Category: adoption

in bloom…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay4 Comments

When I settled on the word FAITH, for my 2019 journey, I really assumed it would be an adventure that dealt with my relationship with God. I truly believed the word was meant for me, (which is pretty much how I’ve come to my past WORD OF THE YEAR Commitments), and so I readily accepted the task of growing in my quiet time and prayer…

My year was not remotely about quiet time, or prayer. In fact, though I do believe in a God who is essential for every aspect of my life, the Faith Journey wasn’t really about that sort faith at all.

Every single month of 2019 met me with great loss. Sometimes it was an unexpected loss of opportunity or something beloved. Twice it was with the loss of lives. Then there were lost relationships that I believed I could not live without, that I had no worth without, but it turns out I had been wrong. It was the hardest year I have ever known, and yet…

Yet, I am here. As the theme of loss, in various forms, continued to flow through the changing seasons, I suddenly saw THAT I was more capable of handling them. My vision became clear, as I emerged from the fog I had spent so long in, that I could not merely live beyond the strongholds, but I could live better. I came to a peace I could never have imagined my life ever existing in.

The thing about Faith though, or at least my personal faith, was that it was deconstructed too. As I attended funerals, helped grieving family members and continued to build a business (when all I wanted was to curl up in a ball and cry) and live my life, new things grew in the absence of old. Sometimes these things came in the form of new relationships and precious friendships. Other times these came in professional connections and wisdom shared. Each day I was able to see clearer than I had seen in so long. The relationships lost, had never really existed. The benefit of them had never been mutual, and though that was appropriate for a time, the inability for me to exist outside of the other’s demands and orbit, the inability for me to be an individual deserving of any respect or love, was a problem. It was a problem many had seen for so long, but did not know how to talk to me about. (and it wouldn’t have mattered.) Honestly, I was not brave enough to sever those relationships, but I allowed myself toe courage to respect their wishes, and bold enough to allow life to go on, and unfold, and I have been continually blown away by what that has looked like.

Loss is sad. Loss can be tragic. Loss can also make way for new, and the new doesn’t negate the heartbreak of what is gone… We are shaped by the good and the bad that came before this moment. We are beautiful and capable, because of it.

On a shelf, in my living room, there is a small wooden heart which contains ashes belonging to my father, who passed away this past spring. So much of my life held complicated elements, where my father was concerned, and then one day that simply wasn’t the case. I am filled with gratitude for the fragments of time I spent with him, for the traits of him that I had long before I met him, and more than anything- for the absolutely amazing father he was to my half siblings. Though I’ve never held resentment against him, my soul did sometimes utter the question how can someone who is such an amazing parent, have a child they couldn’t love in that way? And then, on that day of clarity, I knew the answer… Because life is hard. Life isn’t fair. Things happen. We want everything to work out, and we hold often ourselves to the standards that we will get that cookie cutter life, but it doesn’t. With that same clarity came grace for myself as well. I had spent so long trying to become a mother, and then my health failed me and I had to move on from there. That motherhood ache never went away, and one day I sat beside a bathtub as my little adopted daughter played and I realized how incredibly full my heart was. I loved three amazing kids, and wouldn’t have traded one second of the hardship that led ME to them. In that moment I loved them so much that I believed our little family was meant to be.

The family that we fought like hell to bring together.

The process that drained us, and all of our resources dry.

One morning, in 2010, I sat at a brunch table looking at those faces and felt a sinking realization that the five of us would never be together again. I was devastated, and I was caught up in the overwhelming unfairness of that. My motherhood had been the thing I had wanted more than anything in the world, and that entire journey had been unceasingly difficult, and then suddenly…

Hanging on a print, of my favorite lyrics, is the silver etched thumbprint of my the beloved uncle I lost in early 2019. He had been the stable man my childhood knew, likely the one thing keeping me from the alternative of never trusting a man again. He had been the one to hold the fun, childhood teasing. He had been the man to walk me down the aisle. He had been the one, when I was a twelve year old broken child, to make the hard call not to take me in, because he could see the long term effect of how that wouldn’t really help me at all…

