“I am not afraid. I was born to do this.” – Joan of Arc

Well, maybe she was, but I certainly am not. Every morning, I say almost the opposite to myself when I crack open my eyes – “I am so afraid, I wasn’t made for all this.”

Yet, I need to know where Joan mustered up the moxie to get through her day to day chores and not hate herself at a rate of 90 miles per hour. She obviously had no confidence issues. She never doubted her station in life? Joan, help me here, because I’m in constant doubt. 

I doubt my ability to be a good friend. I’m sending out a blanket “I’m sorry” to all my friends I’ve let down over the years. I know you are out there. Please forgive my inconsiderations and self-centered ways. Honestly, I am so caught up in my own head that I miss the here and now. So, dear friends and acquaintances, from here on out I will focus my ability to be a solid friend. I’ll even take notes on who to call or who I need to return a favor to – I hope I haven’t burned too many bridges at this point.

I doubt my ability to get any project complete. I say yes to a lot (I don’t want to let anyone down), and immediately go into my headspace and inform my initially confident self that I will soon be destroying the project I just agreed to help complete. Boy, do I have issues. However, I am so afraid to let anyone down. So do I complete my projects? You bet your sweet ass I do. If I didn’t, I couldn’t imagine how guilty I might feel. Well, here is some full disclosure. I have one slight exception…I haven’t made a photo album since 2009. Oh doubt, you are so right, I don’t finish my projects. 

So by now you must realize I doubt my performance as a mother. Always wanted to be one, didn’t realize it’s 24-hour-ness. What a life altering responsibility, am I right? Especially when I doubt. Oh Joan, how I wish I could channel your strength every morning, afternoon, and evening. I’m worn down to a nub. I feel as if I feed them wrong, love them wrong, say the wrong words, forget to hug them enough, or tell them I love them enough. When does the doubting end? Never for me. It’s my cross to bear. I wouldn’t be the person I am without doubt. Or would I? Would I be better, funnier (is that even possible), and would I have the confidence that I see in so many other people?

Here’s one thing I do have, along with doubt. I have faith. I can look at the four lovable (usually) faces of my children and have faith that my doubt will not creep into their days. I have faith that I have friends I can call or text and reconnect with, in spite of my poor performance as a friend. Faith helps me overcome this doubt. I don’t know what was going through Joan of Arc’s mind when she was quoted as being born to do this, but I can guarantee she was full of faith. 

So I may feel this doubt, all the time, in fact. Fortunately I can constantly rely on faith – faith that I have accomplished a great deal with my doubt riding shotgun in my life. So when I wake up in the morning, I will thank doubt for helping faith come into my life. I will also thank Joan, for showing me there are women who, in the face of doubt, know what they are born to do. I was born to be a good friend and mother (I can name many other jobs, but now I’m at a loss for time), and I was born to doubt. 

Yet, I don’t doubt I’ll always have faith, and was born to have them both live inside of me and make me exactly who I am.

So I was a very self aware child. For example, I knew when people weren’t getting along, or when adults wanted me out of the room (although I would try desperately to use my funny to stay in that room). I knew when my mom was unhappy. Well it didn’t take a skywriting airplane – she was pretty good at letting our house know she was unhappy – it was just the “what” that eluded us.

However, the day I finally realized a certain inanimate object didn’t find me attractive, the mirror, came during a shopping trip with my mother at the mall at the ripe old age of four.

As a youth of the late ’70s/early ’80s, our parents were able to shop with wild abandon in spite of bringing their spawn. We (the spawn) had full access to the store floor as long as we were in ear shot of our parents yell. My mother cared not about where I was, as long as I didn’t knock over a large load of pant suits. So I could hide, pretend, run, and just be free.

At four, I was already into music. I have a sister who is seven years older, so I was totally into whatever her musical tastes were. I believe at this particular juncture her current likes were Meatloaf, Barry Manilow, and Captain and Tenille. At this store, I happened to find the most fantastic mirror, so I decide to put on a show. I am singing and killing it for the “crowd” on the other side of the mirror. I have the moves, I watched Solid Gold every Sunday – I knew exactly how to wow the masses.

This is when the hammer fell. I had completely tuned out the world. I was an entertainer – lost in my art. At this point, I wished my art was that Barbie sketch pad, but of course that was not in our budget. Dancing and singing at home was free.

Then I heard a snicker. My audience was laughing? How!?!? I was killing it with my rendition of “Muscrat Love” mixed with “Love will Keep Us Together.” I turned to look backstage and I saw another girl about my age. She was full on laughing at me. The energy that had filled my body suddenly transformed to self-hatred in its truest form.

I don’t blame that girl, I blame my ego. It had been waiting for that defining moment from a cute blond girl (sorry cute, blond girls around the world, but you have always been the yardstick up to which I cannot measure) with unflappable confidence to finally tell me what the mirror had been hinting at all along, “Don’t look in me too long. You are ugly and talentless.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. She just kept staring and laughing. I kept waitin, wishing she would look away or walk away. Something. Just get the fuck away from me. Alas, Cute Blonde Girl was going to wait for me to make my exit. Again thank goodness there were no camera phones in my early days, and I was suddenly a visual definition of “to slink away.” To her defense, I bet I did look hilarious. To the crowd on the other side of the mirror – they fucking loved me.

