Personal History - Stress and Fear and Their Lingering Effects

What is the most stressful experience you ever lived through?

Pregnancy and childbirth - and yes, some of you might be thinking, "Oh, but it's such a beautiful time" or "I felt terrific, empowered, etc."

Yes, and I felt those things too. Some of the time.

But when you're trying to make a family work under poverty conditions, those good feelings really don't last long. And then you feel guilty that everyone else is enjoying pregnancy, and you're not, and you might be hurting the baby because you're not.

And then you're really not enjoying yourself.

Because, from where I was at at the time, it was uncertain, and stressful, and frightening, and inconvenient, and I felt like a beluga whale instead of a woman.

You know what got me through it?

God, a good and reassuring husband and family, and warm showers and journals.

I can't even re-read those journals today. I tried. Brings it all back. But I still love showers.


What is the scariest thing that ever happened to you?

The movie 'Jaws'. When I was six.

No six-year-old should see that movie. I don't care what the rating says. We watched it again this weekend, and it still made me jump. And ever more determined never to swim in the ocean or any other body of water I can't see into. And logically I know the statistics - more likely to be struck by lightning or get into a car accident than killed by a shark.

My chances are even slimmer than that - because I'm never going in the ocean in the first place.

I've never been in the ocean any deeper than my ankles, and I never plan to. If I ever am on accident, I am prepared as possible - I know how to smack a shark in the snout when attacked, and how to make myself look less like a seal, and...

Well, if the worst happens, I can always die...just in case my brain ever tries to resurrect those shark attack dreams. I'll probably just die. Jump headfirst in its mouth, or something like that. Who wants to live through something like that?

Personal History - Choices and Influences

What were the hardest choices you ever had to make?

Trump vs. Clinton...an incredibly hard and complicated choice.

What person really changed the course of your life by something he/she did?

My sister-in-law Sarah Eden, and I don't think I've ever mentioned it to her, or anyone really.

I always wanted to write, ever since I was a small child, and I was just about to give up on writing, because I didn't feel that the climate of the culture would accept anything I wrote. I don't do 'edgy and gritty' very well, and everything I saw seemed to be going in that direction.

After Sarah married my brother, she started writing these historical romance novels, and she started succeeding at it, in a big way.

Her example gave me a lot of encouragement and hope that I could be myself, and still find success and fulfillment in the public sphere as a writer, and that it was okay to even call myself a writer, which I had a hard time doing that before.

In that same vein, Stephanie Meyer as well. Her story 'Twilight', while maybe not technically the best story ever written, spoke to me emotionally very deeply in a critical way I'd never been able to tap into before. I left the movie in a daze, read the book (all the books), and proceeded to write my own novel, 'Sanctuary'. It wasn't the only input I used on that novel, but those two experiences were the catalyst for me.

And of course, I have to mention my mother. Her influence was and continues to be transformative for me. Glad to still have her around, as of this writing, and (hopefully) for a long time to come.

Do you remember any advice or comments that had a big impact on how you lived your life?

Don't remember anything in detail, but there's been a lot of it in my life.

I'm very into self-help books, talks, seminars - read and listen to them all the time, and I internalize a lot of it. I also do a lot of scriptural and religious reading, and that impacts me daily in a lot of little ways.

If you could change something about yourself, what would it be?

Eat less sugar - I just feel better when I reel it in. Working on that right now, in fact.

Personal History - The 'Friend' Conundrum

Name a good friend you have known the longest. How many years have you been friends?

Now, this question is hard for me.

Not because I don't have friends. I have numerous friends and acquaintances I'm very fond of.

But in another sense, I don't have 'good friends'.

Not in the sense like, someone who knows me inside and out and would do anything for me.

I don't have those types of friends, and I don't know why. I have some theories, but I don't know for sure. Might never really know.

The Quiet Child
 

As a young child, I always felt separate from other people in some way. I spent a lot of time alone, having whole conversations that I knew were in my mind, but when it came to having real conversations with real people, there was a sort of disconnect for me. They were the quantum physics beneath the order of the visible universe, slippery and unpredictable. I wanted everything ordered.

I could talk to anyone in my home about anything, and I did. But at school, at church, anywhere outside my home - silence. The thought of sharing anything was too stressful, since I didn't really know them, or how they would react. So I was the great Stone Face in public. A very, very solitary child.

