6/60 Dealing with It: Responding to Educated (warning . . . pop yourself some popcorn . . . this is a long one )

If any of you know me even a little, you will know that we have a REALLY big family and that our family gets together a LOT.

Today was a perfect example of this . . . I had two nieces and their significant others from my brother, a nephew from my sister, and a sister and her two sons (and a girlfriend) over for dinner.  Not to mention my own five (Phoebe is in St. George with her boyfriend).

We ate outside (yes, it was a little warm . . . but having all 16 of us sitting around the table outside in the fresh air laughing and talking to each other as usual, was just the exact thing I needed today).

Here's us on the longest table on earth (two long tables put together .  . . )

Shot from above . . . don't you wish you lived closer?  Because you'd be more than welcome!

Benny, sweet Benny and Finn.  Best part of my day . . . holding this beautiful baby girl in my arms and listening to her tell me life's secrets . . . AND introducing Shelby and Chase to the magical calming power of Little Princess Sound Track . . . puts all babies to bed lickety split!

And I'll tell you why I needed my army of a family around me today . . .

I am usually a spectacular sleeper.  If you were to ask me what my favorite time of day is, I'd say waking up in the morning (total morning person!), but then I'd think about it and say, No, really, my favorite time of day is when I get to climb into bed and snuggle with my pillow.  I have, true story, been known to giggle and skip as I jumped into bed.

But these days, sleep hasn't been my friend so much.  I've got deep things shifting around inside me and it's nudging me out of consciousness a wee bit earlier than I'd like.  I'm sure there is some lovely reason why and a good therapist would tell me it's my deep seeded fear of heights (they might be right.  I keep having this crazy dream of watching a mountain biker racing along the trail of the top of Timp and then sliding off the cliff face.  Shivers. I am . . . oh great therapist, deeply afraid of heights.  Now . . . back to what I was saying) or my father or something equally true and mystifying theory.  And I trust they are right.  But for now, we will blame it all on hormones (because lets be honest, if it's not tiredness, it's usually hormones) or too much cake last night, or a thousand and one other reasons.  At any rate, the truth is, I haven't been sleeping well.

And last night, despite it's magical asleep in five seconds start, was interrupted at 4am.  I was just awake. Not unpleasantly awake, just awake and aware.  So I decided to not waste my time worrying about why I wasn't sleeping, and instead, be a Buddhist about it and just be awake and read (my favorite way to deal with sleeplessness).  So I pulled out my kindle (I love that it has it's own light!  Bless you kindle paperwhite) and continued reading this months' book club book,  Educated by Tara Westover.

Well.

I had a reaction to that book.

And not a little one.

I had started reading it the night before (and I suspect that my early rising may have had something to do with reading this book) and felt literally like someone had changed a few facts, but basically was telling my story.  Only, a twisted, dark, wrong version of my story.

And I got mad. 

As the sky lightened and the alarms went off, I stayed in bed furiously reading, getting angrier and angrier and angrier.

I could barely talk. I curled Pipers hair, I think, but didn't even know I was doing it until it was done.  That phrase that's in every book, She got dressed mechanically and went about her breakfast like a robot . . . yeah, that was REAL for me today.  I couldn't look at John or the kids.  We got in the car to go to John's sister's baby's blessing, and I did not say a word.

John was officially freaked out.  I never am silent unless I'm having a panic attack, super duper furious at him, or having a deep, soul searching moment.  He, of course, always assumes . . . usually rightly (sorry John!) . . . that I'm furious at HIM.

He looked over at me, his eyes worried, and said, Hey.  What's up? 

I still couldn't look at him.  I honestly felt like if I opened up my mouth, I didn't know what would come out.  I was literally telling myself over and over again, Keep IT together, Mary.  Keep it together. THINK.  Why are you feeling this way?  What is going on in your brain?  THINK.  

