Tag Archives: Eyerollingmom

Spring Break at the Unhappiest Place on Earth

I will tell you: nothing opens your eyes faster than an unexpected hospital stay. Looking back, I was somewhat naïve. Did I really believe I would declare, welp, it’s been a full week – time to find out what this pesky stomach pain is all about and then not get whisked into an enforced staycation? I’m not the brightest band-aid in the box. I was admitted and rushed into a room faster than Augustus Gloop shot up that pipe from the chocolate river.

I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to all things medical. I’m fortunate, I know, because 1) this braggy mom can boast about a nurse son and 2) I really haven’t had the need to be knowledgeable. If you disregard the extra padding on my ass, I am, well, healthy. I was hardly the textbook candidate for the Diverticulitis diagnosis I received (a colon thing – and a great Google read btw – but a manageable disease all the same. Again, fortunate). In fact, when the discussion turned to post-discharge routines and what my new life might look like moving forward, it kinda went something like this:

Doc: You’re gonna have to start doing blahblahblah. Me: I already do that. Everyday.

Doc: Well you’re also gonna have to start blahblahblah. Me: I already do that. Everyday.

Doc: Ok, well then there’s the blahblahblah. Me: I already d… See? Frustrating.

Funny how we’re always searching for that scapegoat – which snotty kid in that classroom gave my kid this cold? – but there was no one to blame here. I didn’t do anything wrong and it just sort of happened. Life. It happens.

The staff tried to make me feel better, sharing stats (about one-third of all Americans will develop this condition by age 60) and anecdotes about certain doctors – marathon runners and absolute epitomes of good health who also had to live with this.

It’s a bummer that this is something I’ll now have on my radar from now on but there are far worse things and this is very, VERY minor in comparison. Given the horrifying hacking coughs, twilight moans and a humiliating lack of privacy around me, I quickly deduced I was significantly better off than the four other people in my shared room over those four days. Believe me, I am counting my blessings for sure.

But for someone who’s only ever been hospitalized to experience the joy of epidurals (at the indisputable happiest place on earth), this was rough.

Time tends to stand still when you’re enclosed by curtains for an extended period of time, without a window, without enough room for a comfortable chair to switch to, without anything but basic cable and daytime television, which, I might add, I was surprised to find is actually still on. (Hot take: watching Kelly Clarkson on mute, I came to the realization that I have never once been as excited talking to anyone as much as she is talking to everyone. Wait, AITA? I think I might be.)

Without access to windows or fresh air, I missed the emergence of spring here in New England, a string of glorious days I knew nothing about. Combined with sleep deprivation, zero food and a constant IV drip – not gonna lie – some pretty hefty depression settled in.

I felt like Dorothy, my refrain of I just want to go home becoming a mantra to anyone who’d listen. With every sympathetic explanation of why I couldn’t yet, I felt crashing waves behind my eyes, making me afraid to utter a syllable of response other than nodding my head, lest I start bawling and cause alarm, garnering a *new invitation to a *different ward. (Hot take: nurses are everything. EVERY thing. Wait, am I just biased? I think I might be. I certainly can’t be the only one who’s ever sank into a little Stockholm Syndrome with the level of adoration that grows within me towards these heroes.) But I digress.

When I got home it took a couple of days for all the IV meds and gases and exhaustion to exit my body so (lucky spouse o’mine!) my emotional state was all over the place. Fortunately, my melancholic mood and spontaneous weeping coincided perfectly with the release of Taylor’s tortured tracks. I spent the weekend in a fugue state of sad, sad songs, the Gilmore girls on a loop, and comfy clothing. Actually this was sublime and I’m thinking of doing it more often –well, minus the rabbit hole of an angst-filled icon’s ex-boyfriends, mystery lyrics and haunting black and white videos. (Hot take: I am now rightfully convinced I could live forever in the arms of a clean-faced, Post Malone. Wait, am I a Swiftie? I think I might be.)

The irony of this entire experience turned out to be my post-hospital treatment. I was ordered to adhere to a strict, two-week menu of food lacking fiber. No fruits, no vegetables, no salad, no kidding. Basically, I had to survive on the dietary demands of a four-year-old: white bread, white pasta, white potatoes, White Castle. It was a scorched earth disruption to the cosmic balance: all the foods I’ve been demonizing for so long were going to be the foods that healed me. Shut the front door.

It took me a second to fully understand the assignment. Really? I whispered, my memory flying to English muffins – remember those? I felt something wet slip from the corners of my lips. Alrighty then, I volunteer as Tribute.

It was legit; my recovery relied on rest (wink, wink), which actually meant bowel rest. There was to be very little action in that nether region of mine for the immediate future. I put an immediate moratorium on any flighty notion of a summer body and stocked up on the forbidden treasures that once took up residence in my kids’ lunchboxes: Ritz crackers, bananas and enough carbohydrates to keep that Atkins guy rolling in his grave for a while.

My experience (one star, would not recommend) was not my preferred use of PTO but it provided me with a few pretty profound takeaways.

Empathy, for one. When I found myself in the midst of midnight Volume Wars with the guy next to me (who’d fallen asleep with his TV speaker blaring in my direction), I wanted to crash through the curtain and decry his utter rudeness. I can’t stand Jimmy Fallon! I wanted to bellow. But I didn’t. The next day I overheard him arranging transportation for his pickup and heard the words halfway house. It dawned on me he hadn’t had one visitor the entire time and my heart broke a little. I’m glad I kept my mouth shut. You just never know what other people are going through.

