Solitude

postsecret.com

Once again, I'm linking up with Mad Jackie for Secret Sunday.

Most days, it takes my children over an hour to actually settle in and nap.  Many, many times I've been advised to let them off the hook- to let them play alone in their room, or to make it "quiet time" instead of "nap time," but I can't.

You see, I treasure my children's nap time.

It's the only time during the day that I get to be almost alone.

I used to be alone a lot of the time.  Through pretty much all of my teenage years, I didn't sleep.  I would spend each night, alone, wandering the town on foot or entertaining myself in my bedroom.

I really treasured my alone time.  I loved how my parents' old neighborhood seemed to just belong to me in the wee hours of the morning.  I would pilfer flowers from neighbors gardens, and leave mystery roses in front of strangers doorways.  I figured everyone could use a little romance and mystery in their lives.

Or I would write.  Or I would paint.  Or I would read, endlessly.

When I moved to Chicago, I gave up my nighttime wandering after one or two excursions.  It seemed like a remarkably foolish thing to do, blind alleys everywhere, threatening strangers... You aren't actually alone when you walk in the city at night.  Even after leaving downtown, heading to the far north of the city, I still wasn't alone at night.  I learned the hard way that there is a special kind of night life in places that are, literally, full of people.  And no matter how appealing it might sound to wander off to the beach at two in the morning, there are a whole host of reasons why it shouldn't be done.

When I lived in the dorms for my art school, I was lucky enough to have a roommate who had a boyfriend in town.  I almost always had the place to myself.  One summer with a roommate (who had a VERY active social life and was never home) and then I moved into my studio apartment.

Alone.

It's odd- I have always been a profoundly social person.  I have always loved the company of other people, I have always tried to make my home, my space, a place where all of my friends felt welcome.  A place of gathering.  Dinner parties, couch crashers, lunch dates, art nights...  My home has always been a hub.

When M and I moved in together, we picked an apartment where I could still have *my* space.  My studio, but more than that.  A place where I did my private things.  Personal things.  A place that was just mine, and that I didn't have to share.  A place where I could still be alone.

And that didn't work out so well.  With M's diagnosis, our home was always full of family- it was a huge perk of having chosen the apartment we did- the extra space could house more guests.

And then we had babies.

And I haven't actually been alone since we had babies.

I used to relish my drives to school in the morning.  It was the closest to solitude that I could get.

I love my children.  I am constantly awed by them, always proud of them, and my sense of blind luck in having two such incredible little people as my children humbles me every day.  As much as I never doubted that I would love my children, I never expected it to be quite like what it is.  How I can wipe their noses and their butts day after day and be truly ambivalent to the ickiness 90% of the time, and still find so much profound joy in the smiles they give me while I do it.  I just also wish that for even a few hours a month, I could just... be alone.

The things I wish I could still do are very simple.  I wish I could wander around my house singing Les Mis in full character.  I wish I could take long baths.  I wish I could nap in the sunny spots on the carpet.  I wish I could read every book I've picked up with the intention of reading in the last four years.

But I don't get to be alone.  Not really.

My children are very good about keeping to themselves when I want them to.  They're very cooperative about playing together so I can get things done.

But they decided ages ago that whenever I sing, I must be trying to put them to sleep.  I can't sing showtunes in my pajamas without two tiny critics shouting me down.

I can't soak in the tub with a glass of wine and a book of esoteric philosophy.  I can't spend hours poring over my OED.

Yes- I used to do that.

I do miss being alone, but more than that I miss feeling alone.  There is something remarkably comforting about solitude.  Something soothing in knowing that the only person who gives a damn what you're doing at that moment is yourself.  I think that solitude is healthy.

I am actually looking forward to the fall so much I can hardly believe it.

This fall, SI and DD will *hopefully* be starting pre-school.  And I'll be left for three hours each day alone with Baby X.

Baby X, who will be three months old, and probably still be sleeping a lot.

Baby X, who *hopefully* will not object to my singing.  Who will *hopefully* be the sort of easygoing child that SI and DD were as infants.

And- incredibly- for the first time I will find myself at home with only one baby.

It sounds so easy right now I almost can't believe it.

Only one baby...

It will almost be like being alone.

Marijuana as Medicine and Illegal Parenting

I'm linking up again with Secret Sunday- this time for my End of the Month Controversy!

