible that she was there to witness the darkest moment of his life. I remember him talking to her, all of us talking about it together. But that was also a week before the pandemic hit and our lives came to a halt, and the older she’s gotten, the more questions she has.

Today I picked her up from Girl Scouts and she asked me, “Why would Maverick want to commit suicide? I’m so mad at him for that.”

My first instinct was to shut it down. I hate talking about it. I hate thinking about it. I hate even considering the idea that any of my children could or would harm themselves, and I cannot even when I hear the word “suicide” come out of my little girl’s mouth. Just nope. She shouldn’t even know what that word means.

I wanted to crank up Taylor Swift and sing Shake It Off and maybe crack a few jokes and distract her until she dropped it. I wanted to dismiss her hard feelings for the sake of my own damn comfort. That’s the same part of me who wants to drink when faced with a super scary thing I don’t want to deal with. I LOATHE FEELING UNCOMFORTABLE. Strangely enough, I keep fucking doing it — being uncomfortable, forcing myself to walk through a situation sober — and I have no idea why I’m putting myself through this torture except that I am literally doing it for my kids. And for myself. And Robbie. But mostly for the kids, because they already have enough problems and I already have enough guilt.

I took a breath and suggested that she talk to him about it.

“But Maverick gets mad at me when I bring it up,” she said. “He doesn’t like to talk about it.”

And that is when I told her no one wants to talk about it, but that’s exactly why we must. I told her he has shame and guilt and horror every time he thinks about it, and she got really quiet. Later on, when we sat down for dinner, I asked Maverick if he would mind talking to Pepper about the time he tried to kill himself because that’s excellent dinnertime conversation.

He inhaled. I watched him do it, watched him brace himself. I could see that he wanted to jump out of his chair and run far, far away, but he didn’t. He stayed put, and quietly said yes, he didn’t mind talking about it. That alone made tears well up in my eyes. That is what years of therapy teaches us: to stay in our seat when we want to run. To look directly into the eyes of our loved ones and be honest with them about our demons.

She asked him so many questions.

She wanted to know what he was thinking, why he would do that to her, why he didn’t consider the fact that she would be TRAUMATIZED and DEPRESSED (she really did say those words much louder than the others) for the rest of her life, and what if she thought it was a good idea too? Then Mom and Dad would only have one kid left.

I asked if they wanted me to leave because it was the most honest and adult conversation I’ve ever witnessed between two children but they both said I should stay. I wanted to leave. I wanted to hide. These kids are just kids and they’re talking about death and depression and self-loathing.

But if they don’t know that it helps to talk about it, how would they ever know to talk about it?

People act like it’s some big mystery, why the world is so chaotic and awful all the time — it’s because no one talks and no one listens and emotional needs are shoved aside and people don’t feel safe to be themselves and assholes breed more assholes and they all try to outasshole each other.

Now I have to get back to work so we have enough money to pay for all of our therapies.

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When doing nothing is the answer

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Why bother?

Because right now, there is someone

out there with a wound

in the exact shape of your words.

***

I saved this image to the desktop of my computer because it’s getting to the point over here where I don’t have the desire to write. Why add my voice to the already-crowded chaos of things happening on the internet? What more is there to say or to add?

The exhaustion of these past few years is taking a toll, and I’ve done everything I can think of to avoid writing. I’ve organized closets, vacuumed cobwebs from the highest corners of our ceilings, picked up paint flakes that my middle child peeled from the inside of his closet, and stared into space for countless hours.

People who aren’t writers don’t understand this. My therapist, who is a therapist, tells me to write. “You’ve put this off long enough, Harmony.” I don’t know – have I? There are still so many completely random tasks I’ve yet to consider doing. Maybe first I ought to sand down the frames of a pair of stained glass windows I bought at an estate sale last summer. I’ll start after that.

***

They tell me it is not my job to take away my child’s pain. Growth comes from overcoming difficulty, and if there isn’t difficulty, then there isn’t growth.

I dislike this tremendously.

I see other parents working to remove their child’s pain. Why can’t I do it, too? I want to rush ahead, clearing a path free from obstacles and difficulties, sweeping sticks and pebbles to the side so that each of my three children could walk barefoot if they so desired.