Mortality is another. Traversing the other side of middle age is always a paradox: feeling young at heart while things are starting to break down. Anxiously waiting for the results of a CT scan, my only thoughts were of my first grandbaby on the way, the sons and daughters-in-law I’ve yet to meet in life, and all the things I haven’t done yet. Like a cold plunge it brought me to my current clarity, being …

Eat the bagel. On the first Sunday morning home, still woozy from potent take-home meds and queasy from a gnarly metallic taste in my mouth, I got up early (perks of a round-the-clock pill schedule) to find my husband gone. When he returned, he unpacked the newspaper and bagels from a local artisan bakeshop. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d enjoyed these thousand-calorie delicacies of perfection, nor could I recall when we’d last read the newspaper together. We used to have a Sunday subscription for shit’s sake. Why did we ever stop that, I wondered. It was blissful. And something I’ll take up again. Stop ignoring or putting off or devaluing your inner joys. Seriously, eat the bagel.

I now know more about the mighty colon and its needs and requirements than I ever thought I needed to know but hey, if that inches me any bit closer to a Trivia Night victory, I’m good with that. (Wait, am I a wellness expert? I think I might be.)

* * * *

(Friends! My Boston Globe Sunday Magazine feature is coming out soon! Follow my blog page or socials not to miss it! xoxo)

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and has been featured in Huff Post. She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone” presenting her popular essay The Thinking Girl’s Thong and her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series. That said, she still places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements (next would be as the $100,000 winner on that home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as Eyerollingmom/Tina Drakakis on Facebook, Instagram & Threads. Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)

Eyerollingmom’s 3 (Foolproof!) Tips For a Happy Marriage

1 Reply

This past year my kids have seen a few surprising divorces happen within their friend circles.

While kids rarely notice, I don’t know, anything? that doesn’t directly affect them, I can tell the unpleasant new normal of these lovely families – families they’ve been close with for years – has left them a bit shaken.

Perhaps I’m overthinking their pensive stares when I shake my head (All. The. Time.) at their father’s TV volume. Maybe I’m imagining their arched eyebrows every time I grunt with frustration when their same father arrives home having forgotten (shakes fist) the one thing I’d asked him to pick up at the store. And okay, it may be possible I sometimes scream-talk too much in front of them when showing their dad a better way of doing, you know, everything.

In the event any of my aforementioned actions are making them nervous about the state of their parents’ union, I feel I need to tell them to relax and ignore the eyerolls.

Calm down kids, I want to tell them, we be good. Yeah, we good.

I’ve been sharing a bathroom with the same man for more than three decades so I know a few things about disinfectants and commitment. When we hit our 30^th anniversary a few years back my better half endured some slings and arrows after I spilled some tea on him (collateral damage being married to a blogger) so I thought as we celebrate again this year, I’d take a minute to look under the hood of what makes us run so smoothly most of the time.

Kids, put down your phones for six minutes and pull up a chair.

Finding a mate is an ordeal. Finding a really great mate is a coup because, honestly, romance is ironic: you need a partner to keep things adventurous (!) and exciting (!) but you also need someone to waft contently with through boredom because (plot twist, newlyweds) there is a lot of boredom in a happy marriage (zzzz). Like, nobody ever tells you one day you’ll reach the level of matrimony where you’re super excited to have a toilet light. See?

Like many, many others I keep my better half around for balance – to do all the things I don’t ever want to do. I need him to run a generator, do the airport runs, work the lawn mower and fix the things (I am a grownup who knows very little about living in a grownup house). The tradeoff: I have to feed him, provide clean sheets and overlook a whole lot of annoying stuff, like the TV volume. Finding a soulmate who will ignore your unreasonable (um, fear of home invasions is hardly absurd IMO) quirks while keeping up with oil changes is clutch. So he gets to stay.

We’ve ironed out a kilo of kinks throughout the years and in addition to the obvious factors (yawn: compatibility, respect, agreed division of chicken wing sections, blah blah blah), I’ve come up with my top three (perhaps slightly unorthodox) tips for a happy marriage:

Tip 1: Spend as Much Time Together as Humanly Possible

*For bonus points, throw in a pandemic and add in work-from-home conditions for (deep breath) both of you.

I know this sitch isn’t for everyone but hear me out. If you follow this rec, there are huge benefits. Not only does every separation become euphoric (Golf with the guys again? Super! Have fun, honey!) but you can now say NO to pretty much everything your spouse asks of you at any given time. I’ve clocked in so much alone time with my husband I don’t ever have to do another damn thing with him ever again if I don’t want to, especially (kill me) errands. Example:

Me: I’m running out to the store.

Him: Oh, you want company?

Me: To Target? No, not now, not ever. See you in six hours. Byeeeeeeeeee.

This is power. Trust me.

Sadly, we don’t have the means to go all-in like the celebrities who are consciously uncoupling into separate bedrooms. This is a great flex and definitely a fun something to bring up at parties but for those of us who logistically just can’t swing that, separating as much as possible (whenever possible) is a very satisfying anecdote for soothing the rage of too-much-togetherness.

Tip 2: Feign Interest. That’s right: Pretend. A LOT.

Sharing interests is (obvs) paramount but there’s a special spark with a partner who can drag you out of your comfort zone. My man is a sports addict. I pretend to like football and I attend one game once a year. He is also a ski fanatic. I pretend to enjoy skiing and I go multiple times a season. I love neither of these silly pastimes.

Now I know my cos-playing the Perfect Wife puts a smile on his face but the down and dirty is that honestly, without his prodding, I would barely leave this house. I’d stay happily home most weekends doing crossword puzzles, organizing closets and scrolling and saving cooking videos I’ll never try.

Without me, he would never attempt questionable karaoke, he’d fail at trivia and he wouldn’t be able to stick to Whole 30. So there.

