What else can I do?

Some time ago I told you, "something happened and I have to tell you some important thing!" and then life happened and I never got around to telling you...  but now, too late on a work night, after one glass of wine too many, I have to tell someone, anyone, because I can't stop thinking about it and so this is what happened.

First of all, I did something illegal.  So... Yeah.   Ok.  Remember when I stored some boxes at C's house? And then I moved and I thought I got all of them but last summer she called to tell me her daughter found a couple more.  So I went and got them and brought them home and opened them to see what it was that I hadn't even thought about enough to notice I was missing...and they were *M's boxes.  Boxes full of her clothes, shoes, pictures, art work, some toys, all the DCF paperwork, the contracts, my initial notes from her placement, a record of doctor visits...her state ID cards, her medical record number...

I cried.

A lot.

For a week.

Because what else could I do?

And then I saw the light.  I saw her medical record number.  And... I did that illegal thing.  I went to work where I had promised to never do the very thing I was doing... and I looked her up.  Because what else could I do?

She was 10 months old when she was placed with me, she was just 2 years and 3 weeks old when they took her back.  I loved her for just over a year...  Now? She will be 9 in just a couple of weeks.  

The last note in her record was from a couple years ago.  She was maybe 7...she was presenting to the ER because a teacher reported possible sexual abuse.  The notation states she is learning disabled, slow...like her mom.  She lives with her father though.  The report cleared her father...and recommended further DCF follow up.  I read it all at work, silently and stoically, and secretively, and then I went to the employee bathroom and threw up.  Twice.  Because what else could I do?

Once upon a time I had a little brown girl in my arms and in my heart, and now I am broken...and so is she... 

So I pray... Please, pray with me, for her.  Because what else can I do?

Freedom

Freedom tastes like sourdough bread from the farmers market, still warm; an ice cold glass of moscato; feta cheese, grape tomatoes, and basil that was grown from your own garden...

Freedom smells like a cranberry chutney candle; freshly mown grass in the warm spring air, your own warm skin in the middle of the night...

Freedom feels like waking up slowly before the alarm; the first hot shower after a camping trip; crisp clean sheets after a long day...

Freedom sounds like a million peepers on a summer night; an amateur street guitarist; the cadence of saying "yes" whenever you want to; the air on your skin...

Tell Me Who I Am

Two years ago - floating, flailing, failing... Who am I? Where do I belong? Alone, orphan, single, abandoned, struggling...

One year ago - in the middle of cousins and aunties and uncles, surrounded, enveloped, drowned in love, people with the same eyes, same nose, same tilted mouth, the lilt of accent that sounded like home to my ears...

Today - lonely, longing, afraid, insecure, settled in mind yet unsettled in soul, searching and aching, reaching out and pulling back and tethered to the shore of conformity...

And what to do? Stay and be in the safety of misery? Run to the unknown yet familial comfort? 

Can you ever really go home again?

I think not...but I wonder, what else is there to do? 

A Soft Place To Rest

I called her in absolute desperation.

I try to consider calling on God, but in the moment, when the pain is so cellular, I call her.

I am laying prone on the floor, cell phone pressed painfully tight and surprisingly hot to my ear, alternating sobbing huge hiccupy gasping sobs with monosyllabic grunty acknowledgements of her words so she knows I am listening, knows I am breathing, knows I am "here".

These are things she says to me, words that illuminate my dark bitter dumping ground of emotional agony:

~ your kids? They are good people!

~ you don't have money for that tuition for him? But you give So. Much. More. than any amount of money...

~ you have ethic and morals, you give 110%!

~ I know who you ARE. I was there! I saw you...

~ you are understanding, compassionate, you have so much self-worth!

~ I will always remind you, of what a good person you are, what a good mom you are, I KNOW you, you listen to ME!

A friend like her? A friend for close to 15 years? She is worth, as a famous 'book' is known for saying, far more than rubies or Gold... This friend has sat with me in sorrow and grief, held me like a child in her arms and let me scream out my unfathomable pain.  She has seen me broken and destroyed, and seen me rising from the ashes, and seen me somewhat nearly whole, complete, crossed to the other side.  So when she tells me that I am good, that I am strong, right, validated, believed, accepted, NORMAL,  I have to believe her.  