That is how I show my love: by doing. It suited me in early marriage and parenthood, when there were so many tasks to complete. I showed my love for these people all damn day and half of the time they didn’t even realize it, but I sure did work my ass off doing all of the things. And even though I was resentful as hell and rocketing towards a mental breakdown, I never felt like I was struggling to do nothing.

Doing nothing wasn’t even on my radar.

Over the past few years, mostly through working in therapy and in the rooms of recovery, I’ve learned that sometimes there is nothing to do. Like, DOING NOTHING is very surprisingly often the right thing to do. Talk about a mind fuck for an uptight control freak who overcompensates for what she lacks by doing. This is why I also hate doing recovery work, because this shit infuriates and confounds me.

Right now, I’m navigating a really difficult time in parenting where my job is to sit and quietly listen. There is no shouting across the house. There is no broadcasting “DO YOUR HOMEWORK!” on the Google Home Device. Shouting either falls on Asher’s deaf ears or stresses him out and he ends up in a ball on the floor. He needs me to walk to wherever he is, get down on his level, and ask him in a normal-to-quiet tone to brush his teeth. Then he might need me to say it again once he stands up, because by then he has forgotten what it was that I asked him to do (attention deficit disorder).

Then he will walk into the bathroom, begin counting flooring tiles, and forget again what he was supposed to be doing (obsessive compulsive disorder). By then I’ve usually gone back to the kitchen and it’s 45 minutes later before I find him, still in the bathroom counting, teeth un-brushed.

The deal with Asher is, he is who he is and I am the one who needs to adjust and figure out how to best reach him. He doesn’t respond to the things that work with his older brother, so it’s like re-learning how to parent a 10-year-old all over again. He requires a finesse that I don’t come by naturally, and sometimes, I have to sit on my hands to keep myself from JUST TAKING OVER AND DOING IT FOR HIM, MY GOD. Thankfully I married a man with finesse and patience, and he’s great at taking over when I hit a wall.

I often feel sorry for myself when I’m drowning in the midst of meeting my kids where they are, until something snaps me out of it and I realize how fucking lucky I am to get a front row seat to see these people grow into themselves.

Full stop.

Forcing myself to quietly sit next to my 5th grader while he picks a pencil apart instead of finishing the last few questions on his homework assignment is an exercise in self control I otherwise wouldn’t have. Digging deep and keeping my mouth shut when my kids make choices I know aren’t in their best interest is hard as fuck, but it’s the best thing I can do for them as their mother despite the level of discomfort it causes ME.

Motherhood, from beginning to end, is an exercise in growth. The kids are growing — anyone can see that. But so am I, in ways I didn’t even realize.

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For those who carry a heavy load

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Several weeks ago, during one of my daily sessions of mindless scrolling, I saw a job posting for a Copywriter position at a big company. It was full-time and paid well, so I applied. The weird thing is, I’m not looking for a job. I don’t even have time to have a job.

I routinely do this thing when my life starts to feel overwhelming: I start thinking that the answer to all of my troubles is to get a full-time job, because then I’d have a legit excuse to be somewhere at a specific time and the additional income would easily cover the cost of hired help to shuttle my children to and fro. It would also pay for all the Botox I need after spending two years worrying.

Also in this imaginary scene where I have a job, I could do what Robbie does every morning and just yell “Bye!” as I back out of the driveway, waving out the open window with one dry-cleaned, tailored arm.

Of course, you and I both know that adding anything extra to my plate right now would be a fatal mistake and that’s probably why I got a rejection letter yesterday from that company, despite the fact that my cover letter was fucking amazing.

“This is a form of escapism, isn’t it?” I asked my therapist during one of our sessions, which was a silly thing to ask her because I already knew the answer.

Sometimes parenting these three astonishingly bright, neuro diverse children feels like too high a calling.

No. That’s a lie.

It’s more like it feels like too damn much. I don’t think it’s just me — I know a lot of other mothers who also feel like I do, like we’re drowning in a sea of face masks and parent/teacher conferences and antibacterial wipes — but I can also say, as the parent of children who are amazing but also not exactly normal, that most of the time I am just too exhausted to talk about it.

