Light

I want to tell you all a story about goodness that exists in this world.  It's a true story and one that is very close to my heart.

It was in May 2013 that I met Marvell Smith.  I had just gotten out of an extremely bad relationship in December 2012 and I was pretty bitter.  Marvell was a wedding photographer and I had become familiar with his work in 2012 when the guy I was dating at the time was talking about marriage.  I was blown away by Marvell's photography.  He captured moments, not images, but heartfelt and emotionally intimate moments.  It was true art and not like any other wedding photographer I had ever seen.  You can see it for yourself at his blog:

http://vellvetimages.com/#/home--utah-wedding-photographer/

I never messaged him about his photography, though.  It wasn't until May 2013 that he and I started talking about getting to know each other.  At this point, I was in a bad place.  He was so nice and engaging and intriguing.  I wanted to know more about him, but more than anything I really wanted to know a man that wouldn't let me down.  Let me clarify that last statement.  My brothers and dad are amazing men and they don't let me down.  The type of relationship I'm talking about is outside of familial relationships.  I don't have that much experience with good men outside of my family.  Marvell surprised me because he was always uplifting.

In June 2013 we decided to go on a date.  We had a really good time.  It was really late, like after 9:00 at night when we had our date.  I was a bundle of nerves.  Borderline basket-case.  When I got out of my car to walk up to Marvell, I didn't know if I could even look him in the eyes because... I was nervous of men.  He smiled so big and his eyes were so kind.  We talked a little bit.  He was a master body language reader.  As a police officer, he made a career on reading peoples' body language.  we ended up talking for a bit longer and then we went and got what we thought would be a quick dinner.  Six hours later we were still talking.  We talked about everything.  I couldn't remember the last time I felt so completely comfortable and safe with a man that wasn't a family member.  He had me laughing to the point of tears.  And his laugh was incredible.

Over the course of the next 3 months, he became a fast friend.  We never did go on another date, but we became amazing friends.  I always looked forward to his updates about weddings he was shooting and if I was ever having a rough day, I knew I could text Marvell and he would say the exact thing I needed to hear.

On September 18, 2013, to the shock and sorrow of all that knew him, Marvell died in a motorcycle accident.  I woke up that morning at 7:40 a.m. thinking to myself, "I need to text Marvell and tell him how much I love him."  I pushed that thought to the side because it was so early and I didn't want to risk waking him up as he always stayed up so late editing photos from his wedding shoots.  And I didn't want to interrupt his morning with his sons if he was awake.  It was a school day.  So, I didn't text him.  I found out at about 10:00 a.m. what had happened to him and... nothing can prepare you for that kind of news.

I've really struggled this week since Marvell passed away.  I didn't know him as well as I would have liked.  My heart is broken for his friends who knew him for years.  My heart is broken for his family and his two boys.  There is nothing easy about an unexpected passing of a loved one.  In some ways I don't feel like I have the right to mourn his passing because I didn't know him as long as others.  But, I know that if Marvell heard me utter that thought that he would laugh at me and tell me I'm an idiot, or something like that.  And I would laugh.  He had this way of bringing things into perspective in such an easy and comical and non-judgmental way.  It was honest.  I loved that about him.

I believe that there are people who come into our lives when we need them the most.  And if we pay close attention, we will learn from their example the things we most desperately want to know about ourselves, our lives, this world, and love.  It was no accident that I met Marvell when I did.  I needed his example the most when I met him.  I only knew him for 4 months, give or take a couple of weeks, and that's all it took for him to change my life and impact me for the better.  I wish will all my heart that I could have known him longer.  But, I know he's not gone, and better yet, I know that I will see him again because of the Atonement.  He taught me about the Atonement.  He taught me so much.  He taught me about God.  He taught me about trust.  He taught me about friendship.  He taught me selflessness.  He taught me love.  He taught me that I am so much stronger than I ever thought.  He saw me in ways that I'm still trying to comprehend, but he helped me see that those ways are there.

I miss him so much.  Words are not enough to express my gratitude in knowing this man.  When we lose someone so important to our lives it's hard not to question why they were taken from this world.  It's hard not to question why someone who was a light in our life, why their light had to be extinguished from our sight.  Especially, when they made the world seem less dark.  What happened to Marvell was an accident.  I believe that accidents happen and they hurt God's heart just as much as our mortal hearts.  And it is in those moments that God has to make something beautiful out of something tragic.  Marvell was a protector and a visionary in this life.  He always chose only to see the good in people.  I know that he is still protecting on the other side.  And that's a comfort to me because we all need protecting angels because there are so many aspects to this world that are dark.

I will never forget Marvell.  He was so talented in so many ways.  And he was an amazing father to his two boys.  He was a brother, the oldest in his family.  And he was a son.  He was a friend.  He was so many wonderful things to so many people.  He will be missed by so many.  And that's a testament to the man that he was.  He was good.  He was honest.  And he was loyal beyond words.  And he's got two boys that need all of our love a support right now.

I rarely do this, I can think of one other time that I did this and that was for a local family trying to raise funds to adopt siblings from Ukraine.  This is important, otherwise I wouldn't mention it on here.  There is a fund that has been set up for Marvell's two incredible sons who entered the 7th and 10th/11th grades this year.  Any donation you can part with will be greatly appreciated.  Marvell was the type of man that helped out everyone.  He was so giving.  He gave so much to the community of Utah.  Even pennies will help.  If you would like to donate to this fund, you can find it at the following link:

http://marvellsmith.org/

Thank you for remembering this man with me.

Birth Mother Baskets: Guest Blogger ~ Kathryn

Birth Mother Baskets: Guest Blogger ~ Kathryn

I have had the honor to be a guest blogger over at Birth Mother Baskets. You can read what I had to say by clicking on the link above.

Thank you Gina and Jenny got the opportunity.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T and Giving Yourself a Break

I've spent a lot of time thinking about Baby Daddy.  It hasn't been pleasant.  It's hard to find the right words.  I've been on this word craze lately where I don't want to use filler words.  I think words are taken for granted on a daily basis.  I think it's easy to talk about someone when you are somewhat emotionally disconnected because then you talk about that person in a very generalized way.  I've thought back a lot on what I've said about Baby Daddy in the past.

I can't be mad at him.  Without him I wouldn't have known my greatest joy.  

It's true.  But, also without him I wouldn't have known my greatest sorrow.  Nothing can truly prepare you for the moment of placement.  Don't get me wrong, it is good to educate yourself on the options and to make a birth plan and to decide beforehand who will be at the hospital while you are there or whether you want that time alone exclusively with the child you bring into this world.  But when it actually comes down to it... there are no words.  And he did that to me.  Baby Daddy did that to me.  Granted, I had a huge part in it because I took the risk on Baby Daddy being a man I desperately wanted to find.  And, the bigger the risk... well, I think you know the rest of that.

I realized I was pregnant immediately.  I know some women say that and it's unbelievable, but I knew.  That last time I had relations with him, I knew that I was taking a huge risk and I did anyways.  I am very body sensitive and the few weeks following I noticed the difference in the way I felt.  I knew I had to take a pregnancy test, but I also knew that I needed to be in denial for a little longer.  Two weeks later, I took multiple pregnancy tests, hoping the first, and second, and third, and fourth were wrong.  Six tests later, they all read the same, positive.  I was 4 weeks pregnant when I found out.  

I will never forget that day, the day I found out I was pregnant.  I was in complete disbelief, even though I was staring at the evidence that proved my disbelief to be invalid.  I think "awe" is the correct word.  That word is grossly misunderstood.  I think people think that it means something tender when in fact the dictionary defines it as "an emotion... combining dread... and wonder that is inspired by... the sacred or sublime," and in it's archaic form, "the power to inspire dread."  Thank you Miriam Webster, I truly would be lost in this world without you and your online dictionary.  So, what does sublime mean?  It means different things, but the sublime that is talked about in the definition is actually The Sublime, which is the same Sublime that Edmund Burke wrote about in his essay entitled, "On The Sublime" (soooo original, Edmund Burke), written at the beginning of the 20th century.  The Sublime is a branch of aesthetic philosophy which defines what the quality of greatness is, or that which terrifies and causes awe to the human soul.  Ultimately, The Sublime is defined as something that is so emotionally big that it can't be comprehended when experienced.  It has everything to do with The Romantic Movement in literature, something I can get real nerdy about very quickly.  I was alone when I found out I was pregnant.  When I was younger, I imagined what it would be like to find out you were pregnant and then tell your husband and the joy that would be felt because you loved each other.  I still hope for that one day.  But, the day I found out I was pregnant was harshly different.  I was alone in my bathroom crying and screaming into a towel so that my roommate wouldn't hear me.  I didn't know what to do.

