the questions that are currently getting in the way of my falling asleep:

• how is it that a person can be so convinced that things are heading in one direction, to feel in the deepest part of their being that this thing is going to come to pass, but then have that certainty shattered in a few short hours by an equally intense pull in the opposite direction? To “know that you know that you know” a thing, but then to be confronted with a sense of being equally certain of another thing that, if true, would make the former thing, that thing that you were so sure was about to come to pass, an impossibility?
• how much does a person choose to give up out of love for someone else? This is where I know that I am quite clearly NOT as much like Jesus as I would like to be . . . because a selfishness screams out of me, and the words I’ve heard so often echo in my mind . . . is it a lie, something the world tells us, or is it a healthy level of self-preservation that brings the advice, “you need to take care of YOU . . . you can’t live your life for other people”? even in this, there’s confusion, because the reasons I want to do this thing “for me” have so much to do with this calling I’m convinced I have to “do” for others. . .
• how do I let go of my desire to feel like what I’m doing is “important”, as I define that word? (part of that definition involves a rejection of any other person’s attempt to convince me that my idea of “important” is too limited.)
• is my dissatisfaction with my life a flaw in my character, or is it a catalyst that will bring me to a place where I can assuage this intolerable, unrelenting restlessness? really, will I ever have a life that I don’t despise? it’s not even so much about having a “Spark-worthy” life as it is about feeling like I am doing what I was meant to be doing. is the problem really in my circumstances, or am I doomed to be restless, dissatisfied, and feeling like an underachiever for the rest of my days on this earth?!

The crazy thing is that all of this middle-of-the-night speculation is based upon two things that I don’t know at this moment. In other words, neither has come to pass as of yet. There is this thing that I feel so certain is going to come to pass, but there is also this new bit of information that would wreak havoc on that certainty.

In a few days, I will know about the latter, and in three weeks or less, I will know about the former. But in this moment, I have zero knowledge that either thing will even come to pass . . .

I am just so afraid, though, no matter what the outcome, that my life will not be any less unsatisfying than it was before this journey.

And now, having spewed up some lovely self-serving, too-much-informationing ranting, I am finally feeling sleepy enough to try to go to bed . . .

buenos noches . . .

Seriously, though . . . I haven’t seen Avatar, though I’ve heard much about it. I did see The Blind Side, and went into it quite reluctantly, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to turn off my “anti-racism radar”. I was actually pleasantly surprised by a few things:

1) The mom took him shopping in HIS neighborhood for clothes. a) she wasn’t all, “EEK!!! THE INNER CITY!!!” b) even though his fashion style didn’t match the “norm” at their school (which crazily reminded me of NorthPointe), she let him be who he was in that sense.

(in contrast, when 20/20 covered the story, they included a story about a young man who “could be the next Michael Oher“. I about punched a hole through my tv screen when they said that this kid moved in with a white family because “they couldn’t bring him home to his neighborhood after football practice”. If you can’t go where he lives, then you have no business being in his life!)

2) There was definitely evidence in the movie (and this was confirmed in a 20/20 interview with the parents) that Michael Oher gave them as much as, or more than, they gave him. Although I wished that the 20/20 episode would have delved deeper into that*, and into the whole issue of the white folks being the “saviors” (another friend of mine pointed out that none of the black people in the film were shown in a positive light), I was glad to see at least that much acknowledged.

*they had the black journalist interviewing the family, but there didn’t seem a willingness to really go deeper into these issues. It was kind of, “don’t you think people will say, ‘why are you rescuing the black kid?’ and the mom saying, “It’s about love” and that was it. Okay, that might be a paraphrase.

but ANYWAY . . . Soong Chan Rah has expressed this much more eloquently than I have, so check out his thoughts on the two films.

But I was reminded again today of how insidiously racism has been woven into the fabric of our nation . . . and how easy it is for us in the 21st century to remain ignorant of our nation’s history . . .

Here’s an excerpt from the book  1904 World’s Fair: The Filipino Experience by Jose D. Fermin:

A driving force behind the 1904 fair, as well as with other major U.S. expositions during this approximate period, was America’s belief in the racial superiority of whites over darker peoples. By publicizing the supposed backwardness of nonwhite races for all the world to see, the 1904 fair organizers were able to translate the United States’s national and global accomplishments into grounds for acknowledging the transcendance of Caucasian races over their “colored” counterparts. Fermin writes in his book that “In measuring their technological achievements and national progress against those of other nations, Americans laced the fairs with racism.” Hence, they “considered themselves above the nonwhite peoples of the world and regarded them with a negative and demeaning attitude.”

