Cars 3 in the pandemic and life changes

Cars 3 Trailer

I've been binge-watching the whole Cars series, including Planes (of course).  This particular movie is speaking to me right now.  I think it speaks to the life seasons and changes it's intended to, but during the pandemic it's especially poignant. 

If you don't want spoilers, stop right here.

I'm on furlough, like so many.  Actually, I'm luckier than many, since I'm on furlough rather than laid off!  However, furlough is feeling a lot like other forms of unemployment to me right now, and that puts a whole other spin on this movie.

At the start, Lightning McQueen is the perennial winner and his long-term competitors have fun relationships with him that they all seem to really enjoy.

Enter Jackson Storm.  He's a rookie and portrayed as young and arrogant, but with patterns of behavior that schmooz the press and others.  Lightning starts to feel insecure, and he starts losing.  Not only does this next-gen car beat him on the track, but it gets into his head and he starts seeing age as a disease.

Enter depression and spending days watching depressing footage in primer.  This sounds suspiciously like obsessing over climbing pandemic rates and living in pajamas to me.  At this point I'm totally relating to the movie, and it's only just beginning.

Lightning decides to fight back and win again.  He gets a new sponsor who seems completely fanatical about Lightning in general, and supports the things Lightning wants.  He gets a trainer, Cruz.  She also is repetitively reminding him of his age, and he feels she is holding him back.  He misses Doc Hudson, who trained him before, and wants to relive those days and come out on top again.

After learning that his new sponsor has "legacy" plans for him selling himself as a brand, he talks him into one last chance, but has to come in first to continue racing.  Otherwise, he starts selling mud flaps.

During this time, checking in on LinkedIn, which is the ultimate social media for showing only the best of things, it's easy to feel underqualified as you sit on the couch,  Even when the government is requiring people to stay home to stop the spread of COVID-19, I feel like I should be doing something more productive.  The isolation is difficult in ways we never imagined.  Things like being able to go grocery shopping and have everything in stock, or getting a hair cut, are no longer acceptable expectations.  It really impacts the emotions of being still.  And while there is nothing wrong with selling mud flaps, it's not my dream, nor Lightning's.

The bulk of the movie is spent with the outdoor training Lightning decides to take.  It feels like a dreamy version of soul-searching to me, and it's definitely an uplifting part of the movie.  I highly recommend it to all ages.  My daughter has not watched it with me.  It was a pandemic present I bought myself.

During the unusual training, Lightning decides to take on, we get to know Cruz before, who has never trained a car outside.  Interesting, since the tracks are outside, but also understandable because of the technology that is winning so many races.  We learn that she dreamed of being a racer all her life, and that she was discouraged from chasing that dream.  The sponsor has assigned her as Lightning's chaperone on this adventure, so he gets quickly frustrated with her, even while he feels protective of her.  She's a charming character, and adds great humor to the movie.

The best part begins when Lightning finds Doc Hudson's old teacher, bringing Cruz with him.  They meet several racing legends, including the first female racer, who stole her first number to race.  You can see Cruz catching the idea that females have just as much right to grasp things as males.  Very few females have no experience with this old-fashioned idea resurfacing.  They all consistently remind Lightning that he's old and slow, etc.  They don't stop encouraging him, tho.  They show him how to make the most of it, and he learns things about Doc Hudson that he never knew, which is a balm for the heart and a reminder that we never know all of a person.

Cruz starts paying a lot of attention and having a blast training alongside Lightning.  He starts gaining speed and is ready to win at the last possible moment before heading to the race.  Cruz, getting into her role as his competitor, beats him in that final practice race, is lost in the moment celebrating before going quiet and apologizing.  The goal had been to prepare Lightning.  He starts the last chance race feeling very unsure of himself as a result.

There are so many fun pieces that I want you to see for the first time yourself, so please watch the movie.  Furlough and unemployment are great times to check out things you normally don't make time for.  I think this one is worth it.

