Merry Christmas Yet Again

Here we are again, making fools of ourselves and documenting it for posterity.

Merry Christmas from the Clinton family of weirdos... weirdos who happen to be pretty spectacular bowlers.

Click on the picture below if you want to get a closer look at our tattoos or Fat Linda's ashy lips.

Expectation Station

Back when I was smart, I learned a lot about behavior and what influences productive or nonproductive reactions in people. Basically, we all react based on whether our expectations for a situation are either met or not met.

I think everyone has certain expectations of the world and how they think it should work. We know how we expect people act, and feel somewhat disoriented when those expectations are not met.

I’ve been wondering if I could verbalize some of my expectations to unravel why certain things give me the angry eyebrowns. I do acknowledge more than one of these makes me sound like a jerk and a ridiculous person, but it’s all in the spirit of fun and transparency (that no one asked for). It’s like I’m conducting a self-discovery exercise before a live studio audience.

So here’s my attempt to document a cross-section of the Lily Expectations (bulleted like a business document).

• The first stall in a row of public bathrooms is not for doing poo. That should be reserved for the deluxe stalls in the back. To break this rule means you will cause me to walk unexpectedly into a cloud of stink, making the hit all the more pungent and unpleasant.

• People should not walk across your fresh, undisturbed yard snow. To do this mars the picturesque beauty and makes it look junky.

• You should drive exactly as I do, or you will incur my wrath. Too fast and you are out of control. Too slow and you are super annoying.

• Children should not be mean or disrespectful. If they are in my presence, I will dislike them for all of eternity. Though realistically, I might not like them anyway, especially if they smell like syrup.

• Local news is crappy all the time, no matter where you live. There is no fixing this.

• The internet should always work. If it doesn’t, I will feel rage and shout, but do nothing to actively fix the problem.

• I don’t know what “salt to taste” means. How am I supposed to salt raw meat to taste? This is just a ridiculous instruction. Give me the stinking details, please. 

• Even if it is reality, I do not want to see baby animals getting eaten by other animals on the National Geographic shows. If you are my husband and you turn this on, I will make irritated huffs for a few minutes, hint that it should be turned off, then [passive aggressively] leave the room loudly.

Now about retail…

• Paying with exact change and digging pennies from the bottom of your purse is not acceptable. Just use your credit card, please. 

• Along those lines, writing a check at the grocery store is not a good idea. But if you are going to do it, you should perhaps start at the beginning of the transaction, not at the very end. 

• If you also have some coupons to use, one or two is acceptable. Over 12 seems a bit much, especially when you have to argue one of them should work when it doesn’t.

I should just pause here to acknowledge that I sound like the world’s most impatient person. Seems like that can’t possibly be true. There are like 7.6 billion people in the world (I Googled it), I might fall somewhere in the middle.

Continuing on…

• Every business should have answers on the internet and a click-to-chat function. Do not make me call you or I will put it off for months until I have a real problem on my hands. Then I will mentally blame your business for it. 

• When at any kind of food line (like a salad bar, or heaven forbid, a buffet), the person behind me should stand at least three feet back. To get any closer to than this will make me feel undue pressure. I end up trying to rush and panic. Then I inadvertently scoop nasty peas on my lettuce. 

• I should be able to hear everything going on, all the time. If you talk too softly or there is a stovetop fan running and I can hear the voice, but not make out the words, no good. No good at all.

This list is by no means exhaustive. I thought I should stop here before even I want to beat myself up. Since this was an exercise in transparency, I need to evaluate what I have learned.

Lily needs to be more patient and perhaps adjust her expectations, or Lily will have no friends at all.

Lily need not speak in the third person, because that is creepy.

So this week, as a means of ridding myself of impatience and unmet expectations, I might try to systematically break my own expectations in order to put myself in the other person’s shoes.

Does anyone know where I can get 43 coupons? What’s that you are adding to your salad, how about I take a closer look.

I’ll go check to see if that first stall is available now…

Bodily Harm

I often process my thoughts and emotions in words. A lot of times this means I have to talk and talk about something until my listener wants to run away. This is where writing helps.

