Not my story

When you write, write what you know. Or feel. Or think. It's what I tell all my students, and it's an adage that I too live by religiously. If you've been reading this blog long enough, you'll know it's true. No matter how badly I try to create a theme ("life in the south!", "life as an academic!", "the life of a triathlete"), there's always that awkward moment when I simply have to write about something completely different (say, our misbehaving puppies, trips overseas, and the importance of bathrooms), for no other reason than that it's been on my mind.

This is also the reason I have not blogged in two weeks. And why blogging prior to my last post was sporadic to say the least. It's not because I don't have anything to say, because heavens knows that moment won't come until I'm six feet under the ground, but because what is on my heart and mind is not something I feel comfortable sharing. It's not my story. It's someone else's. And although I don't mind talking about other people ad nauseum, albeit under a fake name, it has always been under the guise of their lives being part of my story. And this story isn't just part of my life, it's part of lots of other people's lives too.

And the story that's been on my mind, heart, and soul is about Ozzie and Jimmie. Who, of course, aren't really called Ozzie and Jimmie at all. But that's part of my blogging deal. I know there are bloggers who have no qualms about sharing their children's names, pictures, funny, sad, and happy stories, but I'm not one of them. Maybe it's because they're a little bigger and older than the average, oh, toddler or pre-teen, or maybe it's because they're never really mine. I don't know. But apart from some minor tales about Jimmie's bullying problems and Ozzie's likeness to Sheldon Cooper, I've written very little about them on this blog. And as they are possibly the easiest stepchildren any stepmom could wish for, that hasn't been difficult at all.

Lately, however, their stories have become more complicated. More rife with questions, worries, and strife. Although fundamentally, most of their issues are no harder or worse than what any mother with teenagers would face, in my case, they feel very different. There's more people in the picture, such as their biological dad (you know, the long-suffering, always patient man known as husband-dear), but also people who have begun to play a much more important role in the recent years; their biological mother, their relatively new stepdad and stepbrother. And it's exactly this presence of multiple people, roles, and influences that has rendered every situation more complex, more fraught with questions and doubt, and harder to write about. I want to write about Ozzie's struggles and Jimmie's quest to grow up as quickly as possible (or maybe not), but I can't. Because then I would have to write about their mother too. And their stepdad. And my very own husband-dear, of course. And they never asked to be on this blog, let alone be an object of analysis. As I said, as much as this is part of my life story, my future, my dreams, it's also not my story alone.

In addition, having problems such as these in the first place, makes me feel broken. Incomplete. Even failed. I always joke about how I don't like the term "broken family" and prefer "blended" or "julienne", but in reality, that is what we are, a broken family. Our kids have two homes, four parents, and different expectations everywhere they go. Making our family work in all of its complicated dimensions takes a lot of effort, patience, and good will. And sometimes it seems that we all just run out of everything at the same time, leaving nothing but a feeling of falling short. Of guilt for not trying harder, being better, showing more grace.
It doesn't help that everyone whose blog I seem to read lately has the seemingly perfect family. And I know that that's just a facade, that everyone has problems, just like I hide our fights behind funny stories about dirty kitchen floors and cleaning ladies. But everyone I know is on their first marriage, with kids that only belong to them and their spouse. Many of them are pregnant, dealing with questions such as whether or not to paint the nursery, reveal the gender, and feeling the pressure to defend the preference for a home birth. Important matters? Yes. Definitely. Matters I would love to have be my problems? Oh, yes. No one I know seems to deal with complicated pick up and drop off schedules, phonecalls about whether someone's band shoes got left at the other house, and why one house seems to hog all the new jeans, and more problematic issues such as the definition of acceptable grades. Not to mention the worry about whether or not you're doing a good job, if maybe the other parent is handling things smarter or not, how that will affect your children, and whether or not you should/could/must address this. It's both scary and lonely.

So in lieu of writing, I've been baking. A lot. It helps me whenever I'm stressed, or just blah, and have already ran/biked/swam that day. This past weekend, just to give you an idea, I baked three fresh pear cakes, twelve honey-blueberry muffins, one pear-apple pie, and one loaf of bread. I would have kept going, had I not run out of counter space and containers. The kids loved it, the neighbors loved it, and so will my co-workers once I start sharing. It may not be the story that it's in my head, but it's sharing something of me. And that's better than nothing at all.

I wanted to end with a flippant final sentence here, drawing a parallel between baking and life. Perhaps something like "when the ingredients are in the bowl, they don't look like much, but when the final product is amazing", or "just like baking, life requires patience and a vision of how things will turn out". But instead I will end with what husband-dear wrote after proofreading my blog (as this is, after all, his story too): "Someone, somewhere else may read it and know they are not the only ones baking with an ever changing recipe".