I’m just a girl from Lockport, NY

I’m once again feeling like that girl who blushed. And I think it all comes down to heading into something new. It’s about not having the experience that I want to already have. It’s about taking risk. It’s about the fear of not being good enough to succeed. This is a familiar feeling. I'm just a girl from Lockport, NY--a town of 21,165 people 20 miles east of Niagara Falls--so who am I to do something big?

I still think about my high school guidance counselor who told my parents that I should not be able to go to college in Boston because "she will never fit it." She encouraged me to apply to community college and some local four-year schools. She encouraged small-town goals. Fortunately my parents didn't listen to that guidance counselor. I went to college in Boston, and not only did I fit in, I graduated with honors.

When I was first out of college, that fear about being small-town didn't go away. I felt small-town as I interviewed for my first journalism job. But I was hired at CNET as an editorial assistant and quickly promoted to business reporter. When I left the comforts of my first real job, I wondered if I was too small-town to help launch TheStreet.com’s west coast bureau. I was more than good enough. I broke news stories and wrote compelling pieces that made my employer proud. When I was transitioning from print journalism, my fear was about having years of experience doing the wrong kind of journalism. But I was hired at Bay Area Backroads and I helped produce several segments about this amazing part of the planet I get to live in. After taking time off to be home with my babies, it was about that gaping hole in my resume. I started to blog. Then I pitched and landed a cover story for Bay Area Parent Magazine. I was hired to be the official mom blogger for Oxygen Media. The same fears appeared as I applied for graduate schools, but I was accepted into each of the MFA programs I applied for.

In the words of Stuart Smalley: “I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.” Or in the words of soon-to-be-famous-best-selling-author Suzanne Galante (you’ve probably heard of her): Each time that nagging fear of being too small-town to (insert desired goal here), I tried anyway. And I succeeded. Building a writer’s platform won’t be any different. Falling back on being from a small town is a crutch, a way to give myself an out. I need to stop doing that. It doesn't matter where I came from. What matters is where I'm going.

Plus, there are a handful of famous (and infamous) people who have also had modest beginnings from my hometown: including Joyce Carol Oats (best-selling author), Kim Alexis (supermodel), and more recently Chris Sacca (venture investor), whose parents’ law firm used to be just around the corner from my mom’s house.

Getting famous: Step 3

Okay, I get it. I need to get my words published in places that have nothing to do with this blog, Facebook, or Twitter. Since I have a 90,000-word manuscript, I have copious amounts of great material to work with (Yes, it really is great). So, I've been packaging and polishing excerpts (They're great, too. This is no time for modesty!).

With those excerpts, I'm going to feed the literary world bits of my manuscript the way I might feed my boyfriend and his shocking sweet tooth bits of cake. When the excerpts get published, I'll be building my platform and my case for why the entire book should be published. Showing that I can get parts of it placed in magazines will prove to publishers that my book is something worth publishing before it even lands on their desks. The idea is that they, like my boyfriend, will want more.

Step 3: Submitted bits of my manuscript to two different literary magazines, while wearing platform shoes.

Getting famous: Step 2

Step 2: In an effort to build my platform, I wore platform shoes today. I figured it couldn't hurt. I also thought about clicking my heels together three times and saying, "There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home." But I thought that would just be silly.

Getting famous: Step 1

The motivation: In order to get my not-yet-published-but-surely-a-bestselling-memoir published, I need to be well-known enough so that publishers feel confident that I have a built-in audience who will be anxious to get themselves a copy.

The plan: I’ve carefully devised a 100-step plan to build a platform, aka get famous. And when I say famous, I mean well-known enough so then when people around the country hear that I--Suzanne Galante--have published a book, they'll gladly part with $20 for an opportunity to read it, but not so famous that I can't go to Trader Joe's with unruly hair and fleece pants after dropping the kids at school. Think Jodi Picoult versus Kate Winslet.

How it works: Each day, I will share a new step to building my rock-solid platform.  

Step 1: Bought new lipstick today. I definitely needed the right shade staining my lips, so that I could pursue my job of getting famous. 

The good, the bad, and the platform

The good news: I have three literary agents reading my manuscript right now! Oh, how difficult it will be to decide which agent to choose when they all want to represent me.

The bad news: I always thought the hard part of getting a book published would be writing the book. But that was just the beginning. We never talked about “platform” in graduate school. A writer’s platform is sort of like a little insurance policy for publishers. If I’m hugely successful writer who speaks at conferences and writes a regular column for some newspaper or magazine, then people are more likely to buy my book instead of a different book from an author they never heard of. Publishers want writers who have a built-in audience who will buy the book. I get it. Publishing books is a business, and publishers want to invest in books that are going to do well with as little investment as possible.

