It is all about the flip flops
My daughter and I did something interesting together today. We chose a child to sponsor through Compassion International. I have a friend from college that works for them full-time, traveling around the U.S. and to Compassion Sites in needy countries to make all of us aware of the thousands of children who need our help. I have wanted to sponsor a child since I was a little girl (see Life on Essex post), but I have just never taken the time to do it.
So, Reagan and I decided that we would look at all of the girls that were her age and were needing sponsors. We didn’t even make a dent in the six year old list when Reagan had made her decision. She chose Edinah who lives in Tanzania, Africa and it was because she liked her flip flops! I had tried my best to explain to Reagan why I wanted us to do this together and that I had committed to give up my three daily Diet Dr. Pepper fountain drinks to cover the monthly sponsorship. We talked about what she could do around the house to earn money each month to go towards our sponsorship as well. I was glad that she chose Edinah, as she lives in a country that is suffering so much from the AIDS virus and Edinah also has asthma. So I felt like we had found the child for us. We looked at pictures of Tanzania and the mud huts with thatched roofs that they live in and Reagan ask if we could send her a High School Musical CD. Oh, this is going to be such a great learning experience for her! So we printed out two copies of Edinah’s profile and put one on the refrigerator and Reagan took one to her room. I was pleased with the time that we had spent on-line talking about how other children are not as fortunate as she is and that there is something that we can do to help them.
So, as I was making dinner I ask Reagan about what she thought about what we did today. Her response was this, “If I can’t send her a CD…could I send her another pair of flip flops, because it looks like she likes them”? So, I am thinking that flip flops will me sent at some point. I know this is not only going to be a huge learning experience for Reagan, but also for myself. It was sweet then at dinner tonight when Reagan said the blessing and added another name to the list of people that she prays for. She prayed for Edinah.
What if?
After rereading my last post several times, I realized that there was some pretty heavy duty stuff there. So I have set about trying to stop and be still several times a day. Then I write down the thoughts that I have that come from that. And do you know what has come up? Nothing but, “Man, I have a lot of emotions buried in here! No wonder your exhausted, your caring around years of feelings”. Okay, so maybe the first step is to recognize that there is alot there. I thought I already knew that, but we’ll go with it. The question I always go back to is what has made me a runner?
I had a situation happen in my life this week, that I didn’t even give thought to it and bam I was running away at full speed. Not until someone ask me, “how is that so easy for you to deal with”, did I realize that I had ran. It is that automatic for me. It is almost like my motto is ”Problem-Solution-Done”. That does not leave much room for feeling anything. So, it appears to the outside world that you really have a handle on your emotions, (ex. how is that so easy for you?) because you are able to deal with things in such an orderly fashion. When the truth is you have dealt with nothing, but made a swift exit. Maybe that is it, maybe I want to appear to have a handle on my emotions and that I am in control of the situation and by all means I don’t need anyone’s help to deal with it. Asking for help? Are you crazy? That would mean you were weak and didn’t have it all under control. Now I feel like I am getting somewhere.
I come from a family of folks that need to appear to have it all together and never ask anyone (even eachother) for help. We have faced lifes greatest challenges with a great handle on our emotions and in an orderly fashion, indiviually. A friend of mine wrote down his feelings after attending my father’s visitation service when he died eight years ago. This friend has know me and my family very well for many years and I thought his insight was spot on. He wrote:
“Standing in line watching Tiffany tonight was like watching someone greet guests at a dinner party. There she was with that smile on her face being so gracious and attentive to whomever she was talking too. You never would have guessed that her dead father’s body lay two feet behind her. It was like watching her go into the zone of ‘I can handle this, so that my emotions don’t make you uncomfortable’. Never thinking that these hundreds of people were here to support her in her grief, it was as if she was supporting them in their’s. I was surprised that when she saw me in line, our eyes met, and she began to shake her head no. I didn’t know if it was “no, I don’t want to see you” or what she was feeling that made her shake her head at me. She gestered to me to skip through the line and when I got to her, she hugged me and began to weep as she should have been doing all along. The “no” was ‘I can’t put on like this anymore, please help me’.”
My friend was right that I was so far from dealing with the present that I went into autopilot. If the sudden death of my own father does not shake me out of my autopilot of “show no emotion”, then I have got a long road ahead of me. I could write it off saying that I was in shock at the time, but the thing is that I really never let the loss hit me. Oh, I have had my moments of tears, but not a season of grief. I would not even know how too! The only reason that I was able to let my feelings show to him, was that there was a long relationship of trust there and I knew it didn’t matter how I acted…he was there for me.