Lightning goes to his race and he's doing it.  Cruz is cheering him on and fighting the sponsor for the first time, wanting to encourage Lightning through this big race.  He dismisses her.  Lightning hears it, and finally finds what I think he was looking for the whole time.  He coaches Cruz to the win.  Together, they win.  Not separately, but together.  Now that, is cool.  And he's happy.

I don't know what will follow the pandemic for individuals.  Most of the time, changes our family hasn't wanted have ended up improving our overall enjoyment of life and fulfillment.  It's a life change.  Losing a job or a family member always is.  I would argue that with or without those changes, we are all losing something through this pandemic.  We are losing normalcy, or security, or both.  With resilience, we'll come out ahead. 

I'm in this with you all, and I get excited every time I hear employment is increasing, whether from manager friends increasing payroll, or furloughed friends being called back, or hearing that salons can open, etc.  I believe there will be waves, and that things will close down and open back up more than once, but I believe things will get better.  Optimism is about believing the future will be better.  You don't have to ignore the things you wish were different now in order to be optimistic.

A rocky relationship with motherhood

I have a rocky relationship with the concept of motherhood.  This is my favorite picture of myself as a mom.

When I was deep into challenges I didn't understand and floundering, I had the most trouble feeling like I was all alone.  As if these troubles were specific to me, and I was somehow broken in a way other people aren't.  Well, I am broken.  And almost as soon as I started sharing my scariest things, I learned that most people are.  Most of the things I go through aren't unique to me.

Feeling like I wasn't alone in things made everything seem easier.  It helped me show myself grace and helped me empathize with others.  It has been more grueling than childbirth to work through these things.  Having no chance of an epidural compounds the difference.  And yet, I would not give up how I have changed to avoid the pain.  I like myself better on the other side.

I digress, but my motherhood journey has definitely spiderwebbed into other areas of my life.  Pictured above is my only child.  She is also the 2nd of 4 if you follow birth order studies.  I struggled with infertility.  I was ripped apart by miscarriage.  Our miracle child was a high-risk pregnancy every week of the process.  Every one of those things made other relationships challenging.

When I learned I was miscarrying for the first time, my husband and a close friend bunked down with me and movies.  It happened as smoothly as it possibly could at home.  And for those scientific-minded, like my daughter, the sac never broke.  It was quite unusual, relatively clean, and the process made me feel supported in my home.  It also gave me a strange sense of confidence in my body.  Somehow its ability to go through a miscarriage so smoothly offset the self-loathing of having a miscarriage.

Self-loathing is a stong description, I know.  I believe it's accurate.  I remember apologizing to my father for miscarrying.  It shocked me.  And yet I meant it as an apology.  I never have understood where the guilt came from.  There was nothing I could have done to prevent it, and yet I felt so much guilt and insecurity.  I wondered if it was some sort of ingrained idea from the ages where women's responsibility was to have healthy boys to keep the family going.  I do not believe in those concepts and yet experienced similar emotions.

I never want my daughter to go through a miscarriage.  However, if she does, I hope I would be invited to hold her, comfort her, and sit in it with her.  I hope she'd see me loving her and grieving with her.  I would not judge her for a miscarriage, and yet, I judged myself for one.  It makes no sense.

But wait!  It gets worse!  During miscarriage #2 and child #3, I almost passed out on the bathroom floor from loss of blood while my toddler was knocking on the door asking me to play.  And during that, I still felt guilt.  Doubting myself and my decisions about how to handle things. 

If someone I know is experiencing something even remotely close to this, please call me!!!  I will come and play with your child, make sure you have fluids & check-in to make sure you don't need to go to the hospital.  I want everyone around me to feel like they have that support.  Dealing with miscarriage is enough all by itself.  Please let someone take care of you, mamas.

