As a kid I was surrounded by nature and culture, both of which seized my imagination every waking moment. During that time, any writing I did was consumed in fantastic stories and fairy tales. A while later, when adolescence made life more complicated, my pen was fueled by loneliness, discouragement, and self-consciousness. I found solace in writing. The page was a willing listener and faithful confidant, and unlike some of my high school peers it did not mock my hopes and dreams.
For the ten-plus years since high school I have been busy typing scholarly papers, research reports, and presentation notes. I'm a big-picture thinker. Literature is my oxygen, and ideas are like brain candy. I'm still mourning the end of my university career. I find the 'real' 9-5 world rather cruel and mind-numbing after ten years of feasting at a banquet of rich discovery, limitless knowledge, rigorous discussion, and other heart-palpitating thrills. On the up-side, this lets me reacquaint myself with my old friends, Imagination and Creativity. Now with university finished and behind me, I am free to write about anything. Anything! It feels liberating even to type that word!
Meanwhile, Hardship and Grief have been my companions these last few years. They caused a growth spurt of sorts (complete with growing pains), and I'm a better person for having met them. That said, I'm ready to part ways with those two, at least for a while.
If you've already peeked around my blog, you may have noticed my focus on heavier issues. As John Ruskin observed, "All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness." Maybe I gaze into that darkness a little too much, but for some reason I'm captivated by that moment in time when the human spirit collides with pain and is faced with the question of how to respond. It seems anything of meaning in life stems from these moments.
I'm still captivated by those stories and daydreams of my childhood. I long to be surrounded by nature and culture, myth and adventure, epics and fairy tales, laughter and wonder, and I'm working on bringing more of that to this blog. C. S. Lewis would approve, I'm sure.
I am downright dog-tired. Spent. Enervated. Outta gas. Kaput. K.O. ...Can exhaustion really last months at a time?
The root of my fatigue is grief. I can't really think of a good metaphor right now, but in a way I've come to see my energy like layers of an onion. Long before all the death and illness in my family, I remember times when my outer layers sometimes felt battered and worn and totally out of strength, but at the time I wasn't aware and couldn't appreciate how much resilience I had left inside, closer to my core.
But in 2004 my Dad lost his job (I had never seen him so despondent) and we grew more alarmed at his forgetfulness, not to mention more financially desperate. Feeling repeatedly shocked and alarmed and desperate for months at a time took its toll on me, but that was just the beginning.
Then I was rocked by Dad's seizures, his surgery, his hallucinations and paranoia, and the disease's steady advance towards its most volatile stage, where it hovered for several years. I was newly married, but Scott and I had no chance to experience our newlywed years normally; instead of pouring them into each other, our first years together were entirely poured into my parents. We did so, of course, out of love, concern, and obedience (1 Tim. 5:8). I re-arranged classes so I could spend my days with Dad while Mom worked at her part-time job. Scott spent his free time with Dad so as to give Mom and me a break. Evenings, weekends, and overnights were fair game for crisis calls when Dad had an angry outburst that Mom couldn't handle, or that even put her in physical danger. Dad needed constant engagement and supervision.
Of course no one was to blame for our agonizing circumstances. This was just the way of things. It was a top-heavy load, one that was bound to teeter and crash if we didn't have more helping hands.
That's why I was also responsible for finding help and friendship for my parents. Mom certainly had no time to ask for help, and with Dad always nearby, she had no way of describing her need to anyone over the phone without Dad becoming suspicious. So the task landed squarely on my shoulders. I did it out of love for my parents, and out of desperation for relief in my own caregiving schedule. My requests for help became a regular occurrence, and I could tell when people were getting pretty sick of hearing from me. But, having exhausted community resources already, I had no option but to ask our church, friends and family for help, with a heap of apologies thrown in and a mounting burden of guilt for being so frustratingly dependent on them for our survival. Running out of options--and out of friends--landed a serious blow to my spirit. We came up empty at our most desperate time, when financial disaster lay just around the corner. That's when I felt like I was being smothered by darkness, depression and nothingness. It reminded me of those drowning and covered-in-mud scenes in Jars of Clay's music video for Flood (check it out below). If my spirit felt anything during this time, that was it.