I have noticed lately that I am so ‘put off’ by people that ‘put on’. But, the thing is that I do the same thing. I may not put on outwardly with the happy, happy, smile, smile – but I still put on inwardly by not feeling whatever it is that I feel in a particular situation. It has gotten to the point that it is frustrating me. Why am I this way? What is wrong with me? Am I cold hearted? How do I tap into my emotions? I am beginning to think that I fear tapping into them, because what if tapping into them caused me to lose control over them? What if I become an emotional, weeping, crying, wailing mess on the floor? What if I lose my grip of keeping it together? What would happen if I felt…out of control? Control, control, control….the root of it all.
Can I Handle the Sandpaper?
“There can be no resolution leading to growth until the present situation has been faced completely and you have opened to it with mindfulness, allowing the roughness of the situation itself to sand down your own rough edges”.
- excerpt from Wherever You Go There You Are
There is no doubt that I am a runner. I wish that I could say that I was a physical runner, but I am not. I am a runner from my emotions. It is not all emotions, just ones that are painful, confusing, or too complicated to think through quickly. I am not one that likes to “sit” with my emotions, it makes me uncomfortable. Everyone that knows me well, knows that I am a runner and at one time or another they have pointed it out to me. I used to try to explain it away with the idea that “I like change” or “I just don’t see the point in bathing myself in how I feel”. The thing is that the emotions that I avoid, are just like how the quote above describes them…the edges are rough.
When you sand down the edges of something, you are actually removing layers of whatever it is that you don’t want to be there. You are looking for what is beneath that is clean and not covered over. Removing layers of built up emotions is the same thing. You are looking for what is beneath that is clean and not covered up by past experiences. You are looking to find what is really there.
But the idea of letting the situation that you are in be the sandpaper is beyond my comprehension. And that is where the runner in me comes in. When you hurt you get out of the situation, change things, look forward not back, but by all means…you move. You don’t just stay in the situation and let the roughness of it sand down your edges. Just that sentence sounds painful. Runners have to get away, move onto other experiences, fill their mind with other things and eventually convince themselves that they have stuffed what they were running from down where it will never be seen again.
But, I know that it will be seen and felt again. I have spent most of my life running, changing, fixing, going with plan B, C, D. And to be honest it has not worked for me. I have brought all of my past hurts, disappointments, failures and pain right along with me. And every year the load gets heavier and heavier. Even numbing myself to the situation and throwing my hands in the air to surrender, does not make me face the feelings. I know that is why I am in this small town that I hate. (see earlier post) I am here and I have no exit out. If I will be open with mindfulness to it, this is the place where the roughness of the situation could sand down my rough edges.
We don’t understand that it is actually possible to attain clarity, understanding, and transformation right in the middle of what is here and now, however problematic it may be.
So, I guess the first question is why do I run? I don’t know that there is a simple, clear cut answer. I think it really comes down to not knowing how to deal with those emotions any other way. I think it comes from how I was taught to deal with emotions and the messages that were sent to me when I tried to deal with them in different ways. At least now I have enough clarity or maturity to look back and pin point the moments that I made the decision to run. Some situations were not that affected by my decision to run and then there are others that changed the course of my life and who I have become. Running can have monumental consequences. At least in my life it has.
The second question would be how do I stop running? I must admit that I am tired. My insides feel like they have layers and layers of emotions that have built up. Talking about them doesn’t seem to do anything, because I end up talking about the experience and not the feelings that it left me with. Seeing the experience for what it really was and in certain instances the good that came from it, does not necessarily release the emotions of it either. I think I need a good punching bag. I could tape the experience and the emotions to it and just beat it to shreads. That would feel good I am sure, but would it rid me of the layers?
I must say that I have made some headway. In the past I was so hell bent on not letting anyone see my emotions that I would mask my feelings from everyone around me. I would not give myself the opportunity to even feel anything, because I had to appear to happy, happy, fine, fine. That approach I have let go of. I am better able to be who I am in the moment now and not pretend otherwise. This makes some people uncomfortable, because they are accustom to me being “on” all the time. But, they have learned to deal with it.
But still, even if you are not pretending, it does not mean you are exposing the rough edges to sandpaper. That looks to be a deliberate act that you are continually conscious of. And that would require a runner to slow down, stop and be still. Have you ever tried to sandpaper something that is moving? Probably does not result in a pretty outcome.
So there you go. I know what I need to do and why I need to do it, or actually must do it. But can I and more importantly…will I? I don’t know. I think I will have to get to the being still before I can prepare myself for the sandpaper.
