I had a million things to write as an intro to this week’s field notes. Then I woke up yesterday and felt very unmotivated to do just about anything on my To Do list, so I watched an episode of This Is Us, cried, took a nap then drove into Kingston for a covid PCR test. The covid test was unrelated to how I was feeling, just a routine test.
I’m feeling off at my core these days, like there’s a deep hole inside my soul. The reality of being a single parent to a kid on the spectrum who also suffers from depression is kicking my ass.
Depression doesn’t just affect the person suffering from it. This is going to sound very selfish, or maybe it doesn’t sound selfish so much as I’ve conditioned myself to believe I have to learn to need less because so many people in my life have needed more.
From childhood, growing up with a mother who clearly suffers from undiagnosed mental health issues, to an alcoholic father and sister with Bipolar II, my whole life feels very heavy—the lightest, brightest spot was the last 8 years with Michael. We built this beautiful family and were the most amazing team together. We were perfectly imperfect as I’ve always said. When most couples would run from their problems, we doubled down our commitment.
The driving force that keeps me going most days is knowing I’ve not followed in my parents’ footsteps. I’m breaking cycles even if I question whether I’m doing things right on a daily basis. My sister suffered for years because my mother wasn’t capable of understanding the source of my sister’s destructive behaviors. We had different fathers, though she primarily grew up with mine, and my sister never knew her dad. To this day, my mother refuses to tell my sister his name.
For years, I viewed my mother as a victim to my father. As I’ve grown older, I realize the situation was more complicated and everyone in that house was in a continuous cycle of pain and hurt, both within and with each other while I stood afar watching them on this mental health crisis ferris wheel. There is no doubt I was affected by it all, and am untangling so many of these feelings now.
What I realize now is how much my father was a victim in his own way. His father was an alcoholic. His sister was an alcoholic who served time in jail for killing her first husband. His mother was his only champion, and she died soon after I was born, when my dad was 24 years old. From what I know, he led a sober life until that point, and there’s no doubt now that grief must’ve had such a grip on him, yet no one noticed because we do not know how to talk, nor honor, grief in American culture. Instead of helping him, my mother berated him, and fulfilled all the thoughts my father must’ve had with the words she said to him.
My father remarried a few years after my parents divorced, and with the support of a kind, stable person, he quit drinking and even smoking. It would take him a few more years after that to realize he didn’t need to divorce me along with my mother, and when that realization came, he was dying from pancreatic cancer. I sat at his bedside for 27 hours, and watched him take his last breath, feeling a gust of wind push through my body when it happened. We were alone, his new wife and seven-year old daughter on a break for fresh air. I waited before calling the nurse, wanting a few more moments alone with him.
I’ve spent almost three years mourning the loss of a woman who’s still alive since ending all contact with my mother, while simultaneously living through a pandemic and trying my best to not make her mistakes while raising my own children. And this is where the hard part comes for me. I have to navigate parenthood on a balance beam, keeping my own childhood memories just close enough to use as a resource reference of what not to do. If I hold those memories too close, the pain I felt back then morphs into a fresh pain when managing a relationship and providing for my own child suffering from depression.
I’m still on the outside looking in but at least now I’ve got locksmiths on speed dial in the form of psychiatrists and therapists to help in the ways I cannot. And even when I’m not sure any of it is helping, I go to bed each night knowing that at least I am trying, and therein lies the difference between then and now.
As always, I'm honored you take time from your day to read what I write. Remember to be kind and walk gently in the lives of others.–xo, j.
Coming this week: recipe for Gluten-Free Skillet Crumb Cake (with a regular version, too!)
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12 Teenagers on What Adults Don’t Get About Their Lives is an article from the Opinion section of the NYT last week. I’m perplexed why they chose that section for it because it’s actually an interview, and pretty much verbatim Q&A, so less opinion and more fact straight from the source. On the heels of a very contentious school meeting regarding Virginia’s 504 plan, this article hit a nerve. Our kids are overworked and stressed beyond belief, yet educational guidelines operate business as usual.
I’m curious how these future leaders will shape the world they’ll soon inhabit as adults. Will they accept the status quo, or will there be enough of the old guard gone to make room for new ideas on what it means to be educated. Will true reforms take place to acknowledge the desperate need in teaching the values of mental health, being stewards of the land, and being kind to all humans?
And for heaven’s sake, can we finally scrap the antiquated model of Physical Education, which is my particular battle at this time. I’m really tired of hearing people say P.E. teaches important team building, communication and life skills. That may certainly be the intended goal but it is far from the reality in how it is currently structured in public education. A soccer ball coming towards your face, or someone racing at you with a field hockey stick is not the only way to help young people hone these skills. In fact, for kids on the spectrum or dealing with depression, these kinds of sports are triggers and an impediment to their well being and growth.
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Gyoza From Scratch, a virtual class on April 3rd led by Yuki Gomi, a London-based Japanese chef and teacher. Gomi regularly teaches online classes, and all funds raised from the April 3rd class are part of Cook for Ukraine, and will be donated to UNICEF. I’ll note that it doesn’t mention this on her site, but she shared the information on my Instagram page last week. Class information can be found here. A reminder that 17:00 translates to 5:00pm London time, so you’ll need to take the time difference into consideration.
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Shabbachos I would like to formally trademark this genius recipe name, and since I did a Google search and not one result was returned, I think I’m onto something. What are they? Okay, so now comes the part where I confess the genius only lies in the name because these, my dear people, are just nachos I decided to make for Shabbat a few days ago. I’m wondering if Mikey would’ve found these cute, corny or both. Matthew has yet to weigh in on the title.
Kidding aside, what is pretty genius about these nachos is they’re assembled and baked in a skillet. A video of me making them is saved in my Instagram highlights. I decided to use a skillet since I needed to saute some veggies before assembling them, and it just made sense to stick with the skillet and have one less pan to wash at the end of dinner.
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How to Make Gluten-Free Pasta –an epic Instagram live–no joke, it’s 33 minutes long. I did a spontaneous IG live on Saturday night, and demo’d how to make gluten-free cavatelli & orecchiette while I was preparing dinner. If you follow me there, then you know I’ve been doing a lot of gluten-free baking the last two weeks. I tell you why in that IG live which is saved in the videos section of my IG page.