For the next nine months, I would have you believe that I was the epitome of grace under pressure.  I was calm.  I was serene.  I was patient.  I was scared to let anyone see how ashamed I was.  I noticed the stares in the grocery mart when people would ask me if this was mine and my husband's first and I would tell them I'm not married.  Their eyes would dart to my ring finger and they would get this expression on their faces like they were mortified for me.  Mortified: to subject to severe and vexing embarrassment (Miriam Webster Online Dictionary).  Forget the fact that they should be mortified for assuming that everyone who is pregnant is married.  They were embarrassed for me and they would tell me so and suggest that I wear a fake ring just until I had the baby.  

When I was seven months pregnant, Baby Daddy called me and he wanted to come back to me because he had "no where else to go" and if I didn't let him come back then he would "be on the streets".  He didn't want to come back to me because he loved me and he was sorry he cheated on me.  He didn't want to come back to me because he knew he had done wrong and that he let go of the greatest thing that ever happened to him in his life.  Simply, he had no where else to go.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009, I was in pain all day at work.  My boss kept telling me to go to the hospital and I kept telling her that I just pulled a muscle in my back, "no big deal".  She kept telling me I was in labor and I had no color and I needed to go to the hospital.  I told her, "we are short staffed and you need me here today."  She didn't argue and I stayed.  I went home that night and I couldn't get comfortable.  I was scared.  I didn't have anyone to rub my back or watch over me as I slept in case I went into labor.  When the pain became too unbearable, I grabbed my overnight bag and I went down to my car and I drove to the hospital and I was admitted.  They checked everything and I was only in pre-labor.  They offered me a shot of morphine to help numb the pain and I told them I drove myself.  They asked if my husband could come pick me up.  You wouldn't believe how many times I had that conversation when I was pregnant.  I ended up calling my sister and she and her husband came and picked me up.  He drove my car home and I drove with her.  When I came downstairs, a Lamaze class just got out and all these women and their supportive husbands came out of the room just as I got off the elevator to meet my sister.

The next day, Thursday, November 12, 2009, I went to work and then during my lunch went to my baby doctor appointment and he told me I was in labor.  Apparently, the morphine hadn't worn off yet (small favors).  So I drove myself to the hospital and checked myself in.  Sixteen hours later, early in the morning of Friday the 13th of November, the most perfect child I've ever witnessed was born.  I fell in love with him.  On the 16th I placed him in the arms of a social worker and I left the hospital.  

For nearly 4 years I have protected his father.  I haven't said one ill thing about him.  I have protected a man who never protected me and was never there for me when I needed him the most.  And through all of it, I have beaten myself up.  I have taken all the emotional responsibility on my shoulders.  I have put Baby Daddy on this pedestal for giving me the most sacred gift.  And he did.  He gave me the most sacred gift, but he also left me.  

I've blamed myself.  I'm not enough.  Those words have haunted me.  He left because I fought back.  And so I have been docile.  I'm not loveable, his leaving is my fault.  Those last words are the most hurtful.  For nearly 4 years I have harassed myself with cruelty.  At what point do you finally let yourself off the hook and give yourself a break?  At what point do you finally give yourself a break the way you do to others?  I ask you all the same question.  That's what this post is about.  

Accountability.  There is something to learn in everything, even the easy stuff.  I have learned that I am enough.  I have also learned that it isn't enough to simply say those words.  You have to believe it and live it.  And that's hard, but I'm working on it.  If you don't learn from your greatest hurts then they may happen again.  I chose the wrong guy.  I took a huge risk.  I gambled everything I had on him and I lost and it hurt.  However, my douche-radar is working much better now and that's something to applaud.  Be kind to yourself.  Let yourself off the hook when what's snagged you isn't your's to take responsibility for.  Your actions belong to you.  And the actions of other's belong to them.  Give yourself a break.

Adoption.NET

I want to take a minute and let you all in on an amazing website that has so many resources available to everyone in the adoption world.  It is Adoption.NET and on this website you can find answers to different questions posed in the adoption world by adoptees, birth-mothers, and hopeful adoptive parents.  There are also different articles that you can read regarding important topics in adoption as well as discussion on the latest legislative proceedings regarding adoption in different states.  This website... let's just say I really wish there was something like this website when I was going through the whole process.

This is unbelievably exciting because at the click of a mouse you can connect with people going through the same thing you are going through.  Also, there is a section on topics regarding foster care which is a huge component in the world of adoption.

I know some great women (not personally, but through blogging) who have already contributed such tremendous insight as gust bloggers and I will also be contributing my thoughts as a guest blogger, once everything is arranged.  The goal of the creators of this website is to have this website be the largest database of "everything adoption" on the website.  It's really going to empower a lot of people out there and I am so excited to be a part of it.  Check it out.

If you know of anyone who has found themselves in an unplanned pregnancy, guide them to this website.  If you know of a couple who are struggling to grow their family and they are confused as to how to find information out there regarding any decision they feel they are faced with, guide them to this website.  If you know of a person who was adopted and they are at a place in life where they have a ton of questions and they need some answers, guide them to this webpage.  What an exciting time we live in to have so much valuable information readily available!  Check it out, folks, you won't be disappointed.

Most Sincerely,
Other Mother

http://adoption.net

Monogamy and Keriah

This is weird because I have marriage and death on my mind at the same exact time.  And there is some anger in there as well that I have not been expecting.  I've known birth-mothers who have hated and bad-mouthed the birth-fathers of their child and I never understood that.  I haven't really spoken much about Baby Daddy on here, in detail.  And, quite frankly, I don't know if I'm going to.  We'll see.  For a long time I felt pity for Baby Daddy.  And to this day, I don't even know if he is alive.  And I don't know if I even want to know.  So, there you have it. 

Scratch that.  I just spent the last hour-and-half trying to locate him.  The last electronic imprint I can find on him is from 2010.  I also found his mug-shot from 2006, which was 2 years before I met him.  When I knew him, I didn't know he was a criminal.  I didn't know of his criminal background until he cheated on me and left me for another woman whom was already married... and pregnant with his child, it turns out.  As if that isn't enough salt in the wound, it turns out she was 3 weeks further along in her pregnancy than I was when I found out I was pregnant.  She ended up mis-carrying due to her meth use.  I learned all of that from his mother when I was seven months pregnant.  He wanted to come back to me, I told him where to go, and that was the last time I ever heard from him.  I never told him I was pregnant.  That's where I'm at right now, emotionally speaking.  I never expected to feel these feelings of anger towards him.

I am frustrated that I can't find any information about him after 2010, but I'm not frustrated for me, I'm frustrated for "my" little boy.  I hope Baby Boy will never have a desire to look up his dad, but if he does, I'm sad for him that he will most likely be led to a dead-end.  And I'm relieved that he will most likely be led to a dead-end, and sometimes... it's horrible.  Sometimes, I hope that dead-end is that his dad has passed away.  And then I feel pity again for Baby Daddy that if he is gone from this life, that he left it never knowing the beauty and light of "my" son, whom he helped to create.  And then I hate him.  I've never said that on here.  I hate him for his lies.  I hate him for his manipulation.  I hate him that he used me so poorly.  I hate him that he misled me.  And then I realize that not all the hate belongs to him, because at that time in my life, I thought that to love someone was to trust them... and I trusted him way too easily.  So, there you have it.

What do I tell Baby Boy if he ever asks about his dad? 

Then there is my job.  I work in the field of divorce.  I see divorce every day, Monday-Friday, and an occasional weekend when I have to take work home with me.  The type of work I do, I am a microscope to parents who are involved in extremely high-conflict divorce cases and who can't co-parent together and in attempts to emotionally injure the other parent, they use their children as ammunition in their war against each other.  Sometimes I find myself wondering, "What if I had told Baby Daddy?"  And then I go to work, and that question is answered as I navigate and negotiate between warring couples and advocate for their children.  My little boy... it scares me to think what his life could have been like. 

Marriage is a curious thing to me.  I want to be married so badly, it's unreal how deeply I feel this hole inside me that will only ever be filled by companionship of a husband and our beautiful children.  I'm no where near that, and that realization tinges and tingles my eyes with tears of frustration that I push back because I'm afraid to let them loose.  I have this fear that lives in the back of my head that keeps telling me that marriage doesn't last.  And that fear is mostly correct, 50% of marriages don't last.  But, 50% do.  And I want my future marriage to be part of the 50% that lasts.  But, how does that work?  And that's when the fear in the back of my head whispers loudest.  I don't trust men with me and I don't want to. 

