Growth Mindset

It's been almost 6 months since I've written.  And in those 6 months, University has continued to be my main focus in life.  I'm officially in the Education Program this semester and it's been awesome.  I'm taking Educational Psychology, Secondary Curriculum Instruction and Assessment (CIA, tee-hee), American Foundations of Education, Exceptional Students, and Methods II in teaching English.  Yep, it's a heavy workload but it's been manageable.  I've been creating curriculum right and left ll semester and have been analyzing my lesson plans to learn how they've been encouraging cognitive development for the age groups they've been created for.  I've been learning some really amazing things in my Educational Psychology class and some of that stuff I'm going to share on this blog because they are too good not to share.

Carol Dweck is a Psychologist who devised a theory about fixed vs. growth intelligence mindsets.  She wrote a book about it called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.  This entire theory is based on the concept that many students have that intelligence is something you are born with and therefore a person's intelligence is limited.  So, if a student with this mindset struggles with math then they feel defeated because intelligence to them is a biological thing, therefore they will never understand math so why put in any effort?  Carol Dweck says, however, that intelligence is not fixed (biological), but rather it is something that needs to be exercised and strengthened and able to grow.  She did a study with students where she divided them into 2 groups.  Group A was put through an intensive 8 week intervention program to boost their math scores that focused solely on teaching them study skills to help them find success in their math grades.  And along with teaching Group A the study skills, she also taught them that intelligence can be expanded and that it is not fixed (biological).  Group B had the same 8 week intervention program focusing on study skills, but were not taught fixed vs. growth intelligence theory.  At the end of a couple of months, students from Group A (compared against students from Group B) showed improvement in their math grades.  The only difference for these groups was the change in motivation that students experience in Group A because they were taught that their brain had the ability to grow in intelligence.  It's quite fascinating.  You can read more about this study by reading this article: http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2007/pr-dweck-020707.html

Why am I excited about this?  Because this doesn't just apply to the adolescent mind.  I probably didn't mention that the study Carol Dweck performed was on Jr. High students.  How many times have you been faced with an experience you don't believe you can get through?  I know I've faced so many of those moments that I can't count them.  I want to say that I don't think that Carol Dweck's theory only applies to cognitive intelligence but also emotional intelligence.  You always hear that saying, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle," but what if He does?  I read another blog a while back and I can't for the life of me remember the name of the blog, so just realize that this idea is not original to me.  This woman, in her blog, challenged the notion that we aren't given more in this life than we can handle.  But it wasn't defeatist.  She ended her blog by saying, essentially, that God does give us more than we can handle, but He does so that we will learn to turn to Him and let Him carry the part that we can't.  That's pretty cool.  I want to add to this that I think He does give us more than we can handle, because maybe that's the point of this existence; for us to learn the valuable life lessons that we would otherwise not learn unless faced with despair, trial, hopelessness, loss, anger, and etc.  That sounds depressing and I don't mean for it to.  All I am saying is that just like growth intelligence mindset (cognitively speaking), I also believe that we have a growth emotional-intelligence mindset.

Those of us in the Adoption community have faced hardship, and we continue to face hardships.  You know what I'm talking about.  As birth-mothers and birth-fathers (they matter too), and birth-families (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.), we experience a great loss in the placement of our beloved child to another family; a family that will have complete legal authority for the child.  As parents who are looking to adopt for reasons related to fertility, they've endured loss over and over again in their attempts to grow their family.  I can't speak for adoptive children, because I'm not one, but I can only imagine some of the emotions they would face at different times in their lives, especially people who were placed for adoption during time-periods where adoption was closed and considered taboo.  That kind of loss (for all of us) is deep and difficult to navigate, but we are navigating it and that is powerful.  Don't limit yourself in the amazing things that you can accomplish, but most importantly don't doubt yourself in the emotional depth that you can achieve when you face something that feels too big.  You can get through it.  We all can.

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.

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.

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.

Quiet Mind

“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” 
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

I love this quote.  I've been thinking about the topic of happiness a lot lately and then also about this quote.  I think it is natural to think that happiness must always be with you... or that if you are unhappy then you are ungrateful.  And so you settle on a happy that isn't happy, but is... something drastically less, because you don't want to be ungrateful and so you will be "happy".  

This post is starting to sound like I'm depressed.  Actually, I'm not.  Something happened to me this past week that I am still thinking on.  I've been sick for the last month.  I'm not joking.  I'm stressed, I'm cold, I don't get near enough sleep, and I don't have enough recuperation time to get over being sick.  I've had everything from the stomach flu to this winter's brand of lingering cold.  And for the first while... I was exhausted with frustration at not feeling well, and that exhaustion was eating at me emotionally.  

It was in a moment of... I don't know what you would call it... it felt desperate.  In this moment of "desperation" I let someone I love dearly know that "things" aren't easy.  I opened up to this person and afterwards I felt ashamed, but the response I received back was pretty spectacular.  They let me know that they appreciate me not "sugar-coating the hell" out of what I was trying to say.  They told me that in letting them know how hard of a time I've been having but how I'm pushing through it made them feel like I was actually letting them in to the person that is me.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about that ever since.

This week has not been easy.  I began to feel better last Sunday.  That was the first day in a long time that I felt human and not like a walking illness.  I was able to get up and clean and my energy lasted all day, not just a couple of hours.  And then by Tuesday, I was coughing again, only my cough was worse and moved into my lungs.  My schedule this year does not allow for being sick and so I had to push through it all week.  And then Friday came and I got home and I was fevering.  I spent all last weekend fevering as well.  I don't have insurance.  I can't afford the doctor and so I just treated myself.  

