Whoopie Cushion –

Tell Mamma What?

My life lately has been episodes of soap opera interrupted only by commercials for cleaning products and self-help seminars.  As in all good soap operas there are multiple story lines which cross and converge at critical points.  My brother is the youngest so I'll pick on him first.  As you and I are looking at these words, he's in Korea playing soldier.  He's apparently very good at what he does, and he's getting a lot of satisfaction from the work.  On the other hand the script writers can't resist throwing in a dysfunctional roommate, stress over maintaining levels of fitness, the challenge of meeting field assignments, and the psychological stress of having almost everyone in his family discussing his bank account.  Hey it was his idea that we should all be signatories so we could help him shift money around while he's overseas!

Most of you know my next youngest sibling as Madeline.  She's the comic relief.  If it isn't one thing in her life its another.  Her husband is laid up with a back injury, she lives in my Mom's backyard, and her kids are normal.  Her perspective on life is generally a few degrees off a straight course so she lurches along entertaining the rest of us inadvertently.

The second oldest in the group is the newest to Xanga.  My sister, Sam, lives in Minnesota with her husband and two kids.  Her son is 18 and living at home while he tries to work out the future he may or may not be spending with his pregnant girlfriend.

I'm 38 years old and having an identity crisis.  Actually I think the crisis is mostly over.  I've landed on my feet, or at least head up.  The next thing to be determined is whether or not my new understanding of who I am and what I'm all about is one that is going to make my marriage better or worse. 

Well, that's the Soap Opera Digest version of it all.  All that's left is finding a suitable name.  It seems to me that the common element is though we may talk it out amongst ourselves.  We may rant, rave, cry, laugh and become hysterical.  The one thing we do NOT do is tell my mother.  Don't get me wrong.  She's a perfectly normal Southern Momma.  Which means if she doesn't know, she can't hurt us.  So I think that future episodes of the drama should be labeled "Tell Momma What?" in the tv guide.

What happened there!!!  I tried to add a photo of my kids - and they seem to have tipped over . . .

Well, I'm trying out my X tools, searching for a new look and feel.  So far I'm thinking that I need to provide all my Xanga friends with a free pair of sunglasses!  I'll be tinkering with it over the next several days I'm sure.  Many thanks to Mark - disclaimer - for my new banner.  My old one got lost somewhere in cyberspace and he very graciously designed me a new one.  I know he was just guessing, but the quilt pattern he used - card trick - is one I have purchased fabrics for but never done.  Now I guess I HAVE to. 

I have a new goal in life.  My new goal is to be no more and no less than exactly as messed up as I think I am.  It's all a part of the "lets get real" campaign I've been waging over here.  I think I'm making progress.  I want to change the name of my site.  My determination to live in the harsh light of reality makes me dislike the fact that my site is "quiltnmomi" - that just reflects some of what I do - that isn't who I am.  Of course, my name isn't really who I am either. 

There are forty thousand  seven hundred and 2 Terris in the US who even spell their name the same way (roughly estimated.)  So my name doesn't tell you anything either.  I could adopt one of those long native names "woman who talks friends to death then changes story" - but I'm not sure that really does it for me either.

One thing I know.  I'm done with euphemisms for this week. 

Sanctified - Sanctimonious

To be sanctified is to be made holy, set apart for the use of God.  To be sanctimonious is to make a show of righteousness.  The two are not the same, but isn't it hard to think the word "sanctified" without making the mental leap to sanctimonious.  I live a "spiritual" life, and I want to be a sanctified person, but I can't stand the thought that I might be sanctimonious.

So when you log onto my site, I'd be surprised if you ever read the details of how much time I did or didn't spend in Bible study, prayer, worship, etc.  But that doesn't mean I don't do those things.  I just don't know how to share that part of who I am without it coming across to ME as sanctimonious.  I'm even a little uncomfortable at reading other people's references to these activities.  I enjoy what they have to say sometimes, I appreciate the spiritual wisdom I glean form their experience, but it feels voyeuristic to hear the details of time they spend with God.  Like I'm eavesdropping on a private conversation.

Well, now tht I've come across as a sanctimonious nut, I think I'll go eat my lunch.

Families are like quilts -- Lives pieced and stitched together . . .

