Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson
A few minutes later Hailey was whisked away by the staff, and I prodded Victor out of the room to follow her, because I was certain that the doctor would somehow switch her with another baby who would grow up to be a sociopath, because I’d been watching too much of the Lifetime channel.
And that’s how I found myself half naked, completely alone, covered in my own blood, and still strapped into the stirrups of the labor table, in what was possibly the most unflattering position imaginable, as I added a frightened, confused janitor to the long list of people who had seen my vagina that day.
Totally worth it.
Me and Hailey—2004. We both needed a bottle at that point.
My Vagina Is Fine. Thanks for Asking
If you are not a parent you are going to get here and assume this is a potty-training chapter (since almost every mom-penned book follows the labor-and-delivery chapter with the potty-training chapter), and you’ll start gagging and you’ll want to skip it. But you shouldn’t. Because this chapter will make you feel very superior about using birth control and/or infertility.
If you are a parent, you’re probably going to think that you should skip this chapter, because you’ve already heard it all. But I guarantee you haven’t. And also? The nonparents reading this are totally going to read it and smirk at you later, and you should at least be prepared. This is the same reason I listen to a lot of über-conservative Republican radio. Because I want to know what is on the minds of my enemies. Also because I live in Texas, and there aren’t a lot of alternatives. And besides, this chapter isn’t even about potty training. I don’t even know where you got that idea. Potty training is not a fun subject to reminisce about. It’s more like a horrible death march through a haunted forest, and the trees are made of angry bears that you’re allergic to. And you have to look at pictures of dead people at the same time. Like, it’s so awful you want to just make your kid go live outside for the rest of their life, but you can’t do that because the dog’s out there. And that’s why I’m not going to write about potty training, and instead I’m going to write about perspective.
THE FIRST YEAR after having a kid felt sort of foreign to me, and I keep stumbling across it in my head, much like when someone you know dies and an hour later you’re laughing at Hee Haw, and then you think to yourself, “Oh, fuck, I just remembered that Grampa died,” and you get sad again, but then your head goes somewhere else and you’re all, “I wonder why you never see elderly biracial couples?” And then a minute later your mind yells, “Shit. I forgot Grampa died again.” And you keep crying and getting distracted, and you consider that you should probably just turn off Hee Haw, because obviously that’s not helping, but then you think to yourself, “But Grampa loved Hee Haw,” and you convince yourself it’s an homage to him, even though, really, you just kind of want to watch Hee Haw. It’s probably also some sort of self-preservation thing to help you deal with grief, so back off already and stop judging me.
And this is exactly what being a mom is like. You’re just going about your day, thinking about how awesome it would be to make nachos, and suddenly you’re all, “Holy shit, I have a baby. I should, like, feed it or something.” And you do, but then a half-hour later you forget again, and you hear her giggling in the other room and you think, “WTF? Whose baby is that?” and then you remember, “Oh, yeah. It’s mine. Weird.” And then you come up with these great ideas to turn the spare room into a bar, so you can charge your friends for all of the alcohol of yours that they’re already drinking anyway, and then you draw up the plans and bring over a contractor, and then you’re all, “Fuck. Wait a minute. This isn’t a spare room. This is the room the baby lives in.” Right?
Wrong. I was with you up until that last one. If you agreed with the last one then you need to put down this book and go find your baby, because she’s probably out drunk on some tree limb somewhere. You are a terrible parent.
Special note to people who are childless and are smugly smiling right now: Stop judging. It’s entirely possible that you aren’t really childless and that you’ve just forgotten you had a baby. Because that shit totally happens. Check your vagina. Does it look kind of broken? If so, you probably had a baby. Seriously, mine was all Franken-gina for a good year before it was presentable again. But not “presentable” like I’d lay it out at the Thanksgiving dinner table. I wouldn’t have done that even before it got destroyed. I mean, not that it wasn’t a good trade-off, because it totally was. And it’s fine now. Great, actually. My vagina is great. Slimming, even. Thanks for asking. It was just fucked up when Hailey was born, but I didn’t really care so much at the time, because I was so relieved that she was alive, and so I lay there on the hospital table thinking that is the only time in life when you’re too blissfully happy to notice that people are stitching up your vagina.