What I want is to trust one man with me, just one.  And that man, I know he's out there and I know he is looking for what I have to offer him, and I have a lot to offer him.  But, it's getting harder to find him.  I'm not the only single girl who has noticed this.  My roommate and I talk about it all the time.  I just want something real.  Someone who can be real with me and not leave me questioning his motives and whether I'm "doing" our relationship "right", and whether or not he's going to leave me; that's my biggest fear, is to be left.  Does that make sense?  I don't know what I'm doing.  I know what I'm not going to do anymore, and that's all good to know, but when it comes to dating, I have no clue what I'm doing.

What I do know is that I've got to figure some things out about myself still.  I've come a long way, but I haven't gotten "there" yet, wherever "there" is.  I think "there" is a place where I'm content.  Content in a way that is secure.  It makes me think of Keriah.  I don't know how many of you are familiar with Keriah.  I don't know a whole lot about it, I've just been reading up on in.  From what I understand Keriah is part of Shiva, which is a week long mourning period in the Jewish culture that first-degree relatives (mom, dad, sibling) observe at the death of their loved one.  At the funeral, the mourners rend/tear an article of their clothing and they wear this same garment for the whole of Shiva.  It's believed that the practice of Keriah is rooted in a more ancient tradition of tearing at your hair and clawing at your skin during mourning, which from what I understand is forbidden in Jewish law.  But the idea is the same, it's a visual representation of extreme sorrow, while also allowing a mourner to show their anger and sadness in a physical way.  It's quite beautiful, really.  It seems honest.

I think that I'm going through an emotional rendering right now. 

That's an interesting word, "rendering".  It can mean a translation to something else.  "Translation" is also an interesting word with spiritual connotation, but the basic meaning is a change from something to something else, a transition.  I'm in this emotional bog right now where I am transitioning.  I recognize how far I've come and I'm implementing what I've learned and I'm so grateful for it all, but I also realize that there is further to go.  Baby Daddy... I've never felt anger towards him and I do now, and I think that my anger is more honest than my feelings of Zen towards him were because there was no enlightenment in my lack of anger then.  It was fake.  I didn't know how to feel about him.  I was trying to figure out how I feel about me. 

The fact that I feel the way I feel when I remember him tells me that I've got to tear through and remove the part of me that is still hurt.  I can't carry that kind of baggage into a future with a good man. 

I don't know if I've made all these connections effectively enough.  Keriah is about honesty.  It's about transition too, I believe.  It's facing the fact that you hurt and it's letting the hurt be known and seen and felt, and over the course of Shiva, experienced.  And then the mourning ends and you move forward.  I don't know how much of this anger is straight anger or masked sorrow.  That's the thing about grief is it can take a while to sort out what is what.  It's taken me nearly 4 years to realize that I have all of this inside me and that it is directly connected to Baby Daddy.  It makes sense.  It wasn't just Baby Daddy though.  It was all the guys who came before him, too.  None of them were "keepers".  I was desperate for marriage and an identity because I had no clue who I was.  I know better who I am today.

It's hard not to compare all the men I've dated.  They were all scumbags.  Truthfully, they were emotionally and physically abusive scumbags.  Today, I know a couple of guys who aren't scumbags, they are really great men.  And one of them I really want to see what will happen with because he's great.  I've talked about him recently on here.  I don't know what he thinks of me.  He's hard to read.  And I can't help but recognize that I'm probably really hard for him to read, as well.  Heck, I find myself hard to read and I'm me... so, there you have it. 

This post seems really depressing, or maybe not, I don't know.  I'm emotional right now, so it's hard to gauge how it comes across.  What I do know is that I'm not the woman I used to be and that's good, and it's also sad because I lost a lot of innocence.  But I'm stronger now than I ever was and that's a good thing.  I don't know how I will ever answer the question about Baby Daddy and that's not good enough for Baby Boy because every person, at some point in their life, wants to know where they came from.  I will learn how to answer that question because I know it will be important to Baby Boy and he deserves to know if he ever wants to know.  What I do know is that the confusing emotions I feel right now about Baby Daddy are more honest than I've ever allowed myself to feel since I met him and it's uncomfortable, but change and transition usually are, and so I'm doing it right. 

Pink Vulnerability

I've been on a mission the last little while to understand vulnerability.  It's something I've all felt countless times in my life and that I believe is absolutely necessary in growing lasting relationships.  But, it can also be devastating when shared inappropriately.  So, where is the balance?  And what does this have to do with the Year of Pink?  Hopefully, that will all come across in the post below.  This is a bit of a free-write for me.

Another word I think of synonymous with vulnerability is victimization.  For a long time I couldn't separate these two very different words.  I think that there is a chronic error in society today that confuses what vulnerability is and how it should be expressed.  With social network sites like Facebook, it's easy to have complete transparency to your life, especially with GPS in smartphones, every movement you make can be closely monitored.  And the over-sharing information is shockingly accepted.

I know that in terms of my own life experiences, I have historically opened myself up (making myself vulnerable) to unnecessary hurt because I thought that by trusting [enter multiple names here] without knowing much about them and taking them for face-value, I would get on a "real level" with the other person.    That's a huge oversight.  That's the way I thought relationships were supposed to happen.  I recognize now that I opened myself up without completely understanding of the true intentions of others.  I was really naive.  And it hurt, a lot.  And it's a cycle, folks.  I did this over and over and over again, not fully understanding the hurt that my own actions were causing me.  And because I didn't see my "part" in any of it, I started to believe that maybe it wasn't worth it to trust people, because horrible things kept happening to me.  And for a really long time, I was in this emotional place where I just thought that the problem was everyone else's.  "Why would [enter multiple names here] treat me like that?  I would never treat someone like that.  Why does this keep happening to me?"  I was a victim.  Granted, I'm not taking full responsibility for the hurt I've felt at the hands of others, rather I'm taking owning my responsibility.  I was victimizing myself.  And nothing was changing.

About a month ago (Warning: I am a horrible gauger [is that even a word?] of time) I hung out with this guy.  He's a protector in the world.  He protects people and upholds the law.  I was hanging out with him and when it was time to say goodbye, I got really weird.  Up until it was time to say goodbye, I was absolutely fine.  I think I might have even been funny and engaging.  Then we were walking to our cars and I shut down.  I couldn't even look him in the eyes.  My eyes were watering and I couldn't say a word.  And I started thinking of all the men who had, in the words of Rosemary Clooney, "done me wrong."  He had nothing to do with them.  He's nothing like them.  He's decent and smart, and intuitive, and, overall, a stellar human being.  He noticed my weirdness.  He was trying to keep conversation going and I was uttering one-word responses.  We were at our cars and he told me, "I need you to give me a hug."  And I wanted to give him a hug.  So, I did.  It was a great hug.  I say that because it's on my list of "great hugs", it's one of four other memorable hugs.  I may be a list-addict at heart, I heart list-making.

That hug has stayed with me ever since.  He and I still talk.  I consider him a dear friend.  And I have a huge crush on him, but what's a girl to do in today's skiwampus world of dating?  Until I figure that out, he's a friend.  I got in my car and I drove away and I wanted to cry.  But I didn't know why.  All I knew is that I felt unbelievably vulnerable, only he did nothing to make me feel that way.  So, why was I feeling that way?  I think this is where I hope that all my ideas converge into one really great, "ah-ha" moment for you dear readers, as they have for me.  As usual, it's hard to articulate the "ah-ha".

The way I felt had nothing to do with him.  It had everything to do with the men I've allowed into my life and to whom I willingly opened myself up to being vulnerable to, without knowing their true nature.  That feeling had everything to do with me keeping myself in a place that I no longer wanted to be.  Honestly, it was a new experience for me to hang out with a guy who is decent and kind.  It was such a contrast to what I've known in my dating life up until that moment.  And that moment of, "this is so nice," converged so abruptly with memories of when I wasn't treated well, that it was shocking.  And overwhelming.

So, where is the balance between "vulnerable" and "victim"?  I don't have that answer.  I'm still learning it.  But, what I do know, is that you don't just trust blindly.  Vulnerability is opening yourself up to being emotionally wounded.  It's taking a chance on something, knowing very well how much it could hurt, but also hoping for how much good it could bring to your life.  I guess it's a gamble, but even gambling is all about numbers and odds, so you don't go into it completely blind.  And maybe that's how you gauge your vulnerability, you don't share it until you are absolutely certain that the odds are greater in your favor that the person you want to open yourself up to and get to know won't hurt you.  I just heard a giant and collective, "duh!"  I know, it's such an obvious thing!  Don't follow virtue blindly, check.  But, for some reason, I didn't know I was believing without seeing until very recently.

