Paradigm Shift

Hopefully, one or two of you may have noticed that I have dropped off the face of the planet for more than a week.  For my excuse, I offer the fact that our lives here have been turned inside out and upside down, and it's taken a bit of time to get back on an even keel.

Those of my generation will recall the oh-so-not-politically correct punching clowns we grew up with.  For the rest of you, with a rounded, weighted bottom, these plastic inflatable clowns with squeakers in their noses rocked back when struck but would bob right back up again.  Unless, of course, it got jumped on, used as a Hoppity-Hop, and/or assaulted to uninflatable nonresponsiveness.

That's us, Dallas and me.  We haven't had the pudding knocked out of us yet.  We still bounce back, sooner or later.  Even when struck with such force we fall back clear to the floor (my brothers' favorite trick), give us some time and we're on our feet again.

But, this post isn't about Dallas and I—not really.  It's about how, over the course of a month, we came to grow from two empty-nesters rattling around an empty house, seriously considering downsizing, to a family of seven, bursting at the seams.

Channeling Maurine

Maurine and Milton Freeman with all their grandchildren
in 1983; seven more would follow

Working in the kitchen, chatting with Desireé.  She's making chocolate chip cookies for Alora's baptism on Saturday.  I'm cutting up a cantaloupe for dinner.  I halve it, clean it, slice it into wedges, then make vertical slices through the flesh, just to the rind but not through it.  Then, I slice off the rind and bite-size pieces of fruit fall into the bowl.  I'm well-practiced.  It's fast work.  Just like my "mom" showed me.

My husband's mother has been gone for more than nine years now.  She hasn't lived with us in twelve, but her presence in this house can be almost palpable.  It happens most when I'm with my daughters-in-law, when we're working together, when we're laughing and chatting, or when I am sharing some skill she taught me.  I want to be for them what Maurine was to me.

SDL: The Cure For Perfection: My Response

A couple of days ago, my nephew, Dan, wrote a follow-up column to his very widely read post "The Disease Called 'Perfection'".  In one week, more than a quarter of a million people have viewed that page.  Yesterday, he posted a follow-up column called "The Cure for Perfection".  In it, he admitted that he could not possibly offer the balm required to heal the galaxy of sorrows and injuries that people posted on his first post.  Instead, he asked his readers to write the column for him, through the comments.  He asked for people to write what was their greatest struggle ever, what the person they are now have to say to the person they are then, and how the Perfection post affect their lives.  My abbreviated post is too long for even Intense Debate's generous allowances, so I posted my comments hear.

My Comment to The Cure for Perfection

There were 8 whole comments when I first started writing this comment yesterday morning.  I've given it a lot of thought, a lot of writing, a lot of deleting, and finally decided it's impossible to put 35 years of struggle in two paragraphs, or to leave religion out of it, since I would have never reached any of these conclusions without my faith.  However, the biggest factor in my deciding not to go into detail: this is my husband's story as much as my own, and I have to respect his right to privacy.

Engagement photo November 1979

THE STRUGGLE (In a nutshell):   

I've had lupus since I was 14.  I got married when I was 17.  My husband had just turned 19.  I gave birth to our first son when I was 19.  He was diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus when he was 21.  The first 15 years of our marriage were a long string of tag-team hospitalizations, the drain of medical expenses, both of us struggling to control our disease, major surgeries for me, and the high-risk pregnancies of three sons, all bound together with under- and unemployment when my husband got kicked out of the Air Force for having diabetes.  To say we had a rocky marriage would be an understatement.  Our expectations of marriage were diametrically opposed.  Our life together was one very small, very leaky boat caught in a raging storm that never ended, with both people trying to captain the vessel and no one manning the crew.

The Joys of Service

"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection.  Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business."

—Michael J. Fox

Maybe it is because I spent so much time today reading the heartbreaking comments so many people have posted on Single Dad Laughing, that I feel so compelled to post today.  The button on the bottom right will send  you to Dan's amazing post, 'The Disease Called Perfection', a serious delve into the anguish caused by the pressure people put on themselves and upon others to appear as the media's contorted perception of beautiful, behave pleasantly, never feel lost or uncertain, never make mistakes, never feel anger, never doubt, never sin, never fail to meet the expectations of others or mold yourself into their misconception of you.  

As Dan so poignantly points out, lives have been lost—lives of children—because a person feels encompassed in darkness, trapped in their horrible situations, and there is no hope of that ever changing.  They feel they have betrayed God or God has betrayed them, or they have disappointed their families or shamed them or angered them or whatever overwhelming despair overcomes them, and they take their own lives because they see it as their only means of escape.  Because of the despair of imperfection in a society that demands it.

The point of Dan's post is to encourage people to stop castigating themselves that they are not the super model or the super mom or the ubber-dad or -kid they believe society demands of them; to be kinder to themselves; to know that they are not alone and that no one has experienced anything that has not been experienced by somoene else.   The perfection in which they feel surrounded is only an illusion.  That illusion distorts our vision. We see everyone else more perfect than they are, and ourselves far, far less.

In response to that blog post, readers have poured out their hearts to the great anonymous void of the internet, hoping to somehow connect with someone—anyone who will listen, receive some validation, or just get a virtual hug.  In one day, almost 500 people have shared this post with their friends via Facebook, and almost 200 have made comments on the blog, either sharing their own sorrows or attempting to uplift those who so desperately stand in need of it.

I'm going to share my own comment here, just to follow Dan's example and be real, and dig up the courage to not do it anonymously.