Preparation

Well, it's been a busy two weeks in our house.

Two weeks ago, I came home from my job devastated, knowing that I couldn't work there any more and be happy. There were many, many reasons for that, but suffice it to say that it was clear to me that my time to move on was now.

I hadn't arrived at that conclusion quickly. In fact, I've been working on it for quite awhile. Should I get a doctorate? Should I apply for a more advanced position? Should I dedicate more time at home with my children? Should I spend more time writing (a rediscovered, passionate love of mine)?

In the hours following my conclusion about my job, my husband told me that if I felt it was time to move back east, he would support that. He, too, has struggled this year for a lot of different reasons. And suddenly, quickly, the decision was made that we would move east in August. In the meantime, my daughter and I would go visit my parents beginning June 1st and come back at the beginning of August, hopefully scoping out jobs and whatnot and having a relaxing summer.

Then came the night, five days before our departure, when my husband sat me down and told me he thought we should all move. Not in August. Now. And I found myself, selfishly, thinking, "I wanted THIS summer! This summer to enjoy!"

As I thought about what he was proposing (basically a move in two weeks), I realized he was right. Neither of us are employed at the current moment. This gives both of us the opportunity to get settled over the summer and be looking. It gives our kids a chance to get used to a new place before school starts. It saves us rent money, because we'll be residing in my grandmother's house. And I found myself excited.

In the past two weeks, I've gone through a wide array of emotions, spanning everything from God-I-can't-wait excitement to the despair that comes in recognizing you will be losing so many wonderful people in your life. I have a strong belief that God brought us here for very meaningful reasons, including the love and care of the two children we call our own. I have just as strong a belief that He is bringing us back east to be near and with my family, whom I dearly love and who need our emotional support. But it is difficult to think of giving up relationships with so many wonderful people I have come to know. Some days it's just downright overwhelming to think of the distance between so many of these people who have changed my life. And because a lot of these relationships have stemmed from my job, it makes me even more sad to be giving up the opportunity to teach the students I work with. I'll miss all of them.

Life is full of difficult decisions. Preparing for this move has shown me that I have to prepare not only physically but mentally as well. I've had to give away a lot of our material possessions and have done so without looking back. It has also humbled me to see how much a family of four can accumulate. Is it really what we need?

I have talked with my children about this move, and all that we will have waiting for us, and that the most important thing we need to have is each other. I know that kids don't get that, but it's been a good reminder for me. All I need in this move, really, are my husband, my kids, and my sweet Gabi...and my parents and brother waiting for me on the east coast. Everything else is extra.

But boy, even after giving away so much, do we have a lot of extra!

Post #60

Ah. Post number sixty. The big six-oh.

You'll have to excuse me a bit. I went to bed a little early last night and woke up way early this morning. A little after midnight, to be exact. So I'm operating on very little sleep and feeling a little, well, what we would call "slap happy".

This year has been a tough one for our family. I've blogged quite a bit about my son, as well as my own struggles. But our whole family has struggled, like most families in our country, trying just to make ends meet in this horrific economy. Coupled with my husband's physical problems and my parents' health problems, my husband and I made a decision--rather suddenly--to move closer to my family.

So we have approximately twelve days to pack our tiny, nine hundred square foot house. We can do it, I have no doubt. But I'm overwhelmed just thinking about it. Our daughter is excited about the move--thrilled actually--and wanted to begin packing right away. She's referring to it as an 'adventure' and I'm so glad she's looking at it that way. Her brother's response has been more the opposite, although he's growing more used to the idea. Me? Apparently I'm not sleeping!!!

Truth is, I hate moving. I've hated it every single time I've done it, back to when I was seven years old, although that move wasn't quite as bad because I didn't have to lug all this junk everywhere. The worst part of that move is my favorite teddy bear--you know, you had one too...the one you slept with every night of your life?--got lost in the move. I never found him again. Devastation. Ironically, my other favorite teddy bear, which I had given to my son a few years ago, also disappeared. Maybe they're hanging out together in some bear club.

Here's another thing. I'm really missing Criminal Intent. No, not the old ones and definitely not that crap they're passing off as a TV show now. I'm missing my Goren and Eames, even with the crappy writers and storylines and whatnot. I miss seeing them every week. Like good friends you know you'll be getting together with every week. Eh. I've watched reruns quite a bit lately to destress. But there's something missing. Oh! It would be the element of SURPRISE!!!