I slide into sleep this night with acid tears sliding from my eyes, trailing the contours of my face from my eye to my temples and leaving silvered trails of anguish reaching into my hairline.

As I weep, I hear her voice: I will remind you...  And I want to say this: oh Holy Spirit thank you for this friend of mine, thank you for your very presence in her voice tonight.  I am saved because of her.

There is a story here...

He keeps trying to write in the sand but the waves slide relentlessly over his work and erase his efforts.   Randomly he gets one word done and snaps a picture.   I watch him in sidelong glances from where I am sitting in the sand several feet above the tentacles of the highest wave.

In between glances, I gaze out into the wide, wild, endless Hawaiian ocean spreading before me and I try to breathe away the last 7 years of stress.

I see him again, this time trying to pose and take a selfie in front of his word but the waves comes and wash it away and also gets his butt wet.   He writes "Marry Me" in the sand, over and over and over again but the tide keeps washing it away, and finally when he gets it done and poses, the water just comes right up and drenches him.   I wonder if this is an omen?

I choose this moment to leap up and run a few feet closer to the tide line.   I scrawl my own word with a fierce defiant pressure, using my index finger and hurrying before the next wave comes.   I write, "REGRET".

I am left waiting, wave after wave, for the ocean to come and claim my regret, to take it away from me, to erase it.   I wait far longer than I thought I would, much longer than Mr. Marry Me, but when a wave finally does break high enough and come rushing toward my word, it only erases a portion of it.

There is a story here I'm sure...

Regret

Regret tastes like foamy Guiness Stout; coffee on the hot plate too many hours; long expired milk.

Regret smells like plastic melting in a campfire; sweaty gym clothes forgotten in the trunk of a car; dogshit on your shoe.

Regret feels like accidentally brushing against stinging nettles; the stitch in your side from running too far, too hard; an invisible eyelash in your eye.

Regret looks like a forgotten sock, buried in dust bunnies, underneath the couch; a shopping cart full of toilet paper, coffee, wine, and lean cuisine; the star filled night sky - as endless as...regret.

Rejected

I failed.

I knew it would happen and steeled myself for it as best I could, but that rejection still managed to hurt like heck - and all the other feelings that go with the pain: fear, disappointment, shame, and even plain irritation.  If only I had navigated the situation a little better from the beginning!  Driving away from the inspection station with that bold red rejection sticker on my windshield had me cringing behind the wheel all the way to work... What? You thought I was talking about something else?

C'mon universe, I could use some protective energies here while I'm waiting for my repair appointment next week - I really really really don't need a ticket OR a towing/impounding bill!  I need grace... Just a smidge will do - thanks in advance! 

Contagious behavior

Everyday I ride a shuttle from a parking lot into my work.  Typically it's the same core group of people depending on who's late or early.  Since I sit at the front of the shuttle, it's become my habit after getting to work and trekking to the door from the drop site to swipe my badge to open the secure door and then just hold it open and let others go inside first.  Most people smile and say thanks, but there are two in particular who now, after months of this, try to take the door or encourage me to go ahead if them.  I smile and say, "it's ok, it's a good way to start the day by being nice to others!"  Occasionally one of them will GRAB the door and push me in, in a silly way, and we laugh and then I open the second door and usher them ahead of me. Ha!

Today, we got off the shuttle, the core four of us, and I am not joking here, the same two ladies RAN (in their dressy shoes and coats and carrying their pocketbooks and lunch sacs!) ahead to open the door! Funniest thing I've ever seen and I was laughing as I walked thru the door ahead of them.  But as we all went our separate ways, one sweet lady said, "it's contagious behavior, being nice to people..."

Yes, yes it is, and I intend to spread that stuff everywhere!

All the "feels"

I'm here!

It's me, waving in the dark...

I have all the hugs you need!

I am so broken tonight - just devastated, completely crushed...

