The dog just walked by with a pair of dirty underwear in her mouth. She kind of glanced over at me from the corner of her eye to see if I was going to do anything about it and then walked into another room very sheepishly. As a dog, she can't control her urges, but there was shame in her eyes. Her proclivities, though unsettling, are not limited to intimate apparel. Her palate extends to shoes, socks, stuffed animals or anything else that she might feel inclined to destroy.
I just returned from a weekend away from home. It was a lovely chance to reconnect with two of my dear college friends. While no one was looking, we became middle-aged. But, sitting around with them we might as well have been back in our freshman dorm. I wonder if it will be the same when we are sixty? I hope and pray that my daughter has the benefit of strong female relationships. Not having any sisters, my female friends are incredibly important to me and they have helped shape me. I want her to experience the satisfaction of having best friends in her life time. Girls that she can giggle with when she is both 6 and 36 years old. There is nothing more reassuring than sitting around in your pajamas with your girlfriends and laughing at nonsense. It's a sense of security that you are loved and accepted, regardless of how you look or feel.
I tried to impose the strong girl relationship on my daughter through a cookie-selling organization that I'll refer to as 'the female adventurers'. If felt wrong from the outset and I should have known better, never having been a member of any sanctioned girl-club. First of all, my daughter could care less if she was to be a pansy or a lemon-square or whatever the groups may be. Secondly, it was just too hard. A gathering of girls should not be as difficult as this organization makes it. If we forget about the colossal lack of planning that went into the registration rally, which was a bunch of grown women panicking about whether or not their daughters were going to get into the right pansy group, and we talk about the commitment that is required of the mothers you might as well jump directly into the briar patch. That is precisely what I did-lock, stock and barrel. I drank the kool-aid and worried that my daughter might not get picked to go to the ball if I didn't sign up and sign up all the way. So, I sat through the first meeting and the second and the third. I made excel spreadsheets and I e-mailed other mothers about meeting times and philosophies. I read the introductory manual. Still none of it seemed right. The mountain of required paperwork seemed more prohibitive than filing your my own taxes. I was ready to take my blood oath...until some crazy, bee-atch mama went off on me b/c, according to her, I was slacking (not pulling my weight, being lazy, making excuses....fill in the blank). The weirdest part about it was that I didn't even know this woman. I had talked to her on two or three prior occasions and all of the sudden she feels compelled to critique my intentions and offer advice on how and when I should obtain childcare so as to not miss any opportunity to be involved. Believe me, I was not mistaking helpful for critical. She was downright nasty to me. And this organization is supposed to be about fostering great female relationships.
Because she accosted me in the middle of the school cafeteria I decided that I couldn't back down. I felt like a movie character-Norma Rae comes to mind. I wasn't going to let this mean lady talk to me in such a derogatory manner, so I told her to stop. I think she was shocked to have someone stand up to her and shocked that neither intimidation nor manipulation, which seemed to be her ace cards, were working for her.
So, it's been almost 2 weeks since my little 'female adventurers' drama and I am finally starting to realize that both my daughter and I are going to be okay without them. Maybe sometime in the future we'll try again, but next time it is going to be because she is begging me to do it. Otherwise I don't need to impose my insecurities of wanting to be included in a group onto her. So, thank you Deb and Sand. Thank you for being my friends for 20+ years and for helping me to realize that, like her mama, she is gonna be just fine.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Pink is The Word...Have You Heard?
I have been given the task of writing a brief history of my own personal story. I love assignments. There is enough school girl still left in me that I thrive on pleasing the person who is doling out responsibilities. In my own personal report card on life I want to make sure that I get a check plus on 'completes all tasks in a timely manner.' This is just as important as getting the good grade on the completed assignment itself. I want to be in the National Honor Society of life. Everynite I have my own little induction ceremony in my head with bowed heads and dimmed lights and lit candles. Is someone tapping me on the shoulder? Am I doing my best? This is a question I continually ask myself. Where does that come from?
My sense is that my overall life GPA is probably enough to meet the requirement of induction, but when you breakdown the point system, the numbers are all over the map. Before I was diagnosed with breast cancer I was a fairly self-reflective individual. Since the diagnosis, it (the self-reflection) actually means something to me. When you are going along in life with the tacit expectation that your life span is going to fit neatly into the actuarial tables you figure you have some wiggle room. There is plenty of time to work on aspects of your life that, for now, you have swept under the rug. After the diagnosis of a life threatening illness, you have to recalculate your time line. Of course you have the absolute expectation that after all the godforsaken medical interventions you have had that you are one of the 80% plus who will never experience a recurrance of their cancer, but, just in case...You are going to play the odds game and try to outwit fate.
When I was diagnosed with stage 2a breast cancer two and half years ago the trajectory of my life acutely changed. Whatever sense of control that I once thought I possessed had disappeard into the ethers. My 3 children (at the time, 3, 5 and 6 years old, respectively) and my husband now faced the very real prospect of life without a mother/wife. I was terrified not only for myself (at the time a 38 year old woman with no family history of breast cancer who decided to get screening mammography at an early age based on a passing suggestion by my gynecologist), but moreso for my family. I'll be honest, regarding my husband, he is amazing and we have a great ride together and I love him dearly. But, I figured if I died (which every woman who is ever diagnosed with any life threatening illness immediately thinks), he'd just be able to go out and get himself a younger, cuter, blonder, more petite version of myself. It's not like he'd be cheating on me because I'd be dead. But, my kids...that's a whole different ballgame. How can a child be left motherless, especially at such a young age. Sure it happens to...'people'. But according to my plan, I wasn't one of those 'people'. This scenario was not in my play book.
As my husband and I settled into the diagnosis and we realized the course of action set before us we were faced with the very real challenge of how to explain this to our children. What we quicky determined is that there is no one way to do this and it wasn't going to be just one conversation but an ongoing discussion. We enlisted the help of websites, doctors, books, match book covers...Just about anything we could find. To some extent, the young age of my children was beneficial for both them and for me. They were too young to understand fully the implications of my diagnosis so this limited some of their long term worries. They were impacted more on the basis of my inability to mother them in the way that they had become accustomed. When I was sick from chemotherapy, they had to be quieter or go on play dates with friends. They had to adjust to a bald mom (of whom they have long since forgotten). They couldn't be held when I was recovering from one of my many surgeries. I'm sure that this made them feel scared and insecure. We talked about it and talked about it and talked about it some more. Everyone went to therapy. Everyone went to some more therapy. In the midst of my treatment, my kids switched elementary schools (and, by the grace of God, my family was embraced at their new school). I was the new bald mom. The kids didn't really care, but they had to explain to their friends why their mom had no hair and always wore a bandana on her head. My middle son told his new friends that I had cancer; skin cancer (he was 5 and after all, the mastectomy had affected my skin). When taking my 3 year old daughter to get a haircut she was asked how short she wanted it and she responed, "Let's just shave it!" With both a bald mother and father (my husband kept his head shaved in solidarity), that seemed to be the norm in our family.