I didn't like it. I wanted to talk as easily as everyone else seemed to. They were making friends, and I could not. This was a problem I spent a lot of time pondering.

First of all, it made me very vulnerable to bullies - I was targeted from a very early age. It also made me vulnerable to people choosing me as their friends, whom I didn't really want to befriend, but who I would cling to because the alternative of no friends was more terrible.

Second, I did want to get to know people better, but I felt so painfully aware of my inability to converse that it was easier not to. Mentally, I lived in a black box I could not break myself out of, and I knew if I stayed there, I would probably harm myself.

Songbird

So I got desperate, and I joined the school choir in middle school.

I'd sung in church and on the radio long enough to know I had a good voice. I had a good enough voice that I could audition for the advanced choirs, and get in. So I sang my heart out, and it helped. I faced the frightening prospect of singing in front of people, and got through that terror and embarrassment.  I even had people who knew my name, and would say something to me now and again, like real friends. Now I could perform, but my singing voice wasn't my speaking voice. I couldn't exactly sing in class.

I spoke so infrequently, in fact, that the sound of my own voice in my ears surprised me, and I would retreat again when called upon to speak, because I didn't recognize these sounds in this environment.

This continued clear up through the middle of high school, when I moved to Maryland - again, ripping up roots and starting all over again. So, so hard for me to do that, but we did it every few years. My dad liked moving.

Drama Queen

I had to do something even more desperate next - I joined drama class in my last two years of high school.

Drama wasn't singing - it was talking, and conversing in a controlled, scripted way. I thrived on that as well. The people in drama weren't afraid to talk, and they weren't formal about it, so I started making friends with people I really liked. I thought I'd finally conquered my little black box.

But no...

Drama became the only class where I talked - I still couldn't make friends or talk in any other class, to my eternal frustration. This led me to believe that the only place I could be 'normal' was in a drama environment, so I decided to become an actress.

Long Letters from the Edge

When I moved to New York, my friends at home wanted to write to me, so I wrote lots of letters, to my family and my friends...anyone who would write to me. This felt much more comfortable to me, because I could craft what I wanted to say, and sound so much more intelligent and witty than I did in a face-to-face or phone conversation, where I couldn't control what was happening so much.

The problem with letters was that no one wrote as much as I did, or in such detail. So soon they would taper off, with their apologies that they were terrible at writing, and I was alone again.

I didn't stop writing letters though. I met and married my husband through letters. I had to quit drama eventually though, because I didn't like people staring at me, and I was getting called upon to do improv work, which I hated. If I couldn't get scripted work AND control that script, I didn't want any part of it.

The Internet Introvert

Then the Internet plodded by, and I jumped on eagerly. Social media? That's for me, boy! I made friends like crazy - all I had to do was be witty and nice in short posts, and friends flocked to me. Many friends were even people I'd never met in real life, and still have never met to this day. It was exhilarating!


But not enough. There's a different, more robust energy to talking in person with someone, but it's these interactions that are much harder to manage for me. Again, pieces of the puzzle were missing.


Today

Probably my mother and my husband are my best and longest friends - my mother for my entire life, and my husband for about a quarter of a century now. I talk more at home than I do out of my home, and more online than I do in real life, although now small talk no longer holds the same terror for me it once did.  At my work and at church, I'm still mostly silent, and I still feel guilty about that somewhat, though I don't need to talk on a regular basis. Church is a little bit better than work.


Church and work people know a lot of minutia about me, and online people know some too. My family knows more still. But my journals probably know more than that, and I don't even write everything down. I still keep a piece of myself, to myself, and only God really knows that part.

Phone calls still give me tiny anxiety attacks, and I tend to avoid them whenever I can - I still write down an outline of how I want the call to go, just to avoid those long pauses, and I still tend to rush right over people as I talk, but I'm working on that.

Talking in person can be fun, but very wearing, so I still mostly write.

Bosom Friends

I loved the movie "Anne of Green Gables" (the first one) for the relationship Anne had with Diana Barry. I tried to have relationships like that, but I never felt able to. There was always something inside that was in the way.

Honestly, I don't know if the problem is other people or me. It has to be me - other people are able to do it, and I don't know how they do it, any more than I know how my mother is able to sit down on a bus next to a total stranger, and somehow they end up talking like they're the world's oldest friends. That's a super power I will probably never have.