And mostly I thought, Get me the crap out of this car, out of this day, and for a second, out of this life of mine!  I need air.  I need air!  I NEED SPACE LIKE RIGHT THE CRAP NOW!

(Ok, side note, maybe I was in fact freaking out, but I'm telling you, looking back on me in that car, literally making nail marks in the door handle, I was pretty DARN awesome at controlling it.  I'm having a minute here high fiving myself. Go Me! I kept breathing and didn't scream at all and breathed)

So I did just sit there for a few minutes and breathed.  Like deep yoga breathing trying to calm the drumming of my angsty heart and mind.

It worked, mostly.  And still without looking at him, I told him just the tiny few things that made me basically insane about the book.  Most of them are my personal, emotional response and honestly has nothing to do with the book.  More to do with me.  And I'm telling you, I want to have everyone's back on this earth.  Tara Westover had a hellish upbringing and I want her to have every good thing in life.  I want to literally wrap her in a blanket, feed her beautiful things, tell her she's perfect just the way she is, and that NOTHING she ever did was her fault.  I am deeply sorry for her childhood.  And when I finish (if I finish) her book, I'm sure she rises above everything and succeeds ( I mean, she's sold a billion copies of her book.  She's rich and famous . . . success!!), I am so happy for her.

I, however, have another story.  My story.  The UNtwisted version of hers.  I want to share it.  I feel like I need to share it because I need to separate her story from mine.  I don't want her darkness.  I have my own, but I also, mostly have light and joy and laughter and craziness.  

Look!  It's me . . .at BYU (an undercover homeschooler)

I have avoided this for most of my adult life.  When I went to BYU, for the first time, I wasn't known.  I wasn't Mary Malcarne, the Homeschooling Mormon.  I was just Mary.  No one knew about me.  My professors would comment on my horrible spelling or my crazy math skills (or lack thereof) and say, Gosh, I thought you could do better.  But mostly, they didn't care.  They weren't watching me.  I was free.

Most of my Homeschooling years, I lived a life that was constantly examined.  My parents--my mother mostly--was responsible for passing laws in Connecticut so that you could Homeschool.  I was in the newspaper yearly.  I was interviewed in magazines and on the radio.  I have some idea I was on TV, but that might be wrong.  EVERYONE basically knew me and watched me.  When I went back to school Junior year, I was asked within a week to write an article for our school newspapers about how it felt/was to go back to school after 10 years.  I wrote it.  I think I have it somewhere. It's good.  Lots of run on sentences and crazy structure, but it's beautifully written because it's so raw and honest.  

And I did graduate . . . miracles of miracles

That's what I learned in my years of being constantly examined by principals and superintendence and school boards and state parliaments--everyone has an angle and an agenda.  Parents wanted the right to homeschool the kids, school boards wanted the rights to make sure kids were safe and not with crazy parents (sadly like Tara's parents).  

I remember being at some State something and having the council men and women come and ask me  my real opinion of homeschooling.  I looked at my mother's hopeful eyes and at the intense eyes of the council.  What a horrible place to be as a teenager.  

I don't really remember exactly what I said, but what I wanted to say is EVERYONE here is a little crazy and seriously, I just want a boyfriend! Like, for reals, how can I get a boyfriend being homeschooled?  This is not a joke.  I literally thought that. Oh, 15 year old me.  My poor mother. I'm sure she was literally biting her tongue worried what would come out of my mouth.  And thankfully, I have no recollection of how I responded . . . but I remember feeling confused and thinking, You all have an agenda here and I'm not sure whose side I'm on.  

My mother and the Connecticut Homeschoolers Association agenda was based on being worried they wouldn't be able to homeschool their kids and throw pottery and make Plantain and eat nasty tasteless snack (I'm sorry, but seriously, the stereotype was so real . . . granola people all the way . . . all of us kids just dreamed of fluff and skippy and wonder bread and baloney and SUGAR . . . I was such a skinny child, just dreaming of junk food.  If you want to worry, forget the schooling, it's the food, People, those poor children . . ..  Homeschooling gatherings snacks . . . worst. things. ever!).

