Burnt Toast

I realized halfway through my “breakfast” that I was eating burnt toast.  I feel justified about putting the word “breakfast” in quotations because it’s not really even a shadow of that meal I used to know in which I could sit quietly at a table and read something and think about how Joni Mitchell turned an absolutely perfect phrase when she wrote about how, in the morning, the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all her senses.

Instead, I now stand up during the event, delivering sippy cups and retrieving spoons from the sticky floor and fielding constant demands for more or less of everything and anything a toddler might desire.

So, the toast was burnt and that wasn’t going to change because I didn’t actually have time to taste the piece I was eating anyway, let alone make a new one.  And that is my life right now, a mom of 3 kids aged 3 and under.  The burnt toast phenomenon  somehow seems like a perfectly appropriate metaphor.

The Moon

Kids finally in bed, I fled the house for a bottle of wine, a Red Box and some cake sold in a plastic to-go container in the bakery of a grocery store.  I wasn’t sure if it would be a date with my husband or just myself, but I was a bit desperate to distinguish this Friday night from every other exhausted night of the week.

S0, in the middle of nowhere special (look up the phrase in a dictionary and you’ll see a photo of a suburban strip mall parking lot), I glanced up and saw

the moon.

The air was a fresh, white sheet snapping in my lungs and the sky was black around this serene celestial body.

And reflexively, the gasp of a drowning person momentarily bobbing above the thrashing, sucking ocean,

a sob caught in my throat by virtue of the pure stillness and silence of that round orb.

You can’t beat a mother’s love…or her cancer.

It’s been about 9 months since my last post.  Typing that reminds me of the opening lines to a confession, “Father, it’s been one week since my last confession.”  In a way, this is post is a confession.  As was my habit when I was a more active blogger, I’m writing about something I don’t know if I could share if I weren’t anonymous because part of me is so completely ashamed about how selfish I feel.

To get to the point, I’ll fast forward through the last 9 months of our life.  When you last left us, we had a 19-month old daughter and were in the process of adopting another child from Africa.  Bumpy ride down a very winding road, we received word from our lawyer about a little girl who was available for adoption.  We decided to move forward to adopt her and the same week discovered I am pregnant.  Weeks later a toddler, a pregnant lady and her husband are getting shots for tropical diseases, buying mosquito netting and wrapping up our life to spend what could be weeks or even months in Africa going through the process of obtaining permission from their courts and from our Embassy to bring our baby home.

One long ride on a plane with a highstrung toddler and a nauseous pregnant lady, a beautiful but worrisome first meeting with our newest family member who was battling pneumonia, a series of crazy but grace-filled interactions with one foreign bureaucracy and another not-so-foreign, a memorable 2nd birthday and a 32nd birthday celebrated in Africa, 2 tummies full of parasites, a tuberculosis scare, some very graphic encounters with death, some absolutely wonderful encounters with African wildlife and people, a miraculously short (just shy of a month) process in country, and another absolutely exhausting trip on a plane to go home– this time with one baby with explosive diapers, one toddler with explosive emotional episodes and a pregnant lady always on the verge of explosive vomiting– brings us back to the US to adjust to being a family of 4 (soon to be 5).

In fact, there’s been no time where we could even say that we’re just expecting our second child.  The next gasping breath always contains the news that I’m pregnant with our third as well.  6 months later, and we haven’t quite caught our breath yet.

But here I am, one day away from my due date, with two beautiful but still needy daughters, aged 14 months and 2 1/2 years, clamoring for my attention and space on my lap.  I’m afraid to fully process the reality of three children, aged 2 and under.  Will I have enough patience, sleep, room in my arms, tolerance for bodily fluids and poopy diapers and whining and crying kids, emotional and physical fortitude to do this?

So last night in bed, right before we gleefully hoped to surrender to sleep, my husband and I get into a conversation about this very restful and relaxing topic:  his mother’s cancer treatment.  She’s scheduled her stem cell therapy, which involves a 6 week stay at the Mayo Clinic requiring her to schedule at least one caretaker who can be there with her each day she’s there.

