The Lights of My Life

Twenty-four years ago next month, I attended the first night game at Wrigley Field. I also traded bulimia for parenthood.

Destined to be a blogger who flaunts her heart and all her dirty laundry on her sleeve, I was never one to withhold personal information. I will always remember that first night game. I had been pregnant for about a minute. My brother, a long time baseball fanatic, had flown in to join us for the historical game, and I told him our news immediately. Between the first two innings, I disappeared within the bowels of the stadium to find a pay phone (yes, kids, a pay phone) and tell my parents of their imminent change in status. And, the whole time, I worried myself sick over my bulimic episode from the day before, the one just before I found out the rabbit had died. Had I somehow harmed the tiny cluster of cells that was to become my first born? Worse still, had that cluster witnessed something that would haunt it later? Had I fallen short, already?

Looking back, I realize it had much less to do with physical damage to my embryo, and everything to do with my new code of behavior. For years, from the time my oldest children were babies and through the better part of three childhoods, my gold standard was whatever example I wished to set for them. If I would preach something to them, I would practice it myself. A simple formula, much less complicated than determining what to do and how to be based upon my own personal judgment.

And it was a good system, for the most part. I was a pretty decent citizen, and, since that day before the first night game at Wrigley Field, I have never voluntarily or purposefully vomited up a binge, no matter how tempted I may have been. Woohoo!

Time marches on, though, children get older, and they need you less. And, no matter what you do, they gaze at you with pure disdain, and they punish you with incessant critique or, even more infuriating, silence. You start to remember, after years of being utterly beholden to others, that you are a person in your own right. Or wrong, as the case may be. You begin to care less about the approval of your children (odds are, you could act like Mother Teresa and still not get it anyway) and become more tuned in to your own discontent. If, of course, you're one of those people who has any.

So you make some mistakes. But, thank goodness, you've trained your children well by setting a good example for years, and they disapprove. Beats the crap out of having them emulate your bad behavior -- although there are days I wish they'd just do something illegal or immoral or just plain stupid, if only to get a break from their punishing stares. Alas, I have set high standards for them, and they continue to be above reproach, while I continue to spiral downward. Hey, I still don't puke.

With any luck, my children will grow up and become far less perfect than they thought they were. They might even begin to see their parents as human.

Yeah, right.