Maybe I should use this, uh, opportunity to quit for good like I swore every time I nursed a hangover with a buttery toasted bagel and bottomless black coffee. ‘sides, I think I’m at a point where I’d feel sleepy before any signs of getting buzzed cropped in. Some would call that old. And I would, I would…I would just Kung Fu kick ‘em with a double-split in the air, if only my calcium-starved bones wouldn’t snap in agony. Excuse me while I fix myself a cold, tall glass of a Postpartum Mary aka strawberry milk.

I should’ve seen it coming the minute I wiped out the fridge’s contents and frantically searched through the pile of empty chocolate wrappers for any sugar to be salvaged. But the sugar situation was complicated – what with Diwali and Halloween, festivals of Light and Darkness, of Mithai and Candy, seducing me on the same week. And so it came to be that I was blissfully bloated when I bumped into her.

She lashed at me with lame limericks and cackled uncontrollably as I lapped up every word:
There once was a girl filled with dread
Who nurtured dastardly demons in her head
Would they need one last kiss?
Her empty tears they won’t miss
Mommy, wife, daughter, nobody – she was better off dead.

She watched me oscillating between self-pity and self-loathing, thinking less and less of myself – hopeless, thoughtless, worthless. Then she shook me in an impatient rage, “You won’t do it. Just like everything else in your life, you don’t have the balls to make a decision and just go for it. Caught up in an endless stream of details – the hows, the whens, the whys. Go ahead, settle. Live your meaningless life, but know that with every passing day you are less of who you once were”. Less and less of myself.

——————————————

I didn’t kill myself of course; died a little, maybe. Not just due to the lack-of-balls factor. But because I saw the blindingly blue wall in my living room. And because I saw the moon and I remembered Sylvia. I counted days; was it time already? Perhaps. Perhaps I can label it, walk around with a tatoo beneath my stretch marks, “Remember Null Pointer, you have PMDD”. But such ignorant self-diagnosis belittles those who actually have the disease. A disease. Any disease. Am I actually looking for solace in a disease? Am I actually that fucked up to think that something tangible would make things easier? Fucked up – there’s a diagnosis for ya.

That was 2 days ago. Today I am numb. Stuck at a 7am powerpoint presentation on goals for 2011 kind of numb. Zonked by a Complexity Theory proof after a night of practicing neele neele ambar kind of numb. A laughing, dancing, cuddling, blogging kind of numb. When the next wave comes, will I ride it like a pro or fall flat on my face onto a bed of broken shells and stingrays? Only time and calories will tell.

I tossed Nibbles beside a very busy Chewy who was splashing about in the water with multi-colored plastic bottles filled with cancerous chemicals promising to defrizz my tentacles. Bath toys. Does the human mind get married to rigid object definitions this early in life? Is four years all that it takes to curtain the window of one’s imagination and dim the artificial lamp light to comfortable levels?

Nibbles: “Nooo! I can’t take a shower without them”.

Jim Morrison cries along in the background, “…my only friend, the end”

Last month I got bumped off one such ride, and as always, I hope the scars never quite heal. I want need to remember the fear –> the helplessness –> the numbness –> the resilience. Damn humans! We sure are a masochistic lot for stepping in the ring time after time with our hands tied only to welcome a solid punch on the kisser.

Of course, being an atheist does nothing to redirect the WTFness of it all. It also means there’s no accounting for answered prayers considering all the “good luck” we’ve had. Close shave. Plucked before the ugly jaws of death snapped shut. Aside from weightless cliches, I can only hope that statistically, the odds of a vicious gust whisking away a family’s magic carpet immediately after a similar incident is very low. Hope? Bah! There’s another weakness of our kind. Vicious gusts don’t understand conditional probability based on hope. The only way to be safe is to not fly at all. But then, if you can’t feel the wind against your face, how do you know you are alive?

Nibbles sports precious preschooler pout with strategy #41 to stall hitting the sack: “Mamma, I really want a huggy and a kissy and… and a grown-up to sleep next to me”. I cave in to the huggy and kissy but suggest he settle for the teddy as I settle into a home decorating article.

Nibbles plops his head in front of the monitor and whips out strategy #42 to avoid the trip to dreamland. “Mamma, what kind of a mamma are you?” Ouch. That certainly warrants more attention that reupholstering a mid-century chair in damask.

“What? What do you mean what kind of mamma?” Why are you picking questions off my head instead of asking me about mako sharks? He continues, “I mean, are you a doctor-mamma?”. Uh, nope. “Then, you know, what kind of mamma are you?”

Perfect. With all the job-quitting angst hovering around, the one thing I was sure of was that Nibbles loved having me around. “You mean, what kind of job do I have? Well, I’m, you know, your mom…”

*zonk* I hate calling mommying a job – it’s just who I am. He latched onto the uncertainty in my voice, “No, but what do you doooo?”. Completely devoid of any authority or sternness, I beg, “Nibbles, pleeeease, just go to sleep”.

Yes indeed, what do I doooo?

