My very own Christmas angel

I'm not a very brave person, on many occasions and in many situations. I'm thinking presently that it may have to do not so much with actual courage but rather with onslaught of sensations that come with certain settings that I'm not built to bear well. Introvert's defense mechanisms, so to speak. I do have a rather revved-up capacity to feel things and to absorb emotions and grievances, to project them onto myself... I've known sympathy; I'm not certain I've always been able to convert it to empathy. Plenty of times I suffer from inability to be brave enough to face the very objects of it, the people behind the problems I hold urgent and important.

Tonight I'm trying to capture a beautiful moment that was born out of my sympathy - and was carried through by my child's inborn, natural capacity for empathy. A month or so ago, while shopping in Target with Jack, on a whim we've picked up some of the contents of care packages for the homeless, a thought born, as are many ideas now, on the interwebs. Maya was sick that day, so when we got home, to spare her boredom as she stayed cocooned in my bed, I've asked her to put all ten gift bags together - in each, some toothpaste & a toothbrush; an energy bar; some hand sanitizer, Altoids, and Chapstick; and a note she wrote herself with a simple Christmas wish, together with a $5 Subway gift card. She took great care in putting them together... and afterwards, they sat on our windowsill for a number of weeks as our pre-holiday rush took over.

Every couple of days, Maya would ask - when are we going to deliver the gift bags to the homeless? There were even a couple of preplanned yet foiled attempts by Allan to get downtown, but still something got in the way. We did end up putting all of them in the back of the Sienna just to have handy - and today, they finally found their destination, as we exited OMSI and Allan drove back to the bridge where we saw a small tent village on the way to the museum.

I never intended to leave the car as Allan stepped out to collect the bags and share them with a group of men standing outside the tents; I'm still intensely uncomfortable with problems I cannot solve fully, set straight completely... but Maya would not stay back. Hearing that the men wanted to thank the kids, she jumped out of the van and joined her Dad as they walked through the tents to hand out the rest of the packages. In just a few moments they were back, and we pulled out from underneath the bridge back on the road - and saw a man on a bike, undoubtedly from the tents, keeping pace with the van and signaling for us to lower the window. When we stopped, not unkindly, he asked if we might have just one more bag... Allan had to say we didn't, and he smiled, nodded, wished us a happy new year, and turned back. We drove in silence for a few moments, and when I turned around to Maya, she was fighting back tears - seeing that I saw her, she cried. "Mama, I'm so sad we didn't have a bag for him. I'm so sad we couldn't help him."

And then we all cried. I couldn't help reacting to her reaction; even Allan's eyes were not dry as we drove on. A few moments later, Maya exclaimed, "My money! I could have given him my money!" - she has brought with her a tiny puppy wallet filled to the brim with coins she intended to use for a toy. And cried again, and asked to have a private moment.

We've discussed going back with food. With warm clothes, and blankets. Maya remembered a very young person (Allan said it was a teenage girl) by herself in a tent with a pit bull. And we know these gestures would be a drop in a giant bucket. But for this child of mine, although I never wish for her tears, I hope she knows that every movement toward suffering is a gesture of hope; that a heart that knows sorrow and compassion is all I ever want for her, beyond her own health and safety; and that her faith and absolutely boundless kindness are far beyond my own. I pray that our God walks with her where I fail; expands her heart when and where my own fears limit me; and that I continue to watch her grow foolishly, endlessly kind - and brave.

I may have fallen through on all my better intentions this Christmas season. To 'adopt' a family with gifts; to share with the homeless; to skimp out on helping a sick friend with some necessities... I may have gotten, conveniently, too busy, or too comfortable. But with these eyes watching me, learning what's important, I simply can't. What I say to her about kindness and sharing of blessings will matter very little if it is not lived right in front of her, not lived with and by her. She does not yet know that she's my reason for giving - she who teaches me more about Christ that perhaps I am teaching her.

Speakeasy

I would like to feel less lonely, but I actually like being alone.

I would like to have a friend – a few – who actually get me. Get me to be myself, without any pressure or discomfort.

I am constantly busy, but often feel isolated.

I feel both competent, and remarkably insecure. Sometimes at the same time. I think it may be OK.

I think I should spend the next five years cleaning up all the grown-up things in my life. Health. Fitness. Finances. Credit. Good marriage.

So I can spend many years after that enjoying what the cleaned-up grown-up life affords. Travel. Activity. Memories. Hobbies. Our own home. Investment in my kids’ interests.

Do I lack discipline, or focus? Or time? Or energy?  To get going? Or trust in God to enable all the right steps?

I want to feel stronger and healthier. But I’m afraid to start from ground zero. It seems monumental and unachieveably distant. So I’m discouraged.

I do have a backbone. I’ve learned to appreciate that a lot about myself. I have a voice and an opinion, and they count.

This house doesn’t make me content. I think it may be the tired carpet. Or lack of truly comfortable spaces and pieces. Or the long, narrow space. I don’t think we should stay here too long.

Then there’s Memphis. I don’t know about Memphis. Why would they want me? Why would I want them?

Trying to stay thankful, for the job I already have, and not be discouraged by feeling isolated in the kind of job it is. My team is really great, though.