So here’s where the confession begins.  Here’s where my selfishness starts to rear its ugly head.  We knew she was considering this therapy and when she had mentioned scheduling it for April, we had a few conversations about how we would like to be more involved but that it would be a difficult time for our family to travel to be with her as caretakers since the baby is also due this month.  I guess I hoped that, if she wanted us to be involved,  she’d schedule the procedure for a different time (she has the option of doing it anytime in the next few years, depending on her success with chemo and other options).   Or perhaps that she’d be able to rely on any number of other caregivers.

I can’t remember if I’ve shared this before or not, but my husband and his mother have an unusually close relationship.  They are two peas in a pod, remarkably similar and therefore able to understand and accept each other like few other people would be.  In her eyes, he would do no wrong.  Literally.  At one point, I had a conversation with her in which we were talking about her view of him.  She said, “I know he could do wrong.  I just don’t think he does.”  She was totally serious.  To her, all of his jokes are funny, all of his motives are pure, his big, man feet are rub-able (even with socks off) and his hairy back is infinitely scratch-able.  How can any wife ever hope to live up to that kind of love?  How can I ever compete?

And now she has cancer.  She had one successful course of treatment, but her numbers started to creep up again this spring so she’s back on chemo.  Cancer.  It’s a huge word and a life-changing diagnosis.  Mentioning the word requires one to reply with solemn tones and gravitas or tears of sorrow or exclamations of sympathy.  It sucks all the air out of the room.  There’s aren’t a lot of other personal life events that can compete with it.

So I’m 40 weeks pregnant and trying to propel my awkwardly huge and aching body around the house to care for my family and I’m exhausted and I’m battling hormonally-charged emotions and feeling stretched thin as it is, trying not to think too much about the impending reality of a painful childbirth and another helpless human being for which I’ll be responsible.

That brings me again to last night. My husband shares that my mother-in-law has asked him if he wants to come to Mayo to take care of her for at least part of her stay.  Suddenly in bed with us are both my mother-in-law and The Cancer. I want to be the supportive wife and compassionate daughter-in-law who says, “Of course.  Sure.  Go ahead and be with her.”

But all I can think of is how the first two months of a new baby means bloody, seeping body parts, insanity-inducing sleep deprivation and crazy hormone highs and lows.  And then add two nuclear-energized toddlers, both still adjusting to this new family where they are begrudgingly (often aggressively) sharing our attention and energy and demanding time and physical attention that I don’t feel like I have.  How am I supposed to do it alone for several days or a week or longer?  And here’s a thought I can’t believe I’m admitting:  I’m angry that she put him in this position, to choose between us, knowing that her perfect mother’s love and the horrifying reality of cancer will compel him in ways that I can’t.

At this moment in my life, I’m feeling incredibly vulnerable and protective of our time and energy.  I feel like a mama bear getting her den ready to birth a new cub.  All I want to do is create a safe, sheltered, quiet place to bring another creature into the world and then work through the first few months of adjustments as a family.  Everything else seems secondary– even cancer.  And I hate myself for saying that.  It’s selfish and awful and sacrilegious.  But here I am, admitting it in writing.  And that, is why I’m back as Amommymous.

When Responsibility Should Become a Dirty Word

For anyone else who might read this, I apologize in advance for how introspective this entry is.  It’s such deep-in-the-belly-button navel-gazing and lint removal that I’m not sure anyone else wants to go there with me.  I have a feeling maybe one or two of you can relate, though,  so bear (and even bare) with me if you’d like to try.

Monday morning I woke up before the dawn to use the bathroom.  Groggy and teetering on my half asleep legs, I sat on the toilet and a light went on. In my head.  Not an actual light.

My husband and I had a fight the night before on a common theme:  Who would wake up in the morning with our daughter?  My daughter didn’t really start sleeping through the night until she was 15 or 16 months old.  I had been the one who got up to tend to her every hour, two hours or few hours as time went on.  I spent nearly 16 months without a complete night of sleep.  I reached new levels of exhaustion.  Finally, when she did start sleeping through the night, she decided she was a morning person and woke every morning at 5:30.  My husband, good man that he is, took this shift with her until he got ready for work at 6:30 or 7:30 and I had the option to sleep in.  Most mornings, I couldn’t sleep but I just enjoyed the time in bed.