The reason why the parents of unusual children feel lonely is because they’re too tired from parenting to discuss it or anything else with any other human being. I make myself talk about it because my therapist hounds me every two weeks at my appointment.

“Are you writing?”

She already knows the answer, but she asks it anyway, just like I did with the job application question.

“NO, I’M NOT. Because where do I even begin?”

***

Maverick is now is 13 years old, an age I’m surprised to find that I thoroughly enjoy. For so long, I dreaded parenting a teenager, but now I know my fear was based in the simple fact that I’d never done it before. He’s a joy to spend time with, when he isn’t skulking around moodily, but really, who DOESN’T skulk around moodily from time to time?

His suicide attempt in 2020 marked the beginning of a time that I haven’t fully emerged from or processed completely. It feels like the whole family was on a relatively normal plane ride and then we hit turbulence so violent I still find myself dry heaving into that little blue barf bag tucked into the seat pocket with the boring airline magazines.

The airplane straightened out a bit for awhile. We moved into a new house in a wonderful neighborhood only minutes from the school. We have a big yard and a covered porch and a big grill next to an outdoor TV. There is a community pool. Our quality of life is so much better; I am certainly happier and less frazzled now than I was when I spent 2 hours a day in the car. We love it here.

All of us, that is, except for Asher.

By the time dusk settled on Asher’s 10th birthday, the bottoms of his feet were turning black and blue from stomping barefoot as hard as he could on the slate tile in our kitchen. He was crying because it hurt, but he was unable to stop. We all stood by helplessly, unsure of what to do. I’d never seen anyone, let alone a child, in the middle of a severe obsessive-compulsive episode. Every time he “messed up” (what does that even mean? We may never know), he’d have to start over at the beginning — stomping and counting, stomping and counting. If anyone touched him, he screamed, and it would start all over again.

I have to do this! he yelled, and we believed him. It was obvious that whatever was going on was beyond his control.

Later, as we tried to sing happy birthday, he sobbed because he couldn’t stop washing his hands. He scrubbed for so long that we finally lit his candles, hoping that would help him stop, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.

The candles burned all the way down until there was nothing but a sheet of hardened wax on the top layer of his cake. By the time we finally got him to stop washing and drying his hands, they were raw and bleeding. I sliced the top layer of his birthday cake off and threw it into the garbage.

“PUT IT BACK!” he screamed. “PUT IT BACK!”

I stared into the garbage can and whispered I can’t. And we all cried, except for Robbie.

Just writing about these moments makes me feel exhausted. My arms feel like they’re full of lead. How the hell did we get here and when was the first sign that Asher was struggling? Honestly, who knows. He’s always counted, always collected, always enjoyed rituals. Where is the line between quirky and needing hospitalization?

I’ve learned that it’s impossible to know until you get there.

Both of my sons see a psychiatrist. Asher attends Occupational Therapy twice a week and he started talk therapy today. His new counselor’s views line up with my own in that she feels it’s vital that a child understand how his or her brain works so they can learn how best to manage their own symptoms and triggers. He emerged from her office with a pocket full of random items that he picked up in there — a popsicle stick, a paintbrush, some random colored beads.

“I need my paintbrush back,” she said, extending her hand. He wordlessly handed it back to her, and I detected the slightest hint of a dimpled smile underneath his face mask.

I hope this means they will get along.

***

There is more. Pepper can’t hold scissors correctly or tie her shoes and no one knows why. She struggles with executive functioning and we suspect something might crop up in the future, but in the meantime she’s starting Occupational Therapy and continuing with talk therapy and somehow, between all of the damn appointments, I worry that I’m not doing enough or enough of the right things.

Sometimes I miss drinking. Sometimes I have crazy ideas like I SHOULD GET A FULL TIME JOB and I run with that until I come to my senses. I cry in the bathtub. I talk to people. I sit in the sun.

I take my meds.

I see my therapist.

When I was growing up, people didn’t know as much about mental health, and we certainly didn’t talk about it. Things are different now, and I’m grateful. We are very big on mental health in this house — and the fact that my kids have differently wired brains is something we’re proud of. There’s no shame here.

What do I have, though, is a monstrous, invisible backpack that feels like it’s filled with rocks and I wear it all the time. I’m writing this for the other people out there who have a heavy load, too.

