Monthly Archives: February 2014

I met a woman named Marilyn yesterday. She was a 78 year-old Aquarius and she changed my life.

I went to visit a good friend of mine. Marilyn was her neighbor. We sat in her apartment while she smoked a cigarette and listened to me cry.

I cried about how hard it is to be a sensitive person. I cried at the thought that my mother was the only person who truly ever loved me. She nurtured me from the time I was in utero and she continues to care for me. I told Marilyn that I have no doubt if it wasn’t for my incredible mother, I would not be here on this earth today. Tears streamed down my face.

I sat there, telling her about the hurt. How I want to be understood. How I want others to give me support, care, love and all the things I give to them.

Marilyn’s answer was simple. She took a drag of her cigarette and looked at me.
“You cannot love anyone until you love yourself and G-d.”

I stared into her deep eyes as she sat back in her arm chair. I could see the wisdom in her eyes penetrating.

“You have to lead with love.” She said.
“But I’m so angry.” I said “I’m so hurt. How can I love? I don’t have anything left to give.”
“That’s when you pray to G-d.” Marilyn said. “G-d is always there for you.”

I told her about my moods. I often snap at the people I love. Something sets me off, and I get angry and say hurtful things that I don’t mean.

“You must learn to breathe in that moment.” She said, her eyes transfixed on my eyes. She was with me steady. “You can learn to control your emotions if you ride the waves.”

I listened and I cried. I knew she was right.

“You are so blessed and so lucky to have a mother who loved you as much as your mother did. Be grateful for that.” Marilyn said.

I breathed. I breathed again.

I thanked Marilyn for her words and her kindness. She gave me two books to take home with me. I will read those books.

Reflecting upon my experience with Marilyn, I realized that we are all flawed. Every person on this planet has something they are struggling with. We all have our challenges. I am an incredibly sensitive person. I finally recognize that my sensitivity is not a detriment to my life. It is a gift. It needs to be nurtured, respected and honed.

My daughter is three-years-old. She’s scared of absolutely nothing and no one. She’s wild, free, daring and a fire cracker. I love her spirit.

I see her. I truly see who she is at this young age. She’s a force to be reckoned with. She’s a strong little girl. One day, she will grow up to be a strong young woman. I can’t wait to see that evolution take place.

Right now, however, her strength is interpreted various ways by society. Often people will refer to my daughter as “bossy,” “demanding,” “wild” or worse “a brat.”

I’ll tell you what my daughter is, she’s assertive. She knows what she wants and she is not afraid (even at the young age of three) to get it. That’s a skill to be proud of. That’s a quality that needs to be nurtured and honed. This aspect of her personality should not be dulled, it should be harnessed and used for good.

My girl is a born leader. When people come up to me on the street and remark that my child is “wild,” I often come back at them and say “that’s okay, one day she’s going to be the C.E.O of a large corporation. You just watch.”

This view of powerful women being “bossy” starts at a young age. When I was a little girl, I believed the way to get others to like me was to be nice. I shouldn’t be confrontational. I certainly should avoid hurting other people’s feelings. Additionally, it would be wrong to express anger, because that would make me look “crazy” or “wild.” The brainwashing from society starts young.

As an adult woman, whenever I’ve had the guts to express myself or stand up for what I believe in, I’ve blatantly been called “crazy” or a “bitch” or other pejorative terms for merely confidently expressing my opinion. Assertiveness is an asset. Assertive women are often mistaken for being “bossy bitches.”

When a man asserts himself, society calls him a go-getter. People are impressed when a man stands up for himself or achieves his goals because we have been conditioned to believe that it is acceptable for men to be assertive. Women, on the other hand, are supposed to smile and be nice.

If a woman displays outward assertiveness, she is called “a bitch.” Assertive women are not bitches. We’re powerful, we’re strong, we’ve got something to say and we’re not afraid to say it.

The next time someone calls you a bitch, what they’re really saying to you is “I am intimidated by the fact that you have a strong opinion and I’m not sure how to handle your confidence.”

Back to my little daughter. I will continue to encourage her to be vocal about her opinions. I will tell her that her voice matters. I will encourage her to speak up, even when it seems like nobody is listening. Her voice is strong and it needs to be heard.

Stop calling assertive women bitches, and start calling them brave. Start referring to them as go-getters. Most importantly hear what they have to say.