It’s true that these “expeditions” were meant to showcase the best of the USA, and to foster pride in our nation, but even admirable steps (like the film at the 1964 World’s Fair, To Be Alive!) were hardly enough to erase a few hundred years’ worth of negative stereotyping.

(Ah . . . interestingly, the 1964 fair in NY was not an “official” World’s Fair. who knew?! It also seems like it was bogged down by lots of bureaucracy. In NYC?! no way!!!)

So what do you think? Were you aware of the history behind the 1904 World’s Fair? Is there something else you learned in school that you have since learned was wrong? (hint: the answer to that last question is “yes”–and if it’s not, then you just haven’t explored enough just yet!)

However, I’m pretty sure I’m not a natural optimist, and it’s hard to not pull a “the good news is . . . the bad news is . . . ” about everything in my life.

Let’s look at my job, for example.

The good news is . . . I have a job. It pays decently enough, too. Michigan is up to like a 15% unemployment rate or something insane like that, so I need to be grateful, right?

The less-than-good-news is that I am incredibly dissatisfied with my job . . . feel so “under-employed” and under-utilized . . . feel like I still haven’t figured out “what I’m going to be when I grow up”.

The good-ish news is that things are super-busy at work these days, which at least distracts me enough that it will make the next several months bearable.

The bad news is that when my boss returns from her maternity leave, I will go “backwards” in the sense that I will lose some of the autonomy that I have at the moment. I know that this is going to be difficult for me.

The other bad news is that my workload right now is almost unbearable, and I have less support in some ways than I would under “normal” circumstances.

The “not-sure-yet” news is that my boss has not made a final decision on whether she is returning to work at all. This could be Really Bad News, or “just news”, depending upon who is replacing her. Either way, it puts me in an uncomfortable position yet again.

The “jury is still out” news is that if she doesn’t come back, her job will then be posted. Not a job I ever thought I’d want, but since there are so few openings that come up in my organization, I should at least consider it.

The bad news is that it’s entirely possible that my employer has so little confidence in me that they would never even consider me for the position.

That’s the work realm–I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea.

And then there’s my car . . .

The good news:

My car has lasted this long, against all odds. (I have a loose “control arm” right now . . . when the other one went, it sort of snapped–with me being one-legged, I know that it is only by the grace of God that it has held out as long as it has.)

I “just about” have the money right now to get it fixed.

The bad news:

This poor, beat-up vehicle is not going to last forever. This repair makes sense, at least for now, but if more things break down on the car, it’s going to be less and less worth repairing. And I can’t afford a car payment.

The “it’s probably my own fault” news:

The poor car is dented, scratched, and bruised in a variety of places . . . mostly due to my carelessness. So do I have a right to be unhappy about the state my car is in when it’s my own “fault” that the car is in the shape it is?

And couldn’t it be said that most of my life is “my own fault”, in a sense?

But back to the gratitude thing . . . I guess . . . that I am trying to see the bright side of things, to count my blessings, to not focus so much on the negative. But the fact remains that my life just kind of sucks, and that it’s been a long time since I’ve seen any real changes in the opposite direction.

I’m known for throwing myself lavish pity parties, and so I try to fight against that. But couldn’t it just be possible that I’m merely stating facts, that my life truly DOES kind of suck?

It is right that we remember those who lost their lives on this day. Their death has had a huge impact on so many of us. But when I heard about this project, I felt strongly compelled to write about the “other” victims–better labelled as “survivors” . . . because they outnumber those we’ve lost, and yet we seem to sometimes forget about the ones that still live in the shadow of that day.

A friend of mine has posted several reflections on his experiences on and after that day. You can find his story here. I should warn you that it is NOT light reading, but maybe after reading it, you will better understand my frustration with those who seek to appropriate this day, with patriotic song-fests instead of solemn vigils, and with no-clue tourists who see “Ground Zero” as just another site on their list of  ”things to do in NYC”.

(I know, I know . . . not every person who didn’t live in close proximity to NYC,  DC, or PA on that day deserves the “no-clue tourists” label–but there are some that do, and it is in large part for those people that I am writing this post.)

