Imperfect and Joyful

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to re-open my particular brand of crazy. If one day I just started showing up to playdates with bandaged wrists and unwashed hair, and, oh yeah, an intense need for affection as well as a penchant for taking rejection really, really bad. I mean 'over-the-top' bad.

(Woooweee! Was I a character or what?)

It's not like it's exactly a secret. I've shared bits here and there with those I trust. I harbor no need to keep things quiet.

We hear time and again how mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but I can't help remembering all that ugliness, all these broken and damaged people slumping and sliding around me, too tired to even reach out for a hand. I remember my hostility, my cruelty. Sometimes I'm ashamed of that portion, the ugly person I became, with little regard for those around me.

But I also remember that within all that ugliness, all that sadness and heaviness, there existed these tremendous sparks, like the bioluminescence fireflies give off in the waning light of day.

Spark. Spark. Spark. Weaving in the air and tangled up in the bushes. Unexpected presents.

Sometimes broken people make the most beautiful music. Once I sat outside the hospital smoking with three other patients, and the time we had within that 15 minute space was one of the best of my life. Had you taken us and placed us in a park, you would have never known what building we had just come out of, or why. Our conversation, our laughter, our faces, melodious.

It hits me sometimes, the normalcy of my life. The I have relationship with my husband brings me happiness and not heartache. We watch baseball together on the couch. We laugh and hold hands.

All of it: making dinner, shopping, seeing friends. Going to bed without medication. Going through my weeks without group therapy, a social worker, or the special kind of craft time that doesn't involve children with glue. Omega fatty acids replace Wellbutrin; calcium & Vitamin D replace Trazadone.

Like any person, I can say there was a time in my life that was particularly challenging, but it was also one that I wasn't quite sure I'd survive.

I pick up my youngest daughter from preschool, and take the short walk home with her among the crunchy fall leaves. I wonder what would have happened had this picture been available to me when I was 20. What my battered self would have thought then, if a nurse had showed it to me on my bed.

"Here is what your life will be like. Imperfect yes, but still mostly joyful. Can you hang on?"

I imagine that girl holding the picture in her hands in disbelief.

Lillian Through the Years

Quieter, though hugely uncomfortable, times.

Cute, but about to become a hellraiser.


My sweet nursling, stuck firmly in that spot where personality is tremendous, breastfeeding schedule is pleasant and relaxed, and tantrums have yet to begin.


Almost two, apples have replaced boobs.

Rockstar three, with all the backstage demands and ridiculous riders. Still, we listen to the music and continue to love it.

Nearly four, dancing with her sister to Krupa & Rich.

In those early days, I crossed the numbered squares off the calendar with a black Sharpie, to signify another 24 hour stretch survived. When she turned two, I mourned the passing of one like it was a death. Three brought the things that three traditionally brings: tantrums, screaming and ferocity, wrapped nicely in a delicate pink paper and topped with an outrageous bow. Now, it's mostly joy, with a fairly generous helping of frustration, that mark our waking hours. She is delightful, stubborn, affectionate. She has a wicked mean streak that she was clearly born with, though it's fading with these last days of 3.

We love her, though we still sometimes threaten to put her out with the recycling. She'll be 4 tomorrow. And we're grateful that she's ours.

How Would You Like That Cooked?

I was a solid vegetarian for 6 years. (I say solid because that's the amount of time I totally abstained from animals. After that, I had an additional 2 years of mostly abstaining but occasionally sneaking a chicken nugget or brief taste of my mother's meat sauce.)

All my well-intentioned meat forgoing missions went straight to hell as soon as sperm met egg and made a nice comfy spot somewhere in my uterus.

Suddenly, I was channeling George Romero's zombies, but thankfully substituting something acceptable in place of a nice juicy cerebellum.

Must. Have. Cheeseburger.

I tell you, the craving was otherworldly. Resistance was truly futile, and while my first foray back into the world of carnivores was less than satisfactory (an apartment stovetop burger, anyone?), soon enough I was back enjoying all those tasty items I had abandoned so long ago.

But I always felt bad about it, like I had totally let down all my animal buds. All those cows I used to wave to on Thruway trips to Syracuse ("I'm not going to eat you!")....certainly they had ended up on someone's plate by then, but I could sense their bovine spirits scowling at me as they chewed their heavenly cud. "Traitor," they mooed. "Traitor."

By now, anyone with the ability to read can probably list a few good reasons to not eat meat: the animal cruelty of factory farming, the multiple downsides of agribusiness -- including the utilization of undocumented workers so as to forgo decent wages and benefits -- the environmental toll of land for feed, billowing clouds of cow farts, the clogging of our arteries and elevated if not downright dangerous cholesterol levels. The list is lengthy and persuasive.

Yet I continue to munch on my spicy pork and chorizo sausage burgers with abandon, even fixing some spicy mayo to adorn the juicy goodness and toasting up the bun for maximum pleasure.

I used to wonder if Hannah, once learning the source of her beloved pepperoni or hamburger, would choose to eschew meat for something that didn't bother her burgeoning conscience.

I remember walking the aisles of Acme with her, talking over this very thing, that some of the food we eat comes from animals that are raised and killed. And I was completely caught off guard when she exclaimed: "Pigs are yummy!"

Yesterday at dinner (two grilled bratwursts and two grilled hotdogs for the girls), she mentioned to me, "I may want to become a vegetarian some day. I'm not sure that I want to kill animals." (Maybe she'll start after the hot dog?)

It's not like we're huge meat eaters here. Twice, maybe three nights a week, with the rest being meatless. But the cover story in this Sunday's New York Times got me thinking again. Showing a young woman who has been paralyzed from a virulent e.coli infection, straight from a package of hamburgers, it brought to light another reason for giving up ground cows: sometimes the way our food gets to the table is downright dangerous.

And so jeez, we have all these signs that point to...don't eat meat...and yet we still do, because, let's face it, it's yummy. It's really freakin' yummy. And as awesome as vegetarian food can be -- I make a kiss ass grilled roasted veggie and goat cheese burrito -- sometimes it lacks that rib-sticking feeling that we all occasionally desire. Is this our destiny? Is this what we're supposed to eat? Because of what we crave?

A long time ago, I read a book called Dominion. It is essentially all the reasons people of relative privilege should forgo meat, with faith-based themes of mercy and kindness. It also explores, in depth, other animal industries, including whaling and big game hunting. If God gave us dominion over animals and plants, how much of a bang-up job are we doing with that charge?

How do you feel about eating meat? Do you feel conflicted about it? Do you not eat it? And why?