Vulnerability is Pink.  The more I think about it, the more I realize that just as pink is a mixture of white and red, two very opposing colors, I believe vulnerability is the mixture of knowing when to yield (white) some of your control and put some trust in someone and when to fiercely protect (red) your heart from a person.  This is my year of pink.   

Child of My Heart

Revelation

“In the space between yes and no, there's a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; its the legroom for the lies you'll tell yourself in the future.” 
― Jodi Picoult, Change of Heart

Time has been on my mind lately.  Not just time, though, but also how things change.  And how in some instance time moves faster than a mountain storm in the spring.  You know, the kind of storm that you are desperate for because it washes away the last of the snow and you know that just behind the storm is the warmth?  I love storms in the spring.  Time moves the fastest when what you are experiencing is the easiest.  And the flip side of that is true, as we’ve all experienced, that time moves the slowest when you are in the most pain.  It’s in the moments of the most growth that a lifetime can be lived, the same moments that are the hardest to bear.  

I've been reminded lately of someone that I used to be.  I acutely remember the first year after Baby Boy was born.  I was a mess and I was afraid to let others see me that way.  I was more concerned about preserving the feelings of others and not scaring them with my feelings than feeling my own feelings.  Everything I felt was so confused that to even let my thoughts wander a brief moment felt like I would be drowned from the inside.  I was afraid of everything.  I didn't trust anyone.  And when I did, I put my trust in the wrong people and only more pain ensued.  It felt like the whole world was a giant injustice and I wanted to fight against all of it and so I let myself be angry.  And the source of all my anger was my fear and my hurt but I didn't want to face it because it hurt too much.  I felt abandoned and like I abandoned my baby.  Try and wrap your mind around that.  I hated myself.  I hated love.  I hated happy families.  I hated God.  I hated religion.  I hated anything that made me feel.  I lost myself in my work for all the wrong reasons.  I didn't want to be left alone.  I couldn't stand to be alone with myself because it was when I was alone that I had to be in my own company and I didn't know what to do with myself.  I smiled at the world for their benefit because I didn't want pity and so it was easier to pretend only pretending made me angrier.  I felt desperate in everything I tried to do.  I put so much pressure on myself and if I fell short of the ridiculous expectations I set for myself then I hated myself even more.  I was mean to myself.  And I believed that all that I felt (all that I've explained here) was my punishment for the rest of my life for my indiscretions against God.  And so, I resolved to just survive.  Basically, I set myself up to fail.

It’s been nearly 4 years since “my” little boy was born.  It’s been nearly 3 years since after that first year away from him.  It feels like a lifetime.  And I’m not the same person that I was during that first year.  This post is for the new birth-mothers out there and anyone else who feels like they've lost themselves.  To the birth-mothers particularly, I remember what it feels like to hear the cry of your child in the middle of the night, only to wake up and find that your child isn't there.  I remember what it feels like to feel like you are losing yourself in a grief you don’t even know how to begin to understand.  And I can tell you, that you will find yourself.  One way or another, you will find yourself. 

I think I've found myself, most of me anyways.  It’s been a long time coming.  I don’t necessarily know how it happened either because it hasn't been a smooth process.  What I do know is that trying to find myself has been a constantly active choice.  I've slipped up more than once (there was actually 2.5 years of constantly slipping).  It’s been frustrating and has felt hopeless at times.  And then something shifted and all of a sudden “it” was obvious, but still without a road map.  You just “know”.  You catch yourself in your patterns of negativity and you realize that there is a different way to do things and so you start there.  I think that one thing that people forget about the grief cycle is that it is very much a cycle and there is a rhythm to it.  And each rhythm for each person is as unique as our fingerprints.  I finally figured out my rhythm.  Once you figure out your rhythm, the next step is to actively decide whether or not you are going to let the negative part of the cycle consume you, or if you are going to consider and recognize how much softer the blow “this” time around feels.  And it does get softer.  I promise it gets softer.

I am stubborn and my stubbornness, for a long time, was something that I used against myself.  Now, I use it to help myself.  I’m compassionate.  This is something I've always been and I allowed it to be used against me (not actively allowed it, but naively and truly not knowing any better).  Finally one day I decided that I would protect and advocate for myself like I protect and advocate for others.  What does this mean?  It means that I can still be compassionate towards others but not at the expense of myself.  Another thing I've learned is to accept what “part” of a mess is mine and not the whole mess.  I still get in sticky situations with people, only now I don’t apologize for their part of it, only my own.  I think it’s easy to use our bad experiences as crutches to life.  It’s easy to tell ourselves that we can’t do something and believe it because believing in our weaknesses is always an easier alternative to fighting for the sacred “something” we find every excuse not to go for.  After placement of Baby Boy, I found every excuse not to do things.  And now, I’m trying to find the reasons why I should do things.  It’s such a simple thing to say, and a lot of you out there are probably thinking, “duh.”  But, for me this was a huge understanding.

There is no recipe for finding yourself.  I truly wish there was because I think there would be a lot less hurt in the world.  Who do you want to be?  The only difference between that person and who you think you are now, is yourself.  As much as I wanted to believe for a time that the “thing” holding me back was the choices of those who used me or hurt me, what I finally realized is that it wasn't them.  Granted, they weren't helping me, but I was allowing “them” to use me.  I now realize that I command the caliber of people I allow in my life.  Old habits die hard, but there is a reason why habits die off. 

We've all been given one lifetime to live, but in the course of our one lifetime we adapt to time and circumstance too many times to count.  And the choices we make in the most desperate of times are the ones that shape our future.  And in that way, our one lifetime can become several.  And that’s a beautiful thing if you think about it.  Our circumstances, our sorrows, our angers, our hurts, our destruction's, our negative beliefs, none of those have to be the life we choose for ourselves.  And it’s in this way that within our one lifetime we can live as many lifetimes as we choose.  The choice is yours.  You have control of it.  You command your life.  If something isn't working for you, you have the power to change it.  No one says you have to live the life you've been given by circumstance or bad choices.  You can make your life what you want it to be.  If you told me this four years ago, I wouldn't have believed you.  Four years ago, I would have told you all the reasons why that truth (making my life what I want it to be) didn't apply to me.  But, four years later, out of my greatest paradox (my greatest sorrow and achievement) I can tell those of you who are struggling with serious hurt and sorrow, that this truth- making your life what you want it to be- most definitely applies to you.  All it requires is for you to believe in yourself the way you believe in others.  That’s where it starts.  That, an patience.

The Danger of "What-if?"

I have never purposefully written a blog post about something that I disagree with in the conversation of adoption, but I'm going to now because I don't understand the logic behind this particular conversation.  I'm not going to say who posed this question/conversation because I don't want to start a fight but I feel it is important to try to address it with a sense of balance.  Someone posed the true of false question/statement: "I gave my child a different life, not necessarily a better one."  This thought has "what-if" written all over it.  

Is there a difference?  When I chose to place Baby Boy for adoption it was because at that time in my life, I had no way to provide for the both of us, therefore we would both go severely without.  That wouldn't be fair to him.  That's not to say that he didn't provide some much needed perspective for me at that time in my life when I was severely faltering around.  I lost sight of my future.  And then I found out I was pregnant and all the realizations hit me that there was no way I could provide for my son, let alone myself.  And so I had to face the hard music and I had to look at other options.  I started looking for parents who had their lives together and who were in a time in their lives where they could build a family and provide for that family.  This to me, seemed like the best/better life for my child.  And it was a different life from the one I could provide him.

This conversation continued about better vs. different and the person I was communicating with said that had someone told them at the time that they were considering placing their child for adoption that they would (in time) be in a position where they could financially afford their child and parent them, then they wouldn't have made the decision to place their child for adoption.

(cricket chirp)

Is it just me, or does that seem... I'm sorry, I am frustrated.  Duh.  If I had a magical ball or an oracle that could tell my future and it determined that I would be in a position to raise my child and not have to worry about the finances associated with raising a child and that everything would work out perfectly in time, but the first couple or four years would be really rough, then I STILL wouldn't change my decision.  Because at the time that I was struggling to do what was best for him, I would NEVER put him in a position where he would go without basic necessities for any period of time.  When I made the decision to place my child for adoption it was to offer him a different and better life than what I could offer him then, at that time.  

