A Walk in the Snark (16 page)

The right man is the one who seizes the moment
. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

No one prepares you for that moment, where the air swirls around you with so many tiny black dots that you begin to watch them line up in captivating patterns, distracting you from the weight of what you thought you heard.

“He killed himself,” cannot be what the man on the phone just told you, but it is. Your mind can’t grasp that, though your body knows as your heart races madly, forcing you to sit, unaware that you already have.

The dizziness reminds you. Your burning lungs remind you.

Breathe.

You had just spoken with him, earlier that day.

This is not happening.

This has not happened.

You’ll find out later that he called your parents in a drunken stupor a few weeks back. “Tell her I’ll always love her,” they can barely make out. They don’t want to tell you about this.

You start to fit the puzzle pieces together.

“You’ll always hold a piece of my heart in the palm of your hand,” he told you in that last conversation, which you couldn’t have known were his last words to you. Ever.

“Why are you saying this now?” You didn’t understand, then. Now, perhaps, you do.

You keep looking at the palm of your hand, but it is empty.

You don’t think you are the reason he ended his life—your mind cannot allow you that—plus you’d been apart far too long. But the connection was still so strong…you worry that he still thought maybe… Maybe.

“I remember you used to have that saying (
above
) on your refrigerator,
back in the day
," he tells you one night. “It intimidated the hell out of me.”

You tell him that you took it down when you met your husband.

A year has passed. You think back to that awful phone call and feel the dots circling, your heart dripping like sand sliding into your stomach, not sure the shock will ever wear off. For someone who was larger than life, it seems like such a small, selfish way to go.

You turn your face away from furtive reminders so you won’t see the
memories
in your heart, or hear them in your soul.

You don't want to accept it. But you do. Because it’s an undeniable truth: He wasn’t
who he wanted to be
, didn’t have what, or who, he wanted. We don’t know what he carried. So he left.

You try not to think about what we carry now.

No matter how much you don’t understand, or wish it was a different choice, it’s now clear that some monumental shift occurred that you will never fathom.

He made the most singular decision a person could ever make that one defining night...

He finally seized his moment.

***

If you are looking for the funny, you can tune back in! :-)

THE NEEDS OF THE MANY

I know my ex, D, had a great relationship with his mother. It’s something I think about often. Boys love their mamas. They also love dogs.

Except in our case.

Getting a dog while having a small child, like my five-year-old son Lukas, can be a great experience for a family. Unless it’s our family, and the dog is oh, Satan
.

Let me preface this post by saying that I love my husband.

However.

With two kids home for the summer (Bickering, tantrums, crying—why are kids happy about summertime when their parents don’t behave is beyond me.) my guy is, well...

Such a (gulp)
MAN
.

You would think he’d know better.

It’s not that I’m blind to the fact that I married a man, of course. I willingly applied for all the er, accoutrements when I signed on the dotted line eighteen years ago and all the parts are in good working order. I in no way want to take away from his manliness.

It’s just that I do expect him to get more involved when it comes to our very young son.

In what ways, you ask? Oh, little things. Like taking him for a walk or to the park down the street—getting him out of the house so Mommy can drink her (extra large) vodka in peace. Ya know?

This seems like such a simple thing, really.

One would think.

But no.

Husband makes a production out of it. He always wants me to go ’cause he knows the boy will get into sundry things and it will be easier if I’m around to help.

Well, no duh.

He’s a boy. He’s five. That’s what five-year-old boys do. The whole purpose of him taking the boy
out of my line of sight
is so the boy will get into various things where I don’t have to see it or clean it up.

Hello? McFly?

Or...husband will tell me he can’t possibly take the boy for a walk over to the park because he has to walk the dog. He needs to train the dog, work with the dog, and spend time with the dog.

So he will walk the DOG, but not the HUMAN.
(Say this with your best Jerry Seinfeld voice. Go on, I’ll wait.)

I explain to the husband that I’ve taken the boy for numerous walks to the pool, the beach, and the park where the beloved swing is (OMG the swing); but that sometimes a sweet, very busy little boy just needs his daddy. But my argument seems to be falling on the deaf ears of a man who is caught up in the catch-up numbers game of an entrepreneur in a failing economy.

