Happy New Year!

Looking Back, Part Two

I have been rear-ended three times in the last two years. The last time totaled my car. I was not injured, although I was not sure of that at the time, and so they whisked me away in an ambulance. It was about a ten-minute ride and I threatened to go beserk on them if they did not loosen the straps that were holding me onto the stretcher. I'm not a real assertive person, but I was successful that night in acknowledging my needs and getting them met.

I still will tap my brakes on and off if I am slowed down or stopped and see someone in my rearview mirror who seems to be coming up to me a little too quickly, or if someone is following too closely on the interstate. I can't help that. I don't want to be rear-ended again.

That's the nature of what I have been through this year with my son. The problem will never go away entirely. I will look nervously for some time into the rearview mirror to see what is coming from behind that might catch me (and him) off guard.

I have wondered why I keep looking back, why I need to write these things out in here, why these dreadful memories of how it was last year at this time keep flashing back in my mind. The worst of the problem seems to be behind us now, and he seems to be on steadier ground these days. I should be celebrating, and for the most part, I am. But I have come to see that it is a sort of post-traumatic stress I suffer from.

Looking back, I am amazed at how far he and I both have come. Looking back, I am surprised at the difference a year can bring. Looking back, I am grateful and appreciative for the hands that have reached out to me and steadied me in countless small ways through the year, in spite of my tendency to be very reserved in acknowledging pain or need of any kind.

There have been those who have listened without the need to try and fix any of our problems, those who have reminded me that I have done the best things I knew how to do at the time. There have been the hands who have surprised me, the ones I thought would surely judge me for my predicament, and have reached out to me, and to my son in practical and concrete ways that spoke volumes to him about the caring nature of other people who knew me and not him. There is the mentor who was praying for such an opportunity as this, a man who has so much in common with my son, and who has been another pair of hands for my him.

There have been those people who comforted me even though they lost their own sons to the battle my son has been fighting. My heart breaks at the irony of that one. I don't know why that would be anymore than I know why a tsunami would flow onto a crowded beach half way round the world from me. There is no logic, certainly no reason my son would live and theirs would die. I never really ask why a bad thing would happen to me, I often ask why a good thing would happen, for I am no better, no more deserving than the next person.

But now I have taken my look back. I have seen the depth of the gorge we nearly slipped into. And now I want to look forward and outward. I want to be the kind of hands that have touched me this past year: quiet, unassuming, gentle, non-judgmental, present.

And yes, my image is corny, but God, I am grateful for each hand that has touched me through this year.

Altered Photos

Now you see her....

Now you don't...

Baby Tree Frog

Swimming in Stinky Water

Not long ago, I was leafing through a book given to me when I was a young teen, and I found this quote:

“A better phrase than “know who you are” is the phrase, “be in conversation with your identity.” This way you are always becoming, always evaluating, rather than searching for an absolute and irrevocable identity.” -- Temp Sparkman, Leadership Roles for Youth

That quote is as apt for me today at ** as it was for me at fifteen. I hope to continue conversing with my identity, always becoming, always evaluating. I do not want to be choked by the chains of an “absolute and irrevocable identity”, for that is the state where all growth stops, where you find yourself swimming in water as stagnant and stinky as the water in a neglected goldfish bowl.

I don’t know why growth happens, or why, when faced with a challenge, some of us will clean our goldfish bowls, while others continue to swim in darkened circles. I know I did not consciously choose to grow. I know I swam aimlessly for a long while. I don’t know exactly when the water started getting clearer, don’t know when I started waving to the other little fishies I saw out there in the big world, don’t know when I got dumped into the big tank that is slowly becoming a new life.

One thing I am pleased to discover is that although I spent much time immersed in stinky waters, I myself am not stinky. This is an important thing to remember when surrounded by the refuse of our own bad habits.

Another, more unseemly reminder for me would be not to constipate myself in order to keep my water clean. I have a habit of keeping quiet and denying my own instincts, thinking that is what good little fishies, I mean, girls, do. I am learning that there is a balance to the system that surrounds me. Into each fish bowl, a little poo must fall. It’s up to us how we handle the stinky stuff, hold it in and be constipated, or let it out, and clean it up.