Throwing each other an occasional bone (fine therapy, call it compromising, whatever) is a mutual win. We make each other’s worlds a little larger when we put on our half-assed happy faces and we never have to admit that sometimes doing their stuff is pretty fun sometimes (shhhhhh).

Tip 3: Pair with a Partner Who’ll Say You Ain’t All That

Listen, I love lounging and living atop the pedestal my fella places me on (have I mentioned he’s super intelligent?). I, in turn, am his biggest fan and most devoted supporter (but never for his impulse buying – legit, that infuriates me). Anyway. We are A-plus when we’re in sync but we have tsunami-level differences all the time. Who better then to tell the other when they’re being less than er, pedestal worthy? If you’re fortunate enough to find a partner whose words you value and trust when you’re both on the same page, it’s probably smart to pay attention to them when they’re (gently, patiently, privately) calling you out for conduct unbecoming.

So kids, rest assured, your folks are good. Plus, we’re a pretty formidable parenting duo (look at all you contributing members of society!) even when we come up short (how did we successfully raise boys who don’t wear baseball hats all the time yet fail miserably at the ‘Cool it with the tattoos’ warning? Ah well, 10 points for Slytherin). Clearly we’ve got continued work to do so we’ll keep stoking the fires.

Will my guy lose his credit card three times a year? You betcha. But is he going to single handedly save Mother’s Day every single year when ~~four~~ three kids blow it? Every time.

Am I going to insist on bingeing Gilmore Girls instead of watching the nailbiter AFC Championship game with him? Most definitely. But will I sit at the Moose Lodge with him drinking two-dollar drafts and playing Keno because he loves it? Sure (I might bring hand sanitizer but sure).

So long as our laughs keep outweighing our laundry piles, we be good.

33 years and counting — onto next year, lovah!

*****

London Table for One: Learning, Living & Leaving (or better) Mom Needs a Pint – Stat

2 Replies

I traveled to another country with my daughter and I left her there.

In the cab on my way to the airport in pre-dawn darkness with her apartment – excuse me, flat — fading from view, I went over the past week in my head. It seemed I’d blinked and suddenly all the planning and problems and logistical hiccups had passed and now it was time for me to go.

Oddly, I felt good. Better than good, I felt calm. Better than calm, I felt genuinely excited for her new adventure. She was going to be just fine.

I didn’t always believe this. Oh, hell no.

In fact, when she asked me to accompany her my knee-jerk reaction was an emphatic NOPE. You made this crazy, impulsive decision, my crushed heart shouted to my brain, I am not helping you with this. I was hurt. She was already living 2,000 miles from home. How far was far enough?

But this wasn’t about me. Knee-jerks aside, I knew that.

She’d accepted a London position within her company and immediately began purging her possessions, returning home to finalize her transition and prepare.

For the first time in nearly a decade she shared our home yet none of our past skirmishes – the hair in the shower, the food under the bed, the sleeping until midday – surfaced. She cooked dinners and hung around with our friends and managed all the details of her departure with a skip in her step. It was as if we both knew our time was fleeting and the petty spats of her youth remained mocking memories.

It was indeed awesome but not without headaches – or facial tics.

For six weeks I bore witness to how a millennial plans things. Fun fact: it’s a wee bit different than how a mom does. As her exit loomed, I became increasingly anxious at all the open loose ends of her international move but she was having none of it. At the risk of having my plus-one status revoked, I zipped it and ignored my growing apprehensions.

I took a deep breath and stole a mantra from my bestie who’d declared, at the start of her very first year as a new divorcee, a Year of Yes: 365 days of saying yes to every invitation, social suggestion or life opportunity that arose. Well, if she could do that, I marveled, sensing my own whine, and put on my Big Girl panties.

I declared this trip my own Week of Yes and went along with everything – and anything – that came up. Despite my daily dread or dogged reservations or downright disagreements with her many decisions, I went with the flow – her flow (Mom, it’s FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE) – and forced myself to chill out.

We left as soon as her Visa came – without her replacement bank card having arrived yet, without a guaranteed – or signed – lease and without any idea where we’d be sleeping on Night 2.

There were at least a dozen other unresolved open loose ends when we arrived.

She closed them one by one, taking some lumps for a couple of impulsive decisions, but in the end, everything worked out.

I allowed her to adult her way through every obstacle and steered clear of Mom Mode, resisting the urge to whip out a credit card for every expense or offer unsolicited advice.

I forced myself to stay silently in the background, left my phone turned off for the week and became, simply, the weighted blanket in the room.

While she researched and placed calls and signed reams of documents I read and did crossword puzzles and sat in the café chair facing the room like a mob boss, happy to people watch while she did her thing.

The many logistics were overwhelming. Selling all her life’s stuff, moving across an ocean and (oy, don’t get me started) coordinating shipment of a beloved dog was intense – as well as fraught with false starts and wire transfers and problems we didn’t anticipate.

I followed her around all week while she mastered the tubes – both over and underground.

I helped lug all her bedding (via the tubes) back to her place.

I drank as many pints as was necessary to become accustomed to all the neighborhood pubs near her new home address (this task, no surprise, a cinch).

I uttered not a syllable of complaint about sharing tiny beds or rooming with massive spiders (come on Brits – install window SCREENS!) and laughed it off when a lock of my hair hit the ground, burnt straight off using the wrong blow dryer.

It turns out, my calm demeanor proved to be a salve to her frazzled brain.

At the conclusion of the week over some wine, she thanked me for letting her figure it all out without any judgement.

So while I rode away in that cab, I found my initial throat-grip of worry had simmered to a slight buzzing beneath the surface that I embrace pretty much every day for all my children, regardless of their ages. Truly, that’s motherhood. Just another day I suppose.