But I'll keep trying - I don't believe in the inevitability of any genetic-or-otherwise condition anymore.

Personal History - My Take on Politics

Do you remember your family discussing world events and politics?

I don't remember any family discussions around politics as a kid, but my second grade teacher conducted a mock election for president. She wrote 'Gerald Ford' on one side of the chalkboard, and 'Jimmy Carter' on the other side of the chalkboard, and we were supposed to pick one of these names.

I didn't know either one of these names, so I picked Gerald Ford.

Jimmy Carter won that election, and also the actual election, and I knew even back then that I was out of step with what was happening in politics, and I didn't really care.

How would you describe yourself politically? Are you conservative or liberal, and why?

My family was very conservative, so I sort of ended up as a conservative by osmosis, but that didn't mean I wasn't drawn to more liberal ideas from time to time.

As a teenager, a lot of the singers I listened to on the radio had more progressive and liberal themes, and these came out in their songs. Once I was listening to a song on the radio by Sting (how I loved that man!), and my father heard it and got angry, and I got a lecture on how what he was singing about was stupid. I didn't think it was stupid - what was wrong with singing about the Russians and world peace? It became one more of many wedges between us.


Today, the best way I could describe myself politically is as a centrist - I identify as neither Republican, nor Democrat. Looked into Libertarian, but I'm not that either. Too extreme. I'm right in the middle of all of these organized forces, and so I am adequately represented by exactly nobody.

There's only one public figure who even comes close to how I feel most of the time politically. His name is Arthur Brooks, and he used to be the president of a conservative think tank in Washington called AEI.

This TED talk helped me survive the last presidential election with some sort measure of hope, that maybe I wasn't the only person in the world who was centrally caught between gigantic, cataclysmic political forces in the world - the Clinton/Trump election was a year-long ordeal for me, and every election just feels like it's getting worse.

I read Arthur Brooks' book, Compassionate Conservativism. Loved it. I listen to his podcast now, and when and if he ever gets a job at a university, I would be sorely tempted to move there and take all his classes.

I don't like politics, anymore than my grandmother Lora did.

My grandmother lived during World War II, and wanted to do her bit for the war. She and the local Scouts in her area once collected newspapers for the war. They brought them to a ship with great enthusiasm, and stood and waved as the ship left the port with all of their hard work.

She and the Scouts continued to watch as the ship took their newspapers out to sea...dumped all the newspapers into the sea...and then returned to port for more newspapers.

She never trusted the government one inch after that experience, and neither do I.

Personal History - The Onward March of Technology

What would you consider the most important inventions you've encountered during your lifetime?

The Color TV

The first television I remember looked like this, and only showed everything in black and white. If the picture got fuzzy, you had to move the antenna around, sometimes stretching out your own body as far as you could reach...and as soon as the picture got better, your brother said, "There!" and you had to stay in whatever position you ended up in so everyone could watch TV.

Adding color was like Dorothy stepping into Oz for the first time. The world was never the same.

The VCR

For years and years, I had to time my TV watching with the TV Guide (anyone remember TV Guide?) in order not to miss my favorite shows, such as Charlie Brown Christmas. The broadcasters played it only once every year, and if you missed it, you were out of luck until next year.

We weren't the first ones to get a VCR, but we were likely the most grateful. My father went through a phase of blasting through sweepstakes, and he enlisted every kid who could to help him write out entries for these contests. I was particularly good at this skill, and even entered some of my own - won some hair care products and stuff. Still, Dad won a new VCR, when VCRs cost hundreds of dollars.

He went out and immediately started buying VCR tapes, and recording everything he could get his hands on - practically everything on television. We had hundreds of these by the time he was done, and I still have some of his recordings today, even though I have no VCR to play them on anymore.

But once we had a VCR, I never missed the Charlie Brown Christmas special ever again.

The DVD

Before DVDs, there was this thing called rewinding. If you liked a song, and wanted to listen to it again, you had to rewind the tape, or rewind the VCR to get back to what you wanted to see. Sometimes you had a counter, where you could write down where the show started and ended, and rewind to that point.

With songs, you just had to guess...and sometimes the machine ate the tape, and you'd get tape streaming out and getting tangled, and then you had to put your finger or a pencil in the tape, and hopefully wind it all back in and straight again.