Thirty one months later (since the day of my diagnosis) we have weathered the storm. Knock on wood, I'm good (though I do think I'm dying every time a get a sniffle or a hang nail. Just ask my husband and my massage therapist-Yes, once you have cancer or a chronic illness you enlist the help of every alternative therapy practitioner that has ever been listed in the yellow pages-chiropractic medicine, accupuncture, Reiki, cupping...). But, we still experience residual effects from the storm. Two of my kids require a lot of verbal and physical reassurance. Not so much about my illness. It manifests itself in other ways (am I going to be late for to pick them up from school? am I always nearby in the house? if I step outside to take out the garbage, I have to announce it, etc...) and I have to remind myself not to get impatient with them. Just like me, they are still processing the course of events that have transpired thus far in their very young lives. The other child has responded differently. This one is impish and pushes the envelope on just about every situation and we have to walk the very fine line of tolerance and accountability. This too requires patience and discernment on a whole different level.
All of this is very basic parenting stuff, but confounded by our situation. We are not unique in having had 'circumstances' befall us; everyone has a backdrop on which their lives are created. As I mentioned earlier, having had breast cancer while raising young children has been beneficial. Not only for the reasons previously mentioned, but it has been the gift of clarity. It is much easier to sort out what matters and what doesn't matter (though I still get caught up in the nonsense of life just like everyone else). That is a true gift and one for which I am continually grateful.
So, everyday I wake up and thank God for the gift of life with all the good and the bad. I thank Him for the things that really matter, my husband, my children, my friends and the relationships I have with each of them. I thank Him for the color pink which, in my mind, has come to represent hope and gratitude. Since my diagnosis, almost unconsciously, I usually have something on my person that is pink. I'm not a tremendously girly, girl but this color is a visual reminder to me of all that I hold dear. I have had the good fortune of being in a city with so many available resources. One of them, introduced to me by a dear friend who has since continued her journey beyond this life, has been The Pink Ribbons Project. Through this non profit organization that provides avenues of art therapy for those whose lives have been affected by breast cancer, I have been able to assist in the creation of a program called Pink Alive Kids. This program will help those families with children, very young to teen, navigate the complexities of having breast cancer and raising children. And it will be a resource and an outlet for children who have no 'kids of breast cancer moms/dads' cohort to call their own. They will see that their are other kids who share in their insecurities and they will be offered healthy and safe ways to express the gamut of their emotions. So, in the month of October, despite the overtones of black and orange and all that is ghoolish and scary, I challenge you to Think Pink, if for no other reason it reminds you to have hope and to be grateful!
My sense is that my overall life GPA is probably enough to meet the requirement of induction, but when you breakdown the point system, the numbers are all over the map. Before I was diagnosed with breast cancer I was a fairly self-reflective individual. Since the diagnosis, it (the self-reflection) actually means something to me. When you are going along in life with the tacit expectation that your life span is going to fit neatly into the actuarial tables you figure you have some wiggle room. There is plenty of time to work on aspects of your life that, for now, you have swept under the rug. After the diagnosis of a life threatening illness, you have to recalculate your time line. Of course you have the absolute expectation that after all the godforsaken medical interventions you have had that you are one of the 80% plus who will never experience a recurrance of their cancer, but, just in case...You are going to play the odds game and try to outwit fate.
When I was diagnosed with stage 2a breast cancer two and half years ago the trajectory of my life acutely changed. Whatever sense of control that I once thought I possessed had disappeard into the ethers. My 3 children (at the time, 3, 5 and 6 years old, respectively) and my husband now faced the very real prospect of life without a mother/wife. I was terrified not only for myself (at the time a 38 year old woman with no family history of breast cancer who decided to get screening mammography at an early age based on a passing suggestion by my gynecologist), but moreso for my family. I'll be honest, regarding my husband, he is amazing and we have a great ride together and I love him dearly. But, I figured if I died (which every woman who is ever diagnosed with any life threatening illness immediately thinks), he'd just be able to go out and get himself a younger, cuter, blonder, more petite version of myself. It's not like he'd be cheating on me because I'd be dead. But, my kids...that's a whole different ballgame. How can a child be left motherless, especially at such a young age. Sure it happens to...'people'. But according to my plan, I wasn't one of those 'people'. This scenario was not in my play book.
As my husband and I settled into the diagnosis and we realized the course of action set before us we were faced with the very real challenge of how to explain this to our children. What we quicky determined is that there is no one way to do this and it wasn't going to be just one conversation but an ongoing discussion. We enlisted the help of websites, doctors, books, match book covers...Just about anything we could find. To some extent, the young age of my children was beneficial for both them and for me. They were too young to understand fully the implications of my diagnosis so this limited some of their long term worries. They were impacted more on the basis of my inability to mother them in the way that they had become accustomed. When I was sick from chemotherapy, they had to be quieter or go on play dates with friends. They had to adjust to a bald mom (of whom they have long since forgotten). They couldn't be held when I was recovering from one of my many surgeries. I'm sure that this made them feel scared and insecure. We talked about it and talked about it and talked about it some more. Everyone went to therapy. Everyone went to some more therapy. In the midst of my treatment, my kids switched elementary schools (and, by the grace of God, my family was embraced at their new school). I was the new bald mom. The kids didn't really care, but they had to explain to their friends why their mom had no hair and always wore a bandana on her head. My middle son told his new friends that I had cancer; skin cancer (he was 5 and after all, the mastectomy had affected my skin). When taking my 3 year old daughter to get a haircut she was asked how short she wanted it and she responed, "Let's just shave it!" With both a bald mother and father (my husband kept his head shaved in solidarity), that seemed to be the norm in our family.
Thirty one months later (since the day of my diagnosis) we have weathered the storm. Knock on wood, I'm good (though I do think I'm dying every time a get a sniffle or a hang nail. Just ask my husband and my massage therapist-Yes, once you have cancer or a chronic illness you enlist the help of every alternative therapy practitioner that has ever been listed in the yellow pages-chiropractic medicine, accupuncture, Reiki, cupping...). But, we still experience residual effects from the storm. Two of my kids require a lot of verbal and physical reassurance. Not so much about my illness. It manifests itself in other ways (am I going to be late for to pick them up from school? am I always nearby in the house? if I step outside to take out the garbage, I have to announce it, etc...) and I have to remind myself not to get impatient with them. Just like me, they are still processing the course of events that have transpired thus far in their very young lives. The other child has responded differently. This one is impish and pushes the envelope on just about every situation and we have to walk the very fine line of tolerance and accountability. This too requires patience and discernment on a whole different level.
All of this is very basic parenting stuff, but confounded by our situation. We are not unique in having had 'circumstances' befall us; everyone has a backdrop on which their lives are created. As I mentioned earlier, having had breast cancer while raising young children has been beneficial. Not only for the reasons previously mentioned, but it has been the gift of clarity. It is much easier to sort out what matters and what doesn't matter (though I still get caught up in the nonsense of life just like everyone else). That is a true gift and one for which I am continually grateful.
