Halloween was never my favorite holiday. Mainly it was the costumes. As traditional a housewife as my mother may have been, sewing was not her thing. She had a super cool sewing box, with one of those cloth tomatoes that I still have no clue of their purpose, that I never saw her use . Making a costume was never an option. Those early 70’s store-bought costumes were flammable and non-breathable. They also were non-describable. Was I Caspar the Friendly Ghost or Mary Poppins? The mask that came with it eventually found its true purpose later for bank robbers and scary movie villains. The memory of spending a few hours barely breathing, blinded, and sweating in the un-temperature-relegated material that’s presently contributing to many a landfills’ toxicity can still trigger a nightmare. Witch Way to the Candy? When I was little, there must have been a ring of children-targeted bandits…
The best decision I thought I made was to quit my job so I could devote my life to raising my kids. That decision’s success is on par with my decision to cut my hair myself, sell AT&T stock a week before it split, and all the concert tickets bought in bulk, thinking I could sell at a significant profit. I can’t comment too much on my kids’ first few years as I spent them in a no-sleep, diaper-changing, formula-stained-clothes-wearing induced haze. Once they hit preschool, I spent my newfound freedom during school hours walking around Target. It was heaven. But after way too many purchases of Up and Up products that may still be sitting under my sink, I needed a new way to spend my time. Get a Job! The logical thing was to get a job, especially since I spent all our disposable income on unneeded household…
Raising kids is not always a slice of heaven. It’s hell at times. Our brain lies to us. Just like social media It creates embellished Facebook posts in our heads. No different than posting some prettied-up pictures and trying to convince our closest nine thousand friends that life is perfect, our brain is trying to convince us that our past was perfect and life will never be as good without the kids at home.