My nerves were also shot by Dad's inability to understand heartbreaking realities, like why his old friends weren't coming around anymore, why Mom needed 'breaks' from him, why he wasn't allowed to drive his car, and why I was sometimes so stressed because my time with him meant I wouldn't get school work done. During my full-time studies, I spent at least five days per week (at six or seven hours per day) trying to keep him happy and occupied--another exhausting endeavor, all the while wondering how I'd finish my classes and thesis.
Before this situation descended on us, I also had no idea how deeply exhausting it was to have to hide one's grief. We were forced to hide our heartache from Dad and just about everyone else most of the time for three years. We smiled out of necessity when most of the time our hearts were heavy and bleeding.
We also suffered through one of the most bizarre obstacles for dementia caregivers: How do you tell a grown person, your own parent no less, when his behavior is inappropriate? You can't discipline him or give a lecture or send him to his room. You can't take privileges away either. We discovered--and professional advice told us too--that you just have to ride it out. In fact, often you have to agree with the outrageous or insulting or dangerous claims made by a person with dementia. To do otherwise would only make him more volatile. We walked on eggshells 24 hours a day for three years, because at any moment he could become angry at us for not "letting" him drive the car (his license had been revoked by the doctor in '06). I actually had to agree with my Dad's enraged comments that whoever was responsible for him not driving a car "had it coming to them". Can you imagine? I can't tell you how often I questioned the sanity of the words I heard myself saying, just so that Dad would eventually calm down to a manageable state again. Each time that I affirmed Dad's awful notions I felt like I had thrown civility to the wind, betrayed my convictions, and sinned in the eyes of God and society. Of course I knew it was merely a survival tactic, and yet every time it happened I felt crushed and disillusioned, questioning why God would ever allow a disease like Alzheimer's exist, why he would let it cruelly turn my Dad from a compassionate, faithful missionary/pastor/chaplain into a dangerous, foul-mouthed stranger.
Nowadays, when Mom and I attend a support group for families of people with early-onset dementia, we tell these same stories and around the table I see the nods and empathetic smiles of people who've been there and know all about the helplessness and absurdity of our daily existence with Dad.
The stress was incomprehensible. Our sleep was regularly interrupted, but on the nights without emergency phone calls my brain still never slept deeply; I had to remain subconsciously alert for the next crisis call, and the next, and the one after that. I bid farewell to my health, and I was often worried--but never surprised--when I buckled under the influence of the latest virus, or when the knots in my stomach felt like they had petrified into permanence, or when my lymph nodes lit on fire. I couldn't simultaneously keep my parents afloat, redeem my school year, and save my immune system on top of it all.
Health is often the first thing caregivers let go. Friends and concerned onlookers kept telling me to take care of myself, take time for myself, do something-anything-to get away from the stress for a while. They meant well, but they didn't realize that when you're dealing with a difficult stage of dementia, especially when your loved one depends on you 24/7, nothing less than chaos and violence would ensue if you ever actually tried to 'get away from it all'. It just wouldn't work. So we plodded onward, thanking people for their concerned suggestions.
Other less sympathetic folks bluntly told us to put Dad into a nursing home. How little they knew! And how little they seemed to care. Did they even wonder whether Dad was actually ready for it? Whether WE were ready for it? Did they not know that the timeline from touring nursing homes to arranging Dad's capacity assessment to sitting on the nursing home wait list could take years? Did they not consider the terror Dad would've felt had he gone there before he was ready? How could we put him, and ourselves, through that?
On the contrary, the folks at our support group surprise me over and over again with their intimate, heart-felt familiarity with our challenges. They've worn themselves into the ground as caregivers, and they too have been on the receiving end of that same, blunt question: Well, why don't you just put her in a home? an acquaintance asked one caregiver husband in our group. But she isn't ready yet! he told this person. Everyone in our group knows the consequences of premature institutionalization. This in-between stage of dementia, when the victim is depended for survival but too independent for nursing care, drains us to the core; it's almost impossible for the caregiver to survive, yet employing a nursing home too soon would be infinitely worse for us and our loved ones.