I’d like to be more relaxed. But I feel like there’s so much hanging on me.

I also want more color in my life. Just bright, light spaces, and cheerful surroundings.

I want good space for a garden. Garden tends me, as much as I tend the garden.

I do realize how unbelievably blessed I am. Every day. My wants and desires are fairly humble. I think.

I think often of how to best help others. I’m overwhelmed easily by the troubles other people see in this world, tragedies, even. But I feel I must find my way of making a difference in someone else’s life. And that I must teach my children how to do that.

I’m a smart, eloquent, somewhat rough-edged person. But I’m doing much better at accepting myself now than when I was younger.

I’d like to go on a silent retreat, really. I’d love to just think uninterrupted for about three days. I hunger for that kind of time.

I really wish for a super comfortable reading chair, or better yet, a chaise. I want a small place that is mine to retreat to. Even if it’s into a super comfortable reading chair. I always think of Nancy’s green chair when I dream about that.

This writing thing feels very therapeutic. It lets out steam. I should make some tea.

What precious alone time. Only when I have some, so infrequently, I realize how badly I crave it. While at the same time craving full (real, meaningful, slow, easy-flowing connection, conversation, just interaction).

 I think this gets easier once kids grow, and keep growing. Still, I don’t want to miss too much of their finite childhood time waiting for them to grow. They’re soft and sweet-smelling and giggly when all is well, and that’s very comforting too.

I hope we get along swimmingly when they’re adults. Kids, if you’re reading this and you’re adults, I hope we’re getting along swimmingly and you trust me.

I would hope I can resolve and restore things with my family, my parents. I found I finally no longer cared if my relationship with Mom ever got better. I’m not certain it’s a good thing but I don’t have the energy to even think about anything different anyway.

I found I really like photography. I’m not particularly good at it but I can take beautiful quick shots and I like to consider the whole picture when taking photos. I think I would be good at it if I had time. iPhone is a very helpful thing to have for these on-the-fly moments,

I’d love a library. Full-scale library for my books. Not family books, or random books that come to live on my shelves. My books, all in front of me, which I can pull out, and reference, and re-read, and loan out.

I hungered to write (rather, I was uncomfortably restless, and couldn’t do any more gadgetry), and am glad I did. I feel depressurized.

I should sleep. Praying for good sleep.

Jack and The Invisible But Strengthening Self-Identification

It is no secret that in this season of our lives, Jack exacts the most out of us as imperfect and usually impatient parents.

At four and a half, he is a budding introvert, with remarkable ability, while being fully eloquent for his age, to go non-verbal and shrill as his emotions overtake him, at seemingly random intervals and over allegedly minor incidents. He is known to burst out physically as well, with big feelings swelling too broadly inside him for him to control.

He's become a "stop, Jack!" Jack. Even Emery frequently points to him and repeats, with 'our' furrowed brow and 'our' intonation: "Stop, Jack!" I fear she thinks it's his name.

He's the arithmetic average between an effervescent beauty, sweet storytelling, and effortless intelligence of an older sister and a robust, healthy, demanding toddlerhood of a younger one. And as such, it somehow became that he gets the tips and tails of our focused attention. Which upsets him greatly, quietly, and erupts to the surface in seemingly unrelated crises.

We respond most expectedly with frustrated empty threats, typical 'before' parenting behavior of an average "Super Nanny" episode. We shame him for creating disruption, and admonish him with guilt. Somehow the real or alleged pace of our lives has allowed us to excuse his emotional discomfort as 'his' issue, and not ours; we've stopped going alongside him, and started coming at him, against him instead.

A few nights ago I went up to Jack's room with warm tea to soothe a throaty cough that woke him up. As he sipped, we whispered a bit, and I was taken aback by what all this 'correction' has amounted to in his introspective cranium... He repeated a few times that he does 'bad things' and that he talks to himself to 'cut it out', and I think my heart started bleeding a little. He has begun to internalize his own 'badness' as self-identity imposed by loving but inattentive parents. Even writing this, I tear up with so much compassion for this boy, who is ironically so much like me, not knowing how to best look for and receive the attention, affirmation, and goodness from us. We're missing his boat.

When I'm enabled with patience, I'm humbled to see how remarkable his response, how his whole being lifts up to sweeter words, softer tone, affirmation and love. He doesn't stop being a child, of course, but a very different child, calmer, more outspoken, more confident in speaking as he's more confident in knowing he'll be heard.

Next month, we go back to his cardiologist for the annual check-up, and it's the time of the year I'm more poignantly reminded of what a unique creature Jack is - not just physically, but also in his own valid, different, curious soul full of Jack-ness which I hope to never extinguish from him. I hope to undo the early onset of this deceptively shallow damage, hope there's time to reverse, to connect, to build up, and to reaffirm. The quote I came across another day spoke of cement setting much quicker than one expects, in parenting world. I pray Jack is still pliable, soft, reconstructable and we - committed, invested, and prayerful.

I simply want my son to always know firmly and without any hesitation an answer to the question whether his mother loves him. I want him to count on that knowledge without conditions and rules and amidst any circumstance; and beyond that, I want him to believe firmly that I revel in his God-given goodness. You're good, Jack. You're so, so good.