My youngest is surging toward a wonder week and driving my husband and I completely batty with lack of sleep; our oldest remains unaffected, as preschoolers often are. I obtained roughly two and a half hours of sleep last night. This is not the worst it’s ever been, but it’s the sixteenth night in a row that I’ve gotten four or less hours of sleep and it’s beginning to make me more than delirious, it’s making me see things and hear things and want to cry for no reason. This is not a big wha-wha post: oh, poor me, I have kids and don’t sleep and my husband left me and took the dog and there’s no beer in the fridge and my geetar broke another string…. It’s just a post to explain that #writeonehour every night is hard on nights like tonight.

Nights like tonight I’m done. I’m so tired I can’t read, I’m so tired I can’t think of a single thing to write about, I’m so tired I don’t even want to zone out in front of Netflix. It’s bad y’all. It’s bad in terms of first world problems though, and I know that, and I try to keep that in perspective. This too shall pass. The youngest will make a huge stride forward and sleeping will return to normal and in ten years I’ll have a hard time remembering just how little sleep I managed to function on. I get that.

This is not bad. What’s bad is laying in a hospital room with your toddler, your newborn at your feet, while you do your best to comfort your child who had to undergo emergency surgery after battling the worst kind of pain over and over again and being sent home each time, told it wouldn’t happen again, only to return. That’s bad. To wake up every two hours, crawl down to the bottom of the bed and contort yourself to fit sideways so you can breastfeed your baby where they sleep so you won’t wake them when you’re done because you want to be able to crawl back up to hold your toddler for another two hours before the baby needs your boob again.

The stress of your child in pain. The stress of not crying while your child is in pain. The stress of worrying your child doesn’t trust you anymore because you’ve been telling him what the doctors have been telling you which is that he won’t be back, yet there he is; over and over again. The stress of your child having to undergo surgery. The stress of not crying when they say your child needs emergency surgery. The stress of being in a hospital. The stress of your child being well enough post surgery that they want your child walking, and the screaming sound of his pain when you tell him he has to stand up. The stress of getting him to stop screaming, by sitting with him in his pain, begging him to take deep breaths before he throws up. The stress of telling him he has to walk, and going through the screaming/breathing/pain thing again. The stress of not crying as your child cries. The stress of your child finally recovering well enough to go outside only to step on a bee.

That was one of our worst moments. A moment that lasted nearly a week; months really if you count all the times we went to the hospital only to listen to our child scream in pain as they treated him, again, for this thing that would “never come back.” If you take into account all the trips leading up to the emergency surgery, it was six months of one of our worst moments. I debate whether or not that was our worst moment, and can’t be sure. The extended period of time that it took makes me think it wins. So much collective stress, and even now anytime I hear that particular scream I worry that the thing that can now officially “never come back” is back…why wouldn’t it be when we’ve been told so many times it can’t come back and then it does…like freaking Jaws.

The other debatable worst moment is when our oldest was jumping on the couch, which we tell him not to do, have always told him not to do, but which he was doing. And then he fell and slammed his chin on the edge of the couch, jolting his head backwards, hard. He began to cry and I rushed to hold him and then…nothing. Literally silence. He was floppy. He wasn’t breathing. I was convinced he was dead. I was convinced I was holding my dead child in my arms. My husband and I were both petrified. He demanded I hand the child over, which I did, but worried that I shouldn’t because we shouldn’t be moving him, because it could be a neck injury. My husband, who knows CPR, didn’t even consider doing CPR, because he was also convinced he was holding his dead child in his arms.

And then: magic. Our oldest came to, but wouldn’t or couldn’t open his eyes. And kept saying “it hurts” but couldn’t define where or what. Off we raced to the emergency room. Halfway there he vomited. Within a couple minutes he could open his eyes. Within a few more minutes he was talking as though nothing had happened. We debated going back home, but we were halfway to emergency and I was still terrified something could be wrong. We continued on our way, they did a scan and revealed no hairline fractures of any kind and sent us back home.

And of course we’ve had our share of minor cuts and scrapes and falls and tears and bandaids. We also have a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, and clothes on our backs. We have much to be grateful for. There is really very little to complain about, and is sixteen days in a row of less than four hours sleep really that bad? Yes. And no. Would I rather have eight hours of sleep tonight followed by a trip to the ER tomorrow or less than four hours of sleep tonight? I’ll take door number two, please and thank you.

