five days, and at least as many blog posts. This one has to be written as sort of a prequel to the next one.
The children of some of the missionaries that I work with were part of an awesome missionary kid video titled, “Where’s home?” This is supposedly a malady that is unique to third-culture kids (TCK’s), but I suspect that most of us struggle with this question in some shape or form.
For me, “home” is a loaded word, not just because of my ongoing (and perhaps irrational) fear of homelessness, but because I don’t feel like I really HAVE a place that is truly “home”. I’m pretty sure that it’s not “normal” to ring the doorbell when you get to your parents’ house, but maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know–I have no point of reference with which to compare it.
If I had the kind of money available to me that would allow me to stay in hotels, things would be much easier. Especially because I actually noticed something like THREE hotels on Staten Island when I was there this time. (two of them actually REAL hotels, if you can believe that!) But instead, every time I head “home”, I am faced with the stress of trying to figure out where I will lay my head. Max’s place, for the most part, is the most “convenient”, particularly if I’m doing most of my visiting with folks in the city, but I still feel slightly uncomfortable and slightly nervous. What if I break something?! What if I’m too loud? It helps that they are no longer living in a 450-square-foot place where I am right underfoot, but I still feel slightly “in the way”.
If I have to stay in Staten Island, things are worse. I basically have three choices:
1) Stay with my brother in the house I grew up in. There are two problems with this; well, maybe it’s more like one problem that has two facets to it. a) my mother is there, and I really have nothing to say to the woman. If I stay there, I have to be civil to her. I managed to go more than ten years without saying a word to her, and have since really only spoken to her briefly when I’ve been visiting my brother, or at funerals. Last year, I spent one night there, and realized right away that I wasn’t eager to do that again ANYTIME soon. the b) is that staying in that house requires that I stay in the bedroom I spent the first eighteen years of my life in, which in itself is just über-creepy. The memories are bad enough, but the horrific “early American” decorating style, barely changed in the last thirty years, does not help matters at all. Nor does the far wall in the front porch area, the spot where my piano once stood before my mother had my brother take an ax and a chainsaw to it because my father wasn’t moving it out of the house quickly enough after the divorce.
2) Stay at my dad and stepmother’s house. Hmm. I am not sure I have yet considered this to be an option. This is the house in which, two weeks after I had first moved out, the room that had been mine was being referred to as “the spare room”. The three years that I spent living there were awkward and uncomfortable, and I did everything–from getting out of the shower to opening/closing my closet doors–wrong. It seems to me that, even if it was offered (and I think there was an offer when my paternal grandmother died), that the ghosts of that place would haunt me just as badly as the ghosts of my former house would, even though the length of time spent in the latter place was far less.
3) Sue’s house . . . ah, Sue . . . an old, dear friend whose “kitchen feels more like home than your own” . . . although I always feel uncertain, and although I feel like a “bad friend” for showing up at random intervals after not staying in touch, staying at Sue’s house is still always safer than staying with my “family” . . . and if I have to stay in Staten Island (which I avoid, even to the point of driving through the night so as to have one less evening’s lodging to worry about), it’s Sue’s house that I normally gravitate towards. The last time I spent the night there, we had only an hour to talk, and yet it was, as the old cliché goes, as if no time had passed. We had a million things to talk about . . . she was glad to see me . . . I was welcome there.
I don’t expect to feel comfortable or “welcome” in the home of another. I actually am quite frightened of staying overnight with just about anybody, even my “safe” people, because of that fear of doing the wrong thing, using the wrong towel, being a burden, being in the way.
Which leads us to our next blog entry . . . about unexpected hospitality, about feeling welcome, feeling loved. Stay tuned!
March 16, 2009
going “home”, part one
Posted by laterain under so | Tags: being adopted, kids I love, NYC, rants, so, Staten Island |Leave a Comment
December 20, 2008
I didn’t know what to say . . .
Posted by laterain under so | Tags: being adopted, following Jesus, kids I love, mona, so |[2] Comments
As much as I am FIENDING to snark about the arrival of the 18th Duggar, at this moment there’s something else on my mind . . .
I’m at the hospital with Mona and baby Elijah . . . spending the night so as to give her a break from the every-three-hour feedings and to keep her company. Sara is heading off to Boston, so I’m settling in for the weekend.