Despite everything, my energy held up okay, I think, until last year when three important people in my support system died unexpectedly, and when one relative's suicide triggered the suicide attempt of another close relative. Right in the middle of that, of course, was our move to a different city, my dance on eggshells to help Dad through our relocation to the new house, and the all-nighter we pulled while moving so we could attend my uncle's funeral the next morning.
2009 was our year of death, and all the while, of course, we also watched Dad dying bits and pieces at a time. I wanted so badly to hold onto his personality, his memories, the heart of his identity, to protect him from breaking down, but it was like cupping water in my hand and trying desperately to stop it from dripping between my fingers. It couldn't be done. To this day we still watch pieces of my Dad loosen their hold, fall away, and evaporate out of existence. I feel helpless and devastated, like bits of my spirit fall and disappear with him.
I've never been so utterly battle-weary and drained. When Dad was taken from our home to the hospital in March of this year, it was my most heartbreaking day yet. He was so scared and confused. He didn't know they were on their way to get him, but just before they came for him I had watched him hug Mom (who was weeping), telling her how much he loved her. I wept most of the day too, even while trying to calm and comfort him in the emergency room.
Later on, when the hospital had taken over his minute-to-minute caregiving, I thought my nerves would release their tension, but they didn't. They were stretched and bent way out of shape and they seemed frozen that way. Healing has been surprisingly slow and painful since then, almost like the pain you feel in your fingers and toes as they warm up after being exposed to freezing cold temperatures too long.
Back to my inadequate onion metaphor. Each year of this journey has witnessed the removal of another layer, shrinking from the outer layer of surplus energy down to desperation and farther on down to bare survival. By the time Dad left for the hospital in March the core of my resilience hung by a tattered thread. At that time I was finished school and already employed, working for a tough-as-nails manager who actually had two harassment complaints filed against her. Performing under her scrutiny finished what was left of me holding myself together.
This is all so hard for me to articulate, though, without overflowing into a stream of consciousness like this. In some ways I feel like Frodo near the end of his interminable and hard-fought journey, wounded in body and spirit. When you're exhausted beyond words and when nothing will ever be the same again, what is there left to say?
This post was inspired by a conversation in the movie Cars:
Sally: Forty years ago, that interstate down there didn't exist. Lightning McQueen: Really? Sally: Yeah. Back then, cars came across the country a whole different way. Lightning McQueen: How do you mean? Sally: Well, the road didn't cut through the land like that interstate. It moved with the land, it rose, it fell, it curved. Cars didn't drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time.
I've probably witnessed countless subdivisions pop up over the years, and I cringe each time I pass those signs advertising new developments along the suburb-countryside border. All benefits of economic growth aside, I've always seemed to love the country and I'm saddened to see long-time wilderness or agricultural land get eaten up by development.
My Grandma pointed out to me where one major street ended at the edge of her hometown (currently my 'home' town as well) many decades ago when she was a kid. That street has since stretched several more kilometres over old farmland - with homes, apartments, schools, churches, strip-malls, box stores, hospitals, dealerships, and parking lots in tow - before once again meeting country roads and scenery. I often wonder how quaint and cozy our town must have been before its population exploded, swallowing up little hamlets and villages lying in its path. A big part of me wishes it had remained quaint and cozy.
North American sprawl seems to uproot, re-route, flatten out, bulldoze, and pave over everything in its path, its concrete touch painting the landscape grey and lifeless. (Note: Token city parks and playgrounds don't count as 'nature'.)
Now true country-folk, on the other hand, know how to fit themselves and their style of 'development' into and around existing landscapes. The Austrian village of my childhood was just such a place. A stream wound its carefree way down the wooded mountain on its way to a river in the valley. Houses lined roads that accommodated this winding and weaving little stream, and I'll never forget our adventures as we played in the water, following alongside it on our bikes over hill and dale. Perhaps you can imagine just how anticlimactic city playgrounds were to me after moving from rural Austria into Canada's concrete jungles. At least I can be sure my husband and I won't raise our kids in the city if we can help it.
