“…hopefully, under that pressure, you leave behind all of the false You’s–the imitative You, the too-clever You, the Avoiding You–and settle into that (sometimes, at first, disappointing) beast, Real You…Real You is all you have, and all other paths are false.” –George Saunders

Breakfast used to be my favorite meal.

This was, of course, when breakfast was called brunch and occurred around noon and included fries for the table and bottomless mimosas. Trendy music played in the background and someone both brought my plate to the table and took it away.

I distinctly remember that, no matter how poorly behaved we were, no one threw their food to the floor or shat their pants.

Breakfast now is a temptation for me to believe in karma–am I being punished for all the times I ruined my own parents’ meals, or for the time I was mean to that bouncer who wouldn’t let me into Bungalow 8 (YES I’M OLD)? These being the only mistakes I’ve ever made, you see. It’s just hard to believe in grace, that this is love and not punishment, when Little Brother tosses his melamine plate to the floor in glee, or The Kid repeatedly sets off a timer that inches me toward a panic attack. In these moments I do not feel grateful for the life I lead. In these moments I want to check into a mental hospital for much-needed treatment and rest.

Did I mention that our duvet comforter, purchased a month before LB arrived, is white? Or at least it used to be? Fuck me, I guess, for being the idiot with two small children who thought THAT was a wise investment, but that doesn’t take the sting away from the fact that its beautiful linen is now dappled with boogers and dried snot, products of a four-year-old who sleeps half the night between us during cold and allergy season. “Uh oh,” he said the other morning, pointing at his contribution to our master bedroom decor. He wore a look of disgust. I think he inherited it from me.

Speaking of seasons? It is, apparently, Major Life Change Season! I’ve attended one wedding, a Field Day, a pre-K graduation, and two baby showers in the past few weeks. And nothing makes me feel more deserving of a SAG card than the performances I turn in on these occasions. I was prepared yesterday to write about it and didn’t realize–until a dear friend wrote a heartfelt post herself–how incomplete my assessment would have been: a self-affixed “Cynic” label and brief joke about celebrating mediocrity now that preschool graduations are mandatory. Then TK’s therapist cancelled and LB refused to nap and I was forced into the ugly portions of my psyche and, with the help of grace (and, later, a tall glass of wine) I unearthed some truths. And they aren’t that simple, which is kind of the point.

There’s a reason why, when I sit at a wedding and hear people make glowing promises, I turn to The Husband and whisper, “They are going to break these vows ALL THE TIME.” There’s a reason why, when I’m at a baby shower, I have to bite my lip to keep from shouting, “THIS IS ALL VERY PRETTY BUT DO YOU REALIZE THAT YOUR LIFE IS ABOUT TO LITERALLY BE DRENCHED IN SHIT AND FILLED WITH CRYING? AND IS THERE MORE CHAMPAGNE PLEASE?” There’s a reason why, at Field Day, I want to kick the DJ churning out wildly inappropriate (and shockingly loud) pop hits in the nuts and why, later, I make jokes about it being like a nightclub without booze. There’s a reason why, before “Pomp and Circumstance: Preschool Edition” begins, I turn to The Sister and ask her how many of these kids she thinks will end up in jail.

And the reason is not as simple as my being a cynic. Because here’s the thing: the reason also has to include why the vows, in all their impossibility (good luck with fighting fair!), remind me of the rainbow at my own wedding and make me smile. It has to include why the baby showers make me remember when TK and LB were tiny enough to fit in newborn onesies and smelled like milk. It has to include why Field Day makes me remember last year and how hard it was, compare it to this year which is still hard, but be grateful for the difference even as I’m sad about the still-there struggles. It has to include why, when The Niece (who was not told about my attendance) sees me and LB in the aisle, her face lights up and she won’t stop waving and all of a sudden I’m the asshole whooping and crying in the last row with the baby who yells, “YAY!”

Here’s what I am besides a cynic: I’m an irritatingly deep feeler in desperate and constant need of grace, often with a side/in the form of Xanax, who resonates not with the one-note reduction of life events into polished, perfect representations but with the infinitely-layered, erratically-emotioned conveyances of life as it really is. I’m talking about confusion over the Chewbacca mask. Laughter at funerals. Imperfect Instagrams. Emotional outbursts. Questioning everything instead of toeing the (perceived) company line–I’M LOOKING AT YOU, RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT–that at the end of the day, we’re supposed to be one thing: happy. I can’t be one thing. I don’t want to be. Because if I am, then I don’t get to feel everything. And as painful as Everything can be, as so NOT power-of-positive-thinking and not-crowd-pleasing it may be? It’s still more. And in its disquieting discomfort, it jams me ALL UP INTO some grace I wouldn’t know otherwise.

This is why I get cynically irritated whenever someone tells me I’m a good mom: because I am. And I’m not. And what I need to hear more than some passing recognition of my winning moments is an unconditional acceptance of my bad ones, and the assurance that it will all be okay anyway. I need a bigger foundational truth than my own adept parenting (or law-keeping, or career-succeeding) because if there’s not something/One bigger than my ability to parent well? WE’RE ALL SCREWED. I need something that takes my light AND dark. I need a spirit that moves over my hopes to teach my kids to swim and be potty-trained over the summer and meets me in August whether they’re still running from the water in Pull-Ups and breathes life into my complete incompleteness. I need someone who keeps the promises I don’t.

I finally figured out why TK has been calling me Happy Mommy. On the way to school, I pray with the boys (“pray with” = I race through some sincere but brief utterances while one screams and the other begs for More Song) and when I get to the part where I pray for myself, I ask that TK and LB would know how happy I am to be their mommy. The other day, TK said it right after I did: “Happy mommy.” Maybe he sees me being happy sometimes. But I do know that it isn’t apparent when I’m on the kitchen floor, seething over Cheerios crumbles in too-familiar anger. I’m sure I could display it more, embody it more, be more of a LIGHT TO THE WORLD or whatever cherry-picked phrase we’re clinging to these days, but right now? Right now he hears it, daily, in the form of a prayer. A prayer for help.

And God have mercy, I am so okay with that.