The major difference from this weekend and last weekend, was this weekend... I'm not waiting for things to get worse.  It's something I've been focusing on for the last couple of weeks or so.  I've always been a person who constantly anticipates that things can always be worse... and so I should be grateful and appreciative of what I have now because even if what I have now is a fever... well, it can always get worse.  The person I am now and that I am focusing on becoming is a person who always anticipates that something greater is around the corner.  And that's the difference.  I still don't feel my best but I know that I won't always be sick.  I know that the cold of winter won't always be so biting.  I know that all the frustrations and all the pain and anger I've felt for the longest time... it's melting.  It will resurface here and there, but that's life.  The place I was 1 year ago was dark and angry and hopeless and I was on the verge of inner destruction; that's not an exaggeration.  I was so lost and all that I knew was that I was lost in anger.  I've made a lot of changes since then and for the first time in my entire life I know what it means to feel quiet and peaceful and aware of the softness of happiness.  

It's Been a While

I feel bad that I haven't written for a while.  Things have been really busy for me.  A new semester started and I am in a Creative Non-fiction writing class, an Intermediate Poetry writing class, and an Intermediate Algebra class.  The combination of these classes means that I barely have time to sleep.  Also, I am tutoring 5th graders in reading at a local elementary school.  I'm trying to get other areas of my life in order as well, and so I've just had a lot of different things competing for my time.  What I've realized is that I need to include making time for writing on this blog, because this blog is an outlet for me.  It's a way for me to connect with people I care about and who care about open adoption.  My lack of writing doesn't mean that I haven't been thinking a lot about what I would write about.  And as usual, what I want to write about is hard to explain, but I will definitely try my hardest to say it.

My poetry class and my creative non-fiction class have really pushed my limits as far as writing and the construct behind writing.  I've always felt like I was an "okay" writer of poetry, but this class has shown me that... there is a lot I didn't know.  Ironically enough, I was more worried about going in to my creative non-fiction class because I didn't know what it would involve (this genre of writing is hard to define, therefore my hesitancy), but it's proven to be the class I am doing best in.  As for math... I have nothing pleasant to say about it.

The semester is officially half-way over.  And for the 8 weeks that have passed, I have been living in the land of memory because I've had to write a personal essay that was just critiqued in front of my entire class 2 days ago.  Not all of it has been pleasant.  For the next 7 weeks, I will continue residing in the land of memory, because I have another entire-class critique the week before finals.

I've been dealing with some other things on top of the stress of this semester.  Something I haven't written about that I am going to mention right now is that back in April of this year I decided to separate ways with my family.  I'm not going to go into the details of this decision on here, but I feel like it is necessary to let you all know because you all have been an important part in my growth and healing after placement, and honesty is important.

Simply put, this year has been hard.  The decision I made in April, I made because I felt like I was disappearing.  I can't describe that feeling.  I was caught up in so many people's extreme emotions and I was trying to make it all better for everyone involved, and what it was doing to me was erasing me.  It was at this time that I started considering that maybe I had a severe mental health disease because I didn't trust anyone, especially myself.  So, I did something for myself.  I shut myself off from all the confusion and I have been working through the confusion ever since.

I've been sorting through the confusion of my life and I'm better for it.  For as hard as this year has been for me, I'm grateful for it.  When you have people from every angle whispering insecurity in you and you lose your voice amidst all of the anger, that's when you begin to disappear.  I cut off all the noise and I'm better for it.  I'm more at peace with myself.  I'm more secure in myself.  I'm happier.  I think that's hard for certain people to hear because they don't want to believe it, but it's true.  I have a focused idea of where I want my life to go now and it's not competing with the whispers of everyone else.  Sometimes I still hear echoes of the whispers because of the actions of others' and how they are still affecting my life in an attempt to gain control, but I know how to ignore them now, and I'm better off for it.  Those people know who they are and I know how reading this post may make them feel, but that's not my problem anymore; it belongs with them.

I've been afraid to blog because everything I do right now is being analyzed by people who I really don't want to have contact with anymore.  But, this is my blog.  And these are my feelings.  And I will not stop expressing them.

On that note, I'd like to share a poem I came across that I've been thinking about over the course of this semester so far.  It is by Wislawa Szymborska who just recently passed away.  She is a woman of Polish descent who survived the Holocaust.  She has a beautiful way of expressing vulnerability and strength at the same time and I appreciate her poetry for that reason.  Enjoy.  The meaning is left up to you, that's the beauty of poetry (it is something for everyone); I already know what it means to me.

Under One Small Star

My apologies to change for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all.
Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage, 
your gaze always fixed on the same point in space, 
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs.
My apologies to great questions for small answers.
Truth, please don't pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
Soul, don't take offense that I've only got you now and then.
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man.
I know I won't be justified as long as I live,
since I myself stand in my own way.
Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
the labor heavily so that they may seem light.

-Wislawa Szymborska

Language is Perspective

I just read an article on The Salt Lake Tribune about Open Adoption and it was an informative article.  For those of you who don't know, the adoption practices of Utah in comparison with other states, has been called in to question; what that question is has morphed in to something rather ugly and bigger than it needs to be, in my opinion.