So what's my platform? It appears that there is a slight hole in my book proposal (Promise me you won't tell anyone, okay?). I need a rock-solid Marketing & Promotions section. I am full of ideas. But publishers could care less about all the things I plan on doing to promote my book. They want to know what I’ve done, and how I’ve built a brand around myself. While I’ve published more than 1,000 pieces of writing in my career—not including this blog—that stack of by-lines doesn’t provide me with a sturdy platform, as much as I’d like to think it does.

But fear not gentle reader. I just need to start writing new material so that I can send it out and win some awards. If I hadn’t been in graduate school writing the book, I could have been busy becoming famous. Getting famous and building a solid platform surely must be easier than writing a book.

The other side of motherhood

As a little girl, I thought about growing up and becoming a mother. My childhood was not unlike many little girls’ as it came to fantasizing about being married and having babies. I played with dolls and mothered my dog and rabbit as if extensions of myself.

As a teenager, I equated babies with mistakes and accidents, something to avoid. In my early and mid-twenties, I equated babies with a loss of independence, a loss of alone time, couple time, friend time, camping trips, vacations, restaurant meals, and privacy. Still, even with all of those fears about the things that I would lose as a result of parenthood, I knew deep down there were wonderful and beautiful things to be gained as a result of motherhood. And in my gut, I wanted to have a baby someday. That desire is biologically hard-wired. It is real. And powerful.

Now that I’ve been a parent for nearly nine years, it’s hard to remember what my life was like before my two children. My youngest is five-and-a-half years old. He’s not really a baby at all, although I pull him across my lap every so often, his head in the crook of my arm like a newborn and his feet dangling near the floor like a big kid.

Intellectually and realistically, I’m done having kids. But my hormones clearly have other plans for me. As recently as a few months ago, I was having vivid dreams about pregnancy and nursing and the intoxicating smell of a baby’s head. At 38 years old, I suspect I have a few good eggs in there still. I felt intense pangs of desire, even though my body doesn’t like being pregnant. My vascular system didn’t like it, and I ended up with some varicose veins. My stomach didn’t like it, and I threw up until I was 20 weeks along. My sanity didn’t like it because sleepless nights and round-the-clock feedings are torturous. And, of course, there is the very real fear of having another child with life-threatening medical problems. But biology doesn’t care about any of my issues, and I'm sure that wasn't the last time my body will try to convince me to do it again.

The notion of having another has also come up a lot in recent months with other women whose youngest is also in kindergarten. I’ve also talked about it with my significant other’s sister-in-law when we visited them and their five-month-old twins in England just after Christmas. I’ve talked about it with close friends and acquaintances alike.* But what we’ve talk about, more than whether or not we really want another pregnancy and another baby, is what it’s like to be on the other side of the target that we aimed for from the time we held our first baby dolls 30+ years ago.

It’s just strange to be done, on the other side of motherhood. I still have lots of mothering to do. I’m not saying my job is done. But there won’t be any more pregnancies or nursing, and it’s a significant loss to realize it’s all behind me. Yes, I’m referring to the physical aspect of pregnancy and nursing and the logistical aspect of diapers and developmental milestones, but I'm also referring to everything else that separates holding your own baby from holding a someone else's baby.

(I also talked about my feelings with my significant other—not because I was trying to convince him we should make beautiful babies together, but because we talk about stuff :)

The empty house

For dinner, I ate the untouched peanut butter & banana sandwich my son removed from his lunchbox when he got home from school today. The kids went off to their dad’s house before dinner, so it was just me and that peanut butter sandwich.

You see, I’m a little disoriented. I always have my kids Tuesday through Saturday, but we swapped some days here and there over the holidays and now my kids are gone for a whole week. Their departure happened to coincide with the week my significant other is away on business. After I hugged my kids good-bye and locked the door behind them, I realized it was going to be just me all week. That hasn't happened in a long, long time. Not surprisingly, the silence, solitude, and lack of any plans reminded me of when I first moved out of the big house and into my own place as a single girl nearly three years ago. It was lonely and quiet and there were many long, restless nights. I often went to the movies or to the café as an avoidance tactic.