My daughter is now almost 22 months old.  My husband still almost always takes the morning shift.  I let him, and he resents it. I’ll leave the details of the discussion to your imagination, but as I see he is tired and want to give him a break I’ve been asking myself:  Why has it been so important to me?

Monday morning, I understood it in a flash.  That hour in bed is the only time I ever feel like I do not have to be responsible for someone else.  Ever.  When I’m up, even if my husband is home, I feel responsible for making sure daughter’s getting a healthy dinner, getting a bath if she needs one and staying out of danger.  Even if I’m only partially tuned in because my husband is playing with her, I still feel responsible.

I also feel responsible when I go to a dinner party.  Is that person in the corner feeling  included?  Does that girl who had a bit too much to drink have a safe way home? Does the hostess need help?

I feel responsible at church.  Is my daughter being distracting to everyone else?   Is my husband uncomfortable and what should I do about it?  When someone announces some program that needs extra help, I automatically think I should consider it.

I feel responsible when I’m with my family.  Sister needs a babysitter on Monday.  Mother wants to know if I’ll take her to Sam’s Club on Tuesday.  Brother needs my opinion on his difficult relationship.

I feel responsible for the problems and discomforts of almost anyone who will share them with me…well, not directly responsible, but I feel like if I don’t offer an encouraging word or a helping hand that I’m shirking my duty.

Intellectually, I know this is completely out of hand.  It may be obvious to everyone else, but it’s such an innate part of me that I only started to realize recently that I tend to take too much responsibility for everyone and everything.  I take responsibility whether I’m asked to our not.  When I do say “no” I feel guilty about it forever.

I used to love the idea of helping people and making a difference wherever I could.  But as life went on, I found that I would feel overwhelmed easily at the simplest things– someone suggestion of I should host a holiday, helping someone move, volunteering a few hours at a community organization or getting involved in a hurting person’s life.  Worst of all, I’d feel resentful.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, it was just that I could already start to feel all of the potential responsibilities I’d be taking on in each particular scenario.  For a person like me, there are always ENDLESS opportunities in EVERY situation to take on more responsibility.  And did I mention I am a perfectionist?  So nothing can just get done to an acceptable extent.  I  have to do, be, perform exceptionally.    Just the thought of a new activity or new relationship became exhausting.  And so more and more, I wouldn’t take them on.  But then I’d feel horribly ashamed that I didn’t do it.

I know some people don’t believe in birth order theories, but I find it interesting that most of my closest friends are oldest children.  Though it’s considered one of the worst marriage matches in birth order theory,  my husband and I are both oldest children.  My college boyfriend was an oldest child.  My college group of friends consisting of 4-5 girls and 4-5 guys was, with only one or two exceptions,  made up of oldest children or only girls (who also tend to take on a lot of responsibility in the family).  Same with our friends in DC and the friends we’re closest to now.  My small group at church is also comprised almost entirely of oldest children.  Hmmm….

As I crawled back into bed on Monday morning (yes, this all started swirling and taking shape in my head as I was peeing), I realized that the important and lasting relationships in my life are all with people that I don’t feel I have to be responsible for all the time. Other relationships become exhausting or overwhelming too quickly because I simply take on more responsibility than I should.  I think I subconsciously knew that the healthiest friendships for me would be with those who would take on responsibility for starting/continuing conversation, planning and initiating get togethers and caring for each other just as much as I would.

Woah.  Major life breakthrough for me.  Why do I do this? There are lots of reasons for it.  I’m the oldest of five children and have been responsible to some degree for caring for my siblings since I was seven years old.  We went through a trauma as a family when I was 13 and our lives imploded and I felt like I had to make sure everyone was okay.   I’ve been doing it ever since.

But more important than WHY is the question of what I’m going to DO with this now?  It actually is extremely liberating to understand why I was starting to feel so exhausted or overwhelmed over the last couple of years.  After I became a mom, it simply became too much to try to take on excess responsibility in other arenas of my life and I was feeling guilty about it.  Now, I know what to look for when I feel myself feeling guilty or resentful when people ask me to take on something.  What responsibilities do I think I’m taking on?  What responsibilities are they actually asking me to take on?  What responsibilities do I actually want or need to take on?  What responsibilities do I think I can realistically handle?  It’s all about simple boundaries.

