DAY 1: Whatever the f*** I want
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
WFIW of the Day: Laid in bed for an extra hour.
Today, I didn’t get out of bed. That was my “whatever the fuck I want.”
Usually, I wake up at 7:15am with my husband, Ed, so I can make breakfast for our daughter. Sometimes I even make her a fancy flavored carafe of hot tea.
My daughter loves these breakfasts. She eats them in the car on the way to school.
The origin of breakfast-to-go? A few months ago, my daughter was adjusting to her very first semester of high school and she came home one day extremely emotional. Sad, crying, upset at us, despondent about her future. Alarmed, Ed and I tried to ask her what was wrong, what we could do to help.
Turns out, she hadn’t eaten all day. It was extreme HANGER (or in her case, Hadness?)
Like a typical 14 year old, she had spent sixty minutes in the morning working on her outsides, and zero minutes feeding her insides. Then, she couldn’t find the cafeteria in time to actually get any lunch. So here she was, at 4pm… 8 hours of running between classes under a 20-lb backpack; learning about mitochondria, slope-intercept equations and Japanese alphabets; and even doing whatever they do in PE class these days… with zero calories to fuel her body.
No wonder she was feeling pessimistic about life.
The next morning, I woke up determined to make her a nutritious (and delicious!) breakfast-to-go. Oh and who wants a plain rice ball when they can have one shaped like a panda, so I also bought cute molds and cut shapes out of seaweed.
She loved it. She smiled and exclaimed at the surprises I had in store for her each morning.
>>>>> And that’s still not a reason for me to have to do it every day.
Lying in bed this morning, I could hear my husband and daughter chatting as they got ready and then walked out the door together.
The asshole in my brain leaped forward into an elaborate possible future: adult Sophia telling her friends,
“Oh, my step-mom used to make me these adorable breakfasts, but she was never consistent with it. Maybe if she had been, I would have felt more safe and supported and had less problems in life.”
Or, the real honest truth?
“Oh, my step-mom used to make me these adorable breakfasts, but she was never consistent with it. She was a terrible mother.”
My brain wasn’t worrying so much about HER as it was worrying about her HER IMPRESSION of ME. I wanted adult Sophia to have a pristine image of me in her head. That perfect, angelic, nurturing, thoughtful stepmom who was ALWAYS there for her.
And for good measure, my brain added: “You know, there are probably studies that show that children whose parents show up for them consistently every morning are more likely to thrive and have better life outcomes…”
My brain is really good at this future B.S.
You know what? Yes. Sophia might be disappointed on those days when I don’t get up early to make her breakfast.
But you know what she’s also seeing?
A woman who does WHATEVER THE FUCK SHE WANTS sometimes. A woman who doesn’t just show up, faithfully, robotically, every single morning because “that’s what mothers do.” A woman who has needs and DESIRES of her own. A woman who created a life for herself where she gets to lie in bed for an hour when she goddamn feels like it.
And you know what was in the sink when I finally did get up this morning?
The cute little rice-ball molds.
My husband had made the delightful onigiri breakfast for his offspring, all by himself.
Omigod, that’s right! The man I married is fully capable of making a rice ball, too. In fact, he probably enjoyed getting to do that for his daughter. His daughter probably appreciated his making of it, and it strengthened their relationship just that tiny bit.
I wonder if this is always what will happen when I put myself first. When I make my daughter’s breakfast to delight not just her, but me too.
Disappointment, surprise, delight, maybe a little hanger? I don’t know.
The only way is to experiment and see.
With Curiosity,
Shinah
P.S. - I also played an hour of Animal Crossing this morning, before finally meandering over to write this blog post. But that’s an analysis for another day ;)