I see you.

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Married to a lady with no memory

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This year, the first day of school happened to fall on a Wednesday, which is also Robbie’s day off. I was an absolute wreck worrying about sending our three children, two of whom are too young to be vaccinated, off to school during this catastrophically huge surge of the Delta variant.

In the days leading up to last Wednesday, it felt like my stomach was chewing itself from the inside out, my hands and feet were constantly sweaty, and I found myself walking in circles around the house, unsure of how to go through with the act of sending them to school during a pandemic. At the same time, thanks to years of therapy and ass-busting work, I managed to project a calm, cool demeanor when I wasn’t sobbing in the bathroom or cramming taffy in my mouth in the pantry. Staying calm on the outside is a skill I’ve worked hard to perfect, and it’s vital in our house because Maverick in particular picks up on my worries and tends to take them on.

Robbie’s way of managing me when I’m panicking like this is to suggest food. The last thing I felt like doing is driving downtown to have a nice lunch — OUR CHILDREN ARE SITTING DUCKS, ROBBIE — but I could see the value of a temporary distraction.

The thing about sobriety is that every so often, things come up from the past. For example, there are times when we’re lying in bed looking for a movie to watch.

“Let’s watch that one,” I’ll say.

“We’ve seen that already,” Robbie will answer.

“What? When?!”

I check the release date: 2015.

That’s when he will sit up a little straighter in bed and tell me exactly where we were and what was happening on the day we watched this movie that I have zero recollection of. And I always feel this strange mixture of sadness, shame, and gratitude because at least if we watch it this time, I’ll remember it.

On Wednesday of last week, when we had lunch at Cecelia’s downtown and he opened the car door for me and held my hand so I didn’t stumble in my wedges, I had another one of those moments. He was backing out of the parking space to begin the drive home and I was staring at my phone when he said something about how public bathrooms are never fun to use, but “nothing will top that time I had to poop in the one with the saloon door in New Orleans.”

I looked up from my phone. “What?”

He stared at me. I stared back.

He cleared his throat and raised his voice, probably thinking I obviously didn’t hear him the first time. “I SAID, NOTHING WILL EVER BE WORSE THAN THE TIME I BLEW IT UP IN THAT HOTEL BATHROOM IN NEW ORLEANS WITH NOTHING BUT A SALOON DOOR BETWEEN ME AND EVERYONE WHO WAS WALKING BY.”

I racked my brain. There was the faintest trace of a possibility that I might recall this happening, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Can you tell me this story from the beginning?” I asked, turning my entire body toward him to make sure not to miss any of the details, because let me tell you, it was the funniest thing I’ve heard in the history of ever.

One of the best parts of being married to a man I enjoy hanging out with is hanging out with him, making fun memories I don’t recall, and then getting to experience it all over again with a clear head. He humors me, and I hope it’s more fun than sad for him to get to re-tell these stories to the woman who lived through them with him the first time, but doesn’t remember a damn thing.

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The catalyst

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Oh, hi.

Want to know the truth?

Since March 2020, I’ve really struggled to write freely, especially here on my blog. How can I, when what I want to write about involves other people? The old Harmony wouldn’t have given writing about other people a second thought. She was haplessly selfish. The new me tries really hard to be truthful, but also careful. And sometimes those lines are blurry and hard to decipher.

So here’s the truth: aside from therapy assignments, and freelance work for Upworthy, I haven’t written anything at all since I don’t even know when. A writer who isn’t writing is either struggling with depression (check), overwhelm (check), or panic (double check). Weirdly, writing is part of what keeps me grounded and relatively sane, so not writing for long stretches of time is a sign that I’m not doing very well.

It’s time for me to start sharing again, telling on myself and getting my thoughts out because it helps keep me accountable and healthy. Also, I started seeing a psychiatrist. I’m doing light therapy which involves shining a very, very bright light at my face for 5 minutes per day until I no longer hate my fellow man.

Happily, I am still sober. This is nothing short of miraculous, and I’m here to tell you that recovery from addiction works if you do the work. Now, let me tell you: the work SUCKS. I simply cannot stress this enough. If you expect sobriety to be an easy ride, you’re gonna be pissed. However, the payoff to this is the ability to make it through a shit show of a year in one piece while the people and systems around you fall apart. Does it suck to be keenly aware of how bad things are? Absolutely yes.