Yeah, seems pretty easy, right?  We’ll see!  Check in with me in a month.    But you know how I’ve been talking about freedom for the last couple of weeks?  I have a feeling this concept has a lot to do with it for me.

Fairies, Cows and Gazelles

A flitty, fluttery summer shirt- it’s the color of the tenderest and palest of plant shoots.  Barefeet.  Jeans, well-worn and rolled mid-calf.  It’s an airy, fairy day and I am lighter inside and out.

It’s a feeling I’m savoring because generally, I’d more likely be given a label of “womanly” than “dainty.”  So, I’m enjoying feeling like the Mother Earth version of the garden fairies…..

from Katie Tegtmeyer's Photostream

until I meet up with my sister, at which point any lightness promptly disappears.  My airy fairy wings suddenly feel incapable of supporting the weight of my non-anorexic frame and I am plunged to the ground.

I have two younger sisters.  Both sisters have small frames, one is 5’4″ and probably weighs 95  lbs and the other is maybe 5’6″ and 120.    I’m almost 5’10″ and weigh close to 160 lbs.  I’m taller than my dad, mom, aunts, cousins and grandmothers.  My body rounds like my mother’s and her side of the family who descended from softer and curvier  Scandinavian ancestors who tended the stoves and milked the cows in the dead of the Midwestern winter when “wispy” would not have served them well.  My sisters are built like my dad, his mother a petite Italian woman and his father a small and spry man descended from angular Brits (dad’s family pictured here).

Technically, my body type is more feminine,  I reason to myself.  When it comes to feeling sexy and beautiful to straight men, shouldn’t “womanly” be an appealing descriptor?  Shouldn’t a softer body be more likely to satisfy?  Yet I’ve spent my whole adult life feeling the opposite, wanting to diminish the curves developing.  Even after I gave birth to my daughter, when the curves have taken on even more prominence, I feel less desirable even though, in biological terms, my recent accomplishment should have proven my desirability as a mate.

from dichohecho's photostream

Beyond just the prevailing cultural pressures to look a certain (less womanly)  way, it’s difficult to literally be the misfit (def. to fit badly)  in my family.  Though my sisters regularly express envy about the supremacy of certain voluptuous features, I somehow can’t shake the feeling that I’m the heavier, plodding cow in a field of gazelles.

from Paul Mannix's photostream

I know that there are many deeper and more enduring characteristics to cherish and cultivate.  And my husband extends valiant efforts to convince me that I have the best possible body type in his mind.  Yet in this particular instance, logic does not win to convince me to appreciate my body or be happy just the way I am.

Instead, I’ve become a slave to comparison thinking, unable to be happy with myself unless I measure up to a standard that it is impossible for any one person to measure up to.  I may have a perfectly beautiful bust line, but if my waist doesn’t dip in as deeply as my sister’s, I’m dissatisfied.  My eye color may be the envy of my best friend, but I can’t appreciate it because I wish my eyebrows arched a bit more like hers.  And in obsessing over one “flaw” or another, I’m distracted from enjoying good company.  And when I feel like I don’t quite measure up, I’m sometimes even deterred from engaging in certain activities that make life better and fuller.   I can’t truly enjoy the life I was given because I’m so busy wishing for something else.

It’s absolutely ridiculous to pick apart one’s body in order to evaluate which parts are good enough and which ones you’d like to “trade up” for a better model.  Just like with choosing a mate, we can’t look over the whole population and pick and choose one characteristic that suits us from one person and another favorite from a different person until we piece together the perfect human.  I wouldn’t encourage this kind of thinking in my daughter, instead I try to teach her that each person is unique and beautiful in their own way and that we need to appreciate the differences.  Why can’t I learn the principle I espouse?

So I’m making a change.  I’m not going to be enslaved to comparison thinking anymore.  I’m resolving to escape this madness.  Apparently, when we get into the pattern of thinking a certain way, we actually re-wire our brains to follow those same neuro-pathways every time a particular thought comes up.  For me, I can’t think about my body without going down some awful path of comparison thinking.  So, the goal is to forge a new path.