In 2011 I lost my mind. After I had Samara, I remember sitting in a hospital bed hysterically crying. When she would cry, I would cry. It hurt to nurse her. Every time I placed her on my breast to nurse I felt my uterus contracting and I yelped in pain like a puppy that had its paw stepped on.

I told my brother in the hospital when he visited “I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I’m scared.”
“Don’t worry,” he assured me, “mom and dad will help you if you need them to.” His words reassured me, but I was still scared. I was afraid to be a mother of two. I’d had Ari for almost three years and he was my one and only. I doted on him, I read to him, we painted colorful watercolor works of art together and we went out to eat muffins and juice frequently.

But now things were going to change. I had a new little person to take care of and add to our family. I had a little girl. She was beautiful and squishy and pink and I loved her immediately. However, I had no idea how I could love two human beings equally.

So I tried to be the best mother I could be. I did not stop. I went to the library with an infant and a three year old, I went to the playground with an infant and a three year-old, I went everywhere with an infant and a three-year-old.

One day, when my friend Lisa came to visit, I randomly touched my face and felt a hard bump on my cheek. I couldn’t figure out what the bump could be. I obsessively touched it. I couldn’t leave this strange bump alone. The next day, I looked in the mirror and the bump was red and swollen. I went to the hospital emergency room with my soul sister and friend Donna. An overworked and annoyed resident diagnosed by bump as folliculitis and sent me home with antibiotics.

The very next day, my bump was so large and red that I couldn’t open my right eye. I went back to the hospital and demanded they admit me. They listened. I was started on a course of IV antibiotics and the doctors told me that they would have to drain the mass on my face. I was so scared.

A doctor performed the drainage procedure at bedside and then continued me on IV antibiotics. I was told I had to stay in the hospital. An attending physician came in and gave me some other infuriating news.

“I would recommend that you stop breast feeding.” Said the doctor “The antibiotic we want to give you is not safe while you are breastfeeding.”
“No.” I responded plainly “I want you to give me an antibiotic that is safe for nursing. There are plenty of them.”

He grumbled and conceded with my request. I also demanded that I speak to the lactation consultant. I asked the hospital  for a breast pump so that I could continue to feed my four month old daughter. Samara was four months when I was hospitalized for a staph infection.

I missed her every day (of the five days) I was in that hospital. I had my friends and family coming to the hospital to do “milk runs” so my baby could continue to eat.

After what seemed eternity, I was released and returned home. But I had surgical packing in my wound on my face, so a visiting nurse had to come to my house every day to change the packing and tend to my wound.

After being on antibiotics for a prolonged period of time, my body began to have a strange reaction. My doctor changed medications while my wound was mending to expedite healing time.

One evening while I was laying in bed, I had an intense burning sensation in the back of my head. It was so pervasive that I couldn’t sleep. My heart began to race with fear. I couldn’t fall asleep and I knew something was wrong with my body.

After a sleepless night I called my doctor. “Stop taking the medication immediately.” He said definitively. He put me back on the previous antibiotic I was taking. Unfortunately, the burning sensation in the back of my head persisted and I called my doctor back to ask what I should do.

“That’s not normal.” Said my doctor. “You should see a neurologist. At the sound of the word “neurologist” I had trouble breathing. I started to have a panic attack. He seemed to be saying that something was wrong with my brain.

“What do you think it is?” I asked him.
“Hard to say,” he replied. “But you should get evaluated.”
“What could it be?” I persisted.
“Could be Lupus, could be Lyme disease.” He said flippantly.

Now I was really panicked. I was convinced that I was dying. I called my brother on the phone.
“Jonathan, the doctor said that I might have Lupus or Lyme Disease!” I said unable to control my breath.
“Sarah, I can’t believe a doctor would say such a stupid thing. I’m sure you don’t have either of those things.”
“He wants me to see a neurologist.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll find you a good one.” He said confidently.

My brother found me a neurologist affiliated with NYU hospital to see. I was so nervous to go through the myriad of tests to find out what could potentially be wrong with me and I was still convinced that I had days to live and probably had a brian tumor, Lupus or Lyme disease.

Because I still had the burning sensation in my head and continuous muscle spasms throughout my neck and back I had persistent insomnia. For two weeks of my life in 2011 I slept 1-3 hours per night and I could not figure out the cause.

I saw two neurologists, a man and a woman. The man was lovely and accommodating, he was the one my brother recommended. The woman was okay but condescending at times.

