Ripples

We get taught that one grain of rice can tip the scales, that one person can make a difference, but if you're like me you've thought to yourself "But I am just one person. How does that matter in a world of 7 billion people?". So, how can one person really make a difference?

Think about it....how many people do you have in your life? Your kids, friends, family, your spouse... In thirty-something years on the planet, I have people who are still in my life that arrived into it at various stages of said life. I have people that have known me since childhood, people I met in high school. Friends from my early twenties. My three kids and my husband. My ex-husband and his family that still stays in touch with me. My birth family (my mother, my MIA father, my grandmother, my uncle, my cousin). If I die tomorrow, every one of those people would be impacted somehow. It might be just the sad news of my passing and maybe a few minutes to think of a couple of memories. Or for the people closer to me, my husband and kids especially, it would impact them a great deal. Those are my ripples.

I can only hope that my ripples have left the people inside of them better for ever having had me in their lives. I hope that I have taught my people good things and that I have been worth the journey in their lives. But either way, I have left ripples. Or if the person has been a negative enough influence in your life, you might think of it more as shock waves.

I have learned in the last year and a half that certain people (read: my mother ) have done a lot more damage than I thought they ever would have. Or could have. And it has left shock waves. I came into some more info recently that just really sat me down. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I heard about all of the horrible things my mother really thinks of me. I thought that these were just things she might have hurled at me in a moment of anger, but no....they were all true, at least in her mind.

And MAN, did that hurt. I realized that she really didn't know me at all. She has accused me of everything I have ever really been afraid of. She hit me where I live and has told a lot of people that I'm a really terrible mother. If you know me, darling readers, you know that if nothing else about me is ever true, this is: I have been a mother longer now than I haven't. That's the one big,great thing I have done with my life is become somebody's mom. My kids are everything to me. I'm home schooling my youngest not because it's the easy way to go, but because I truly believe that it's the best thing I could do for her.

It caused me to doubt everything because she knew just enough to hit me where it would hurt the most. I couldn't think and I couldn't breathe. I saw that scared little girl that I knew so well.

 

But then something happened today. I was processing all of this and trying to find my way out. Because when someone hurts you, you can't just stay in that place. Sometimes it might take you a little longer to work through the pain, and that's all right. Just as long as you move forward. And as I was processing I stood there looking in the mirror at the eyes of a hurt, scared little girl. And I realized that I am closer to 40 than to that little girl. I've done a lot of work to be the person I am today.

"I am almost 40 years old! I am not a scared little girl anymore. I'm not afraid of you anymore. You can't hurt me any more. I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU!"

And Xunnie, being the existentialist Xunnie, realized that you affect everyone you meet. Even if it's just a little bit. How often has someone turned your day around just by holding the door for you or smiling at you when you're having a really bad day? I know that I have been the greatest influence on my husband. He would be a totally different person if we had never met. And so would I because he's done the same for me.

Mind your ripples, and may you always be blessed with gentle ripples from other people.

Somebody's Mom

I just watched the season finale of Private Practice and it was heartbreaking. Amelia delivered a baby that she knew just couldn't survive. And I had tears rolling down my cheeks for the entire last half of the show. It's been almost 11 years, but I will always know what that feels like.

"I had a baby Sheldon. For a few minutes I was somebody's mom" ~ Amelia
"You're still somebody's mom, he's just not here anymore" ~ Sheldon

I knew in that moment that everything I've written in my book is going to get thrown out. The (maybe) two chapters that I've pounded out so far are all wrong. I thought I could write about it in a fictional form. I created characters and I was writing it as a novel and that's all wrong. It has to be my story. I need to write about my experience, my life...it has to be real. It has to be my story.




I have always hoped that I could do some good with my experience of losing my baby girl and now I really, really know that I need to write my story. I have come to learn, in the last decade, that there are a lot of us that have either lost a baby during the pregnancy or suffered the heartbreak of a stillborn. There is a whole nation of women that know what that feel like. I need to tell my story.

Not for the women that will never know what losing your baby feels like, but for the women that go through that soul-wrenching heartbreak. They need to know they're not alone. I needed to know I wasn't alone. I needed to know I wasn't the only women to ever feel like that.

And then when Mason says to Charlotte...



Oh MY Gawd! I teared up all over again. Charlotte never wanted kids, but she has come to love that little boy so much.






It doesn't matter how you get there....giving birth, adoption, coming into a "step-child" that's not really just a step-child anymore. You're a mom. And even if that child goes to wherever we go when we're done in this mortal coil, you're still somebody's mom.

Called Out

It's incredibly difficult to be true to oneself in American culture. I just had an in depth discussion last night with my oldest about being true to yourself in spite of what anyone else (especially someone who does not matter to you) thinks of you.