Initially it started with the rights of birth-fathers and what exactly their rights are.  This is a sensitive place for me.  In my work life, we help mediate divorces and get a stipulation in order that will be turned in to an Order through the court system.  Most often than not, the divorces involve children and we set up parent time plans and calendars.  More often lately we've seen a lot of mediations come through that are paternity mediations, meaning mom and dad weren't married, but dad wants rights.  I think this is great to a degree.  That sound harsh.  It's hard to separate my individual experience with everyone else's.  I need to remember that not all birth-fathers have put the birth-mother's life in danger on multiple occasions and not all birth-father's would be a danger to their child.  In fact, sometimes it's the exact opposite, only mom doesn't want dad to have any custody or rights because that would limit the amount of child support she receives from him; she wants him to have just enough in order to get money from him.  It's the truth and it's disgusting.  But, I digress.

Should birth-father's have legal rights in the adoption process?  That's the initial question to the debate that has unfolded.  Though, now it has morphed in to every birth-mother who has had a bad experience through the adoption process coming forth and bad mouthing open adoption because of their singular bad experience.  Do promises get made that aren't kept?  Yes, probably more often than not, and that's wrong.  And if you are an adoptive parent who promised the moon and stars only to pull the rug out from the birth-mother once the adoption was finalized, then serious shame on you.  However, as a birth-mother/parent, it is important for us to set boundaries for ourselves and the child we placed because, truth of the matter is, we signed our rights away.  So there is reprimand to go around on every angle of this debate.  There is not one side that is purer than the other, the only purity out of all of this is the child that was born and placed; they are the light.

It wasn't the article that bothered me.  It was the comments being made that were truly disturbing.  Critical phrases were being thrown right and left and accusations from one's personal experiences were being generalized on the "whole" experience that is adoption.  I typically don't make practice to respond to newspaper articles, but I did on this one.

Here's what we all need to remember folks:
-Don't make promises you can't keep.
-Don't place your child for adoption with people you aren't 1000% sure about.
-Set boundaries for yourself, this goes for birth-parents, adoptive parents, and extended family.
-Know your weakness and anticipate it surfacing through rehabilitation.  For a birth-mother, this would be feelings of anger towards the adoptive family because they can offer what you can't.  That's natural, but it doesn't mean that it's "their" fault.  It's not your fault, it is what it is.  There are always going to be the what-ifs to any situation and there are always going to be acknowledgment for things you could have done differently, and that's the point... and that's why it isn't "their" fault.  As for an adoptive parent, I can only assume what the feelings might be, and this blog is not the place for assumptions, so I'm not even going to go there.
-Be kind with your language.  A child wasn't "given up", they were placed.  In my case, he was placed lovingly and with a tear-drenched head into the arms of his parent's social worker.
-Your experience isn't the "whole" definable experience.  Do not ever dare associate all of what open adoption is with your experience only.  I've had a great experience; I'm one of the lucky birth-mother's whose adoptive couple kept their word and were honest when they weren't able to make promises.  I know this isn't the case for every birth-mother out there and that's unfortunate.  On the flip-side of that proverbial coin, if your experience as a birth-mother is rotten, that doesn't mean that all of Open-Adoption is, so be careful in how you express your experience, because it may feel all encompassing and total, but it isn't, it is your's and very singular in the details.
-This isn't about you (adoptive parent or birth-parent).  "This", meaning open adoption, is about what is BEST for the child who is placed.  Remember that.

Here is my fear.  If the fight gets bigger and the sides get more defined and the "vision" of open-adoption gets so completely muddied by individual experiences, then it will be legislated.  The law will get involved and it will make it definable.  For the adoptive parents out there who are reneging on their promises, you are damaging more than just a birth-mother's soul.  You are throwing the gauntlet and forcing legislation to make a decision that could potentially harm you in the future and the promises you make.  For the birth-mother's who demand a constant presence in the child's life that you no longer have legal rights to, you are throwing the gauntlet and forcing legislation to make a decision that will impact every future birth-mother to come, and that may not be for the best, even though in your individual case it might be.  An entire communities rights should NEVER be defined by an individual's wrongs or victimization and that is what I'm afraid will come from this debate.

It started simple, should birth-fathers have a say in the placement of the child (I still don't fully have an opinion on this, because my opinion is clouded by personal experience).  It's morphed in to, should verbal contracts made before placement be binding after placement.  In one instance, the answer is an easy "yes" because, perhaps then, people will be more careful in what they want to promise.  Then again, the answer is an easy "no" because by legalizing everything, the communication will be forced and "force" is not good for a child.  There is no balance in enforcement.

That Memory Place

I have a poor memory.  It's something that has bothered me for a while now.  I don't remember names and I don't remember specific every day events, and on occasion I don't even remember the context of certain conversations.  And lately I've been thinking a lot about my childhood.  For the longest time I didn't remember specific events from my childhood that siblings remembered; old family friends, etc.  It has bothered me for so long and on a level that caused discomfort.

Today, I had the crazy idea to look up an old childhood home on Google Maps from when I lived in Missouri.  Have you all played around with Google Maps?  If you have, then you know of the awesomness of it all.  I don't remember street names.  I just remember random facts, but today I started with a small ghost-like town I lived in name Mayview Missouri.  It's tiny.  As of the year 2000, the census reported a grand total of 294 people who reside in this town.  I don't remember it being that big... maybe it was, but to me it was big in a different way.

