Sweet tea and Hard work

Most mornings after I drop Isaiah off at school I swing by McDonalds and get a gigantic sweet tea, because I’ve given up Dr. Pepper…again. Don’t smirk, it might stick this time.  Hush.

Anyway, four or five days a week I see roughly the same people and by in large they are exceedingly pleasant. I have so much respect for these incredibly hard working individuals who manage to smile as they serve everyone else all day, every day. I don’t think I would be quite so easy to get along with.

Am I the only one who somehow got the impression at some point that these type of jobs were somehow dishonorable, that the very people on whose shoulders our country is built are somehow less? I’m not exactly sure when I realized that this was a subconscious belief but when I did I was pretty disgusted with myself.

It seems like there’s an attitude that anyone who isn’t wealthy, or god forbid, needs help is somehow a drain on society. Well, we’ve needed help. We need help. Often it’s really hard to admit. It’s hard to know that we can’t just make it work like everyone else seems to be able to.

I’m frustrated by this. I’m frustrated that it seems that worth in our culture is so centered on money and the perception of perfection. We gasp in shock as life after life crumbles to the ground after years of plastered smiles, perfect houses, and perfectly styled name brand clothes. When are we going to get it? When am I going to get it?

I’d really like it if we would all get real but in the mean time I’m just going to work on me. I’m going to work on identifying my underlying beliefs, reinforcing the ones that are beautiful, and rejecting the ones that are ugly.

People have worth. The sweet lady who grinned like I had made her day when I complemented her fuzzy hat as she handed me my change has worth, big time worth. So do I, so do you, period.

Until next time.

Pain, Isolation, and Adoption

I’ve been in an exceedingly bad place lately. Honestly, it’s not really fair to say I “have been” because quite frankly I’m still so there. I’m hurting and angry and confused and I suppose that is nothing new which makes it that much more exhausting.

I’m lonely and I have to acknowledge that at least part of my isolation is my own doing. I had my first panic attack in months a few weeks ago because I made the mistake of acting like I’m not thoroughly broken. I participated in an activity that any mentally healthy person would think nothing of and it just overwhelmed me. I was stuck in public, going dark, and feeling terrified. I was horrible. It was frustrating. I’m so sick of being shattered. The truth of the matter is that, at least to some extent, I isolate myself. I do this partially out of fear, fear of the panic attacks, fear of having to have that conversation one-more-time, fear of the awkward silences when I just don’t do the let’s-talk-about-nothing portion of the conversation. I also do it to avoid the pain. The pain of never ever fitting. The pain of hearing one more freaking “God is so good!” when the eleventy bagillionth person has their life fit nicely into the American middle class ideal. I think “so what is the reverse? If God is so good when he heals your child, gives you your dreams, protects your husband on his trip to XYZ then what is he to me?” Not good.

I’m lonely and I don’t fit. No one knows how to deal with my reality so they just don’t.

I’ve been in a bad place with everything. I’ve been incredibly overwhelmed and wondering if we should continue Damon’s Dance. The fundraising, the application review, the interviews, the requests for check dispersal… it’s a lot and this year I barely managed. I’ve wondered if we are even helping. I’ve wondered if we are doing any good at all. Quite frankly, I’ve just wanted to quit.

Yesterday I got an email from one of our families with new pictures of their son, awaiting them in Korea. The mom had great news about a fundraiser they just had and the pictures were beautiful. Then, we interviewed a new family. I wanted to just sit and listen to their story. They had that intangible something. They talked a lot about their son’s birth mom. They talked about her with such love, gratitude, and adoration. This perspective is certainly not new to me. Two of my favorite parents in the world honor their son’s birth mom similarly but I don’t think I had really stopped to consider the difficulty of this choice and I was deeply moved to hear this couple speak about this person they now consider a part of their family.

Then today I watched a show that was supposed to be about a weight loss journey. It turned out to be a lot more. The young woman who was the subject was adopted at age two. Her birth mother chose adoption for her because she was homeless and made the agonizing decision that the best choice for this child she loved was to be with someone else.

… can you imagine?

At one point in the show the young woman got to travel to meet her birth mother. She approached her with such love and gratitude. They walked the streets of her birth country and the woman’s birth mother showed her the shack where they use to live. I was so incredibly humbled. I was deeply deeply moved. I was reminded that this is quite simply not about me. Not at all. Not even kind of. This is about them. This is about the babies, the kids, the moms, the dads, the brothers, the sisters. It’s about them.

Life is so hard. Every day is full of pain. I think the only way I’m going to survive is to find a way to focus out. To poor everything out. To give because I want to.

How ironic.

Until next time with pain and love…