No more will I immediately start comparing myself with every other woman in the room when I walk into a new place.  I’m not going to let myself add self-hating conversation to the  “I’m so….” lamentations that inevitably arise when women gather over a bottle of wine or an ice cream treat.  I’m going to take note of the way my body works and serves to bring joy, functioning exactly as it should, to cuddle with my daughter, stroll around the lake, make love to my husband, dance spontaneously.  Every time I hear my own voice cutting myself down, I’m going to silence it and quickly remember that life is a gift and this is the only body I’ll have, so I might as well be grateful and enjoy it.  I’m going to think about the uniqueness of each human being and how that uniqueness is what fits us for the our special purpose in life.  And perhaps most of all, I’m going to remind myself that I was created  in the image of God, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and that nothing about the way He created me is a mistake.

A Pink Cadillac

I saw a woman flying down a freeway exit ramp in a supremely classic and creamy-dreamy, retro, pink cadillac today.  She had the look of freedom on her face.  I couldn’t help but think that was exactly why she bought that particular car. She could see herself in it as it whisked her away to a great escape, free from the constraints of her everyday Toyota Camry lifestyle.  Foot-loose and fancy-free.  Free-wheeling.  Free-spirited.  Just free.

from Dovima_is_devine's photostream

I’ve been thinking about that feeling a lot lately.  Can we capture it?  Keep it alive in our lives like we used to try to do with little creatures in buckets as a child?  Is there something we can BUY or DO that gives us that feeling every time?  For some people, it’s a car.  For others, it’s a particularly lovely and magical vacation spot.   Or a  night out with the girls.  Or their feet on the pavement, running really fast.   Or a certain song on the radio, windows open, summer night.

For me, I experience those moments less and less often as time goes on.  I’m trying to understand why.  That feeling used to sneak up on me like a breeze on my neck.  Suddenly I’d be aware of it, awakening my senses, tickling my skin and inviting me towards something more.  Always more.

As the years go on, I don’t seem to get that sensation as often.  Instead of  a subtle invitation whispering against my neck, what harkens me is a nagging feeling that something has got to get done or that somebody needs my attention, buzzing against me like flies on a horse.  No time to pursue a spontaneous whim or flight of fancy because I’m held captive by the constant tick tock of a to-do list.   When you’re responsible for other people and have bills to pay every month, it’s hard not to live like that.

Yet, we all need freedom to some degree, right?  We can’t live our entire lives bowing to duty and social constraints and obligations.  Yet, it seems rare that a person is able to find freedom for any extended period of time without paying a heavy price.  Look at what happens when women pursue a certain level of personal freedom in most movies (Thelma and Louise, for example):  They let a little too loose and their whole life unravels.  Marriages fall apart.  Jobs are lost.  People get hurt.  Maybe sometimes there’s ultimately a happy ending, but there was a cost.

I tried to re-create this feeling of freedom  a few weeks ago at a girl’s night out.  As you can read in my previous post, it didn’t quite work out.  One night out, and at least two older women in my life expressed concern.  As a mother, it seems particularly difficult to capture a sense of freedom.   I’d love to start a conversation on it.  I invite any who may read this to respond via comment or on your own blog.  When do you feel most free? What’s your favorite way to re-create the feeling?

Given it’s the day after July 4th, I know we’ve all been thinking about freedom in  particular way– and you’re free, of course, to write about that if you’d like.  But I am most interested in a hearing about it in a bit more personal way.  If you do write about it in your own blog, post the link below in the comments.  (I’m not savvy enough to know how to design a great way to do this but I’d love to learn if somebody has an idea.)

Mama Barge

This weekend, I had my first night away from my daughter since she was born in September of 2008.   My girlfriends and I rented a hotel room downtown.  I had planned chocolate-covered strawberries accompanied by sparkling wine and even-more-sparkling conversation effervescing into a night capped by us moving and grooving like carefree, crazy girls on some dance floor.

After extended breastfeeding, the night-out was a celebration of my body being my own again.  I even bought a couple of new bras, one in tiger print and the other in chili pepper red, to replace what has become a sad collection of brave but exhausted brassieres that finally succumbed after surviving both pregnancy and breastfeeding.  I needed something sexier and more whimsical to remind me that I’m more than just a nose and bottom-wiping machine.

