Friday, August 31, 2018

This Thing Called Life

                                  Image result for with all its sham drudgery and broken dreams it is still a beautiful world
The past few weeks have been challenging. For a multitude of reasons. The children are back to school and we already have the beginning of the school year crud. Every year we seem to get a cold, strep or a stomach bug in the first few weeks of school. My oldest is napping on the couch just a few feet away from me as I type this.

The kids always want me when they are sick. I am wondering when, if ever, they will grow out of this. My oldest called me up to her room on Wednesday evening. She was propped up in bed, glassy eyed and flushed with her laptop on her lap. "Mom, I don't feel good," she said. She had a fever and a tummy ache. I got her some medicine, a heat pack and poured her a glass of ginger ale. She wept, "But I have to finish this geometry project." I set the computer on her desk. "To hell with geometry. You need to rest."
She asked me to lay with her and I obliged. I crawled into bed with her and she curled her body (that is now longer than me) next to mine. She was calm. I laid my arm across her and she fell asleep. Moms make everything better.

I have spent much of my career working with mother's and babies. I am always in awe. Some babies come into the world and it's like they already know what to do. They emerge from the womb and breathe and feed and do all the things right away. For other children, it's not that easy. Some struggle. Some are born and need help breathing. Others struggle to find the breast. For many reasons- because they had a long, rough journey into the world, because they are early or just because that is just the way it is sometimes. Occasionally, I get paged to see a mother and baby fresh from the womb.

Every time I feel strange about it, like I am some kind of intruder of this sacred moment. Usually it's a baby that is struggling - brand new to the earth, on his mother's chest, amniotic fluid still bubbling from the mouth, squawking like a tiny bird, searching. I smile to myself, Sweet child, your life is not even hard yet. As I general rule, I don't like to touch brand new babies if I don't have to. I ask their mother's to talk to them.

It's interesting because most of the time they will say the baby's name and "it's okay" in a soft almost-whisper. I watch as they reach up and graze their hands over the baby- gentle and intentional. Most of the time, their cries stop for a moment when they hear their mother's voice and they will open their eyes. In this world where everything is new, and their bodies are having to adjust to the world, it is their mother's voices that are familiar. Then they latch- after a short time or a long while- and the mothers exhale and gaze down at this life that they made. I speak quietly and sneak out of the room, giving them back this sacred moment that I have intruded on.

Every new mother thinks her baby is the best one, and she's right. They always remark about how strong their babies are- how they briefly hold their head up and how they clasp their fists around their parent's fingers. All babies do this but I just smile and agree. "Look how smart and strong she is." It's not a lie. Babies are much smarter than we give them credit for. They know what they like, and they like their mothers.

Sometimes I'll come across a baby who has been fed and changed and is still crying and the minute I hand them to their mothers they stop crying. It's like instant gratification. My children were this way too. My husband was always jealous of my ability to get the children to be calm simply by holding them close.

People often remark that I must love my job- because it's babies! There is so much joy with babies. Yes, my work has been joyful but it's not always. Sometimes babies are born sick, or drug addicted and sometimes babies die.

I'll never forget a young lady that I came across almost 10 years ago. It was 3 days before Christmas and she was my last appointment of the day. We were running behind and I was tired. There were some last minute holiday "things" to do and I felt terribly guilty about picking my kids up from aftercare after 5 pm. She sat down and I had some equipment to give her and had to ask her some questions. I asked her about her baby. She was younger than me but it was her third child, but first girl. The baby needed life saving surgery but she was too premature to survive the surgery. "She's going to die," she told me, with tears in her eyes. Those words seemed to echo off the walls and I will remember them as long as I live.

There was a mother who lost a baby, whose house I visited to pick up her equipment. She invited me in. She brought me to the nursery and showed me the empty crib. She had this book that had the baby's footprints and a wisp of hair and pictures. She sobbed and she hugged me. I was a stranger to her, but I let her. It didn't seem strange to me. Sometimes we just need another human to hold on to and in that moment she did. Over the years, I've worked with so many women who have lost babies. And I still pray for them.

Life and death- they are the universal things. The things we ALL must do. We must be born and we must die. While I have spent most of my time working with mothers and babies, I also worked for hospice for a time. I spent my days with the elderly and the dying.