So what keeps me moving forward?

My kids.

In March 2020, just before Covid-19 hit the United States, my oldest child tried to hang himself.

It was a perfect storm: he was stressed out over things that were happening at school. I was stressed out over things happening at school. Tensions were high, and when he’s anxious, he acts out. Even though I know better, sometimes I forget that when Maverick acts out, I have to look beyond the behavior to see the child. In March 2020, I forgot. I was frazzled and exasperated. I yelled at him. Robbie also yelled at him. The entire family was mad at him on that morning before school. His ADHD medication hadn’t kicked in yet, and the thought struck: they would be better off without me.

Of course it’s not true. The thought that entered my son’s head on a loop was a lie, but the voice was loud enough and strong enough to propel him toward gathering a stack of books while I was in my bedroom getting dressed. He took a belt and looped it through a pull-up bar that was in our living room, stood on the makeshift pillar, and put the loop around his neck.

My daughter, who was 6 years old at the time, came running down the hall shouting. I opened my bedroom door and asked her what was wrong.

MAVERICK’S TRYING TO HANG HIMSELF.

That is what she said.

Nothing made sense. That sentence didn’t make sense. Maverick’s trying to what? I don’t know how I got from the hall to the living room. My heart was in my throat. My face was stricken. White as a piece of paper. I caught a glimpse of myself in the round mirror on the wall and I didn’t know who that pale person was. There she is, the lady whose brilliant, creative, amazing kid tried to hang himself.

I couldn’t find him in the house. I was screaming his name and my throat was closing up. He wasn’t standing on the now-scattered stack of books that Pepper was pointing to.

I told her it was going to be okay, even though I had no idea if that was true. I still don’t. I told her she did the right thing and she was an excellent sister, the best sister. She knew to tell me, and I told her over and over, and have many times since, that she did the right thing.

She saved his life that day. She told him not to do it; her yelling at him to stop is what snapped him back to reality.

I found him sitting outside on the driveway, no shoes, holding his belt. His face was also white. We stood in the bathroom together, two matching white faces.

“Brush your teeth,” I said calmly, because even people who are contemplating suicide need to make dental hygiene a priority. He and I robotically got through the next few hours and days and then there was a pandemic that people still seem to be ignoring almost a full 18 months later.

Pepper started eating her feelings and then she started eating her hair. Everyone needed therapy. No one could sleep. And for the first 6 weeks of quarantine my life was a living hell. But then, as you may have read in my last blog post, it eventually got better.

It keeps getting better.

It’s been months since Maverick had thoughts of suicide, but sometimes the voice comes back. Sometimes, it’s louder. He trusts me now enough to tell me the truth.

My thoughts are scaring me again, Mom.

Children who are on the autism spectrum often have co-morbidities. What that means is, they almost always have another diagnosis like ADHD or OCD. Maverick has ADHD and anxiety, which he takes medication to manage. Often, when kids hit puberty and especially if they’re on the spectrum, they struggle with self-harm and/or thoughts of suicide. Multiple studies have been done on the subject and I can tell you from personal experience that my kid is a spectacular human being who also happens to want to end his life from time to time.

This was probably the catalyst for a lot of things I’ve done since then, namely cutting a lot of extra drama out of my life. I don’t have the bandwidth or the tolerance for anything even remotely toxic and I think right now, that’s appropriate. I have to stay sane and sober and strong and present so I can, you know, help my kid stay alive. This situation forced me to create a fortress-like set of boundaries around myself and my family.

Today, we are doing well — all of us. We’re grateful that our support system rocks. I want to stand on the roof of our new house and scream PSYCHIATRY SAVES PEOPLE! Because it does, and also I wish more people who know this amazing fact would talk about it. So many people, including myself, resist the idea of seeing a psychiatrist because that’s for crazy people. Well, no. It’s really not. Because my son isn’t crazy and neither am I.

We have crawled through this difficult time one day at a time, using all of the tools at our disposal. Therapy, meditation, sunshine, exercise, talking, resting, medication, giving each other grace. Every day that Maverick didn’t want to hurt himself and I didn’t drink or punch anyone in the face, we marked a success.

