Lowering the Expectations

Yesterday, I was driving down the road, dodging road construction and while I was waiting at a stop sign, I spotted a scruffy gentleman standing alongside the road , sporting a mask that had slipped below his chin and was no longer covering his sun kissed face. I then noticed the faint smell of cigarette smoke through my passengers side window and indeed scruff man was donning a slipped mask, complete with a cig hanging out the right side of his mouth. Immediately, I began to judge the crap out of this mountain man. Hey way to ruin your lungs, while also maybe ruining someone else’s path to following protocols and also I can think of ten better ways to use a 15 minute break. But then as I sat there, I continued to think are any of us kicking a bad habit in these stressful times? If I was a smoking woman, and not just a smokin hot woman, but if I was a Marlboro smoking woman, I would definitely be leaning over my porch, hauling off with the worst of them.

Take Dr. Shah for example. Everyone knows diet coke isn’t good for you. In the nineties we all acted like it was good, with zero calories and zero guilt, we were guzzling it down like it was gatorade in the Super bowl. My mom used to get one or two a day from McDonalds and store them in the side door in the refrigerator. I’m not sure how she didn’t add vodka to it, but it was her one vice as a working momma. What she didn’t know, is we used to sneak sips of it in between all the chicken nuggets and Kraft macaroni and cheese we were eating. Fast forward to 2018 and suddenly whole foods are all the rage, garden to table, table to garden, still beer to lips in most houses though. Now studies show that diet coke, is basically poison in a bottle, with enough chemicals to peel the paint right off your car (no wonder I had trouble passing chemistry, it was all that diet coke I was sneaking!) But do you ever watch Dr. Shah when he takes the podium, he sets that can down a little off to the side, a little bit far away, like maybe he doesn’t need another sip. I know that trick, I do the same game at my house, with a glass of red, but then when the question and answer sesh starts, you will see him take a deep intake of breath, and lunge toward that can, like save me, save me sweet Jesus, stop asking questions and give me a sip of that diet coke rejuvenation that I need. He hauls off it like it is the elixir of life and you know what readers, I forgive him. I am suspending judgement, just like I did for that cigarette man. I don’t know what kind of day he has had, what he woke up too. I know people are stupid. Some are ignorant. Some ask him the most asinine questions I have ever heard of and he is always gracious and welcoming with his response. So if he needs that diet coke to get through, well then Whole 30 be damned.

Also, people are starting to get their hair did. I haven’t yet, but again, take your judgement and put in a little trash can under your desk and then kick it in the corner. Sure, we all look like we just finished two plus months on a remote island for Survivor, minus the weight loss, but I just nod to the other root showing peeps that I see these days. I feel a sense of community with the people who look as busted as I do. I see kids riding their bikes down Pope Street while I am running, and they look a little bit like that boy in Good Dinosaur, just really completely taken over by the outdoors, complete with matted hair and yesterdays jammies. The old me would have suggested a bath, the new me, smiles in solidarity of it all. We all look a little bit like we just walked out of a dumpy trailer, in the same clothes we had on last night, with our mascara dripping down the side and only enough gas to get home. The less we resist this current state, the better off we will be.

The other bit I have tried to suspend judgement on is school chatter. This is hard because I am intimately tied to discussions around remote learning and what is best for kids and what is best for parents, yada yada yada. What it comes down to for me, is that when people bitch and complain about whatever kind of learning their kid is or isn’t doing, I tend to take it hella personal. Like oh really Linda, You think you could design a BETTER packet. Well go for it! You think you could sharpen those pencils just so, and find the scratch and sniff stickers and position the post its where they go. Well I would like to see a machine that can collate and staple these the way I can (oh whoops, we already have that). Here is my hand-me-down macBook Air, have at it girlfriend. I really just want to blame someone and Linda seems like a good target. Some days, I want to take her organic muffins and spit them all over her pesticide free garden. At times, I really can have a mini-tantrum with myself. Doesn’t she know how hard I am working? Doesn’t she know how inept I am at zoom and google meet, but still I am trying? And then, a revelation came to me. What really bothered me the most was the fact of the world moving on without me and that is the hardest card to be dealt isn’t it? I think teachers at their very core, hairdressers, dentists, tatoo artists, fill in the blank however you want too. We really see ourselves as artists and craftsmen and specialist and in our ego driven brains we have a hard time thinking how our clients, patients, students can do this job without us, and why should they be allowed too?? Wasn’t it just March, when I was teaching informational writing, while karate chopping that copier, and simultaneously planning stem activities. I felt so superhuman then and now I wake up pretty deflated that I have no copier to spar with and no humans to enlighten. But.. again that is my judgement and my perception. If I shift it and stop flipping Linda off, every time she makes a facebook post and I instead see my students eyes light up when I get on google meet to listen to them read, then I feel fulfilled in a new capacity than when I was playing Judge Judy a month ago. It has helped me and my families, to suspend this judgement with each other. We have a non disclosure agreement where I won’t judge your dirty house if you don’t judge mine. We all just peer into that device we are using and think, hey you, you are just doing the best you can. In closing, I wish you a heartfelt and judgement-free Momma day, however you choose to celebrate.