DVDs had this futuristic look that was so compelling - as a teenager, I went into a music store and saw them in person for the first time. I would just hold them up to the light, and watch the rainbow reflections on the back, or see my own reflection. Couldn't afford them at that point - DVD players cost over a thousand dollars then.

After a few years, the price came down to where we could afford a player, and then rewinding was gone - heaven! How much of my life had been wasted in rewinding! Never again!

The Internet

Email became a thing in my life a little bit after the 1990s - then AOL and all its wonders. Dad bought our home computer about the same time, and tried to teach us all how to program - boring! Though I did kick myself a little later, but then or now, programming would be just boring.

The Internet has changed my life, probably more dramatically than most other technological changes. I worked online for several years, with a couple of different companies now. Facebook is a terrific way to stay in touch with family far away. I don't get newspapers thrown at my house anymore, and hardly anyone mails me letters anymore, saving thousands upon millions of trees. I was first published as a writer online.

I'm also probably more ADD than I was before, thanks to online.

Heated Seats in Cars

We bought a Volkswagon once...only once. Terrible car, but it did have one redeeming feature - heated seats.

Oh, how I loved cranking up the seats on those early mornings running the kids to their seminary classes.

Air Conditioning

Live in Texas would be impossible without it.

Love it love it love it - every summer.

Yes, I do love it so much I would marry it. If A/C were a person, he would be Benedict Cumberbatch meets the Fonz.


Amazon

My home away from home online - the website that makes it possible for me to avoid the mall entirely at Christmastime - a blessing and a godsend.

Amazon Kindle reader

A library in a box I can carry in my purse - such a beautiful thing!

Penicillin and pitocin

It is with some grudging respect that I make this nod to medical technology, but I would not be alive or human today without either of these drugs.

The penicillin got me through several infections, as well as a hospital infection that I picked up after the birth of my oldest girl.

The pitocin kept me alive after the hemorrhaging I went through after my youngest girl's birth. That was one icky experience, and the pitocin hurt worse than delivering my little girl - but I nod my head in thanks.

Personal History - A History of Close Calls, or When I Almost Never Died

Have you ever been the victim of a crime?


I was driving home from dropping off my husband at work in Washington, DC; we lived in Maryland at the time. I had three small children in car seats in the back of our minivan. The road is largely empty because rush hour is over.

All at once, a purple van pulls in front of me, super-close. I have to hit my brakes, harder and faster than I've ever hit them before, just to keep from rear-ending this purple van. I'm moving to the left to get around him, but he's moving in front of me as well, also hitting his brakes, like he wants me to hit him.

I'd never experienced anything this before. In a few seconds, I'm stopped on the side of the road, this purple van a little bit in front of me, also stopped.

A voice in my head fairly yelled at me, only one word. "Go!"

I obeyed the voice instantly. I didn't know what those people wanted. I wasn't sure if I'd hit them, but as soon as they were stopped, I took off. Got right back on the road and drove, getting closer to some other cars so there would be witnesses to whatever happened next.

The purple van, with tinted windows so I couldn't see anyone inside, also got back on the road. Drove right past me, and kept going, like nothing had happened.

I don't know what might have happened to me, or my kids, or my car that day. Just glad it didn't. It did provide great fodder for my book, though - a similar incident plagued my main character - but with much more dramatic results, of course.

Have you ever been in a serious accident?

All my accidents were serious - all three of them - but only seriously disabling to my ego. Never anything else. They all happened within nine months of each other. I thought I was jinxed.

The first one, I went to make a U-turn from the middle lane, right in front of another car I didn't know was there. That was the scariest one too - my kids were in the back of the car at the time. Fortunately, they were all right, but we sustained some body damage, and our insurance took a hit.

The second one hurt the most, one month later - got rear-ended in the rain by an uninsured driver. Well, he had insurance, but they weren't about to pay me anything, so he might as well have been uninsured. Had a tiny bit of whiplash headache from that one. He only hit me at about 20mph. Again, my insurance blamed me and we paid.

The third time was only three months after that. I was pulling out of the parking lot at the library, and got clipped by someone passing by me. Again, the terrible sinking feeling of 'where's my insurance and license? How much is this going to cost?" I scratched the paint on their car, they took out my rear light. The scratch on their car cost my insurance $600, and cost me my insurance.

I didn't drive for about a year after that, until we switched insurance companies and I got insured again. Been totally clean ever since.

Has anyone ever saved your life?