So, everyday I wake up and thank God for the gift of life with all the good and the bad. I thank Him for the things that really matter, my husband, my children, my friends and the relationships I have with each of them. I thank Him for the color pink which, in my mind, has come to represent hope and gratitude. Since my diagnosis, almost unconsciously, I usually have something on my person that is pink. I'm not a tremendously girly, girl but this color is a visual reminder to me of all that I hold dear. I have had the good fortune of being in a city with so many available resources. One of them, introduced to me by a dear friend who has since continued her journey beyond this life, has been The Pink Ribbons Project. Through this non profit organization that provides avenues of art therapy for those whose lives have been affected by breast cancer, I have been able to assist in the creation of a program called Pink Alive Kids. This program will help those families with children, very young to teen, navigate the complexities of having breast cancer and raising children. And it will be a resource and an outlet for children who have no 'kids of breast cancer moms/dads' cohort to call their own. They will see that their are other kids who share in their insecurities and they will be offered healthy and safe ways to express the gamut of their emotions. So, in the month of October, despite the overtones of black and orange and all that is ghoolish and scary, I challenge you to Think Pink, if for no other reason it reminds you to have hope and to be grateful!
Sunday, August 23, 2009
"Cha-cha-changes, ": Confessions of a Crazy Woman
My baby, the youngest of the 3, is starting kindergarten tomorrow. There is a small part of me that is ready to start a congo line down the middle of my street in celebration of this milestone and the freedom that it symbolizes. However, my current emotional state is far from jubilant. It's more of a combination of extreme melancholy and profound neurosis. The past 9 years, those in which I have been a mother, have passed by at an alarmingly rapid rate. In between the phone calls and the e-mails and the errands I always thought I'd have the luxury of time; there would always be more time to sit on the floor and play babies or match box cars or board games. The mind-numbing mornings spent sitting on the sofa clutching my coffee mug wishing away Dora the Explorer & The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, sadly, are forever gone. Just like that an era is over. It's not as though I get to throw in the towel now that all of them are in elementary school ('See ya kids! You are on your own now! Mommy is going to go toss back some martinis and go take tennis lessons!'). But, I wonder if I have been a good steward of my time? Have I spent these past 9 years wisely? In 9 more years, my oldest will be getting ready to go to college. I only have 9 more years to teach him the stuff he's supposed to know before he leaves home. I know I've squandered some of my time as a mother. God knows it's almost impossible to extract every ounce of purposeful, teachable moments out of your time spent with your kids. There is a lot of static or times when the screen is just blank.
I think I'm my own worst critic. If I had to fill out an evaluation of myself per kid on my performance thus far, I'd probably be circling a whole lot of 6 and 7's (you know, on one of those Likert scales from 1-10 with 10 as the highest). There would be some 2's and 3's (oral hygiene, enforcement of proper language). But I'd have written in a bunch of comments about how I could improve my patience or have been more attentive or spent more time with each kid individually.
Everyone tells you it goes by so quickly, raising your kids. Whenever someone tells me that, a veteran parent-the kind with teenagers or college kids (as opposed to an active duty parent like me-the kind with the little shits still pissing you off more often than not)-I usually smile and nod in polite agreement and then think , "Shut the f_ck up! You aren't scraping blueberries off the hardwood floors or refereeing petty arguements!" But, you know what, those people, the veterans, they are absolutely right. They wouldn't volunteer to do your shift for you, but they are sitting there filling out their own evaluation forms and wishing they could go back and do some things better.
So tomorrow morning will come and it will go but I hope in 3 months, when I am kvetching over 3 different sport team practices and homework and special projects, that I remember how I feel right now. I hope that I am reminded of what a priviledge it is to be given the responsibility of parenthood. I hope that I will remember that I am accountable for my actions as a mother; accountable to my Creator, to my kids and to society. I hope that I savour even the most trivial and aggravating parts of the job, because in the blink of an eye, it will all be over.
(all of this said and I haven't even commented on how freaked out I am about what I am going to do with my time. Now that the noble job of parenting will be largely taken over by the public schools between the hours of 8 am-3 pm). That is where the neurosis factors in-talk about identity crisis. I think this is what they mean by a mid life crisis. Neurotic doesn't even begin to explain how insecure I am feeling right now.
I think I'm my own worst critic. If I had to fill out an evaluation of myself per kid on my performance thus far, I'd probably be circling a whole lot of 6 and 7's (you know, on one of those Likert scales from 1-10 with 10 as the highest). There would be some 2's and 3's (oral hygiene, enforcement of proper language). But I'd have written in a bunch of comments about how I could improve my patience or have been more attentive or spent more time with each kid individually.
Everyone tells you it goes by so quickly, raising your kids. Whenever someone tells me that, a veteran parent-the kind with teenagers or college kids (as opposed to an active duty parent like me-the kind with the little shits still pissing you off more often than not)-I usually smile and nod in polite agreement and then think , "Shut the f_ck up! You aren't scraping blueberries off the hardwood floors or refereeing petty arguements!" But, you know what, those people, the veterans, they are absolutely right. They wouldn't volunteer to do your shift for you, but they are sitting there filling out their own evaluation forms and wishing they could go back and do some things better.
So tomorrow morning will come and it will go but I hope in 3 months, when I am kvetching over 3 different sport team practices and homework and special projects, that I remember how I feel right now. I hope that I am reminded of what a priviledge it is to be given the responsibility of parenthood. I hope that I will remember that I am accountable for my actions as a mother; accountable to my Creator, to my kids and to society. I hope that I savour even the most trivial and aggravating parts of the job, because in the blink of an eye, it will all be over.
(all of this said and I haven't even commented on how freaked out I am about what I am going to do with my time. Now that the noble job of parenting will be largely taken over by the public schools between the hours of 8 am-3 pm). That is where the neurosis factors in-talk about identity crisis. I think this is what they mean by a mid life crisis. Neurotic doesn't even begin to explain how insecure I am feeling right now.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
BMI and Other Stuff
I really want a chocolate chip cookie, but I am not going to eat one. Considering the posterior aspect of my body could qualify for it's own zip code, I'm going to do my best to show some self-restraint. But it ain't easy. I want all the people in the world who have fat genes to raise their hands in the air like the just don't care and say, "Woo-hoo"!
Maintaining a BMI greater than 25 takes a considerable amount of effort. While at work today I learned some new factual information. The term 'morbid obesity' is no longer en vogue. The more politically correct classifications of obesity 1, 2 and 3 have been adopted. The higher the number, the bigger you are. For example a BMI greater than or equal to 40 is obesity 30. It seems to me that those numbers correspond quite nicely to the sizing system at Chico's, the clothing store for generous sized women.
I played with my kids tonite and for that I feel like I should earn a gold star. I was god-awful tired after working all day and all I really wanted to do was watch crappy tv and send them to bed. But summertime rules prevailed and they knew that I would never be able to get them into bed before 10pm. So we sat at the kitchen table and played several rounds of Uno. Not so suprisingly, I had a lot of fun with them. Aside from the fact that I am shamefully competitive, even with my own children, we all had a good time. Every once in a while I'll catch a glimpse of my kids and I'll remember that they aren't going to always sit with me to play card games. When that happens, when I realize that they aren't always going to be little and adorable I try to breathe in the moment and capture it for what it's worth. The dirty fingernails, the goldfish crumbs, the hysterical giggles (potty jokes), the endless questions, the improperly played games-before I know it these days will be a precious memory. So for now, I let the things that dont' reallly matter wait while I enjoy my 3 gifts.