Well, I'm going to go back to relaxing as I watch Billy the Exterminator. Billy is my solid proof that Andy Warhol was right: there is definitely fifteen minutes of fame out there for everyone. I've never watched this show before. It's amazing what you'll watch in the early morning on no sleep. Anything beats the news, though--even Billy.

#60--HOO-YAH!

Hoarders

My son has been struggling quite a bit, especially over the last couple of months, not to take things that don't belong to him.

It started out focused on food, and that still remains a big problem. The thing is, he won't take just ANY food...he takes food that is somebody else's. For instance, if you have a piece of pie leftover from dinner the other night, and everyone else ate theirs, including him, he'll eat your pie later. If someone buys a treat with their own money, he'll eat it. Now we've been having him replace the things he eats that are not his, but this seems to have very little to do with discouraging him from continuing the habit. He replaced two items on Friday and by Saturday noon, he had done it again.

So I talked with his therapist about this issue yesterday. As frustrating as it is, and as much as I felt like I didn't handle things appropriately for him (I grounded him on Saturday), I'm smart enough to know that in all likelihood there is something brewing under the surface when a behavior like this continues frequently AFTER we've tried various consequences.

His therapist pointed out that the food he is taking is forbidden to him, rather than the cabinets full of food options he has. This tendency comes from the mindset of not having enough. If you're worried about not having enough, then you take the most forbidden things first, because you know the "community" food will still be available. You have to ensure you have enough of the hot commodity. I know this is how he thinks, particularly about food--if he has something that he really likes, he wants a promise that he'll get to have it again in the future. He worries that he won't.

His therapist went on to compare this behavior to that of hoarding--the feeling of never having enough, or being in that one situation where a piece of two-inch twine is going to save you. Unless you're MacGyver, that's probably not going to happen--but how many people live their lives like that? My son has a tremendous issue with empty space and hoarding. The first time he went to the hospital, I decided to clean his room. I usually stay out of my kids' rooms--it's their own space--but since he was gone I thought I would make it nice for him. Instead it was I who got the shock; every little pocket of empty space in the room, whether it was around his mattress or under his bed or in his desk, was packed with something. Marbles, balls, rubber bands, scrap paper, paper clips--anything. It was then that I realized his problems extended even deeper than I knew.

When a child grows up in an early environment of neglect, they develop instincts to survive that are beyond what most people can imagine. This child learned how to make his own meals by age three. He knocked on doors of strangers to get food. He collected whatever he could--and still does--because you never know when you're going to need it. You never know when you'll be out there with nothing again.

The therapist offered me some good suggestions which I plan to use to help this child refocus his need to hoard in a more positive fashion. I hope it works.

Pain and humiliation

What are you willing to do to support your family?

How much of your pride are you willing to swallow? How much of your dignity? At what point is it too much? At what point is it time to throw in the towel and have faith in God or whatever you believe in to point the way for you?

Having a family makes those questions harder. I don't know what I'm willing to do anymore. But not what I'm doing.

I can't sell my soul for a buck. I can't do things I don't believe in, no matter what people above me tell me to do.

I can't be who I am not.

I've worked too hard and come too far to live my life this way. I won't do it. I can't.

It pains me to see the end of things that I have loved, invested in, desired and wanted and been a part of. It hurts to watch everything falling apart. It hurts to be somebody's whipping boy and to know I have to do it to support my family.

I've gone from feeling self-confident and strong to useless and inadequate. How does that happen? How does it happen so quickly?

I don't know. I may never know.

Happy Birthdays

Today my son turns thirteen.

Nine and a half years ago I brought this tiny preschooler home. He came from an emergency foster care situation, so he pretty much had the clothes on his back. Our foster care system is extremely overburdened, but I don't think most people realize that when you take on a child from the system, you receive nothing but the clothes on the child's back. He had no bed, no carseat, nothing. We had, in a frenzy, collected as much as we could to prepare for him. Garage sales were our best friend.

I couldn't imagine then what he would be like now. That this little child would grow into a handsome, funny young man. That he would have amazing talents in art and sports. That he would be so attached to me. I also never imagined that whatever was going on with him, was more than I could love him out of. I was incredibly naive but wanted more than anything to be a good parent. Foster, kinship, or otherwise. I wanted to do right by him.

Looking at him today, I think I have done my very best. His life will always be challenging. He faces challenges most of us can't imagine, but he hasn't given up. He's courageous, this boy, and I admire him for that.

I don't really have a lot to say about who he is that won't sound contrived and passionately "motherly". What I can say is that I love him more than I could have imagined ten years ago. And thirteen is a wonderful number.

Happy birthday, sweetie. Mom loves you. Always.