When I was 12, I went on a big trip with all the young people from my church - a hike through the Zion Narrows in Utah. It's only 13 miles, they said. I'll be fun, they said.

It wasn't fun, clinging to a small ledge next to a waterfall, unable to move forward, all alone in a very unforgiving wilderness. My brother and another adult leader came along in the nick of time. Never in my life had I been so happy to see him, before or since.

Have you ever been hospitalized? If so, what for?

When I was seven years old, my kidneys nearly shut down. Peeing blood is, apparently, not normal, and neither is that constant pain in the back.

I had to stand inside a big trash bag while the doctors performed tests. Sticking tubes in me, and standing next to large machines was never my favorite activity.


I learned that drinking water on a regular basis was not an optional thing. I almost never ate vegetables back then, so my diet was completely devoid of water, and my kidneys didn't like it. If it meant staying out of the hospital, I was all over that. Now I drink tons of water and veggie juice and eat veggies whenever possible - have for years.

Have you ever had surgery?

When I got a job in Seattle, Washington around age 21, I splurged on a gym membership, which was so exciting. I could swim, I could look at the weight machines and wonder what they were for, I could run on that treadmill and feel like a million bucks until it got super-boring.

When I showered, I got another bonus - plantar warts.

Yeah, no one ever told me that there was fungus in the locker room showers, and I needed to wear water shoes in such situations. That happy little fungus was all over my bare virgin flesh.

So the warts grew...and they grew enthusiastically...until I could no longer walk without limping. It was like tiny nails that grew into bigger nails, being driven into the nerves of my feet. When I had to wear crutches in the office, my boss recommended a foot doctor to me.

A month later, I treated myself again to a bout of foot surgery. There were ten plantar warts on both of my feet that needed to be removed, and the doctor did so swiftly. I was awake the entire time, and not so crazy about that part, but anything was worth the relief at that point.

The surgery worked. The doctor warned me that it might not, and today, there's still one tiny dormant plantar wart on the bottom of one foot, but it's never grown any larger in the last 20 years and doesn't hurt at all, so I don't mind it. Just glad they're gone.

Personal History - The Beams in My Eyes

Do you have any bad habits now or in the past?

Oh man...these are hard to admit to...but since the online world tends to gloss over those things that are negative, it's important that my descendants understand that I was not (GASP!) perfect.

No one ever thinks that anyone with a bust in marble, like Thomas Jefferson, might have ever had a bad habit of picking his nose or picking at scars...but let's face it. He probably did, and it didn't make him any less serviceable to humanity or history as a result.

Fortunately, the really bad habits (like cheating, abusive ways of communicating, stealing, or violence) I've been able to largely steer clear of, thanks to the influence of my family and my religion - although there were those grapes in the grocery store when I was five...they just looked so good...

So it's time to face (sigh) at least of short list of my own personal failings, some of which are past, and some of which I still struggle with.

Hygiene issues

This took some doing to learn, as it probably does for most people. I was a wild child, and the wonders of soap and deodorant and toothpaste took some time to get used to and really consistent with . If I've ever offended anyone in this regard, I officially, publicly apologize now. I'm pretty sure I probably have, although most people will never tell you if this happens (including me).

It took a loved one (i.e. hubby, who has the nose of a bloodhound) who gently made some corrections that were greatly needed, and (I hope) this one is no longer a problem.

Irresponsible Consumption of Sugar

It's my own personal theory that the body has a lifetime tolerance for sugar, and I probably exceeded mine someone in my mid-20s.

As a young child, it was not uncommon for me to take off for the local 7-11 whenever I had even a little bit of money, buy three candy bars, or three of those sugar-crusted lemon or chocolate pies (never the ones with any kind of real fruit in them, ironically), and polish them off before I even got home.

I was raised on pasta, pizza and potatoes almost exclusively, again until my mid-20s. I attempted Twinkie vegetarianism as a new college student, and the freshman 25 weren't far behind. Pretty much, I'm lucky to be alive at all anymore, and my tolerance for such indulgence is near zero now.

Eating for Many People instead of One 

Who needs pregnancy? Portion sizes? What's that? (sigh)

Still paying for that one, even today.

Toxic Comparisons

The Internet makes this habit super-easy. Can't do a back flip? In a few seconds, I can find small children doing flips on their parents' hands and feet, practically since they were a fetus.

Learning to love myself as I am? Radical idea, but one that still isn't fully realized.