Also, I just want to say that I think when the doctor is stitching your vagina back up (for real, child-free people: Stitching. Your. Vagina. Up), I don’t know why they don’t throw in some cosmetic surgery while they’re down there, to make it look cuter. Like, when my gynecologist told me that she’d probably have to cut my vagina, I was all, “YOU ARE A FUCKING PSYCHOPATH,” and she was like, “Not for fun [unspoken: “dumb-ass”]. To get the baby out.” And I said, “Oh. Well, if you’re going to have to scar me, could you do it in some kind of kick-ass shape? Like, how about a lightning bolt?” And she just stared at me, so I explained, “You know . . . like Harry Potter’s?” Then she just looked at me like I shit on the floor, and I thought maybe it was because the sentence structure kind of implied I was referring to Harry Potter’s vagina, and so I clarified: “But not on my forehead like his was.” And she still didn’t respond, so I pointed down and said, “On my vagina.” Then she shook her head like she’d known all along that I wasn’t referring to Harry Potter’s vagina, and said, “Uh, we don’t really do that. In fact, we prefer for you to tear naturally, because it heals better,” and I’m all, “MOTHER. FUCKER. Are you fucking serious?” And I kind of suspected she was just making that up because she didn’t want me to have a nicer vagina than hers, because she’d never had a kid and so hers was probably all perfect and cheerful, and she probably didn’t want me rubbing my vagina in her face when it was all lightning-bolt awesome. Like I would even do that, Dr. Ryder. I would never rub my vagina in someone’s face, even though it would be the most badass vagina in the world. And whenever I have menstrual cramps I could just pretend that Voldemort was close.
Later, during the labor, I did tear and get cut, and it was totally not in a lightning-bolt shape, and I immediately regretted not doing some sort of perforation in a lighting-bolt shape, but I was so big at that point that I couldn’t even see my vagina, and when I asked Victor whether he’d draw a dotted line in the shape of a lightning bolt (with little scissors indicating “cut here”), he just walked off. I suspect it’s because he didn’t want to admit he can’t draw scissors, because honestly he is a horrible artist, but when I started badgering him the next day he said confidently, “Oh, I already did it. While you were asleep.” Which seemed suspicious, because I’m a pretty light sleeper. But I couldn’t even see myself with a hand mirror, and so then I just wondered whether he was fucking with me so that I’d leave him alone. And if he wasn’t just fucking with me, then what the hell did he draw? Probably a gun, or a cougar, or something stupid. And also, that doesn’t even make sense about tearing being better than cutting, because if that’s true then why don’t they tear people open when they pull out their gallbladder or remove their appendix? There’s really no other sort of surgery where the doctor prefers to just let you get torn apart rather than cut you, and I’m assuming that’s because gynecologists are just really lazy.
Holy crap, y’all. Remember back when I was talking about how my Grampa died but I got distracted with Hee Haw? That same thing just happened here when I started to talk about perspective and got distracted by my vagina. I didn’t even plan that. That’s how natural this writing shit comes to
Anyway, having a kid is an excellent exercise in perspective. Because it teaches you to embrace the horror and indignity of life. You simply have no other choice.