She’s one of the most competent young adults I know, a rarity, for sure.

But it was still hard saying goodbye.

I tackled a myriad of feelings that week, mostly fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of leaving this tiny and beautiful creature in a place without knowing a soul, fear of everything Keith Morrison and Dateline duly taught me. But I never felt doubt.

I left her with an old photo of the two of us, in it her tiny toddler face radiating with badass confidence and fearlessness and I wrote on the back We Do Hard Things.

Because we do.

And we did.

And will continue to.

From BFFs to Frenemies to Crazy Ex-Girlfriends: Female Friendship is True Love OG

Leave a reply

Happy Anniversary to my best friend!

Today, I’m marrying my best friend!

My best friend said yes!

Ewww. Stop. Just stop. Please. Scrolling through these sentiments always brings up a little bile.

I’ve been with my husband for 100 years and sure, he’s a keeper, but there’s no way he’ll ever be my top seed on my friend list. Father of the Year? Yes, no question. Great Guy 4eva? Absolutely, without a doubt. Party Starter Jazzy James & the Jazz Hands? 100 percent, can confirm. But sorry babe, there’s only so much a fella can do.

Girlfriends are the OG of pure, supportive, true love and if there’s anything more important in a woman’s life than her girlfriends, I’m ready to debate. I mean, spouses are great and kids, yay, but are they ever going to really be interested in how much I saved on those shoes? They ever ask about the coupon? Nope. Have any of them ever immediately answered a 6am text? Do they share in the fury of my white whiskers or my fifteen year-fifteen pound ‘baby’ weight or my frustrating inability to understand crypto? No, no and no. But that’s okay, really. I don’t need them in my corner for all that ~~nonsense~~ very important stuff because I’ve got my girls. I’ve been loving and leaning on my girlfriends my entire life and – can’t lie – I side-eye the gals who don’t.

Before the internet, and before cell phones, and before overscheduling ruined every weekend girlfriends hung around and did pretty much everything – and absolutely nothing –together all day long. Do they still? I often wonder, hopeful that technology, TikTok and the Vanderpumps haven’t annihilated one of life’s grandest treasures: genuine girlfriend love.

In elementary school my friends and I spent endless hours in each other’s basements writing Saturday Night Live skits (because Gilda).

We recklessly threw crooked roundoff back handsprings on our front lawns all weekend long (because Nadia).

We lounged next to oversized speakers on ugly shag carpets listening to Rumours on repeat and planned our (please oh please oh please mom, say yes) co-ed birthday parties for that year (because Stevie and well, hormones).

And we wiled away entire summers dreaming and scheming and lifting each other up. All the time. We created the World’s Perfect Girl, made up of all the best parts of us: Joan’s eyes, Nancy’s legs, Kristi’s teeth, Barbara’s nails, my hair. I may be muddy on the details of everyone else’s attributes but I absolutely remember mine because the absurd irony isn’t lost on me, as I now scoop handfuls of my thinning mop out of my sink every morning. Sad today but my Farrah feathers back then? (chef’s kiss) Epic.

We went on to be junior high friends, whose older brothers bought our beer and got us high and made sure we appreciated the whole album – not just the radio tracks – of the coolest bands.

Then we were high school friends and survived the shared, conflicting and competing distractions that always befall teenage girls that age. Even without the tether of social media to keep us connected, we hung tightly until distant states summoned after graduation. We still check in from time to time.

I struck girlfriend gold again in college, where the random luck of a dorm decision had a serendipitous effect on the caliber of friends willing to join me diving headfirst into sex, cigarettes and other poor choices. Our make-believe adult lifestyle was bound by good times: Friday happy hours that lasted until Saturday, all-nighter cramming sessions on Speed and one memorable season of intramural softball (unfathomable champions, given the aforementioned Parliaments and $2 pitchers but true story indeed).

After four fun filled years we Working Girl’d ourselves into real life and assumed the rowdy tables at each other’s weddings. We all learned how to text while nursing babies and made it into the 21^st century intact. There are godmothers amongst us.

In the course of adulting I’ve continued to add to my female flock throughout the years thanks to a myriad of jobs and neighborhoods and pee wee football and a well-traveled life. Many have settled into enjoyable social connections, but some – those who unexpectedly walked through the door of my mother’s funeral five hours away — cemented into forever status.

Being a grown woman with amazing, authentic friends is one of my greatest triumphs and the most appreciated treasure of my life – it’s also a damn good thing for my daughter to see. My closest friends keep me real and (fine) don’t shy away from calling me the B word every now and then (in my defense, just because my husband thinks I’m a bully doesn’t mean they should chime in but I allow it). Being real works for me.

Keeping real friendships isn’t always easy. Some friendships, while solid at first, do sour after time. Turns out, women have very different expectations of what friendship looks like. Finding girlfriends that share yours is a beautiful and tremendous thing.

From a Barry Manilow concert this summer I texted my girlfriend Kristi to let her know I was crying. She guessed as much. We met in fifth grade, almost 50 years ago.

Last year my Gage Hall girlfriends met for a weekend in the Catskills. Despite the years of divorces and career course-corrections and cancers our affection proved solid nearly 40 years later.

Today, my core group keeps a daily group chat going for dumb things and I love yous and the occasional I hate my husband-kid-co-worker-oven rant. It is the highlight of my day.

My friends know I will never be caught dead at a Paint Night. They know I will sometimes be persuaded to pop a gummy. And they know I will always, always be there to reply to a 6am text, praise the sale price and agree that their husband, kid, co-worker or oven is an idiot.

So I keep them close. Really, really close.

