Sienna and “The Breakfast Club” in 2027

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Lorne Jaffe

Sienna’s 2 year, 4 months old. She’s never step foot in a pre-school classroom. And yet last night I lay awake until 3 am thinking about Sienna’s high school experience because I had the great fortune to attend a 30th anniversary screening of what I consider to be arguably the most honest and accurate portrayals of HS life ever to grace the silver screen – The Breakfast Club – and I can’t wait to share it with my toddler daughter.

No I’m not gonna sit her down in front of the TV and show her an R-rated film filled with cursing and frank sexual conversations, but in 13 years when she’s entering the heightened social world of HS, you can bet I will because the late John Hughes’ brilliant dialogue and character development, his ability to capture and destroy these 5 HS archetypes was uncanny and stands the test of time.

Each iconic character – Molly Ringwald’s popular, “conceited” Claire; Judd Nelson’s brash, “anarchic” John; Emilio Estevez’s athletic, “strong” Andy; Anthony Michael Hall’s anxious, “nerdy” Brian; and Ally Sheedy’s silent, “screwed-up” Allison – proves to be unhappily lumped into a category by both adults and school life. Each feels better than at least one other club member because that’s how they’re supposed to feel. And each learns that they can break out of their prisons, that their comrades all share disdain for their sometimes bullying, sometimes ignorant parents and authority figures. Each learns they have flaws. Each learns they have strengths. Each learns the other is a real person and not a cardboard cutout.

Even the adults come off flawed as imperfect. Brian and Andy’s respective parents pressure their kids into being things they don’t want to be. Via his stories, John’s household is rife with abuse. Allison’s parents appear as shadows in car and completely ignore their daughter. Claire’s father equates money with love. Paul Gleason’s Principal Vernon tries to come off as all-powerful, but he’s jaded and frightened of where his world is leading. Only John Kapelas’ Carl the janitor feels sure of his position as unknowingly to the Club and Vernon, he’s the eyes and ears of the school, collecting and keeping all its secrets, sometimes for a price, yet being a custodian is not what he wanted to be.

I want Sienna to see this, to know that she doesn’t need to fit into HS cliques to be a person, to see that parents make mistakes and to understand that although I’ll have my own flaws, I’ll never an abusive father, I’ll never apply extreme pressure, I’ll always want to be in her life and help her feel safe in unsafe world. I want her to know that she can be herself, especially in high school, and that those that do succumb to stereotypes might have things going on in their lives that she doesn’t know about.

This applies to me as well. I have so much trouble remembering that I too often take things at face value. I see people with houses, fancy cars, and huge job statuses and immediately think they’re rich and happy. I see Facebook pictures and think people lead perfect lives. It’s just one terrible aspect of depression, your brain creating false worlds based on the smallest details.

So in 12-13 years I plan to sit down with Sienna and show her one of my favorite films. She’ll probably roll her eyes at watching a movie that will by then be over 40 years old, but if I do right by her, if I’m still the parent I strive to be, she’ll be receptive. And then she’ll watch the magic on the screen, fake realities shattered.

And she’ll know.

High school hasn’t changed all that much in 40 years.

Dad’s experienced the insane world that is high school. He’s a person – just like her – but with his own imperfections.

And no matter what, he’ll never forget about Sienna.

What other high school genre films do you feel fit the fold standard of The Breakfast Club?

Depression: It’ll Be Back

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Lorne Jaffe

Depression is like the terminator, but not the slow and steady Arnold Schwarzenegger version. It’s more like the Robert Patrick design from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, that liquid metal that regroups if blown apart, twists and morphs into various forms in its quest to take you down, and is exceptionally fast, determined, and dangerous. You could be cruising along for weeks thinking that your meds are working (and they are) and then suddenly it’s on you like hot lead, crushing you with sadness. And sometimes you don’t know how it found you or how to take charge and battle it until someone points out the trigger or it’s revealed in therapy. That’s what happened to me over the weekend. I’d had a number of good weeks and then depression was back in all its horrible glory leaving me feeling as if stuffed into a sarcophagus of sadness.

Still from Terminator 2: Judgment Day

But why?

Let’s flip back the calendar.