This isn't a question that pertains to both the present and the future at the same time.  You cannot consider this question retrospectively.  Retrospectively, if I were to consider this question, he wouldn't have a better life now whether he was with me or not.  He only knows one life, and that's the life he has.  If he had stayed with me, we would have still been struggling, and for another 2 years we would be struggling.  He would be in daycare majority of the day and majority of my monthly bring home would be paying for that daycare.  I wouldn't see him that much of the day.  His first words would be in a daycare, his first steps would be in a daycare, and he would probably have attachment issues.  The life he knows now, he has a mother who is a stay at home mom for majority of the week.  He has a father whom he adores.  He has siblings whom he loves and they love him and they are the best of friends.  He doesn't have a different life.  He has only one life and it's the one he knows and is attached to.  It's his identity.  The only way I could answer that question retrospectively is if he were to be removed from that life and put with me to experience whether or not his life is truly different or better.  Do you see what I'm saying?  

Does this mean that I don't miss him?  No.  I'm happy for him and I miss him every day of my life.  I miss him.  I love him.  I wish he was with me, but I also know that what I did was the best for him.  I will never second guess that.  The "what-if's" of life destroy.  They are meant to maim and render a person invisible and paralyzed by scenarios that don't even exist.  "My" child is safe.  He is happy.  He is loved.  He loves.  He is secure.  He has a stable home life.  He has an infectious laugh and a smile that makes you wonder what he's been doing that he's not supposed to be doing.  If that different?  No, it's what he knows.

If you are in a position where you are considering adoption for your child, commit to your decision.  Educate yourself on your options.  And never question, "what-if?" once you've made your decision.  We are in a place in history where adoption is open and that's exciting.  Do not let anyone make you feel less important than anyone else.  You are the most important person in your child's life while you are pregnant with them because you are their advocate.  You are their voice.  Whatever decision you make, make sure you are dedicated and alright with it and don't make one until you are educated on the alternative.  You have power, you have a voice, it is your decision.  The time for "what-if?" is when you are considering the future, not when you are considering the past.

Gratefully Aware

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” 
       ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I spend a lot of time pondering.  My mind can wander and travel through time and space and back without me even realizing it.  Some call this ADD, I call it awesome.  Something I've been thinking a lot about is how easily bitterness can be nourished within a person.  The truth is that we all experience moments in life that could change us for the better or for the worse.  What is the defining difference in our experiences?  What is the piece that is present in an experience changing us for the better, that is not present in an experience changing us for the worst?  That's what I've been thinking about lately.  When I struggled the most through my decision to place my baby boy for adoption, I used to do posts on gratitude.  I haven't done a post like that for a while now.  I'm going to start doing that more frequently again.  And I'm starting it right here, right now.

This week, so far, I am grateful:

-For rain clouds.  I am in love with rain.  I love the smell of it, I love the feeling of it, I love that it can be torrential or soft and quiet.  Summer has come quickly to Utah, and this week, today is the second day in a row of overcast weather.  I love Utah's rain season because it is an interruption and refresher to the consistent heat.
-My cat.  Dang it, she's ornery and aggressive, but she is also the cutest furry gremlin I've ever seen.  She is healing from being spayed and she is such a trooper.  I'm grateful that she is strong because I've grown attached to her and I want to keep her around for a while yet.
-My family.  We've had our differences in the past, but no matter how opinionated and passionate we can get about our differences, I know that they will always love me and watch my back.  I know people who can't say the same about their family, and so I am truly blessed for my family.
-Air conditioning.  End of story.  Period.  It's a wonderful thing.
-Antibiotics and Modern Medicine.  You remember my experience of nearly slicing my finger off?  Well, it became infected and it hurt.  I called the hospital and talked to them about it and was issues and antibiotic which I have now taken for 2 days.  It's helped tremendously.  I can't imagine living in a time where this kind of injury and infection could lead to the loss of a finger, simply because there was no medicine to counteract the infection.  It really is something to think about. Two-hundred years ago, the near slicing off of my fingertip and rehabilitation from said accident could have resulted in something quite different and not good.

What is the benefit of finding silly things to be grateful for?  Well, before I wrote this post I was feeling pretty aggressive.  I don't like my clients.  I'm not grateful for them, and at the same time I am because they are a perfect road map to me of what I want to avoid and by acting as a microscope to their lives, I know the warning signs and how to avoid what their lives have become.  So, for as much as I don't like them, I'm grateful for them... in a disconnected kind of way.  Their drama has put me in an aggressive mood.  But, by focusing on the pleasant things of the week, for as long as it took to focus and recount them, it took me away from the drama which is pretty great.

It's simple and it's easy to forget to do, counting my blessings, but it's absolutely necessary in order to stay grounded and focused.  I won't always work with these types of clients, and as crazy as it sounds, there will probably come a day where I will miss this job because of all I've learned from it and will continue to learn from it.  I've noticed that with my past jobs.  There have been so many days where I've said to myself, "Holy crap, self, I would so take working with drug addicts over [insert client name here]."  In reality, though, my life was often threatened at my last job, so do I really miss it?  Not really.  As cliche as it sounds, there really is a time and a season for everything.  I don't pretend to believe that our lives are pre-destined, but I do believe in a greater power, even if I don't know what to call that greater power.  The choice is ours but it doesn't mean that there isn't a more supreme being who looks at what we've chosen and given us specific opportunities to make the best of it.

I'm meant to be "here" right now.  You are meant to be experiencing what you are experiencing now.  I realize that my saying that could ruffle some feathers because I know there are people out there who are fighting through Hell right now and it's not fair that life can be so rough.  I know that feeling.  But, I also know that I wouldn't be who I am now without facing those moments that hurt the most.  The defining difference on whether or not I choose to be bitter or happy is in me.  It's my choice.  I've had moments where I've felt that to close off and be bitter would be preferable because it felt the safest at that time.  I can recall when I've said to myself, "Anger becomes you, so wear it."  And I did.  For a while, I wore it, and I liked it.  And then it didn't feel right anymore.  It was my decision.  Maybe it served it's purpose, or maybe it just prolonged the lesson from being learned that I ultimately ended up learning.  Either way, the decision was mine.  We can choose to be grateful or we can choose to be angry.  The decision is as individual to us as our unique experiences.  Some experiences are harder than other's, but for every person who is struggling, their experience is the worst it could be.  How we come out from it all, is under our control.

Thoughts About Love

"The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along."   
    — Rumi (The Illuminated Rumi)

I've been thinking lately a lot about love.  Truth be told, I've always thought about love.  I remember as a child that I thought love was Maureen O'hara being dipped and passionately kissed by John Wayne.  It always made me blush.  And then when I was a teenager, I thought love was something that happened at a football game; the quarterback eyeing the water-girl as she tends to his injury, and she is clueless all the while of his feelings for her.  And then they marry after graduation and have babies.  When that didn't happen, I started considering that maybe love was scientific and mathematical, and that was pretty depressing as I've never been good at arithmetic.  And then, in my early twenties, it occurred to me that love was a whirlwind.  It happened faster than you could determine the time of day.  And then the whirlwind ended and love was over and replaced with something quite different.  At first it felt like hate, but in time I learned to recognize it as hurt.

Now, I don't know what love is or how it is found.  I'm 28 years old.  I've lived a lot of life and I've learned from living.  Outside of my own dating mishaps, you wouldn't believe how many times I've had conversations with other women my age where love just eludes.  Or conversations with women my age where they truly thought they had love and everything was so great and then one day, it was no more... it was just gone.  It's all very disappointing.  And then there is my job.  I see divorce every day.  Not just divorce.  I see bitter and hateful divorce every single day where people who once loved each other deeply, only want to hurt each other.  And I wonder, how does that happen?  It's crazy.

I used to think that I was incapable of love.  Seriously.  I used to think that love eluded me because I didn't know how to love.  And I used to think maybe it was a good idea that love has eluded me for so long because then if I can't find it, then I can't lose it.  But, never once have I stopped looking for it.  It's strange.

And I'm not done looking for it, because I know more now than I did when I was 5, 17, and even 25 years old.  What I do know is that I am very capable of loving.  My mission in this world is to love loyally and passionately.  Everyone.  Family, loyal friends, children, and my future love.  I advocate for children.  I don't just stand up for them, but I advocate for them when they have no voice.  And I advocate fearlessly and fervently for them.  I spent 2.5 years in a relationship that I fought for tirelessly, just to learn that it was a lie.  It's taken a lot out of me but I also know that the next one is going to be pleasant and not filled with fighting from the beginning, and I look forward to that.  I also know that to fight that long and that hard for something I believed in, a future with this person, was both foolish and also proved the level of my devotion.  I am not void of love.  I am love.  I just need to find that person that it's worth devoting my love to.  Find.  As if to say, that the person I will "find" is hidden away from me, or lost.  I don't believe they are either.  

