Thankful

I am grateful that I'm learning to sit with ALL feelings more and not only the pleasant ones

I am grateful for my friendships

I'm grateful to have seen a white owl

I'm grateful to have witnessed my daughter hiking at "Blueberry Hills"

And her health and spirit.

And my health.

And worshipping nature while having public restrooms nearby

I'm grateful for trying to be in the moment

To be almost done x-mas shopping so I can sip hot cider and go on car rides looking for lights.

I'm grateful my S's stress and work schedule is easing up

I'm grateful I have felt full enough to give him TLC

I'm grateful he's grateful

I'm grateful to have so many wonderful people in my life and my writer's group and in my neighborhood

And the recent election results

For my daughter's wide network of friends born in many different parts of the world

I'm grateful we have enough

I'm grateful for Ohana - our own family

I'm grateful that my daughter's birthfamily for many reasons

I'm grateful I am loved by people who can say I love you

I'm grateful that my daughter's laugh is the contagious kind

I'm grateful for the wind that blows through my hair

I'm grateful for the way the waves show me how the same damn ocean is never the same damn ocean

I'm grateful for S's inherent nature of optimism

I'm grateful I can be the rock of the family and not just the thing needing to be steadied

I'm grateful that childhood only felt like an eternity and wasn't

I'm grateful for the ride in the car on Monday when my daughter asked, "What do you love most about your Mama?"

I'm grateful my daughter now likes pre-school

I'm grateful for the gift of words to put feelings, experiences and life in a new perspective

I'm grateful for a practice of writing and a shared community of writers

I'm grateful that this morning my girl said, "Daddy, do you want some Mama?" and he said "Hubba Hubba" to me while Kai asked, "Mama do you want some Dada?"

I'm grateful for laughing that makes you snort your coffee OUT of your nose

I'm glad that i get to at least ten of my twelve cousins on Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for Aunt W's apple-yam sweet yummy dessert like dish that I dive into live an Olympian heading for the water

I'm grateful for T's cuddly belly and R's belly laugh

I'm grateful for collaging and my partner in creative crime

I'm grateful for creativity and the creator of all things - whatever form she feels like taking

This Bites!

Six mos. ago a little skinny older kitty followed me up and down the stairs as I took the grocery bags in. Once we were inside, my daughter looked at the cat from the glass door and said, "I've waited my whole life for a cat." She was three.

I put out some milk. I put out a blanket. I called my neighbor who has five cats. The cat was so friendly and affectionate. The cat was maybe someone's lost kitty.

So, for a few nights, kitty slept on the porch. Then it got a little colder. So, we brought him in our basement. Then, into our house. Then to the vet. If, after a month, no one claimed her we could make her part of our family.

During that first one month my daughter was torn. She'd say things like, "If J doesn't have a family, that means no one loves her." This is where having a child who had been abandoned by her biological family makes a comment like that one a heartbreaker.

What I wanted to say was, "Who the hell would just let the cat loose? who would abandon it? muffled. Judgements are not so huge now that I know it's impossible to fully know about anyone's situation.

He was so affectionate and loving and patient. Sure, he did a little nipping around the ankles, was more of a biter than a scratcher but that seemed like kitten behavior. He needed more play time, more exercise and to be trained. Nips turned to bites that broken skin. K seemed to treat him like a stuffed animal and he stuck up for himself but that seemed reasonable. His chest and entire being purred. He loved to be held, to be pet and even seemed to enjoy being brushed. My neighbor with the cats marveled at his personality.

He grew bigger and bigger. His bites seemed more frequent. He would jump on my daughter as she dressed, biting her neck or her head, and his bites looked like they were skin surface, more breaking skin a little than deep down bites. My daughter loves him and is afraid of him.

It's been progressive and gradual and at the same time I can't say that he ever didn't bite. He did bite but he was smaller and the bites didn't seem dangerous or scary, just playful and annoying. But every step to train, re-direction with toys, spray bottles when his eyes were clear that he was going to bounce, a low voice - it all seemed ot make the biting worse. He bites and then bites some more. Today, I have no less than seven bites. Two on my leg, bruising and breaking skin though I was wearig pants. Two or three on each arm and a deeper one on my hand that looks like nothing but hurts the most, makes the muscle in my left hand (but not so bad I can't type).