Littered on walls and shelves are framed photos from the years in between my motherhood and 2019. Photos of smiling kids my heart could have burst with love for… Photos of relationships dissolved to ash and blown into the wind. For awhile I questioned, do I hide the photos away? But no… It comes back to the unfairness of it all. My “motherhood” was never something I should have placed my faith in. That bursting moment which felt like destiny, wasn’t ever true. Broken and hurt children found their way into my heart, and there was never anything meant to be about what they went through. I bled my soul dry to love them, to fight for them and lost myself in the journey. I wasn’t ever enough, but they didn’t owe it to be to pretend that I was either- and that truth isn’t on anyone. Relationships don’t work out sometimes, and it is loss. It is tragic. It is ok… I could have spent the past 7 & 12 months in agony over how things hadn’t turned out the way I’d hoped and prayed they would, but that would be pretty selfish. The origin of how they began wasn’t anything like those once sweet children deserved either. Sometimes everyone gets hurt, and sometimes every one loses, because life simply isn’t fair. I was there, when I was needed, and the moments frozen on my walls remind me of the beautiful “motherhood” season which wasn’t painless, but I am so grateful for that fragment of time. Because there is loss, doesn’t mean the middle didn’t matter. It mattered a great deal, and all I have for it is love.

Sometimes letting go, is love too. This notion went against what I believed, but finally I learned this too.

In addition to the intense gutting of my entire heart and soul, I began to see the truly flawed theologies and belief structures I’d set my life by. Absolutely wrong, man made ideas, hashtagged for Jesus, when Jesus wasn’t present in them at all.

Faith… The journey was a slice, and a gutting. It was a refining fire, in the way that ravaged land is burned intentionally so that new, healthy growth can blossom.

Welcome to 2020, my year of BLOOM…

We are them too…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

There is this amazing time-lapse video bouncing around the internet that shows the blossoming of various mushrooms deep within forested areas. It is absolutely fascinating, disgusting, inspiring and flat-out-weird all at once. Isn’t that life, though? Most of the time.

As humans, we stumble upon stories ripped straight from the lives of others. The horrific crimes we can’t comprehend, the amazing tales of survival and super human fathomings. We love the miraculous, the oddly tragic- the real life stories. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever been inspired to do something bold, brave or heroic after looking at an individual, upon hearing about their boring upbringing, which was followed closely by their average college, marriage and work experience, carrying them to this point of completely mundane normalcy. Films and books certainly aren’t written about people like this.

Two reasons for this are:

  • because that sort of life wouldn’t really inspire much of anything. (Maybe a little envy from someone whose lot in life has been particularly harsh.)
  • That sort of life doesn’t really exist. A perception of that sort of life can, but that sort of life itself? It’s not even possible. There may be seasons when we identify with feelings that our own journeys have been that uneventful. There will be other times, perhaps when we’re drowning in our own overwhelm, and we may perceive someone else’s seemingly drama free life is just like that.
  • bonus point- the moral of the lesson here is, just because something may look, or feel a certain way, in a moment- doesn’t mean that it is.

That idea, the idea of normal + boring, I think most of us have pretty wrong. We think, in times of distress, that this must be what simplicity and peace is like. It wouldn’t be. That imaginary life I’ve described? It is a one dimensional, apathetic version of what we minimize in our minds. Period. We only feel our lives are dull and boring, when we are discontent in our own circumstances. We only reduce someone else’s story to such when we are attempting to reduce them, in our minds, or when our circumstances feel too big/loud and we long for small/quiet. It is a perception. Period.

If we could see a time-lapse of our own lives, we would be amazed. There are hardships and heartbreaks we’ve all known, and many of us are living them as I type this. Sometimes it is easy to hear the circumstances of our own journeys in comparison to another person and think we have nothing to share. It isn’t true. Each and every one of us have lives comprised of many things, things both beautiful and horrifying, that others may need to see.

We love the stories of the hero who lived through incredible difficulties, overcame extreme odds and we sit through the movies and documentaries about them, awed. They inspire us. We read books about them, tell others about them, and often make changes in our own lives because of the incredible examples those people were. Our entire world is built on the foundation of everyday people living through something and then paving the way for a better future because of it. (NOT despite it. BECAUSE OF IT.)

Guess what, friend- you and I? We are that very sort of person. The abuses we’ve known, the mistakes we’ve made- these things can bury us in their rubble, if we let them. How do we not allow that to happen? We choose not to let it. We move on, altered for the better, because. Because, because, BECAUSE- Always.

Someone, somewhere, can see the time lapse of your life (in a sense… not an actual time-lapse video, because that would honestly be awkward for everyone.) and move forward, for the better, too. The mushroom is merely a fungus, living on the ground, and sprouting from the mildewed bits of dirt on the forest floor. Often they are toxic. Sometimes they can make people happy, or paranoid, or what have you. Some of them are ugly, many are beautiful and often they are an annoyance. They come from the worst, often remain the worst- but their journey when viewed with a nutshell perspective is mesmerizing.