What I remember.  Mayview felt excluded from other areas.  It is nestled between Lexingoton, Bluesprings, and Odessa (if memory serves me correctly) and I remember going to the Wentworth Military Academy to go swimming.  People would practice their scuba diving at the bottom of the deep end of the pool and I would inch my way down there, clinging to the wall, so that I could dunk my head under water and watch them; sometimes they would wave at me which would make me laugh so hard.

I lived at the bottom of a hill and from the bottom of the hill a long road (turns out it's name is Long Road... imagine that) stretched forth before you and it made me feel like Dorothy  when she was trying to find her way back to her aunt's at the beginning of the storm... I just knew that it had to have led somewhere pretty spectacular, but I don't know if I knew that it just led to another town.  It was a road we would drive often.  At the top of the hill was Pastor White's home... I think that was the family name.  His home shared the property with the Baptist Church and across from the Baptist church was another church; I want to say it was Catholic... I remember a giant cross out front.  Every Sunday the two churches would open their doors wide and try to out-sing each other.  at least that's what it sounded like because the music would progressively get louder and louder.  One summer, my mother signed me up to practice with the Baptist choir, I don't know why she did this.  I'm thinking maybe it was for some summer structure; I don't know.  All I remember was that at the tender age of 7 I realized that I lacked severely in rhythm and that singing was a way to praise God, "probably the best way" I remember thinking.  We sang this song about not going in the water... okay, I just found the song on Google (got to love The Google, it knows everything).  It's called "Wade in the Water" and it's a negro-spiritual and the below video is a youtube video with this song, and it's done beautifully.

And I remember the pastor was pounding the crap out of the piano he was playing on with one hand while leading the choir of children, which I was a part of.  I remember it was alarming but also the coolest thing I'd ever experienced up to, and including that moment.

Where am I going with this?  I guess I just had a cool experience on Google Maps.  All I remembered, structurally, from this town was these 2 churches.  When I looked them up on the map, I couldn't find them and so I just started playing around with the street view.  Thankfully, Mayview isn't that big so it didn't take long to figure out where I was and where I wanted to be.  I found the childhood home I lived in while I lived in Mayview.  It was weird and awesome.  Everything is so different.  All the boarded up and condemned buildings that were there 20 years ago, I didn't see any sight of them.  It was just houses.  And the home I lived in, all the roses were gone.  We had so many roses.  That was the home that I never turned 7 in.  What that means is technically I never had my 7th birthday.  I kept getting sick for all the reschedules, so it just never happened.  I don't say that in a hurt way, I say that in the way that it will become handy when I'm turning 40 and I can still say that I'm technically 39.  How's that for thinking outside the box?

On Google Maps, I went through the streets one by one and specific family homes stood out to me.  Like the home of one of my friends.  I think her name was Anna (I was only 6 at the time).  Looking back on all of it, I'm pretty sure her family were Ozarks people... and if you know anything about the South, you know what that means (smiling and nodding head), not to say that Missouri is the south or deep south for that matter, but it's south enough :)

I remember my friend Timmy.  He made a big deal out of me being white (laughing out loud).  Yeah, in Missouri I was the minority and it was a great experience for me in more ways than one.  He was a bigger black kid and my dear friend.  As was Xane (Zane).  We were buddies and we would play tag at recess.  We would also play in this carriage-jungle-gym thingie on the playground.  It was a carriage.  We wouldn't play princess stuff though... I was never the damsel in distress, that was my friend Tonya.  She was the damsel in distress, and I was one of the thieves along with Xane and Timmy.  We were merciless in our plunderings.  They would also climb trees with me and we would hide and plan our next attack on the carriage.  We weren't supposed to climb the trees on the school property, but that never stopped us.  It's fun to remember this stuff.  

I guess the reason this is such a big moment for me and one I'm blogging about is because Missouri was a huge part of my childhood and one I cherish and miss.  And also, so much can change in 1 year... and it was truly shocking to see how much more can change in 20 years.  It feels like it was another life.  Also, my perception has changed from just 1 year ago.  For the longest time when I would think about Missouri, the main thing that would stick out in my mind was the horrible teacher I had in the first grade who would belittle me and humiliate me on a near daily basis, in front of the rest of class, simply for being Mormon.  That was a horrible experience and that was the one I always remembered.  Now I remember Xane and Timothy and Tonya.  I remember Ms. Moorhead who was the coolest teacher I've ever had.  She was the first teacher I respected; I was in the 3rd. grade.  

Perception is so interesting.  It changes as swiftly as the temperament of the person whom it belongs to.  Mrs. Allenbaugh was the name of my 1st grade teacher who was extremely horrible to me and I held on to a lot of anger towards her for years.  I don't anymore.  In a way, I guess I'm grateful for her.  I think it's in gratitude that we forgive and are able to move forward in life.  I've said it before, and I say it again, my mission in this life is to learn all I can about unconditional love.  Mrs. Allenbaugh taught me a valuable lesson about love; it is that no matter how different someone is from you, or the things they believe, or the practices they enact and preach, they are deserving of love.  Even if they don't meet the expectations or qualifications or standard of life that you require... they deserve your love.  Furthermore, love is not your's to withhold from those who don't behave in accordance with your ideals and values.  We are all creations of something much bigger and Christian law warns us against judging others.  She taught me that love is not something that is used to judge.  She taught me that love is not a tool used to accept or deny a human being because they are different from you.  I would not have been able to learn this valuable lesson had it not been for Mrs. Allenbaugh.  And so, in letting go of the anger I've wasted on this woman for so many years, I express my gratitude out into the cosmos in the form of good karma.  I hold no ill-will towards this woman anymore.  I have better things to exert my energy and time upon.  

