Tea and chocolate

These past two months have really thrown me off my internal keel.  It started with a series of impossible (mostly self-imposed) deadlines before Christmas – finish the next children’s book, write 200 pages of my novel, work on a short story, structure the “Cooking with Mika cookbook, and finish my website – made even more impossible by the early holiday closure of Manika’s school due to two cases of hand food and mouth disease.  Pressure started.  Christmas gifts nearly fell to the wayside in the process (see last posting!)


Then I had three weeks of guests (my whole family!) over Christmas, which was totally great but really crunched my ability to get anything else done.  Just when they left, Manika entered this cranky wintery cycle – sort of tired one day, sort of not well another.  She began bouncing in and out of moods (and even missed two days of school) causing lots of night wakings, neediness and general “I want mommy’s” that couldn’t have arrived at a more inconvenient time. 


I really began to wonder why I had children, and then I began to wonder why I was wondering that, and that of course led me to feeling like a horrible mother. 


So, like any good guilt-ridden mother, I sped up and tried to do more.  I booked play dates on top of yoga classes, hauled Manika off with me to an afternoon of test cooking recipes, scheduled time to specifically play with Avik.  I eventually booked myself out solid every day, weekends included, up until the start of Chinese New Year (today).


The result was sheer hyper-productivity in a way that I haven’t experienced since my investment banking days, when sun up and sun down seemed to be two fingers touching in the sky.  In some ways, it was incredibly rewarding.  My illustrator and I will be featured in the Shanghai Literary Festival this year (a big deal out here!), we’ve got some really big book readings coming up, our next titles are humming along and the biggest English bookstore in Shanghai has “Mika the Picky Eater” front and center.  It’s amazing.


But the byproduct (and there always is one, particularly of an overheated engine) has been too much hot steam.  I decided to exercise more to balance myself out.  No luck.  I built sleep back into my schedule.  Didn’t happen.  I tried to cram less into a day, focus more on the kids.  That never works for me.  I tried to find a new tv serial to distract me at night (used to be Mad Men – oh where or where are they?) but to no avail.


And so the imbalance continued, causing me to become a rather cranky unhappy person all over again, this time because I have too much work.  Same refrain, different song title.  I think I will never ever be happy. 


I began to bounce around more dramatically than Manika, mostly to my husband. 


One crunched morning to Suresh:  “This is crazy.  I should just stay home with the kids.  What the hell am I doing?  And I’m sure you would like that better too, your barefoot pajama-clad wife packing lunches for you again.”


Suresh, looking down at his feet while heading towards the bathroom: “Whatever makes you happy honey.”


One afternoon (same week) with a sick Manika:  “If I don’t get out of here and do something, like RUN A COMPANY, I am going to go crazy. 


Suresh: “Whatever makes you happy honey.”


One weekend day (with sick Manika sleeping in the stroller while I test cooked tahini noodles): “This is awesome!  Look at all the strands of my life coming together!  Cooking, writing, family!”


Suresh: “I’m very glad you’re happy.”


One morning after sleeping with Manika all night, listening to her cough: “I am the most selfish mother in the world because I really want to just leave her at a doctor’s office and pick her up when she’s better.  Social services needs to call me up.”


Suresh: “You’re a very good mother.  You’re just frustrated now.  Wait it out, and take an hour to do something that makes you happy.”


Smart man, right? 


It started to make me crazy – his immoveable responses to my pinball psyche.  In yoga, I chastised myself for not having a “present mind” by stretching farther than my muscles deemed necessary.  Two days later, I threw out my back. 


At home, I cleaned obsessively, tearing out all of my now apparently toxic kids floor tiles and running all around Shanghai to find the only formamide-free replacements – imported Playspot.  I checked all other toys and foods for toxicity while I was at it, and spent two days in a cold sweat dwelling on how I was basically feeding my kids cancer. 


I made enormously long and incongruous checklists: buy milk, show ayi a baby cpr video, call Mr. Chen on next book shipment, order a chicken, pay mortgage, finish due diligence report, yoga.  I checked through them, ignoring breakfast, ignoring lunch, giving myself an equally enormously long headache. 


Then last night, I finally crashed, angry with myself for not being smart enough to break a life long pattern – burnout, followed by inactivity, followed by general bumminess at said inactivity, followed by hyperactive burnout to make up for down period.  I closed my eyes in a big sigh of depression and sent a text message to Suresh: “I’m exhausted.”


Well, you’d think I’d launched an SOS in white lights from the top of the building because that guy sprung into action as if he’d been waiting for this moment all month.  12pm, he took care of Manika’s fever medicine without waking me up.  6am, he was up with Avik.  7am, he let in the yogurt delivery guy and when I finally emerged from bed at 7:15am, he was waiting for me with a chocolate truffle and a cup of tea.  If Manika didn’t need her nose wiped every two minutes, she and Avik would’ve gotten a “Blues Clues” and my husband would’ve been very late for work!


But as it was, I was left to be stunned by the fact that my husband, words unspoken, sight unseen (I went to sleep before he even got home) knew me enough to jump into my washing cycle right when I was heading for spin.  It was humbling to say the least. 


It also made me realize that things in my family were finally changing.  Four months ago, this entrance into the morning wouldn’t have been necessary because four months ago, I was waking up at 5am to pack my husband’s lunch and bake carrot apple breakfast muffins.  My hyperactivity was geared towards the ubiquitous them, everyone outside my own being. 


Now, because I am building a life for myself, everyone has had to step back.  Manika eats breakfast out of a box or not at all if she’s too fussy, Suresh buys his lunch, Avik gets a little extra time in the playtime some mornings.  Shockingly, I saw this morning that everyone is actually, in some ways, growing faster without me.  Suresh has learned how much Tylenol to give Manika when she’s fevery, Manika has actually learned to occupy herself for ten to twenty minutes, and Avik can pick up strawberries with his own two fingers.


Amazing.  I should’ve done all this so much sooner apparently. 


Suddenly, I didn’t feel off balance anymore, and I realized that what was really throwing me off was guilt, this constant sensation that everyone was suffering due to my lack of attention.  But that isn’t the case now, I see.


Knowing this fully renewed my energy and concentration, I went to the gym and exercised with a single-minded focus that I haven’t felt since this craziness started.  When I came home, I made phone calls, answered emails, read a business plan, checked on my son and, did almost everything I’d been doing all the other days.  


The only difference: for the first time in months, I could give myself permission to actually enjoy it.  I felt generally at peace, and safe in the new knowledge that people can adapt, especially those that love you, to make space for you to be.