I think what I wanted most that night was to remember and bring alive again a different side of myself.  Something about being entirely responsible for another human being….it’s a wonderful gift, but also a sobering reality.  In general, life is weightier with children.  I am anchored by words like  Responsibility.  Consequences.  Schedules.  Routine. Commitment.  They rope around me and hold me firmly so that I can provide a stable and safe environment for a beautiful little creature to harbor.

by Jukka Vuokko

But I do miss taking flight myself.  I miss a life defined by words like Spontaneous. Freedom. Impulse.  Fanciful.  For one evening, I hoped to become acquainted with these words again.

All the right ingredients were there: We danced and sang and laughed a lot.  We made memories.  But I didn’t exactly capture the feeling I was hoping to embrace.  I felt bigger in body and age than almost every other woman we encountered that night.  I resisted being motherly towards my younger sister and cousins, three of whom wear sizes 0-4, and therefore could’ve easily been trampled on the dance floor.  I overheard some twenty-somethings assuring another woman in the bathroom that she looked “amazing!” and that they couldn’t believe she was (gasp) almost 32 years old!  I felt a bit out-of-place waiting in a line outside a dance club while people ten years younger than me strutted past like peacocks showing off their prettiest feathers.  And, after it was all over, I actually got in trouble with one of my best friend’s mom because she didn’t approve of the photos on Facebook (none of which showed me doing anything I wouldn’t want my own daughter to do when she’s of age), which sort of tarnished my memories of the evening because I felt guilty— and I wasn’t even quite sure why.

The truth is that this feeling of being unencumbered is hard to manufacture.  It’s not an outfit (0r a fun tiger-print bra) that one can put on and take off to fit the occasion.  It either comes upon you in an unplanned and fleeting instance like ever-changing light on the shifting waves OR it exists in your life because you’ve trained yourself to continually slough off the burdens of worry and unnecessary obligations so they don’t accumulate like barnacles on a boat.  The latter is something I need to begin practicing because I’m realizing that unless I make an effort, I’m going to spend my life feeling like an old, weathered and barnacled barge which serves a practical purpose but no longer thinks of itself as being fit to skip over cerulean seas towards the sunset and an evening full of romantic adventures.  So I’m going to do what I can to keep that wave-skimming vessel fit for sea.  I don’t exactly know how I’m going to do it, but at 31 I’m too young to be a barge.  Any ideas?

By "Storm Crypt" on flickr

Worms vs. Sun

A few weeks ago I first posted about our adoption journey.  I told the story of how we heard about a little girl who needed a family and had a surprising thing in common with our daughter.  This little girl still isn’t officially available for adoption, so last week, in the middle of all the hubbub surrounding our family reunion, when we were asked to consider pursuing adoption of a brother and sister who needed a home, we excitedly agreed.  And then, it became so real.

Photo owned by D Sharon Pruitt

I belong to an online group of parents and hopeful parents of children from the particular country from which we are adopting.  As soon as I shared the good news about our referral, one of the other women replied with a very detailed account of all of the horrible things she had witnessed at the orphanage in which these children live.  I believe her intent was to raise awareness so that people would feel motivated to help.  I will admit, my initial reaction was fear.

She wrote about a litany of conditions that invariably result where poverty rules–a shortage of staffing, a lack of sanitation, suspected corruption, the survival behavior of children who must fight for the food and attention they need to grow…. I won’t describe the exact details, just in case this blog ever becomes un-anonymous.  I don’t want our future children to ever feel like they have to be ashamed of where they came from or think they are compelled to take on the identify of a victim.

I became fearful of the effect these exposures would have on those children:  The diseases they could contract, the hunger and malnutrition they could suffer, the mental state that could result from not receiving the love and attention a child needs to thrive, the “normal” they’d adjust to, the behaviors they’d learn…..What kind of hope do they have?  How will this horrible beginning affect who they become and what they can do in the future?  How could a parent ever give them enough love and attention to overcome these odds?

What is most difficult for me to admit, though, is that I became (selfishly) fearful of the effect this adoption could have on our family.  As a parent who struggles with perfectionism, I’ve been pretty conscious of what exposures our daughter has.  I’m a bit of a germophobe.  I cringe (hopefully only internally) when another child at the playground or in a playgroup exhibits a naughty behavior my daughter might pick-up.  I try my best to surround her with healthy food choices and non-toxic toys.  When we welcome new children into our home, our hearts and our family, in a way, we will be welcoming everything they bring with them.  Other adoptive parents have told me of stomach and skin bugs, food hording, violent behavior….  I know we will love these children exactly as our own, but I think it will be hard to love the baggage they’ll carry.  Are we strong enough to carry it with them?  Where will we find the wisdom we need to know what to discard and what to embrace?