Months ago my college friends and I decided to get together in Boulder, Colorado to celebrate our 40th birthdays. Excited at first, I soon became agitated and nervous, unsteady and unsure. I began having panic attacks because without warning I WAS the college me, not the 40-year-old me, the boy who felt ditched for alcohol, whose desires felt secondary to his friends’ need to party all the time. I didn’t drink in college. I was too afraid, terrified that by losing control my since-corrected gynecomastia (male breast enlargement) would be exposed. And yet I wound up in a group of heavy drinkers I met Freshman year. It wasn’t all bad, but because I was depressed and frightened I was unable to seek out others who shared my likes: movie nights, baseball, etc. My friends are good guys but acted like college kids since, well, they WERE college kids. They were selfish, sometimes cruelly so, in regards to considering my feelings, and I felt I gave a hell of a lot more than I received. They all apologized over the years and I think it was genuine. I no longer blame them but apparently the kid in me still does. He remains mistrustful, fearful of getting hurt and worried I’d get drowned out like in school and eventually those feelings burst from my chest in anxious breaths and caused my fingers to tremble. Would my friends listen to my wishes to see the natural wonder of Boulder every once in awhile in lieu of getting wasted? Almost all of them are 40 now, but would they, now that they were together in a big group again for the first time in who knows how many years, want to relive their college years? The rational side of my brain said no, that we’d go to a Colorado Rockies game (which I’d requested to do when we first talked about Boulder), that we’d drive around and explore the picturesque town in addition to the expected drinking, that my voice would be heard, but the hurt college kid in me disagreed.I couldn’t commit to the vacation knowing that should I go, I’d (whether wanting to or not) “test” their sincerity. That wouldn’t be fair to them, nor would the fact that they’d have to be on edge around me in case I had a panic attack. So I pulled out of the Colorado adventure.

The reunion happened this past weekend. And that, Elaine pointed out, was the trigger that allowed my terminator to find me.

And so that pulverizing depression as I subconsciously second guessed myself. as I lay in bed completely unable to care for Sienna. According to Elaine, now that I’d “found my tribe” in the dad blogger community and been fully accepted for who and what I am (though I’m still shaky on that), that weekend was like breaking up with the old me and thus I was in some sort of mourning. I think that’s partly true. I think it hurt me that I feel more accepted by the dad blogger community now then I ever did in college, but I also think I was berating myself for not being fair to my college friends, for not trusting them.

Trust is such a tricky thing when you suffer from depression and have been stung as many times as I have over the years. You so want to give it, but you’re scared to. You want to believe, but your irrational mind won’t let you. You want and need almost tangible confirmation, but that’s impossible to get. Your damaged brain won’t let you take that leap of of faith.

Should I have taken a leap of faith with my college friends? Did I blow a chance to have an amazing time with people I haven’t seen in years, friends that might have mellowed from their partying days?

The fog of depression is starting to lift. I look at Sienna and Elaine and know they’re here for me, that they’re the most important things in my life. I also went to a dads’ night out courtesy of the NYC Dads Group and Baby Bjorn at a swanky hotel for the MLB All-Star game and cheered Derek Jeter on during his final appearance. I talked baseball and laughed and received hugs from friends knowing I was going through a rough time, that I was once more suffering depression. I received tons of messages on FB from dad bloggers across the world giving me virtual hugs. And I’m so thankful for that.

But at the same time I wish I’d had the courage to go to Boulder and place my trust in my college friends and I feel haunted knowing I might never again have the opportunity to find out.

Now back to battling my personal terminator.

30 members of the NYC Dads Group (including myself and many of my friends) gathered to watch the 2014 MLB All-Star Game

A Tantrum Leads To A Near Wedding Fiasco

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Lorne Jaffe

We double, triple, quadrupled checked everything. Meticulously packed all items. Card holding crucial check stored in Elaine’s handbag. We packed up Sienna for her overnight stay with my parents making sure all her favorite stuffed animals were accounted for and we were good to go for our 3 and a half hour trip from New York to Pennsylvania for our friends’ wedding. We even got the front door open.

And then like an unforeseen hailstorm – tantrum.

Sienna wanted to wear her Mickey Mouse fleece despite it being 83 degrees outside and was not leaving the apartment until that red and white polka-dotted coat safely encased her torso. We tried reason, but it shockingly failed miserably. So we put her in the fleece because we had to go go go.

Got down to the car, buckled her into her carseat, and set off for my parents. Dropped her off with my dad with lunchtime instructions (like she’d eat anything) and once we plugged in our hotel’s address into Google Maps, it was time for smooth sailing pending little traffic.

Elaine and I relaxed a bit knowing we were Sienna-free for a bit more than a day. We sang along to 80s ballads. We talked about weddings and reminisced about our own. We planned to get to the hotel with hours to spare so we could unwind from the drive and shower before the cocktail hour and reception. It wasn’t until we reached the mouth of the Holland Tunnel that Elaine shouted something that made my guts fall into my shoes:

“We forgot your suit! My dress! We have nothing to wear!!”