But to all the girls I’ve loved before, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t an itty bitty piece of me that still does. That’s the best part about the time passing textbook – you can choose to bookmark and highlight the good and leave the not-so-good – the betrayals, the fallouts, even the crazy – right there on the page for the ink to fade away with the years.

“I found out what the secret to life is: friends. Best friends.” – Ninny Threadgoode, Fried Green Tomatoes.

Agreed, Ninny, agreed.

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and has been featured in Huff Post. She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone” presenting her popular essay The Thinking Girl’s Thong and her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series. That said, she still places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements (next would be as the $100,000 winner on that home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as @Eyerollingmom on Twitter and Eyerollingmom on Facebook & @Eyerollingmom on Instagram. Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)

Kids, In Case of Emergency Um, Find a Printer?

1 Reply

I recently went on vacation out of the country. As if the stress of wrapping up work, packing, losing 15 pounds and organizing international paperwork wasn’t bad enough, I found panic and anxiety creeping in as the days ticked off to departure.

It was unavoidable: God Forbid mode was setting in.

Now, I’m not typically a person concerned with planes nosediving into the ocean. Quite the contrary. Despite being a fangirl of Lost I keep my faith firmly rooted in engineering and science and pilots. I choose fascination over fear when it comes to air travel (window seats always!) and feel flying generally works out for the majority of us. So it definitely wasn’t that. But reality and what ifs loomed heavy in my racing mind: being in a foreign land – with the time difference a half day ahead in the future from any point – I started to worry. I’ve seen many a Dateline. I suppose a lot could happen. Damn you, Keith Morrison.

I realized quite terrifyingly that – God forbid – if anything ever happened to my husband and me my adult kids would have zero idea about anything. I mean absolutely nothing. Face it. Their generation has lived primarily paper-free, with all their immediate needs and necessities accessible right in their pockets. They’ve barely touched paper money. The idea of a master file of, I don’t know, important documents, might likely be incomprehensible to them.

I needed to get my act together before that passport got stamped.

I shudder at the memory of cleaning out my mother’s house when she was dying. There was stuff everywhere. Papers tucked into nightstands; stacks of mail bound by brittle rubber bands in shoeboxes piled high in the closet; important deeds sprinkled in with toaster oven instructions and my grandfather’s army discharge papers. If her bedroom was her hidden-in-plain-sight salt mine, her filing cabinet was a Narnia wardrobe to decades gone by. Day after day of shredding every phone bill from 1991 and squinting to decipher handwritten notes and faded ink left me adamant: never would my children ever have to go through this nightmare.

So I started off hot. As soon as I returned home from her funeral I went through my own files and tossed out all the junk and nonsense. I have four kids; there was a lot of nonsense. I managed to collect everything of importance into one lone box, hauled my own filing cabinet to the dump and felt pretty good. Then I forgot all about it.

As my trip neared, it dawned on me that none of my kids knew this box existed, let alone that there might be fairly crucial things to glean from its contents. Good grief, they didn’t even know my trusty hiding spot for the spare house key. Ohmygod, I panicked, we might be fkkkkked. I sat down and started frantically typing out account numbers and insurance policies and contacts and listings of bills on autopay and – right??? Who’s kicking herself for never having done this?

I debated who to send my missive, aptly titled, Important Information. Should it be my eldest son? I don’t know. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t paid his parking tickets from three years ago. He might be a fugitive. He was out. My daughter? She still calls her dad when the check engine light comes on and she’s across the country. Let me think about that one. The youngest? He’s finishing college so is technically the only one still living home … but he’s literally in the emergency room getting stitched up from stupidity every few months so that’s a hard no. Forget the middle son. I think he still keeps his social security number written on a tiny scrap of paper in his wallet.

My daughter won the short straw and let me be clear, she was not amused. She reacted to the email immediately.

Why are you sending me this? was her curt response.

Just in case, I replied, adding in a fingers-crossed emoji.

I felt better. My husband asked if I’d also sent any of them our flight information. Bless his heart. As if any would ever track our departure or even have a clue what day we’d return. I finished my doomsday to-do list by writing farewell love texts to all my loved ones, took a deep breath and went far, far away with a little peace of mind.

Spoiler alert, we returned home safe and sound. I have every bit of confidence my daughter never even glanced at the contents of the hot potato email but that’s okay. It was hastily thrown together and (rubs hands together) I know I can make it better.

No doubt my kids will be super excited at the idea of more paper.

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and has been featured in Huff Post. She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone” presenting her popular essay The Thinking Girl’s Thong and her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series. That said, she still places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements (next would be as the $100,000 winner on that home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as @Eyerollingmom on Twitter and Eyerollingmom on Facebook & @Eyerollingmom on Instagram. Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)

In Memoriam: Waving Goodbye to Resolutions

Leave a reply

I overheard an *expert (of what I couldn’t say) on a morning show the other day. This being the week between Christmas and New Year’s, the program was filled with pre-recorded, blathery end-of-year stuff. Round-ups, Best-Ofs, Top-Grossings blah-blah blah. But I did hear one statement and it’s stuck with me. The mystery expert said focusing so much on a new year and making grand resolutions only indicates that you’re considering the previous year a failure, essentially listing all the things, goals and good intentions that weren’t done.

I liked that.

I think it’s fairly common to do a personal year in review assessment and get a little bummed out at all the negative things that sprung up. I was definitely headed in that direction.

So many amazing and wonderful and awesome and fun times happen throughout the year yet we get to December and only focus on the weight gain or the people that don’t like us anymore or an unfulfilling job or the books we didn’t read. Why is it easier to cling to the bad stuff? Maybe because it’s the ugly stuff that keeps us up at night. It’s so, so wrong.

We’ve got to allow the good stuff to linger longer. Keep that dopamine flowing, people!