Oh God, it hurts too much, too much, too much!

I'm sorry, it's not your fault baby, it's just how it is, our life, and none of it is your fault.

I will get up again in the morning, smiling, but tonight can't end quick enough!

I love you Cuz...

Those are all things I've said in the last few hours of this day - this Spring day - this endless God-forsaken day.  And they are all things I've said before, and will likely say again - but all of them? At once? On the same day? In that same order? God, please, not another day like this one, please...

Oh, well, yeah, I've said THAT before too.

It's time for a change I think...maybe time to embrace these kinds of days for what they are and what changes they bring  and what benefits they have...time to spring forward instead of springing back in fear...time to see what GOOD lies ahead in the midst of surprise and fear and sorrow.

Time to feel it - all those "feels"... And then to actually do something about it.  We DO have time for that.  We do.

Dear Momma

Tonight I miss you.  I miss you often, of course, and at certain times I miss you more than others, but tonight I am desperate for you.  

I wish that I could pick up the phone and just talk, cry, hear your voice soothing me, get your advice and encouragement, your love.  You've been gone for 20 years now, and I need you more than ever.

I don't know what I'm doing, momma.  You've done all of this before so tell me what to do now... You were gone before I ever knew I'd need you for this.  I don't know how to stop, back up, start over - I don't know how to go forward, to step out and believe that it will all be ok in the end.  I don't know how to go on... 

I imagine us sitting together, cups of creamy steamy coffee in front of us, you with a cigarette dangling from your fingers and a circle of smoke floating above you.  I see us at my kitchen table and the sun coming in thru the French doors and warming us.  (But, really, would you smoke in my house?) The dog will be in your lap, the baby will be in mine, and I will cry into his wispy hair.  You will stub out your cigarette and blow smoke off to the side (mom! Are you smoking near my baby?) as you reach out to grab my hand and hold it. I feel your dry skin, your firm grip, and I draw strength from you.  Maybe if I imagine it enough, I can pull some measure of strength from my imagination into this mess I so badly need you here for.

Be with me, but more than that, be with my son.  Whisper into your grandsons heart, be the voice in his head  that I can't be, be the lifeline he needs in my place - he won't listen to me, he won't hear me, and I'm so afraid of losing him.  Help him, momma, please... He won't let me.  I don't know how to be his momma, but you did it for two boys so surely you have the insight I need. 

I love you momma... I miss you...

For all of you, all at once...

I would slay any dragon for the sweet words you speak.  You give me courage immeasurable...

I would lay down my life to be back in your arms - to be back in your arms 10 years ago when I could have made things different... No, 15 years ago... No, 20 - that's right, it would need to take us back 20 years to make it right, but still, I would give everything I have now just to go back with this knowledge and insight...

I felt your prayers wash over me and I have to tell you the power of your good and honest prayer was a physical presence for me.  God was here, in my mouth and in my hands and in my perception and insight and emotions - He was here and it was better and I was protected.

I love you so... I see who you are and how you don't care (and yet how you ache and desire) and the mean and the kind and the hard and the soft and the tough and the weak - and oh God I love you so... You and I are bound by blood , by common experience: times when we were shaped into who we are - yet we are also separated later on by lives so drastically different which  shaped who we were into who we are NOW... But our very heartbeats thrum to the same rhythm of loss and regret and abandonment, who else could ever truly understand us but each other?

Oh how i hate hate hate you and how he love love loves you - it cuts deep, like the scars on my arms that were there before we even met - his love and my hate.  His love wins.  And it always will.  I will forever taste bitterness with you.

I ache for your strength.  I know the demons you battle and I cannot figure out how you so gracefully navigate them.  I sit closer to you, text you more often, and invite you out repeatedly just so I can borrow your strength.

I am in awe of you.  I've given my children everything with no reward and you are there on your own with the daily drama and the 40 hour work week and the evening classes and papers and exams and that smile - oh that smile!!  I want to smack your parents into the next life so they can see the tremendous beauty that is YOU!

This year, this new year... I will honor all of you.