Disaster-izing

My brain is a past master of this one - my most common dream is my brain dropping me into a disaster scenario and then standing back and saying, "Get out of THAT one, if you can!"

While I'm awake, and if someone goes even slightly off-plan, especially when spouse or children are for some reason mysteriously out of contact, it's really hard to keep my imagination out of the ditch with their broken and bleeding bodies, which don't actually exist...

Lack of Focus (Especially Online Addiction)

Facebook! So amazing - now I can keep track of EVERYONE, all at the same time! Wait - what was that? A video about cats? Awwwwwwwww...now, how did I lose the last three hours when I only needed a phone number?

Worrying about what other people think of me

This is completely not my business, yet I still worry about it. Still, getting better than I was as time goes on.

Soap Operas and Reality TV

It all started with The Young and the Restless in 1982, when Michael Damien languished in a hospital bed, suffering from some sort of uncomfortable-but-temporary terminal disease of some kind, and I was hooked for a time. It wasn't until I caught myself, literally in a muumuu with cold cream on my face and curlers in my hair, vacuuming and screaming at some stupid character that I saw my destiny, and abandoned soap operas.

It was only a matter of time, though, until binge-watching was technologically possible, and then The Biggest Loser and American Idol and Hoarders became a thing for a time. Didn't get into any others unless I found myself imprisoned in some waiting room or another, but a few of them caught my attention much more than prudence allowed.

Binge-Watching and Binge-Reading

Internet plus Netflix plus Korean dramas is a potent combination, let me tell you.

But not only that - I can lose sleep over books. Harry Potter and Stephen King shot my sleep schedule into little pieces more than a few times.

Lecturing

I have dreamed of starting my own YouTube channel one day, passing on every lecture that I wanted to give my children, and then just let the poor kids look up any particular topic they cared to, just so they could get a break from me.

Their father is worse though, so there's no escaping it entirely...

Lack of Sleep

Working desperately on this one, but my mind doesn't seem to come to life until 7pm. Either that, or my work takes so long, and I'm so happy to spend some time on my actual interests, that I'm just like the kid who bucks at going to bed early, but there's no more adults to stop me. 

Multi-Tasking

Not a real thing - not a good thing either. Still, employers ask for it, and still I try to do it. It feels productive, even though in my mind I know it really isn't. I'm able to focus when there's a deadline, but without one, it gets much harder.

Indecisiveness

So many goals, so little time. Again, it's easy to blame the Internet for this one, but really, it's all me.

Not paying attention to finances

I was in charge of the family budget for awhile. I am not anymore. There you go.

Leaving the lights on

This habit is a good one - saving energy and all that. It's a pet peeve of mine, however, to walk into a dark room on a sunny day. So I tend to leave them on.

Breaking promises to myself

If I could wave a magic wand, and remove any of these immediately and never revisit it ever again, it would be this one. Such a toxic habit, and again, doing my level best to end this one. Not being able to trust your own word to yourself is a terrible thing.

Arguing in front of the kids

This one was tragic, especially when they were little, but their papa and I had passionately-held beliefs and ways of doing things that often clashed, and the kids would run and hide, thinking their world was about to blow up. Another habit I would love to do over again.

Saying 'yes' to everything

Come to a wedding, or a vacation, where toxic family drama is liable to erupt at any time? No.
Come to this social function where you know no one? No.
Do this for someone who really should do it themselves? No.

See? I'm getting better! 

Forgetting names

I teach a Sunday School class every week, and have for years. Still, I can't remember the names of people whose faces I could never forget unless I got Alzheimer's. For some reason, the names just won't stick...sometimes people I have known for literally decades.

(sigh)

Compulsive lying

I think I got into the habit of this one as an actress; I found it really difficult to separate stage life from real life sometimes, and making up stuff just became second nature.

Not acting anymore, and not lying anymore either. This one's just so, so destructive I couldn't keep it going and have any stability at all.

**

Do you hate me now? I don't.

I have a lot of good qualities as well, believe it or not, and it's okay for me to be working on these things. Perfection is a long time coming, and regardless of how I mess up, I always do my best at the time.

Pretty much everybody does.

Personal History - I've Got to Move It Move It...

What did you do regularly for exercise? As a child? As an adult?

Yoga

I've done yoga before I knew what yoga was, so other than walking, that's been the exercise that I've stayed with longer than any other.

