Divine Secrets of an Ordinary Tuesday
By Cara Stolen
@carastolen
In so many ways, it was just an ordinary Tuesday. I woke up tired—the kind of tired only pregnancy insomnia can cause—but in a decent mood. I made Levi’s lunch and kissed him goodbye, sipped coffee and read my book for 20 minutes, then toasted bagels and spooned yogurt for the kids when they woke up. But then I told Royce he couldn’t have a cookie with breakfast and told him his dad left for work before he woke up. I told Maggie she needed to sit on her bottom and moved her cup away from her right elbow.
“Mom, you’re the worst! I hate you!” Royce screamed.
“Me too!” Maggie repeated.
Just like that our ordinary Tuesday was off the rails.
I took a deep breath. Then another. I reminded myself his outburst was seeking attention.
“Buddy, I know it upsets you when daddy leaves early, but it isn’t really my fault. And like I said, you can have a cookie with lunch. Promise.”
As I spoke, he made a high-pitched, closed-mouth “uh” sound repeatedly, grating my nerves. I tried again, this time putting my hand on his back and looking him in the eyes.
“Royce, you can’t hear me if you’re making noises while I talk.”
I turned back to the dishwasher and pulled out a plate, unsure of whether I should punish him for being disrespectful or keep trying to speak calmly to him. Not for the first time, I wished my son had come with an instruction manual.
“MOMMMYYYYY!” He wailed. “I want to hear what you were going to say. Please tell meeeeeeee! Please!”
My patience was wearing thin. Exhaustion ricocheted through my body. The wind howled around the eaves of the house, whistling through the dining room window. It wasn’t even 7:30 a.m.
By 9:30 a.m., when it was time to load up and head to the gym, things had progressed from bad to worse, and my thin patience had evaporated. While Royce wanted to go see his friends at the gym childcare, Maggie wanted to stay home with just me, which caused what felt like the millionth sibling brawl of the morning. When I intervened, another round of “I hate you’s” and screams ensued. My calm, reasonable mom voice from two hours ago gave way to yells and threats.
At 2:30, when the “quiet time” I so desperately needed to be nap time dissolved into flying Magnatiles, slamming doors, and fighting between their bedrooms, I found myself sitting in the front seat of my locked car in the driveway—the only place I could think of to get a break from the noise and chaos of our house.
I laid my forehead against the cold steering wheel and tried to exhale all the exhaustion, anger, and overwhelm from my lungs. I replayed the way I’d screamed, yelled, slammed, and stomped my way out of the house, and felt guilt rise up like bile in my throat. I repeated my therapist’s advice to take a break until my heart rate slowed and my anger receded. I ran the smooth leather tassel on my key ring through my fingers and thought about driving away.
***
There’s a scene in the movie Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood where a young Vivi Abbott Walker, played by Ashley Judd, confesses to a priest that she has been dreaming of running away from her family. Vivi, a deeply troubled young mother, has spent the night taking care of her four sick children. She has been thrown up on, coughed on, and covered in diarrhea for the better part of 8 hours, and at one point in the night, overwhelmed by the demands of her kids, she plugs her ears and screams at them to: “Shut up!”
In the morning, she leaves her kids with the maid and drives to church wearing a cream colored coat over her nightgown. The priest hears her confession and tells her she must banish her bad thoughts.
“But what if I can’t?” She whimpers.
She leaves the church, pawns the diamond ring her father gave her on her 16th birthday, and does, in fact, drive away from her family. She checks into a beachside hotel and sleeps for an entire day and night before eventually returning home.
The first time I saw the movie, I was shocked by the scene of her driving away (and traumatized by the subsequent scenes of her mental breakdown). With all the indignation of a teenage “someday” mother, I harshly judged Vivi for her poor mental health, her inability to put her family’s needs before her own, and her unwillingness to stick it out when things were hard.
But since becoming a mother myself, I’ve often thought of Vivi. Now, on the other side of the looking glass, I can empathize with her. I can view her and her escape to the beach with compassion. I can understand the urge to run away. I know the way motherhood can bring you to your breaking point.