That brings us to miscarriage #3 and child #4.  I desperately wanted to give my husband a son.  He would have had a lot of fun with a son.  He adores our daughter, of course.  I think it would have been fun for him to have a son as well.  And it would have been the last opportunity for our family name to be passed on in the traditional sense, so the family implications led me to keep trying as long as I did.

I definitely had support following that experience, tho.  I was at the family cabin with my immediate family, my parents, and a family of cousins.  My toddler was outside playing with everyone and well-cared-for.  I was napping.  A lot.  I had lost so much blood that my nurse SIL was angry that they hadn't given me blood.  Amid that support, the seeds of an unplanned future were growing. 

My toddler had some issues related to a highly hereditary condition that I have.  My biological parents were convinced they did not have this condition.  They showed embarrassment and exasperation when I tried to talk to them about my treatment and work through the condition.  They got angry when I named the symptoms that we shared.  I was strongly encouraged by my parents to be quiet and hide the things that embarrassed them.  I was disappointed that this highly hereditary condition wasn't being discussed within the family to help people get through it and avoid unnecessary suffering.  Another cousin was experiencing similar things and an uncle later asked me why he hadn't heard earlier, after my grandmother received great relief from similar treatment in a care facility.  The divergence of the ways had already begun.  I had grown into a different person than they wanted me to be & chosen a different approach to adult life.

During one of my naps at the cabin, I heard crying and woke up.  One of the other adults apologized but asked me to come and help.  I did.  Noone had done anything to cause distress.  My daughter was safe.  She was struggling.  I assured her she was safe and backed up the family for being appropriate, then implemented some of the non-medication fixes I was learning (for myself initially) with her.  I did this in front of all of them.  In just a few minutes, she went from crying to giggling. 

As she went up the steps to go get a snack, there was silence for a minute.  Then, someone said they had offered her a snack, as well, and there was lots of unnecessary explaining.  I reiterated that they didn't cause it.  Then, someone said, "What just happened?"  and someone else said "How did you do that?"  It didn't make any sense to them.  I glared pointedly at my father in front of everyone and said, "This is why I do therapy.  That was therapy.  It works." and turned on my heel, going back to the house.

I should have been more kind.  I own that.  Please understand that this is a glimpse of a much longer set of interactions, and wasn't a one-time thing.  My frustration was so high, and my energy was so low from the miscarriage and parenting a toddler.  I had dreams of my parents, especially my mother going through this treatment with me and growing as adults side by side and having an adult relationship.  I simply didn't get that.

So, this mother's day, for those of you who are motherless, I can relate.  I am an adult estranged child.  I have been for years.  It's not what I wanted,  I tried to work through things over and over again.  It didn't work.  I met with multiple professionals for help and advice.  And this Mother's Day weekend, I hope that my genetic mother is well and happy.  I sincerely do.  I will always love her.  I simply couldn't have a relationship with her and be a healthy person.  The biggest criticism I get around that is a concern for my daughter.  I consulted professionals and her opinion and they consulted her.  My husband/her father was involved as well, of course.  The decision was not just mine.  She reassures me when I feel guilty about it.  Trust me.  It was a big concern for me, as well.

Along those same lines, I find myself relating to people whose mothers have died.  I grieve the loss of that relationship, just from a different angle.

That brings me to another kind of mother.  I have had many sometimes moms step into my life, and I am so grateful to them.  They have helped fill a need in my life, and they were simply caring and being themselves.  Those women were willing to engage with me in a real, authentic way.  Just as kids in joint custody situations have the benefit of seeing more than one option & the different results of different decisions, I  have had the benefit of picking and choosing the mothering advice from bits and pieces of interactions with many mothers.

I am trying to be the best mother I can be, and I am wildly imperfect.  My favorite relationships are wildly imperfect.  They are also wildly loving, reparative, and flexible.  My daughter knows that saying "I'm perfect" is always sarcastic from me.  I make mistakes and admit them, sometimes in a better way than other times.  I know she will have scars from me.   I believe everyone has parent-inflicted scars.  I hope the fact that I know I am imperfect will go a long way toward reconciliation.