First Child: ooh look he just rolled over! yay!
*high fives and jungle dancing follows*
Second Child: ooh look he just rolled over! great
*grumbling and lamenting loss of unsupervised naps in bed *

First Child: did he just stand by himself? woohoo!
*chocolate milk shots and bhangra ensues*
Second Child: did he just stand by himself? $%^!
*clears pottery from window ledge and gives up sitting down with a cup of hot chai*

First Child: ohmigosh he’s crawling – he’s actually getting around by himself!
*pure delirium and race for the cameras*
Second Child: ohmigosh he’s crawling – he’s actually getting around by himself!
*hairs grey instantaneously and all furniture posted for sale on craigslist*

There truly can only be one first time and nothing like the first time, eh?

But those feet? Yes those chubby, munchable feet that tiptoe through oversized shorts in an attempt to drop the fishing net into the toilet bowl? They still get me. And I’m hot fudge running down vanilla ice-cream. Every. Single. Time.

Her words pitter-pattered down like pellets of non-rain, annoying and unnecessary. She did not see the skies hidden behind the dark shroud that unveiled itself in an unforgettable instant and leashed his tornado around her. In a matter of moments the winds had stopped and life continued outside her, oblivious to the hail stones that continued to stomp within her.

Life continued outside her, in skinny chai tea lattes and nameless interstates. Life continued outside her, in worlds made of lego and barefoot experiments on concrete. Life continued outside her, in the babe that tugged in frustration at breasts that refused to let-down.

She knew the storm had passed…this time. Unsure of the damage sustained within, she longed for battle wounds that gave her reason to hurt and means to heal.

Bullying amongst children has gotten a lot of attention in recent years and I’ve greyed my hairs some at the prospect of sending a 5th percentile by weight Nibbles to public school kindergarten where he’ll be the youngest in his class thanks to the day he decided to enter the world. It doesn’t help that I’m a total pushover with no helpful tips on how to stand up for oneself.

Being a mother hen, however, I have to fight the blood-boiling urge to start cluck-clucking and violently flapping my wings when another child taunts Nibbles in an attempt to find his breaking point. I usually wait to let Nibbles sort it out by himself, and flash the occasional leave-my-kid-alone-or-I’ll-have-you-for-breakfast glare when the bully refuses to simmer down.

This morning by the slides was the Playground Bully. PB has developed quite the reputation for himself amongst toddlers and their moms, and Nibbles got to experience his moves first-hand: pushing, spitting, dangling his leg mid-air and a host of other lovely behaviors that were conveniently ignored by his grandma. Grandma tried to divert my attention with a developmental milestone contest between baby byte and her younger grandson, which only pissed me off further.

In the midst of my teeth-crunching and glaring, I was surprised by how calm Nibbles remained and felt helpless when he asked, “Mamma, why does that boy do that?” I muttered, “Maybe he does not know how to be nice. Maybe he just wants to be friends”. Ah yes, everyone’s an angel and it’s our fault for not seeing it. WTF! Why am I transferring my please-allow- me-to-lie-down-so-you-can-do-the-irish-jig-all-over-me attitude? Nibbles even said “sorry” when PB rushed down behind him on the slide and pushed him off because he thought he was in PB’s way, and PB just cracked up, “sorry! haha! let’s do it again”

I don’t want Nibbles to push back, but I don’t want him to be pushed around either. I want him to be firm without whining or apologizing. I want him to be a fighter without getting into a fight. I want him to believe in the inherent goodness of people and I want him to know that people can be assholes. I want him to know how to be smart enough, strong enough, brave enough and safe enough to be Nibbles.

So far, it looks like he has a better handle on this than I do, but I worry it may not be enough. I wish I could do more than just stand there and watch his childhood being chiseled away till it forms the likeness of a grown man. I do the only thing I know how to do – I squeeze him till his ribs are about to pop and hope that he feels my presence whenever he needs it.

I’d like to be able to qualify that better: Since I quit to be a SAHM. Since I quit to find my purpose in this universe. Since I quit to be a nude flying trapeze artist. But no, nothing would capture everything. I’ve been doing what I’ve been told in highly structured environments since way back when Madonna was like a virgin, so I’m not quite sure how to be the boss of me and even less sure how to know what I want. (yes, yes I hear the world’s smallest violin playing for me…)

I figured growing roots on the couch while acting as a trampoline for the boys is most likely not my (sole) purpose. I figured there’s no point dodging my worst fear, so armed with/deluded by the swarm of internet blogs, I ventured forth – into the kitchen, deep inside cabinets that were like secret passages with exotic treasures waiting to be discovered. Or rats.

It’s been a week since I took a dip into the culinary pool. Given that being at home implies that one does not get performance reviews or any form of validation, I’ll slap that pat on my back myself. Hell yeah! This cooking thing ain’t no map-reading on the interstate when the GPS conks out microseconds before the exit. This stuff is simple. And since I hate following recipes, it’s been quite the creative release: a lil’ bit of grains, a chunk of daal, rainbow of masalas, steam/fry/bake. How wonderful for the kids to be exposed to such nutrient-dense, new experiences everyday!

I do miss the validation though, sometimes more than the paycheck. So I fished for some at the dinner table last night. “So Nibbles…what d’ya think?”, I asked, beaming at the almost cooked ameboid oats dosa before him. “Mamma,” he paused for a while. “Yes?” I egged on, “Pretty awesome, eh?” He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Mamma, can you not make anything special anymore?”