Our nurse tonight just came in a moment ago, while Mona was sleeping, and asked, “so are you from her church?” When I said yes, she must’ve said something about “it’s great that you help her out” or something along those lines–the kind of thing that people say that ALWAYS makes me cringe. I think I responded with, “she grows on you” (ain’t it the truth!!!!!!!!!) and something about being rather fond of Little Man as well . . .
Then she said, “Does she have a lot of people who help her out?” I stammered answering that . . . said something about, “well, yes . . . and there are different people involved with her older boys”–I’m not sure where it went from there. The nurse proceeded to say something about how that was a wonderful church family . . . which of course I couldn’t disagree with . . .
but here’s the thing. I struggle mightily with the whole concept of my relationship with Mona, particularly with the fact that the relationship is almost always perceived by those who see it from the outside as an unequal one . . . with me as the “helper”. And I don’t WANT it to be uneven. I don’t WANT to think that I’m in this just so that I can pat myself on the back and say, “look at me! I’m such a good person!” I hate hate hate hate HATE when anybody so much as says two words to me about what a good friend I am to her . . . as if there was absolutely no balance–as if I was doing all of the giving. I already struggle with the fact that, in some very real and tangible ways, there IS an imbalance of power. I struggle, too, with the fact that I can’t trust my own motives . . . I am very well aware that it is quite likely that everything I do for Mona, I do out of some pathology.
I don’t want to be told that I’m some kind of saint when I’m really just screwed up. I don’t want to feel like I can’t trust my own motives, but who really ever has pure motives in doing good anyway?
This is the thing I struggle with the most when it comes to my life with Mona. And I’m not sure I’ve figured out the answer yet.
One question haunts and hurts
Too much, too much to mention
Was I really seeking good
Or just seeking attention?
Is that all good deeds are when looked at with an ice-cold eye?(“No Good Deed”–from Wicked)
October 8, 2008
from the xanga archives . . . childhood baggage
Posted by laterain under Uncategorized | Tags: adoption, baptism, being adopted, catholicism, following Jesus |[2] Comments
baby lorraineI wrote a version of this in an e-mail to my church . . . they have been asking for pictures of people with their adoptive families, and while I am not necessarily the poster child for “isn’t adoption great?”, I thought I would show an uncharacteristic level of gratitude for once and say something GOOD about my childhood. but I liked what I wrote in that e-mail about the baptism thing and decided to tweak it here for your reading pleasure . . .
May 9, 1970. I was almost 4 months old and had been with my adoptive parents for just over two weeks. Because we were Roman Catholic, this was a dedication ceremony (I still have the book that the priest is reading out of in the picture) and not my “baptism”. THAT had happened in what I could only imagine as, and would later describe as “a room full of nuns”, as I was baptized when I was a few days old by the adoption agency, the Catholic Home Bureau. I had thought about the nuns a lot, but hadn’t realized until I wrote this earlier tonight that it was probably very much of a “mass production” type of operation, me along with who knows how many other little bastard children being given the Sacrament of baptism as quickly as possible, so as to save our nameless little heathen souls . . . what is it like to be ushered into God’s covenant in a room full of strangers? to be dedicated to God in a place where there is no human present who is dedicated to you? I feel sad for that tiny baby, surrounded by all those nuns . . . but this day was different, and there were people who loved me present–I have the pictures to prove it. My godparents, Steve & Irene, were/are great people–my Aunt Irene especially (can’t you tell that by her fabulous hair and dress?! LOL) . . . she was truly a godly woman (she had almost become a nun!) and was a beautiful example to me of unconditional love, something that I found to be in short supply when I was a kid . . .
and this is me, since you can’t see my face in the other picture, with our dog at the time, Flash. Over the next eighteen years, my mother and brothers never missed an opportunity to remind me that “we had to give Flash away because YOU cried”. do I already look appropriately guilty in this picture? I was trying to do it right . . . or maybe that look on my face is really saying, “I’m terrified of this ferocious dog and screw all of you if you want to spend the rest of your lives wishing you’d sent ME back instead!!!” only problem with that second theory is that he doesn’t LOOK all that ferocious . . . the rest of the theory is solid, however, since my mother pretty much TOLD me when I was 15 that she wished she could have sent me back . . . (I am apparently in the “poor me” mood . . . I think I’d better go to bed now before someone thinks I’m bitter or something . . . |
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maybe I am just way too much of a Freudian . . .
