I almost said it. I almost said these words to my own daughter:
“Hey lazy Mary… get up off your butt and…”
But I stopped myself. My daughter is not a lazy person. She might have been behaving in a lazy way. But it’s not who she is. I should know. I AM Lazy Mary. Or at least I was. It was my childhood nickname. More than a nickname. Lazy Mary is the the nickname tattooed in invisible ink across my heart. It’s hiding in the fiber of my weave. Lazy Mary is a stain that won’t come out of my soul.
When it was time to collect the fallen twigs from the weeping willow in the back yard, I would be called by my name of shame.
When it was time to clean my room. Polish the silver. Walk the dog. Fold the laundry. Carry in the groceries. Shovel the snow. Clean up after dinner. Ace that test. Apply for a job. And on and on. Lazy Mary. Lazy. Lazy. Lazy.
I’m not saying I didn’t earn the moniker. I’m sure I was less than enthusiastic at times about my chores and responsibilities. I see how my own children move when pressed into service. Like chilled molasses poured from a vase. Slow. Begrudging.
The nerve! When I am so tired. So very tired. Don’t they know how tired I am? Can they not hear my bones creak and see my eyes burn? I feel my tongue swell, so great is my desire to blurt it out.
“Come on Lazy Mary! Why does it take you so long to get out off the couch to empty the dishwasher?! All you’ve done all day is lay around and watch tv. What’s the matter with you?”
I hate myself for having thought it. Because a moment later I’ll remember my daughters throughout the day: hair flying in the wind as they bounced on the trampoline, long limbs moving so quickly and gracefully as they practiced a dance they’d learned; their lightning speed as they ran after their baby brother to make sure he didn’t get hurt on the stairs. So not lazy. So undeserving of that title.
I’ve spent the last 25 years trying to shake my title of Lazy Mary. Even though I was a gymnast as a tween, for which I spent whole summers perfecting my moves, it wasn’t ever enough. I joined the track team my freshman year of high school. I biked thousands of miles in Canada. I aced the SATs. I graduated high school a year early.
In college I was a triple major. Each summer I worked multiple jobs and saved money to travel the world. I cleaned floors at youth hostels and sold handmade jewelry on the street. It wasn’t enough. My friends had better grades and more impressive internships. They were thinner. They had better, higher paying jobs and nicer cars. They were less lazy. Clearly.
Everything I did, everything I’ve ever done, was a sign. Every failure. Every extra pound. Every doomed relationship. Every job I did not get. Every B that should have been an A. Every plant I’ve ever killed and everything I’ve ever broken or lost. The result of my lazy ways.
I’ve had four children, some of whom I’ve travelled to Siberia and back for. I’ve sewn their clothes (and mine) and refinished their furniture. I’ve knit them sweaters. I’ve hand stencilled their walls.
I’ve decorated my entire home with pillows and curtains I’ve sewn and pictures I’ve framed and painted. Also, this home… I clean it myself. It’s a big home.
Because I prefer organic food, I planted a garden. I grow my own vegetables. I plan, shop for and make dinners on a regular basis, trying to incorporate the food I’ve grown. I clean the kitchen afterwards. I wash clothes. I fold and put them away. I plan and execute birthday parties and shopping trips. I drive people here and there. I take them to doctor’s appointments. I bake them cakes. I cut their hair. I dye my own. It’s not so hard.
I don’t enjoy doing all these things myself. In truth I don’t do them ALL myself. I get some help from my husband and friends and my lovely unlazy daughters. Which is another source of guilt and feeling of failure for me. I shouldn’t need their help. It’s further proof of how lazy I am! And if you’re wondering why I’m not paying someone else to do these things I clearly don’t always enjoy? Because paying someone to do something you could do adequately yourself if you just got up off your ass and did it already? Seems lazy.
Most days I work till midnight or one am in order to squeeze a full time work day into my childcare free stay-at-home mom day. I wake by six or seven am. Because if I hear others up and I lay in bed? Neglect to exercise? Sit on the couch when I am too exhausted to move any more? Lazy Mary. Lazy Mary!
I’m working like a dog who’s trying to win the Iditarod, almost everyday. Always trying to shake my greatest fear. That it’s not enough. That I’m not enough. That I am lazy. I could do more. I could be more. I could make my husband happier. I could be a better friend. I could be a better daughter. I could educate my own children when the system failed them. I could be thinner, richer, wiser and more successful. If only….I wasn’t so lazy. Then perhaps I’d be enough.
Enough? Enough! When does it end? When will I ever be able to lay around and simply enjoy a novel or watch a movie, on a day when I am not deathly ill or trapped in an airplane? When will I sleep in? When will the legacy of Lazy Mary die? What physical, emotional or mental feat do I need to accomplish to lay her to rest?
What will it take to make me believe I’m not lazy? How do we undo the beliefs about ourselves that set in during childhood? And how do we spare our own children?
I’m asking myself these questions out loud, in public, because I suspect I’m not entirely alone. Maybe your secret nickname isn’t Lazy Mary but something else. Something else that tricks you into believing you’re not enough.
Note: I had this revelation about Lazy Mary while reading a blog post about the fear of fat by my friend Cheryl who writes over at MommyPants. She lamented her childhood nickname of “Fatso Fogarty” . It’s an ironic nickname because Cheryl is not fat, nor was she fat as a child. Nevertheless this nickname seems to have had a similarly unreasonable effect on her as “Lazy Mary” has had on me . As I read Cheryl’s post, I heard my own nickname loud and clear. Lazy Mary.
Of course, after reading Cheryl’s post I had to Google “Lazy Mary” to see who this bitch who messed with my head really is. Cheryl found that Fatso Fogarty was a character from Jackie Gleason (as well as a pub). I couldn’t wait to see from what random source Lazy Mary sprung. Sure enough I found she was a comical character in a verse of a song made popular in the late 50s by Lou Monte. Which may have been where my parents got it, either consciously or subconsciously. It’s a song about a woman who smokes in bed. The song does not relate a blessed thing about buying store bought goods for her children’s class parties, getting an occasional pedicure or preferring to go out for dinner. So ultimately, Mary and I don’t have all that much in common.
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