Today, I’m flying to New Jersey, because New Jersey is awesome, but also because Johnson & Johnson is there, and I kind of work for them – as a social media ambassador slash advisor on all things related to moms in social media using social media for social good, which is one of those job descriptions that sounds like a caption on an Oatmeal comic, but there you go – and we’re doing a thing this weekend – we’re calling it a salon – strategizing and brainstorming with a small group of moms-in-social-media type persons about using social media for social good, etc. And I’m excited, not only because New Jersey is awesome and who doesn’t want to go to New Jersey in February, but because some of the causes that we’ll be discussing are near and dear to my heart and I love talking about them and thinking about how to help them and I would totally work to help them out for free. Don’t tell J&J that.
Motherhood can be scary, you know? Even when you’re not grappling with complicated demons, even when motherhood presents itself to you more or less straightforwardly, it’s scary, because it’s just so loaded, because children are so small and they get sick and they seem so fragile and you always think that you don’t know what you’re doing – what if you don’t breastfeed for the full recommended 6 months? what if you don’t breastfeed at all? what if you don’t hand-blend organic baby food? what if your kid doesn’t get into the ‘good’ preschool? what if she falls out of her crib? what if she falls off her bicycle? what if she falls in front of a moving vehicle? WHAT IF? – because the stakes are so freaking high. But it’s important to remember that it’s scary for everybody, that everybody is at least somewhat scared, some of the time, because that’s motherhood. Fear and love and joy and fear, people. Fear and love and joy and fear, and also hefty doses of snot and fecal matter.
There are things that one knows about one’s self, and things that one doesn’t. I know, for example, that words make me happy and that I love my children and that I can, when I try, be very funny, and that I am introverted (yes, really) and that I am good at philosophy and at making soup and that I love the smell of lilacs. I know, too, that I am prone to anxiety and depression, but that I am able to cope with these with the help of the love and support of my family and by writing and with a certain quantity of pharmaceuticals. What I don’t know is how big a role my proneness to anxiety and depression plays on the stage of my psyche – whether it is a starring role or a bit part, whether its strutting and fretting defines the production in some critical way or is just a nuance, just theatrical flair – and whether, or the extent to which, it shapes who I am. What I also don’t know: how much it effects how my children regard me, and how they will remember me.
This week has been one of those weeks during which I find myself fully convinced, every hour upon the hour, that I am not cut out for this motherhood thing. Sure, I hear you say, but isn’t that every week for you? To which I respond, why yes, Clever And Careful Reader! That is indeed every week for me!
Here’s the thing, though:
(Disclosure! This content series and the giveaway below is brought to you by Old Navy. Check out the Kids & Baby Sale in store with great deals starting at $5. And maybe take the opportunity to apply Emilia’s Ten Rules Of Fashion, outlined below.)
Last week, I let Emilia be my stylist. It worked out well, all things considered.
But even though I threw myself wholeheartedly into this little experiment – I wore socks with heels, for pity’s sake – I didn’t end up wearing one of her fully-conceived outfits into public. I thought about it – I thought about it hard – but I came to the conclusion that a) I could better pay respect to her sartorial vision by adapting that vision appropriately to my needs than I could by making public appearances in a bedazzled pink cowboy hat, and b) I really didn’t want to make a public appearance in a bedazzled pink cowboy hat. So I took bits and pieces of her style advice – some skull socks and black patent heels here, a Hello Kitty sweater there – and incorporated them into my day-to-day look. And I think that I’m going to continue doing this – asking her for style advice and using it with my own grown-up tweaks and amendments – because, seriously: it’s fun and it’s awesome and I’m actually learning from her.
I’ve learned ten things, actually. Emilia calls them ‘Emilia’s Ten Sweet Rules About Fashion’, although she insists that they’re “not actually rules, Mommy, because you can break them and not get into trouble. They’re just really good suggestions.” NOTED.
When Virgil wrote, in his tenth Eclogue, that love conquers all – omnia vincit amor – he was not making a statement about the power of love to overcome all obstacles. He was not suggesting that love can or should prevail over anyone or anything that might stand in its way; he was not asserting that love is subject only to its own rules; he was not saying, with the poet Bono, that love is a higher law. He was not saying that love conquers everything. He was saying that love conquers everyone. Love conquers us all – it defeats all of us, it claims dominion over all of us, it overpowers every single one of us – and so we really should just consider surrendering. Omni vincit amor et nos cedamus amori, bitches.
(Disclosure! This content series and the giveaway below is brought to you by Old Navy. Check out the Kids & Baby Sale in store with great deals starting at $5. And take inspiration from the fashion EXPLOSION that you’re about to witness below.)
I said that I would let Emilia style an outfit for me. And I did.
Things that are awesome:
1.) Being asked to open Disney On Ice / Toy Story 3 On Ice – in a tutu – and knowing that a portion of ticket sales will be donated to Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy in Tanner’s name. I’m probably going to cry, which is going to be disorienting, you know, what with me being under spotlights in a stadium while on ice skates and all. (I don’t actually know if I’m going to be on skates. I will be on ice, so it’s what you’d expect, but you never know. Maybe I’ll fly in on the Tinkerbell wire. That would probably be safer.) (You should totally come. And wear a tutu. And cheer, loud, and pretend to not notice if I do, in fact, burst into tears.)
2.) This photo.
(Disclosure! This content series and the giveaway below is brought to you by Old Navy. Check out the Kids & Baby Sale in store with great deals starting at $5. You will see how relevant this is if you read on!)
Emilia likes clothes. Emilia likes clothes a lot. Except when she doesn’t, during which times she embraces private nudism, but those times are mostly restricted to mornings, evenings, hot summer afternoons in the backyard, and pretty much anytime that she’s at home and we don’t have guests, but still. The rest of the time, she embraces fashion with a passion and eccentric flair that reminds one of Lady Gaga, or Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.