J has a dr's appt. today. I have a doctor's appt. today. Something like 50% plus of cat bites get infected. Maybe he's in pain. Maybe he was an outdoor cat? Maybe he was stray or feral but had been neutered by a cat-friendly organization? I just don't know.

We love him but we are afraid of him. After last night's multiple bites I put him in the basement. I can't leave the cat and K alone. I don't trust the cat and K is afraid of him. I'm afraid of him. Not always. I know when I can pick him up. I can read the sign when he's gonna attack but I can't do anything in that moment when I see he's going to bite to stop him, get a bottle, use a tone, throw a toy - his eyes are locked on and he's going to bite.

So, I go to learn some today - get an opinion on how serious this is, what can and can't be done and do some soul-searching. I've not had meat since I was 14. That's 26 years. I haven't wanted to kill animals. I don't wear leather. I don't eat fish. And yet, I do not want a pet in the house that I feel is a danger - that I KNOW must be in the basement when my daughter wants to wander or has a play date. Crap. Crap. Crap.

When we first got this cat my husband said, "We have this cat for life. K can never see us as the kind of people who could ever not keep a pet. We can never give her the message in any way that we don't take care of our family."

Crap. Crap. Crap. I want to say, "But he's a cat and she's a child." But I know he's not wondering what I think but what our daughter will feel, doubt or wonder. Crap. Crap. Crap. We'll figure it out. One day at a time. Did I mention - CRAP! CRAP! CRAP!

on a lighter note, my daughter and her friend are playing Mama and they both want to be the mama. They both just turned four and are reading to each other, page by page. Well, by reading I mean looking at the pictures and telling stories. Precious. No matter what your age it's good to have friends who get you and are in your tribe. At four, some kids want to read under the covers curled up with a good Dora and some stuffed animals... some kids want to color the walls and do gymnastics on furniture. The laughs of two girls wanting to be reading mama's is heart warming...

How Much Do I Miss Co-Dependency?

I woke up feeling sad and missing co-dependency. In the old days, the early days of my relationship, I'd wake up feeling oogy and one or two things would happen.

1)I would make it my partner's job to make me feel better. What could he do to make me happy? What ideas did he have that could fix me, heal me or at least distract me? Could he perk me up or escort me to the bookstore? Could he dive into the pool of my healing and keep me company? Could he stay there as long as I needed? Could it be him who could tell me when to swim, float or get the hell out of the pool?

Yeah, those were the good old days. My moods weren't my own. I was generous. We shared them. My mood was a food dye coloring our time together. So what if I wasn't the least bit lonely... or healthy...I miss it.

2)The other scenario for a bad post-traumatically stressed out kind of day was to wake up sad or oogy and quickly shift into pissed off. Pissed off at him. If he would just do/be/say/realize whatever, I would feel/be/seem "better" - this mindset would usually create a fight. The fight would end with me in tears. The tears would make me feel better. Then I'd want to go do something fun like maybe see a movie since I felt so much better. Funny, him feeling trampled by my "stuff" made him feel lousy. But it took me a while (and him too) to realize we were in a pattern.

So today, forgetting how I would make him feel bad, I had to ask, "Why is co-dependency unhealthy? I need to be reminded because I'm really missing it." What I was missing most was the part where I picked a fight, cried and felt better - fast. It was so much faster than journaling or meditating or sitting with my feelings.

He laughed. He smiled.

"No, you really have to remind me why that's not a viable option anymore because I'm REALLY missing the effectiveness of that path."

"Because it's not healthy, mature or adult," he said.

"Well you don't have to be nasty about it," I said knowing I should have asked someone else not the person who had lived with my less than evolved self for a long time.

"Oh yeah," I said, "The whole how I impacted other people, the not spilling my crap on others, the figuring it out for myself and being mature. Yeah. Yeah. The being considerate, responsible, etc. etc."

"You got it," he said.

"Damn. Damn. Damn," I thought, "So if I need support you can't just intuit it and figure it out?" But at least I didn't say that part. It's just hard to be an adult now and then. I feel better AFTER I cry but the feeling that I need a cry isn't something I usually welcome. I'm learning. I'm learning.

So, for today, it's confessions of a co-dependent. If I didn't care about hurting the feelings of others I'd go right back to picking fights, shutting people out and making them come seek me out. But no. No. Who knew self-awareness and healing and maturity would be so complicated?

Dear co-dependency, you are missed and when I let you go I had no idea how important you were to me. I now have more understanding for addicts who can talk almost romantically about the booze or smokes or whatever they once enjoyed - before they caused so much damage...