That’s what a toddler tantrum can do. It can unravel all of your painstaking plans and careful choreography. Our formal wear stood in the closet next to the front door laughing at us fools now an hour away from home. Sienna was probably obliviously happy in the park, playing with in the sprinklers with Pop-Pop, her fleece long out of mind.

“What should we do? There’s no way not to go through the tunnel!”

“It makes no sense to go back,” Elaine said. “It’d take us 2 hours to get back here. They’ll forgive us when they hear the story.”

“We can’t go in wearing jeans and t-shirts!” I countered.

The Holland Tunnel opens right next to the Newport Mall on the New Jersey side. It was almost serendipitous. We screeched into the mall parking lot and raced to Macy’s. Time for emergency shopping!

Elaine and I raced to the women’s petite section and she desperately pulled everything in her size off the rack.

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Elaine makes a face of desperation as we emergency shop

The second dress she tried on was perfect. She grabbed some gold stud earrings off a kiosk and then it was my turn. I needed slacks, a sport jacket, a tie, a shirt and a belt. Luckily we’d packed our shoes in the suitcase. We ran to the mens’ section but both of us were lost, so we asked for assistance. We told the nice woman who helped us that we were on our way to Pennsylvania and just now realized we’d forgotten our formal wear.

“What?” She said. “You know, I’m angry at you! How could you do that?”

“We have a 2-year-old. She threw a tantrum.”

“Stop right there. I forgive you. Mine’s 4. Let’s go find you an outfit.”

Elaine and the saleswoman worked together to pick out my clothes and it was perfection. The suit fit perfectly and matched Elaine’s dress. She then told us to hold onto the tags so we could return everything which didn’t feel right to me.

“You didn’t hear it from me,” the saleswoman said, “But people do it all the time. Besides, in your case it’s a toddler-related emergency. Don’t worry about it.”

We bought the clothes, drove the rest of the way to the hotel, checked in, got dressed and made it right at the end of the cocktail hour. But we had to stop and take a picture, of course. I mean, how many times does something crazy like this happen? And we did look good for being dressed almost completely off the rack. My wife looked especially hot.

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Off the rack, baby!

I don’t know how many times we told the story, but it got huge laughs including from the bride and groom.

“You see how much we love you?” We joked. “This is what we do for you!”

It was a beautiful reception, two cultures (Indian and Chinese) coming together to form a brand new one just as Elaine (Latina) and I (Jewish) had 8 years prior. We ate and danced all while making sure not to mess up our clothes.

The following day we made a pitstop at Indian Echo Caverns which was just 20 minutes from the hotel and got to marvel at some of nature’s beauty. As I looked at the glistening stalactites and stalagmites, crystal-embedded limestone and underground lakes, I forgave my daughter for her last-second tantrum and imagined taking her to and sharing with her such a wondrous place as Echo Caverns. There’s something about appreciating each moment with your child, about not wanting them to reach the next phase in life, but there’s also something about wanting them to reach that point where they excitedly look at the green, blue, red, white rock formations just beneath a parking lot. I can’t wait to see the awe in her eyes when she sees something like this:

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An underground lake at Indian Echo Caverns

But that’s still 1-2 years away.

What amazes me most is how I handled the situation. No I wasn’t happy, but for some reason anxiety did not grasp my chest and leave me incapacitated. In the past I would have been reduced to jelly. I probably wouldn’t have been able to drive and it’s quite possible we never would have been there to witness our friends’ nuptials because my parents would have had to drive out to Jersey City to take my shaking, stuttering self home. But this time laughed at the ludicrousness of our predicament. This time I emergency-shopped. I problem-solved. And when we reached Queens on the way home, we dropped in at Macy’s and returned just about everything. The dress stays. Elaine’s just way too gorgeous in it.

So I forgive Sienna for being 2 and throwing a tantrum and forcing us to forget to bring our formal wear to a wedding 3 and a half hours away. I can’t be angry with her, especially since we avoided a potential fiasco and I proved to myself that I am indeed improving in the mental health department. I might not be exactly where I want to be, but I can’t refute facts.

Besides, she gave us a great story to tell.

The Fault In My Stars

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Lorne Jaffe

I watched The Fault in Our Stars last night and then couldn’t fall asleep until the morning’s wee hours. Not because the movie got to me. I’m always able to distance myself from film, television and literature and found, well, faults in the cinematic adaptation of John Green’s terrific novel. While the movie opens with a voiceover of Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley in yet another wonderful performance) telling us cancer is real and unpolished, not like what we see in theaters, the movie ironically lacks that authenticity and instead feels glossy and melodramatic despite great acting. I blame the score and part of the script, but I digress.