Maintaining a BMI greater than 25 takes a considerable amount of effort. While at work today I learned some new factual information. The term 'morbid obesity' is no longer en vogue. The more politically correct classifications of obesity 1, 2 and 3 have been adopted. The higher the number, the bigger you are. For example a BMI greater than or equal to 40 is obesity 30. It seems to me that those numbers correspond quite nicely to the sizing system at Chico's, the clothing store for generous sized women.
I played with my kids tonite and for that I feel like I should earn a gold star. I was god-awful tired after working all day and all I really wanted to do was watch crappy tv and send them to bed. But summertime rules prevailed and they knew that I would never be able to get them into bed before 10pm. So we sat at the kitchen table and played several rounds of Uno. Not so suprisingly, I had a lot of fun with them. Aside from the fact that I am shamefully competitive, even with my own children, we all had a good time. Every once in a while I'll catch a glimpse of my kids and I'll remember that they aren't going to always sit with me to play card games. When that happens, when I realize that they aren't always going to be little and adorable I try to breathe in the moment and capture it for what it's worth. The dirty fingernails, the goldfish crumbs, the hysterical giggles (potty jokes), the endless questions, the improperly played games-before I know it these days will be a precious memory. So for now, I let the things that dont' reallly matter wait while I enjoy my 3 gifts.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The Dominican Republic
It's been awhile since I've had the luxury of sitting in front of my keyboard and monitor to spew my inconsequential garbage. Sometimes I think I've lost my ability to find humor in everyday situations, but it's more that I don't have the time to write it down.
We just returned from a month long vacation. Instead of going thru all the glorious details of the entire 30 days, I'll recount the highlights from the last one-third of our trip which was spent in the Dominican Republic. In planning this venture, I must admit that I had some reservations about taking my 3 kids to a third world country. Cholera, dysentary, yellow fever, malaria, dengue fever, lack of proper car seat/restraints, machete accidents-these words flashed across my mind like the NYSE symbols flash across the botton of screen on CNBC. My brother spent 3 years in the DR as a Peace Corps volunteer in the early 2000's and it was while he was there that he met his wife; my current sister-in-law. Actually, Bill did all of the planning for this trip. I simply provided him with my credit card information so I could continue to accrue debt. Bill tried to get me to come visit him when he was living in the DR, but I was either pregnant or nursing a baby the entire 3 years he was there so the timing was never quite right. This trip, the one that just occured, was to be a big family trip; his family, my family and our mom. I'd been promising him for the past decade that I was gonna go to this country that he loves, so now was the time.
We arrived in Puerto Plata on July 19th. At this point we're almost 3 weeks deep into our vacation and, proudly might I boast, not a one of us amongst the 5 wanted to kill anyone else. We'd just spent 9 days in Western Pennsylvania at Lee's mom's compound and it was heavenly and serene and peaceful. Bucolic days spent fishing and hiking and swimming and paddle-boating and bb-gun shooting and fresh garden vegetable eating. Lovely. Hard to imagine anything more divine.
The first 4 days in the DR were fairly uneventful. Bill had booked rooms at the RIU Mambo, an all-inclusive resort on the Atlantic coast. I had never been to an all-inclusive resort, but they are akin to a cruise in the 'buffet meals and in your face constant entertainment' aspect, only on land. Any time you turned around someone named Rocky or Mama Mia was trying to get you to take Merengue lessons or do aerobics in the pool and there was practically 24 hour access to the Dominican version of pizza and burgers. No one was questioning your decision to have a pina colada at 9:30 am. As a matter of fact, if you looked around there were about 500 Germans in poorly fitting bikinis (men and women) there to join you. So, we swam and ate and drank and had a merry ole time watching nightly shows on the beach or on the stage (fyi...if you are disappointed about the King of Pop's show cancellation due to an untimely demise, the RIU resort in Puerto Plata has a guy that does a spot on impersonation-moonwalk and all-for an entire hour show. You would have thought it was Michael himself.) During these 4 days we had a couple of outings; a near-death experience on the "Teleferico" and a trip to the "27 Charcos" (27 waterfalls-or more literally-27 pools of water below the falls). With the former fore we took a ski-lift like gondola to the top of a mountain to give us a grand view of the island's beaches. The fact that there were ominous cloud formations providing near zero visability should have been our first clue to abort the mission, but perpetually the optomists, we tarried onward. Once we reached the top of the mountain, the skies opened and the flood waters commenced. We spend about an hour and a half inside tourist shops seeking shelter from the rain all the while trying convince the shopkeepers that we didn't need any of their wares. Realizing the rain was not going to stop, we made our way back to the gondola to take us back down the mountain. Operations had been suspended due to high wind velocity and thunder and lightning. After waiting in the lobby for a reasonable delay they decided to let a car full of fools go back down the mountain. We almost lost one whole branch off the family tree that day. About a third of the way down, the gondola started swinging with the wind and seemed to jump off the cables. This happened several times as the 10 of us and 35 + of our our closest Dominican brothers and sisters chuckled lightly all the while hoping we weren't about to plummet to our death. As we finally reach the bottom of the mountain with the gondola station in full view about 200 yards away, suspended about 100 feet above the parking lot, the gondola looses power and we must wait for the back up generator to kick in. We finally made it and I have a great series of photos that I have labeled, "The Faces of Fear".
The 27 Charcos were incredibly cool. The Rio Damajagua spills down the mountain creating 27 waterfalls with giant pools of water beneath them. After hiking about 3 miles to get to the base of the falls, we ascended the falls with our 2 Dominican guides, Lioney and Yunior. The smaller of the 2, Lioney, looked like the equivalent of Zac Efron size wise. At least Yunior appeared to be able to bench press more than his own body weight. But these 2 guys hoisted us up the falls (we only did the botton 7 due to time constraints and b/c my mom was stuck at the bottom with the 2 littlest kids who couldn't go up) with the agility of gazelles. Those 2 could shimmy up a rock faster than any mountain goat this side of the equator. Once we got to the top of the falls we got to slide, swim and jump all the way down. I felt like I was in one of those old Mountain Dew commercials where they have all those young, cool, good-looking kids jumping of rocks.
The badness starts about day 4 of our trip. Somewhere in the buffet line, despite the hand sanitizer offered by women lurking around in maid uniforms as you enter the dining room (or as you enter and exit the bathrooms), some fecal-oral contaminant crossed paths with our family. My middle son was the first to fall almost simultaneous with his grandmother. You name it and it was likely coming out of an orifice. We did the parental thing and comforted him and gave him appropriate hydration and as he improved we waited for the next victim to fall.
Back to my brother, the one who introduced us to the island of Hispaniola and the country of the Dominican Republic. As one might imagine, his time in the Peace Corps was not spent at all-inclusive resorts. He was actually commissioned to help a small mountain community referred to as "El Campo" develop an aquaduct system for farming. This is where he really wanted us to visit. I thought of a million and one reasons in my head as to why this was not a good idea. But, I didn't want to seem like a prissy little girl who was too scared to take her 3 white kids to the mosquito infested mountain jungles of the DR while driving on a narrow gravel road to get there. My mother has been to the campo before. Her initial suggestion was that we stay in the campo for a week. Wisely, my brother decided to curb her enthusiasm down to 2 nights and 2 days. When doing the planning, I had suggested to my brother that we go the campo initially, before the beaches and other sight-seeing. However his reasoning for going in the middle of our trip was justifiable. He wanted to on the weekend when more people would be in from the fields and it would allow more time for visiting. I was hesitant to agree to two nights, but I didn't want to disappoint my brother and Lee and I felt like it was not complete negligence in the parenting department.