My friend Ken’s story is just one of thousands upon thousands. I have other friends whose lives were profoundly shaken by what they witnessed on that day,  and know others still who waited in vain for someone (or several someones, or MANY someones) they loved to come home.

If *I* (and I consider myself “lucky” to have experienced relatively few losses on that day) wince at commercials for a movie that “opens September 11th!”, and shy away from hosting a Tupperware party on this date because somehow that level of enthusiasm seemed horribly disrespectful to me (let alone the people in 2005 who chose that as their WEDDING date), then what do these reminders, myriad and subtle, do to someone who lost loved ones on this day eight years ago?

What does it feel like to those who walked down 84 or 52 or 12 or 112 flights of stairs and whose lives were spared, to those who made their way home through clouds of smoke and stench, or who watched, helpless and numb, from across the river as the towers fell?

Or what does it feel like to be the main character in one of those wonderful-yet-horrible stories of  ”fate/luck” survival . . . like the friend-of-a-friend who overslept and was late to his job (at Cantor Fitzgerald) because he had attended a Michael Jackson concert the night before?

Or what is this day like for those who are watching their family members and fellow employees who are succumbing to  illnesses that are clearly related to their rescue work at the site? How do they feel about people coming and gawking at the empty hole where their own lives started to end?

Yes, I am willing to acknowledge that we were all changed on that day, but for some, this day is only sad in the way a celebrity’s death is sad . . . when you hear it on the news, you feel that sadness for a moment, but then you move on. For others, though, it is embedded deep within them, as if the smells and sights and sounds of that day have been embedded into their psyche.

It is these survivors that I want to pay tribute to today.

Yes, life goes on, and I don’t mean to suggest that we should curl up in a ball and stop living . . . those who have survived that day certainly haven’t done that, though they would have every reason to.

I just ask that we remember those whose hearts are raw today in a way that those of us who haven’t lived it can’t understand, and that those of us who are hundreds or thousands of miles away from the eye of this storm stop to remember and to reflect upon the damage that this storm left in its wake.

To do so is to honor the memory of those who live on, as well as those who were lost on this day.

anyway, a conversation tonight with a dear friend who cares enough to speak the truth to me made me think of this again, as I tried to explain the reasons behind my despair and sense of hopelessness.  Sooo . . . here goes. I’ll try to edit somewhat, but for the fact that I’m still feeling exactly the same way, four months later, it’s worth revisiting.

____________________________________________________________

12/10/08

Yesterday, I had the most disturbing/discouraging experience. It came under the guise of a seemingly benign, perhaps even happy, event . . . having lunch with a friend that I hadn’t seen in quite some time. But in doing the requisite “catching up”, of course I was faced to look back at what I’ve accomplished (or more to the point, what I HAVEN’T accomplished) in the time since we last saw each other. And that simple question: “So tell me, what’s been going on with you?” was enough to put me into quite a funk.

What HAS been going on with me? What do I have to report about my life? Nothing good, as far as I can tell. Nothing has changed for the better in the past two years . . . and in many ways, much has gotten worse.

Let’s start with my career, or as I like to say, “would you like fries with that?” Last week in therapy, I was recounting my pathetic little journey since leaving the phone company. And it occurred to me—I really have tried. I’ve pursued different things, at least partially. And doors have been closed in my face. Now, granted, I could have continued to pursue these things, but the fact is still there that I really have been trying . . .

I applied for the NYCTF (although, granted, I screwed up the interview by not preparing well enough). I would have re-applied, if I hadn’t so convincingly heard God’s “no” to that.

I looked into getting funds through No Worker Left Behind so that I could go back to school. I was actually pretty excited about this. I figured out that I would really love to get a certificate in Human Resources, and that perhaps from there I could find a job that would help me pay for the rest of a master’s degree. Training! Paperwork! Teaching, in a way, but minus the adolescent angst I might face in a classroom.

I jumped through all of the hoops. Even when I found out I’d been directed to the wrong set of hoops initially, I jumped again. I did my research, went to workshops, and made an appointment with a caseworker. And then . . . I was left behind. Because, despite my “underemployed” status, I am not eligible because they consider my undergraduate psychology degree to already be a “high-demand” degree. (As best as I have been able to determine, they’ve basically lumped my psychology degree in with other social services degrees . . . but with zero casework experience, the only “high-demand” job I can get using my degree would be as a patient care worker at Pine Rest or Forest View—for about $10.50 an hour. Ooh, sign me up, please! or not.  I suspect that, like Target, the psych hospital is more “fun” to experience as a customer than as an employee.)

