I keep running into this issue where I dismiss any idea that pops into my head to write about that involves my kids as ‘too easy,’ like I’m cheating.
Wilder used to run around the house wanting us to chase him. “Catch me whenever you can,” he’d scream.
The kindness of that. The no worries if not of it.
This was not a question of ‘if’ one could catch him, but whether one had the time.
Catch me at your leisure, when time allows.
I’ll be around whenever, so you catch me when it feels right for you, I know you’re busy.
Catch me whenever you can.
So I think about that absolute gold of a nugget of an utterance said by a human child, and I say to myself, “you fucking hack, dipping back into the ol’ ‘kids say the darnedest things’ bucket eh??”
“What’s next, you write about your grouchy but lovable dog Robert?”
If it’s easy, my mind says, it is wrong.
This is, of course, fallacious as fuck.
Now I know what you’re thinking: “is fallacious a word?”
Yes. Say it with me now: /fəˈlāSHəs/.
Nothing compares 2 them
These children of mine are the closest thing to God that I’ve ever been around. They are magic like Jesus Christ must have been, and for some reason I’ve decided it’s a bad thing to write about them too much?
I should ONLY be writing about them. They’re these insane balls of cuddle love and perfect curiosity, visions of the good available to us all, proof of the undamaged Self that knows only love, and I’m supposed to, what exactly, write instead about how “i invented google”???
I did invent google
Look, I have bulletproof proof:
Stop trying to make everything so hard you little dumbo!!
— Me, to Me
Here’s a thought: what if life’s best ideas are less like “catch me if you can and lemme tell ya buddy it’s gonna be hard as hell!” and more “catch me whenever you can, I’m here, chilling, because where else would I be?”
I am unsure of how someone could feel this way but I believe Debbie when she says she does!
I’m gobsmacked, really. Thank you Debbie.
Here’s a lil part of the piece:
Insecure and in good company
Even though it’s improbable that a 30-something guy and a 70-something grandmother could have something in common, I feel a strong kinship with Alex. His life is so very different from mine, yet it’s extremely relatable.
Foremost are his insecurities, of which there are many, and his ever-present need for approval and love. That resonates. That’s what’s inside my head too, now at age 73, back when I was in my 30s, and far earlier.
Actually, it’s been like that for me since I can remember. I was an only child for almost a decade and in those early years, all I wanted was to be accepted, to be liked, to fit in with the kids at school. But that never happened. I always felt like an outsider. In fact, my mother was responsible for my getting teased at school because she made me wear brown lace-up shoes that were NOT COOL. (She’d seen them in England, I think.) The other kids got to wear loafers. With pennies in them.
(Debbie) working on a puzzle at age 3… Am I doing it RIGHT? Am I good enough??
Even in my young married life as a 20-something, I still ached to GET IT RIGHT. I still yearned for approval and acceptance, maybe even accolades. Everyone else seemed to have figured things out… they all seemed popular and successful and well liked. Why not me? I’d graduated from Harvard, I’d married a doctor (although I didn’t really count that as a personal success), I’d gotten a masters degree in journalism and worked part-time for several newspapers as I began having babies, years before my peers… but it didn’t feel like ENOUGH. I still felt like I was behind (even though I was ahead in starting a family).
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After yesterday’s post, ONE PERSON became a paying subscriber of Both Are True!! I got an email about it. Thank you to that one person who asked me not to name them because they are the musical artist Madonna.
if u drink enough coffee u become coffee ask me how I know im coffee
But I mean, raise your hand if you DON’T have an Alex Writer Crush tho? I thought it was a prerequisite to attend BAT..!?