I’m going to start here. I’m turning my resolutions into respect.

My resolution of I’m going to write more this year (I only wrote five original pieces this year; for a creative soul, this is crushingly disappointing) is changing to Girl, you only wrote five things this year and one of those was nationally published! That’s 20% of all your shttttt! You go!

My resolution of I’m going to get to the gym more is changing to Girl, the weather was so great this week you hit your 10k steps every day without ever having to walk into that sweaty nasty-ass building! Boom!

My resolution of I’m going to eat healthier this year is changing to Girl, look at you! You tossed out way less from that produce bin than you did last week! Ca-ching!

Things like that.

And instead of bemoaning all the sad things that got me down this year I’ll give a beautiful eulogy to all the things that left me:

Gone: Another Kid to Adulting

I know I yapped up a big storm when my next kid was flying the coop this summer. I was looking forward to his new adventure as well as my own. The update on that humble brag is that most days life is actually super quiet and tedious as an empty nester. So many things are different: cooking, not running the dishwasher, sleeping with the bedroom door open. It really kinda sucks. But those days pale in comparison to the moments when I see the pictures of the roommate Sunday dinners and the visiting friends hiking together and all the adulting at work that NEVER happened under my roof. It’s making our upcoming family vacation all the more special since we’re all coming from our different corners to be isolated together for a whole week. CanNOT wait.

Gone: A Zillion Friends

It’s all good, we’re all throwing dirt on this coffin. This was my year for going from Being Friends to Being Friendly with a lot of people. Maybe it has something to do with the Slo-Mo Death of Facebook, something our kids have known all along, but which adults are a little slower on the uptick. To quote a friend, “Ugh, my Facebook feed is super boring now.” Yep. Gal, that is universal. Now that we’ve all deleted our once-submerged-but-now-surfaced political kook friends, and multi-level-marketer pals and the randos we only connected with after our high school reunion, we’ve all come to the realization we really do prefer an intimate circle of people who genuinely care about us. We are all in good company on this one. Being friendly can never be considered a bad thing.

Gone: My Self Respect

I became a fangirl of the show Sex Lives of College Girls this year, which is funny because I am neither a college girl nor even a mom to one. I boldly do not care. My husband, who will watch eight uninterrupted hours of football or Steely Dan documentaries, expressed concern but I still don’t care. The show, having zero to do with my actual life, cracks me up and that’s that. This has subsequently rekindled my obsession with Mindy Kaling (you know her from The Office but I know her as Girl Boss of All the Things). I listen to her books while walking and binge The Mindy Project reruns every night because I laugh out loud. My biggest absurdist dream is that one day Mindy Kaling stumbles onto my work and discovers I’m almost as funny as she is, so every now and then I tag her in a tweet and pray that she notices. Shame, out the window.

But my devotion to Mindy has unwittingly brought me a gift. As the days turned darker (damn, New England, you be grey!) I’m laughing more now. I’ve switched from true-crime podcasts to humor memoirs (laughing aloud while all alone keeps people at a distance-another bonus!) And I’ve found that laughter does indeed boost my spirits. So when I miss my kids or the air outside is frigid or I’m sad about my sister I turn to the funny to turn things around. My husband now joins and we sit, bingeing and laughing together and momentarily forgetting it’s just the two of us. It’s nice.

So while I won’t be making any resolutions, I’ll try to be more mindful of the bad takes I could definitely kick to the curb, not because it’s a new year but because I’ve realized some habits are draining me (looking at you, SCROLLING). Really, how necessary are the endless stoooooooooopid video reels of people cleaning toilets and throwing blocks of cream cheese into crock pots and folding sweaters the right way gahhhhhhhhhhh! Just. Stop. It. Getting sucked into the vortex of wasted time is one major habit I am definitely going to work on.

So Happy New Year friends, but more importantly, Happy Old Year! We’ve had 365 days of smiles, tears, hellos and goodbyes. How lucky we are to experience all of it!

(And Mindy, if you’re reading this … call me!)

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and has been featured in Huff Post. She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone” presenting her popular essay The Thinking Girl’s Thong and her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series. That said, she still places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements (next would be as the $100,000 winner on that home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as @Eyerollingmom on Twitter and Eyerollingmom on Facebook & @Eyerollingmom on Instagram. Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)

Outsmarted by Mom? Pfft. Always.

Leave a reply

My childhood played out in the 70s and my adolescence was fine-tuned in the 80s so despite a legitimate fear of the ocean thanks to fictional cinema, I grew up a genius.

Okay maybe not an actual genius but definitely brilliant – especially compared to my kids at that age. Diplomas aside, I’m sorry, what in the world happened to street smarts?

I grew up knowing things. Cool things. Important things. I could Name That Tune in three notes. I could get anywhere with directions taped to my dashboard (because my friend’s neighbor’s cousin had just traveled there so I knew which Sunoco station to pass then make the next left). I knew precisely how fast I’d have to run home to make curfew for every minute I’d chosen to overstay my good time. I’d mastered public transportation by age thirteen (that was just sink or swim – seriously, whose parents were driving them anywhere?) The things I didn’t know I just sort of figured out, usually by spying on the older kids making out under the street lights.

My kids most definitely could never have swung a covert six-hour road trip to a Genesis concert at the Syracuse dome without GPS OR alerting any parents. They wouldn’t know how to stash two friends in the nearby bushes while hitching to a movie (ooh, big disclaimer here: kids, do NOT try this today. There wasn’t any crime back then and no internet to scare us about it if there was, so this reckless act would definitely not be considered brilliant today). Our refrains of the Reagan era remain to this day: How are we even alive or better, Did we even have parents?