FICA and I
There are so many funny stories that my best friend Christie could tell on me. Maybe I can get her to write a blog post sometime. I doubt it though, since she just realized last week that I even have a blog.
Here is our conversation on the phone:
Me- “Hey, you need to read the 11 years of marriage post that I put on my blog. (Being that she was my maid of honor, I thought she might enjoy it.)
Her- “Your what”?
Me- “My blog, don’t you read it? The link is below my signature on my emails”.
Her- “Oh, is that what that is”? “I always wondered why you had that there”.
Yes, she is a natural blond. And even though we are 34, she is still blond as can be and has never even had highlights done. That is a true blue, to the root- blond. I wasn’t really surprised that she had not known what the web address was for, but it still made me laugh.
Christie and I lived in a townhouse together the year before I got married. She had graduated from college and had started her first year, teaching first grade. I had taken my first “real” job. Before I had always worked for my Dad’s business or not made enough money to have multiple items withdrawn from my pay check…ie taxes. I had lived a very “financially sheltered” life we will call it. Really, I was spoiled rotten and my Dad took care of everything and my parents never made me get a job. God Bless him, the man wanted to give me everything in life and he did. But I have realized as I have aged, that his generosity kept me from learning real life lessons when I should have. So, in this situation I had to learn them as they came.
I can remember sitting on our couch in our living room, holding my first real paycheck in utter disgust. I knew how much I was paid an hour and I knew how many hours I had worked and it just didn’t add up. There were all these other “things” that were subtracting money from the total. And the total didn’t look so great then. Christie walks in the door from a week of screaming first graders and I scream at her, “Who the hell is FICA and why are they taking my money? I don’t know anyone named FICA, do I”? As if “knowing them” would make it make sense. After she picked her laughing butt up off of the floor she proceeded to tell me what (and who) FICA was and I was then laughing and mad that FICA took so much of my paycheck. I can’t really get embarrassed in front of Christie, because she knows me like the back of her hand. But that day I was embarrassed that no one had ever taught me this, and that I was 22 and was just now getting my first pay check that qualified for FICA.
Oh, we have laughed 100 times about that story and I always want to be present when she tells it to someone else so that I can see their reaction. That is one thing that was instilled in me, the ability to always laugh at yourself. And when that story is told I laugh every time.
Life on Essex Street
I had what I consider to be one of the best childhood’s possible. My childhood was filled with so much fun and so few worries. Today, neighborhoods are cut into pieces as each house has a six foot privacy fence. Kids are no longer allowed to roam and play in the neighborhood, as we were. Parent’s fears of what our world has become keep kids inside more and outside less. It is a sad fact, but a very real one.
I have always wanted to write about the fun of my childhood, because I have such wonderful memories. It is still so real to me, that I actually can still smell it. I know that sounds strange, but I can still smell the freshness of the morning, when I would first run outside and there was still dew on the grass. I love that smell. In the summer, I basically lived outside. From after breakfast until dinner I was on the go and my imagination was free to create anything that it wanted. Then after dinner it was back outside until bedtime. Days were filled with being barefoot, playing baseball, lemonade stands, playing capture the flag, bee stings, scraped knees and tree climbing.
I was lucky enough to live in a house next door to a family that had ten kids. It was a dream! Being that my brothers were so much older than me, I didn’t have a sibling to play with. But my neighbors were even better. There was always someone to play with and so many fun things to play. If one of the kids made me mad, I just went and found their brother or sister!
One summer, we came up with the great idea to build a two story tree house by ourselves (imagination in action) and so off we went to do it. I think we gave up after nailing two boards together with 20 nails, but it was fun anyway. We also decided to have a lemonade stand one afternoon and use the money to sponsor a child in Africa. Those were the days when you could not watch a TV program without Sally Struther’s appearing, asking you to sponsor a child. So we set up our lemonade stand and waited for customers. I am sure that we were selling the sour drink for a nickel a cup, but our first customer pulled up in a long black limo. We were speechless! They bought two cups of lemonade and gave us five dollars! We were on our way! The five dollars went into our glass mason jar and we continued with the fun. I must be honest and say that we never did sponsor a child from Africa, but at least our initial intentions were good. I can’t even remember what happened to the money. We probably used it to buy ice cream when the ice cream truck came through the neighborhood.
We had what I think was the best playhouse, or as we considered it our clubhouse. When I was five, my Dad came home one day with a wooden caboose. It had been used at College of the Ozarks, as part of the train that took visitors around the campus. It was a great clubhouse! All the kids on our street spent many hours in that caboose having club meetings, using it as “center of operations” when we would play army and it made a great hide and seek spot. That caboose is over fifty years old, but it now sits in my backyard for my daughter to play in. I hope that it brings her the hours of fun and memories that it gave me.