I would visit nursing homes and doctor's offices. I loved those patients as much as mothers and babies. In different ways, of course. There was an old man at one of the nursing homes who would always ask me to marry him. "I have a pension, you know." I would tell him I was married and he would say, "You are?" like he was surprised. Every week he would think he was meeting me for the first time and every week he asked me to marry him. He provided comedy in my days.

I would always visit my patients in the nursing home and the hospitals. Their stories fascinated me. There was the blind woman in her 90s who could remember the details of her life perfectly, who wept when she spoke of her mother who'd passed many years before, I wiped the tears from her face. There was the old man who spoke of death fondly, so that he could be reunited with his wife- the love of his wife. The woman in her 50's who was dying of cancer and was tired of fighting but her husband wasn't ready.

I got a call once to see a lady who had declined very rapidly. When I arrived I spoke with the nurse and went in to see her. The room was dim and she was staring out into space- talking to someone who was not there, I couldn't understand what she was saying. I knew it wouldn't be long. Dying people often see "ghosts". Some will say that it's just a hallucination but I don't think it is. I think those that come before us, usher us back home. They've actually done studies about this phenomenon and do you know who people are most likely to see? Their deceased mothers. I kind of like that idea - that our mother's transition us into the world and out of it.

So I sat down next to this woman, she continued to talk to whoever it was in the corner and I told her that her children were on their way. Then I just sat there for a while and waited and was present with her. She was dead before the sun came up the next day.

My favorite was a little old lady who was sassy as could be. Whenever I came to the nursing home, I'd sit with her for a short time. She was grumpy (rightfully so). They'd have old country music playing from the radio and I'd bring a cup of water with a straw to her lips. Sometimes she's snap at me- especially if I asked too many questions. "Are you tired? Do you want me to leave?" I'd ask. No matter how she was feeling, she always said "no." I was so fond of her. As the weeks passed, I watched her get weaker and weaker. Towards the end, she would just sleep a lot but I would come sit with her anyway. I didn't often cry but I did cry when she died.

Families gathered, they cried together, they forgot past indiscretions, they shared memories. And sometimes when I was present with them, I felt like an intruder of a sacred moment.

When I worked at hospice, people often asked if it made me sad, or scared. Quite the contrary. The dying taught me so much about living. I am very intentional with my time, as much as possible I try to do things that bring me joy, to enjoy the little things in life, to celebrate good times and accept the things that I cannot change. I will not put up with people who are reckless with my feelings. I am ALIVE. It has made me a better mother, wife and human being in general.

In my career I have witnessed so much joy and so much suffering. I have interacted with people who live in abject poverty, who have experienced real loss. I have worked with people who live impossible lives. And I was supposed to be "helping" them but really it is the other way around.

I carry these lessons around with me, I remember their stories and their voices. I have learned so much from them.

And while past few weeks have certainly not be ideal, life is like that sometimes. The children are growing and thriving and we are in a good place. We are blessed.





Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Eighth Grade

Image result for adolescence quotes
Last week I saw a trailer for Eighth Grade. Because I have 2 daughters between 8th Grade, it piqued my interest. My husband and I made plans to take the girls this past Saturday. My youngest got invited to go rollerskating with her girlfriend, however, so we went without her. She has the tendency to be anti-social so whenever she is interested in hanging out with other kids her age we're like:
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So my husband and I took our oldest who was so excited. "I love when I get you guys all to myself!" hahaha. Our youngest is the same way. They both love one-on-one time.

We got some popcorn and Twizzlers and sat down to watch the movie. It follows an 8th grade girl in a week of her life and highlights her struggles and the interactions with her peers and father. Having been an 8th grade girl and having parented an 8th grade girl, this movie hit me right in the feels. The whole movie I was like:
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Man, being a young teenager is HARD and holy crap, parenting a young teenager is SOOOOOO HARD. Talk about being emotionally raw.

After the movie I asked my daughter if she felt like it was an accurate representation of what it was like to be in 8th grade. "Totally but I feel like that was like my 7th grade year. Eighth grade was better for me." She's right. She had a better year this year - I wasn't sure ANY of us were going to survive her 7th grade year. I shudder just thinking about it. I have PTSD.

For myself personally, 8th grade was the WORST year. BY FAR. In our school district, elementary school was K5-7, then high school was 8-9 and senior high school was 10-12. So, I started a new school in 8th grade. It felt more like a prison then a school, the walls were grey and there was 4 times the number of kids that had come from local feeder schools.

