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Broke Wife, Big City
Important brain
thoughts from an exhausted parent
By Aprill Brandon
I have a confession. I’m supposed to be writing right now. Which, yes,
“technically” I am. I am “technically” stringing together letters into
words and those words into sentences.
Here’s the thing, though. I don’t really want to be writing right now.
My brain is mush. Just a mushy, mushy, leaky puddle of its former self.
This has been a particularly trying week and my children have sunk
their adorable tiny little teeth into my skull and sucked out all the
good bits. All that’s left is the part that instinctively knows when
they are trying to climb up the unsecured bookcase and the part that
knows the theme song to “Golden Girls.”
In fact, I’m starting to suspect that part of the deal when you become
a parent is that you help your children’s brains grow by sacrificing
your own.
And so today, well, today I just don’t have it in me to write a
coherent 800 words on some amusing and absurd aspect of life. I barely
had it in me to brush my teeth this morning.
Which is why the bulk of this column is just going to be unrelated
random musings because that’s all the poor, overworked, single brain
cell left functioning in my head can handle right now.
So…*drums nails on keyboard*...y’all want to talk about coffee? So
good, right? I lost count but I’m on something like my seventh cup. I
wonder who was the first person who looked at a coffee bean plant and
said “How would it taste if we burned the crap out of this and poured
hot water over it?” Whoever it is, they deserve a holiday and a fancy
parade. Screw Columbus. Let’s have Coffee Inventor Day.
You know what else is awesome? “Jessica Jones” on Netflix.
I don’t have a follow-up to that. Just that it’s awesome.
How come you never see wild hamsters? Unrelated but equally important,
what is nougat? I mean, it’s in candy bars, but what IS it?
Here are some important geographical observations:
Everyone in the Northeast eats a lot of ice cream in the winter.
There hasn’t been an official vote, but I’m pretty sure Mountain Dew is
the official drink of my home state of Ohio.
If you want to start a fight in the South, try casually suggesting that
sweet tea is gross. (And start running the second you see someone’s
grandma taking off her earrings).
By my count, 80’s fashion has come back no less than four times since
the actual 1980’s.
Does everyone hate the substitute meteorologist who occasionally fills
in for the regular meteorologist on their morning TV news show or am I
just being ridiculously unfair to Barry and his stupid face?
The other day I overheard two young women talking. The one was telling
the other “I, like, literally, and this wasn’t my choice at all, but I
literally watched him play video games all night. And at one point he
told me, ‘you seem bored.’ Like, yeah, I’m bored.” And it took every
ounce of willpower I had not to whip out my best Tina Fey impression
and yell “that’s a dealbreaker, ladies!”
Then, after I walked away, I almost turned around to do my best “he’s
just not that into you” Miranda Hobbes impression but managed to stop
myself again. Because I’m a grown-up.
God, I hope she doesn’t marry him.
And lastly, I recently found out that Madeleine L’Engle, the famous
author of the “A Wrinkle in Time” series, had three kids, had her
manuscript rejected 30 times before it was published and had almost
given up writing on her 40th birthday because she was still not pulling
her own weight financially even after all the hours she spent
writing.
So there is some tiny sliver of hope for all of us hardworking creative
souls out there who are drowning in parenting responsibility but are
desperately trying to write or draw or compose or sing or build or
whatever while also wading those choppy waters every day. It’s hard
giving up our nights, our weekends, whatever meager free time we have
in pursuit of our own dreams.
But always keep going. Keep writing. Keep creating. For the same reason
you sacrifice so much of yourself for your kids.
Because just like your kids, your life is better for it.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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