I will share a few other vivid memories of my ten friends that lived next door. Being that my birthday is in January, I remember having many of my birthday parties canceled because of snowstorms. One such year, my mom called our neighbor’s and invited all the kids to come to the party and not to worry about bringing a gift. Before I knew it they were in our living room and each of them had brought a gift. They had wrapped something of their own and gave it to me. I will never forget that birthday and how nice it was to have all of them there. There was one summer that was not so much fun. First, I broke my neighbor Justin’s nose with a croquet mallet. Yes, I broke it. My mother heard the “crack” from inside! I had never played croquet and I thought you swung the mallet like a golf club. Justin was standing in just the wrong place and bam I hit him right in the nose. I felt horrible and he had to wear a metal plate on his nose the whole summer. Soon after, Alex and I were playing our usual games on their trampoline. At this age we had no fear and had done this hundred’s of times, but this time it had more painful consequences. We would climb up the tree that was with in reach of the trampoline and then jump down on the tramp from the tree limb. Usually this resulted in a super high bounce that was so much fun. So, on this particular day Alex took his turn and jumped from the tree and hit the tramp. This time, the bounce sent him in the air out over the tramp and he landed flat on the ground! He broke both legs, both arms, his collarbone and a few ribs. He spent the whole summer in a body cast and it was a bummer. The trampoline stayed, but we never climbed the tree again.
I wonder what those old neighbors of mine are doing these days? We moved from that house when I was thirteen and took the caboose with us. I wonder if when they watch their children playing outside they remember all of the fun that we had so many years ago? We were very lucky kids to have had so much fun and so few concerns.
An Unexpected Gift
I have one relationship in my life that is different than any other. It’s existence has had a greater impact on my life and the enjoyment of life than few others have. The thing is I have only been in the presence of this person a few times. Actually just two times over a period of a week, but the feelings that I have for this person grow every day. This person is my daughter’s birth mother. We met her in the hospital, two days after she had given birth and the baby was still in the NICU. I have never been so nervous to meet someone in my entire life. It was a blind date that decided our fate!! We knew that she had chosen us to parent her child, but that was just on paper. What would she think of us in person? What if we said something that offended her and she changed her mind? How could we be sensitive to what she was going through without it seeming like we thought we knew what she was going through?
All of my fears were erased when I walked in the room and we met each other’s eyes. As we both cried and tried to introduce ourselves, I knew that she had made her decision and I didn’t need to worry. We got to see her again later that week, as we were getting ready to take our daughter home the next day. She brought presents for the baby and for us, which was beyond what I could imagine. As we made small talk about how well the baby was doing and how much she had grown, we all knew what was coming. How do you say thank you and goodbye to someone who has just blessed you with the most amazing gift? There are no words in the English language that are sufficient for it. We had agreed to write letters twice a year to her and send them through the agency, so we knew we could communicate in that way. But none of it felt like enough.
I remember in those first months thinking about her all the time. I worried about how she was doing, if she had enough support, and if she regretted her decision. Every parent wants to be the best parent they can be for their children. Sometimes I wonder if other adoptive parents feel like I do, in that you want to do your best job for the birth-parents too. It isn’t like a dark cloud that hangs over your head, but there are moments that I feel like I am mothering for both of us. My family thinks I am strange, that I put unneeded pressure on myself in this way. I just don’t think until you have had someone hand you there flesh and blood and say ” I trust you with this precious life” can you really understand the feeling.
So six years have passed and we have sent letters and packages and she has done the same. She is doing extremly well and has gone on to get married and have two more children. She is a precious person that always reminds us that “she prays for us everyday” and “how blessed she feels that we were brought into her life”. She is amazing. And with our sharing of stories of our children and how much we love this six year old girl, we have formed a relationship that is so dear to me. It is one that I guard with my heart and hold very close.
I never imagined that I would feel this way towards my daughter’s birth-mother. I was afraid of open adoption. I thought that it would just keep the loss and pain in the forefront of their minds. I have learned otherwise. In our situation, the letters and pictures ease that loss and pain and bring her a sense of peace. And I get a sense of peace as well, when I hear how she is doing.
I don’t know if our daughter will want to meet her birth-mother one day. That will be her decision to make. But I know for myself, I would treasure just a moment to share with her, in person, what she has come to mean to me. I would tell her that I not only think of her as the woman who gave my daughter life, but I also think of her as a very special friend. A friend who holds a piece of my heart…that is her’s alone.