This is our life right now. I knew coming into this NYR about #writeonehour that life might get in the way. And it has on occasion, like when our entire household had the flu and there were two days where I literally did nothing and writing was so far beyond my abilities that I didn’t even notice not doing it. I thought seriously about not writing tonight, about taking the youngest and going to bed and letting him climb all over me as he’s unable to sleep, because even with him climbing all over me I’d still be getting snippets of sleep. I seriously considered it. But then I thought about how things could be worse, how sixteen days in a row without sleep is not so bad, is not something that I should allow to derail me from my goals.

So here we are. You have a bit more insight into my life. As unexciting as it is. And hopefully tomorrow we’ll be back on track for a better post.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

My older son has taken to sleeping on the couch instead of going to his bed. This is new. He’s been going to bed in his own bed for months, possibly a year, and now suddenly he doesn’t want to. He always has some reason why he can’t be in there but the reasons are always silly and he doesn’t truly believe them himself as evidenced by the smile he tries to conceal when delivering them. So my husband, the greatest pushover of all (I hear Whitney Houston singing The Greatest Love of All but with the words the greatest pushover of aaaaaaaaaaaaaaall), has told him he can fall asleep on the couch in the living room with us. He gets snuggly under a blanket with another rolled up blanket as a pillow, and quietly listens as I type in the recliner next to him and dad snuffles and snorts trying not to openly guffaw while watching television on his tablet.

My younger son sleeps fitfully in our bed, waking often due to gas, and calling out. Sometimes he calls out enough that one of us has to go back and settle him back to sleep. Sometimes nothing will work but breastfeeding. Sometimes he goes four hours with not a single interruption and then the entire rest of the night is nonstop boob and crying and wriggling. This is our life right now. And it’s wonderful. It’s devoid of any proper sleep, it’s full of too many arms and legs in the bed and none of them still. It’s beautiful and frustrating and there’s no clear path forward.

Our youngest is currently mastering the art of feeding himself. It is a messy business. Most of his food ends up on the floor, on his face, on his chest. Very little food actually makes its way into his mouth or into his stomach. It’s a hilarious and wonderful exercise to observe. He’s so proud when the spoon goes from food to mouth with no unexpected destinations in between. So proud when he decides to stop it halfway to his mouth and touch the spoon with his other hand to sample a taste of from his finger, as if it might be different than off the spoon. And perhaps it is. Who am I to say.

These boys astound me every single day. The things they come up with on their own and together, the ways they have of making my heart race for their safety even as I try desperately to stop myself from yelling “be careful!” two of the most overused and completely worthless words in a parents vocabulary. And it’s only going to get worse, or better, depending on which side of the fence you’re on in all this. I can’t wait until their building forts and racing soapboxers and rock climbing and mountain bike riding and and and. I’m so excited for it.

The kids are so very much in the now. In the day to day. I find myself constantly in the future, reeling myself back in to the present. I can’t possibly know the future, I can’t possibly say how they’ll be, who they’ll be, and it doesn’t matter right this minute, because who they are right now is so fantastic and I keep missing it when I disappear into tomorrows. The only time in the past is in my dreams, and I wake up disoriented, grateful to be here now.

I don’t recall having a hard time falling asleep as a child. I don’t recall having a hard time staying asleep as a child. Yet I also recall battling insomnia for as long as ever. When the boys have difficulty I wonder if it’s genetic. Are they having insomnia now because of me? I do remember that waking up in the morning mostly meant eating cereal and watching tv. I do remember the rare occasions when I’d sneak into my moms bed in the morning instead of going for cereal. How I’d think, I’ll just lay here for a little while and then go eat breakfast, only to wake up an hour or more later.

I remember how much more comfortable her bed felt, although I can’t imagine our mattresses were that different. I remember how much warmer her bed was, although I’m sure my bed was just as warm before I left it. I remember how her arms around me were both too tight and perfect. I wonder if my boys feel any of this now. On mornings when my husband gets up with the young one, our early riser, and I stay in bed with the older one, an arm draped over his little chest. Does the older one wake up and think my arm is both too heavy and perfect? Does the older one wake up and purposely pretend to still be asleep just so I won’t move?

On mornings when I get up with young one and my husband and the older boy stay in bed, I have no idea what happens. Do they experience any of this early morning magic? I’ve never thought to ask. I’ll be up with the young one, reading books or playing with quiet toys, wondering if he’ll always be an early riser or if this is just part and parcel of his odd sleeping habits. Will I ever get to cuddle my young one in the morning, or do I need to hope he’ll always want cuddles at night as he’s falling asleep?

My husband used to worry that we’d never get our bed back if we started co-sleeping. I agreed. We would not co-sleep, unless it was with a sidecar. Our bed was for us, the adults. That all went out the window within hours of our oldest being born. We put him to sleep in the sidecar and went to sleep ourselves only to be woken a few hours later by his tiny but very serious cries. I quickly reached over, pulled him to me in the adults-only bed where he immediately quieted and went back to sleep. I did too. Ever since, the bed has been everyone’s bed.

