Revolutionary Road

I have often said that the movie American Beauty changed my life. Director Sam Mendes may well be throwing me another curve ball with Revolutionary Road. Considering my love for change and newness and risks and throwing it all up in the air... I may well quit my job and get my ass in grad school within the next two years.

Two years btw was how long it took after American Beauty for me to make the changes I made. I left my husband. It was a year of waiting/gestating, coming to terms with it and about a year of active planning. Ken and I actually planned this together, he knew what I knew. I didn't sit around planning an escape like it was Papillon or anything.

I don't know what it was about the words and the message in this film, but they affected me very deeply. I saw ME in those people. I saw the path I was on leading me toward a life I didn't want. And so, without getting into the gory details... it started with little things. Namely, an ability to hold things at arm's length and SEE. I had these moments of clarity where I could almost look at him, at our arguments from a birds eye view. Rising up and over, I could choose which fights to fight and which to save for another day. I could see me in these moments and I hated her/me. I did. I didn't like who I had become, who he had become too. Because we were both so much more that what we were.

I think my never-ending struggle with balance started during this time. And I have to be honest, its not a war I've won. The battles continue, daily. I think they will until my children are grown. I think finding balance with kids in your life, okay with Seth and JP in your life, is near impossible. Every mom reading this is nodding, because you just put your kids' names in that sentence. I know you did.

Its impossible not to make tough choices. Its impossible to do it all. We cannot. And yet we continue to fool ourselves or think we're fooling each other that we can, that we do. Its a lie ladies. We all do our best most of the time. And other times, you just need to sit back and say "Fuck it." Drink a cold beer, unbutton that top button that is way tighter than it used to be and let it all out. Until we can admit to ourselves that having it and doing it all just isn't worth the hassle... we're going to drive ourselves to exhaustion. The fake smiles plastered over a tired and worn out and thread bare self... they will eventually shatter. And when they do, when you have a moment of reckoning. Alone, probably in the shower. Know that you aren't the only one. There are millions of us, all faking it till we make it. And never knowing when we've actually "made it."

You'll be fine by the way. There will be a knock at the door, a little one crying for a drink, a dog barking at the neighbors... and you snap back. You'll dry your hair, put on some makeup and deal with it. One moment at a time. Because we're women. We make it or we break it... we hold the cards for very good reason. Even if that reason might be different for each of us, we know how to win the hand we're dealt.

I call it Mother Strength*.


*This is also useful when needing to lift an oak bureau off of a toddler. Later realizing that not only can you not lift it, but you can't even get it to slide two inches to the left.