So forget the grid system, cookie-cutter subdivisions, and their glib promises of so-called development! When a municipality incorporates nature's beautifully random designs into its planning and architecture it becomes not only a child's fantasy playground, full of life and endless surprises, but also a more insightful and advanced form of organic "urban" development.
"Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others." — Saint Augustine
There's no doubt each of us defines "need" differently, but Saint Augustine's sentiment can still inspire us to reconsider our 'needs' and 'wants' from day to day. An old conversation about money was recently revived at an online community at which I'm a member, which forced me to further evaluate my take on the matter. The member who originally started the topic wrote:
how & what did your parents teach you about the value of money?
My parents taught me to be responsible, not to put something on credit if we can't already afford it (that's assuming one isn't in a desperate situation with no other option), to treat ourselves once in a while without going overboard, to keep the cheque-book balanced and to pay bills on time, that extravagance is waste (i.e. *our* definition of extravagance, which is still very subjective), to tithe regularly, to be generous in helping others while saving for the future... My Grandpa actually taught me that last point by example too - he owned his own business for many years, and as a result he would often pay people above and beyond their fee for services (i.e. if they did a great job) and did on occasion offer someone a job specifically because he knew that person was in need. :)
However, through my parents' situation of long-term illness and subsequent unemployment over the last three years I've learned a whole *new* batch of lessons about money, possessions, and materialism. It's a new time of growth for me, because it's really the first time I've taken a good, long look at my beliefs on this. My family has recently learned to live without many things that we used to take for granted (e.g. cable tv, vacations and travelling, heat to keep us warm during Canadian winters, renting movies, expensive groceries like cheese and honey, new CDs, going to theatres, eating out at restaurants, and more). Sometimes we weren't able to pay our monthly bills, and during those dark days I had times where I felt as though I was drowning or almost as if I was being squeezed and was running out of oxygen. Very frightening at times. :(
Meanwhile, we heard how wealthier Christians were spending their money and I wondered: If they could just be happy with what they already have, pass up buying that next new whatever, and gift those savings to my parents instead... they have no idea how they could reduce my family's anxiety, restless nights, and tears.
I've been forced to face my own views on spending, and have slowly come to the decision to live with less - not to feel morally superior, but to prevent others from feeling as though they're drowning or running out of air in a situation they cannot escape on their own. Unfortunately these thoughts have taken a long time for me to learn, but I'm glad to have the chance to learn them at all!
Back to the original question, the same member asked us:
how do you view: money - in general, opportunities in which much money is earned, ambition...what's healthy?
Considering everything I've learned over the years, especially through the hand my family has recently been dealt, my answer would have to be:
a) money is a gift and a tool we've been given, which is to be used wisely
b) opportunities to earn money - great! go for it! work hard, earn the big bucks (Schillings, Pounds, Euros, Yen, or whatever the case may be), take what you need, as St. Augustine wrote, and be generous with the rest
c) regarding ambition, if God gives us skills, knowledge, and opportunities to use them - then go for it! Dedicate them to work and to *other* pursuits as well (e.g. volunteering), and keep Love as the primary motivation behind it all.
Gardening has crossed my mind often this winter and spring as I've looked forward to finally growing some fruits and vegetables of my own. I won't be able to dig a garden here at the house, since my parents may be selling it this year, so my husband and I have discussed the idea of a community garden instead. Our city has many community gardens scattered here and there, some that come with a fee and others that can be used free of charge. I'm looking forward to it!
All these thoughts about gardening had me reminiscing about our neighbours in Austria who had one of the most ambitious gardens I've ever seen. I was always in awe of the massive plot beside their house, which consisted of specially-chosen flowers, fruits, and vegetables organized in long rows from the front fence all the way to the end of their back yard. Some rows were even covered with a miniature (about one foot high by one foot wide) wood-framed greenhouse which the husband probably built himself. I aspire to craft my own garden one day that lives up to the standards they set!