What feels like an extremely long time ago, I wrote a post about women's health issues and marijuana.

I didn't write that post because I'm some sort of enormous pot head.  I didn't write it because I had been looking for an excuse to be stoned my whole pregnancy with the girls.  I wrote it because the information I found about cannabis as medicine was utterly fascinating.  And learning all about something that could have REALLY helped me get through a very difficult pregnancy made me very, very angry.
 
Every time a major study has been done to look for all the bad things that marijuana is supposed to do to people, it finds the opposite results.  Yet it is still illegal in most of the United States, and in states where it IS legal the judicial branch of the government is doing everything in their power to keep people from having access to it.

I think about hyperemesis gravidarum, which can kill the women suffering through it, and knowing that something as simple as a gram of marijuana a week can practically cure their symptoms makes me so angry.

I think about women at risk for pre-term labor, and the fact that maternal use of marijuana helps a fetus develop its lungs- the last organs to completely form before birth- seems incredibly important and helpful.  How many preemies might get out of the NICU sooner, or avoid it all together, is they had properly developed lungs?

And then I think about myself, and all the pregnant women I know.

Women who are unable to keep food down, or who can't maintain their appetites.
Women in constant pain, who are unwilling to take narcotics that have been proven time and time again to be dangerous to a fetus.
Women who are trying to deal with depression and fear, and who can't use traditional anti-depressants or anxiety medications.

And I would like very much for all of us to be able to smoke a bowl and feel better.

Sadly, that isn't going to happen.

Despite the fact that pregnancy lasts for nearly a year, it's just not considered a "chronic condition" like cancer, or MS.  So even in states where medical marijuana is legal (and more importantly- SAFE), no doctors will prescribe it to a pregnant woman.

Despite the fact that studies done of childbirth in pro-cannabis cultures show that infants have a higher survival rate when the nursing mother uses cannabis (which stimulates the infant's suck reflex and as a result causes them to nurse more effectively), doctors in medical marijuana states will not prescribe nursing mothers cannabis either.

Still, doctors prescribe drugs to pregnant women that are NOT safe.  Antibiotics that can build up immunities in the fetus, pain killers that can cause addiction, and even Tylenol has been proven less that harmless.  (For those of you unaware, several years ago research concluded that showed Tylenol use in pregnancy can cause infertility in male fetuses.  While that might not be directly dangerous, I would certainly say that being infertile as an adult may have a serious impact on happiness and quality of life- so no thank you, I'd rather not risk it.)

I'm pregnant, and the fact of the matter is that I am just plain dreadful at pregnancy.  Between the constant pain of my symphasis pubis dysfunction, the appetite and nausea problems caused by my pregnancy-induced gall bladder disease, and the incredible stress of simply being pregnant while taking care of two toddlers and going to school- not to mention the continual melanoma related anxiety- is enough to make anybody truly miserable.

And having read those studies, all those carefully monitored and vetted and peer reviewed articles, after spending years seeing the news of new things they've learned that THC can do to heal human bodies...

It makes me angry that there is SAFE* medicine that I can't access.

That even if I lived in a state where medical marijuana was available, nobody would give it to me.  Although it's probably the safest and healthiest medicine I could possibly use during a pregnancy.

...

I have always believed that people are generally best at governing themselves.  That there are some good laws, but that the majority of them are simply in place because groups of people- not people on an individual level- are idiots.  Speed limits are set because people feel the need to compete on some absurd level on the highway.  Most people by themselves are responsible drivers who know when a car is going as fast as it safely can or should go.  In fact, almost every public safety law pretty much conforms to that idea.

But drug use is sort of different.  There ARE drugs that people can't self-regulate.  And, sadly, some of those are the legal ones.  Alcohol is deadly in large doses, tobacco is deadly in much smaller doses, and caffeine has hosts of health problems it can cause or exacerbate.  Prescription drugs, so easy to legally obtain, can be even worse.  And frequently are.

Among the illegal drugs in this country, there are some that are indisputably bad.  There is no single person on this planet that can responsibly use crack cocaine.  And the likelihood that somebody can actually self regulate the use of powder cocaine or heroin is borderline laughable.