A couple years ago my birthday present was a framed poem that begins with the above line.  I was sitting in my favorite chair a few minutes ago looking at it, and reflecting on the similarity between a family and a quilt.  Quilts come in all kind of patterns.  Some are crazy quilts, and some are meticulously designed.  Some are based on a traditional pattern, and some are contemporary kaleidescopes.

I've thought a lot about my own personality.  My strengths and weaknesses.  My quirks and my obssessions.  I'm realizing that my family has a personality that makes it distinct from all other families.  No other kids have the parents my kids have, and no other parents have my kids.  No matter how much our lives might resemble our neighbors and friends, we are still our own little unit.

I like to call my introspective moments "navel-gazing".  When I think introspectively about my family, I wonder where the locus of the wheel is located.  Is it our home?  Is it a particular member of the family?  Is it in our laughter or tears?  Maybe the navel of our family is the television.  No matter how much I try to keep the tv covered, my kids keep exposing it to light. 

So what's your family personality like?  As I consider this question over the next few days, I'll enlarge on my quilted people theme.

Okay, this one is a LOOOONNNNNG one.  I usually set my timer and write for ten minutes.  But today I'm just full up from not having written anything in a while, so there was NO timer, no limit.  Just me at the keyboard doing a stream of consciousness kind of thing about my "stuff."

Well, well - the gang's all here.

Now my husband, both my sisters and my brother all have their own Xanga sites.  I'm just not sure what I think about this.  I mean as a general rule, I don't have anything to hide, but even the "annonymity" of being lost in the crowd here is gone now!

So I'm thinking today about the tension between private and public.  I've heard it said, and I think it's true, that we all wear masks most of the time.  We are careful about just what and how much we show to the world around us.  I know that some of the Xanga people have a great time presenting their fantasy of who they are rather than their real self.  Frankly, I'm okay with this.  It makes for some interesting writing and reading.

Others use Xanga as a place to "let it all hang out."  On any given day the deepest and most intimate parts of their lives are available for the perusal of total strangers.  But the trick there is a confidence that the people doing the reading ARE total strangers.

There is no annonymity of the dark confessional, if your family is all sitting on the other side of the curtain.  As far as I know, my Mom isn't blogging yet, but I have no doubt that if she knew that her kids were all spilling their guts online that she'd sign up tomorrow.

A major area of growth for me lately has been learning to speak the truth.  I don't mean that I've been a pathological liar in the past.  But I have a strong tendency to "temper" the truth with careful phrasing.  I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, and I certainly don't want anyone angry with me.  I'm willing not only to believe the excuses people offer for their less than sterling behavior toward me, I'll even help them craft an explanation.  Anything to avoid confrontation.

I've thought of myself in the past as a "peacemaker."  I'm coming to realize that there is a vast chasm between the absence of conflict and true peace.  Under Roman Rule there was peace.  The Pax Romana is still a byword 2,000 years later.  Everyone knew the rules and for the most part they abided by them.  After all, the alternative was fairly grim.  Anyone who stepped out of line could find themselves enjoying their moment of fame before the cheering crowd as the first course of a dinner party for lions, tigers, or bears - oh, my.  Fairly steep price for the privilege of marching to your private drummer.

This has been the space I've been living in.  I've carefully toed the line for most of my life.  Oh, I've occasionally been willing to say, "to hell with it" and make a spontaneous move.  But not often.  And usually my discomfort over how my behavior might appear to someone else has been sufficient to quickly cause me to RUN to get back in my normal safe space.  Because no animal scares me more than a disapproving human.

Now I'm rethinking all that.  Maybe it has to do with my age.  After all I'm 38.  It seems to me that I'm too old to live my life worried about whether or not I have the approval of the people around me.  My core isn't susbstantially different from my game face, and if by now the people in my life aren't able to accept that I might be a little more complicated, a little less "good" than they may have thought I was, then when will they?  Will they suddenly relax about minor transgressions when I'm 45, or 50, or an old woman wearing purple?