When one of my sons (birth order has been redacted to protect the humiliated) graduated high school he texted me at work to ask if I had a template he could use for his Thank You cards. Wait, wut?

A friend told me her son sent cash to the DMV to pay his $400 speeding ticket. The worst part? They actually accepted it so now he thinks his mom’s a nagging lunatic that needs to chill out.

Another’s kid peeled out and sped away from the police after being pulled over – then he forgot to turn off his headlights after he’d successfully ducked into a random driveway down a side street.

Good lord. Am I the only one with concerns?

My kids fully acknowledge my stealth upbringing ruined them. Getting past me with red eyes or minty breath? Not a chance. Skipping school? Fuhgeddaboudit. They were doomed from the start.

They can keep their TikTok; I will forget more in my lifetime than my kids will ever learn.

Good thing they’ve got itty bitty computers in their pockets. If only those were ever charged.

***

Worse Than The Mean Girls? The Angry, Angry Adults.

Leave a reply

I have been trying my damnedest to turn away from negativity but I’m finding it no small feat. It would be a lot easier if nastiness wasn’t (accurately) everywhere but it seems it’s become the norm to express anger the moment it’s felt. Have keyboard, will spew. It’s insane. And getting worse.

The spewing has been gaining in momentum and rising in vitriol for years. How have we not managed to reel this in? How is there still so much bullying going on?

When I appeared on Trading Spaces the producers emphatically warned: don’t go onto the internet. Of course I did and it was awful. The message boards were brimming with horrid comments and insults because why, total strangers found good fortune? What in the actual hell. That was 2003. Almost 20 years ago.

I recently watched the amazing Amy Schneider’s thrilling run on Jeopardy (who? give it a Goog). I just read that she, too, was counseled to do the same and in fact, went so far as to delete all her social media accounts for the duration of her record-breaking reign. How sad.

Clearly we have not come a long way, baby.

It used to be we worried about our kids being bullied – or worse, being bullies. My daughter was a victim back in eighth grade. That was 2008. Not physical (thankfully) but traumatic all the same. While I was alerted at the start, the other parents were only brought into the loop days later – after confessions were tied up in a neat little bow and receipts for vandalized possessions were printed.

At the time I thought more about being the other parents and getting that call out of the blue. Can you even imagine? I would’ve been distraught.

I think about years ago when my husband worked for a real pompous ass (I know…who hasn’t, I digress). One night we channel surfed onto a national news program reporting on a hazing scandal at a prestigious prep school nearby. It was worse than bad. (Think locker room, cocky jocks and (sorry) bananas. Horrific.) One of the perpetrators was the son of the pompous ass boss. Seriously. I couldn’t help but feel utter devastation for him.

Our kids have always had the ability to change the direction of our lives on a dime with One. Stupid. Move. One poor choice. One thoughtless act. As parents, all we can do is brace ourselves for the unexpected and try to do our best to keep things on the right track and pray that common sense prevails. We’re not masters of the universe though. Kids are still being horrible and social media has ignited an entire breeding ground of cruelty. It’s an anonymous wild west of venom and a whole new playing field of warfare. We get that (prayers to parents of emergent tweens. Shudder).

But adults are bringing unkindness to a whole new level.

Remember when the worst display of adults behaving badly came from contempt shouted from the bleachers? (*Sighs wistfully) Those were the days.

I’ve written about this before but it’s only gotten worse in the years since that posted.

I had a recent piece published on a national platform (wait, what, you missed all my shameless plugging? Fret not! It’s right here ). The gist was simple: closing chapters on friends that no longer reciprocate affection or attention. That’s it, nothing earth shattering. It was a personal essay, not a declaration of my opinion of politics, air fryers or, worse, Yellowstone. Yet – holy fkkking shtttt, – out came the villagers with torches. Incredibly (in the you have GOT to be kidding me file) most of the naysayers were men who apparently have a lot to say about female friendship.

Seriously?

Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap.

What in the world motivates grown-ups to be negative and nasty? Even if a person comes across something upsetting, aren’t there enough kitten pictures out there to ease that temper and turn that frown upside down?

I don’t have a proclamation for my soapbox and I certainly don’t have any solutions (actually if I could brag I’d admit I’m actually in pretty good company: I just saw my good friend Ty Pennington come out with guns blazing over his body shamers) but I wish more people would just stop typing.

Or at least use a dictionary.

Excuse me while I go find some puppy pics to go with this post.

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and recently was featured in Huff Post. She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone.” Her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series yet she places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements. (Next would be the home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as @Eyerollingmom on Twitter and Eyerollingmom on Facebook. And @Eyerollingmom on Instagram. Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)

ScoliosiS(hit)

2 Replies

Eyerollingmom’s Diary Page — Wednesday, October, 1, 2008

Those who check in occasionally know I normally use this space for a light chuckle. Unlike many who utilize a blog for always beautiful, sometimes cathartic prose, I tend to go with the humorous details of my life. I find the funny in every day.

Still, there are my peeps that do check in to find out what’s new. (These are friends who are well aware that the photo I’ve posted is many years old. Hey, hey, hey — people on those cyber dating sites do this ALL THE TIME. Apparently using an old yet flattering picture is like, totally, cool….)

In any case, here we go: while her mom still navigates the residual emotional exhaustion of yesterday’s six-hours at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, my daughter donned her new (pink) scoliosis brace for the first time today.

I have resigned myself to the fact that I will be A) battling spontaneous tears (that come from said exhaustion) and B) battling my daughter for many, many calendar days to come.

No mother, nowhere, at no time, wants any doctor to ever tell her there is something not perfect with her child. The same initial wind gets knocked out of her whether she’s hearing her child has leukemia or asthma. Whether her child needs a new kidney, a new hearing aid or a new scoliosis brace. It’s just the way it is. Parents feel the same level of terror when their child goes in for any surgery whether it’s ear tubes or tonsils or transfusions. These are our babies.

