Word To The Ys

I am in love.

Obviously.  I mean, I’ve got that super-teeerrific husband of mine.  And three handsome young lads that further brighten my days.  But I’ve got a NEW love affair going on with a TV show.  Glee.

If you haven’t seen this show yet, please do check it out.  I don’t intend to write anything here that would be spoiler-ish, so no worries.  I’m sure if you missed the last several episodes you can find them online somewhere (my new favorite way to watch television.)  The show is about a high school glee club and all the characters involved therein.  Reading that description, you can see that this show was practically written, performed, and produced just for me and people like me: total nerds. 

The amusing menagerie of teenagers and adults in the show experience very real, very human things against a campy, surreal backdrop.  The teens are going through the angst of high school life; the teachers and other adults struggle as well.  So you’ve got OCD, unfulfilled dreams, egos of unimaginable proportions, grapplings with sexuality, and issues of identity all wrapped up in a big choreographed-musical-bow.  It appeals to those who love musicals and anyone who’s ever had a hard time with who they are, or in becoming who they’ll be.

What has been surprising to me since the debut of this show is just how universally it seems to be embraced by the American Television Viewer.  I can’t help but be reminded of the final scene in Revenge of the Nerds: when the whole campus of the fictitious college is brought together in the solidarity of having been made to feel small and less-than at some point in their lives.  Who in this beautiful, big world has NOT experienced this feeling?  Even the “beautiful” people have felt ugly, stupid, unworthy.  It is a universally sad truth: we all have had it pointed out to us that we are less than perfect and it has made us feel inferior.

But here’s the revelation, and one I think Glee (and Revenge of the Nerds) is helping us to realize: we are ALL flawed.  We are simply human.  And what if, instead of using our humanity to break others down, we used it to celebrate our universal experience?  What if we tried to identify with one another rather than using differences to belittle?  Could we ease some of the pain of growing?  Could we embrace uniqueness?  Could we prevent 11-year-olds from being so uncomfortable with themselves and their relationships to others that they kill themselves?

If a show with 80′s power ballads, glory notes, and jazz hands can help us to reach this end, then I say: Bravo, Glee.  And may you have unlimited encores, because we could all use more music, laughter, and humanity.

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Today my baby turns one year old.  As cliche as it may sound, I simply CANNOT believe that it’s been a year since that day.  The day I sent Joe to buy furniture off Craigslist as I willed myself and Seth into labor.  The day I went to the hospital, met up with our favorite midwife, spent a few hours preparing, and then in an incredibly quick and peaceful moment, welcomed Seth into the world.

From the beginning he has been an absolute joy.  Everything was remarkably easy; I think he’s done this for me because he knows that, emotionally, it’s not so easy for me.   With the passing of each stage of his baby-ness I am saying goodbye, thinking:  “This is the last time I’ll nurse a baby through the night.  The last time I’ll marvel at just how good a milk-drunk little infant can smell.  This is the last time I’ll watch one of my children learn to sit, crawl, stand, walk.  This is the last time I’ll be tempted to eat a baby alive because I just love love love them so.”

There have been plenty of moments that were scary or terribly guilt-inducing as well.  The time we fell down the stairs when he was about 2 months old was one of the top ten worst things that’s ever happened to me.  The only reason it doesn’t take the number 1 slot is because, well, he’s still here and perfectly intact.  When he bumped and bruised his gum, bleeding all over.  When he had a “diaper/heat rash” that was really, well, something else.  When he got burned on the back of his hand playing with the under-stove drawer.

But what I’ve strived to remember this time around is to live in the small, ordinary moments and treasure the heck outta them.  I can’t help but think of a song Seth loves for me to sing as a lullaby…the song I used as the title for this entry.  It comes from Rent; there are 525,600 minutes in a year, and to my gorgeous, treasured, incredible Seth on his first birthday I want to say that every one of them has been dear to me.   How does one measure a year?  In the cuddles, even in the pinches; in the 1,000 watt smiles that are my reward upon retrieving you from your crib post-sleep; in the babbling sound of you exploring your voice; in the way you’ve grown into your nose; in the nights of rocking back and forth with your chubby arms encircling me; in the way you bury your head in my bosom.  I’ve measured in love, and I’m the richest woman in the world.  Happy birthday, my littlest man.

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