The neurologists suspected that the cause of my pain was probably musculoskeletal but said they would humor me by going through a battery of tests including a brain and cervical spine MRI.

I was still convinced that I was dying and they were going to miss whatever was causing my impending demise.

During the two weeks that I didn’t sleep, I hallucinated. I saw a floating face as I was in a hypnopompic state. I managed to fall asleep for 5-10 minutes and upon waking I saw (with my eyes closed) a man’s floating face. So now, not only was I dying but I was also going completely insane.

I called the neurologist in a panic. What was happening to me?
“Lack of sleep causes hallucinations.” Said the female neurologist. “Sarah, you have got to calm down. This is just anxiety.” She said.

I was infuriated. Just anxiety? It may have been “just anxiety” but this level of anxiety was causing me severe pain and now hallucinations. I was terrified.

I had disturbing intrusive thoughts during this period of time. I thought “if I don’t sleep soon I just want to die.” “I can’t live like this anymore.” But I had no medical professional to turn to for help because everyone thought I was crazy.

Also, I was still convinced that I was going to die, just in case you forgot that part.

Every time I called the neurologist to complain about symptoms the female neurologist would tell me that I was anxious and that I had to be patient while testing was taking place.

The brain and cervical spine MRI revealed nothing significant and confirmed that I wasn’t dying. There was a blip on the brain MRI that the female neurologist identified as “an incidental finding.” When I asked her what that meant she said:
“Oh, everyone’s brain is different and this is something that makes your brain unique from other people’s brains. We don’t know what it is, but we know it’s not dangerous. It’s not a tumor or anything.”
This did not reassure me. I was still convinced that my demise was imminent.

In the end, it was decided by Western medicine that my pain were a combination of mental and physical symptoms all leading back to anxiety and depression. So I made a very hard decision to go back on antidepressants. I had been off of them throughout pregnancy and nursing, but I decided that my sanity was worth more than any of this anguish.

In conjunction with taking antidepressants I went to intensive acupuncture and physical therapy to rehabilitate my neck and back for four months.

The thing that struck me about this year of my life was how I was treated by the medical profession as a person dealing with anxiety plus a mysterious medical condition. I was told repeatedly that I was nut case. I was told to stop calling the doctor. I was called crazy under all this subtext. I was discouraged for reaching out for help. This is not the way that patients with mental illness should be treated. We are humans. We are not defined by our diagnoses.

Please share my story if you believe that people with mental illness should be treated with respect when interacting with doctors.

Thanks to the land of Twitter I was introduced to Dusty Katt and Screwball, two awesome bronies who run the show Stay Brony My Friends. Dusty asked if Ari and I would like to be on SBMF. I asked Ari and he excitedly said yes! Here’s our interview where I talk about 80′s cartoons, My Little Pony (of course), bullying, my love for Neil Gaiman, Daria and much much more. Dusty asked me prior to the show what charity I would like the bronies to raise money for. Ari and I chose the Coalition for The Homeless. His response was “we’re on it!” I love this dude!

One heads up, my voice is loud because I’m a theater actress so prepare your volume for that. Thank you Dusty and Screwball for having me. I had an awesome time!

I have two children. Before I had kids, everyone warned me about the terrible twos. Watch out, when your kid turns two they become wild and uncontrollable. All they say is “no” to everything and good luck, because that year is going to suck big time.

Well, I am here to tell you that “everyone” was wrong. Two-year-olds are challenging, but they are no where near as hard to deal with as three-year-olds.

I can tell you (from experience) having now dealt with two three-year-olds in my house, that they are undeniably the hardest humans on the face of the planet to negotiate with. The reason is, they don’t give a fuck!

My daughter is three. No matter what I tell her to do she does not fucking care. For example, I could tell her to put her pants on. She will insist that she is absolutely not (under any circumstances) wearing those pants because they are blue. “I want pink pants!” She will shout. I explain to her that there are no clean pink pants. I open the drawers and show her that they do not contain pink pants. She doesn’t fucking care. She still wants the pink pants that do not exist.

This morning, she got out of bed, took a cup from the kitchen, one of those expensive Preserve recycled cups and threw it in the toilet. I gritted my teeth and explained to her that she wasn’t to do that again. She just smiled. So I put her in time out sheepishly.

And it’s not just her, Ari acted the same way at three. He was oppositional, didn’t care what I told him to do, he wanted to do the opposite. In fact, I blocked out a lot of his defiant behavior because I think I was traumatized by how I had absolutely no control over him.