Take, for example, the first time that you take your child to the community pool. You’re self-consciously trying to still appear hip in front of your thin, childless neighbor, who probably got more than two hours of sleep, when you notice that your child’s ass seems to be exploding. Then you realize with horror that your husband failed to put a swimming diaper on your toddler, and so now the real diaper is soaking up all of the pool water and expanding like a giant mushroom cloud, and your kid is looking at you like, “What the fuck is happening to my junk?!” and you’re all, “DON’T PANIC. Walk slowly toward the bathroom,” but the kid is all, “Pick me up! I AM BEING EATEN BY MY OWN DIAPER,” and so you do, but then the pressure makes the diaper seams burst, and now you’re covered with this gel stuff from inside the diaper which, it turns out, is a bluish, crystal-like jelly. And you’re repulsed and fascinated all at the same time, and you run to the bathroom, but the crystal-jelly stuff is leaking out behind you like a trail of bread crumbs, and the lifeguard is giving you the stink-eye, and you finally get to the bathroom, but the gel inside the diaper is continuing to expand. And so as soon as you yank your kid’s suit off, the diaper rips open from the sheer internal pressure and lands with a splat and the diaper jelly sprays all. Over. Everything. And right at that exact moment, your thin, childless neighbor walks breezily in, and then backs up against the wall in shock as she sees you bending over in the middle of the bathroom, splattered with blue diaper filling and trying desperately to use wads of ineffective brown paper towels to clean the (probably cancerous) diaper jelly off a naked toddler. And you try to smile at her reassuringly, as if this is the sort of thing that happens all the time, and you consider standing up to explain casually that this is really all your husband’s fault, but before you can straighten up your child sees your giant boob perched precariously at the edge of your bathing suit and she punches it and it falls out of the top of your bathing suit. And then your neighbor backs silently out of the bathroom, like she’s stumbling away from a murder scene, and you scream after her, ”YOU CANNOT RUN FROM ME. BEHOLD! THIS. IS. YOUR. FUTURE!”
Get ready.
That sort of thing happens all the damn time.
I can assure you, it was traumatizing for all of us.
Phone Conversation I Had with My Husband After I Got Lost for the Eighty Thousandth Time
ME: Hello?
VICTOR: Where are you?! You’ve been gone an hour.
ME: I’m lost. Don’t yell at me.
VICTOR: You went to get milk, dude. You’ve been to that store a hundred times.
ME: Yes, but not at night. Everything looks all strange and I couldn’t see the signs. And I guess I must’ve taken a wrong street and I’ve been driving aimlessly, hoping for something to look familiar.
VICTOR: How can you get lost every damn time you leave the house?
ME: I don’t even think I’m in Texas anymore.
VICTOR: Motherfu—
ME: DON’T YELL AT ME.
VICTOR: I’m not yelling at you. Just turn on the GPS and put in our address.
ME: I left it at home.
VICTOR: What the hell is wrong with you?!
ME: You said you wouldn’t yell at me!
VICTOR: That was before you left the GPS at home. I BOUGHT IT EXPRESSLY BECAUSE OF YOU.
ME: Can’t you just tell me how to get home?
VICTOR: How am I supposed to help you get home, Jenny? I DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.
ME: Okay . . . there are a lot of trees. And bushes. Or they might be horses. It’s too dark to tell.
VICTOR: Oh, yeah, I know exactly where you are.
ME: Really?
VICTOR: No. You’re someplace where there may or may not be bushes. How is that helpful?
ME: Hell. I need to find a street sign.
VICTOR: You NEED to remember to put the GPS in your car.
ME: No. I’m not using it anymore.
VICTOR: Why not?!
ME: It’s trying to kill me.
VICTOR: [stunned silence]
ME: Remember last week when I had to go into town and I got the driving instructions from MapQuest and you made me take the GPS as a backup, but then halfway there the GPS is all, “Turn left now,” and I’m all, “No. MapQuest says to go straight,” and it’s like, “TURN LEFT NOW,” and I’m all, “No way, bitch,” and then she’s sighing at me like she’s frustrated and she keeps saying, “Recalculating,” in this really judgy, condescending way, and then she’s all, “TURN LEFT NOW!” And then I’m all freaked out, so I turn left exactly like she says and then she’s all, “Recalculating. Recalculating,” and I’m like, “I DID EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID TO DO. WHAT’S WITH THE TONE, WHORE?”
VICTOR: You’re not using the GPS because you don’t appreciate the tone of the robot?
ME: No, that’s just the start. Because then she told me to turn on West Lion Street, but there was no West Lion Street, so I kept making illegal U-turns and finally I realized that she was mispronouncing Wesley-Ann Street. Probably on purpose.
VICTOR: It’s “Wesleyan Street.” You still haven’t seen a street sign?
ME: Oh. Sorry. I kind of forgot I was driving.
VICTOR: You forgot you were driving while you were driving?
ME: It’s not like I ran into a cow. I just forgot I was looking for signs.
VICTOR: If you ever make it home I’m hiding your car keys.
