Reunited

This two week period has been a blessing. Reunited with my inner self, reunited with the person who came before the little person that I helped to create popped out into the world, demanding most all of my time and energy. Abandoned, my inner Stacy began to atrophy, replaced by nagging voices, riddled with doubt and lacking self awareness. I've been looking in the mirror the past two weeks and seeing the reflection of someone who has made some difficult choices, someone who's been with her back to the wall, and someone who deserves compassion for trying so hard that she almost erased herself. Oh, did I miss Diego while he was in Philadelphia. There is no doubt that I am a different person than the girl who lived in Brooklyn and made a child with her crazy neighbor. I've become a mother. It's been a very intense three plus years. I'm discovering the noble truth about parenting through trial and error (or is it trial by fire?), and that's not over by a long shot. I needed support through some of it, and fell short of my stringent expectations about who I was (strong, independent, even-tempered) and what I could do single-handedly. I looked outside of myself for advice, well intentioned friends and family who saw my pain and tried to help me translate it. However, no one can walk in these Keens but little me. I told a story to myself, that I needed to be superwoman...and that I was failing, miserably. I looked to pass the buck--there can always be someone else to blame. I operated under a pressure cooker whose lid I helped close. Like the cooking rice, I boiled and bubbled, spun myself out into circles and finally exploded, lid flying, sticky grains plastering the stunned faces of those I invited to this dinner disaster! But like a cook who forgot to add the salt, or who added too much, I've had to be creative in making this dish palatable for others to enjoy. And maybe I put too much stock in the advice of other cooks. oh, unintentional pun, forgive me! Okay...I'm getting tired of the analogy but the point is getting clearer (to me:). To make a good meal, maybe you consult with a cookbook, maybe you call your mom to ask how she used to do it. But too many cooks just cause you to make a lousy dish. Ultimately, you're the one to blame. All those cooks were just offering their opinions, not laying down some cardinal law about your fried rice. I needed to swirl all those wonderful ideas around in my mind but eventually just pick something that I think will accomplish my goal: to make a wonderful dish. And then, live with the result.
But here's where this little allegory starts to peter out (thank god, right?) because there's more to this than some greasy dish. We've got a little person in this world that's looking to the folks around him to make sense of this whole crazy situation. I don't think two parents in two states is sensible. I don't think that either one of Diego's families are going to always like the choices that his crazy ass parents make. Maybe we all need to give each other some breathing room, and to let the kids grow up a bit. And maybe we need to count on each other for something less emotional and more doable...to just trust that each of us might be able to make some damn good rice without any outside influence at all.