It's a drag sometimes to be self-aware enough to know what not to do but not so healed there's a super efficient plan B.

Confession

"I have to tell you something." That's how I started our meal. I was sitting across the table from my husband while eating a warm piece of bread. Our daughter was playing with dough.

"You might not like it," I said.

"I'm going to watch the Country Music Awards. I might even buy a Carrie Underwood CD. I'm almost 40. I even like the God songs."

"You can do whatever you want," he said which was cute as we both already know that much.

"But will you think less of me?" is the question.

"No, no..." he lied. "Some of it can be good."

Oh sure, I tried to spin it and explain how it's like poetry and it's dramatic and packs a punch in a short amount of time. I said it's like reading the paper or watching a soap opera - high drama, clear words and strong emotion. O.k., so maybe I only reat the obits. But still... I love a good story and I'm gonna be 40 and I'm not going to hide it any longer.

I think our relationship can survive this. I love a man who watches grown men in helmets bash heads, jump all over each other and do funny dances in the end zone for catching a football. I don't say anything when he stands two inches in front of the t.v. pacing and chewing his nails to nothing over these total overpaid strangers. Nope. It's a live and let live house.

"You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em..." I'm not saying sorry, changing the station or denying what I did on Monday night when the CMA show was on.

I'll Teach You Asian

"I'll teach you about Asian," my four-year old daughter said. "You can teach me about..."

"Being Caucasian?" I asked as we were talking ethnicity and race.

She had noticed an Asian baby in a store and said, "Her hair is like mine. She looks like me."

"She's Asian."

Conversations just come up in the car, on walks and no matter how many discussions we have had, she understands ethnicity, race, hers and ours, at her own pace. Today, she was excited about the new words, happy to be something called Asian. Interestingly, at only four even though we are her parents she sees herself as expert on this thing called Asian because it is something she is and we are not. She sees us as expert on Caucasian because it's something we are that she is not. Of course, at four, she is expert on most anything. However, it's more than that.

What is undeniable about transacial adoption is that we are a race that our daughter is not. She is viewed as a minority in our culture. We, her parents, are not. We can read about what her experiene might be like, talk to my relatives and others who share her race, learn about her birth culture and as importantly, being an Asian-American - but we will never share our daughter's experiences or know how she feels.

How do we best equip her, prepare her, educate her about racism and also instill pride about her race? I would be lying if I said I can answer all of those questions.

I'm Back and I've Got Issues

I was at a bookstore in the middle of the day yesterday. Significant other in the form of spouse sat across from me. This sitting at a bookstore for hours on end was something we did regularly before being parents. And, yesterday was the first time we did it again in three years. It was so fun to be together, alone, awake and able to have conversations.

My daughter doesn't seem to mind being an only child. However, she likes it best when only Mommy or only Daddy is home. Otherwise we talk to each other and that's so "boring" for her. Yikes! How do we go from attachment parenting to helping her realize it's actually a good thing for the parents to be attached to each other as well?

Anyhow, I was looking at lots of titles and deciding whether or not I'd buy them. I grabbed Motherless Mothers by Hope Edelman (sp?) because even though I have a mother who is alive I don't have a mother I see more than once a month who is in my life in a day to day way. My mother was a teen when she had kids and is now working full-time. Though we're closer than we've ever been we're not "drop by or drive by" close. Visits are pre-arranged and require a road trip and an invitation. And, since my mother had three kids by her 22nd birthday, she wasn't doing a style of parenting other than the "best I can" version. So, I don't go to her for advice or counsel or relief.

What type of mother do I want to be - to my pre-schooler and then to the girl-young adult and woman she turns into? In this book there was a quote by Anna Freud which read, "A mother's job is to be there to be left." It was in a chapter about pre-school. It made me sad. I love and admire and am proud of my daughter's growing independence and with it there's a feeling of missing her. I see her greet the world and develop a relationship with it that is quite her own. Home, her home base, keeps growing.

We've lived a month this week and there's too much to post but I realized I do want to ponder again, regularly and in community, about writing, parenting, being a constant seeker spiritually and being an adult constantly recovering from the impact of trauma popping up here and there. Another significant section in Edleman's book was about how unresolved grief, on the part of a mother, impacted her mothering and of course her child/ren. So, apparently grief work is important if not pleasant - not just for those who grieve but for those being parented by them!