As we leave the highway and begin to travel up the mountain on the small and winding road I am not anticipating that one of us might fall victim to the intestinal ailment that had afflicted my son. The drive up is beautiful. Everything is lush and green and much like one might imagine the Garden of Eden to have been. My son is 85% recovered at this point and when we reach our destination, he hops out of the car ready to explore. After introductions are made, Lee leads the kids down a mountain path to a creek and I remain up at the home of our hosts to play dominoes. As we are playing I realize that something is not quite right. I don't really feel nauseous, but I just don't feel right. My sister-in-law had been helping with meal preparation. The campo is very different from the resort. There are no buffet lines. The kitchen is in a small wooden building separate but adjacent to the main house. A wood burning stove is used to cook the food and there is a sink, but the water that is used in the sink is pumped in from water collected in barrels. It is for cleaning but it isn't drinkable. The house is constructed of cement and there are cement floors and a tin roof and interior walls with rooms partitioned off with thin ply wood. During the day, the sunlight lights up the house, at nite electricity is available, but it is minimal and it is provided by a solar panel and used sparingly. There is no plasma screen TV with a satellite connecting you to over 300 channels and a DVD player. It is a modest 4 room home with 3 rooms used has bedrooms and one room used as a combined dining-sitting room. It is sparse, but neat and it has all the essentials that a shelter should provide. It is someplace to lay your head at night and it will keep you warm and dry. My kids had been primed for this experience, but it is hard to sell something when you've never seen it before. They, nor we, really had no concept of what the campo was going to be. As soon as we arrive and my daughter sees the primitive accomodations to which she has been subjected she is appalled and eager to leave. She sees no reason in extending our visit any longer nor does she see any point in the educational/cultural/humanitarian component of our visit. In preparation for our trip we decided to bring gifts for the kids who lived in the campo. I decided that one way my kids could contribute to this effort was to forego the plastic toy in their kids meal for the kids in the campo. My kids have been 'suffering' the loss of their kid's meal toys for about 6 months and my daughter has been the number one proponent and the most generous, happily handing over her goods to me. Now that we are there to deliver she is happy to just drop the goods and go. I can see that her future humanitarian efforts will end at the US border.
My sister-in-law preparred a typical Dominican meal for the campo; fried salami and boiled green bananas. I can eat anything. ANYTHING. But, I took one look at this stuff I was supposed to be cutting up for my kids and I knew it wasn't going to happen. I called my mom to the rescue and our hosts kindly showed me to their room where I commenced to rest supine upon their bed for the remainder of my time at the campo. Supine, that is, when I wasn't up running to the latrine (as in outside the main house, in a separate walled off structure, Little House on the Prarie style, outhouse) to have things coming out top and bottom side of my body. All night, in the dark, without air conditioning or indoor plumbing this happened. Only to be worsened if I even so much as thought about a sip of water. At one point as I was making my way down the path to the latrine, I felt so dizzy that I thought I was going to pass out so I lay down on the path. It mattered not to me that I was laying in my own vomit with my shorts half way down my legs. At that point I just wanted to die. I moaned form my brother, the last person I saw before I walked down the path, and he, along with my husband, scooped me up and propped me up on a rock. But not before he pulled up my pants for me. Of all the mortifying things a man has to do in his life, perhaps the most is to see his older sister's flabby half-moon showing and to have to eclipse it for her.
As if the night couldn't get any worse, lying there underneath the mosquito net hoping you can wait at least one more hour to get up to go to the latrine again, I can hear it-wretching and it is not me. It's my husband and he sounds 10x worse than me. Everytime he vomits I think certainly this time he has ruptured his esophagus. Lee is not a friend of this latrine and refuses to use it. Instead he spends the night in the rental van getting up and sh_tting down the side of the mountain every time he needs to go. By morning, I am spent but I am starting feel somewhat human again. But, by this point the commander-in-chief has made up his mind. We are going back down the mountain and going to a hotel so at least if we have to vomit we can do it in air-conditioning into a toilet that we can flush and watch cable tv in the interrum. When he says we have to leave I get a bit mopey and try to think of reasons as to why we should stay. First and foremost, I don't want to disappoint my brother or the generous hospitality of our hosts (who had to put up with our wretching al night long). Lee is adamant though and so we say our goodbyes and head down the mountain which is a good thing because I'm not as well as I think I am and spend the next 24 hours in bed with a fever, but not before I drive us down the mountain and rapidly over a few speedbumps just to make Lee groan a little louder as punishment for making us leave.
One thing I forgot to mention. In the midst of establishing the campo as our very own vomitorium, we had a little mama drama in the mountain jungle. Our host family serves as the mayor and first lady of the community and the are often called upon to help resolve other family's disputes, regardless of the time of day or nite. As I lay there I hear the shouts of domestic violence in Spanish. Apparently the town drunk, who is in his 30's and still lives with his parents decides that he wants to try to kill them by beating them with a chair. All sorts of shouting and yelling and negotiating is happening in Spanish. Finally someone comes and yells outside the windor of my host family and they jet out bed and solve the dispute (by telling the 50+ yr old parents that they are to beat their son for acting the way he is).
Now that we are back and mostly well and all of this is a joke, the thing that I can say about our trip is that it was very humbling. Upon witnessing the generosity of the people in the campo and elsewhere, I can't help but be impressed by the lack of complaint and the gratitude that is displayed by many of the Dominican people and many who are willing to share so much even though it may seem so little by our standards. I just want to remember (and I want my kids to remenber) that most of the world lives with so much less than what we have. Not only do we need to be cognizant of that disparity but we need to live our lives with respect towards it reminding us to do our part not only in word, but by our actions.
We just returned from a month long vacation. Instead of going thru all the glorious details of the entire 30 days, I'll recount the highlights from the last one-third of our trip which was spent in the Dominican Republic. In planning this venture, I must admit that I had some reservations about taking my 3 kids to a third world country. Cholera, dysentary, yellow fever, malaria, dengue fever, lack of proper car seat/restraints, machete accidents-these words flashed across my mind like the NYSE symbols flash across the botton of screen on CNBC. My brother spent 3 years in the DR as a Peace Corps volunteer in the early 2000's and it was while he was there that he met his wife; my current sister-in-law. Actually, Bill did all of the planning for this trip. I simply provided him with my credit card information so I could continue to accrue debt. Bill tried to get me to come visit him when he was living in the DR, but I was either pregnant or nursing a baby the entire 3 years he was there so the timing was never quite right. This trip, the one that just occured, was to be a big family trip; his family, my family and our mom. I'd been promising him for the past decade that I was gonna go to this country that he loves, so now was the time.
We arrived in Puerto Plata on July 19th. At this point we're almost 3 weeks deep into our vacation and, proudly might I boast, not a one of us amongst the 5 wanted to kill anyone else. We'd just spent 9 days in Western Pennsylvania at Lee's mom's compound and it was heavenly and serene and peaceful. Bucolic days spent fishing and hiking and swimming and paddle-boating and bb-gun shooting and fresh garden vegetable eating. Lovely. Hard to imagine anything more divine.
