Sanity Survival...Getting To Know You

  

     If there’s one thing I can impart to people considering starting a family: Get to know who you are first – not what your parents and others expect you to be  -  and make your communication with your spouse work before you begin this endeavor that occasionally feels like ‘sanity survival’  Perhaps this could be considered, “Step One”?

     You have to have a strong ally, so it may as well be your spouse.  Once the older kids see dissension in the ranks, it’s over. (A toddler just starting to talk qualifies here.)  There’s no Family United Nations Council of treaty to bail you out of the trials…Best advie is to start with a united front.

Good luck with that.

     Seriously, family life is a blessing, but no one ever said that being a mom would be easy.  As a matter of fact, they never said anything.  I had no idea parenting could be so challenging.  I bought into the idea that you, “Find the right man and it’s happily ever after.” I’d love to see that Cinderella sequel.

What?  There isn’t one? It’s not all wonderful?

No, because real life is sometimes not so wonderful.  In fact it can be downright hideously ugly and messy.  To have joy, you have to know and occasionally experience pain.  And yes, hopefully learn something from that pain.

     That nonexistent ‘Cinderella’ sequel might just depict Cinderella after the honeymoon, as suddenly dismayed by the reality that her newfound ‘Prince Charming’ is not always charing, and neither is his mother, the Queen.  In fact, his once impeccable characteristics, including listening skills began to abate after that first little prince or princess arrived.

     In addition to that, ‘Charming’ may have started packing on the royal pounds around the middle, started staking more of an interest in fox hunts, Polo, the ladies in waiting, and a multitude of other things that never before surfaced of seemed important when they married at the palace.  But hey, at least young, naïve princess has her governess, her shoe tailor, direct access to the royal wine cellar, and maybe the good-looking stable boy.

Okay, a little too much embellishing with this ‘fairy tale’.

I am far from a princess, so, I have to laugh at the challenges life throws me.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely joy in marriage and parenting…laughter certainly enriches everything.  Especially, when we question where the balance is and sometimes feel a little out of control.  (Thanks to little people who don’t know how to rationalize…O.K. – some big people too.)

     Emily Dickinson once said, “A little Madness in the spring, is even wholesome for the king.”  In this case, “Queen”.

     Humm…Are we talking, “straight jacket:  “Mommy, I mean the the Queen, needs to go away for a little while, madness?” Or maybe just, The Queen needs a new pair of shoes and a mood stabilizer, Madness?  How about the rest of the seasons there, Emily?

     The second motherhood begins; we get to practice our damage control skills on a daily basis.

 

“What’s behind curtain no. 1 Bob”  (wait, now it’s DREW?)

“I don’t know, but you better know how to manage it and positively, so you don’t screw this ‘PRIZE’ up for life”

“Hurry…CHOOSE”  No pressure there.

“Daily Hidden Doors, Bob...Drew?”

“Do I reeealllly want to play this game?

  “O.k., maybe just not every day.”

“Oh, I HAVE to?”

“Well, can I at least have a few of those aging, blond assistants to help me?

…”No fair, Bob.”

  

     So, we labor and we give birth and we immediately fall in love with these little miracles God gives us…as He’s laughing!

“Yea, fall in love now. Heh heh heh…that’s it, tears of joy.  Yea, you’re going to have to work for joy later and that possible ‘wisdom’ pay-off.

     More tears of joy…and with that joy you will later receive pain and frustration and a plethora of emotions.  That’s right, the whooole gamut.  All so you can grow too.  But you’re completely smitten with this beautiful little being and you completely succumb.

     Yes, my children bring me insurmountable joy, but they can also make me absolutely, certifiably CRAZY at times.  Marriage and Motherhood take you through emotions and experiences we couldn’t fathom we would know before starting a family.  One moment you are content, grateful for all that has been bestowed upon you; full of energy, perhaps even blissfully happy…Joy.

Then?