I love him for how hard he works for our family. I understand. But I don’t agree that work trumps all.

Money will always be made and lost. But my sanity needs to stay. And the little fella needs more than just a crazed, exhausted mama who talks to herself in the corner about how she’s putting that college degree in Communication Studies to use as she searches for lost Lego pieces and mismatched socks.

After my breakdown and subsequent vodka tonic(s), I made my husband promise that the boy would take precedence over the dog. That he would spend one-on-one time with his “big guy” so I could have a moment’s peace. (And please, someone. Tell me these temper tantrums will stop when he turns six—please--or I swear that
Supernanny
chick is moving in with us.)

To criminally paraphrase Spock, the needs of the boy must outweigh the needs of the man.

Or the goddamn dog.

***

PAY ATTENTION

So my husband will walk the dog, and now the boy—while Mommy drinks her martinis in peace. It’s all worked out.

However, when it comes to going to the store, I find it’s necessary to be pretty decisive with my guy (unlike giving him free rein with dinner options). Too much freedom at the grocery store and he becomes an anxious fussbudget.

I’m still not sure how he functioned B.M. (before marriage).

I still don’t get how my guy cannot know what to buy at the store. He goes more often than I do. We buy the same brands. Nothing changes from week to week. So what’s up with this dude phenomenon? (Yes, dear. They still have a bakery. No, they didn’t move it. Sigh.)

I liken the grocery store to a foreign country where they change the language weekly, hence his confusion. (Otherwise, I’d be in the corner talking to myself. Actually, wait a sec…)

My five-year-old son still pees when he sleeps. That’s not abnormal, I know.

What
is
pretty freakin’ weird is that my husband cannot remember,
every time he goes to the store
, what brand of GoodNites disposable underwear he should buy for our son.

Every time. For oh, the last, two years.

It’s a
Mancode
kind of thing.

I suppose it’s really MY fault for not remembering to pick them up in the first place; or for not remembering to save the packaging to give to him at times like this—the bright, blue, hard-to-miss packaging. That says “GoodNites” on it.
With a giant orange stripe all the way around it.
To take with him while he shops. (See, by the time I’m done writing this article, even you could remember to buy them for me.)

Naw, I don’t take that on. He’s a big boy. He’s also the going-to-the-store guy when it’s late at night and we realize: Oops—we’re out of nighttime diapers.

He reallllly should have it down by now.

One. Would. Think.

But no.

I tell him as he leaves what to buy, the name of the product. The bright blue color of the packaging. Doesn’t matter.

He’ll still call when he gets to the store in a panic because they are closing and why the hell did we leave it to this late to remember (forget?) to get these: Which one is it? Huggies? (No, we’ve never bought that brand. And they’re
purple
.) Pampers? Sigh— green. NO.

And it’s not like he’s forgetful about other things. He’s terrible with names but can remember a face from thirty years ago, a client’s favorite candy, or where someone went to college. (And yes, our anniversary, you busybodies.) Obviously the gray matter is still filled with fully working cells and firing neurons.

So when I ask him why he doesn’t remember things like this, he says “Easy. This stuff is not important. It’s just…stuff.”

That, my good friends, is the KEY to how men and women differ in a
major
way.

To women, these supposed little things mean potentially huge problems: interrupted sleep for both of us (because you
know
I’m getting his ass up to help me deal with it) as well as for the little guy, because of wet jammies and a sopping bed; a small, grumpy, wet
gremlin
child who’s been woken up in the middle of the night who tends not to go back to sleep easily; perhaps even awakening the other, older sleeping child, and the damn dog. A domino theory, if you will, from peace to chaos.

Yet to men, it’s
just
a diaper.

Well. Here’s the real deal,
honey
. This unimportant stuff?
This
is what’s going to prevent our house from becoming The Thompson House of Pee.

So pay attention!

***

BOOBS AND COFFEEMAKERS

By no means do I think I’m perfect (I can get a wee bit testy after that seventh call from the store when my guy still can’t find the bread). Yeah, I’m a bitch.