The first 4 days in the DR were fairly uneventful. Bill had booked rooms at the RIU Mambo, an all-inclusive resort on the Atlantic coast. I had never been to an all-inclusive resort, but they are akin to a cruise in the 'buffet meals and in your face constant entertainment' aspect, only on land. Any time you turned around someone named Rocky or Mama Mia was trying to get you to take Merengue lessons or do aerobics in the pool and there was practically 24 hour access to the Dominican version of pizza and burgers. No one was questioning your decision to have a pina colada at 9:30 am. As a matter of fact, if you looked around there were about 500 Germans in poorly fitting bikinis (men and women) there to join you. So, we swam and ate and drank and had a merry ole time watching nightly shows on the beach or on the stage (fyi...if you are disappointed about the King of Pop's show cancellation due to an untimely demise, the RIU resort in Puerto Plata has a guy that does a spot on impersonation-moonwalk and all-for an entire hour show. You would have thought it was Michael himself.) During these 4 days we had a couple of outings; a near-death experience on the "Teleferico" and a trip to the "27 Charcos" (27 waterfalls-or more literally-27 pools of water below the falls). With the former fore we took a ski-lift like gondola to the top of a mountain to give us a grand view of the island's beaches. The fact that there were ominous cloud formations providing near zero visability should have been our first clue to abort the mission, but perpetually the optomists, we tarried onward. Once we reached the top of the mountain, the skies opened and the flood waters commenced. We spend about an hour and a half inside tourist shops seeking shelter from the rain all the while trying convince the shopkeepers that we didn't need any of their wares. Realizing the rain was not going to stop, we made our way back to the gondola to take us back down the mountain. Operations had been suspended due to high wind velocity and thunder and lightning. After waiting in the lobby for a reasonable delay they decided to let a car full of fools go back down the mountain. We almost lost one whole branch off the family tree that day. About a third of the way down, the gondola started swinging with the wind and seemed to jump off the cables. This happened several times as the 10 of us and 35 + of our our closest Dominican brothers and sisters chuckled lightly all the while hoping we weren't about to plummet to our death. As we finally reach the bottom of the mountain with the gondola station in full view about 200 yards away, suspended about 100 feet above the parking lot, the gondola looses power and we must wait for the back up generator to kick in. We finally made it and I have a great series of photos that I have labeled, "The Faces of Fear".
The 27 Charcos were incredibly cool. The Rio Damajagua spills down the mountain creating 27 waterfalls with giant pools of water beneath them. After hiking about 3 miles to get to the base of the falls, we ascended the falls with our 2 Dominican guides, Lioney and Yunior. The smaller of the 2, Lioney, looked like the equivalent of Zac Efron size wise. At least Yunior appeared to be able to bench press more than his own body weight. But these 2 guys hoisted us up the falls (we only did the botton 7 due to time constraints and b/c my mom was stuck at the bottom with the 2 littlest kids who couldn't go up) with the agility of gazelles. Those 2 could shimmy up a rock faster than any mountain goat this side of the equator. Once we got to the top of the falls we got to slide, swim and jump all the way down. I felt like I was in one of those old Mountain Dew commercials where they have all those young, cool, good-looking kids jumping of rocks.
The badness starts about day 4 of our trip. Somewhere in the buffet line, despite the hand sanitizer offered by women lurking around in maid uniforms as you enter the dining room (or as you enter and exit the bathrooms), some fecal-oral contaminant crossed paths with our family. My middle son was the first to fall almost simultaneous with his grandmother. You name it and it was likely coming out of an orifice. We did the parental thing and comforted him and gave him appropriate hydration and as he improved we waited for the next victim to fall.
Back to my brother, the one who introduced us to the island of Hispaniola and the country of the Dominican Republic. As one might imagine, his time in the Peace Corps was not spent at all-inclusive resorts. He was actually commissioned to help a small mountain community referred to as "El Campo" develop an aquaduct system for farming. This is where he really wanted us to visit. I thought of a million and one reasons in my head as to why this was not a good idea. But, I didn't want to seem like a prissy little girl who was too scared to take her 3 white kids to the mosquito infested mountain jungles of the DR while driving on a narrow gravel road to get there. My mother has been to the campo before. Her initial suggestion was that we stay in the campo for a week. Wisely, my brother decided to curb her enthusiasm down to 2 nights and 2 days. When doing the planning, I had suggested to my brother that we go the campo initially, before the beaches and other sight-seeing. However his reasoning for going in the middle of our trip was justifiable. He wanted to on the weekend when more people would be in from the fields and it would allow more time for visiting. I was hesitant to agree to two nights, but I didn't want to disappoint my brother and Lee and I felt like it was not complete negligence in the parenting department.
As we leave the highway and begin to travel up the mountain on the small and winding road I am not anticipating that one of us might fall victim to the intestinal ailment that had afflicted my son. The drive up is beautiful. Everything is lush and green and much like one might imagine the Garden of Eden to have been. My son is 85% recovered at this point and when we reach our destination, he hops out of the car ready to explore. After introductions are made, Lee leads the kids down a mountain path to a creek and I remain up at the home of our hosts to play dominoes. As we are playing I realize that something is not quite right. I don't really feel nauseous, but I just don't feel right. My sister-in-law had been helping with meal preparation. The campo is very different from the resort. There are no buffet lines. The kitchen is in a small wooden building separate but adjacent to the main house. A wood burning stove is used to cook the food and there is a sink, but the water that is used in the sink is pumped in from water collected in barrels. It is for cleaning but it isn't drinkable. The house is constructed of cement and there are cement floors and a tin roof and interior walls with rooms partitioned off with thin ply wood. During the day, the sunlight lights up the house, at nite electricity is available, but it is minimal and it is provided by a solar panel and used sparingly. There is no plasma screen TV with a satellite connecting you to over 300 channels and a DVD player. It is a modest 4 room home with 3 rooms used has bedrooms and one room used as a combined dining-sitting room. It is sparse, but neat and it has all the essentials that a shelter should provide. It is someplace to lay your head at night and it will keep you warm and dry. My kids had been primed for this experience, but it is hard to sell something when you've never seen it before. They, nor we, really had no concept of what the campo was going to be. As soon as we arrive and my daughter sees the primitive accomodations to which she has been subjected she is appalled and eager to leave. She sees no reason in extending our visit any longer nor does she see any point in the educational/cultural/humanitarian component of our visit. In preparation for our trip we decided to bring gifts for the kids who lived in the campo. I decided that one way my kids could contribute to this effort was to forego the plastic toy in their kids meal for the kids in the campo. My kids have been 'suffering' the loss of their kid's meal toys for about 6 months and my daughter has been the number one proponent and the most generous, happily handing over her goods to me. Now that we are there to deliver she is happy to just drop the goods and go. I can see that her future humanitarian efforts will end at the US border.