Without the slightest warning, you feel as though your nerves have been hijacked by some invisible, possibly evil force or alter personality that just thrust you into the ninth circle of hell.  Odds are that you may even be in public while this is occurring.  You may feel as though you could write an appendix to Dante’s, Inferno.   There can be some intensely defining moments!  Options such as running away to become a backup singer for Sting actually becomes a “sane” consideration..for just a moment or few hours; but a moment or few hours later, reality delivers the fact that I have to acknowledge that I can’t sing or leave my children.  Escape for a bit.  He has a beautiful villa in Tuscany.

     I have to look at daily challenges as a means of strengthening my character and wisdom. (I hope) If that were not the case then, well…God would be cruel.  I can’t believe that, so I am buying into the ‘strengthening’ thing  I certainly don’t think He wants me crazy, or Betty Ford bound…of something like that.

     Soooo – it’s Frick & rack meander through marriage & parenting by way of trial & error, a lot of apologies, lessons and thankfully laughter to carry us- to wherever it is we are supposed to be.

     Back to that twelve-step-program.  Let me introduce myself.  I’m Libby Rouleau, thirty-seven years old, married for twelve years, artist, and mom to three children: Jack (10), Will (8), and Anna (4).  All are wonderful; all industrious in their own delightful, yet sometimes maddening way.  They are beautiful, colorful and complex.  There’s really no other way to concisely describe all three.

     My husband, John, grew up in Maine…wonderful French, Canadian family, and of course, the perfect mother.  John is very organized, task-oriented, and truly, ‘Mr. Acts-of-Service’.  I, on   children.  No.  Way off now.

     Oh, what time can reveal!  One very important thing that I have recently discovered is that a key component to having that “good ally”, communicating well and understanding each other, is to look at how your families handled conflict when you were growing up and unfortunately, now too.

     On my side of the family?  Conflict is considered recreational.  I screen all of my calls, texts, and emails for this reason.  John’s side of the family avoids conflict at all costs-  they keep conversations to the surface and don’t know anything about each other.  For example, John’s Dad is one of fifteen siblings, and his mom was one of nine siblings. (Did these women not figure out their cycles?)  John and his only sister, Johanne, do not know a single cousin, and have met only one aunt.  I certainly questioned John about this.  Hello? Quebec is not that far from Maine, even by horse.  I just don’t comprehend why a family does not get together with grandparents & extended family on at least a limited basis, or perhaps talk on the phone?

John didn’t know either.

     John’s Dad, Gil, recently mentioned during a conversation that his sister-in-law, (John & Johanne’s only known aunt) “Ma Tante Mariel”, had died. 

John was visibly very upset and asked when, so we could go to the funeral in Quebec.  His father replied,  “Oh, she died four years ago”…

Put down the phone.

Okay?  She died four years ago and we are just now hearing about it?

It took five years for Gil to hold a Catholic funeral for his wife, Ghislaine.  Sadly, she died at the early age of fifty-seven due to being given an overdose of medication for mere complications due to menopause.  John and I had just started dating when this happened, and I unfortunately, never had the opportunity to meet her.

     Ghislaine was cremated immediately upon her death, and sat in a box on a shelf in John’s sister’s closet for five years.  Now she rests in a mausoleum in a town & state where she has never visited.

     I hope Gil called her remaining siblings after her death!  After all, some of them may still think she’s alive after thirteen years.

We don’t know….they don’t talk about it.

 

     John and I met fourteen years ago while working together at MCI Telecommunications. (a very large Telecommunications company), and now he is an IT Analyst with a competing company.  I stay home with the kids and have an art studio from which I write, paint and sell mostly nursery paintings to a few local boutiques or on commission.  I also substitute teach at the kids school and work a few hours a week as a strength trainer at the YMCA.  Interesting how that came to be, as I didn’t even know the difference between my biceps and triceps when they asked me to be a strength trainer and I was hired to be in marketing.

“You want to tone up what?  Ughhh, excuse me what’s a glute?”

…No lawsuits yet.