And yet, our oldest has been sleeping in his bed for months, possibly a year. I’m not entirely sure when it happened. But he started going to sleep in his bed, and then mostly staying there all night. There’d be the occasional night when he’d turn up in our bed in the wee hours of the morning, before there was any light to speak of, when the Great Horned Owls were still hooting back and forth to each other outside our window. But there was definitely a time there when our bed was an adult-only bed again. It was brief, but it existed.

It was a bit of a sad time. It was wonderful to be able to do adult things in the adult bed again, don’t get me wrong, and it was wonderful to be able to stretch out and roll over without anyone demanding you roll back or crying that you’d took their blankie or or or. But it was also sad. The bed which had begun to feel much too small was suddenly enormous. The sweet soft snores were gone, replaced by the occasional snore from my husband. There was no tiny warm body pressed up against me, breathing softly and slowly and helping me find my own tired breath.

It’s been so lovely with the younger one in the bed and also so exhausting. We’re so close and so far from the time when the two boys can sleep together in their own bed. I eagerly await it, push for it, and also don’t quite know how I’m going to fall asleep when it happens. Will my insomnia become worse? Spiraling out of control? Will I end up sneaking into their bed to sleep with them? Doubtful, but possible. Will my poor husband end up unable to move because his wife has decided that if she just slides up against him once he falls asleep she’ll be able to fall asleep too?

I look over at my older kiddo, who should be fast asleep by now, he’s been laying there quietly long enough, his breathing getting deeper and slower. But no, he’s wide awake. He seems to realize the futility of sleep and has just recently begun to pull his legs up out of the blanket and inspect his toes. His bear lies quietly face-down beside him, one leg hanging off the couch. Bear, the sleep talisman that seems to have lost its mojo. Toes inspected, my boy rolls to his side, clutches bear around the neck, and continues to move his toes. It may not appear that he’s trying to sleep but he is. I was the same way. Watching him it comes back to me.

I’d been having such a hard time falling asleep that I’d created little rituals, much like OCD people do, perhaps I’m more OCD than I’d like to admit, but I digress. I’d been having such a hard time falling asleep that I’d latched on to old stories of me sleeping: “you’d put the silk part of the edge of a blanket between your index and ring fingers and rub your fingers back and forth.” So I began doing that every night, muscle memory perhaps would enable me to fall asleep. I noticed my feet were always cold. So I began incorporating a slight foot shuffle under the covers, creating a little foot nook alcove of heated sheets. I’d get the sheets warm in that little circle and then place my feet just so in the middle. Now I wasn’t allowed to move my feet or they’d get cold again. This probably helped me fall asleep because it forced me not to move. I didn’t realize it at the time of course, I just thought foot shuffling was the magic counterspell to insomnia.

As an adult I’ve read so much about sleep and insomnia that it’s a bit staggering that I could still suffer from it. How is it possible to know so much about a subject and still not be able to fix the problem? If I were an automechanic and I’d spent all this time learning how to fix an engine and still couldn’t do it, I’d be pretty pissed. And so I am. I am pretty pissed. It’s amazing how frustrating it is to stare at a clock or remove the clock so you won’t keep staring at it only to stare at the ceiling, or the backs of your eyelids. It’s positively maddening to heed the advice that if you can’t sleep you need to get out of bed because laying there only makes it worse, and you end up out of bed all night now not only getting zero sleep but also getting zero rest. For any of you struggling with sleep, I encourage you to ignore the “get out of bed” advice: even if you’re not sleeping, you’re resting and this is super important in so many ways especially when you’re sleep deprived.

I’ve tried all the tonics and sprays and bedroom modifications. I’ve tried all the teas and meditations and exercises. I’ve tried everything and some things work some of the time and some things work other times and some things never work at all. What’s amazing to me is that people always seem to think it’s a choice, like I’ve somehow chosen not to sleep. “I don’t know why you don’t just go take a nap,” my husband will say when it’s roughly 1pm on a day when I’ve literally had zero hours of sleep the night before and I’m struggling to survive the day. I have no response to that.

My older son is now sitting up, laying down backwards, moving his legs, playing with the dry skin on his lips. “I just can’t sleep,” he says, when questioned, “I just want to sit up.” But that’s not the deal. The deal is he can stay out here on the couch as long as he’s laying down and quiet. I’m trying to stay out of it. Apparently dad has decided that ignoring him is the answer. The boy sits up, looks at me out of the corner of his eyes, catches me looking at him. Shit.