So where does this leave me?  I’ve been hesitant to share these thoughts with my family and friends because I didn’t want them to question the decision we are making to adopt.  I hope none of you who may read these words would be deterred from adopting.  For all the pain, heartache and trouble that might accompany children (whether they come to us from our wombs or through adoption), they’re always worth it.  The blessings are always greater than the hardships.  But I will share my thoughts here because I need to write my way through them.  I’m bringing them to the light, where it will become clear that fears are only weak, ugly and slimy worms that can squirm their way into my thoughts, but that die when they spend too much time in the Sun.  My mind is fertile soil for Fear Worms, but the light of truth zaps them of their power.

So here they are, my Fear Worms, laying on the public sidewalk– disgustingly writhing and wiggling, trying to make their way out of the Light before it kills them.  I admit it, as this adoption became more real last week, so did my fear.   My mind tends to automatically jump to the worst case scenario and then whirl and spin until I’m thoroughly exhausted. But  I have enough experience with fear to know that I can’t let it control me.  No good comes from succumbing to it.   No right decisions are based on it.

Most important of all, I know the perfect Love that casts out all fear.  It is this Love that reminds me that I was once an orphan who didn’t belong to a family and was covered in filth and disease, weak and vulnerable and unable to save myself.  This Love picked me out of the murky mire, set me on solid ground, bathed me in love and made me clean. Without any fear of the disgusting filth that I carried with me and with which I might contaminate His other sons and daughters or tarnish His kingdom, this Love accepted me exactly as I was into His family and adopted me as His own beloved daughter.  He allows me to share in the inheritance of His own Son, imparts to me His strength and wisdom and instructs me in the ways of His family.

So ultimately, this is the response to my every fear:  Because of what He has done for me, I have what I need to love and care for two children, halfway around the world, that have experienced a hell of their own.

Fire and Ice

I am afraid my little blog has been horribly neglected these last weeks since a family reunion has been the recipient of most of the energy and motivation I would  normally set aside for this hobby.  This leaves me in a classic Catch 22:  Exactly at the time I need most to be writing to sort through the frenzy of family dynamics, I have the least time to do it.  But here (below) are some hasty thoughts sketched together during a break from the action while the uncles (pictured below with Grandma and Grandpa) craft homemade Italian sausage and my daughter naps.

Family lore tells us that my grandparents met when Grandpa was serving in the military in Italy and the troops threw a Christmas party for the orphans of the city.  Since none of the soldiers spoke Italian, they asked a few pretty Italian girls to translate.  My Grandmother was among them and apparently Grandpa asked her back to his place to “look at his Christmas tree.”  (I’m afraid to ask if this is a euphemism.  Knowing my lively and sensual Italian Grandma, she would give me an honest answer whether I liked it or not).

The first half of the story is usually recounted with smiles and winks in convivial moments as a family.  It was a romance worthy of the storybooks.  But the next half of the story is delivered with less pride.  It is told in hushed tones over late-night tables with a bottle of wine and a sense that regrets confessed and pain shared have a better chance at redemption.  The windswept plains of South Dakota and the sultry warmth of the Italian coast would not meet without some earth shaking.  When my grandpa brought grandma home to South Dakota, his stoic Midwestern family coldly rejected her.  I could explain their behavior by setting it in it’s historic context:  Post WWII, Italian-Americans faced considerable bigotry due to Italy’s wartime alliances.  Additionally, grandpa’s family was Protestant and Grandma was Catholic, irreconcilable differences in that era. Historical explanation aside, in reality their behavior just seems cruel and mean-spirited to me.  Still, despite the wars,  (both WWII and the family cultural war) they both made it through the early years and raised three lively sons who married and raised 11 grandchildren.