But marijuana?  Marijuana can kill people, yes, if you bludgeon them over the head with a bong or choke them on a plastic baggie.  But the plant itself literally cannot.  The human body only has THC receptors in places that do not effect critical function- you can only react to THC with parts of your brain that have no relation to your autonomic nervous system, and your uterus.

Seriously, if you haven't you should read my review of Women and Cannabis.

So we continue to lock people away for years and years for using a substance that is, in fact, harmless.

Not just less harmful than alcohol, HARMLESS.

Yes, I would very much like to be stoned through much of my pregnancy.  I would like that.  I would like to be using a medicine that allowed me to function pain free and relieved my anxiety and restored my appetite.

But if I deliver a baby, and I or the baby test positive for marijuana?

Then I go to jail, not just for having used it, but for child endangerment.  And that, as absurd as it is, is something I am simply not going to risk.

I have always said, the things that you do to make yourself a good parent are GOOD PARENTING.  But what if those things are illegal?  What if in order to get through my day, to take care of my children while M is at work and then at school, I must break the law?

Is it better for me to be a good parent, or to make sure that I am with them rather than in jail?

And what kind of example am I setting, obeying a wrong and arbitrary rule when all fact and evidence and necessity prove that the rule is wrong?

I don't know.  I don't know if it's better to be hungry and in pain and angry when my potty training children are peeing on the floor, or to smoke two hits of pot and get down on the floor to clean up those puddles without crying or swearing when the consequences are that severe.

But the laws against marijuana as medicine are bad laws.  And the ideas we have about using marijuana as treatment for chronic conditions need to include conditions, like SPD, that last 8-10 months.  Or like hyperemesis gravidarum, that lasts the entire duration of a pregnancy.

When studies show that day old mice with their THC receptors blocked die 100% of the time, it's time to consider that maybe we have those THC receptors for a reason.

And when studies show that THC can not only alleviate the symptoms associated with cancer, but can actually CURE cancer, we have to start thinking differently about marijuana as a "drug" versus marijuana as a "medicine."

I would like to treat my medical condition, pregnancy, and the very unpleasant conditions associated with it with this kind of medicine.  But I can't.

And that is simply ridiculous.




*The only negative effects found in children of women who smoke during pregnancy were that with VERY heavy users- approximately 30 grams (an ounce) each day- the children of those pregnancies were approx. 30% more likely to develop ADHD.

Whole People

One thing they do have in common is how much I love them.

I really wanted to do this last night, but I was far too busy helping M put together our massive new collection of bookshelves and editing a new header for this blog (my babies are big girls now!).

I've been following PostSecret since I discovered the concept in Found Magazine.  I think that was probably nine or ten years ago now.  I anxiously waited until Sunday to check the livejournal feed every week, and there are secrets from the beginning that still haunt me.  I remember one, written on an unfilled prescription slip, by a person who couldn't find a way to tell his wife she was going to die.

PostSecret, 2005

And then there are some, like this Hitler secret, that still crack me up.

Living in the Central time zone is great, because it means that a lot of weeks, I actually get to read the secrets on Saturday night.  It feels like cheating, but it's something I still look forward to constantly.  I can't tell you how close I've been to sending in dozens of secrets, but each time I realize that my secret is something that shouldn't be a secret.  That I have people I care about that I can confide in, and that it's a healthy thing to do for me to take advantage of that.  I know how lucky I am.  I know how isolated and alone I felt back when I did lead a life full of secrets, and mostly secret pain.

I think that PostSecret isn't just an incredible art project, it's a public service.

At any rate, yesterday I discovered Mad Jackie's weekly event, Secret Sunday.  It's a weekly link-up and writing exercise.  You go through the week's secrets, pick one, and use it as a writing prompt.

I also freakin' love a good writing prompt.

Unfortunately, this week yielded a surprisingly small collection of secrets.  I think that's because Frank Warren, the creator/administrator/curator of PostSecret is still posting secrets from the short-lived iPhone app. So I went back a bit, I'm not sure how far, and picked out this one.  As it sort of speaks to something that I frequently find myself internally drafting diatribes about.

People feeling the need to label my twins.

www.postsecret.com

I don't feel like in my family we split up "pretty" and "smart" genes.  We split up "crazy," "smart," "funny," and "creative."

Lucky us, there are more "crazy" genes than anything else.

But people really are determined to label children as soon as possible.