Maybe love is about recognizing something of yourself in another person.  And, also recognizing what you lack and desire in a person who has the qualities you can learn from most.  Maybe love isn't about wanting more or any less, either.  Maybe love is about acceptance.  I think that for love to happen, that there needs to be a degree of transparency.  To allow one deserving person to know the hurts of the other so that they know the vulnerability that grows the strength that they love.  Does that make sense?  The hitch to it is knowing who deserves to know your vulnerability in order to understand your strength.  Cause there are a lot of jokers out there, people who pray on the most sacred parts of people and then use those parts against a person to hurt them.  And it seems that there are more jokers than there are princes. And maybe that's the problem.  It's not a matter of what love is in comparison to what it is not.  And it's not about whether love is lost to someone, or they don't know how to love.  Maybe it's that love is used as a weapon in the hands of those who have no desire to love.  

I don't know.  I just know that I'm ready for love.  No more pondering it, but ready to actually find it and experience it on my terms.  The real deal.

It's Been A While

It's been nearly 3 months since I last posted.  The major things to catch everyone up on is that Spring semester is over by a month now and I'm glad for it!  That was a long semester.  I ended up passing my math class which means I never have to take another math class again (YAY!)  I actually passed it with a whole grade better than I thought I would, so that's cool.  I did what I set out to do when I signed up for my first math class; I made it through every single one of my math classes without having to take any of them again, which is not the standard at UVU, so that's an achievement of it's own.

My Rhetoric and Grammar classes went well.  What I know is that I don't like rhetoric and grammar can go to you-know-where, which is pretty much where it's going now days, anyway.  Seriously, college grammar is an unpleasant way to torture oneself.  Truly unnecessary in my opinion.  If you can't tell, I'm really glad this last semester is over.  The classes were difficult, my work schedule was not pleasant, and I came out of something in December that truly messed with my mind and there was no time to "work through it" before Spring semester started and so I was working through the residual emotional stuff the entire semester.

All in all, I'm in a great place right now.  Truly.  I:'m going to Iceland in November with my best friend and I can't wait.  My cat has survived her boosters and being spayed, so she's a strong one and I'm glad for it because you all know I haven't had the best luck with kittens.  I live alone which is so nice, and my best friend lives right next door and we have lots of fun all the time.  

I've spent so much time thinking about what I've wanted to write about, and true to form, the thing that is inside of me that I need to "write out" of me is difficult to say simply.  So, I'm just going to write and hope it is cohesive.  

This last winter lasted forever and it really took it's toll on me emotionally.  The thing I "got out of" in December and that followed me all through this last semester was another really deep betrayal and it's really messed with me.  I've been angry.  I'm sure you've noticed it in the timbre of my writing.  And I will never understand why this person did what they did to me, let alone the man I spent a good amount of time loving and how he betrayed me as well.  The thing that happened to me has no rational explanation and in trying to rationally understand it, well that's the thing, how does a rational person learn to understand an irrational thing?  It's a mind-trick, over and over again.  And I've spent a lot of time obsessing about it.  And I'm done obsessing.  

Yesterday I came home from work and I started thawing out some ground turkey and I got an onion out and a cutting board.  I was dicing the onion when I cut a portion of it unevenly, so I went to correct the cut and I put my entire hand underneath the onion and sliced down and cut very deeply into my finger.  My neighbor-friend was talking to me when it happened and she saw the whole thing and she covered her mouth and screamed.  I immediately pulled my hand back and looked at my finger which hadn't started to bleed yet and I told my friend, "It's okay, I just nicked it."  And then blood just started pouring profusely from my finger.  I put my hand under cold running water and the water ran red, at which point I calmly said, "that's not good."  My friend was pacing and asking if she should take me to the hospital.  I told her that wasn't necessary, because it was just a little cut.  She told me she would get me a towel and I thanked her for that.  I pulled my hand out from under the faucet thinking the bleeding would stop.  I watched my hand as blood ran down my wrist and forearm and elbow.  It wasn't stopping.  My friend got back and we decided that maybe I should have it looked at.  We ended up at the hospital and in true form when I am afraid or nervous, I was cracking jokes right and left with the staff and we were all laughing as I was holding my hand up clasped with a towel. Long story, short (too late), the emergency room doctor ended up poking and prodding and causing all sorts of discomfort before he determined that my fingertip could just be glued and stitches weren't necessary.

What does any of that have to do with winter and obsession, or even the color pink?  When I got home from the hospital last night and I was laying in bed thinking back on the day, the shock wore off and it occurred to me how bad the situation could have been.  Had I cut a little deeper, the situation could have been so much worse, I could have chopped the tip of my finger clean off.  And that's when it occurred to me that everything I'd been obsessing over up until that moment was really quite unnecessary.  Since I got out of this "thing"/situation in December that I was in, I've felt like the betrayal I experienced took a piece of me.  And that piece, I didn't think I would ever reclaim.  And that is what had been making me so mad.  What I realized is that in the case of what I escaped from in December, I can reclaim that part of me.  I can take it back.  But, the incident that happened last night, that could have literally resulted in a piece of me being separated from the rest of myself and that would have sucked big time and would have been instantaneously more painful than the entire betrayal leading up to December and the residual anger that's occurred since then.  Good Heavens, I hope this is making sense.  

Betrayal is cold like winter.  Betrayal blocks out light and peace and happiness and it can last as long as the night for a child who is scared of the dark.  And in that dark lies obsession, a drive to understand what we will never understand because we aren't meant to understand it.  That obsession can blot out the morning when clarity does come because we don't see the blessing before our face because we want to understand the betrayal, so we are blinded to the joy.  That's where I've been.  My pink has been muted and made dingy and it no longer radiated light.  But, I saw the red last night for all that it was and it was cleansing.  I didn't lose my fingertip and I'm really happy about that.  And while the pain of accidentally cutting into my finger was blocked until I had a doctor poking and prodding at it, once I felt it, while it hurt, I was glad to feel it because I could feel.  How is that for a metaphor?  The physical injury to my finger last night acted as a ginormous metaphor for the last 2.5 years of my life.  And while I've been more open to feeling this year, with pink being my theme, I was only dabbling.  

For the first time in a very long time, I'm back.  It's been growing delicately, but I've got a new drive and a new passion.  This is my year to radiate love and life and I haven't done that for years.  It's scary, but it's good too.

Change Begins with the Individual

Shane Koyczan is a Canadian Spoken Work Poet.  I came across him on the TED awards for being chosen to be awarded the TED prize which is given to a person who boldly and creatively inspires and actively seeks global change.  Shane Koyczan speaks out about school bullying.

I've been in this funk for a little while now.  And I've wanted to write about it, but I haven't known how to write about.  Watching Shane Koyczan speak and perform his poem "To This Day" and the way he effortlessly mingled it directly into his speech so that you didn't know where his speech ended and his poem began... was truly impactful to me.  His poem spoke to me.  It's like he looked into my mind and wrote down what he saw, and that ability to connect your words to people you've never met and most likely never will meet, is truly a profound gift.

I was bullied as a pre-teen.  My bullying started before my pre-teen years.  I started being bullied as young as 6 years old, and the offender was my first grade teacher who was Baptist and felt it necessary to take out her hate of Mormonism on an innocent child, therefore setting the tone for how other students treated me.  By the time I was in the 5th grade, I was already very cautious on how I interacted with others.  I would imagine that a lot of my fellow classmates would have seen me differently (not cautious), but that's because every day I made an effort... a conscious effort to socialize with others.  And it was hard.  By the end of my 5th grade year, I had consistent bullies.  They were kids older than me and we weren't in the same school, but we lived in the same community, and we rode the same bus.  Riding the bus was a war zone for me.  Every day, if they felt like I looked at them wrong, I would be surrounded and ridiculed ruthlessly.  And they always felt like I looked at them wrong because as they told me, I "looked wrong".  They surrounded me and they called me fat and a heifer (I was neither of these things, I was a healthy 10 year old who was taller for her age than other 10 year olds).  They pulled me hair and shoved me between them, there were 4 of them on a consistent basis, and on occasion  a couple more would join in on the "fun".  They made up a rhyme about me.  It was something to the effect of being so ugly that they would try to remove my mask only to find out that it was my face.  It was at the part of "removing my mask" that they would pull my hair and touch my face roughly... not hitting, not scratching, but completely invading my personal space and grabbing my chin forcefully.  When they wouldn't be able to remove my mask then they would howl out with laughter and tell me that my favorite holiday must be Halloween because then I could walk freely out in the open in my hideousness and not look out of place and not scare others with how ugly I was.  I would get off the bus and I would take my time getting home (1 block away) and I would cry and then wait until the traces of my tears were gone and then I would go home.  The bus driver never stepped in.  By the time I was 13, I was angry and inwardly aggressive.  I became Gothic and stuck out even worse.  My best friend was considered a "problem kid" and had his own reputation.  But, in our friendship, we were safe with each other.  He was the most compassionate person I've ever known.  His bullying never stopped, really.  And when he was 17 years old, he committed suicide because... I don't know why, but I know part of it was that he was never treated "normally" by his peers.  There were other components to his choice to die, but being ostracized by his peers for being different was a very hard thing for him.  I know this, because he would open up to me about it, and I to him.  My bullying never stopped until the end of my Junior year when my bullies graduated high school.  No matter how "normal" I tried to make myself, these emotional terrorists never let up.  And it's impacted me to this day.