Friend, we are so much more than forest fungus. We may come from the worst, but we don’t have to settle for becoming that.

What’s in a name…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay5 Comments

It has been a hot minute since I’ve participated in a FMF writing prompt, but when the mind finds itself wide awake at 2:30 a.m. on a Friday, I have to guess it really wants to… (You can join in and link up here, or just check out the other writers who are participating!)

There are relationships in our lives where, to the other person, we often become less of an individual and more merely a title of how they feel to call us. No longer do our identities belong to those pieces of life which make us. Instead we grow, within their heads, to the villainous character they desperately need for us to be, validating their own inadequacies.

We all have the possibility of such construction, no one is except from the label creations or the being created non-consensually. Suddenly, beyond a beating heart, a mind and a flawed human being, we simply become the whatever.

This insult.

The bitch.

The whore.

The parent.

The wife.

The bad guy.

the liar.

The one.

The blame.

The name…

Often we fail to comprehend the damage we can cause by giving name to a negative thought regarding someone. To anyone really, including ourselves. Negative thoughts happen, we’re human- it’s life… But once we allow ourselves to give birth to reducing an entire person into a neatly labeled, ugly little box, things change. Toxicity sets in and decay is inevitable. Perceptions change, our ability to dwell in reality changes. We change…

Sometimes life is hard. (most times, actually) There are days we wake up ready to run the race, face the music, suit up for the fight of it- other times we don’t. These are the moments we are most at risk of ourselves, these are the times when we need to embrace the courage to process through a moment, through a thought, through a feeling and then be completely honest with ourselves. Avoid the naming, avoid the box. While it’s easy to embrace the name-game today because it balms our spirit for a moment- the grave reality is far darker, later on.

It is so much harder to undo something that never had to be done.

Don’t just fly…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

When I was a little girl I was enamored by Dumbo. My mother loved this movie, and became a sobbing mess at the Baby Mine scene every single time she watched the VHS.

I too loved it, at first, because she loved it. I love it now for my own reasons, and admittedly I also tear up during the traumatizing melody. I know why this song pin-pricks my heart, and find myself wishing I knew why exactly that it affected hers so much…

She was not a mother, by nature.

What if, like Dumbo and Jumbo, we had lived in the Circus? What role would I play? What role would she?

She would love the animals, true. Anyone who knows her would say that immediately… However, she wouldn’t take care of them at all, really only coddle them for her own emotional fulfillment. That job wouldn’t do. No, I imagine her (though if I could ask her, she would disagree) as something between showgirl and clown. Clown Showgirl? Would that even be a thing? She would be the ever committed guys-girl, ensuing laughter with one outlandishly ridiculous performance after another. Once the night lights were dim, however, she would cast herself as a real guys-girl in other ways… Among the circus family she would be both the most loved and hated woman around.

I know this is all true.

At first I struggled to see myself…

Dirty, neglected child of a performer? Hiding with the animals, where I made friends and found solace? I imagine a childhood of days passing without seeing my mother, and seeing more her flashes of anger and belittling than the joy inducing woman seen by others, in the ring.

I know all of this is true, as well. Strip away the tent, the spotlights and the tigers and I can honestly say I have lived this childhood. A version of it, anyway.

I cannot think of Dumbo and circus life, imagining what role (within the circus) I might play, without considering my mother. It is an emotional DNA impossibility. That being said, one day the little girl would be a grown woman. She would stay with the circus long after her mother was gone because, in ways her mother never did, the girl valued family, even when family did not value her. She would care for the animals and love them as deeply as she could love anyone. She might fall madly in love with a behind the scenes designer and life would be hard, because- well, it is life- but also, circus life is hard, and this life was all she had ever known.

As time passed, she would give of herself, enabling other performers to be their very best. She would dive in and make herself needed, focussing on her ability to create, design and grow the gifts that this show could give to their audience. She would, eyes twinkling, find her most soul filling moments were when she secretly watched the children drink in the magic of human ability, animal and wonder unfolding before them.

Probably this girl would pass away in her sleep one day, an old woman, eternally unappreciated and alone. I’d like to think that it wouldn’t matter though, because she would carry the happiness she helped others find, and that she’d found joy in this too…

(Something nags at me that this post went too dark and too deep, considering it’s about a children’s movie. If you know Dumbo, and the story, it is a deep and often dark telling of so many hard to digest topics. Just like all escapes, we see only what we choose to. It is in the acceptance of the darkest parts that we find the ability to truly love ourselves completely, which is what we’re longing for others to do anyway, isn’t it?)