When they were newborns, and M and I would take them somewhere- say, to a restaurant or a hospital waiting room- bystanders would ask me, "Which one is the quiet one?"  "Which one is the social one?"

It's constant, and it has never stopped.

Because there are two of them, they must represent different traits.  One must be smart, one must be pretty.  One must be quiet, one must be troublesome.  One must be a good sleeper, while one must be a good eater.

I don't see people do this as much with singletons, but it still happens.  And the fact is, it's so pervasive that children do it to themselves.

My children aren't simply aspects of a person that opposes a different aspect.  My children are people.  That means that they have moods, they have funks, they have passing whims.  Yes, right now SI constantly asks for help.  That doesn't make her "the needy one," that means that she's figured out that when she says, "Help, mommy!" I might do something for her that she thinks is a little too much trouble.

DD is picking up whole phrases and using them in context right now, that doesn't make her "the verbal one."

They're both people.

They're people with preferences and quirks.

Just like anyone else.

Aunt Something Funny, me, and Aunt Genocide

I think they get it worse as twins, but this was the case with my sisters and I.  I always considered Aunt Something Funny to be "the smart one."  I always considered Aunt Genocide to be "the funny one."  At different times in my life, I was intensely jealous of them for that.  I tried very hard to present myself as "the creative one."

But Aunt Something Funny isn't "the smart one."  She's one of three girls, born within about three years, who are all very, very smart.  She was the best at telling adults when they were wrong, she did have the best ability to recall impressive vocabulary, or identify specific dinosaurs.  She got good at Scrabble first.  She was also the oldest.

Aunt Genocide isn't "the funny one."  She's one of three girls, very close in age, who are all very, very funny.  She was the best at clowning around for a crowd, she was the best with a biting comeback, or a hilarious one-liner.  She also felt from a very early age that there was no way she would ever be "as smart" as her older sisters.  Which is a belief that, I'm sorry to say, Aunt Something Funny and I encouraged.

I wasn't "the creative one."  I was one of three sisters right behind each other in school who had a variety of talents.  I might have had the most drive to perform, I might have had the most art supplies in my rooms, I might have listened to the most progressive music, but I certainly didn't monopolize creativity.  Aunt Something Funny is a brilliant writer.  Truly brilliant.  I've reread one issue of her zine, published about a decade ago, more than almost any other book I own.  Aunt Genocide is an amazing photographer.  Really.  Even if she's decided that her passion lies more with her "smart" pursuits in academia.

Not "the boisterous one."

And we're all crazy.  And yeah, we all have our opinions on who is the craziest.  But frankly, there are enough kinds of crazy going around that we can all have our own.

The idea of teaching my children that they are whole people, not defined by their similarities or differences to each other, has been important to me since I first learned I was having twins.  I see so many other multiples- and their parents insist on dressing them identically.  What does that say about them?  That they exist only as reflections of each other?  That in fact, they are only one social entity?

How would I have felt if I constantly matched my sisters?

I would have felt even more that I needed to identify myself- to be "the creative one."  Because aside from that, I would have had no other distinctions.  I would have been simply part in a collective person.

I wouldn't be Lea the individual, I would be Lea of "The Borenstein Girls."

Just as DD and SI wouldn't be DD and SI, they would be, "The Twins."

They'll probably never get away from being, "The Twins."  No matter what I do, it's going to happen.  Just as I was lumped into the unit of my sisters, they'll be lumped into the unit of their twindom.

And yes, I've been guilty of dressing them alike.  Or as complements to each other.  But only as a special occasion thing- only for a picture, or for a big family event.  For something that they will understand as "not the way things normally are."  But each time I do it I feel ashamed.  Because being a twin isn't just a cool trick they can do.  It's a facet of who they are.  And I have no right to make a spectacle of that without their consent.

No, she's not "the sweet one."

I'm sure that it will be easier for them to actualize as individuals being as visually different than each other than it would be if they were identical twins. But they're not- no more than I am identical to MY sisters.  They just happened to be born at the same time.  And that means that they are automatically perceived as being part of a set- incomplete without each other.

I just wish that the rest of the world would stop treating it as some sort of novelty act.  One person, with traits divided between two bodies.

They are TWO people.  In some ways similar, in others, not at all alike.

Just as any two people in the world might be.









...and for those of you reading through a platform that doesn't actually show you my blog- the new header:

"Becoming SuperMommy!"