So, embrace your Mother's Day weekend.  Be a great dog mom; I was for many years.  It totally counts!  Celebrate various kinds of mothers and embrace your own way of mothering, whatever that might mean.  Do your best to find gratitude and fulfillment.  And if you have sadness around that, embrace it, then find your gratitude as well.  You are enough.  Don't let a holiday create negativity in your life if you can help it.

Australian Wildfires as an Introduction to the 2020 pandemic

Am I the only one who skips, or occasionally skims introductions? 
I was recently inspired by this video.  The first thing I did was share it with my daughter.

We were both blown away by the Australian Wildfires exchange.  It's embarrassing, but we honestly hadn't thought about those in a while, and she actually released an ant out of our house today; that's how much of an animal person she is.  Koalas being rescued is a powerful image for her.  In light of what followed, they are surprisingly minimized. 

When tragedy strikes in the world, one constant is Mr. Rogers's "Look for the helpers" quote.  It initiates some powerful hope amid destruction and suffering.  News coverage of truckloads of donated supplies and volunteers caring for strangers is one of the best things about the media, and is my favorite time to engage with it.  We are still seeing media coverage of boxes of homemade masks being donated to various organizations and similar efforts during the pandemic.  It's just not moving me, even though I have been making & donating them.

There is no isolated location for this crisis.  It's affecting the whole world.  If you were to go back and talk to pre-pandemic you, what would you say?  Stock up on TP?  It doesn't really capture it, even though that has been a truly huge adjustment through this, for personal and industrial implications.

Maybe I'm still in shock, but I think the fact that the Australian wildfires have been reduced is the most powerful and accurate way to describe the severity of the current situation.

Pandemic Changes and Preschool Tantrums

We're a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic right now, and virtually everyone is affected.

There are many people working to battle the spread, flatten the curve, and work toward a vaccine. Many are supporting those caring for infected individuals, making cloth masks to increase protection, conserve use and increase the production of other PPE and respirators, and much more. . .

There are daily updates on statistics around the world and locally.  There are experts and leaders giving press conferences regularly.  All this is important and helpful, and yet, so many are struggling.

I know that I am lucky.  I'm still having my preschool-mood days.  I think a lot of others are, as well.  I do my best to find laughter and distraction.  Spreading love and supporting the efforts are at the front of my mind.  I still feel angry and whiny and frustrated and stuck.

The preschool analogy has stuck with me since my place of work closed.  I loved my job and hope to return to it.  What the future holds is one big question mark, however.  And that fits with preschoolers.  They have routines and know when snacktime is, but if they miss a nap or their routine gets interrupted, they get angry.  They feel and think things they cannot communicate or understand or process.  That makes them prone to tantrums.

I may or may not be having tantrums.

We want to know when this will end.  We just want this to be over; I hear that comment so often.  We want to get back to life as usual.  However, we are starting a new normal.  This season will be long enough to be its own season, if not a new world.  We don't want to think about that.

When things get closer to normal, I hope we will remember the longing for connection.  I hope it will increase our appreciation for safe interaction with strangers and those outside our homes.  Right now, we are being.  We want to be doing.  I hope our post-pandemic balance between those will be better than before.

I'm afraid there will be judgment and negativity thriving on social media about individuals.  I'm afraid that families & relationships will be divided by their differences of opinion and approach.  The fear that we have in these times, both the rational and irrational, makes the negative implications quite possible.

Somehow being able to label something that is not understandable makes it less aggravating and peace more possible.  My hope with this is that seeing the parallels between the pandemic experience and the preschool-age growth and development will help us have grace with ourselves and others.  Ignoring the problems is not the answer.  Attempting to ignore them will likely make them worse.  By all means, express yourself!  As a balance, please try and move toward the person you want to become, and hopefully part of the solution.