And really, is it even the opinion of those I'm trying to live my life for that is in question.  Maybe the truth is that they just don't think about it.  After all, how important could my little quirks be in the lives of people who have their own quirks and concerns.  Maybe I'm kidding myself.  After all I don't have any expectation that my friends and family are perfect.  I rather expect that they aren't.  So maybe I'm on a funky headtrip where my standards for myself are a little higher than my standards for those around me, because the only way that I can feel "Good" is to feel "Better."  Maybe the only real disapproval comes from me.

On the other hand, some of the transgressions of the people in my life have been anything but minor.  I've had to deal with the realization that someone close to me has been dishonest to the point that I'm not sure we have a relationship left to work with.  Of course, I don't see myself as guilty of the same kind of thing at all, how ironic.  By holding back on my own thoughts and feelings, I've erected a barrier to intimacy that raging wildebeasts couldn't break through.  But I'm feeling lost and angry over the evidence that someone "close" to me has done essentially the same thing.  Oh, I could comfort myself with the insistence that its a matter of degree.  I held back on little things, like my less than fundamentalist theology while I attend a fundamentalist church.  Or I held back my opinion (granted not often - I'm okay with being opinionated to a degree) but often enough that I know that I've created a misconception about some of my most closely held preferences and desires.  The person who has hurt me was holding back on some major issues of life that affect the grounds of our relationship more than the debate between Calvinists and Arminians.

Well, I just don't know what I'm going to do to reconcile the gap between what I thought and what turns out to be true. 

You wanna know something else about me?  I used to work in a psychiatric facility for teens.  This isn't news to my family but I know it may be news to some of my Xanga friends.  I counselled kids who were victims of sexual abuse.  I've heard and seen some horrendous things.  Some of the most awful things I've seen were associated with Halloween.  I came to believe that we live in a sick world where people can convince themselves that it's okay to use and abuse other people for some sick control fantasy.  And Halloween was an excuse for some of these sickos to do their worst.

Every year that I worked as a Counsellor, I saw new patients admitted between Halloween and Thanksgiving because they needed help coming to grips with whether or not being coerced into group sex as a part of a teenage Halloween "ritual" constituted rape.  Or kids who were traumatized by their own participation in animal torture or mutilation.  Just kids acting out their ideas of what Halloween might be once they've grown out of the treat stage and start thinking about the tricks.

So I've been more or less "against" Halloween for years.  I've seen the holiday that focuses on the occult, blood, and terror as a bizarre excuse for our culture to glory in elements of human nature that are best kept out of the spotlight. 

My family has been vocal in their opinion that I've been depriving my children of one of the great experiences of childhood.  But I have staunchly stood my ground, until this year.  This year for the first time my children asked to go trick or treating.

I hemmed and hawed and debated within myself for weeks.  Well, last night, my seven year old dressed up as a bumble bee and my 4 year old as a lion and they trick or treated a dozen or so houses in a very carefully chosen neighborhood.  Of the dozen houses, three were people I know very well, and a fourth is a local policeman.  Both my husband and I walked every step of the way with the kids and held onto their hands to keep them safe.  They had a blast.  I enjoyed seeing them have a blast.

Today we are taking time out of our school day to talk about "All Saints".  (You know the Hallowed part of All Hallow's Eve.)  We are going to be reading a story of a martyr (not one with gruesome details) and talking about the value of knowing the history of faith.  Being connected with the streams of people through the ages who've shared their experiences of God through their lives and their writing to our benefit.

Does this make me untrue to myself? or have I come up with a balanced response to my kids' reasonable desire to be like the other kids?  You tell me.  I don't want them frightened of the evil that exists in humanity.  Neither do I want them surprised when they encounter less that righteousness in the people they know best.  I want them to know that people are good and bad sometimes at the very same time.  I want them to know that God knew this about us and He chose to love us anyway.  We shouldn't be surprised or judgmental or think that we deserve better than God asks for himself.  God asks that we give him the chance to share himself with us and show us how to be the best we can be.  (Yeah - I know Dave - that makes God sound a lot like the army.    I hope that I am raising my boys to be loving and accepting of other people's failings as well as their successes.  Step one in that parenting process is to be honest with them about my own failings.  I'm not fooling them anyway, they know when I'm "cranky" as they call it.  But unless I learn a better way of expressing the truth of my life, thoughts, and feelings - I've realized I'm going to pass onto them a heritage of shame.  The only way to live free is to live in the light.