As a kid, I got into the weird habit of laying on the floor while watching TV, and then rolling up and pointing my toes at the ceiling.

Had no idea it was a shoulder stand pose. I just liked how it felt, and I would watch TV that way, while pointing my toes or pretending to walk on the ceiling.

Later on, I noticed that my stomach muscles were very flat - more so than my brothers, who didn't do this, and I felt very proud of myself.

Mostly I've done Hatha Yoga, off and on. I love Rodney Yee's workout - even when I can't do them, I'll just watch him. He's amazing.

20-Minute Workout

As a teenager in the 80's, there was all that Jane Fonda stuff going on...and also something called the Twenty Minute Workout, which I did whenever it came on, whenever I could catch it on TV.

I sweat like a monkey in the jungle during this workout, and the constant pounding of it hurt sometimes, but I did it anyway. Had a young body back then that took a beating from me pretty regularly.

And I could never figure out why my brothers would come and find me...and then just sit and watch and not work out...such a mystery.

Dance

I loved dancing always, even though I was never very good at it. I had enough rhythm to get by, but I never could do the acrobatic stuff that I so longed to do. But I sure would try.

I dreamed of dance lessons, and becoming a ballerina and dancing with Baryshnikov one day. Never did it get through my head what I would have to give up to do it - i.e. television and junk food. Just too great a sacrifice.

I tried ballet, but quit very quickly. In college, I tried tap, which was a lot of fun, and modern dance, which confused me.

Later there was hip-hop and poplocking to try. My oldest girl got very good at poplocking.

I even tried bellydancing and hula. Those are a lot harder than they look, and I felt a little embarrassed to practice them in public, so practicing didn't happen all that often.

Tumbling

A gymnast was something else I wanted to be - Nadia Comeneche was such an inspiration in the Olympics in 1980. Again, something I had neither the discipline, nor the money to pursue.

I took a local community center tumbling class once. I could do cartwheels and round-offs, but simple forward rolls made me sick to my stomach.

Martial Arts

I don't know why I keep aiming for things I have no business doing - but this one was there too. Loved everything about Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, and would walk by the local karate dojo near my house with great longing. Eventually my brother got to take classes, and he developed some proficiency of his own - even taking on six guys who jumped him while coming home from a lawnmower job once.

So, once I got myself in some sort of physical condition where I thought I could survive it, I signed myself up for Tae Kwon Do...as a 44-year-old woman. Crazy.

It was a life-changing experience, for good and bad, in a lot of ways. After two years of practice, I did get my first-degree black belt, but right afterwards I struggled for a sense of the direction I was going in, and I lapsed in my practice. I developed sore shoulders that eventually turned to frozen shoulders, and had to stop at that point.

Today, four years later, I'm pretty much back to where I was before I started taking classes, but a little wiser than I was then.

Walking

I can walk, pretty much forever. If the area I'm walking in is pretty or interesting, I especially have a lot of stamina. While going to school in New York City, I would regularly walk up and down the length of Manhattan, from the Statue of Liberty to about 72nd Street where I lived. Spent a lot of time in Central Park, walking around the reservoir. Just loved the quiet, and the time to think about things.


Today

At this point in my life, I'm interested in many different areas. I do a program called GymnasticsBodies online, for bodyweight exercises. I'm hoping to develop myself back to the point where I can take martial arts again, without injuring myself anymore.

My shoulders have recovered, and I'm working on developing my joints so they can handle it. I might not return to Tae Kwon Do, but instead may take Tai Chi or Krav Maga or judo instead. I like the idea of the circular martial arts over the more linear ones.

I also walk occasionally, and I still do my yoga asana pretty much every night. It stretches me out for sleep when my body wants to cramp up from the day's exertions.

And I'm not against the random hula or belly-dance breaking out when something good plays on YouTube...though I might shut the door. Too earthshaking for the whole world to see. :-)

Personal History - A Chicken Pox Upon You (and Me)

Did you have any of the childhood diseases?

When I was a kid, there were shots for things that kids get...so I got my measles, my mumps, and my rubella. I never had to deal with any of those, and no one I knew ever did either. They didn't exist to me, and I never knew really what they were until I was an adult, and people stopped getting shots, and these diseases started to reappear in some people.

Once I saw a YouTube video of a small child with whooping cough, and whether or not to vaccinate my kids was no longer a question I seriously considered. They got them all.

