Releasing my Inner Control Freak for Club Mid At Scary Mommy

I’m excited that my essay “How I Learned to Release My Inner Control Freak” has been published by Scary Mommy.

This is my second essay published by Scary Mommy in its Club Mid, which describes itself this way:

[We’re] about life in the middle. We are not middle aged (no, we’re not, shut up); but we are in this mid-life space, most of us holding the hands of both our parents and our children, both of whom are growing older too fast for our liking.

We’re members of Generation X, which we never really thought about until recently, but now we kind of love it. We were raised by Little House, John Hughes, Madonna, and Sassy magazine, we spent our 20s alongside the cast of Friends, and now we think Amy P. and Tina F. should run the world. We’re past the point of worrying about whether our kids will ever sleep through the night—and more concerned with whether our 6-year-olds are being bullied (or if they are the bullies?), what’s in the “health movie” our 10-year-olds will see at school this year, and – gulp – learner’s permits. We’re thinking about college, both remembering our own experiences and figuring out how the heck to get our kids into one (and how to pay for it).

Our lives are hectic. Some days, it feels like the wheels might come right off this bus. But we got this… with a little help from our friends.

When I read that description, all I could think was, “That’s me. That’s every woman I grew up with.” So I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have another essay published by this wonderful magazine.

Here’s an excerpt from “How I Learned to Release My Inner Control Freak,” my most recent Scary Mommy essay:

I am a haphazard housekeeper at best.

I didn’t used to be. Before I met my husband and had my son, my house was pristine, every surface a glorious, bare expanse: no pictures, no tchotchkes, no vases or plants. My bed was made, my books shelved, my paperwork and bills hidden away.

I even had rules about the way I kept my refrigerator: containers lined up by size, cheeses and meats in the deli drawer, fruits and veggies in the crisper and only liquids on the top shelf, since that’s the tallest shelf and liquid containers are the tallest items in the fridge. No top-shelf solids—not ever.

Please visit Scary Mommy to read the whole essay and to share it.

Also please read and share my first Club Mid essay, “Ma’am: I Never Thought I’d Be This Young When I Got To Be This Old.”

Enjoy!

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“How I Learned to Release My Inner Control Freak” was originally published on my blog as “The Queen of Cool.”

“Ma’am: I Never Thought I’d Be This Young When I Got to Be this Old” was originally published on my blog as “Ma’am.”

 

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