“I think the deal is that you have to be quiet and you have to lay down, if you’re going to stay out here,” I say.

“But, I’m thiiiiiiiirsty,” he replies, “I want my water.”

I say nothing. His dad says nothing. He slides off the couch and goes in search of his water. He finds it and comes back in the room taking large, gulping slurps of water, clearly his thirst was intense. He probably could have died from dehydration and we wouldn’t have noticed. Sigh. Seeing what else he can get away with he now stands in front of the couch, leaning against it, rather than laying back down.

“What are you doing?” dad asks.

“I want to sit up,” the boy says.

“You’re not going to sit on my lap,” dad says, mishearing, “you can lay on the couch or go to your bed.”

The boy decides to go to his bed…maybe. He has at least taken the corner out of the living room but he’s not heading down the hall.

“I want someone to sleep with me five minutes,” he says.

The thing is, is he suffering from insomnia too? Is it my fault? Should I go lay with him five minutes if it means he’ll relax enough to fall asleep? Perhaps I can teach him to make a warm space for his feet and then hold them there? My poor little man. I know how it feels to want sleep, to desperately need sleep, to be so deprived of sleep that you’re literally seeing and hearing things that don’t exist. I’m so grateful he’s nowhere near that. I’m so grateful this is all probably just normal kid boundary testing. Still. Maybe I’ll just go lay with him for five minutes….

~~~That’s one hour~~~

When I look at my kids I see their dad. When I listen to my kids, I often hear their dad. I am so grateful that I am in love with their dad. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for parents who divorce and have to see their ex every single day in the faces of their children, have to hear their ex every single day in the words and tones of their children. I get that you always love your children no matter what. I get that divorce doesn’t mean you suddenly don’t like the parts of your kids that are the other parent. In fact, I totally get that the most frustrating parts of our kids are the parts that remind us of us. But still.

I had never quite realized how hard that must be until I started thinking recently about how difficult I was as a child. I’m thinking about it because my oldest is so much like me. He’s stubborn and smart and funny and a total pain in the ass. He is excellent at making deals, for example:

• Me: “go to bed”
• Him: “I’m not tired”
• Me: “then lay in bed and talk with Bear”
• Him: “I’m not doing that. I’m just… Come lay with me five minutes”
• Me: “I often come and lay with you five minutes but tonight I’m not going to. Tonight I have things I need to do”
• Him: “okay, dad, come on”
• Dad: “not tonight, buddy, I don’t feel good”
• Me: “look dude, we often come sleep with you five minutes but not tonight. Dad doesn’t feel good and I have things to do”
• Him: “okay, so either you come sleep with me five minutes now or you finish what you’re doing and then come sleep with me five minutes”
• Me: “okay. I will. I’ll finish this and then come sleep with you. It will be at least one hour before I come in there”
• Him: “I’m not tired. I’ll just wait here”

What am I supposed to do with that? I should just get up and go lay with him for five minutes. It wouldn’t kill me to do it, it would make him happy, and soon he’ll be an age where he won’t be asking me to do it anymore and I’ll miss it. It will actually make me sad and I’ll miss it. So why am I fighting it tonight? Because this is how the entire day has gone and now I’m done. I’m exhausted. I have nothing left to give this little guy. And he needs it. He needs and wants some comfort and I’m an asshole for not giving it to him.

Ah hell, I just spent the five minutes. I’m such a pushover. I can’t help it. Just putting it in writing that there will come a day where he won’t need or want that anymore was enough to send me in. It just slays me how quickly he’s growing up. How quickly everything is becoming difficult.

When you have a baby everyone always says ridiculous things like “enjoy it now, cause someday they’ll talk and it’ll be all over.” What a douchebag thing to say. With both my kids I can’t wait til they can feed themselves, crawl and walk and run, use words to tell me what’s wrong and what’s right and what’s what, so I don’t have to guess and schlep and do all the things. I get so excited by each new advancement they make, and so frustrated by the inevitable backslides.

At any rate, I was thinking how it’s already so frustrating to hear myself parroted back to me, or as my girlfriend likes to say, “how do you like arguing with yourself?,” that if I was no longer in love with their father, if I was in fact irritated by their father and now I was arguing with one of the kids and I’m now arguing not only with myself but with their father as well *ARGH* how frustrating would that be?

Did my mom ever feel that way? Does she ever feel that way now?

I hope I never have to find out. I hope my husband and I remain in love forever, that our love and life together changes and grows and still manages to stay together, to grow stronger rather than apart. But there’s also no denying that there’s still a roughly 50% divorce rate in America, and as much as I think my husband and I are exceptional people, we aren’t. We’re regular people. We could just as easily be the divorced as the married.

And while I’d like to think that we’d remain kind and courteous to one another in the event of a split, I also know we’re both very stubborn and very attached to our children. I could easily see us saying “you can have everything” to one another when it comes to the “stuff” and arguing for centuries when it comes to visitation and how much time is enough time. Even if we were able to literally divide visitation exactly in half we would each always feel it wasn’t enough time with the kids.

