.SOMETIMES RAW.

“Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question.”– Julian Barnes

You may point out correctly, that it isn’t a real question. Because we don’t have a choice. Who can control how much they love? If you can control it, then it isn’t love. Here are some questions I came up with that give you the choice. Let’s start easy and work our way up.

Would you rather take a bath or take a shower?

Would you rather have skin that changes color based on your emotions or tattoos appear all over your body depicting what you did yesterday?

Would you rather have to fart loudly every time you have a serious conversation or have to burp after every kiss?

Would you rather stay in a relationship with a person who cheated on you or file for divorce?

Would you rather eat a home cooked meal from scratch or heat-up a microwavable meal?

Would you rather be isolating with one child that requires entertaining or multiple children that require you to break up fights over whose turn it is to use a book as a sword?

Would you rather a million butterflies instantly appear from nowhere every time you sneeze or one very angry Canadian black squirrel appear from nowhere every time you cough?

Would you rather be beautiful/handsome but stupid or intelligent but ugly?

Would you rather discover you’ve been walking around naked at your child’s summer camp, or discover you’ve been walking around naked in the background of your partner’s new online conference meeting?

Would you rather be able to see ten minutes into your own future or ten minutes into the future of anyone but yourself?

Would you rather have an easy job working for someone else or work for yourself but work incredibly hard?

Would you rather continue to send your ex emails that he/she don’t respond to or stop altogether?

Would you rather eat the same meal for the rest of your life or never use Instagram and Facebook again?

Would you rather wake up with a different face but same gender or different gender but same face?

Would you rather insist and fight for child support payments until it is paid or give up because he/she has “clearly other priorities” than his/her own child?

Would you rather be stuck in the house with a mother of two children (or more) who has been on lockdown for months, or in a room with a swarm of murder hornets?

Would you rather begin every sentence with “Hey Idiot” or end every sentence with “…Ha Ha, I Was Just Kidding.”

Would you rather make love with the lights off or with the lights on?

Would you rather be trapped in a small elevator with an old lady and her wet dog or one fat man with bad breath?

Would you rather have an Austrian accent and live in Germany or a German accent and live in Austria?

Would you rather bake bread from scratch, or scroll through your Instagram feed muttering about people who have time to bake bread from scratch?

Would you rather teach your child a new craft, or lie on the couch and stare at the unwashed pile of dishes in the sink?

Would you rather give your six-year-old your password to download games on your phone only to find you have paid Euro 1578 in Candy Crush extras, or have to play Lego with him/her 17 hours a day?

Would you rather facilitate a PTA (parent/teacher association) meeting when schools reopen in the fall or do you prefer to fall into a pit of crocodiles?

Would you rather be self-isolating with a child who insists on re-watching the same episode of Teletubbies, or the same episode of Elmo’s World?

Would you rather never have to play The Floor Is Lava again, or have fancy couch cushions that can never be used to build a fort?

Would you rather have a child who is sad because they miss their friends or one that is pretty content with never leaving the house and will argue every single day when school starts back?

Would you rather have your child learn fire juggling or ax throwing?

Would you rather have your Fitbit tell you that 100 steps a day is actually really good, or have it send you an alert to shame you whenever you sit down longer than ten minutes?

Would you rather your hair turn gray in front of your male colleagues, reminding them that mothers over 30 are just hot like that, or color your hair?

Would you rather hear that Count Chocula Cereal is nutritious, or Mary Poppins is real and living with you?

Would you rather have the ability to freeze time, or the ability to unsee things like Instagram posts about how magical someone’s year of homeschooling on the ranch was?

Doing nothing. Sounds great, no? Or does it give you a nervous eye twitch? Here is something I tried: for one day out of each week (usually Saturday or Sunday), I do absolutely nothing. This doesn’t mean I don’t go anywhere, or just sit on my couch and stare at the wall. It simply means that I clear my calendar and make space for what could happen. I remove any social obligations, let projects sit idle, turn off notifications, and take this day to just be.

Since I am back at work full-time, studying, researching, writing part-time, and being a single mom it is salient to do nothing from time to time. With all this going on in my life, I notice that I am more content when I spend one day doing nothing if I can help it. Just without having a million places to be. No agenda, no rushing around, no one else to please. Just me. Doing whatever I feel like doing, or getting into whatever adventure may come my way. Whatever my priorities are. And, if I want to see where someone’s priorities really lie, I have to look at two things: their calendar and their bank statement.

When I am really stressed, I look at my calendar and take an inventory on how much time I spend doing things. How much of it is work-related? How much is spend on/in social engagements? With family? Writing? Friends? Hobbies? Self-improvement?

Everybody is stressed out at some point. I think we have become a culture that is severely uncomfortable with “free-time” and doing nothing. Many don’t like being left alone with themselves, and that is because it is not “fun”. Some are terrified of silence, of nothing on the agenda, of not being important because who are we without these things to hold us? To give us significance? Others pack their schedules full, hoping that will keep them from stopping long enough to notice their inner lives are in great need of attention. The essence of simplifying life is recognizing the intrinsic value we have by simply being.