but is it just me, or does this picture speak volumes about our respective roles in my family of origin? I love my brother Kevin (the King of Hearts)–even to this day, he is a great guy and he has been a great brother–but he was obviously the star . . . and my brother Michael? a bum, apparently (and yes, that’s what they told him, how they made him feel, and what they STILL think of him). and I’m just raggedy . . . cute as all get-out, but still raggedy . . . the entry in my baby book reads, “you won two prizes for your costume” . . . really, it was my MOTHER who “won”. any creative thing I won as a child, I always felt like such a fraud because SHE was the one who had done all of the work. the outfit I’m wearing is the actual clothing of a life-sized Raggedy Ann doll that my fabulous gay uncle had given me for Christmas the year before . . . of course, I didn’t know he was fabulously gay until about 15 years after this picture was taken . . . thanks for joining me on memory lane. come back again soon!!! |
September 10, 2008
am I weird?
Posted by laterain under so | Tags: angst du jour, being adopted, elijah, following Jesus, so |[2] Comments
(um, yeah. you didn’t have to answer that in the affirmative quite so quickly!)
I am almost 39 years old . . . and I am single. I am supposed to want a man, marriage, until death do we part, and so on . . .
so why is it that I truly couldn’t care less (or is it “could” care less?!) about all of that?
Yes, relationships are scary . . . and yes, although I know so many of you don’t believe me about this, and would rather blame it on Joe Raimo (!!!!!!!), I really do believe that it’s true that you don’t miss what you barely remember.
And it’s true that I am inherently selfish, probably too selfish to be in a relationship . . .
(and YES, I know that what I’m about to say is completely contradictory to that last statement . . . but I tell myself that this is “different”)
but the truth of the matter is, I’m fine the way I am . . . I don’t think I need a man in my life.
a child, however? that’s a whole different story.
yes, there is an ache in my heart, a hole in my life, but I never feel like I “need’ a man . . .
however, I absolutely DO know what Rachel meant when she demanded, “give me children, lest I die!”
and yet, people are forever reminding me that I can barely take care of myself . . . and even I tell myself, “well, I just have to get myself together, and maybe THEN I can adopt . . . “
but I’m afraid that, not having “gotten myself together” in the first 38 years of my life, it is probably unlikely that I ever will . . .
and so I pour my love out on other people’s children, and wonder if my day will ever come . . . and I continue to try to justify to other people why the idea of “having a man” is the furthest thing from my mind.
I’m sure they think I’m just “weird”. and perhaps I am . . .
August 12, 2008
We all have a little bit of “Mona” in us . . .
Posted by laterain under Uncategorized | Tags: being adopted, following Jesus |1 Comment
Last week, after yet another doctor’s appointment, I took Mona to her all-time favorite restaurant for lunch (shhhh!!!!! don’t tell the dietician–apparently this particular buffet was definitely on the “forbidden” list . . . but she did make relatively wise food choices while she was there, I have to say. Which is more than I can say for myself!)
Going anywhere with Mona is an adventure. On this particular day, we caught the attention of a family at the table next to us, as they overheard Sara and I passing judgment on each food item Mona came back to the table with. Finally, the woman at this table grinned and told us, “He’s diabetic too” and pointed to her husband. At that point, her husband laughed and said, “I knew that you guys were going to flip when you saw her coming back with that (insert forbidden food item here)!”
I get embarrassed sometimes when these kinds of interactions happen. I worry about what people really think of her–and of me. But later on that evening, it occurred to me that this is the thing that I love about Mona . . . that, unique as she may be (and trust me, “unique” doesn’t even begin to cover it!), or as “different” as I tell myself that her background and life experiences are from my own, the reality is that I *am* Mona, that really I have more in common with her than I sometimes want to admit.
When people who don’t know Mona try to understand why she is in my life, the best way I can describe it is to say to them, “Mona grows on you.” And yes, she can also make me very, very tired at times . . . but the truth is that I have yet to find the words to say what I want to say, which is that I know that God brought her into my life for a reason, and that He still has things He wants to teach me through her.
I hope that I will learn those lessons well.