The thing is this is all coming up because my girlfriend is getting a divorce. When she told me my first thought was “congratulations,” but thank god I actually had my filter on that day and instead I said something nice or asked something important or whatever. I dunno exactly, but I was actually there for her. And I’m still trying to be there for her as much as I can when we don’t live in the same state. I think about her constantly and I know this is literally the best thing that could ever happen to her because she’s so amazing and her soon-to-be-ex is totally worthless and all they ever did together was fight and that’s just not my friend. So the point is, it’s a good thing for her and a good thing for her kids, and it still totally sucks. It’s still this horrible thing you have to go through and your kids have to go through and it totally sucks.

So she’s been watching The Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce while the kids are with their dad and she’s folding laundry or pretending to make herself something for dinner that’s more than popcorn and red wine. And I started watching, too. In solidarity. Because that’s one way I can be there for her when I’m not there with her. And damn if this show doesn’t have me thinking all the thoughts.

One of my thoughts is how I was not there for her when she told me she was pregnant. I was in a shit-show situation in my life where I’d just left a relationship of nearly ten years, I was trying to get my feet under me, get my debts paid off, money saved up, buy a house, and I was *gulp* living back home with my parents to do it. I was every stereotype you can imagine. And one of the major reasons for my breakup? I wanted kids and he didn’t. So here was one of my very best girlfriends of (at the time) sixteen or seventeen years, telling me she was pregnant. Oh, and the guy wasn’t sticking around. So she kind of fucking needed me. And where was I? I was at the bottom of the second bottle of beer by the time five minutes had passed in the conversation and I was starting a third. Where was I? I was wallowing in self-pity because she was pregnant and I wasn’t. I wasn’t thinking she might be scared or she might be needing someone to come up and be with her for a few days. Nope. I was drinking heavily and wishing I was her.

That was a very low and very regretful moment in my life. Since then I have not had an opportunity to be there for her. She hasn’t needed me, and that’s wonderful for everyone, because it means she’s living a pretty great life. We see each other once every few years, we write actual letters (like the kind you send in the mail on paper and stuff), and we text or online chat. We stay in touch as much as you can when you live in different states. So now, when she needs me, I want to actually physically be there. But that’s not what she needs. The next best thing I can do: text her every few days, send a card every few days, and when she says she’s watching a show, I can watch it with her even if I’m not with her.

I had given up on having kids by the time I had them. I’d done some questionable things and never gotten pregnant nor had a legitimate pregnancy scare. It was pretty obvious that I could not get pregnant. I had gone from a point in my life where I was ready to buy from a sperm bank or adopt from an agency to a point in my life where I was ready to sleep with a guy who would sign paperwork first stating the baby would be mine to a point in my life where I was trying desperately to make peace with the fact that it simply wasn’t in the cards for me. I thought I was doing pretty good at making peace, but really I was just drinking.

I got pregnant with a man I’d only known for about a year and only been hanging out with for a few months. We’d gone from being people who knew of each other, to being people who knew each other, to being people who wanted to know each other better, to pregnant. Besides that initial moment of seeing a positive pregnancy test and smiling so big my face might split open and having my heart race and thrill and wanting to dance a million steps, there was the moment of “oh shit. He’s going to think I tricked him.” Because I’d all but told him there was absolutely no way I could get pregnant. I think my words were “I’m 95% sure I can’t get pregnant.” I went from being thrilled to being thrilled and terrified. I never want to be that girl that swindles the guy into being with her.

So I told him straight out I was pregnant and that I wanted to keep it and that I completely understood if that wasn’t what he’d signed up for. Lucky for me it was exactly what he’d signed up for, exactly what he’d hoped for, exactly what he wanted. Not only did we get to be stuck together but we got to be saddled with a kid. It was heaven. And luckily it’s remained so. If anything it just keeps getting better. So when it’s good like this, you can’t really imagine it being bad. You can’t really imagine what it must be like to have it be over.

We have all these relationships with people and we leave and we maybe have a memento or two to remember them and we maybe lose one of them when we move or we maybe purposely dispose of them when we move on, but the point is that in all our relationships we aren’t forced to be in the same room with our ex once we’ve moved on. We aren’t forced to hold conversations with them, or love them, or tuck them in to bed at night. Unless we had kids with them.

I guess I just don’t really know how to get my head around that.