Right now, my brain is like one of those old computers when you first turn them on. It makes noise and lights blink, but you can’t do anything because it is still booting up and won’t let you.

I’m consumed right now. I feel heartbroken, guilty and angry. In fact, it feels a bit like rage.

One of the new punishments I dish out for my kids is picking out their clothes for school after they commit some sort of infraction. For Eli this is absolute torture (I pick jeans instead of cool-kid sweats). Unfortunately, I’m finding Marina enjoys the break from early-in-the-day decision-making.

This morning while I was going through this exercise, I gave her a shirt to put on. After she tried it on, she said she didn’t like it because it makes her look fat. At first my brain didn’t process what she said because it was so unexpected. I made her repeat herself. As the words sunk in, my body had a physical reaction. My stomach felt anxious and sick; I could feel my pulse in my neck.

For those who don’t know my children, Marina is 8 years old and in third grade. She has always been the smallest person in her class and has never been above the 3^rd percentile on the growth or weight charts. I buy her size 6 clothes, which is pretty much what a kindergarten or first grader wears. She is shaped like a child.

After hearing Marina’s words, I quickly (and likely too forcefully) told her she was NOT fat. Not even close. I told her she is a tiny person and is shaped exactly how she is supposed to be. She mumbled in return that a girl told her she was fat, that her shirt was too tight on her stomach. I think my eyeballs must have caught fire because she immediately told me she didn’t remember who it was who said it.

Full disclosure: my first impulse was to totally trash this little anonymous girl – to tell my daughter the girl’s a little a-hole. Then I wanted to go find her and be one of those parents who runs onto the football field in the middle of the game to tackle a youth player.  

Today is March 2. This apparently happened maybe sometime in September -- at least six months ago. Marina has had these words in her head since then, all without saying anything. She hasn’t forgotten them and they obviously are informing her decisions on clothing.

Instead of cussing and ruthlessly belittling that girl (a heroic feat), I reinforced my statement on her body, let her have some input in the shirt I chose for her, then left the room. I went and stood in my closet and felt like weeping. I felt like something had been irreparably broken. My beautiful girl had been tainted.

The clear-thinking part of me can feel some sorrow for the nasty little girl. What has her life been that she holds a body standard that Marina does not meet? That she should inflict it on any 8-year-old!?  What messages has she heard?

Then I realized something. Marina may have heard the shirt comment directed at her, but how many times before that has she heard me talk about how my pants are too tight, about how I ate 400 cookies and am now obese. I am verbally heaping body-shame on myself all day long. It’s been a habit of a lifetime. It is a self-effacing humor that has been a way of life for me. This is the trash with which I have filled her ears.

For as long as I can remember, I have compared my body to other people’s and determined myself to be lacking. I remember barely eating for a period in high school and getting dizzy all the time as a result. Just two days ago, I looked at a celebrity’s Instagram page for hours – all her skinny, pretty pictures, her amazing cooking. Right after, I went into my bedroom and announced to Mark that I’m a fat, worthless human, then told him we were eating macaroni and cheese with hot dogs chunks for dinner the next day.

This has been a way of life for not only me, but pretty much all the women I know. It’s kind of a funny game we all play with each other. Eat cake and complain about tight pants, repeat. It hasn’t been really concerning because that’s how everyone thinks.

Until today. Until I hear it from my 8-year-old’s mouth and feel completely defeated and broken by it. I don’t want her to feel this way. It’s like the door is open and there is no closing it. That lack of awareness has been removed. I don’t want her to launch into years of not feeling good enough, learning to fold her arms across her stomach when she sits down, of standing in front of the mirror and grabbing her thighs from behind so it looks like they don’t touch.

This all makes me sick, like I want to cry for her. Like I want to cry for the high school me.

While I have been wringing my hands all day, wishing I could erase the harm that has been done to my child, this Bible verse keeps popping in my head.

Psalm 139:13-14 – For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Fearfully and wonderfully made all the time. Not just when your pants fit.

Oh my little girl, please cover your ears and your eyes. Please don’t believe the lie that you are not good enough. And to myself… please understand you are fighting the battle for more than just yourself, you fight for the little one who is watching you. So SHUT UP!