I miss Missouri.  I hope to re-visit it one day.  I hope to one day re-visit my old childhood homes and favorite climbing trees.  More than that, though, I hope that my future children will be blessed enough to grow up in an environment where they have free-reign over their imaginations and adventures.  I hope that I can offer that kind of freedom to my future children.  That's something worth striving for.

We Are Never Meant to Fully Know, and Maybe That's the Beauty of it All

You know, I've been thinking a lot about what I want to post... I feel like what I had to say in my last post was only part of what I truly was feeling.  And it's taken me since my last post to recognize what the other part is.  I have sat down to do this post multiple times now and it never felt complete.  I'm sitting here tonight on the verge of an awesome moment.  Have you ever been acutely aware of that moment right before something awesome happens?  I don't know if I've ever been aware of it before.  And I've just been feeling it lately.  How do I describe it?  It's like a stretch... if you were a tree.  I'm smiling right now because I know that's a bizarre way of saying it and you are probably like "say wha?!"  I've been thinking a lot about trees lately.  I love trees.  You know that moment when you are laying in bed and the world is peaceful and you are secure in your covers and comfortable like an infant in swaddling?  And you look at your clock and you still have a good chunk of sleeping time left and the thought of that drives your contentment even deeper and you stretch... wide and long and you let out a sound of contentment as you stretch out and you can feel the stretch all the way from your fingertips to your toes.  It's like that... but if you were a tree and you were stretching off the frost of winter.

I'm in a place I've never been before.  I have no control over the major important aspects of my life.  I'm not saying I have no control, period, because that's not true.  I have control over waking up in the morning.  I have control of maintaining my hygiene and flossing my teeth.  I have control over going to work.  I have control over enrolling for school (which I just did).  I have control.  But in the major areas of my life that involve other people... I don't have complete control.  There was this time where I was trying to control and mediate everything between all the people I love most.  And... it didn't work.  And so I made a decision to not try and control any of it anymore and it was hard to come to the decision.  It's been the best decision of my life.  And I'm going to maintain the distance I've created.  But that means that a lot of the control I was trying to exercise and maintain... that I give that up as well.  And actually, I'm fine with that.  The idea of that helps me breathe deep.

Here's where I'm at.  I have no idea what's going to happen in the major parts of my life because I don't control every aspect of them.  I control my part in it and I know what I'm going to nurture and what I'm going to take a break from and that's all the control I need.  There is something about getting down to the basics and spending some time "there" in the Land of Basics, that really brings about a new perspective entirely.  And this is the place I'm talking about... that place that is on the verge of something really awesome.  And it feels good.  I compare it to a tree because I would imagine that if I were a tree and the last bit of winter melted away from me, my first inhale of Spring would rejuvenate my soul and the very root of my being.  And I would stretch that first breath of Spring to the tips of my roots that ground me in experience all the way up the to the very tip of every branch that I raise towards the Heavens in salute of gratitude for the morning.... and I would imagine that that kind of a stretch leaves an impact.  So whatever impact comes from this new place, I accept it willingly and openly and graciously because I'm seeing it with complete clarity and I can't wait.  And that's the point... the future should be something anxiously anticipated and excited for, and I'm there again.  I've let go of the control that bogged me down.  I've let go and the in-between place that kept me rooted when I wanted to stretch beyond myself.  I'm not caught or trapped anymore by the expectations of others... all I have are the beautiful expectations for my self.  And I'm excited for what's to come because I know it will be beautiful.

This is the clarity I was talking about in my last post.  I am grateful for all the difficulty of the last year.  I am grateful for all the experiences I've experienced that I thought would leave me soulless... that's not an exaggeration.  I have been to the place where I've wanted to wear Anger and Bitterness for the rest of my life... I've been to that place where Distrust was easier to swallow than Hope... I've been to that place where it didn't feel worth the fight anymore.  And I know exactly what it was that inspired me to push forward; deeply personal and sacred experience and vision of where I want to go.  It is at our lowest points in life that we see with the greatest clarity; I don't doubt this because I've lived it.  And I still am, but I'm learning to trust the clarity.  I wouldn't have had this clarity without the hardship and so I'm grateful for it.  I'm a blessed woman.  Not everything is in my control and I finally accept that truth; in fact I'm glad that it's not.  And, I don't know what's to come but I'm excited for it and I'm glad to be "here" again; "here" where I'm excited for what's to come because it's been a LONG time since I was last "here".

Truth is, Mistakes are Necessary

I've been on this reading bender lately.  And I'm loving it because I am reading things that I want to read and that are still completely out of my realm of "typical reading".  Right now I am reading a couple of books by Mark Nepo.  I'm only 4 poems into his book of poetry titled Surviving Has Made Me Crazy.  I've never read anything like what he has to offer, never in my life have I read such pure truth learned only at the hands of difficulty.  If you guys want to know more about him, you should read up on him.