My sister-in-law preparred a typical Dominican meal for the campo; fried salami and boiled green bananas. I can eat anything. ANYTHING. But, I took one look at this stuff I was supposed to be cutting up for my kids and I knew it wasn't going to happen. I called my mom to the rescue and our hosts kindly showed me to their room where I commenced to rest supine upon their bed for the remainder of my time at the campo. Supine, that is, when I wasn't up running to the latrine (as in outside the main house, in a separate walled off structure, Little House on the Prarie style, outhouse) to have things coming out top and bottom side of my body. All night, in the dark, without air conditioning or indoor plumbing this happened. Only to be worsened if I even so much as thought about a sip of water. At one point as I was making my way down the path to the latrine, I felt so dizzy that I thought I was going to pass out so I lay down on the path. It mattered not to me that I was laying in my own vomit with my shorts half way down my legs. At that point I just wanted to die. I moaned form my brother, the last person I saw before I walked down the path, and he, along with my husband, scooped me up and propped me up on a rock. But not before he pulled up my pants for me. Of all the mortifying things a man has to do in his life, perhaps the most is to see his older sister's flabby half-moon showing and to have to eclipse it for her.
As if the night couldn't get any worse, lying there underneath the mosquito net hoping you can wait at least one more hour to get up to go to the latrine again, I can hear it-wretching and it is not me. It's my husband and he sounds 10x worse than me. Everytime he vomits I think certainly this time he has ruptured his esophagus. Lee is not a friend of this latrine and refuses to use it. Instead he spends the night in the rental van getting up and sh_tting down the side of the mountain every time he needs to go. By morning, I am spent but I am starting feel somewhat human again. But, by this point the commander-in-chief has made up his mind. We are going back down the mountain and going to a hotel so at least if we have to vomit we can do it in air-conditioning into a toilet that we can flush and watch cable tv in the interrum. When he says we have to leave I get a bit mopey and try to think of reasons as to why we should stay. First and foremost, I don't want to disappoint my brother or the generous hospitality of our hosts (who had to put up with our wretching al night long). Lee is adamant though and so we say our goodbyes and head down the mountain which is a good thing because I'm not as well as I think I am and spend the next 24 hours in bed with a fever, but not before I drive us down the mountain and rapidly over a few speedbumps just to make Lee groan a little louder as punishment for making us leave.
One thing I forgot to mention. In the midst of establishing the campo as our very own vomitorium, we had a little mama drama in the mountain jungle. Our host family serves as the mayor and first lady of the community and the are often called upon to help resolve other family's disputes, regardless of the time of day or nite. As I lay there I hear the shouts of domestic violence in Spanish. Apparently the town drunk, who is in his 30's and still lives with his parents decides that he wants to try to kill them by beating them with a chair. All sorts of shouting and yelling and negotiating is happening in Spanish. Finally someone comes and yells outside the windor of my host family and they jet out bed and solve the dispute (by telling the 50+ yr old parents that they are to beat their son for acting the way he is).
Now that we are back and mostly well and all of this is a joke, the thing that I can say about our trip is that it was very humbling. Upon witnessing the generosity of the people in the campo and elsewhere, I can't help but be impressed by the lack of complaint and the gratitude that is displayed by many of the Dominican people and many who are willing to share so much even though it may seem so little by our standards. I just want to remember (and I want my kids to remenber) that most of the world lives with so much less than what we have. Not only do we need to be cognizant of that disparity but we need to live our lives with respect towards it reminding us to do our part not only in word, but by our actions.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Saying Goodbye
I've not been as prolific this year as in years past and I am okay with that. I just don't have as much to say, but I suppose that is how it goes with writing. There are bountiful periods and then there are droughts. Not having anything worthwhile to say has not negated my desire to be a writer. I still see publishing somewhere in my future, I just don't know when or what. I try not to be too expectant of myself because I don't want to manufacture something out of a preconceived notion I might have. I figure that it will be apparent to me when I am supposed to write something and when I am supposed to pursue publication.
Writing as an academician is not anything I desire, which, to some extent, is odd. There is definitely a career path that would allow me to write academically, but I find it stale and boring. None of the topics get me (as one who writes) really excited. I like writing about medicine and about the process of being a doctor and an educator because that is fascinating stuff. It's a strange concept to realize that I get paid to have people listen to me; people like patients, residents and students. Most of the time I don't sit and ponder how big of a responsibility it is, but when I do, I am infinitely grateful for the opportunity.
Right now I am feeling sad. Our neighbors, good friends, will be moving soon. We have lived in the same place for 10 years and these people have lived in their home longer than we have. Their 2 children are the same age as our youngest and our oldest and all 5 of our collective children play together all the time. We are close in the way that neighbors are close. I trust them completely with my children and my home. They have similar values that Lee and I have and they are raising good kids and, by all appearances, they (the husband and wife) have a solid relationship. It hurts my heart to see them leave and I truly mourn their departure for Lee and I and for our children.
In many ways, as you get older, it gets easier to make friends. You don't really care what other people think of you and you aren't trying to impress anyone and they either take you or leave you as you are. But the hard part is, as you get older, there are less and less people with whom you want to spend time or make the effort of friendship. And, no matter what anyone says, after friends move the friendship changes dynamics. You no longer have the luxury of proximity. Everything takes more effort and with busy lives it's not always anyone's priority to make an effort. You have to go to the grocery store or take the kids to the dentist or pay the bills or make dinner or help someone with their homework or take the clothes to the cleaners. When someone is just 3 houses down the street you see them when you take out the garbage or water the grass. You hang out in the street while the kids ride their scooters or climb trees. You take turns letting the kids destroy each other's houses and you've known their kids for so long that it's not weird for you to yell at them (and they ignore you in a way equal to the manner in which your own children ignore you).
Being neighbors with someone and being their friend means you avoid the ackwardness of having to let them know how much they mean to you. Everytime one of you takes each other's respective child to practice, you just know. You've been to every birthday party, every Halloween party, and block party. You've witnessed career moves, home renovations and you know each other's extended families. You've brought each other diapers or honey baked hams at the birth of new babies, you've thrown each other baby showers that mother to be wasn't able to attend b/c she had to attend the birth of the baby that was being honored. That same baby is now 5 years old and spends the nite at your house with your daughter. During the worst time of my life, they were there for our family in a way that no amount of gratitude will ever be able to repay. And just like that, situations change and they have to move on.
I think it is easier to be the leaver rather than the leavee. If you are moving you have all the giddy anticipation of the new house and the new circumstances. If you are left behind you are left hoping and praying that whoever moves into the house is remotely tolerable. And you know that however wonderful they might be, they'll never replace the original occupants. As the one's left behind, you feel a little like Jimmy Stewart's character in "It's a Wonderful Life"; consistent, yet uncertain of your personal value. It's almost like a relationship that you know is doomed from the beginning, you just don't want to be the one who gets dumped. It's always better to be the one who jumps ship first. And with any good neighbor, there is always that hidden fear of the other one moving first and the guilt that is felt by the ones who are doing the leaving. And the secret selfish desire by the one's left behind, that all real estate transactions will crash and burn thus forcing your friends to stay put (but knowing that they won't really be satisfied).
