Since Amanda has been here, I am at once both sorrowed and positively gleeful of how much she really does seem to be like me. I hate that she feels such despair. I sigh at some of the things she so assuredly believes is true about life because I know that she will see things much differently as she gets older. I hate to tell her that when she gets older she will find that its not near as bad as she thought...its far, far WORSE!
There's not one demon behind that rock, Dear Sylvia..there are ten.
Or are there?
It makes me cock my head to the side in deep thought when I think about how Amanda was as a child. She had her own room being the only girl for so many years and was like me as a child with an assortment of dolls and animals she truly believed depended on her care. After years of stepping on matchbox cars and legos, I was delighted to fill my little girl's room with miniature but usable versions of the very tools I used. Tools that I myself coveted of my own mother. By the time I was done, her room was a little homemaker wannabe's dream. She had a doll crib with a satin blanket. She had the cool doll stroller that converted from a baby carriage and into a baby carrier...just like the latest real version I had from Walmart for Zachariah. She had the whole she-bang. Walker, playpen, high chair, you name it, she had it all in one child sized bedroom. Not only did she have everything a little girl could possibly ask for her DOLLS, but she also had the cool Little Tykes Play Kitchen complete with coffee pot and a toaster that popped plastic bread.
As I sit here in my room across from my daughters I am wondering how much my version of this world resembles God's.
So whats with the laundry, Lord? Laundry MUST be a part of your job because I just can't get away from it! What am I supposed to be learning here? That it's just a part of life that our dirty laundry gets mixed in with freshly laundered Island Fresh Gain undies? Are you sitting up there CONTENTED listening to me prattle on and on to myself about my little world like I used to listen to Amanda talking to her tiny plastic babies?
Lie to me, Lord. Don't tell me that it's not near as bad as it seems that it could be worse like I think to say to Amanda.
Tell me that everything is fine. Tell me that it's all good and there's nothing to fear. That there is nothing to be afraid of. Tell me that all I have to do is try to be like you and make toast. Everything is fine.
Wow. I swear I didn't try for it to come out that way.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Peek-a-boo! I see you!
I am mad at myself for not doing what I told myself to do what I needed to do. I have found I'm no better than anyone else when it comes to doing things that are good for me or good for someone else. I wish someone would read this and hold me accountable. Ha, ha. In all this craziness, I find that I do respect that person who is in the mirror, Amanda. You put Michael's song on and wanted me to look at myself and forgive the person who would be staring back at me. I think it's the other way around. I want her to forgive me. One day soon, I hope I will be able to look her in the eye and say, "I am sorry I hurt you. Please forgive me."
We talked today about the signs. All these little flashes I get lately remind me of when I had been away from my own mother for several years and went back for a visit. I found myself in the garage going through some boxes of stuff she didn't know what to do with. The first box had a book in it I recognized from my past. I happened upon that box quite accidentally. I was walking by and out of the corner of my eye saw the familiar but unique binding on my beloved Nancy Drew novel, "Up the Down Staircase". It was the first novel I ever read and I was instantly enraptured by Nancy's adventures. Nancy was my hero. Everything about her was just "SMART". My mother was a Nancy Drew fan and had several of the books to start my collection and I had been very proud that I had first release original copies of the first three books in the series. Now, as I excitedly reached into the box to pull out my long lost friend, it dawned on me how much more valuable the book was now. I started digging through the box and although I know I was looking for the rest of my books, I found myself gleefully pulling out all sorts of mementos from my past. The deeper into the box, the larger and odder the pile of things next to me became. A pile of things that would have looked like junk to a stranger, but was an absolute treasure to me becasue it was a manifestation of everything that made me who I am. Not very much of it was anything the world would have even bothered to stick into a box to save but that piece of hardened dough in the shape of a christmas tree that still had the green sparkles I glued there as a child on it brought a gasp of delight from my chest and made time stand still. While sitting on the dirty floor in that garage I was instantly transported to a world where Santa Claus was real and summer lasted forever.
Now that pile is not something you can really see. Little flashes wonder are coming back to me faster and faster. A part of a song. A line from a book. A quote from a movie. The message of an old TV commercial. In the mess of my present world, when I want to scream out "This can't be my life!!!" I find myself looking across the desk at my daughter. Our conversations about the obvious disaster are peppered with the pop ups of my mind and I find myself laughing out loud at a joke only I truly understand. Or do I? Sometimes I find Amanda laughing too because she saw what I did. A landmark or sign that we both recognized as real. Just as signs for a city while driving on the highway get more frequent the closer you get, perhaps we are seeing signs that are pointing the way home.
I think God has a marvelous sense of humor.
Amanda. I wonder if God has a popcicle stick with a little paper circle glued to the top with a face drawn on each side.
Truth or Lie. Yes or No. Happy or sad?
Perhaps the journey is not even close to as difficult as we make it.
It's pretty basic:)
We talked today about the signs. All these little flashes I get lately remind me of when I had been away from my own mother for several years and went back for a visit. I found myself in the garage going through some boxes of stuff she didn't know what to do with. The first box had a book in it I recognized from my past. I happened upon that box quite accidentally. I was walking by and out of the corner of my eye saw the familiar but unique binding on my beloved Nancy Drew novel, "Up the Down Staircase". It was the first novel I ever read and I was instantly enraptured by Nancy's adventures. Nancy was my hero. Everything about her was just "SMART". My mother was a Nancy Drew fan and had several of the books to start my collection and I had been very proud that I had first release original copies of the first three books in the series. Now, as I excitedly reached into the box to pull out my long lost friend, it dawned on me how much more valuable the book was now. I started digging through the box and although I know I was looking for the rest of my books, I found myself gleefully pulling out all sorts of mementos from my past. The deeper into the box, the larger and odder the pile of things next to me became. A pile of things that would have looked like junk to a stranger, but was an absolute treasure to me becasue it was a manifestation of everything that made me who I am. Not very much of it was anything the world would have even bothered to stick into a box to save but that piece of hardened dough in the shape of a christmas tree that still had the green sparkles I glued there as a child on it brought a gasp of delight from my chest and made time stand still. While sitting on the dirty floor in that garage I was instantly transported to a world where Santa Claus was real and summer lasted forever.
Now that pile is not something you can really see. Little flashes wonder are coming back to me faster and faster. A part of a song. A line from a book. A quote from a movie. The message of an old TV commercial. In the mess of my present world, when I want to scream out "This can't be my life!!!" I find myself looking across the desk at my daughter. Our conversations about the obvious disaster are peppered with the pop ups of my mind and I find myself laughing out loud at a joke only I truly understand. Or do I? Sometimes I find Amanda laughing too because she saw what I did. A landmark or sign that we both recognized as real. Just as signs for a city while driving on the highway get more frequent the closer you get, perhaps we are seeing signs that are pointing the way home.
I think God has a marvelous sense of humor.
Amanda. I wonder if God has a popcicle stick with a little paper circle glued to the top with a face drawn on each side.
Truth or Lie. Yes or No. Happy or sad?
Perhaps the journey is not even close to as difficult as we make it.
It's pretty basic:)
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