***
There was a tentative tap on the passenger window, interrupting my thoughts. I looked up to see Royce peeking into the car, and reluctantly hit the silver unlock button to let him in. He crawled in, and looked at me for a second, then wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve.
“You hurt my feelings,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Royce. Really, I am. That’s why I came out here, so I could give myself a time out after the way I acted. I wasn’t trying to scare you or sissy, I just needed to calm down. Just like I tell you to do.”
We sat in silence for a minute.
“Royce, why do you get so angry with me? You woke up this morning mad, and everything I’ve said or done all day has made you even more mad. It makes me sad when you get mad at me over everything.”
He mumbled something I couldn’t hear, and I gently asked him to repeat himself.
“I said I like dad better. I don’t like the days I have to stay home with you.”
The dam broke. Tears filled my eyes, spilled over onto my cheeks, and fell down the front of my shirt. I desperately wiped at them, determined not to let my son see me cry. Looking out the window away from him I simply whispered, “Okay.” But the tears continued to fall, so I opened my door, waited for him to crawl over the center console and climb out, and walked up our porch steps beside him.
Inside, the flood of tears gave way to sobs. I left Royce in the living room with a book, walked to my room, curled up in the C-shaped pregnancy pillow monopolizing our bed, and bawled.
***
I recently re-watched Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Nestled in my favorite chair while Levi worked late at the ranch, I watched as an elderly Vivi and her adult daughter Siddalee reconciled their relationship with the help of Vivi’s beloved best friends—the “Ya-Yas.” While I was still a bit horrified by the flashback scenes of Vivi’s “mental breakdown,” the part of the movie where she runs away to the beach, exhausted and overwhelmed by the demands of her life, were just as relatable as I remembered.
But something else entirely stuck with me after watching the movie again: In the end, Vivi and Sidda move forward with their lives (and their relationship) by exposing and facing the truth. After years of burying their feelings and experiences in the name of propriety, they rehash the past, and Sidda finally learns the truth about why Vivi drove away (and came back). For the first time, both mother and daughter manage to see each other’s broken humanity. And in that brokenness, they find not only healing, but also empathy and compassion for one another.
***
I heard Royce come down the hallway, then felt the bed move as he climbed up beside me. But there was nothing I could do to stop the tears soaking my pillow. Maybe it was pregnancy hormones, maybe it truly was grief over the words my son had so earnestly and honestly spoken, or maybe it was guilt at the way I had (and have) behaved as a mother. Whatever the reason, I laid still and let the tears come.
I can count on one hand the number of times I have cried in front of my children. I save my tears for the solitude of the shower, the security of my bed at night, or the privacy of my walk-in closet. So you could say I was as surprised as Royce was by my sudden outburst of emotion on that not-so-ordinary Tuesday.
Without saying a word, Royce began stroking my hair, the way I have so often done to soothe him. He curled up against my back and stayed with me until my tears, finally, subsided.
“Were you going to drive away and leave us, Mama?” he eventually asked.
I rolled over to face him, and thought about Vivi and Siddalee.
I wondered if Vivi thought she was protecting Sidda by shielding her from the truth. Saving her from additional heartache by driving away, pulling back, and disconnecting instead of talking to her daughter as a child (in an age-appropriate way) about the hardships she was facing. Would their relationship have been different if Vivi had let Sidda see her brokenness sooner? Would the balm of empathy and compassion have saved them both years of anguish and disconnect? I don’t know. But I do know I don’t want to spend thirty-some years hiding my emotions and humanity from my son.
“No, buddy. I promise I will never drive away and leave you. But sometimes …” I let my voice drift off and looked him in the eye. “Sometimes, on really hard days, I want to just a little bit.”
He threw his arm over me and burrowed into my chest. “I’m sorry today was hard, mama.”
I pulled him close. “I’m sorry too, buddy.”
Words and photo by Cara Stolen.