I wonder if our neighbour-lady missed the days when her own two boys were still kids, because she really seemed to enjoy having my brother and me around. She babysat us while our parents were out doing church work or visiting friends, and during those evenings I remember her laughing and smiling a lot when we involved her in our games and playtime. She and her husband would also take us for walks through the village or up the mountain behind our homes where they'd teach us about the plants and animals we spotted along the way. My brother and I often ran (hopped, biked, skipped, or climbed over the fence) to her and her husband's place where she would feed us lunch, let us follow her around the house while she cleaned, let us water their garden or help her pick fruit from their trees as she answered our many curious questions about whatever it was we were doing. I miss those carefree days and the lessons we learned from our kind neighbours about living close to the land and understanding the nature that surrounded us...
So, do you have any gardening memories, past or present? What about hopes of creating your own garden one day? :)
“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditures excludes them.” — C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), English author and scholar
My family's disability and unemployment dilemma has forced perpetual growing pains on us over the last three years, and the growth spurt seems to be going strong. The first year challenged my parents to come to accept that mental illness had indeed changed our lives forever. After much struggle they came to accept that unemployment would be be an indefinite reality in Dad's life. Meanwhile, my brother made the decision to sacrifice his own immediate goals in order to financially support my family. All four of us were faced with heavier stress than we had ever experienced, and began the long hard road through depression, fear, conflict, anger, grief, and illness - learning stress-management the hard way.
The second year brought into focus our family's fear of reaching out for help, even to friends and other family members. Our path took us to the verge of emotional breakdown before that line was finally crossed. I'm still scratching my head over it, actually, wondering why anyone in our situation wouldn't immediately seek support from family and friends! Maybe the problem has been passed down to us through our heritage: Families with a Mennonite background come from a tradition of hardship and hard work, and therefore might resist asking for help within family, friends, and church groups because it could be perceived as challenging tradition; it may lead people to allow pride or shame (or both) to prevent them from seeking tangible assistance. Or perhaps the problem is rooted in our political hang-ups: While there is a contingent of Mennonites across North America who espouse social justice ideals, there is also a contingent espousing economically conservative views who are vocal in their distaste for individuals or families who require any kind of social assistance, both formal and informal. This may prevent those in need from asking for help because they fear the ways in which they might be perceived or stigmatized as being lazy, abusers of the system, moochers, or thieves. A third possibility may be a distorted understanding of ‘humility’ and 'self-sacrifice' within our belief system that prevents those in need from asking for help, even in times of mounting distress. People may experience guilt from the act of help-seeking, believing that they must ignore their problems in order to help others. Well, whatever the reason, it's a problem that my family finally overcame last year, albeit painfully and under a heavy sense of defeat and failure. The road to accepting our current situation with grace has been a gradual one.
We are currently in Year Three, and our challenge this year has been to distinguish "need" from "want". We've sifted through our so-called needs, we've sacrificed, we've re-prioritized the usual commodities and self-indulgences that define the Western lifestyle, and we've learned to live on less. Even for a lower-middle class family such as ourselves there are things we can and will give up that will help those who live in extreme poverty. My brother and I have been especially challenged to re-evaluate Scripture's teaching on the lifestyle of charity and giving. We have a more intimate grasp of C.S. Lewis' statement above, that "If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, (...) they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditures excludes them." How terribly counter-culture that sounds, what a distinctly inconvenient, imbalanced, and extreme statement - not unlike Jesus' incitive teachings on love and sacrifice. ;) Lewis' conviction rings true in us regardless of how long or how deeply we may have bought into our culture's ideology of self-indulgence, because our conscience has always known the right and only way to love our neighbour. There's life in the pinch, especially if we choose to live without the extras so that others can have the basics to stay alive.
So, it looks like year three promises to bring another series of difficult, life-changing lessons. I think I'm looking forward to it.