I also applied for two different jobs at my church, and while I’m grateful beyond words that I did NOT get either one, the process served only to add to my angst.

So really, I have tried. I’ve taken some steps to try to get somewhere other than where I’ve been stuck for what feels like the past ten years . . .

But the reality is that I don’t see any hope . . . I don’t see any way that I am going to get out of this. And this does not leave me feeling very hopeful about my life and my future, to say the least.

(4/7/09)

And I have friends who care about me, who believe in me even when it seems obvious that I don’t believe in myself. People who love me for reasons I can’t understand. And they want me to find “it”, to find my way, to be happy . . . and they don’t give up on me even when I say that I don’t see any way, when  I whine about needing to give up  because it’s all just so hopeless . . .

I know what I love . . . this week. But I feel like it changes so easily, like I’m so easily swayed by circumstance and whim.

I know that I love to write, and I would love to be some cross between David Sedaris and Anne Lamott, but my chronic procrastination gets in the way. Or maybe I just get in the way . . . I don’t know.

But I’m 39 years old and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

When people catch up with me on Facebook, they often say to me (grasping, I always assume, for something to say, although maybe I’m reading too much into it) “Well, it looks like you’re still enjoying life.” or “well, it looks like you’re having a great time with life!” Is this what they say to me to cover up their pity once they’ve discerned that I have no man, no children of my own, no career to speak of? Or am I missing something, and are they seeing something I’m not?

If their words are really NOT mere flattery, then maybe I should just suck it up and agree with them . . . “sure . . . I’m loving life . . . having a great time!”  . . . but it’s not the truth, and I don’t know what to do about it . . .

More than once, friends whose opinions I value and trust have encouraged me not to give up . . . and I have to try to believe that there is something to what they see, even when I myself am just not seeing it.

but one story he told me really touched me and made me re-think my usual assessment of my place in our family.  he said that he remembered the day that my family went into the city to “get” me . . . how excited he was. It was April 23, 1970 (the reason I know the date has to do with LMT; more on that later). Michael says that he remembers sitting on the floor, playing with the bows on my mother’s shoes. He was four years old.

The reason that this struck me was that I know a little something about kids . . . and I know that for a four-year old to have had this level of excitement, there had to have been some enthusiasm coming from the parental units that my brother(s) must have picked up on. So this little anecdote tells me something that doesn’t jive with the narrative I’ve held onto for so long. This story tells me that, at least at one point, I was truly wanted.

Now, I suppose it’s easier to want something (or someone) before you are fully conscious of what you will be “getting” . . . and, sentimental adoption rhetoric aside, I wasn’t really “chosen”–it’s not like there really IS a “baby depot” where you can go and pick a kid, any kid. The agency picks–they lie, too. I found out later that they told my birthmother that my adoptive mother was a teacher–but it was nice to hear this story, given the fact that when I was fifteen, my mother informed me that “I love you, Lorraine, but I wish I had never adopted you.” It’s nice to know that there was a time, however brief, when she didn’t wish that.

But that is the fear that those of us who are “chosen” must face every day. We were not “wanted” at least once, and we then lived in fear that those who had “chosen” us would eventually “unchoose”. My security as a member of a family is never absolute. I am not truly anybody’s blood . . . I do not really belong.

and it was bittersweet to hear my brother share this recollection because of another story that he has told me a few times . . . the story of how, becoming frustrated with him, my mother would sit him out on our back porch in just a diaper and his shoes (“just how we got you”) and tell him that she had made the call and that “they” (the adoption agency) were coming back to get him. They had “gotten” him, and they could send him back–such is the legacy of the “chosen”. and when my father got home from work, he would play along with the deception. I wonder sometimes how long they left him there, alone with the fear of being sent back.

maybe they forgot that kids tend to take this type of thing literally . . . maybe they didn’t realize the terror that their words would cause in the heart of my small and vulnerable brother. Or maybe they were just that that cruel. I’m not sure I will ever know.

So these are the two images in my head . . . the young family, eager to add a little girl, and that same family, wanting “out” already with her brother at a young age,  re-evaluating fifteen years later and wishing she hadn’t been a part of the narrative.

I live with this dialectic every day. It reminds me of who I am. But today, I have a new piece to add to the puzzle. Once upon a time, I was wanted.