It's me with my best friend Sarah . . . I am day dreaming about candy

And the Council people, judging and distrusting and in some cases worrying that some sort of crazy was going on in these houses (and I have no doubt it was). But also, they were like the sweetest, kindest, gentlest people who were pretty much brilliant and there kids were honestly prodigies (I literally would walk around listening to them all and think, I am NOT one of you.  Advanced math, huge essays, novels being written, things composed, art work that would blow your mind. Me? I was hiding from my mother, reading Harlequin romances and building forts out of old silky sheets and dreaming about what it would be like to be kissed, talking on the phone too much, perming my hair, and being boy crazy. Totally and utterly NORMAL.  All that learning potential?  Totally and utterly wasted on me).   

Typical homeschooling classroom . . . 

But those other kids, they thrived in the Homeschooling setting.  They loved hours to devote to their piano playing and advanced mathematics.  And their brilliant parents could provide that and take them to the next level.  I didn't in all my homeschooling gatherings (and there were SOO many, seriously, it was our life) where I saw anything but love and excitement over learning and being with their kids.  I'm not sure how all the kids felt (I know quite a few wanted to go back ASAP and the parents felt the same way . . .  bless all of there hearts).  But I was a child and might not know what I was looking for.  All I know is, I know why my parent's homeschooled. Really, the coolest people I met and listened to as a child?  Homeschoolers and Health Food Nuts. Sure everything was five shades of crazy, but the fun of it all.  The freedom of ideas throw out there . . . talk about validation . . . it was so fun.  Dreaming big, believing there was better out there for everyone . . . where has that gone?  My parents would literally die if you called them a hippy, but I'm telling you right now, they were in every beautiful sense of the word.  They were also truly crazy half the time.  But they were 100% dedicated to that crazy.

I mean, why do you think all these books, Glass Castles and Educated are so darn popular?  I mean aside from the voyeur in all of us who can't look away from a train wreck . . . it's because it speaks to the crazy in all of us.   The more time I spend on this earth, the more I realize that there isn't a one of us who doesn't have some sort imbalance and meaty mental issue to deal with in their life.  That's what makes life . . . LIFE.  The skeletons rattling around in our closet.

It's why we wake up at 4am and get all bothered by a book that brings back our childhood.  Triggers shake those skeletons and remind us of how human and fallible and blind we are.

What upset me the most about reading Educated today?  It's not that her story could literally be a darker version of mine, but it's that I read it as a parent.  I couldn't get out of my mind all the million and one ways I was messing up my children's lives.  What odd thing am I hanging on to in the belief that it's the right and only way to live?

And you know what I came up with?  At least 8,094,753 things.

I am pretty much bat crap crazy and I can't help it.  I'm a product of generations of crazy and so is John.  We came to this earth impaired and probably shouldn't ever be allowed in so many ways to raise children.

And yet . . . we do.  We have.  We are.   

And guess what?  We are doing our stinking best for them.  I love every tiny molecule of their bodies.  When I hug them, the love that pours into my heart, it just goes right beyond words to feelings so strong there is nothing I wouldn't do for them.  

I may be wrong in all the millions of ways I think I'm right, and in twenty years, I may be reading a book by one of my children telling me (and the world) all the ways their childhood was a hot mess thank you very much, Mom.  But I will know, just like I 100% know this about both my parents and John's parents and all of our grandparents, we all tried the very hardest we could and the best we knew how and we loved them with our whole hearts.  

And this, this is why being with my family, a boisturous group of all ages and generations, the laughter, the love, the worry and tenderness, the crazy and perfect, today was a balm to my soul.  Bottom line, in all of this, is that love trumps.  Every.  Single.  Time.

(And also, crazy sells . . . like crazy.  I should monetize mine, huh?  Like I could be a millionaire, I got that much crazy inside me)