This poem hits home.  The feelings of worthlessness and being undeserving because you aren't "normal", or you stick out for some reason that other's don't... they follow you for the rest of your life.  And while the bullies go through their life bullying other's to get what they want, or maybe they grow up and stop bullying, and settle down to have a family and work at their job that pays the bills... they don't think a second about second guessing themselves, because no one ever second guessed them.  But to the one who was bullied, self doubt becomes a way of life.  That doesn't mean self doubt has to be your life, because there is life after bullying, it's something that you have to fight for though.  Becoming an adult is difficult enough already, add into the mix learning to trust yourself and love yourself and respect yourself after a major portion of your life being told you aren't good enough or "enough", period... makes it that much more difficult.

The point of this post is not to be depressing.  I'm choosing to speak out about my experiences being bullied because bullying is not a matter of kids "just being kids", it goes so far beyond that.  The same rationalization could be applied to war and dictators, "Oh, the war on terrorism is just politicians being politicians... politicians can be mean."  Bullying is an emotional war and it takes place every day in every school across the world.  And teachers stand by and watch.  Administrators don't dare get involved because there is so much fear involved in correcting the behavior of a child whom is not your own.  And other children standing by watching don't dare say anything because if they do, then they are next.  Where is the protection?  Kids who are bullied are the most loving and generous of their classmates.  I'm not saying that in honor of myself.  I'm saying that in honor of the people I know who have been bullied.  Their hearts are kind and compassionate and delicate and that should be protected, not betrayed.

If we, as adults, expect change to happen in schools then we need to set the example to those who look to us as an example.  And we need to be actively involved in pursuing a positive change where it's needed.  If you witness something that is "wrong" in your book, you need to react against it, not in an antagonistic way, but you need to respond in a way that will promote and encourage something better.  We need to let people know when we appreciate them, especially teenagers, because they have it freaking rough.  There is so much out there about what is "wrong" with teenagers and what they can do to be "better" or "worthy" of attention, and it's all coming from the media and from authoritative figures in their lives that only see them a mere portion of their lives.  Some teenagers have rough home lives.  They need encouragement.  They need to know that they are "good" and that they are important and respected and appreciated.  The social structure that a child and teenager are submitted to on a daily basis is a huge component on their behavioral "makeup" as an adult.  If we want a "better" tomorrow then we need to start nurturing those that will be leaders of tomorrow.  It sounds hokey in a "glass-perpetually-half-full" kind of way, but whatever you want to call it, it's idealistic, but it is still possible.  Change begins with the individual and leads to those impacted by the individual.  Change is always possible.

The God of Love and Fear

I just finished watching "Then She Found Me", which is a wonderful movie.  It's rated "R" for language.  It's got Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Bette Midler, and Matthew Broderick in it.  A main theme in this movie is adoption, from every angle.  Another theme is infertility.  And another theme is divorce and relationships, every kind of relationship, between families, lovers, etc.  Another theme that surfaces is God and religion.  It is a beautiful movie.

I haven't been religiously active for years now.  There was a brief moment last year that I went to church consistently.  It lasted 5 weeks.  This blog post is not about what issues I may or may not have with religion, because quite frankly I haven't figured it out yet.  I support my family and friends who are active in their religion.  I am excited when my nieces and nephews participate in religious ordinances because it is important to them and I love them, so I support them.

There is this part in the movie where one of the main characters experiences a miscarriage after great difficulty getting pregnant in the first place and then begins the process of going through fertility treatments because of her difficulty in getting pregnant.  Her birth-mother is at the appointment with her and the doctor wants to get started with the treatment and her birth-mother says to her daughter, "Do you want to pray?" and then at the doctor, "That's what she does, she prays a lot."  Her daughter says she doesn't want to pray and this surprises her birth-mother who then asks the doctor if she could have a minute with her daughter.  The doctor and assistant leave the room to give the patient a minute with her mother.

The birth-mother then starts asking her daughter why she doesn't feel like praying.  The daughter gets defensive and gets up to leave the room to get the doctor but the birth-mother won't let her by.  Holding her daughters hands she asks her for the fifth time, or so, why she won't pray at the most important moment of her life?  Her daughter responds by saying something like, "Why would I trust this moment with someone I thought was..." and she stops.  With tears in her eyes, crying a heart broken cry that we've all experienced at some point in our life, she says, "I thought God was loving and good... I had faith."  At this point, I'm crying because watching this movie and seeing all that this character has been through, a lot of it relate-able, it was hard not to cry.

Her birth-mother responds, "What if God is difficult?  What is He is awful?  Even complicated?"  Her daughter looks into her eyes and whispers, "like me."  And the connection is made.  This hit me hard.  I know I've discussed religion on here before.  The topic of religion is delicate and complex.  It's a delicate place to be in when you know you've sinned, but from your sin comes your life's greatest accomplishment.  How do you justify those feelings?  It's also scary to consider trusting to someone else, anything else that could be remotely as important to you as your life's greatest lesson.  And so, you just kind of go through life trusting yourself with yourself.  I'm talking about being a birth-mother right now.

I could sit here and say that the reason I don't go to church is because the bishop I spoke to after I placed Baby Boy for adoption didn't handle it very well and punished me further after I had just made it through 9 months of spiritually self-refining fire.  I could.  Religious figures always make for a great scapegoat.  I could think up a dozen issues I have and place the blame elsewhere instead of owning them as my own insecurities about religion.  But really what it comes down to is that I once had faith.  I once trusted that God was loving and good.  Maybe that's ridiculously cliche for me to say.  I mean, of all the scapegoats there ever were in the history of mankind, of course I'd be angry at God.  There is no originality in that one.  I get it.  And maybe it's selfish of me to feel like I deserve a break.  But, we've all been there.  So, clearly there is enough judgment to go around in a situation such as this.

I had a dream about a baby girl the other night.  I was holding this baby girl and she had raven-black hair.  She was tiny.  And I loved her.  I could feel my love for her and it was radiating and I knew she could feel it too, even though she didn't know what it was, except that it felt safe.  My entire dream consisted of me looking down into the eyes of my baby girl and being so proud of her.  She was tiny and she was mine.  Do you know how badly I want that?  It hurts bad.

The main character of the movie ends up praying.  She is Jewish and so her prayer was sung.  She translates it for her birth-mother afterward because her birth-mother is not Jewish.  Translated, the prayer meant: "Listen, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Listen, O Israel, the God of love and the God of fear are one."

To be human is to be a paradox.  If it is human nature to be a paradox; to be awful and wonderful, to be complicated and simple, to be difficult and effortless and if we are to believe that we are creations of God, then wouldn't it make sense to believe that God is infinitely more complicated than we are?  This is a huge thing for me because I have felt so much guilt about my anger towards God.  And the fact that I feel guilt makes me even angrier.  But, God created emotion and emotion is confusing.  We know joy because we've felt sorrow.  We know love because we know anger.  And He created it all, so knowing that, I know he can handle my anger and desire to shut Him out right now.  It's complicated.  And this post could offer great offense to some of you out there; I realize this.  But, if I am being honest, I don't feel safe in religion right now.  And I don't trust God right now.  And that's okay because God is merciful and He can handle my anger towards Him.  Not many beings can handle this kind of anger, but He can.  He can handle it because he is the God of love and fear.  He knows the delicate difference between the two.

Radiate

On Friday, I took my first yoga class.  I've wanted to take a yoga class for a couple years now but I was scared because it's something new and I didn't have someone who would be brave to go with me, and being brave alone is sometimes scary.  Who am I kidding?  Being brave is always scary.  I don't know of too many people who think to themselves, "Gee self, you know what?  Today I am going to do something that scares the wits out of me and I'm going to like it.  I can't wait to traumatize myself."  Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way.  Regardless, for 2 years now I've wanted to take a yoga class and last week I started.