“They say your style of life’s a drag
And that you must go other places
But just don’t you feel too bad
When you get fooled by smiling faces”

–Stevie Wonder
 

Every time I go back to New York, I am hit with a profound and echoing sense of longing. I don’t know if it’s my need for variety and visual stimulation, for movement and excitement, but breathing in the very air around me (not breathing it in too closely, in some cases!) fills a need in me that I can barely express. And the sounds! And the accents! And the people! As I say very often, “I love my city!” And when I go back “home” to Michigan, I always feel like I’m leaving a part of me behind.
 
When I was in college, I came close to going “home” several times. I graduated six months early in large part because I just had to be back to New York. When I moved back to Michigan at the end of 1999, it began as a life-or-death situation, but ended up being a better decision than I knew I was making at the time. I often describe it by saying, “life is easier in Michigan.” If I’m feeling particularly sorry for myself, I will tell people that I tried to live in NYC and that the city “chewed me up and spit me out”, which is sometimes how I feel about it, even now.
 
I tried to come home just over a year ago. God said “not yet”, and then He said “no”.   And every time I’m back, I return (home?!) to my boring midwestern life and wonder if I’ll ever get “home” to NY again.
 
Last weekend , a friend asked me why I wanted to be back in NYC so badly. I was hard-pressed to find the words to express what I was feeling . . . I could only say that I didn’t want to have to say that I am “from” Michigan . . . that I didn’t want to lose my “New York-ness”. Here in the Northern Bible Belt, where it doesn’t matter if my clothes are in style, it’s just so easy to become apathetic . . . and mostly, I fear losing my identity; I fear no longer being a “real” New Yorker.
 
I think it’s a self-esteem thing, too. Can I feel good about myself if I’m constantly reminded that I couldn’t handle living in NY? Maybe it doesn’t matter to anybody else, but to me it does. I feel like I’ve lost a part of my identity, and I don’t have the confidence that I’ll ever get that back. I certainly don’t want to go back to Staten Island; I had that choice at the end of 1999, and saw Grand Rapids as the lesser of two evils. But do I need to learn to “settle” for Grand Rapids, to accept that this is my life now? I don’t know. I can accept that this is where I am *now*; I’m just not sure that I can see it as “forever”. I literally dread the time when I will have to say that I have lived in Michigan longer than I have lived in NY. I’m more than a dozen years away from that point, but as the song goes, “I’m only afraid that my dreams will betray me, and I’ll never get home again.”
 
What is not an option, to the extent that I can help it, would be for me to move elsewhere. When I first came to Grand Rapids, I immediately saw that the problem was that pieces of my heart were in two places. I can barely fathom the idea of tearing my heart into even smaller pieces, and leaving pieces of myself in yet another place. The first spring break I spent back in NY, I dreamed that Grand Rapids was located where New Jersey was. Ever since then, I have wished that I could take the map and fold it up like the back cover of Mad Magazine, and bring those pieces of my heart close enough to each other that it wouldn’t hurt so much. So although I cannot say what God might do, it is hard for me to think beyond these two options.
 
I suppose that, for now, I just have to be where I am, and try not to tie my self-esteem up with the choice of living in this “uncool” place living an unexciting life. Unexciting as it may be, it’s enough to exhaust me, and it’s where I am right now. and if this world is truly not my home, then perhaps this sense of homesickness will be my companion until the day I reach that final home. I’m told that in that place, my angst will cease. It’s hard to imagine, but intriguing nonetheless.

Short and sweet. Ask me how much it pisses me off to see H&R Block (and they’re only one of many) already advertising the fact that you can get your tax return TODAY, even before you get your W-2.

Of course, what goes unsaid is that this requires a Refund Anticipation Loan that will sap you of 25% or more of the total amount you COULD have gotten if you had waited just a few more weeks.

And of course, these billboards are all over the inner city . . . (I’m thinking I wouldn’t see them on every street corner if I headed out to Ada) And where do you find most of the “Liberty” Tax Service offices? (I have a friend who paid them $350 for the “privilege” of getting her tax return three weeks sooner than she would have . . . truth in advertising–why don’t they call it “Slavery” Tax Service instead?)

Yeah, I know . . . it’s a class thing, not merely a race thing. But seeing as how race and class are inextricably linked in our society, I’m going to leave this blog entry right where it is. Tax preparers are now officially up there with the rent-to-own store on my shit list.