I want to share one of his poems with you.  It is titled "The Mistake", and it goes:

The wind had been knocked out of me
and doubled over, I looked like I was asking
for something.  It was then that someone
passing by offered me something precious,
which I managed to hold briefly before
dropping.  And when I dropped it,
it fell into someone else's hands
and she was so grateful.
She called me kind and generous.
She couldn't thank me enough.
But it was only a mistake.
I felt compelled to admit
that I had merely dropped
something precious.  At this,
she put what I had dropped down
and took my face and said, "Don't
you see?  Even dropping what is precious
is a gift."  It made me cry and while
she rocked me, what was precious
rolled toward a bird who fluttered
over it.  It finally landed at the feet
of a small child who hugged what was
given, what was dropped, what was a
mistake, what was let go in order to hold
someone lost.  The little one just hugged it
and turned to her mother in awe, shouting,
"Look what I found!  Look what I found!"

This poem is beautiful to me and I cried when I read it.  There are different reasons why I appreciate this poem.  From a writing perspective, I appreciate its ambiguity, there is no clear understanding of what the precious thing is and so the core of the poem, the something dropped could be so many different things to so many different people, and for that it is more resounding in its universal impact.  Secondly, I love the enjambments, which is how each line ends which really effects the breath of thought and how it is spoken and delivered.  But mostly, I love the message and what I get from it.  It will be different for you, I imagine, but for me it was quite powerful.  To me, the meaning of this poem conveys and idea that there is more to trial and loss and sorrow, even if none of that was sought out.  And why would any of that be sought out?  It wouldn't.  I don't know of anyone who thinks to themseleves, "Self, I could really go for a life-altering downer right now, what do you say to that?!"  Self, go for it and make sure it hurts you big time and will be felt for a long time.  Yeah, people typically aren't like that.  But stuff happens.

Things happen in life that you never see coming and it leaves you... frightened and broken, and that's kind of the point.  You've heard me say it before, and I'll continue saying it, hurt/trials/sorrow grows us for powerful change that we are meant to experience.  Oftentimes, it feels as though we are lucky just to survive these moments of life-altering impact.  I've felt like that for the longest time, myself, that I'm lucky to have survived the soul-trauma and hurt that comes with placing a child for adoption.  Outside of my life-altering placement of my first child for adoption, I've lived through some other pretty heart-wrenching experiences and the culmination of all of them together has left me quite frightened and unsure of moving forward.

This poem made me think of all of these difficult moments/experiences differently.  I wonder about this "thing" that he was given and then mistakenly dropped, only to want it back, but not regaining it again, only to still be better off in a way that isn't easily expressed for having lost the thing he let go of, and that brought so much joy to the life of another, a child.  I get the feeling that the voice of this poem still misses, very much, the thing he accidentally let go of.  And it wasn't easy for the voice of this poem to let this thing go, but it was never fully his to begin with, and in letting it go he realized that in letting go is as much of a gift as the experience was in the first place.  And what he let go of isn't just forgotten, but it finds it's place in the heart of another and the memory of the previous "owner".  I think it's the combination of these understandings that the poem ends on a joyful note which gives you the sense as a reader that the voice of this poem is alright with what happened and that this "mistake" of letting go of what he initially had no intention of letting go was not a mistake, but something that just happened... something that he had no control over, but that just happened.  I'm sorry if I am rambling.  I get real nerdy about analyzing poems... it's why I'm an English major, truth be told.

There's another story in this poem I feel.  And I believe that the other story is in the fact that sometimes it takes losing what we value most to understand the true beauty of what we had.  And that sounds like a total bummer, but I think that this other narrative is followed by the suggestion that what was lost can be regained with the purity of new eyes or new understanding, as the child who claimed the precious gift that was lost by the person who let it drop from their grasp accidentally.  Once this person lost what they treasured, they realized what they missed and regained it with new appreciated understanding.  The "new" being represented by the child.

I could honestly keep going, but I'll stop.  I just want to finish this post by saying that I no longer feel that that things we lose sight of in life and that escape our true understanding and leave us with uncertainty and fear about what's to come... I no longer believe that these moments are meant simply to be survived.  But rather that they are gifts as well.  The "mistakes" and regrets of life are not a curse to the one feeling them, but they are a gift to teach us what we value as most sacred.  And while we experience the difficulty of this lesson, the experience is a gift in itself because, never again, will we live each moment of our life in an experience with such obvious clarity and true understanding.  And it's for that reason that we should be grateful for our hardships because they make what's important completely clear.  And really, what we feel in the pressure of the difficulty... it really isn't too far away from the peace.  I would go as far as to say that they are one in the same: confusion and understanding, fear and peace, hurt/anger and love, sorrow and joy, despair and hope.  It is in the experience of one that we find and better understand the other.  And there is balance in all of it, even when balance isn't readily found.

Reality

I was laying in bed last night thinking about so many things.  I had a massive headache from my classes, it was a headache that could only be brought on by a discussion steeped in German Philosophy... quite horrifying, really.  I bailed on my math class because my vision was blurry from my headache, so I wanted to be able to drive home while it was still somewhat light out.  I got home and I laid down for a bit with a washcloth on my eyes and I was contemplating whether or not homework was really necessary (for last night) and I decided it wasn't.  So, at about 10:30 I decided it was time to go to sleep.  Again, pounding head to the point of tears, so I took some Tylenol P.M. and called it a night.