I walked into the class and I was scared.  The instructor came in and I introduced myself (voice cracked).  She was very nice and her entire demeanor was calming, something I've always wanted to command in myself.  I grabbed my mat and I set up and class started.  The music was beautiful; piano/Celtic with a backdrop of thunderstorms and rain.

Mid-way through the class my legs were shaking and we were getting into more difficult poses.  I started to stress out because I struggle with feeling weak and letting others see me struggling.  The whole class, the instructor was encouraging the whole class.  By the end of the class, I was feeling refreshed and extremely shaky.  I was also tired from the week.  Then this song came on that I recognized from my childhood, it was on my Celtic Moods c.d. that I would listen to when my anxiety presented itself.  This song has always been a calming one for me.

We moved into a pose (I don't remember the name) where our chest was raised up towards the ceiling and the stretch was allowing for an opening of the chest and it felt wonderful.  The instructor started talking about opening our heart up to possibility.  She talked about being willing to receive from the world what you put into it.  She talked about how the universe is here to carry us and care for us and we receive what we put into it and if all we've put in is good then there is no need for us to fear what we will receive in return.  At this point, I'm maintaining the stretch and hold of the position, and I'm looking skyward, and silent tears are streaming down my face.  She goes on to say, "You are worthy to receive the good you put into the world.  The only one holding you back from fully opening your heart to receive the good back, is yourself.  Open your heart and receive."  The stream of tears cascaded down my neck and my breathing was thrown off from my attempts to not audibly cry.  I'm sniffling and maintaining my pose and the entire moment was so therapeutic for me.

There is no need for me to focus on the detail of why this moment was so groundbreaking for me.  For those of you who have read my posts faithfully, we've been through a lot together.  Based on the comments I've received on this blog and privately, I know that some of what I've talked about has resonated deeply with you, and so I say that we have been through a lot together.  It's scary to open yourself up.  It's scary to believe that there is still good out there when you've been burned so many times.  It's scared to hope when your individual hope has gone to battle too many times to count.  That's where I've been lately.  Completely devoid of the desire to open up and try again.  And this yoga class has really made me think.

Every person out there, at one time or another in their life, has had the desire to be something beyond what they think they are capable of.  We all, for the most part, want to impact the world in a greater way than we've been impacted by it.  That goes for the good and the bad.  Experience, if not analyzed, can lead to pretty destructive behavior.  But, if you are able to look at your experience and know that, in reality, that difficulty was exactly what you needed, and you move forward with that understanding, then you are giving back good into the universe.  The only one holding me back right now, is me.  I can have the love that I've given.  I can have the joy and happiness that I've inspired in others.  I can.  And I will.  I will because I haven't given up.  I thought I had, but that's the thing about Hope, she never gives up.  Hope is my heart and my heart is strong and unwavering.

The instructor ended the class with a quote that is so resonant to what 2013 and the theme of pink is for me and all that this year will inspire in my life.  It's by William George Jordan, from his book The Majesty of Calmness.  It goes:

"The only responsibility that a man cannot evade in this life is the one he thinks of least, his personal influence.  Man's conscious influence, when he is on dress parade, when he is poising to impress those around him, is woefully small.  But his unconscious influence, the silent, subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and acts, the trifles he never considers, is tremendous.  Every moment of life he is changing, to a degree, the life of the whole world.  Every man has an atmosphere which is affecting every other.  So silent and unconsciously is this influence working, that man may forget that it exists.  Into the hands of every individual is given the marvelous power for good or for evil, the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life.  This is simply the constant radiation of who a man really is, not what he pretends to be.  Every man, by his mere living is radiating sympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope, or any of a hundred other qualities.  Life is a state of constant radiation and absorption; to exist is radiate.  To exist is to be the recipient of radiations" (emphasis added).

You give what you get.  Karma returns 10 fold.  You receive what you radiate.  However you want to say it, your unconscious effort is the most influential and impactful.  This is important to remember.  This quote is hanging on my cork board at work where I can see it every day.

I Am "Here"

I have been thinking of so many different things at once... and they've just been circulating in my mind over and over again.  I came across this song right before Christmas this pat year which will forever be remembered in my mind as a huge moment of transition in my life.  It seems that for me, those moments always occur in the cold seasons.  So, this song is one of the re-circulating things I've thought of.

The second thing is the frustrated feeling that you've wasted so much of your time on something worthless.  That's a haunting feeling, for sure.  It's when you start remembering all the things you wanted for your adult self when you were an innocent child dreaming about your future.  I've been revisiting those dreams so much lately.

The third thing that I've been continuously thinking about is, now that I'm an adult, where do I want my future to go?  Now that I'm an adult, I know better what I'm capable of.  A sub-category for this thought is all the fears that come along in life when you've lived a lot of life and want something pretty amazing and different from the sorrow you've experienced... and just being so scared to try because all the other times you've tried have ended up hurting pretty bad.  There is some distrust that goes along with this sub-category.

And then tonight, I was doing some grammar homework and dissecting sentences and then got ready for bed and was just laying in bed.  My sleeping schedule has been completely turned around because I've been struggling through the flu.  Today is the first day I've had my voice back since last Saturday.  It's been an interesting day.

I got a phone call today from Baby Boy's mother and we just chatted and she told me some cute things about Baby Boy and how funny he is and the things that he says.  And I loved it all.  And then she asked if I wanted to talk to him and I did.  He told me that he likes cars. He is in preschool, not school, but preschool and he was sure to correct me on that.  And then he told me that he loves me and then said good bye.  It was a wonderful phone call.

I've been in a funk.  Truth be told, I do not feel emotionally ready for this new semester.  I'm kind of freaking out.  I'm on the cusp of moving on to the next place.  I think about my job and I don't want to go back.  I'm in this place in life right now where I'm ready for something different.

And it's a combination of all of these different thoughts mentioned above that has been re-circulating constantly in my mind this past week.  How do you ask yourself the hard questions to figure out where to go next?  I've been on the verge of understanding but something is blocking me from recognizing the full knowledge.  I hear stories of people just up and quitting their jobs because they can't take one more day of "whatever" and so they quit their job and that action alone opens up doors that wouldn't have opened otherwise... and at one point I remember thinking that is such a stupid thing to do.  But now... I wonder if I should do it.

I just want to leave a mark on this planet.  Maybe that's the idealist in me speaking.  I'm an idealist.  I believe the best in people and I believe that even though I've been burned by doing this, that there are people out there that I am supposed to know and they are supposed to teach me invaluable lessons and together we will make the world a better place.  If I were to die today, I would die knowing that there is so much more I wish I would have done.  Furthermore, I would die knowing that the legacy I would leave behind for Baby Boy to learn about one day, is not the legacy that I imagined for myself when I had my second chance at life after I placed him for adoption.  He has had life-changing impact on me and I don't want to squander it because I want him to be proud of me.  And if I died today, I would die knowing that I squandered his lesson.  And that kills me.  Everything that I want to do is centered around "when" something else will happen "then I can/will"... but some of the most impactful moments in history were not built upon "when" but acting in the moment.

I don't even know if there is a point to this post.  Maybe this is all the cold medicine talking, but I know that there is something better that can be had and that all it takes is reaching for it and taking a chance.  It's not built upon something happening in the future or when I obtain my degree... it's built on taking a risk.

My life-experiences are meant for something greater than what I can imagine.  I want to impact people on a universal level, and maybe in admitting that I'm coming across as self-important.  That's not how I'm meaning it.  I know what my life mission is.  How many people can honestly say that about themselves?  My life mission is to help women understand their self-worth.  My life mission is to promote love and teach what love is because I've experienced all that love is not.  My life mission is to give a voice to populations that have previously been unheard.  So, how do I accomplish that?  I have no idea and that's frustrating to me.

I don't want another 5 years to go by where I am just doing the same thing over and over again.  I don't want to become complacent and I think that's what I feel is happening right now.  Life doesn't just happen to us.  I can't have gone through everything I've experienced just because that was the life that was "dealt" to me by some power bigger than me who deals out life-experiences.  I want to use my knowledge and my experience to help someone else.  I don't even know if I'm going to post this.  This is not coming out the way that I want it to.  I think it's coming off as complaining.  That's not the spirit in which it is intended.

I've seen complacency very recently in the experience I just got out of and it is ugly.  Complacency turns into entitlement which turns into greed at the expense of others and I want nothing to do with it.  So, I guess in a long about way what I need to figure out is how am I going to start doing what I feel driven to do?  What is it that you are driven to do?  I really hope I hear some feedback on this.  I'm not just posting this to the cosmos as one of those existential questions that can't be answered.  I would really like to know what those of you out there reading this feel is your mission in life.  And what have you done to work towards achieving it?  I look forward to your responses.  Please, don't be shy.