A while ago, I realized I have to face my true feelings, my negative emotions, my relational drama, and figure out what to do with it all. It is of course much simpler to turn the TV on, constantly check the phone, and continue numbing.

You know why I write about all this? Because I matter, my life matters, and I have worth. Period. I matter without the stuff, without the outside approval and conferred significance, without the career, the projects, the friends, without anything. So do you! Just. You.

I believe that it takes the absence of an agenda to really get to know yourself. Or Covid-19. It takes quiet. It takes room. It takes time. But keep in mind that everything in the world is going to fight you for it.

“Do-nothing” day:

• I don’t stress about it. I wake up, and simply resist the urge to immediately DO. It took me some time to break this habit, but as soon as I removed all of my go-to distractions, I instantly noticed how often I rely on them.
• I pay more attention. Depriving myself of my normal comforts for even a short amount of time can go a long way in teaching me what I really need. I am able to notice when I have an urge to check my phone or make a call and get a better feel for my own patterns of behavior and the motivation behind it.
• I listen to my heart. Is Party X something I would typically just say yes to because I feel obligated? Or is this something that would really breathe life into me? If the answer is no, I won’t go. Easy.
• I spend time in silence. You know why? My brain is constantly bombarded with information, images, and noise but the mind is not a fortress where stimulation can constantly bounce off.

It’s easy to get over-stimulated in daily life by all of the noise. I absolutely need my quiet time after my son goes to bed. The silence and to do nothing is absolutely essential for me to regain momentum for the next day.

Any expert will tell you, the best thing a mom can do to be a better mom is to carve out a little time for herself. Here are some great “me time” activities that work(ed) for me.

• Go to the bathroom. A lot. Take your phone.
• Offer to do the dishes or to empty the dishwasher.
• Take out the garbage and bring tschicks (cigarettes) and your phone.
• Take ninety-minute showers. If you only shower every three or four days, it will be easier to get away with it.
• Say you are going to look for something (e.g. the diapers), then go into your child’s room and just stand there until your partner comes in and asks, “What are you doing?”
• Stand over the sink and eat the rest of your child’s dinner while he or she pulls at your pant leg asking for it back.
• Try to establish that you are the only one in your family who is allowed to go to the post office.
• Sleep whenever your child sleeps. Everyone knows this one, but I suggest WHY stop there? Scream when your baby screams. Walk around pantless when your baby walks around pantless.
• Read! When your baby is finally down for the night, pick up a good book, for example, Understanding Sleep Disorder: A study on Narcolepsy and Apnea. Taking some time to read each night really taught me how to feign narcolepsy when my son now asks me when we can go to an indoor playground again.
• Pray that whenever crystal meth is offered, I hope my child will remember me and how I cut his grapes in half and stick with beer or red wine. Or a soda. May he always be protected and may I make it out alive through his puberty.

Just implementing for or five of these little techniques will prove restorative and give you the energy you need to not drink until midnight. I promise.

Wait, I am not done yet. The reason I wrote this is, that a good friend of mine is pregnant and very scared. She should be. Being a parent can be freaking horrible sometimes. Then the conversation came up if I want another child.

Initial silence.

I have one top-notch son with whom I am in love. It is a head-over-heels “first love” kind of thing, because I pay for everything and all we do is hold hands. When he says, “I wish I had a baby brother or sister,” I am stricken with guilt and panic for one second. When he says, “Mom, I want more Lego,” or “I will eat chocolate only from now on!” or “Mom, wipe my butt!” I am less affected.

I thought that raising an only child would be the norm in a big city, but my son is the only child in his class without a sibling. Most kids have at least two. Large families have become a status symbol in Vienna, Austria. For some, four beautiful children named after kings, Greek gods, and pieces of fruit are a way of saying “I can afford a four-bedroom penthouse and pay EU 500,000 in elementary school tuition fees each year. How you living’?”

So, this woman who asked me if I want another child runs a local toy store that sells the kind of beautiful wooden educational toys that kids love. “You want more kids? I have four and it is soooooo awesome!” “Why would I want more kids when I could be here with you having an awkward conversation over a tray of old danishes while my son plays independently with these toys?” “You should have another one. I had my children at thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty-one, and forty-two. It is fine.” Didn’t she see my son playing with a pack of matches in the back of her store? Where did he get those from? And didn’t she see me starting to uncomfortably walk out of the store while trying to leave my son behind (plus matches)?

Long story short: I am getting bits and pieces of my “old” life back. Pieces such as free time from parenting. Things change constantly and he will go through different stages that he and I have to adapt to. My son will be seven this year. There was never a time when I debated the second-baby issue. Not even when I cannot sleep. To hell with everybody who tries to tell me that one child is “no-child”. One child means a huge amount of work and to better be great at time management. Or, maybe I will just wait until I am fifty and give birth to a volleyball. “Merry Christmas from Daniela, Joel, and Wilson,” the card I send to the helicopter moms will say. “Happy Holidays” on the ones I send to my family.

It is okay. I will see myself out.