Because it was.

And now we are here, in July 2021. All in one piece. And I still can’t find the words to adequately express my gratitude.

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I have done everything and nothing all at once

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This morning, I received an email from the assistant of a person I admire, like, A LOT, asking what projects I’ve been working on lately.

Because I’m neurotic and very judgmental of myself, I immediately started to panic. What have I been working on? OMG, NOTHING.

I’m 41 years old, still have not queried any agents, and have accomplished exactly zero since the last time we spoke months ago. In fact, as I pondered her email from the floor of my closet, which is where I go to freak out in private, my hands shook as I texted my best friend Audrey.

This perfectly nice assistant is asking me a completely sane and reasonable question — what new projects are in the works? –– and all I could think of was every missed opportunity, every day that I have not written a single word, everything that I have not done.

That’s it: I’m a failure.

“I’ve literally done nothing but move to the new house and keep myself and the kids okay,” I texted Audrey, in all caps to convey the magnitude of my distress.

“OMG HARD STOP,” she replied. “That is ALL you have to do right now. Period, the end.”

Why didn’t I feel like that was enough?

***

Robbie and I bought a house and it’s beautiful. The first and only house we’d ever owned before this one was in Alabama, and we left it to move back to our hometown of Baton Rouge when Asher was born in 2011 and cried for 7 months straight. I needed my mom and his mom and anyone else who would hold my babies for a few hours at a time so I could sleep.

The dream of home ownership remained out of our reach for almost exactly a decade, until one day I got a text from a friend saying that her neighbors were about to put their house on the market. The neighborhood was perfect, 3 minutes from the kid’s school, on the bus route, in the middle of town but also in the woods, with a tight-knit community and a swimming pool. I’d brought the kids trick-or-treating there with friends last Halloween, and the freedom there was palpable. Children ran through yards in herds, ahead of their parents who trailed behind with wagons and flashlights. No one was concerned about their child getting lost because everyone knew everyone.

All I could think was that this was a magical place I didn’t know existed: an actual neighborhood inside the city limits where people cared about each other. It was so refreshing, especially after the difficulties of the pandemic.

“We could never afford it,” Robbie said.

So I put it out of my mind.

One of the things I was told when I first got sober and started working a program of recovery was that I would comprehend the word serenity and that I would know peace. EYEROLL FOREVER. I hated hearing that. I hated knowing that what I was doing, which was slowly killing myself, was no longer working. I hated being wrong, I hated being told what to do, I hated being out of my comfort zone and having to do things I didn’t feel like I had time for like helping another alcoholic.

I mean, seriously. I’m a busy person.

There was so much work to do before I found true serenity, and even longer before I found peace, but I’ve continued to show up and do the work and suddenly I think I might understand what those elusive things mean.

We were able to buy this amazing house with a sprawling backyard and covered patio because Robbie and I have worked our asses off for the past 4 years. I didn’t just get sober: I re-learned how to exist as a human, as a wife, as a partner, and as a mother. At first, I didn’t see how that would translate into concrete life changes. I just thought, okay, I’m happier and my family is healthier, so I kept doing the deal.

But it’s more than that. Not only am I emotionally healthy, but I’m able to show up for my kids when they encounter hard things. Because I’m able to do my job, Robbie has been able to more fully focus on his. And even though the past two years have rocked our family to the core, I remained sober. I kept seeing my therapist. I used all my tools, even the ones I didn’t think I needed, and marveled at how well it all actually worked.

So what have I been doing?

I have been carting myself and my three children to various forms of therapy. I’ve been paying our bills on time and answering the phone when it rings instead of letting calls go to voicemail and not checking it, ever. I’ve tried really, really hard to connect with my children in ways that matter.

They tell me things that matter to them, and they tell me because they can trust me. They’ve had enough positive interactions and enough consistency by now to know that there is no longer a scary mom and a sweet mom, there’s just one person all the time who tries her best.

The answer to the question is that I have finally found serenity, that slippery thing that I wasn’t sure existed.

Hanging out in the hammock.

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Everything you need to know

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How can I sum up the events of Election Week in the year of our lord 2020?

Here you go. Click, press play, sound up, enjoy.