There’s this wonderful idea when you’re still in love and still together that if anything horrible ever happens to either of you you’ll have the kids to remember the other person by. Or if something horrible happens to both of you your families will have your kids to remember you by. It’s this sort of silver lining to a horrible situation thing. So what’s the silver lining when you get divorced and now you have your mini-ex driving you absolutely batshit crazy because you love them SO much and they also remind you SO much of a person you are trying not to love anymore.

Or maybe you always love the person you had children with. No matter what. Because they gave you a gift that no one else has ever given you, could ever give you. Maybe you love them forever and that’s okay because you’re not in-love with them anymore, and you’re able to emotionally move on to a place of romantic love with someone else, so it’s not like you’re stilted, and maybe the kids help you stay in that place where you can be amiable with them, you can continue to love them and not want to be with them. Maybe that’s actually a wonderful thing. And if so, why isn’t it more prevalent? Why aren’t there more amicable divorces? Or maybe there are and we just don’t hear about them because what’s there to say when there’s no drama?

Huh. I don’t know. Obviously. But I wonder. I wonder if I’ll ever ask my mom. I wonder if I’ll ever ask my friend. I wonder if I’ll ever have to find out for myself. And I hope not.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

I have been so lax this month in my #writeonehour a day. My family and I are still fighting a flu or cold or zombie virus that simply will not go away. Tomorrow will be fourteen days that my sons have been fighting and thirteen days for my husband and I. Luckily the kids are mostly over it and it’s just the hubs and I that remain in headache-stuffy-nose-hell. At any rate, I’ve attempted three days to login here and write and those three days I just could not do it. I logged in tonight, despite the flu fog and awful feeling because it reminds me so much of where I was about ten years ago or so.

Roughly ten years ago I bought a house. It was a foreclosure that literally sat in escrow for two years (no one believes me, but that’s the way it was back then). At any rate, when it finally closed, everything on paper said I could afford that house. Everything on paper said that my budget and the house meant that I’d be playing it very close, not much left over for savings, but that I could do it.

This turned out not to be the case.

I refused to get back into debt, a place I’d been in before as a result of a miserable relationship that had left me buying stuff to fill the void, rather than accepting the relationship had tanked and moving on. But I digress…

I had just gotten out of debt and gotten everything sorted and bought the house and now I was staring at going into debt again. Hell no. So I took a course. At the time it was called Man Vs. Debt, I don’t know if it still exists…hang on, I’ll check. Wow, yup, still there. It was absolutely terrific when I took it and I can’t imagine with ten years it could have gotten anything but better. If you’re struggling with debt I highly suggest it, you can find it here. (And no, I’m in no way affiliated with them).

So there I was taking this course that was literally teaching me how to take control of my financial life, I was learning stuff I’d never learned when I was growing up, wondering why they didn’t teach that shit in high school or sooner, and one of the things I needed to do was make more money. I did all the things the course recommended, which I won’t go into here as it’s not my place, and then I jumped ship (I kept taking the course, but I let my mind wander to other possibilities). I thought outside the box. I thought, I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life, launched a dog walking business in sixth grade, long before it was a thing, did a pet-sitting and plant watering business too, was babysitting from seventh grade through all of high school. I thought: what is something else I can do that won’t interfere with my job that can bring me income.

Obviously hooking was out of the question, illegal. (I’m being a bit tongue-in-cheek here, but it’s to drive home the point that I literally looked at all possible avenues of income).

And what I found was this service that put people who write in touch with people who need things written. Not essays for rich college kids or anything sordid like that. This was a service, I can’t remember the name or I’d check to see if it’s still around, that allowed publishers to put up an ad that said something like:

300 words on Spam through the ages. Must use the following words: Hawaii, cooking, and delicious. Submission required within two hours of acceptance. Pays $0.80

So if you were a writer logged in to the site, you’d see the ad, decide you knew a hell of a lot about Spam, or could learn in less than two hours, and you’d take the gig. Then the timer would start. You had to do your research and submit your piece before the timer got to 0:00. If you failed, it gave you a black mark and you were no longer eligible for a certain tier of articles. If you succeeded the publisher got to grade your work. If you got a lot of good grades you moved up in tiers. This meant longer articles and more money. But we’re still talking pennies.

Everyday after work I would come home, open a bottle of beer, go into my room and search for articles to write. I told myself I had to work on writing for a minimum of one hour a day. More is fine, but less was unacceptable. And I gave myself two days off a week, any two days I wanted each week, but that was it. You figure if you only write five of these a week that’s maybe $10.00 If you’re lucky. It was usually less. So I wrote a lot of these horrible articles. And who knows where all they went. Cause you didn’t get any credit for them either. They’d be posted to someones blog or in a magazine and the actual author got zero cred.