Before I drifted to sleep, and while the pounding in my head subsided, and while I was still feeling pretty defeated by my headache, I had the sad thought is this really my life?  Have you ever felt so completely defeated that you question the reality of your life?  It was an unreal moment.  A flood of thoughts rampaged through my head and they left me feeling even more out of sorts and emotional in a very discomforting way.  I felt anger start to creep in.  And, of course, it's always to be angry at God, because He's such an easy "idea" to place all of life's stuff on, as well as all the blame that comes along with life's stuff.

I laid there wondering is this what the product of serious emotional abuse is?  A person who is so incapable of living a healthy adult life that she only survives from day to day?  I know, really depressing, right?  And then I started thinking about all the men I dated before Baby Daddy and the absolute jerks that they were.  Before I go any further, I will let you know that this post is not about man bashing.  It is not a post about the superiority of one gender over the other.  This is a post of recognition.  Seriously, the guys I dated were players and they progressively got worse with each new guy.  They made me feel grateful to be "noticed" by them, even though I wasn't the only female they were "noticing", if you know what I mean.  And they were all dangerous in one way or another.  And as I thought about this last night, the anger in me became stronger.  And then I thought about Baby Daddy and the life I thought I was going to have with him until I found out who he really was and then I thought about what my life has turned into.  I'm a birth mother.

I'm a birth mother.  It was like for the first time ever, those words sunk in deep and I felt all the emotions I've felt the last 2 years flood and overwhelm me.  And I cried.  I cried hard.  And I thought to myself, is this really my life?  To always feel this?  Is there no other outcome for me than the memory of this?  And then I thought about a future that I've been dreaming up for the last couple of years and how beautiful it is and the light it brought to my heart and the potential reality that, because of a huge portion of my actions, I may never know that future that has been a light in the dark that life sometimes feels like.  And I cried even more and even harder.  I cried so hard that my hair was soaked from my tears.  I thought is this all I will ever know from here on, is this sorrow?  It's destroying me.  I stopped and stared straight ahead into the dark of my room and the next thought surprised me, there is more here than sorrow.  Sorrow is not your future if you don't want it to be.


Such a simple thought, yes?  And so true.  So, now is the time to recognize reality.  Yes, I've trusted men who didn't deserve my trust, and yes I've loved a couple of those men who did not deserve the light of my love.  Yes, I'm a birth mother and it hurts to miss my child.  And yes, I will periodically feel this hurt so deeply that it hurts to breathe, and it will hit me when I least expect it.  Yes, my path in life so far has been difficult and there are still difficult times ahead.  Yes, a future I'd been dreaming of is potentially out of my reach because of my actions in hurting it.  But that's not all there is to me, not if I don't want it to be.

Yes, in past cases, I trusted certain men who didn't deserve my trust, but I've learned a valuable lesson from it.  Yes, I've been betrayed by those men I naively trusted and even loved, but I still have hope in mankind enough to believe and know that there are still trust-worthy people out there.  There is no sorrow in love, even if it is mis-placed.  Love is love and this world could definitely use more of it.  And yes, since them, I've known a deeper kind of love and I'm blessed to have known it because it has forever changed my life (I speak of Baby Boy here, and Mango).  Yes, I placed my child for adoption and I miss him every day.  Yes, he is adjusted and that adjustment is not with me, but that's how it should be.  Yes, life is not always going to be easy, but it's not supposed to be and I'm strong so I'll do good in life.  And yes, I still believe in that future that is light to my heart.  Yes, to obtain that future is going to take a lot of work, but it is obtainable.  The first step is recognizing reality.

We are birth mothers.  This is not a death sentence.  It's just a truth.  Joy comes to all.  And we all have a future that is of our making.  There is strength in this knowledge.  Yes, my future could potentially be dark and angry, but only if I choose to see that life happens to me, and not the other way around.  It's got a different feel doesn't it, just in saying it?  Try it.  Life happens to me and I don't have a say in how it happens vs. I happen to life and I take ownership of myself and my actions and whatever comes from them, I own it.  It's not a solve all, but it is helpful.  We are strength.  We are vision.  We are love.  We are blessed.  Take ownership of this strength because you are strength.

"I ain't got nothing but today and a whole lot of tomorrows"

The above quote is from a text I just got done reading for my Contemporary American Literature class.  It is from the book Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas which is an amazingly entertaining and gripping Autobiography of Mr. Thomas' life in Spanish Harlem.  This novel is amazing as is the author who just passed away last November.  Warning: If you are offended by harsh language and graphic details, this book is not the book for you.  Having said that, the language took getting used to and some of the graphic details were shocking to get through.

This book is about identity.  It's about one man's journey to declaring and accepting his identity, not for identification, but for self-creation.  There are so many quotes from this book that are truly beautiful.  The title of this blog is one of those quotes, another goes along well with it.  Piri Thomas was incarcerated for shooting a cop at a night club that he and his partners were robbing.  He was in prison for 6 years and when he was released and on parole, his parole officer warned him to cut all acquaintance with his old contacts.  Curiosity gets the better of Piri and he hits up his old friends.  One of them is a man addicted to Heroine and tweaks up in front of Piri, who is sober from the habit himself.  This old friend offers him a chance to shoot up and Piri declines.  Piri walks away from his friend and as he walked away, the thought occurred to him, "Everything happened yesterday... I was a kid yesterday and my whole world was yesterday.  I ain't got nothing but today and a whole lot of tomorrows."