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This is Why Women Seem Angry.

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My friends and I have a working theory that women generally run out of fucks sometime after midlife and that’s why there are so many old women roaming around who simply do not care. I’ve long wondered when I would stop worrying so much.

That time has arrived.

We believe that our fucks ran out ahead of schedule, and the reason why has three main anchoring points.

ANCHORING POINT ONE: The last 4 years.

“What do you mean, Harmony?” Allow me to clarify. THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF LIVING IN TRUMP’S AMERICA.

I have lost respect for so many people. Social media provides a place for literally everyone with internet access to state their opinion and now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are surrounded by racists, people who don’t think racism is a deal breaker, people who grandstand about wanting to close abortion clinics (but don’t want to care for the women and children who are in need), hypocrites, bigots, and religious zealots who cloak all of these things and more under a coat of righteousness.

Clearly, I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that the past 4 years have been depressingly eye-opening, horrifying, and my circle of people continues to grow smaller — which is a good thing. Before 2016, I was living in an alcohol-induced fog where it was easy to pretend that nothing was wrong. I didn’t want to look at anything that made me feel uncomfortable feelings.

That’s gone now. I’m awake, and I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.

ANCHORING POINT TWO: The pandemic.

I mean, what else is there to say? The isolation, the fear, the outrage, the pressure cooker feeling of being in a house for months with three children, only to realize (months later) how much I actually enjoy being at home all the time with my kids BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE IS STUPID.

“But that seems harsh.”

Yeah, it’s actually not. Because a lot of people actually die of this virus. Over 180,000 and counting just in America — and if you try to tell me the CDC cannot be trusted then just do me a favor and never, ever return to this website again because you are shitting on the expertise of every scientist and doctor who have devoted their careers to finding the best ways to care for YOU.

Back to why I hate the general public: why would I want to go anywhere when people don’t even believe that Covid-19 is a real thing? Those dumb motherfuckers could sneeze or cough their ignorance onto one of us and we could become asymptomatic carriers and infect my mother or one of my in-laws and then they would end up dying alone in a Covid unit and we wouldn’t even be able to have a funeral.

So, yes. The pandemic used up the remainder of the tolerance I used to have.

ANCHORING POINT THREE: Racial issues.

See my previous blog post.

Now, I realize this all sounds very gloom and doom and perimenopausal, but it’s actually quite liberating.

For example, I put a Biden/Harris 2020 sign in the front yard. My husband is still arguing that Biden isn’t the best choice and he plans to vote third party, but don’t worry, I’ll keep working on him.

In the meantime, our sign blew over in the wind so I went out to stand it back up. Two doors down from us, a tree service was removing one of our neighbor’s rotting trees. There were about 7 (white, very strong-looking) men standing around on the sidewalk staring at me while I adjusted my sign. I looked over at them and waved hello.

Not one of them waved back.

They just stared — not with interest, but with disgust and possibly disbelief. I actually delighted in knowing that I was ruffling their feathers, because yes, I am a white woman who refuses to accept our current administration’s vision of “Making America Great Again.” In fact, it turns my stomach.

While I’m sharing about things that turn my stomach, I’ll add to my list the people who think it’s okay to shame women who visit Planned Parenthood.

“Why is that, Harmony? Have you had an abortion?”

No, thankfully I have never had to make that impossible decision. However, I believe that Planned Parenthood is an important organization and here is why: when I was in my early twenties, not in school, and working a minimum wage job without insurance coverage, that is where I had to go in order to get a prescription for birth control pills. It was $80 to see a doctor and it was a struggle for me to scrape that money together.

Also, every other woman I saw in the waiting room was white, just so you know.

Had I not had Planned Parenthood, what other choice would I have, really? I’ll tell you. I would have had to depend on my partner to always wrap it up, and I wasn’t willing or able to believe that he would. Most men from my generation were brought up to believe that birth control is the woman’s problem and their thought process ends there. Kind of like how dinner is also the woman’s problem — same school of thought. As an aside, my sons already know that where their ejaculate goes is actually their responsibility, but that’s another topic for a different day.

Some people would say I shouldn’t have been having sex outside of marriage, and to those people I’ll say this: that archaic, Bible-based idea is something I one hundred percent reject. I won’t even have the discussion.