I remember feeling like I was the biggest loser ever. I hated everything. Everything was all wrong. I had all the wrong clothes, I got braces that year and my mouth full of metal did not boost my self-esteem. I remember feeling like I was stupid. I had to try SO HARD in school and everyone else seemed to get good grades effortlessly. I felt like I had no real talents and I thought I was so socially awkward. Why did I have to be so weird? Why couldn't I just be normal like everyone else?

In homeroom they would pass out lunch tickets to the kids who got free and reduced lunch and I remember being MORTIFIED that everyone knew I got reduced lunch. When you are in elementary school, every one is too busy picking their nose to notice but not in 8th grade. I loved boys that would't even look at me. I'd sit and scribble their names on my notebooks and daydream about kissing them in the stairwell. I hated my parents. I thought they were terrible people and I was pretty sure they didn't love me at all. I was so uncomfortable in my own skin.

I desperately wanted bigger boobs. So BAD. I would pray to God at night, "Dear God. If you could just help me out and make my boobs grow, I would like-REALLY appreciate it." hahahaha. I think I asked my mom for a padded bra and she shot me down. *KNIFE IN THE HEART*

My classmates were different all of a sudden. Kids that I'd gone to school with for years were suddenly like strangers to me. Everything became weirdly sexual. I didn't feel like I fit in with anyone. I felt alone in the world.

Multiple times a week, I would cry in school. Always between lunch and choir. I remember holding it in all day and then after lunch, I would climb the stairs and walk straight to the school psychologist's office (did he have open office hours?) and I would collapse in a chair and I would ugly cry. I remember the 4 walls of his closet-like office so vividly, I spent so much time there. Like, I would cry so hard it raked my body. Rivers and rivers of tears and then I would vomit all my my problems to him, he would give me a pep-talk about how to make it through the day, and then would write me a pass to choir. Bless that man - I think about him often. He must have worried about me like crazy.

If only things could be different. I fantasized about a different life. I'd come into school with a $40 Delia's dress or a pair of JNCO jeans and platform sneakers. I'd be wearing my padded bra and body glitter. I'd have perfect make-up - metallic eyeshadow, Bonnebell lip gloss, and a choker. I'd smell like Clinque Happy and cucumber melon lotion from Bath and Bodyworks. I wouldn't have to study and I'd still get straight A's. The boy I liked would take notice and he would kiss me in the back stairwell and I'd get invited to all the parties because everyone would think I was the coolest. They wouldn't think I was weird.

But I wasn't that girl. I was just a metal-mouthed, flat-chested girl in Value City jeans, holding a reduced lunch ticket with a B- in Pre-Algebra, who was awkward and just trying to get through the day without slitting my wrists.

Interestingly, I have a scrapbook that I made in 8th grade. I discovered it in my father's garage a few years ago and it is a glimpse into my life at that time.
I saved some of my reduced lunch tickets. I'm telling you- they made an impact on me.
There is a decoupaged notebook page. Courtney Love, Beck, Alanis, Daria- doesn't get more 90's than this.

There were pictures that I drew:

This is a picture I drew of myself with some skinny-ass 90's eyebrows
And this duck with sexy eyes
And this picture of a teacher that I hated. Proof that indeed, all 8th graders are assholes. 

There are letters from friends, and some suggestive ones from boys. *Whoa*

There is an earring that I loved:
Clippings that I found amusing:

Quotes that I found relevant to my 8th grade self:

Then there are some things that make me sad. Like this comic strip I saved:

And this card from my mother who obviously knew I was struggling:

It was funny when I rediscovered this book when I was 28 or 29. Because I had all these terrible memories from that time but it was really all in my head. I was a pretty girl, I was smart, I had talents, I had friends, my parents did actually love me. I was definitely weird but not in a bad way. In a way that made me funny and interesting. 

THAT is the hardest part about kids this age. As adults we can see the beauty and the talent and potential in them but THEY can't always see it. 

I really feel bad for the kids today because the technology makes things worse. How hard it is to see pictures on social media of parties that you're not invited to, or pictures of your crush someone else, or being anonymously bullied or the pressure to look like a Snapchat filter in real life. It's a lot of pressure. 

I wish I had answers about how to make this time easier. Lots of praying and just moving forward. Time and experience are the only cures for adolescence. 

Our household will do eighth grade all over again in just a year...and we'll get through it again. We'll bask in all of it's beautiful awkwardness.