Through several discussions with friends and family I've come to discover another way in which the TCK profile has surfaced yet again in the way I deal with life, or more to the point in the way I deal with change. Change is one of the few constants in a TCK's life, and my experience was no different. My geographical location has changed about 12 times in 28 years. Our proximity to my extended family has changed from being across an ocean from them to being just down the street. I have attended 13 schools, and changed church 'membership' 11 times (not to mention the countless churches I have visited through the years). I made many friends and lost most of them again along the way. Losing my Austrian friends at the age of 10 stripped me of a huge support system, making me feel extremely vulnerable and alone in my new Canadian neighborhood.
Losing one group of friends after another in each successive move was heart-wrenching (except for the rare case in which my 'friends' turned out not to be real friends after all and kind of dropped me when they found someone 'cooler' to hang out with...). So how on earth does a vulnerable child with struggling self-confidence deal with repeated losses such as these?
You learn to let go, and let go ASAP.
I was just telling my cousin last night that every time I had to say good-bye to my friends, my house, my school, church, and neighborhood I felt like they immediately became shadows of my past: Old and passing worlds that were preserved like time capsules in my mind. That's still all they are to me now... slowly fading shadows of both happy and difficult memories. And the only world I've ever really wanted to return to was Austria... that place somehow managed to stamp its permanence onto my heart forever.
What about people? If past worlds become shadows do passing friendships become as ghosts? Well... pretty much. That is, unless some small seed of loyalty compels them to do the work required to maintain a friendship despite geographical distance. Even in the age of the internet most people do not walk down that road with me.
As I mentioned in a previous post, friendships mean the world to me. Having lost so many I know just how valuable they are and so I develop a deep, unwavering loyalty to them. And when the time comes (as it so often does) that we must say good-bye I've learned to grieve as deeply and quickly as possible, release the friendship to join the other shadows of my past, and move on. Given the number of good-byes in a typical TCK's life it's only natural that one would want to move on quickly and efficiently.
What benefits has this survival technique given to many TCKs? We can adapt to change in a flash. Personally, I know how to appreciate the people who are in my life at the moment, and I know how to move on when they're gone. I make the most of my friendships when they're around, and I also know how to thrive when I'm alone. I'm glad when people are in my life, but I'm also not surprised when they disappear. That said, I also never forget the faces of those who showed kindness and loyalty to me while they were in my life, and they remain in my heart forever.
On a whole, these TCK good-byes affect my views of the past, present, and future. I've found myself chasing my past... my childhood in Austria, wanting to return to that place that was so fun, safe, and care-free. I find myself living in the moment, appreciating the people, the places, and all the little things that may never cross my path again. And when I think of the future I see the whole world open to me, I see countless faces yet to meet and countless places yet to live. And with simultaneous grief and excitement I know there will yet be countless good-byes.
Somewhere in Africa there's a little girl who's starving. Her parents have died from AIDS, and she has no one to take care of her. There are hundreds of millions of christians who could easily help her. But they've already given God the tenth they think they owe him, and the next thing they want to buy is worth more to them than her life. One week from today, her lifeless body will lie in the street, completely forgotten. Source
What bothers me is the fact is there are too many Christians who value the typical consumeristic lifestyle and typical western toys (i.e. computers, games, movies, hair and make-up, cars, big houses, multiple houses, vacations, cameras, designer clothing, club memberships, jewelry, gourmet coffee, sweets and junk food, and other sorts of adventures, entertainment, and fun fun fun) over the life of that starving girl in Africa. I've struggled with this immensely, especially since my family's primary breadwinner became an "unemployment" statistic three years ago, since the line between 'want' and 'need' began to blur, and becomes increasingly unrecognizable as time goes on.