I did the social facade thing. Years ago when I lived in military housing and I tried to keep up with all the social games and frickin be a Stepford Wife. My house was immaculate, should someone drop by unannounced. My baby girl was dressed and her hair was done. I killed myself trying to be "THE" wife and mother. I pushed myself thinking that if I were harder on myself, demanded more from myself, than anyone else possibly could then I could 1. reach a place that no one could demand something from me because I had beaten them to the punch and 2. find a place that no one could hurt me in. I was wrong.

I survived the ensuing insanity of that thought process and when everyone I knew turned on me for hitting the wall and not being able to be the facade anymore, I quit caring what everybody else thought. I quit driving myself crazy.

Almost. My mother was still in my head. So I went back to school. And I pushed myself. Like throw-your-algebra-book-across-the-house push yourself. What? Like none of you ever threw your college algebra book across the room? No? Just me then? Oh well.

Anyway.....

I pushed hard through school. getting my Associates in 20 months with a 3.9 g.p.a. And you know what? It wasn't enough. And I learned that those that would have something to say about you will find something no matter what you do. No. Matter. What. You. Do.

So I reached a new level of not caring what other people thought.

So my new philosophy is: Is this going to matter tomorrow? In a year? In five years? Are these people still going to be in my life, judging me and refusing to accept me? NO. Because if they can't love you when you're on your knees, they're not going to love you when you're on top of the mountain.

Haters gonna hate, potaters gonna potate. No, that's not right.

I'm gonna be who I am no matter what anybody else does to me, what they say or what they do is not going to change who I am.

To thy own self be true. Yep. 

Serendipity Is My Stripper Name

It's been a rough couple of weeks. Hell, it's been a rough couple of years. 2011 did its very best to kick my ass, but somehow I kept going. I've been through so many surgeries and scary tests. Last year alone I was under some form of anesthesia 11 times. ELEVEN times.

I just had my second set of shots in C6 this last Tuesday. The first set (about a month ago) were epidural steroid injections. Meant to inject steroid and pain relievers into the epidural space in my spinal column. This last set was meant to inject steroid and anesthetic in the facet joints at C6, or to most people ....that spot at the bottom of your neck, just about where the bumpy vertebrae is. The doc injects into my spine on both sides and I'm supposed to be sedated, but I wasn't really. Wrong drugs or not enough, but I was awake this time, and it frickin hurt.

Fast forward 3 days and now I have yet another infection and I end up in my primary care doc's office (herefore known as my PCM) to get antibiotics today. On top of that, I got told today that I was "severely dehydrated" and fussed at by the nurse to drink more water. Not so dehydrated that it was admit me and stick another IV in me, but dehydrated none the less.

I bawled all the way off base. (Probably not the best thing to do if I'm already dehydrated but oh well.) I was just so tired of fighting with a body that clearly hates me. It's been one thing after another for the last 10 years. And I'm never going to get "better". I have a chronic, severe, progressive, degenerative (is that enough adjectives?) disease that will end in my death. I'm one more bad case of pneumonia from being dead at any time. And I have shit for an immune system. I was just so overwhelmed and tired of fighting with it *all* *the* *damn* *time*. 

I cried as I drove off the base (between that and the days that I'm car dancing, it's great fun to be next to me in traffic) and though to myself "what's the point of fighting all this?". I fight every day. In between raising 3 kids and being married to the Navy, I fight with my own body, every single day. Once in a while it gets a good shot in, but I win on a lot of the days.

But sometimes it's just really hard and I get whiny (yes, like now) and overwhelmed and once in a great while, I feel like giving up.

But as luck would have it....

...tonight was family pizza-and-movie night. And we (or they) decided to watch "We Bought A Zoo" because my oldest saw it in the theatre and recommended it to all of us so we put it on our Netflix and it came in today.

In case you haven't seen the movie (and without giving it away in case you do want to see it), it's about a guy struggling to put the pieces back together and raise his kids after his wife gets sick (we assume cancer in the movie) and dies.

It really put a few things into perspective for me, not the least of which is how my family will put themselves back together when I do go. Understanding that gave me the courage to fight for one more day.

Because, really, when you think about it all you need is a little bit of courage sometimes. Just enough to get you through that moment.

~Benjamin Mee (We Bought A Zoo)

And the truth is this can apply in every area of our lives. I haven't been writing. P says for me writing is like breathing, and I *need* to write. But I haven't been and part of the reason why is because I keep psyching myself out with fear of failure....or success.

I watch people around me struggling with their own demons. But I'm telling you....just be brave for 20 seconds. Crazy, insane, hopelessly brave for just those few seconds when you really, really need it. And watch what happens.