Piri grew up fast, joining gangs when he was 12 and starting drugs at 14 and robbing his first business as a 14-15 year old.  He left home when he was 17 and lived the next near-decade of his life in anger and hate.  As a 20 year old he became a career criminal and made his living off of pushing drugs to buyers.  He became hooked on the substance he pushed and it was all downhill from there.  He survived withdrawals and became sober only to move in to the work of armed-robbery to make his living.  It was at this point, after some successful robberies that he shot a cop and was incarcerated.

His time in prison was filled with education, both scholarly, and self-evaluative.  It was in prison that he claimed his identity and his life turned around.  When he was released, he turned his life to God and to service.  It was hard to get to where he got because he he constantly doubted himself and if he was capable of moving forward.  That's the point of this blog post.

We all have yesterdays.  Some of our yesterdays are really hard to let go of.  Yesterdays are what-ifs in disguise.  Yesterday is "yesterday"... meaning, a day since past.  Not everything from our yesterday can be so easily discarded and let go of, and perhaps not everything should be "moved on from"; that is left to your discretion.  The point is, all we have is "today and a whole lot of tomorrows", so let's not waste them on the yesterdays we can let go and the what-ifs that "are nots".  Another quote I love, "If it's important, you'll find a way.  If it's not, you'll find an excuse."  Let go of the excuses and find the way for the importants.  "Todays" and "Tomorrows" are blessed things because within them both lays opportunity of our making.  So make it happen.

Borders

The Great Wall of China

The Berlin Wall

U.S.-Mexico Border Wall 

 I just got done reading this book for my Contemporary American Literature class. It was beautiful. It is called Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldua. There is no possible way to categorize this book into one specific genre. Linguistically, Anzaldua switches between Spanish and English... sometimes mid-sentence. I don't speak Spanish and so it's been an interesting read for me to have to take an extra step to look up the translations. Beyond the linguistics of the book, the matter of form vs. content make this book impossible to categorize into one genre. This book is fictional, historical, personal narrative, borders on the fantastical, it is poetic, manifesto in nature... and even political treatise. I've never read a more beautiful body of text. Parts of it were difficult to read, I won't lie, and I'm not talking about the Spanish pieces. This entire book explores the concept of borders; specifically racial borders. Beyond that, this book discusses self-created borders that keep us from becoming something beyond what we believe ourselves to be. It explores the borders of gender. A lot of this book explores concepts outside of my comfort range, but I am happy to have read it all the same. It got me thinking of the borders within my own life.

Have you ever been talking to someone you love and somehow what you've said was lost in an emotional translation that you didn't even know was there until after the fact? What you were saying to this person was lost because of what they felt and so they understood something completely "contrary" to what you were saying. I quoted "contrary" because in this sense it isn't a convoluted understanding this person came to, because their reality caused them to understand something underneath what you were trying to say. And you can't fault this person for understanding something completely different because... you weren't clear enough in what you were saying. That's how I felt when I read the Spanish text of this book. The way Anzaldua placed the Spanish text was brilliant. She started off with a sentence here and there, a sentence in Spanish that repeated the previous English sentence. But as the story unraveled... as the history developed, she would "interrupt" English text with entire paragraphs of Spanish text... and she would "interrupt" at a point in the text where, as a reader, you were completely entranced in the story. For someone who does not speak Spanish, like myself, you became confused and panicked to understand what she was saying. And it would take time to find a translation that made any sense at all.

It made me think about arguments and the borders that are built up between those who are arguing. The borders are built up because of a lot of different reasons: fear of being hurt, fear of being ridiculed, because of pride, and even because you are just done hearing what the other person has to say. But what do borders do? You may feel like they are keeping the other person out, but really... they are locking you inside. They are locking you inside of anger and fear. It's made me think of the borders I've put up in my life and how I've justified them. It makes me think of the borders that entire families can build... and the destruction that comes from them. In the book, Anzaldua writes about the US-Mexican Border and the wall that was built there.

She says, "Wind tugging at my sleeve feet sinking into the sand I stand at the edge where earth touches ocean where the two overlap a gentle coming together at other times and places a violent crash... I walk through the hole in the fence to the other side. Under my fingers I feel the gritty wire rusted by 139 years of the salty breath of the sea. Beneath the iron sky Mexican children kick their soccer ball across, run after it, entering the U.S... 1,950 mile-long open wound dividing a pueblo, a culture, running down the length of my body, staking fence rods in my flesh, splits me splits me me raja me raja This is my home this thin edge of barbwire."

The ocean has no border. The soul has no border. You cannot contain the ocean and you cannot contain your soul. You can draw lines on a map and say "this ocean is ours, and that is yours", you can push down your feelings and pretend they aren't there and you can bite your tongue and not stick up for yourself... and you can fight to push someone away and never forgive them or let them forgive you and you can build your false sense of protection... but it will explode eventually. The idea that the ocean can be contained in dotted lines on a map is silly... as is the idea that you can pretend your feelings away.

The borders we create in ourselves become us and the longer they are there, the deeper they become and it changes and becomes unaffected and unchanged and more powerful. As children, we are un-inhibited. The love of a child is endless and eternally forgiving, but it won't always be that way. Sometime between childhood and adulthood, we learn to build borders. We may think we build them to protect ourselves, but with time, our borders become cages and they hurt... they split you, they crush you, and if you let that become you then you close yourself off to a world of possibility. Reclaim yourself. Take ownership of who you are and tear down the borders within. Only then can you exceed anyone's expectations.