But it was part of my plan to keep out of debt and it was part of my plan to keep myself writing. I figured even if I didn’t get the credit for it, I was still using my brain, using my fingers, using my talent (if it’s there, the jury is still out), and that was all important.

Since getting sick and being in a total brain fog and some days not even being able to get out of bed, it’s been all I can do to take care of the kids (my husband is a god but he, too, is sick; it’s been rough). So there have been three days this month that I have missed my #writeonehour, and seriously y’all, it’s kind of killing me.

I can’t decide what the rules would have been if I’d stipulated rules in the beginning. Would I have given myself two days off a week, like I did back then, like a job would do now? Would I have given myself the option of making up the lost hours somewhere else on another night? What stays most true to the purpose of #writeonehour ?

I think the answer is: I want to write one hour a day to get myself trained to sit down, focus, and write for one hour. After a year, maybe less, when the kids need me a little less at night, maybe that becomes two hours, maybe three. At some point, the idea is that I devote myself to this in a manner befitting a full-time or part-time mother and author. So if the goal is to get the training in, then I suspect it’s probably okay to miss a day here and there because I’m sick. Not okay to miss a day here or there because I don’t feel like it, or I’m tired, or any other ridiculous lazy excuse. But sickness…hell, I’d have called in to work sick with this, so why not call in to myself?

I don’t ever want to give up on my dreams, but maybe it’s okay to take a sick day off every now and again.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

Here’s the thing, people can be great at a lot of things, like really, really great, like so great that they set records other people can’t beat or they create music no one else can improve upon or they just have a shit ton of money that other people can’t have and so they’re able to do things other people can’t do. So here are those people, the great, the creative, the rich, and sometimes they are also amazingly decent people, as human beings. And that’s amazing and wonderful and we all fall all over ourselves, “how can they be so normal when they’re so above us?” But when these people, these great or creative or rich people, do something absolutely atrocious, something heinous, illegal and immoral and socially unacceptable, we still fall all over ourselves to forgive them or ignore the transgressions or, and this completely baffles me, make excuses for why they did what they did.

How is that Michael Jackson can mentally, emotionally, and sexually abuse children and Cirque du Soleil makes a show honoring him and saying how he was just so confused and had demons and was (essentially) persecuted. I used to love Michael Jackson’s music, I was a huge fan, would crank up the radio anytime one of his songs came on, didn’t care if it was the old Jackson Five stuff or the newer stuff, I listened to it as loud as it would go and I sang along. I was not above learning the dance steps to Thriller. I knew which of his songs was my mom’s favorite. I was all over it. I was on the bandwagon of “isn’t it messed up that people would go after him for his money, that poor man, he has so many problems.”

All the law suits were always dropped. I figured they were all BS. And then Leaving Neverland came out. You can’t tell me those kids weren’t abused. You can’t tell me it was “okay” because he was a talented musician. You can’t tell me it was “okay” because he was suffering from his own childhood trauma. It is not okay. Is it sad that his family lost a brother and a father? Absolutely, yes. Is it sad that a pedophile died? Nope. And when a Michael Jackson song comes on the radio, you better believe I turn that shit off immediately. It doesn’t matter if it’s an old Jackson Five song either, yes, that was before he was a pedophile, but no, it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t condone his actions by supporting his music.

What about the rich guys sexually harassing all the men and women and getting away with it? Remember all the people the #metoo movement brought to light? All the people who had finally had enough, had finally felt like maybe they’d be heard now, all the people who were ready to tell their stories. Weinstein, Cosby, Freeman, Spacey. All these big name entertainers. And what did people do? Call foul. Refuse to believe. In the case of Morgan Freeman there have been literally zero repercussions.

And now the latest: Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant raped a woman. He was a rapist. He was also an unbelievable basketball player. So. Fucking. What. There are TONS of unbelievably excellent basketball players who are not rapists. Why are we celebrating this one? Why was he able to keep playing? Why are people who didn’t even know this rapist mourning his death? And why are people calling for the renaming of Staples Center as the Koby Bryant Center? That is some serious bullshit.

We all idolize someone (Bruce Springsteen). We all have our heroes/heroines (Maya Angelou), the people we look up to (Beyonce Knowles) or long to be (Pam Houston) or wish we could be besties with (Heather Havrilesky). It’s healthy, like setting goals, looking up to people helps you make sure you’re on your best path, too. Like all those people sporting WWJD bracelets. But here’s the thing: when your idol does something horrifically wrong, it’s time to get a new idol.

