The Tao of Martha (3 page)

Make no mistake: This is first-world bullshit right here. We’ve been through far worse, and I weathered those events with more grace and dignity. Possibly some swearing, but with much more aplomb.

Back when times were darkest, after we’d both lost our jobs and Fletch was racked with depression, I managed to find little ways to be happy. I had to, for my own sanity. Maybe we’d go for a walk, as much for fresh air as for a respite from the constant call of bill collectors. Yet while we’d stroll our slumtastic neighborhood and fret about our future, I’d
still stop to smell all the just-bloomed lilacs and be instantly cheered. Now I live securely in a lovely community, but instead of rejoicing in my own lilac bushes, I’ll grouse about the encroaching buckthorn. That’s all wrong.

So many people, including friends, are currently dealing with
real
issues—illness and job loss and problems with their children. I watch the news and my heart aches for those who are truly suffering. I haven’t earned the right to throw myself a pity party, and I need to buck the hell up.

What really aggravates me is that Fletch and I have worked so hard over the past ten years and made so many sacrifices to get to this point in our lives. I’m furious with myself for allowing ridiculous little things to have an impact on my happiness.

Is it really a big deal that the customer service agent was rude to me?

Is the world going to end over a minor disappointment?

And why on earth do I give a shit about what some stranger says about me on Facebook?

Didn’t I used to have a thicker skin?

Years ago, when some guy called me a fat bitch on the bus, I laughed in his face and then turned the experience into the
New York Times
bestselling memoir
Such a Pretty Fat
. What happened to me? When did I become such a delicate flower? I should, in the words of Clark W. Griswold, be whistling “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” out of my bunghole every day, but I’m not, because I’ve allowed little things to throw me offtrack.

Is it because I’m just so stressed over my beautiful pit bull Maisy? After meeting Fletch, this little girl is the best thing that ever happened to me. We adopted her back when I’d lost my corporate job in 2001, and her presence in my life changed everything. I fell so deeply in love with her that I became a writer in order to have the excuse to stay home with her every day. Maisy’s in no way perfect herself—she’s bossy, she’s officious, she’s spoiled, she’s lazy, she defies authority, and she pouts when she doesn’t get exactly what she wants when she wants it.

Pretty much she’s
me
.

A couple years ago, she was diagnosed with mast cell tumors, and the oncologist gave her six months to live. Of course, Maisy’s ridiculously stubborn, and you can’t tell her a damn thing she doesn’t want to hear (again,
hello
); ergo she’s defied every odd thus far. Her doctor uses her as the best-case scenario to comfort other families with sick dogs. Yet I can’t ignore that she’s not strong like she was before she got sick. She had her second surgery earlier this month—this time for melanoma—and was so weak afterward that her doctor said we should hold off on new rounds of chemotherapy.

Yet the good news is, the mast cell tumors haven’t returned. And since we adopted our other pit bull Libby last year, Maisy’s spirits have never been higher.

Maisy adores having a mini-me and lives for an audience. She leaps out of bed every morning to roll around and scratch her back, thrilled at the prospect of a new day. And the fact that the biggest downside is that she can’t yank so hard on the leash isn’t the worst thing in the world. Back in the day, she could pull me over in three seconds flat. My unskinned knees don’t miss that.

Yet despite all her positive progress, every time she coughs or sneezes or lingers in bed, I envision the worst-case scenario. I run to the emergency vet like people run to the store.

Because of all of the above, I just want this year to be behind us, and I figured the easiest way to do that would be to ignore the holidays. Back
when we were broke, we routinely skipped Christmas, so it’s not like we’d be blazing new territory here.

Fletch was on board with me…until a couple of weeks ago, when he realized he wasn’t. He decided instead of skipping Christmas, we were going to flip all of 2011 the bird by ending the year in style. And that’s what we’ve done. Now the lights are up, the presents have been exchanged, and the house is full of food, friends, and fun. It’s a hundred percent festive up in here.

I should be on my knees, thanking God for all His blessings.

Yet all I can focus on is how I’m going to be stuck doing dishes until three thirty a.m.

For everyone’s sake, I need to improve my attitude in 2012.

“I
miss them.”

“Me, too.”

Fletch and I are sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee, eating doughnuts, and bemoaning the departure of Julia and Finch. They had to take off at the crack of dawn to get down to Julia’s parents’ house in St. Louis.

When they arrived earlier this week, my mood was so foul that I almost ruined my own party. But it’s patently impossible to not be happy in their presence. Our fine moods last well into the evening, and we’re both extrachipper while watching New Year’s Eve programming.

No, we didn’t go out.

A word about New Year’s Eve?

I would rather receive a Pap smear from Captain Hook than venture out on New Year’s Eve.

I’d rather time-travel back to junior high and give a speech clad in nothing but a fez in front of the mean girls who used to hassle me on the bus.