My birthday is on Thursday, and I will be front and center at the first local showing of Dumbo. I know it will be amazing and I cannot wait. This gift Disney has given to me, (let a girl pretend a little) is the perfect way to usher in a new life year.

Did you ever dream of joining the Circus?

What would you have done?

Are you anticipating this movie too? Here’s the trailer to hold our excitement for a few more days!

 

From Disney and visionary director Tim Burton, “Dumbo” expands on the beloved classic story where differences are celebrated, family is cherished and dreams take flight.   Circus owner Max Medici (Danny DeVito) enlists former star Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) and his children Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins) to care for a newborn elephant whose oversized ears make him a laughingstock in an already struggling circus. But when they discover that Dumbo can fly, the circus makes an incredible comeback, attracting persuasive entrepreneur V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton), who recruits the peculiar pachyderm for his newest, larger-than-life entertainment venture, Dreamland. Dumbo soars to new heights alongside a charming and spectacular aerial artist, Colette Marchant (Eva Green), until Holt learns that beneath its shiny veneer, Dreamland is full of dark secrets.  “Dumbo” soars into theaters on March 29.

 

Website: https://disney.com/dumbo

the leap…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

I wrote a big piece about the loss of Luke Perry and the more I read it, I just didn’t feel it was sharable… I’ll just say that it is a really sad loss.

I am wrapping up my New Mexico adventure. It has been one of those full circle things that will leave me deeply affected. When I was a small girl my grandfather had put a concrete patio on the front of their home. I took such pride in being able to jump off of it and land without falling. It was so big, and the soles of my feet would throb on impact but I knew my achievement was an amazing one. I was amazing.

I have seen the patio over the years, whenever I’d visit my New Mexico home. It was many, many years ago when I realized the patio is actually not very tall at all, and maybe I oversold that particular athletic ability. No matter how many years have passed though, the site of that patio always manages to resurrect those girlhood feelings. (I’m not kidding, Every. Single. Time.)

This small, dying town holds a variety of memories. Some happy, many not. This concrete patio was always a platform of safety for me. Swinging evening conversations with my grandmother, beneath a stunning desert sky; jars of golden tea warming in the sun; embraces and laughter when greeting visiting relatives, countless hours of adventure, imagination and childhood lay imprinted in the memory of this giant slab… Feet bare on the cold grey make me realize that this may be the only place I have ever stood that held only beautiful moments, and never dark ones.

I left the residence of this Burg when I was twelve. I fled the darkness of an unnatural childhood for solace and family in the Pacific Northwest. There is a deeply rooted grief over the loss of home, culture, people, friends, experiences, etc… (Grief can be a tricky thing because while it feels terrible, it is normal and unavoidable.) My grandmother’s Chrysler delivered me into the arms of complete strangers whom I would one day know as my parents. Those parents had two amazing little girls,(Joy and Jennie) answering the prayer I had prayed a hundred times a day for as long as I could remember, for sisters. Initially these girls were sisters in that foster family/generic/group-home way, but today, thirty years later, they are sisters. Period.

For a long time, in the beginning, I fell asleep longing for the blanket of the desert sky, for the warmth of familiarity, for my grandmother to call me sugar and for another moment on that patio. I clung to what it represented within my spirit, as the launch pad for my very first flirtation with confidence. I wanted to believe in myself, in my journey, in my future, the way that my grandfather’s concrete patio had enabled me to with jumping…

A few years ago my sister Joy, moved to New Mexico. On Saturday that beautiful sister of mine, and I, stood on that very patio, together. Life is funny sometimes. Many things have happened that I never thought I would see, but the full circle moment of that (which I only realized the amazingness of, as we were both standing there) was maybe the most profound and unexpected.

We never know what will happen. I doubt I jumped from the patio’s great height the very first time I stood atop its gleaming surface. Standing there, with Joy, atop my childhood mountain, wasn’t the last time my feet would find themselves grounded there. The patio may be symbolic of something safe and empowering for me, but the courage to toss fear aside and leap had nothing to do with the platform my feet had left. The love of the man who poured it, the consistency of the woman in the attached house, the provision of sisters and the hodge-podge, non-conventional family I have- those are the things that give me the courage to leap, then and now.

At 42 I still take risks, and one day they may feel as small as that jump does now. May this bit of my journey remind me to leap in confidence, with a smile spread wide upon my face…

(Don’t forget to get this month’s wallpaper, listen to this month’s playlist, catch up on the Love Series of the Collective Podcast and subscribe to my monthly newsletter so you get first access to those things and exclusive things I may not share here! ALSO- have you entered to win my Birthday giveaway!?!?!?!)