I am green and it'll do fine

Vignettes on the color green

Green: as in, green slime.

“That’s not my water bottle, it’s green slime!” he shouts as I try to hand him the only clean water bottle in the house, which is of course not the one he wants right now.

Lately, it seems that “green slime” is my four-year-old’s term for anything that doesn’t meet his expectations (or demands).¹

“It’s not time for school; school is green slime!”

“This food is yucky — it’s green slime!”

“It’s not medicine, it’s green slime!” (Repeated for all six meds, twice a day, every day. 🫠)

“NOT THAT SONG, MOMMY! It’s green sliiiiiiimmmm-UH!”

(Can I start doing this too? “It’s not laundry day, it’s green slime!” Or, “These bills are nothing but icky green slime!” Alas, I cannot. But I have been trying to teach my son that sometimes things are just green slime, but we still have to deal with them. “Green slime down the hatch, kiddo!”

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Green: new, fresh.

If you were to look up “impulse shopper” in the dictionary, you’d find a picture of me, placing another order on Amazon or Book Outlet or Old Navy. While it’s definitely a form of procrastinating or dissociating from whatever current task/situation is stressing me out, it’s just as much about the burst of dopamine from having something new.

I do love that bit of excitement when a package lands on my doorstep; it’s like I’m giving myself a present for surviving another day of chaos and green slime. But inevitably, the next feeling after excitement is always a touch of green-with-nausea because where is this shiny new thing going to live in my already cluttered-AF² house?

The irony of creating more chaos by rewarding myself for enduring all the chaos is not lost on me.

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Green: characterizing growth, as in green foliage in the spring.

The color green took on a whole new meaning when I moved from California to Alabama and experienced my first spring. After winter stripped everything down to bare branches, it was a true shock to my eyeballs (and sinuses) when the world suddenly burst back to life in every imaginable shade of green — including impossibly-neon, highlighter green.

I am in awe of springtime in Alabama³, but I think my favorite time is those few weeks at the tail end of winter. I spend most of wintertime lamenting the barren colorlessness everywhere, but when just a few sparse leaves start to appear, I snap to attention and realize that all winter long, I’ve had an entirely different view on my drive up and down the mountain: with no lush greenery on the trees, I can see the entire city and beyond. I can see the whole sky as the sun sets instead of little bits of red and orange here and there.

I’d better enjoy this all winter next year, I tell myself, rather than waiting to notice it until it’s about to disappear again.

Alas, when the leaves start to return is when I finally remember to appreciate the underrated beauty of winter. The trees may appear dead, but growth is still in the works down in the roots.

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Green: jealous, envious.

Green is the color of growth and newness, but it’s also the color of jealousy. All too often lately, I find myself green with envy and filled with FOMO — not Fear of Missing Out, but Frustration of Missing Out. (Because the former implies that you might miss out, but I'm most certainly already missing out — and hating it.)

Instagram shows me evidence of fun social outings that I wasn’t invited to.

Our neighborhood is a bit out of the way for many of my kids’ school friends, so it feels like we miss out on impromptu play dates just by nature of our physical distance.

Or, I actually was invited to a thing, but it was in the middle of a work week at 10 AM.

I’m missing out on a “real” summer vacation, because it’s too expensive, and I’ve taken too much time off work for medical appointments, and our son could end up in the ER in some town halfway between home and the beach, and a litany of other reasons (with varying degrees of validity).

The frustration of missing out — the jealousy I feel toward everyone who is doing all the things I can’t (or am not invited to) do – is chipping away at my self esteem and my bright-side attitude.

I’d rather be green with inexperience than green with envy. (I also recognize that invitations are a two-way street, and I haven’t been doing my part to initiate social hangouts as much as I used to do.)

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Green: inexperience, lack of expertise.

I turned 40 in April, which is wild because when I turned 30, I felt like I was really getting the hang of the whole “adulting” thing. Nowadays I often feel more clueless than ever.

Granted, 30-year-old me didn’t have kids yet, still lived within driving distance of her entire family, and had no idea what kind of stress her job would heap on her over the next couple of years.

And like the rest of the world, 2015 Tabitha did not see a global pandemic in her future. She never imagined leaving Santa Barbara and landing in Alabama, of all places. She’d certainly never have guessed that one of her children would end up with a rare form of epilepsy.

If my 30s taught me anything, it’s this: Life will probably never feel fully “figured out” — or when it does, it won’t stay that way for long.

And if these first few months of my 40s have taught me anything, it’s that “figured out” is overrated. I will always be figuring something out, realizing I was totally wrong about something, and learning how to give others grace as they do the same.

It’s not easy being green⁴, but if green means lacking knowledge or experience, that also means I get to keep learning and experiencing new things.

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This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Green."

1. If you know Rowan, you know he detests any sort of wet or sticky mess on his hands, face, clothing…really anywhere in his immediate vicinity. So while most kids generally love it, “green slime” is not a fun concept in this scenario, lol.

2. I’m choosing to use “AF” to mean “As Fun” to keep it PG; credit for this goes to pastor Lazo’s sermon circa ~2019.

3. From the safety of the inside of my house or car, because “outside” in the Alabama springtime is essentially a ticking time-bomb for my next month-long sinus infection.

4. Did I mean for parts of this post to echo the lyrics of “Bein’ Green” by Kermit the Frog? You’ll never know…