I apologize for my own rough edges on writing about it here. Blogs have to change and grow too, and there is no other way than to just get in here and write, and hope something will resonate with someone, if no one other than my own self. Blogs, like life, aren’t always neat and clean. All I know to do is to let the thing grow and evolve. As in life, I can’t sprout full-grown into blogland, it just ain’t natural!

One of my favorite blogsters, Lorianne, at HoardedOrdinaries, wrote that “A blog doesn't have to be good to be engaging; it simply has to be true”. I do not think I have arrived yet at being true, I am still too aware of the constraints of that old absolute and irrevocable identity. It’s hard work, being true, and sometimes, downright embarrassing. It can also be uncomfortable, but it brings its own rewards, and is well worth the effort, I believe.

Looking Back, Part One

Last year, about this time, I created this collage. I was like the bear in this picture. I thought I was well-hidden and protected from trouble. Trouble found me anyway, or found my child, and I was forced out of denial. I don't think there is anything that can hurt worse than watching your child struggle with their own demons, whatever those demons may be, and knowing you can't do it for them.
"Balance is a fleeting state we are always trying to maintain", that's what those words in the middle say." It's been a tough year, but I think my child is getting his groove back, and he's walking with a graceful equilibrium. And I, for one, am grateful.
Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, we both had what we needed all along to find our way through, though neither one of us would have believed that at the beginning of last year. It feels good to start the new year with renewed faith, and hope.

Happy Holidays

This year it will be too cold to wear our shorts and flip flops for Christmas. It's always a good Christmas when it's cool enough that we do not have to turn on the air conditioner to eat our Christmas Eve gumbo. And the weather man still says we may get some snow!

Christmas Cheer

Baking the cookies was supposed to be relaxing, a way of soothing my stress. I had parchment sheets, and brown sugar and Crisco in the little pre-measured tubs, for crying out loud. I dumped the Crisco in the bowl and then noticed the brown sugar package had been opened. Had to drop everything to take it back to the store for an exchange. Back at home, I’ve got the Crisco and the sugar nicely blended, and I am ready to add eggs and vanilla. Ooops, there is only a dab of vanilla and I need about four dabs of vanilla. So, back to the store I go, griping all the way, ho, ho, ho, with the cheerful advice of the thirteen-year-old ringing in my ear: “You should get everything together before you start mixing, Mom.” Yeah, well, usually, I do. I finally got my feces consolidated, and got the cookies made, thinking tomorrow would surely be a better day.

And today, I spent most of the day trying to get connected to one of my Yahoo groups. I don’t often go into a bug-eyed, red rage where I can spit nails, crap fire, and lose my religion, but not being able to get to where I want to go on the Internet has been known to bring out the devil in me. Add to that the indignity of having a twenty-something tech-support nephew who treats you like a dumb little woman who can’t possibly understand the intricacies of these damn machines, and bam, you’ve got an explosion waiting to happen.

I had to get out of the house, had to go to that soothing mecca called WalMart, just to settle my nerves. After waiting patiently in line for fifteen minutes to make my small purchase, I was sufficiently calmed enough to come home and try again to hookup with cyberspace.

My Ad-aware program had been telling me for about a month that no new updates had been found. Lies, all lies. I figured I needed to check that little story out. I ended up downloading a newer version, running the scan, and eliminating over a thousand different little bugs by the time I had finished running the scan several times, on each family members’ screen name (with no help from aforementioned nephew, who will now be unceremoniously scratched from my Christmas list!). No wonder my poor computer could not move, it was nearly choking to death. I am proud to report my machine is now running faster than I ever need to go.

I have a teacher who makes these kinds of remarks about our computers at school, as though they are recalcitrant students: “oh, it won’t let me do that”, or “it’s thinking about it”. What drives me bonkers is that this is a machine, incapable of thinking, or keeping me from doing something, a machine, people, which means I should be able to be the boss, and not the machine.

Today at least, I have won.

And I will gloat.

Brave little woman conquers machine.