Stop defending people in the wrong just because they make more money than you do or have more talent. Money and talent do not absolve a person of their transgressions. Yes, we are all human, yes, we all make mistakes, and yes, to err is human. But there’s a reason we remember Hitler as a bad man even though he loved his mother, was a vegetarian, a failed artist, and a billionaire. You scoff, “Hitler is a bit extreme” you say. Is it?

Public figures remain public because we make it so. People in power remain in power because we make it so. People are immortalized as good or bad because we determine it.

If you read about an adult who brainwashed families, made children watch porn and masturbate in front of them, forced children to have oral sex, bought children rings and performed “marriage ceremonies” with them. If you read about this adult would they be your hero? Would you want to give your time and money and voice to defending and supporting them? What about if the adult also happens to be a really great singer, songwriter, and performer? Now is it okay?

If you read about an adult accused of rape with a bruises, vaginal tears, and blood to back it up. If you read about this adult would they be your hero? Would you want to give your time and money and voice to defending and supporting them? What about if the adult also happens to be a really great basketball player who has won Olympic gold medals? Now is it okay?

The question here is: where do you draw your line in the sand? What are you willing to ignore so you can enjoy a song or a basketball game or a movie or a television show? Does someones private life not affect your pleasure of their professional life? What if it was your kid being abused? What if it was your sister being raped?

We are responsible for whether or not a celebrity remains a celebrity. We are responsible for whether or not a person is remembered for their evil or their good. We can absolutely mourn the loss of our heroes, the loss of peoples families, and friends, and we can do so without forgetting that these people were not infallible. We can let go of our heroes when they do something we can’t condone. We can stand up to the whitewashing that occurs when they die. We can be the voice who says, yes, they were excellent at x but they also did y, and that is why I cannot continue to hold them up as an idol.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

I’m getting a huge response via email and comments about this, and rather than publish them all and respond individually, I’m going to update the post itself. Sadly, people are asking me why this matters. When I’m limited by time and familial duties I often have to accept that my posts have typos and errors and are very much unfinished, but this one can’t be treated that way. It’s too important. Here’s why it matters.

When people grow up knowing that celebrities are above the law they not only expect and condone the atrocities celebrities commit but they also begin to root for them. For example, Martha Stewart broke the law and people were shocked when she actually got convicted. Why? She broke the law. Why are we shocked that she was convicted? Because she’s a celebrity. Celebrities are supposed to get away with it. And she served time, although not the kind of time you or I would serve, and we accept that, too.

Before marijuana became legal in half the country, people cheered when Snoop would talk openly about smoking (me included, the whole idea of criminalizing marijuana is ridiculous, but that’s a tangent). The point is, people loved that he broke the law and got away with it. They encouraged it.

We love the idea that celebrities can get away with things we can’t. And that’s dangerous.

When we grow up knowing celebrities can get away with stuff and rooting for them to get away with stuff we end up with a president who is a criminal. When we grow up knowing celebrities can get away with stuff and rooting for them to get away with stuff we end up with a criminal president who may not get impeached. A criminal president who may not get impeached and who may run for re-election. A criminal president who may not get impeached, may run for re-election, and here’s the scary part folks, may very well win.

Rapists can’t be heroes. Pedophiles can’t be celebrated. Criminals can’t be president.

It matters.

So I’m officially a few days in to my self-imposed challenge of writing for one hour every day. I’m amazed at how the time literally flies by. My only frustration is having to stop periodically to run back and feed my baby who seems to wake every twenty minutes and realize I’m not there. Sigh. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but it doesn’t mean I can’t be frustrated by it too.

I’m at the point where I’m willing to share my page publicly and share my posts, but I also feel like my site is drab and not quite what I want it to be. Not much to be done about that, sadly, as it would require more of my already limited time, not just to learn how to do what I want, but then to find the additional resources needed to do it. For example, the stock photo on the front of my site = blech. What I’d like instead is a lovely photo of a library of books or a typewriter or something a bit more inspiring than a mountain I’ve never been to in the sunset taken by someone that isn’t me of a place I’ve never been. All of that fixing, however, is a major time suck and not relevant to my challenge.

I think I will wait a couple more days before I give my friends, family, and I guess technically the entire world, access to my writing. I think I’m still a little too nervous. More nervous than excited.

While this post hasn’t been an hour, I did spend time in my private journal to make up that time. Thanks for reading!