However, being at Children’s Hospital is a tremendously humbling experience. While I wanted to wallow in the lousy turn my daughter’s life is going to take right now, I could not. For as we waited our turn in the brace shop I was drawn to the smiling faces of the beautiful toddlers who were being strolled in by their weary mothers. Each had on a brightly colored cranial helmet. I almost broke down in shame. How could I possibly be upset at my situation? There are far, far worse things in life, I truly, deeply know.

But today, away from the babies and awakened at dawn for brace patrol and an early morning meeting with the school nurse, I am sad. And at the same time ashamed at my sadness.

So I’m not feeling very humorous today. I can’t help it. It is awful enough being thirteen. Whether or not it’s a favorite color, pink doesn’t always go with everything.

*2022 Update: The exhausted mom turned out okay. The gal in the brace … even better.

Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found on this site (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)

Missed the start of A Momoir? Begin here:

Chapter 1, Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2017/07/29/a-collection-of-eyerolls-chapter-1-yes-billy-joel-we-will-all-go-down-together/

A Momoir, Chapter 15: Down & Dirty: A Marriage Turns 30

2 Replies

I just reached my thirtieth wedding anniversary. It came and went without the Rocky music playing; just a basic Tuesday, a bottle of wine, some seafood and a couple of cute photos posted. Honestly, it didn’t seem like such a Herculean effort reaching the milestone. I’ve got a bunch of friends and family still long-hauling in their marriages. I’ve also got friends who are my-age-newlyweds and one that has finally found Mr. Right with husband #3. These friends are still at the starry-eyed stage so I try not to spend too much time with them (it makes me feel bad about broadcasting every misstep of my spouse). Obviously they’ve got a lot of catching up to do but my point is, hitting thirty years didn’t seem as symbolic as it (probably) was. Really, if given the choice between staying married or online dating … shudder.

I don’t have any words of wisdom and can’t share any magical tips (my Master Class on Matrimony would most resemble a stand-up routine) but having made it this far I guess I might possess some admirable experience on living harmoniously with facial tics, no?

Sure, we’ve come a long way, baby, but it’s not because I picked a perfect partner (please — more on his jazz hands later) but I guess what it boils down to is I just sorta picked someone perfect in putting up with me.

I’m super easy going. Until I’m not.

I’m fairly sensible. Until um, shoes.

I’m reasonably intelligent. Until um, history, geography and science questions.

I’m a (cue WooHoo!) damn good time. Until um, Tito’s.

And that’s not even mentioning the heels, hot wings, beer and karaoke I come with.

Trust me, as wives go, I’ve got it going on. Him? Sigh. Not so much.

He’s a little bit weirdo (closes every blind in every room when he takes a shower, convinced the neighbors are lying in wait with binoculars), a little bit rebel (that’s it, NO! I am NOT getting up in the middle of the night to finish this final dose of colonoscopy cleanse!) and at times a lot annoying (everyone likes him. I mean everyone. Really, it’s annoying.)

Worse, while I battle the sands of time and do everything in my power to fight the good fight (collagen powder, get to work, girl!), he chooses to age right in front of my eyes. Want to hear the extended 10-day forecast every morning before you’ve stirred your coffee? He’s your guy.

His signature move? Watching rock and roll documentaries every weekend in the early hours before I rise and telling me all about them all day long. Stevie Nicks, we hardly knew ye.

And then there’re all those other things I’m pretty sure are commandments of the Husband Oath:

Picking movies of zero interest to others, then falling asleep during them and asking for a recap. (Hard nope.)

Demanding the remote, selecting a show, then immediately scrolling on his phone.

Warming up the shower for longer time than his actual shower.

And finally, the absolute worst: losing weight effortlessly, whenever he feels he’s put on a few.

Right? How in the world does he have any woman?

I could scream, but if I’m being completely honest, it’s not all bad. For starters, he happens to be an exceptional dad, (although he was forced to relinquish his power to assert consequence after, during a heated family blowout, he delivered the infamous phrase that will now forever be etched on our family tree: This ain’t no gangsta family!) It certainly diffused the tense situation but it took awhile for four teenagers to get up off the floor. He’s slowing regaining some street cred with them (he ran a couple of marathons and got Venmo) so he’ll be fine.

He’s a keeper. He gets me. He still tells me to be careful every time he spies me on my folding stepstool. And he continually buys me itty bitty icky underwear off the internet because in his eyes I haven’t aged a day or gained a pound since 1991.

Most days we are a living, breathing marriage meme (If you like getting annoyed at the way someone loads a dishwasher marriage may be for you!) but clearly we’ve seemed to find our groove. Longtime couples get super fat, super grey, super snippy and super unsexy over the course of time. We’ve figured out the secret sauce is not doing it all at the same time. We’ve learned to alternate and stagger that shizz.

Our marriage has had our fair share of critical moments but like childbirth, those times fade to a murky remembrance once you’ve gotten through them and the storms are in the rearview mirror. Deep down we genuinely like each other. And (jazz hands notwithstanding) we make each other laugh.

About those jazz hands, I’m not spilling tea here – he parades them in public when (cringe) dancing. Picture a ridiculously happy guy, arms raised above his head, pumping them up and down while encouraging others to join him — you know, like a bouncing (bopping) billboard for Club Med. In the secret society of love languages, this is our private signal that I am now the designated driver. See? We work well together.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, James, will you accept this rose?

It’s time we celebrate. Whaddaya say we get romantic and pop in our edited, three-hour wedding videotape to see if we recognize anyone.