All I Had Yesterday Was Frozen Yogurt Topped with Oreos, and Dreams of My Daughter – Dr. Plastic Picker
 

All I Had Yesterday Was Frozen Yogurt Topped with Oreos, and Dreams of My Daughter

| Posted in Our Tween/Teen

A super interesting summer camp I learned about yesterday.

July 27, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

This is my emotional journal through burn out, climate grief, and the difficulties of being a middle-manager MD mother. This is me documenting what it’s like to be on the other-side. I’m happy these days and that happiness is important to me and the earth. It’s only by knowing myself and trying to know people and understand them, that I can try to nudge them to help me save the earth.

Yesterday I had a beautiful moment and meeting a beautiful family, and began to have dreams of the what-ifs. I was then criticized by someone I love for even dreaming of the what-ifs. But I realize now that everyone is allowed to have their opinion, and it comes out of a place of love. And part of my reaction and hurt is that I also blame and criticize. Even the most perfect parents were never perfect. They were young once. They were immigrants once. And they tried to do the best they could. Parents can never protect their children from all sources of evil. And there is evil out there dear readers.

And it’s natural for me to want to protect my children from evil-doers, which is why when I meet a beautiful family with a handsome son – I want to have dreams of my daughter safe within my family and another family. It’s just an absurd dream and my daughter is not scared like me. She is so much stronger and doesn’t fear the world like I do. So I’m happy now and it’s okay for those to have their say. I have control over how I understand those words and how I react. That it’s taken me to my mid-40s to understand that is really amazing. I never really analyzed my own family relationships and I believe it’s made my extended family stronger and allowing all of us to grow and evolve.

So I’ll tell you the blog truth! I found my future son-in-law, or at least someone like him that I’m imaging. And their family is imagining it too! I won’t let you know the details but everyone at the office and all the patients who were privy to my stories is on the list for a wedding invitation for 15 years from now! I believe there will be two big tables at a seaside location when two local families unite, with four parents who are all Crimson University Alumni and the resulting grandchildren will be 50% Korean. The circumstances are too improbable for this to be coincidence. It is absolutely destiny, but which Korean word for destiny I’m not sure?

I’m going to have to ask my mother-in-law. Of note if a wedding like this should occur, I will not be wearing a hanbok. There will be another beautiful mother-in-law wearing a hanbok. I will wear a traditional Vietnamese dress ao dai, because I am not culturally appropriating another person’s culture.

I’m back to being happy now! I came home and looked at my daughter and she knows me so well. She said, “why does mommy look guilty?” And I confessed all my silliness and showing her picture to future in-law family. Both children know me, and my dreams for them. They also know I’m super protective, and I never let my daughter out of my sight or her grandparents protective embrace anyway. She knows I’m much more of a romantic than she is. She is hyper-focused on college and fighting for women’s rights. And I went back to being a practical mother and reminded her of how fundamentally conservative I am and how I expect her to be. This bipolar parenting I do suits me and her. She hugged me many times, because she knows I love her and I’m her cheerleader and she’s the biggest star in my romantic musings.

And with that reader without much details, I finished a big project yesterday amongst running around living in my Kdrama fantasy world with a drama starring two children who have better things to do than amuse a middle-aged pediatrician. But at least I amused a set of parents who are very similar to me! We deployed the “Reducing single-use plastics in the San Diego Healthcare Landscape” and hands-down it went so well. I think we helped nudge another climate and health advocate to hopefully start the process of getting rid of 900,000 single use vaginal speculums and replace with metal ones. I’m anxious to see how this project goes! I was riding that beautiful earth high as well. It was a really impactful webinar on many levels. Plus my intro went really well and I’ve now rewatched it at least 5 times. As I was reminding my daughter that she’s not allowed to date until she’s well on her way to college applications, I showed her my video of my clip. Half of my climate activism is that I want her attention. And we snuggled together in bed, and she watched my short clip and she hugged me and told me that she was proud of me. She didn’t want to watch the rest because she reminded me that she is busy with more Speech Team preparations.

That’s the funny thing about mothers and daughters. We love. We bicker. We make up. And we have to keep engaging. And yesterday, because my daughter asked many times and we were celebrating her volley-ball victories on making the Wave volleyball team for 15-5 and then I had been so busy being happy about this beautiful family and busy doing the webinar, all I ate yesterday was fro-yo with oreo cookies and a quarter bag of cheetos. This morning I’ll make some matcha green tea pancakes and eat plant-based. But yesterday was just pure sugar!

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