This brief backstory is important because the coupling of my grandparents and their family histories and culture, one side emotionally reserved and cool-on-the-surface  and the other side expressive and hot-to-the-core, has been repeated in various combinations and degrees by all of their offspring:  my father, uncles, siblings, cousins and myself.  Cold and hot.  Passive and aggressive.  Desiring to have control and desiring to throw caution to the wind.  Toss these ingredients like dice into a shaker and see how many amalgamations you come up with: these are the minerals and nutrients that feed the soil that roots our family tree.

This week, as we reveal our lives over espresso and wine to these relatives that we barely know yet with whom we feel an undeniable kinship,  our family relational similarities become glaringly evident.  Perhaps our “mating patterns” were passed down like other family customs and traditions but somehow it seems like a more deeply intrinsic characteristic.   For all of us, the descendants of this fire and ice marriage, the pull into these types of pairings has been so strong and so universal that I cannot help but wonder if there’s something even more innate and instinctual–almost unescapable— underpinning our relationship choices.  It truly does seem to be in our blood.

There’s so much that swirls and grows out of this fundamental family truth, leaving  a complex and continuing legacy that vines and twines throughout our lives.  Cousins, uncles, aunts, siblings…. we each live out this dynamic that is both raw and composed, ungainly and beautiful, dangerous and comforting all at once.  Is it something to celebrate, laugh at and embrace?  Or is it something we need to analyze and understand and make mellow by taming it?  Whatever our approach, before we have a chance to really even identify it, I can already predict it’s mark will be evident on the next generation.  For good or for bad, it’s clear that family dynamics don’t easily die.

Leaving Our Stuff Behind

The first summer weekend at the cabin starts out as cabin trips always do.   By time we get into the car, I am tense and a little grumpy from prepping all day, trying to balance how to bring enough stuff to not be caught unprepared but not so much that we might as well have never left home.  Though I want the cabin to be all about spontaneous adventures and undomesticated beauty, I still try to avoid having to survive the whims of inclement weather and bored children and guests.  My rather extensive list contains both rain and sun protection, in-cabin activities and outdoor gear.  Should I bring my make-up and hair stuff so that future family photo albums don’t recall a tired and frumpy mother or leave it behind to prove I’m carefree and natural?  Will the small town grocery store have the organic and/or healthy foods I prefer to give my daughter or should I load up those, too?  I used to think I was easy-going but becoming a mom has proved me to be otherwise.

We arrive at the cabin in the dark and wake to bright sun filling the cabin and lakeside breezes brushing our skin.  It takes awhile for the tension trolls to stop harassing me, but the weekend goes on.  It’s not perfect, but it’s nice.  It’s really nice.

And before I realize what’s happening, I stop feeling anxious that Papa is feeding his granddaughter too much rhubarb pie.  We stay up late and play silly games like “Never Have I Ever….” with our friends and don’t worry about getting to bed early because we don’t have to do anything tomorrow.  The rocks collected on the beach and the flowers picked from the fields become more compelling playthings for the kids than the toys we brought.  My unstyled, randomly bending hair stops feeling frumpy and I start to enjoy the way it falls fancifully and tickles my neck.  The toes I worried about looking unpolished and unkempt just look happily sand-buffed and sun-kissed.

When we get home those tension trolls catch up with me and grab hold too tightly, too soon.  The house left cluttered during the packing frenzy, the email reminders of obligations, the tense voicemail messages from people who need something….  I realize that what I didn’t bring with us to the cabin was the best part of being at the cabin.  I left four hours of pavement between me and many of the responsibilities I’ve taken on.  Up there, I can’t visit my grandpa and worry about his deteriorating health or contribute anything to aid my sister’s current eviction crisis or undertake household projects like organizing our basement bedroom  for summer visitors.  When we go to the cabin, I have to leave behind the idea that I could do something about any of these situations.  Though I love my family and am grateful for my house and though often these responsibilities and commitments add richness to my life, the cabin strips our life down to what we can pack in the car.

I like myself better in this place– not just the physical place of the cabin, but this philosophical place of surrender.  I’m more relaxed, more accepting of my own and others’ shortfalls, more present in the moment.  Most of the time, when I think about surrendering control it makes me a bit nervous.  But really, when I am rendered helpless I become liberatingly aware of this reality:  I can’t actually fix everything.  It’s a good place to be.  I just need to figure out how to stay there more often.