I spent the balance of my mom’s shopping trip searching for my mother and avoiding Blondie, while simultaneously doing some soul searching. I decided to no longer put myself “out there” and possibly experience the danger of ridicule at the expense of my looks. So I decided to be funny (if possible) and go with what Cute Blonde Girl, my ego, and the mirror had confirmed at such a young age – you are right to hate yourself, you are ugly and talentless.

Looking back, I could have turned around, stuck out my tongue at Cute Blonde Girl, and finished my set. Yet there is a part of me born missing that confidence gene. It has taken me 41 years to figure out that small yet epically important detail. So now I have to reprogram my DNA or my little voice to say it’s okay to look in the mirror and see talent a beauty.

Today this flows over in yoga classes, which is my only exercise outlet. I feel as if everyone is looking at me on my yoga mat and criticizing my pose or laughing at me. Especially me. I am my own worst enemy, especially when I am in front of the mirror. Who invented them anyway? I guess I am supposed to overcome this anxiety instead of avoid it, but right now all I can do is work on it. Currently, I’m still the four year old girl scared someone might laugh if I put myself out there. However, I’ve learned I don’t need to slink away and my ego can take one more punch. It will heal and make me stronger.

I haven’t written in a while.  I can say it’s because I have been “so busy” that I haven’t had time, but it’s more from fear.  I am terribly scared to write because I am so sensitive and nervous about having my voice out there.  It is much better to be snarky and judgmental in the privacy of my own home, even though this blog site does not reach many readers.   

So many women – and I am just going to focus on the women I read – are constantly writing and telling pithy and intelligent, thought provoking stories on an almost daily basis.  Where is all that coming from?  I have ideas, but my insecurity locks them away and makes the ideas feel small and undesirable.  

So I am going to make a list of things I would like to write about, then I can come back to the list each week and write.  I will put them in question form, so my writing can answer my question (hopefully).

1.  Why are my kids so annoying sometimes?  Is it because they are me and I don’t like me so much?

2. Why can’t I write on the blog that I wanted to take time to write on at least once a week so I could have an emotional outlet for all the ideas and questions in my head?

3.  Why am I hungry even though I just ate breakfast?

4.  Why do the Summer Olympics make me cry?  Why do commercials and movies make me cry, but real things in my life don’t always produce tears?

5.  Why do I get Star and Us magazine, but not People?  Isn’t People a more credible source?

6. What is the best way to raise children?  If I had the answer to that, I’d be rich and confidently prolific!

7. What is the best religion for me?  I think I am a Unitarian Universalist, but I am not sure.  

8.  How can I stay patient and kind, when all I want to do is yell, “F&*k it and F&*k you!” at people – especially the nice ones.

9.  How can I be a better person? That is referring to my #8 question, because it is not nice to curse at nice people, even in my head.

10.  I just sponsored a child in a land far away, do they really want me to write to them?  Really?  Should I draft some letter that outlines how awesome my life is and how I hope my $35 bucks a month makes their life equally as awesome?

11.  Why do I hate running so much, but it looks like all the runners at the gym and on the roads love it?  Am I missing something?  Do they have a better playlist than me?

12. Why does ranch dressing taste so good?  What is in that stuff?

13.  Why am I so fortunate, yet I complain and want more?  

14. If I write about people I know, will I start to make my friends and family angry? That seems like a slippery slope.

15.  Why do I love tattoos so much, yet I never get one?  Am I afraid the star on my belly might morph into a yellow squash?

16.  Why is there so much inequity in the world?

17.  What happens if these questions still don’t help me write?

      Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. 

                                                                                                                                                                               – Buddha

I love my Buddha quotes.  In fact, I love quotes.  I read them ad nauseam.  here are a few more…

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else                           means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.  – e.e. cummings

This is my first official post on my mehmomma blog.  Why mehmomma?  Well, I’ll start with the “momma” part first.  I am a momma of 4.  I stay home with them.  I used to be a teacher and a tutor.  Then I had too many kids.  I found the balance impossible.  It’s funny.  If someone asked you to balance a book on your head for 20 or so years, you would laugh at them. Or to balance on one foot.  You would laugh again.  Yet so many women are up for the work/family/friend/clean house/PTO/good wife challenge.  Then we wonder why we are so stressed out or we are constantly explaining to everyone we aren’t stressed out, we just love exercising 3 hours a day and sleeping 4 hours at night.   I know, not everyone is stressed out, I am only talking about myself in particular (minus the working out part).

This is where the “meh” part comes in for me.  Meh is an expression of apathy, boredom, or indifference – when one simply does not care.  When I try to be the perfect mom, I only come out sort of meh.  Now many would argue with you – mainly my husband (primarily because he has to) – and say that I am amazing and so relaxed and calm.  Yet inside I am nervous and anxious and worried all the time.  But of course I can’t show that ugly inside.  No way, I must act as if I totally planned for my kids to eat a bag of Cheetos for dinner.

I don’t exactly know how I am going to structure my blog; I am just glad I wrote something for the first time.  I might try it like Gwyneth Paltrow does on Goop.  She has those adorable topics every week or month or whatever. I might use this as a springboard for my search for enlightenment and spirituality, but that might be  a bit too heavy.  I could just use it to babble. I might eavesdrop at the playground and write about moms’ concerns – but are they being real?  I have no idea.

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