Months if not years of not quite being able to pay the bills has really gotten to me. At first we tried to hide it from the world, to pretend as though we weren't really in trouble. It was easy at first to go out with others, pay for the same things they were paying for, and otherwise maintain 'our' standard of living. We wanted to portray that valued Western image of 'having it all together', a world view that has grown increasingly annoying to me over the span of my family's continuing misadventures in the world of financial need. It took a year or so for me to realize that we were clinging to a spoiled, Middle-class sense of entitlement: 'We deserve our current lifestyle because we've worked hard for it and sacrificed a lot along the way. We deserve to keep buying clothes, consuming expensive gourmet drinks at Starbucks or Second Cup, eating out, and going to movies because it's always been this way and we can't imagine anything different. We've been raised with a certain standard of living and we deserve to maintain it, frankly, because we like it. We deserve it because we don't want others thinking we're cheap, unsociable, or (heaven forbid) poor.' ...Does everybody think this way?
But for us the feelings of entitlement didn't stop there. After finally making those initial sacrifices we realized that our situation would get worse if we didn't also sacrifice more basic Middle-class 'rights'. Here's a short-list of things some or all of us have recently given up:
Lifestyle Basics: - basic cable TV - warmth (we're keeping our thermostat set to 15 decrees Celsius this winter; to survive we've brought out blankets, sweaters, long-johns, and hot water bottles) - the dishwasher (we're washing our dishes by hand to see if it saves in water and electricity expenses) - one vehicle (I've become familiar with our public transportation system, while Mom and Dad use the van for work; our car will soon need a repair that we cannot afford) - our regular long distance plan (we use a cheaper plan now, but we're still making fewer long-distance calls) - our dryer (we're air-drying as much as we can) - renting movies (we'll stick to what we already have, what's on non-cable TV, or what we can borrow) - hair cuts (i.e. anything pricier than $15CDN per cut, not a big deal for men but a bigger deal for women whose cuts are normally around $30) - Christmas trees (if it weren't for our Christmas wedding, we would not have had a tree this year, as in previous years) - weekly newspapers - real travel/vacations (for our honeymoon my husband and I rented a car, since my parents' car was dead at the time, and travelled a grand 2 hours east of here) - an apartment for my husband & me (b/c my husband doesn't yet have a job and Mom and Dad can't afford their house on their own, we're all here together making payments which none of us can afford) - our normal social lives (we've had to bow out of events with our church, family, and friends that required money, or where we were required to bring something that required an expense) - concerts and plays (one of my most-loved groups of all time, the Rankin Family, is on their first tour in a very long time and I don't know whether they will ever tour together again, but tickets are $60CDN each, which is still breaking my heart)
Food and Groceries: - cheese - honey - pizza (and other pre-made meals) - meat (most of the time) - bread (if it costs more than a dollar) - 'gourmet' fruits and veggies (e.g. avocados, fresh berries, and any other produce only the fully employed can afford) - Tim Horton's tea/coffee - eating out
Sacrifices on the Horizon: - health insurance - our house - retirement
You know, there are some things about unemployment and debt that leave a lasting, bitter sting. The toll it takes on our social lives is one example. I've had to decline invitations to church events because I could not afford the registration fee, and there is some shame involved in that because it does affect how people view me, whether or not they know about my family's situation. There are times when friends express a need and I feel like I may as well be wearing a big name tag that says "Scrooge" as I tell them that I don't have the money to help them out. I'm afraid I'll be seen as a moocher when asking for rides here and there if our car is out of order. I'm afraid people will be inclined to avoid helping us for fear we will become 'dependent' on them in short order. What's more humiliating is when friends/family, because they know our financial situation, don't tell us about social events or trips they're planning or costly items they've purchased for themselves. Are they trying not to hurt our feelings? Are they trying to elude feelings of guilt for being able to afford these luxuries while we cannot? Why do we get pushed to the margins of their lives when our income is significantly less than theirs? And why, for some people, does money determine whether and how we can spend time building relationships with them, since it's maintaining our relationships with them during these hard times that matters most?
But I can't solely focus on those who are much more comfortable and secure than we are. I think about folks I know who live in subsidized housing around town, people who live in shelters or on the street. I think about the African girl who has no food and will soon become a mortality statistic. Why do we need any of our Middle-class privileges when giving up just a fraction of them would save her life? What rights do we have to anything at all?