But I guess this all part of that circle of life thing. Friends come and go. Lee and I have become accustomed to being the ones left behind so we'll be fine in the end. The kids, they are new to this game and that is what saddens me the most. Their impending sorrow leaves me wishing I could find a way out of having to face it. No guide book can really prepare you to deal with your kids' disappointment. So we'll do what our parents did before us; make stuff up as we go along and pray to God that we are doing a good enough job. I know that it's something that they will have to face in life eventually, a transition like this. And they will be fine too. They'll learn from it and they will be more resilient. But, I still can't help feeling the saddness that comes from saying goodbye to people that you love.
Writing as an academician is not anything I desire, which, to some extent, is odd. There is definitely a career path that would allow me to write academically, but I find it stale and boring. None of the topics get me (as one who writes) really excited. I like writing about medicine and about the process of being a doctor and an educator because that is fascinating stuff. It's a strange concept to realize that I get paid to have people listen to me; people like patients, residents and students. Most of the time I don't sit and ponder how big of a responsibility it is, but when I do, I am infinitely grateful for the opportunity.
Right now I am feeling sad. Our neighbors, good friends, will be moving soon. We have lived in the same place for 10 years and these people have lived in their home longer than we have. Their 2 children are the same age as our youngest and our oldest and all 5 of our collective children play together all the time. We are close in the way that neighbors are close. I trust them completely with my children and my home. They have similar values that Lee and I have and they are raising good kids and, by all appearances, they (the husband and wife) have a solid relationship. It hurts my heart to see them leave and I truly mourn their departure for Lee and I and for our children.
In many ways, as you get older, it gets easier to make friends. You don't really care what other people think of you and you aren't trying to impress anyone and they either take you or leave you as you are. But the hard part is, as you get older, there are less and less people with whom you want to spend time or make the effort of friendship. And, no matter what anyone says, after friends move the friendship changes dynamics. You no longer have the luxury of proximity. Everything takes more effort and with busy lives it's not always anyone's priority to make an effort. You have to go to the grocery store or take the kids to the dentist or pay the bills or make dinner or help someone with their homework or take the clothes to the cleaners. When someone is just 3 houses down the street you see them when you take out the garbage or water the grass. You hang out in the street while the kids ride their scooters or climb trees. You take turns letting the kids destroy each other's houses and you've known their kids for so long that it's not weird for you to yell at them (and they ignore you in a way equal to the manner in which your own children ignore you).
Being neighbors with someone and being their friend means you avoid the ackwardness of having to let them know how much they mean to you. Everytime one of you takes each other's respective child to practice, you just know. You've been to every birthday party, every Halloween party, and block party. You've witnessed career moves, home renovations and you know each other's extended families. You've brought each other diapers or honey baked hams at the birth of new babies, you've thrown each other baby showers that mother to be wasn't able to attend b/c she had to attend the birth of the baby that was being honored. That same baby is now 5 years old and spends the nite at your house with your daughter. During the worst time of my life, they were there for our family in a way that no amount of gratitude will ever be able to repay. And just like that, situations change and they have to move on.
I think it is easier to be the leaver rather than the leavee. If you are moving you have all the giddy anticipation of the new house and the new circumstances. If you are left behind you are left hoping and praying that whoever moves into the house is remotely tolerable. And you know that however wonderful they might be, they'll never replace the original occupants. As the one's left behind, you feel a little like Jimmy Stewart's character in "It's a Wonderful Life"; consistent, yet uncertain of your personal value. It's almost like a relationship that you know is doomed from the beginning, you just don't want to be the one who gets dumped. It's always better to be the one who jumps ship first. And with any good neighbor, there is always that hidden fear of the other one moving first and the guilt that is felt by the ones who are doing the leaving. And the secret selfish desire by the one's left behind, that all real estate transactions will crash and burn thus forcing your friends to stay put (but knowing that they won't really be satisfied).
But I guess this all part of that circle of life thing. Friends come and go. Lee and I have become accustomed to being the ones left behind so we'll be fine in the end. The kids, they are new to this game and that is what saddens me the most. Their impending sorrow leaves me wishing I could find a way out of having to face it. No guide book can really prepare you to deal with your kids' disappointment. So we'll do what our parents did before us; make stuff up as we go along and pray to God that we are doing a good enough job. I know that it's something that they will have to face in life eventually, a transition like this. And they will be fine too. They'll learn from it and they will be more resilient. But, I still can't help feeling the saddness that comes from saying goodbye to people that you love.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Blessed Wal-Mart
It's just me and my dog sitting here in the house. The dog is going nuts because she sees her in-laws across the street and she wants to go and be with her beloved. She and the neighbor dog have a thing going. They are smitten with each other in a way I did not know occurred with canines.
I've been meaning to write about my most recent excursion to Laredo. The kids and I went for Easter and, like every other trip, we ended up at Wal-Mart. This is an observation that I have made and we are testing the hypothesis. Can we go an entire vacation without going to Wal-Mart? So far, the answer is no. This time my middle kid forgot to bring a pair of shoes. As the mother it should be my responsibility to make sure that everyone is properly packed. He started off with 2 pairs of shoes, but before we had even gone 100 miles he had busted his flip-flops and the cleats (couldn't find his sneakers) that I grabbed for him were actually his sister's. He could have made it the whole weekend shoe-less had it not been for the fact that we were going out to a ranch chock full-o' snakes and cacti. Sadly, I can't even blame the whole Laredo Wal-Mart experience entirely on him. By Easter Sunday I had already been there about 3 times.
The thing about Wal-Mart is that they are all exactly the same. I don't mean the physical lay-out, but I mean the ambiance. If you are in the middle of a Wal-Mart the city outside could be just about anywhere. There are never enough cashiers and the lines are always about 10 people deep. There are always women who should be wearing clothes larger than what they selected to wear (ample flesh pouring over the sides of their tank tops and jean shorts) and usually they have about 3 crying kids in their cart, especially if it is 10 o'clock at night. Even the ethnic mix is always the same; a cross-section of America. Maybe I always end up there b/c of the security in sameness. Sadly, the consistency of Wal-Mart comforts me.
I've been meaning to write about my most recent excursion to Laredo. The kids and I went for Easter and, like every other trip, we ended up at Wal-Mart. This is an observation that I have made and we are testing the hypothesis. Can we go an entire vacation without going to Wal-Mart? So far, the answer is no. This time my middle kid forgot to bring a pair of shoes. As the mother it should be my responsibility to make sure that everyone is properly packed. He started off with 2 pairs of shoes, but before we had even gone 100 miles he had busted his flip-flops and the cleats (couldn't find his sneakers) that I grabbed for him were actually his sister's. He could have made it the whole weekend shoe-less had it not been for the fact that we were going out to a ranch chock full-o' snakes and cacti. Sadly, I can't even blame the whole Laredo Wal-Mart experience entirely on him. By Easter Sunday I had already been there about 3 times.
The thing about Wal-Mart is that they are all exactly the same. I don't mean the physical lay-out, but I mean the ambiance. If you are in the middle of a Wal-Mart the city outside could be just about anywhere. There are never enough cashiers and the lines are always about 10 people deep. There are always women who should be wearing clothes larger than what they selected to wear (ample flesh pouring over the sides of their tank tops and jean shorts) and usually they have about 3 crying kids in their cart, especially if it is 10 o'clock at night. Even the ethnic mix is always the same; a cross-section of America. Maybe I always end up there b/c of the security in sameness. Sadly, the consistency of Wal-Mart comforts me.
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