Had I not had Planned Parenthood and I did accidentally end up pregnant at that really stupid age, I would not have chosen to get married before I was ready to, nor would I want someone else to decide for me whether or not I was going to carry a child. Because no one can make that decision for another person.

Even people who think they are ready to become parents (exhibit A and B, Harmony and Robbie) aren’t ready to become parents. People who never wanted a kid in the first place? Those children are the ones who truly suffer. I hope that all of the staunchly pro-life people out there can find a way to band together and figure out how to give unwanted babies safe and secure homes, because the government has FAILED AT THIS.

(See also: the foster care system.)

So back to the fact that I am out of fucks. The longer this pandemic drags on, and the more people continue to refuse to do basic things like put on a damn mask to keep other people safe, and the more I notice how people mistreat those who are different or speak about them in a way that’s really not okay, the less I care about what any of those people think.

And it is awesome.

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Removing Body Parts During A Pandemic

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Okay … having Asher’s tonsils and adenoids removed during a pandemic was not actually a “nightmare.” It was an intensely stressful experience that likely aged my appearance several years.

The nightmare was the part where our recently-paid-off, 2-year-old refrigerator stopped working and Robbie had to run out and buy a mini fridge literally the night before the surgery so that we’d have a place to keep our popsicles. But before that, I spent the better part of an hour on the phone with a Customer Service representative from LG. During that time, she took down my name, address, phone number, email address, the model and serial number of the refrigerator, and the information on the repair company who told me the compressor was out.

Why did giving LG that information take almost an hour?

GOOD QUESTION.

The second part of the nightmare occured when Robbie (pictured below) dropped me and Asher off at the house after his surgery and immediately went shopping for a new refrigerator and did not return for the better part of the afternoon.

It took much longer than anticipated because Robbie is in sales and therefore he takes no bullshit from sales people. I genuinely feel sorry for the sales people who come into contact with my husband. He not only takes their tactics, twists them around, and somehow turns the situation in his favor, but he can also do math in his head at a startling speed and often calculates the prices two steps ahead of the person who is supposed to be “helping” him.

After spending a significant amount of time dealing with a salesman that Robbie later deemed to be incompetent, he took our business elsewhere to Best Buy where he found a unicorn of a fridge with all of the things we wanted for a way low price because someone stuck the wrong price tag on it. Until it is delivered, we’re making it work.

This thing is housing all the ice cream.

Asher is 8 years old. He is a quirky conundrum — delightful, but puzzling. He requires patience like all children, but I’m learning that there is a very specific brand of patience that he needs from me and it’s the kind I don’t come by naturally.

He is a quiet little guy. He shuts down if people are too loud, look too long, press too hard with questions, or are in any way aggressive. So that’s tough, because I am kind of aggressive when I’m under stress. It’s one of my biggest hurdles as an adult because when I’m agitated, I just want to burn shit down. I am extreme. I’m working on it, so moving forward, let’s just call it “passion” and “energy,” okay?

Right now, during the pandemic with all of the uncertainty which is another thing I don’t deal with very well, I have to work really hard to stay calm and even and kind and keep my voice at a normal level instead of screaming WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKING HELL IS HAPPENING NOW at my laptop or cell phone screen.

Because I have passion and energy.

I was prepared for the worst. I expected Asher to hemorrhage from the throat or come out of anesthesia throwing up and I thought everything at home would be terrible.

None of those things turned out to be true, thank goodness.

He’s been a really, really easy patient. His brother and sister have been SO sweet and kind and my belief in our ability to raise good people is bolstered.

We finally figured out that mixing his pain meds with Sprite is the easiest way to get him to cooperate. He’s been eating a tiny bit, mostly ice cream, smoothies, and yogurt, but mostly he’s just drinking water because my second biggest fear after throat hemorrhage is dehydration so I push water on him passionately and energetically.

I’d like to give a shout out to my friend Jess, a working mom of 4 whose husband also works in the car business and is not home much, for bringing that yellow ice chest full of ice to our home. I wanted to hug her, but instead I smiled and waved and prayed that our family doesn’t end up giving her family the virus.

I prayed both passionately and energetically, so I’m sure it worked.

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