Which brings me back to what I've been struggling with lately. Entitlement: Feeling as though I deserve my own apartment, my own vehicle, new clothes, entertainment with church/friends/family, or trips to Europe and other places around the world. Comparisons: Seeing Christians who are rich and wondering why they bother to thank God for their gourmet dinner while that girl in Africa starves to death. Conviction: Wondering if we, even with little work, student debt, and bills hanging over our heads, are any different than the rich?
"No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty-except, of course, books of information. The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better to have not read at all...I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children's story which is only enjoyed by children is a bad children's story." - Of Other Worlds by C. S. Lewis
Do you know that feeling when someone explains an idea that just touches the very essence of who you are, that leaves you feeling as though a timeless truth has just been revealed to you? That's how I feel whenever I read C.S. Lewis' remarks about sustaining a childlike imagination and sense of wonder.
I was blessed to have a healthy childhood, one that was safe, happy and carefree, filled with myths, fairy tales, daydreams, and a fascination with all the natural, transcendental, beautiful, and haunting things that my imagination could possibly entertain. I grew up with European cultural myths which tended to be just as dark and twisted as they were picturesque and enchanting. Important life lessons were always woven into the stories, warning the hearer to heed their wisdom or suffer the fate of their wayward fictional characters. And I was always enraptured by these myths, an experience I still savour although it's difficult to do so as frequently as I'd like with research, textbooks, schedules, budgets, meeting minutes, and other shadows of 'real life' crowding my mind.
"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are marks of childhood and adolescence...When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - Of Other Worlds by C. S. Lewis
Naturally I'm a fan of C.S. Lewis' perspective. I read these quotes and feel embraced by them somehow. I don't mind too much this life as an adult, but there are so many aspects of my childhood I am loath to renounce. Sometimes I just want to be still, bask in simplicity, let my mind wander, and see where my imagination takes me. Is this really too much to ask?
As far back as I can remember I never believed in Santa Claus, but this morning my Mom unearthed a letter that I wrote to Santa as a kid. It was written just after we returned to Canada after living in Europe for a number of years, which is obvious because just about everything I ask for is very clearly stuff that I discovered when I was bombarded with the North American toy industry upon entering this country. I'm guessing that I wrote this letter as a school assignment or something like that.
Anyway, I read it out loud to my parents this morning, and we laughed. So here it is, spelling mistakes included. I hope you enjoy it!
Dear Santa,
My Christmas List
ANY KINED OF Barbie.
Slinky (not plastic slinky)
My little Pony newborn twinns (and other Ponys)
Moondreamers and there House
Rocker Barbie
Barbie or rocker Barbie sticker book
Lady Lovely Locks
Lady Lovely Locks stickerbook
That's it, Pleas writ back, I repeat Please writ back, I repeat 1000 000 times Please writ back!
In your letter that you are going to writ back, please tell me wat you can not send me!
I will be waiting for some of the things for Christmas!
"Do you have issues in your tissues?" This originated as a taunt among my brother and our friends during a group trip one summer. There were, it seemed, some issues that had developed along the two hour drive to our destination. When we arrived at our accommodations someone suggested that we "unpack our baggage before unloading our other baggage". Baggage... bones to pick... issues in our tissues... they all mean the same thing.
For the fun of it I considered calling this blog 'issues in my tissues'. But upon further reflection I realized it could mean one of two things, depending on the way in which the word 'tissues' is interpreted. If the first thing that comes to mind is the 'Kleenex' type of tissue, then the phase could mean issues I cry about - namely, the sob stories, love interests, and soap operas of my life - all of which would make fore a very boring blog. If, rather, 'tissues' is thought of as 'the fibres of my being' then the meaning extends much further to encompass the many issues I'm passionate about, issues of health, psychology, philosophy, ethnicity, culture, history, cuisine, art, spirituality, travel, and more. Suddenly the possibilities seemed endless!
However, I changed my mind about the title of this blog. For some reason I didn't think I could take 'issues in my tissues' too seriously.
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