But tonight, I didn’t want to hide in a crowd, lose myself in some Hollywood tale, or need any avoidance tactics. I looked around my house at the photographs I’ve taken and blown up. I looked at the pastel drawing I’ve framed. I looked at all the kids’ art that decorates the rooms they call home four nights a week. I looked at pictures of my kids and thought about how I’m a much better parent than I used to be. And not just because when they sleep at my house I read to them for those crucial twenty minutes. Rather, I don't need to escape the way I used to. I looked forward to being in my quiet house with nothing to distract me from my unpublished book that needs polishing and some stories I’m supposed to read and critique for the writing group I recently joined. But even if I didn't have those things, I would have been content all alone at home.

I don’t need distractions anymore. I actually like my life. I’m proud of the things I’ve accomplished the person and mother I’ve become. I knew all of this, but it became that much clearer once all of my favorite people were away at the same time.

It also became clear that I need to do a better job making dinner for a party of one.

Dedication

I wrote the dedication for my book today. It consisted of two words, just eight letters. And after I typed them, I cried for a long time.

Many times during the last three years, I’ve wondered why I was writing this story, why I continued to torture myself with the past. I could have tried to let his history be something I thought of only when medically necessary. Instead I’ve read medical records, interviewed doctors, and forced myself time and again into the sad and desperate places I’ve been during this journey.

When I turn the completed manuscript into the MFA department on November 16, I hope that I find it was all worth it, although I suspect that won’t be something I know for some time.

[And thank you to those of you who have contacted me, wondering why my last post was in July. The thesis has been all consuming, and I’m looking forward to different types of writing, including this blog, in the coming months.]

I love the way you dance...

I’ve been dancing occasionally with a guy that looks like my ex at my Monday night dance class—you know, similar height, similar body type, similar hairstyle. And I think it’s improved my relationship with my ex (which was already quite good) because every time I see him or interact with him, I remember how much fun it was seeing him let loose at dance class. Arms swinging, knees up, all with a serious expression, of course.

While it’s unlikely that he would ever indulge in an unstructured dance class, especially one with a slightly spiritual edge based in the realm of personal growth, it provides me with much humor to imagine him there embracing something completely out of character. It’s just a little harmless transference psychology. And it makes me chuckle. Another benefit of my Monday night class.

The unsung mother

A year ago on Mother’s Day, I came across a picture of my kids online. It was not a picture I had taken. It wasn’t a moment we shared together. And it was then that I realized that my kids have a life that I am not a part of. Intellectually, I had known that for a long time. They go to school without me. They have playdates without me. They have visited their grandparents 2,500-miles away without me. They live in another house half the week. Without me.

But that photo wasn’t just a snapshot of them at the park or at the beach or at a restaurant. It was a picture of my kids snuggled up with my ex-husband’s girlfriend. The picture was taken on Mother’s Day. I knew that because R wore his sweatshirt printed with cars, and C wore his Giants’ tee shirt—the clothes they were wearing when I dropped them off earlier that day. And I saw that picture because the girlfriend and I have some mutual friends on Facebook and it showed up in my newsfeed.

At the time, that picture felt like a kick in the stomach. Who exactly was that woman cuddled up on the couch with my boys? I knew a little about her because my kids talked about her and her dog and cats. But she was a stranger to me. At the same time, she is someone who spent lots of time with my kids. They are comfortable around her. They get excited when they see her car parked outside their dad's house. They ask if they will get to see her over the weekend. They like her. A lot.

After seeing that picture, I spent a bit of time struggling with my feelings. I wanted my kids to like her because if they didn’t, well, that would be bad. But I didn’t want them to like her too much because, well, I’m their mom.

A few months later the universe did me a huge favor. It gave me a friend who helped me see things from the other side—as in, from the girlfriend’s perspective. My friend had fallen in love with and married a man with two young children. Those kids are about to graduate from high school now, but she helped raise them. She helped make their lunches and drive them to school and comfort them in the middle of the night. For fifty percent of their lives, she was their mother too.

From the time they were six years old, she was just as much a part of their lives as their biological mother. She loves them as her own and refers to them as her bonus kids, because step kids seems too impersonal. Years from now, I suspect my kids won’t remember a time before their bonus mom, just as they won’t remember a time before their bonus grandparent. He came into our lives when R was an infant.

I feel fortunate that my ex chose someone who has welcomed my kids into her life. I feel relief that my kids want to spend time with her. I feel lucky that there is another person who loves my kids and wants to be a part of their lives everyday, and especially, on Mother’s Day. Because there could never be too many people loving my kids. Bonus parent. How lucky. For all of us.