On Monday afternoon, when we got back from our weekend in New York, I made the stupid (STUPID!) mistake of taking the girls to the grocery store with me. My mood had been plummeting steadily all day, to my disappointment (I'd felt much better the day before), and neither of the girls had slept much on the drive up. Given these two things, I really should have known better. Even Alastair thought maybe it was too much for me to handle, given how I was feeling. ("Are you sure you'll be OK?") But we needed milk and bread and bananas, and it was something to pass the time until dinner, and I thought maybe getting out and doing something would kick my depressed ass back into gear. So off we went.
We'd barely made it halfway through the produce section when Clio started whining and crying to get out of the cart, then yelling for milk or water or juice (which I STUPIDLY hadn't brought). Then she started screaming for a cookie. Elsa, meanwhile, kept wriggling out of the seatbelt (it was one of those shopping carts shaped like a little car) and standing up with half her body out the front window like some kind of hyperactive labrador retriever.
I was the picture of a stressed-out mom. I looked bad, I felt horrid. I could sense people looking at us, maybe in pity, maybe annoyance, maybe some in smiling, "how cute they are, but what a handful" sympathy. I wouldn't know -- I kept my eyes straight ahead, kept my head down, and told myself to just get everything on the list and get out and go home. And then what? Unload the groceries, keep the girls entertained for another hour and a half, make them dinner, get them to bed, make our dinner, unpack....(These sound like simple enough things to do, but when I am depressed, something as simple as brushing my teeth feels akin to pushing a boulder up a hill.) I half wished I'd collapse right there in the cereal aisle and wake up in a sanitorium -- maybe out in the Berkshires somewhere; the kind where they used to send ladies suffering from "nervous exhaustion." Birds singing. Clean white sheets. A rocking chair....
But I didn't collapse. At my wits' end, I tore open a package of Fig Newtons and handed them to Elsa and Clio at regular intervals until I got up to the checkout. At the bank branch up at the front of the store, there was a long line of people -- immigrants, day laborers, people who clearly struggled to make ends meet -- waiting to cash checks. Young men, mothers with kids, old people. Again, I could see them, from the corner of my eye, smiling with kindness and amusement at the spectacle of us -- this harried young woman wearing an Obama button, and this adorable, miserable pair of toddlers. And though it's not who I am, and not what I would normally do, I rolled right past them toward the exits -- grim-faced, fast, angry, not acknowledging a single smile. Stressed-out yuppie bitch. Like she's got it so bad?
The girls whined and cried all the way home, and when I got inside I wailed to Alastair to please come down and get the groceries out of the car and put them away. He looked at me and said "what's wrong?" and I broke down sobbing. "It was awful," I said. As if I'd just survived a war, not a trip to Stop & Shop.
The girls were confused. "Mommy's sad," Alastair explained to them. I sat down in our big, creaky recliner and and Elsa crawled up into my lap. She grinned and giggled and smacked her little hand just a little too hard (that's Elsa love) against my wet cheek. "Mommy sad," she said.
* * *
Today, while the girls napped, I watched online election coverage videos on YouTube, iReport and others. Highlights from Obama's victory speech and McCain's gracious concession. College students on campuses around the country rushing out into the streets. People in cities -- black people, white people, young people, old people -- dancing and shouting. I had a bit of a champagne hangover (still do) and was tired, not having gotten enough sleep last night. (I woke up too early, like a kid on Christmas morning, and couldn't fall back asleep.) I probably should have snuck in a nap while the girls were sleeping, but I couldn't. I wanted to -- and still want to --keep reveling in the glory and possibility and excitement of what happened last night.
The girls woke up while I was mid-video, and I ignored them a little longer than I probably should have. In an interesting reversal of roles, Elsa was the one champing at the bit to get out of her crib and enjoy the rest of the afternoon, while Clio was acting sleepy and sulky. I let her chill there for a little while longer, and brought Elsa into my office, where we watched the rest of the video I'd been looking at: the crowd in Grant Park, erupting upon hearing the news that Obama was the projected winner.
Elsa clapped her hands and grinned and yelled "yay! yay!" And I told her yes -- yay! -- something really exciting has happened. And someday you'll understand just how exciting it is. But it also occurred to me that Elsa and Clio, and millions of other children like them, may never really comprehend the jubilation and relief that most of our country -- and the world -- experienced last night. They won't have lived through the fear and division of the Bush era. The first American president they'll know and remember, for the rest of their lives, will be an African American man. They'll think it's the norm. They'll think, "why was it such a big deal?" And that, in some ways, is a beautiful thing.
I've been getting teary and emotional all day, and watching the videos this afternoon was no exception. I cried as I held Elsa on my lap. Smiled and laughed and cried and rocked. When I am depressed, I feel it strongly and unpleasantly in my chest -- a tightness, a pressure. A frequent need to take a big breath and sigh. Today, I was able to co-opt that feeling for something good. I was able to assign it fullness and joy.
When Elsa looked up and saw that I was crying this afternoon, she put her little palm (splat!) against my face again, and said, "Mommy sad?"
No, I told her, grinning like I haven't grinned in several weeks. Mommy's very, very happy.