Yet my mind spun all night. I’m not a hypochondriac, but I’m the type of person who feels an ache and immediately thinks cancer, like I’m just waiting for that bombshell. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a parent of a dying child, but I couldn’t. I’m unable to do hypotheticals. I’m unable to invent feelings. I feel what I feel when I feel it even if it’s irrational or circumspect or all out wrong. It’s something my therapist and I argue about on a consistent basis. She asks me to imagine being happy, but I don’t know how to do that. So I couldn’t conjure up what a parent of a child with cancer might endure just as I’m unable to picture myself losing an arm in a shark attack. But I could put words to it: devastation, heartbreak, fear, loss, agony, self-pity, rage.

And that made me think of Oren Miller, the founder of the Facebook Dad Bloggers site, the man known as a Blogger and a Father, and the person who by welcoming me into the group as a writer and friend somehow changed the course of my life. Oren went into the hospital for back pain, what he thought was a muscle strain. It’s something we all experience at one time or another. Some weird pain that won’t go away. Some don’t worry. Others like me automatically think cancer! I don’t know what Oren thought when he went to the hospital for his mysterious pain, but I’m sure he didn’t envision a diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer and a prognosis of maybe a year left to be with his wife and two kids and friends and pets and trees and beauty and sadness and the world that he’s known all his life. How can you predict that even if you’re like me and expect the worst?

In what can only be described as gorgeous, Oren laid bare his soul about the horrors he’s facing, the positive attitude he’s taking (or trying to take), the epiphany he had 4 years prior about being so worried and annoyed and uncomfortable that he didn’t realize he was having the time of his life. Read his words. Are they beautiful? Heart-wrenching? There’s no doubt they are and the dad blogger community came out in droves to support him. Brent Almond of Designer Daddy started a fundraiser with the meager goal of raising $5,000 which was blown away in a matter of hours. Weeks later more than $30,000 is there for the Millers and a new goal of $35,000 has been set. I have no doubt it will be surpassed. More than 40 dads blogged about Oren, his leadership, his friendship, his fight. I did so myself. John Kinnear of Ask Your Dad Blog wrote about Oren and the fundraiser for Lifetime Moms. Carter Gaddis of Dadscribe covered us dads rallying around Oren for Today.com. Even the Chicago Tribune profiled our rally and Oren’s fight. Men left and right shed tears as words poured from our hearts onto the screen.

But still…

I can’t imagine what Oren’s going through. What is it like to be 40ish, have a beautiful wife, 2 amazing children, a dream house and be told that cancer’s eating you alive so quickly that you might have one year left on this planet? Is there something wrong with me that I’m unable to feel what my good friend Oren is feeling? Does it mean I can’t empathize?

This is what kept me up last night. I lay in bed in darkness, at times feeling Elaine’s body heat when she rolled close to me or I close to her, trying to imagine those words: “You have a year to live.” Trying to imagine the ravaging mental and physical pain. Trying to feel. How would I react if got such news? Would I shatter like stained glass dropped from a rooftop? Would I put on a brave face and walk into battle, head held high. Would I sit alone in a room, shunning my loved ones as my father’s late friend did when he learned he had cancer? I don’t have a clue. I don’t have answers. And I feel like an awful person because of it.

I love Oren. I’ve met him once in person, but I love him because his friendship opened up a world of possibilities to me. And I’m scared for him, for his family, for myself. I want to run down to Baltimore and be with him. I want to cry, but no tears come because I can’t imagine what Oren’s life is now like.

I tossed and turned trying to envision myself hearing that Sienna might die from cancer, that I’m suddenly thrown into a world of chaos, machines, life support, chemo, pain, pain, excruciating pain. I can say the words, but I can’t feel them. Does it make me a bad person that I can’t answer the hypotheticals? That I can’t see beyond my own damn eyes? That my brain, my selfishly depressed mind, can’t see past my own irrationally fractured stars?

And that I can’t even imagine hypothetical happiness outside of empty words and phrases?

My therapist would say that I’ve only reinforced my negativity throughout this post with words like “can’t” but I’m not sure how else to ask these questions and demonstrate what I am, who I am…currently.

The Fault in Our Stars wanted to show cancer unblemished by Hollywood. The book succeeded, in my opinion. The movie failed.

Oren Miller isn’t living a movie or a book. He’s living his life. His real life. His real life with stage 4 lung cancer that’s spread to his brain. He’s fighting a real battle.

And as much as I want to, I can’t visualize it or feel what it’s like.

What does that say about me?