moms

There are times when my brain tells me it’s time to head out.

It’s a stilted conversation because often I am in another room, picking socks up off the floor. Or there’s spawn asking me where the snacks are, and if we could just eat bacon for dinner (just… bacon. nothing else) and I tend to just crane my neck and make quick eye contact with my brain in that “I’ll get to you in a min” look. I use that look also for things like:

People who call me instead of texting. I don’t understand.
Small repairs in my house that would take literally like 4 minutes but won’t get done until we move.
My husband. Always the husband. It’s a mutual understanding.
Kale.

My brain, after a bit of this, tends to hunker down into a place of mild disassociation that is pleasant and yet also ominous but that’s how I like to live my life I guess.

And then finally… my brain shrugs and says, “Well. I think it’s time for a migraine” and whammo. I finally decide to listen.

Except now I can’t listen because when I have a migraine listening (or seeing. or talking) is not available to me. They are faraway skills that are packed up in a red haze that is migraining.

In third grade, we had terrariums of hermit crabs in our classroom and one time I was trying to bond with my hermit crab, and I picked it up in my palm and its response to this was to pinch down on the skin between my thumb and forefinger. It would not let go. It did not want to bond. It wanted to sever some arteries.

We poured water on it and tapped its shell and I stared at it with growing panic as I realized the hermit crab and I were now one. I was too freaked out to process anything except that it hurt and my friends finally gave up and I just sat down, attached, and terrified. That’s kinda how it feels when I migraine comes.

That’s kind of a lousy analogy because migraines hurt more than Hermie did.

There are times in my life (kinda all the time) where I get super busy, with all sorts of deadlines and to-do lists and lots of stuff going on, and for the most part I’m ok. But sometimes I forget one small fact: My brain has feelings too. I can pack it all full of information and responsibilities and not forgetting to buy creamer at the store, but once in a while it wants to talk about its feelings. I think it wants to sit outside with me on the back stoop and say things like,

“What if I can’t do all this stuff very well at all?”

“What if this is all there is? These lists? The creamer? Forgetting the creamer?”

“Is time always going to be an opponent now? And when did that happen? I don’t remember what it was like before.”

“What if… What if I’m not good enough?”

Ignoring these conversations results in me having to sleep with four pillows on my head. So, when I finally can come up for air, post-migraine, God says things like, “Perhaps you should take a few things off that list, Dana. And also, I think bacon, and only bacon, for dinner sounds delicious. Vegetables can wait. And if they get slimy it’s the circle of life.”

Will I learn from this? Probably not. It’s the circle of life. I’ll manage myself, do the healthy things, make sure to get a run in, and get proper rest and do creative things… and then I’ll forget all that and get too busy and my brain and I will grow apart. Maybe writing about it here will help set a place for this. Maybe.

But what I can do is what I managed the morning after the migraine where I walked, a bit wobbly, down the hall to get a drink of water and look in the mirror. Hair wisping out on all sides. Eyes squinty. My head felt like a glass ornament and I held it very carefully on my shoulders. I looked at my reflection, all wobbly and fragile, and I took a breath. And I thought (or God thought in me):

“You are enough.”

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. The story of me and a very large, clunky Remington typewriter is on my first blog, Momsie – the blog where I wrote about momhood, babies, husbands, and pets (Steve. I wrote about Steve). Click on the image below for a blog post from Momsie about Steve’s squeak-purr:

I remember when I first started Momsie – I told my friend Christy that “everyone and their dog has a blog” – but she convinced me that dogs were not really my demographic and that I just needed to focus on Steve because he was a total cash cow.* Thus, Momsie was born.

It was a relief to write. It was easy. The stories were just so plentiful. My kids were great material; they were so cute**, and I could throw my words out there and offer up some laughter for the four or five folks who actually read me.

But also, Momsie was born out of a very real desperation (in my recovery circles some would call it the “gift of desperation”) to handle my new sobriety. I needed something to do. I needed someone to be. The blog saved me. It took my poor, mushy brain that was slowly starting to un-mush (medical terms are my thing) and it soothed it.

At camp, when you take the crumpled old t-shirt that your mom reminded you last minute to toss into the bottom of your backpack, and you rubberband the living daylights out of it and toss it in dye? That’s writing. (Notice how well I’m explaining this? #Pulitzer).

I mean – you have this rumpled, frayed thing, and then you twist it, fiddle with it, not really sure what you’re doing at all or where you’re going with it… And then the dye starts to seep in, slowly, all crazy and winding with rivulets and tributaries of saturation. And the end result? It’s a cacophony of color.

If you haven’t gathered, I totally have all my 70’s tie dye shirts still. They’re stretchy crop tops now, but that’s in style. #influencer

No, I’m not wearing the t-shirts/crop tops anymore. One did fit Steve, but he was so mortified that I forgot to take pictures and this is a tragedy so breathtaking I need to stop writing about it right here.

With Momsie, I wrote because the words just kinda came out of my fingers. My husband bought me a used laptop for my birthday, and then I had someplace mobile for the words to go. I could write at the park. I could write in bed. I could write while Red was trying to learn to use the potty and I had to sit outside the bathroom for hours until my butt fell asleep and I would end up eating all the bribery M and M’s. Pain is a great motivator for writing.

And Momsie was born, and grew and thrived. The rest was history.

Well, no. Actually, it’s not history – it’s my life right now. The words still have to come out of me pretty much every day or my brain goes all wonky. The colors must out, as it were.

There were a bunch of articles that came out in the early 2000’s about how alcohol was good for creativity. This was paired along with the whole “red wine is good for your heart” thing, which was soooooo my thing back when I was drinking. Lookit. I’m drinking four glasses of red wine! YOU KNOW, CUZ IT’S GOOD FOR MY HEART.

Yea. Turns out, the heart thing is not true.

And the whole, “artists need alcohol to create” thing? It’s total crapola.

Our muse is not a bottle. It’s in us.

My colors are completely Dana-Generated. I don’t use anything outside of myself and my own experiences for their saturation. This is what works best for me. Dana-generated colors cause a daily bloom of gratitude. It’s the ultimate “look what I made!” – every day.

Thanks for the listen, and, as always, I’m grateful for you, my dear readers.

Where are the colors in your life?

*cashcat

* *They are still cute.

Migraines and other remedies for my brain.

Wine and Writing Don’t Mix