Rock stars and therapy

As I was looking at this blog today, I realized my last post was the one I posted at the end of my beloved Criminal Intent. Goren and Eames had ridden off into the sunset, somewhere in Mahattan. I hope in that alternative universe they both got good positions and could keep their pensions.

I'm writing this post as an ode to my therapist Scott. I'm home sick today instead of processing my crazy life with him. I'm sure he misses me. I'm also pretty sure he thinks I'm dicking around on him and not really sick. Trust me, Scott. I'm sick this time. You really will rest easier without me around today.

Scott is the rock star of therapists. Trust me, I should know. My mom is a licensed clinical social worker. I went to school for a master's in social work for two years. I've had tons of therapists and tend to be from the school of thought that everyone can get something from therapy if they're teamed with the right person. And I've been teamed with some good ones before. But this guy? Every time I leave he's given me something new to think about. And I'm a pretty analytical person, so it's hard to give me something different to chew on.

But he does it. And he's incredibly respectful of me as well. When we began discussing a topic I really didn't care to discuss, I said so and we backed up and changed direction. Altered the dance steps. Like I told him, it's not as though i don't have a bajillion things we could talk about--take your pick.

At any rate, most of my life I've worked with female therapists. Personal issues from childhood made me more comfortable disclosing my feelings to women. When I was a young teen, I had a male psychologist for awhile and he was terrible. He stared at me for what seemed like forever, every session, and then would say, "Penny for your thoughts." Dude, if you were really giving me all those pennies then my parents would have been bankrolled on your business.

What changed my mind about trying a male therapist again actually had very little to do with me and more to do with my son. During some of his struggles, my son has seen several different therapists. Three of the four were excellent. And two of them were men.

When I started therapy this time, my goals for myself were to get clearer about who I was and what I wanted in my life. I also wanted support from someone who could understand what it was like to live with an attachment-disordered child. I decided that if a man could do those things, I would give it a try.

Enter Scott. Honestly, we're still getting to know each other. Our first meeting would have been awkward if I hadn't been a time bomb about to blow. I think I cried the entire session. I remember him saying one thing to me that stuck, and made me commit to come back. He told me, "I've worked with children who are severely mentally ill. I believe everything you've said to me. "

So I came back. Every time I go I cry, but now I cry for a few minutes instead of forty-five. In a matter of weeks, Scott has helped me to view some of my perceived weaknesses as strengths, helped me give myself permission to be a human being, helped me figure out how to be a better mother. I've never had a therapist that gave me so much good food for thought. This guy is good. This guy is a rock star.

I quit my own program toward a degree in social work because I knew I couldn't do what Scott does. I don't have the skill to delicately pull truths out of people and weave together a healing portrait. In fact, it's been my experience that most people don't have that skill--even therapists. That skill is rare. But when it's done, it's gently and nuanced and feels more like an art--like rearranging delicate pieces of a mosaic to make a new picture. Like an artist. Or arranging chords and keys to make a masterpiece of music.

You know. Like a rock star.

Done.

So it's over.

Yes, all my friends who hate Criminal Intent, you can rest easy now...I will no longer be able to regale you with stories of the insanely clever Bobby Goren or the loyal, intelligent Alex Eames. With a firing, a hug, a kiss, and a resignation, there they go. Out the door.

I found myself wondering today, after the airing of last night's final episode, what it would feel like to be the actors. Knowing that it's finally over. Whether the end came about as a need to move on and engage in other creative ventures (kind of D'Onofrio's claim) or the well-known fact that USA network planned to cut the actors' salaries in half if they stayed, how did it feel to wake up today and know that it was done? Weird, I bet. I just watch, and I feel weird.

Our economy sucks and most people wouldn't be thrilled at the idea of staying in a position where their salary was literally cut in half while their work expectation remained the same. Some people have the ability to walk away from that situation, as in our two actor friends, who are already dipping their creative geniuses into other projects. Not so much for us people in reality. When your household income is less than a third of what it costs to buy a house in your area, you're not likely to be walking away from your job anytime soon.

Regardless of the myriad of opinions to follow the last two episodes, mine is simply this: I'm grateful for what I got. Two episodes of semi-closure for two characters that I enjoyed watching tremendously. How many shows just disappear into TV wasteland without even that? And while part of me curses the writers for leaving the future of both Goren and Eames so open, I'm partly glad. I can forever imagine that somehow Goren finally finds his happy place (yes, OUTSIDE of an asylum) and that Eames does too.

Even cops should be able to find some happiness. Even testy, middle-aged, lonely cops.