I thought, maybe my kids are just challenging me. Maybe I’m a shitty parent. But no, it’s not just me. This is a worldwide epidemic. All three-year-olds do this to their parents. Something happens to children when they turn three where they become…assholes.

I’m sorry, there’s no other way to put it. They do whatever they want to do and they do not care if you tell them not to do it. In fact, if you tell them to stop throwing M&Ms at the cat, they will throw more M&Ms at the cat with increasing velocity and greater intention to hit the cat in the face.

Thankfully, they don’t stay assholes for a long time. Their asshole behavior only lasts for one year. When they turn four gradually they become slightly easier to negotiate with and begin to respond to bribery. So there is hope.

If you are dealing with an asshole now, just take a deep breath and realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. This too shall pass…in 12 months.

2003

Once upon a time there was a woman who worked as a professional cat sitter and dog walker. One day, she took on a cat sitting client on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to watch two cats. The woman who hired her to cat sit paid her $200 up front. A couple of days later the woman called the cat sitter and said “I need to cancel your services because I can’t afford them.” Unfortunately, the cat sitter had already used the money to pay her bills and she told the woman this.

The woman then relented and told the cat sitter that she would go ahead and use her services. The woman then went on to ask the cat sitter if she knew anyone would want to adopt one or both of her cats. The cat sitter naively offered to foster one of her cats who will now be referred to as Henry. Henry was an adorable gray cat with a white goatee.

The cat sitter went on to post an ad on craigslist asking if anyone was interested in adopting Henry. She received a reply from a lovely couple who lived in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The couple immediately loved Henry and asked if they could adopt him into their family. There was only one catch, they were going out of town for a month. They asked if the cat sitter would be willing to care for Henry while they were gone. The cat sitter said, of course she would. And she did…watch Henry.

She never heard from the nice married couple again, but occasionally she would think about Henry and Jenny and she thinks his name may have been Mark (the husband) but can remember.

* * *

February 2014.

I was on my way to school today with Ari and Samara. We were rushing and I was cursing under my breath. We got to school and there was a lovely woman behind us walking up the stairs.
“I’m sorry, it’s one of those mornings.” I apologized to the woman.

We got up the steps and the woman smiled at me. I immediately recognized her face.
“Wait a second, did you…have a cat named Henry?”
“Yes!” She exclaimed.
“Are you Jenny?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Sarah! I cat sat for you a million years ago.”
“Oh my G-d! How funny.”
“It’s so great to see you again. How is Henry?”
“Oh, he passed away recently, but my daughter loved him.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“Let’s keep in touch, here’s my phone number.”
“Great, let’s do.”

New York is funny.

My daughter just turned three. She has a January birthday. I work as a substitute teacher and I thought it would be great for her to have some socialization and attend preschool. So I started researching pre-schools in Brooklyn.

The most affordable preschool I could find was $1100 a month for five days a week 8am-4pm. Yes, you read correctly, over a grand a month. For $1100 in New York City you could rent a studio apartment in Ditmas Park or a one bedroom place in Clinton Hill.

Something is wrong with this picture. Let’s take it a step further. If you multiply $1100 by 12 months, you have the annual tuition for a “reasonably priced” preschool: $13,200 per year. Now, visit the website for the State University of New York - Albany. Annual tuition to attend SUNY Albany is $10,366.

In New York City, it costs more to let a three-year-old socialize with other three-year-olds then it does to educate a college student. This is mind blowing. And it’s not only about the cost. Let’s say that I was able to pay $1100 a month to put my daughter in preschool, there’s a wait list to get her in. Nursery schools are as coveted as some of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges.

For example, my three-year-old daughter is currently on the wait list of at least three different pre-schools because there are no available slots for her. Should a place open up, these schools are more than happy to take my $1100-$1400 per month to teach my daughter how to share and build with blocks.

Something has got to change. I understand that to keep society working properly, we (as parents) need to engage in at least part-time (if not full-time work) however, charging what is comparable to a college tuition to educate toddlers is completely absurd.

The question is, what do we do about this problem? I have chosen to primarily work from home and on the days that I’m substitute teaching, my family watches my daughter. Other parents living and working in New York City do not have this option. Most parents work full-time and are forced to place their children in daycare or pre-school that is exorbitantly priced.

I will continue to avoid sending my little girl to pre-school for the next year. In 2015, she will attend Universal Pre-K which is free through New York City.