ME: Anyway, then I’m all, “Okay, one of us is mispronouncing ‘Wesley-Ann’ and one of us is lost and I think they both might be me,” but that’s when I came up with what might be the greatest invention in the history of the world.
VICTOR: Street signs. Look for street signs.
ME: Haven’t seen any. Feels like I’m on a highway now. Ask me what my great idea is.
VICTOR: No.
ME: GPS for stupid people.
VICTOR: [silence]
ME: I’m totally serious. Because I’m no good with directions, but I’m really good with landmarks, so if you tell me to go north on Main, I’m fucked, but if you say, “Turn at that Burger King that burned down last year,” I totally know what to do, so we should build a GPS system that does that.
VICTOR: [sigh]
ME: And here’s the genius part: We make it able to learn so it adapts to you personally. So, like, if I say, “Huh. There’s a homeless guy masturbating,” it’ll put that in its data banks, and then when I want to go somewhere later, instead of just naming random streets it’s all, “You know where that homeless guy was masturbating? We’re going there. Turn left at that Sonic you like. Turn right at the burrito place you took Sarah to that time she was dressed all slutty. Yield at the place you gave that guy a hand job.”
VICTOR: What the fuck?
ME: Exactly. See, that’s the downfall of this system, because really I just gave a guy a hand by telling him how to get a job. But robots don’t get the subtle intricacies of human languages, so there’d be a learning curve. We’d have to put that in the brochure. Like a disclaimer.
VICTOR: How long do you have to be missing before I can start dating again?
ME: I’m just saying this robot isn’t perfected yet, dude. It’s close, though. I wouldn’t use it with your mom in the car, though, just in case. OHMYGOD, I TOTALLY KNOW WHERE I AM!
VICTOR: You’re at the place you gave that guy a hand job?
ME: No. I’m at that abandoned building that looks like it’s owned by Branch Davidians.
VICTOR: Huh. The rest of the world calls that “Dallas Street.” So can you get home now?
ME: I think so. Left at that spooky bar that looks like it’s out of Scooby-Doo, left at the place we saw that wild boar that turned out to be a dog, and right a
VICTOR: You make my head hurt.
ME: DUDE, WE ARE GOING TO BE MILLIONAIRES.
EPILOGUE: I made it home.* Victor duct-taped the GPS to my windshield and refused to build me a robot. It’s like he wants us to be poor.
*DISCLAIMER: By “made it home,” I mean I got lost again and Victor had to come find me so I could follow him home. The point is, I made it home. And that I had no robot. This whole incident is kind of a tragedy. Victor says he agrees but probably not for the same reasons.
And Then I Got Stabbed in the Face by a Serial Killer
People with anxiety disorders are often labeled as “shy” or “quiet” or “that strange girl who probably buries bodies in her basement.” I’ve never actually heard anyone refer to me as the latter, but I always assume that’s what people are thinking, because that sort of paranoia is a common side effect of anxiety disorder. Personally, I always labeled myself as “socially awkward” and reassured myself that there are lots of perfectly normal people who don’t like to talk in public. And that’s true. Unfortunately it’s also true that my fear pushes slightly past the land of “perfectly normal” and lands well into the desert of “paralyzing pathological handicap.”
Even simple conversations with strangers in the grocery store leave me alternately unable to speak or unable to stop speaking about something completely inappropriate to talk to strangers in the grocery store about. For a long time I beat myself up because I thought it was something I could control if I were strong enough, but in my twenties I began having full-scale panic attacks and finally saw a doctor, who diagnosed me with generalized anxiety disorder.
It’s been my experience that people always assume that generalized anxiety disorder is preferable to social anxiety disorder, because it sounds more vague and unthreatening, but those people are totally wrong. For me, having generalized anxiety disorder is basically like having all of the other anxiety disorders smooshed into one. Even the ones that aren’t recognized by modern science. Things like birds-will-probably-smother-me-in-my-sleep anxiety disorder and I-keep-crackers-in-my-pocket-in-case-I-get-trapped-in-an-elevator anxiety disorder. Basically I’m just generally anxious about fucking everything. In fact, I suspect that’s how they came up with the name.