(Quick aside? My chief tormentor now gives pedicures in a salon next to the county jail in my old hometown. Sometimes karma looks a lot like OPI’s Lincoln Park after Dark.)

There’s something that feels so incredibly lonely and self-defeating about all the forced gaiety of New Year’s Eve, like if I’m not out there having the very best time, swilling the most champagne, tooting the loudest noisemaker, wearing the most-spangle-laden dress, then I’m somehow failing. It’s not that I hate parties and frivolity—eleven years of college is proof positive of that—but I’m enough of a contrarian to balk at the notion of Mandatory Fun. I don’t begrudge anyone else their merrymaking, but it’s not my bag, baby, at least not on December 31. Let’s see: all the amateurs who throw down only once a year, those same amateurs hitting the roads later, and hyperinflated prices for shitty service and watery drinks? Or couch time and Carson Daly?

I choose Carson. All the way.

We watch as Carson interviews people in Times Square about their resolutions. “What do you resolve for 2012?” Fletch asks. He’s smirking, because he knows the only thing I loathe as much as NYE is being questioned about my resolutions, particularly by people I don’t know. What do I resolve? To find a Starbucks where the baristas are less chatty.

I yell at the screen, “How about this for a resolution, Carson? I resolve
to not disclose personal information about my hopes, dreams, and inadequacies on national television.”

Look at them all—they’re cold and it’s loud and they have to pee in Porta Pottis and weirdos are using this as an opportunity to furtively press their junk against the unsuspecting. I simply don’t get it. You, right there in the giant plastic 2012 sunglasses? Some pervert just tea-bagged you and you don’t even know it.

And you in the sparkly dress? You’re going to wake up with a stranger tomorrow morning, having received the gift that keeps on giving. (Herpes.)

How about you there, dressed as Baby New Year? A) You’re going to get frostbite, and B) there’s no way your wallet’s not falling out of your diaper. When you’re shivering your way back to the Bronx tonight with nothing but your banner to keep you warm, you’ll regret the decisions that led you there.

The square is so crowded that all these dummies can barely lift their arms every time they squeal, “WOO!” at the camera.

As I mock and judge, it occurs to me that I can’t recall the last time I spontaneously lifted my arms and shouted, “WOO!”

I wonder if I’ve done it once in 2011.

Although, as much as I have to say that I hate 2011, this year wasn’t entirely worthless. In so many ways, I got my shit together. After living in a state of arrested development for most of my life, I finally buckled down, making a concerted effort to behave like an adult.

Like, I have insurance now.

So much insurance.

Everyone has auto insurance (except for anyone driving around tonight, of course), but I also invested in life insurance, homeowners insurance, a supplemental umbrella policy for what homeowners insurance doesn’t cover, flood insurance, mortgage insurance, long-term disability insurance, pet insurance.…

I should be the happiest son of a bitch on the planet with all these levels of protection.

And yet here I am.

Welcome to Crankytown, population: me.

I wonder if, in trying so hard to be grown-up, I didn’t somehow overshoot my mark. By working diligently to be my most responsible me, did I quash some of my own natural propensity for joy? Is it possible that I’ve lived through years that were far worse than my current season of Sorority-Girl Problems, and that I never noticed because I was a perpetually grinning adolescent?

This bears further examination.

“It’s too bad no one sells happiness insurance,” I say.

“Hmm?” Fletch glances over at me with a puzzled expression.

“Think about it: We have every protection known to man, yet I’ve still had a miserable year. If someone sold happiness insurance, I could fill out a claim and, much like Stella, get my groove back. Otherwise, why would I have paid all those premiums to Big Insurance?”

“Wasn’t aware your groove was missing.”

Yes. This makes perfect sense.

I continue. “Here’s the thing about this year: I’ve failed at having an attitude of gratitude. I’ve not come at my life from a place of yes. I’ve not chosen
me
.”

He gives me the whale eye. “You been watching Oprah again?”

I wave him off. “No, no, she went off the air in May. I did like her, though, but I always had some trouble really connecting with her advice. She was all, ‘Live your best life!’ and ‘Chart your vision board!’ but there’s nothing actionable, you know?”

Fletch pauses Carson and his Conclave of Bad Decisions. “What is this ‘vision board’ of which you speak?”

I explain. “You’re supposed to imagine something you want—like when I wanted to be a writer. To help me visualize my dream, I was supposed
to clip out images of what inspired me. Maybe I’d have pasted pictures of Jennifer Weiner and David Sedaris and swimming pools and bookstores in between pom-poms and sparkles.”

He’s dubious at best. “So it’s a craft project.”

“No. Well, okay, yes, a little bit, if you factor in the glitter and rubber cement. But I know tons of people who said doing vision boards helped them.”

“Yet even without a vision board, you became an author.”

I nod. “True dat.”

“Never say that again.” Even Maisy manages to look disgusted with me. “Let me ask you something: How does sitting around clipping pictures from a magazine advance your goals?”