But...the chicken pox vaccine...the varicella vaccine...did not exist yet when I was a kid.

When someone got the chicken pox, your parents did the responsible thing, and exposed you to it right away. Because getting it as a child was infinitely preferable to getting it as an adult.

We were living on Quince Street at the time, and our friends the Shirts got the chicken pox from somewhere.

What did my mother do? She sent us to go play with them. Not that we needed any encouragement - she didn't even have to announce the reasons, probably.

We went to play with the boys, who had a few spots at the time and a light fever. We didn't care. We were kids.

Then my brothers got it. Both of them down for the count.

I couldn't believe my great good fortune. They were sick, laid up in bed...and I was immune. I felt bulletproof. I teased them about being sick. My mother took me to the store, and for once, I got to pick out the cereal for breakfast. Anything I wanted. It was a dream I'd never dare imagine would come true.

I picked out the Booberry Ghost Puffs - the ones my brothers would never pick. They were always getting Count Chocula or Frankenberry or something like that. For once in my life, I didn't have to fight my brothers to get what I wanted.

That night, I was taking a bath, and my mother walked in to sit by the tub.

I heard her say, "Uh-oh!"

I had it on my back. Not as bulletproof as I hoped.

My brothers and I spent about a week or two in quarantine - apparently we didn't have any other friends that needed infecting, and we were too sick for school. Sores all over us, itching, fevers. We discovered for ourselves that calamine lotion was a complete rip-off; didn't work at all.

And then we recovered and were fine.

Recently I found my mother's journal she kept during that period, and she said that my father went away when that happened so that he wouldn't be exposed. I was surprised, and searched my memories, but I couldn't remember seeing him at all during that time. Apparently, my dad was never exposed as a child, so whenever it happened as an adult, he was at risk, and had to stay away from any outbreak himself.

Shingles

I wish I could say that was the end of the story...but once you've had chicken pox, it's not over. The virus lays dormant in your body, waiting to revisit you at the worst, most stressful possible time, unless you get the shingles shot, which I still need to do at some point here.

But to this point, I haven't.

When I was in my early twenties, during a period of time when I was financially bankrupt (literally), morally spent and once again forced to live with my parents in order to survive, I got shingles. Here's approximately what it looked like:

Mine was a line of blisters that extended from the center of my spine, clear around to right underneath my right breast...and I'd never experienced such pain in my life. A constant burning and itching that wouldn't even let up to let me sleep.

Thankfully, by this time the Internet also existed, and finding out what to do about shingles was as easy as asking Jeeves.

I found out I shouldn't take regular pain relievers for it, but capsacain works on the pain and itching. I tried it, both topically and internally, and it worked like a charm. Finally I could rest and let it heal.

However, when it healed, the nerve along which it had traveled was numb - completely dead. And so it remains even today. The visible scars are gone, but when I touch that area, it's as though it's been wrapped in gauze or something - can't feel it at all.

I'm not going to jump into the whether-or-not-to-vaccinate debate. To me, that's something everyone needs to research and decide for themselves. For me, it was the right thing to do. These may have been childhood diseases, but there was nothing childish or cutesy about them. They hurt, and they left permanent damage. Give me the shot any day.

Personal History - My Earliest Impressions of 'Old'

Who were the oldest people you remember as a child?

Grandpa Fowler

 

My memories of Grandpa Fowler, my grandmother's fourth and last serious relationship (third husband), are so faint as to be nearly non-existent. Although, when I look at pictures of him from that time, I can sort of 'recognize' him.

He died of lung cancer from smoking when I was two, so that's not wholly unexpected, and Grandma Fowler talked about him so much that he seemed very real to me as a child, even though he was gone.

Grandma Fowler

Grandma Lora lasted a bit longer than Grandpa; she passed away when I was eight years old. I wish she could have lasted longer.

I remember a lot more of her - sitting with her in the rocking chair, reading with her, her face and her smile and her laugh. She didn't seem old to me, because she never really acted old. But she could get cross with me, and sometimes she did.

Overall, my memories of her are similar to Rosalind Russell's performance of "Auntie Mame". Pretty, feminine, energetic, and laughing, with a strain of mischievousness that I really loved - she came from a long line of passive-aggressive champions, and she was right in there with them.

Grandpa Eden

My Eden grandparents were a different story, and I'm glad I lived to get a fuller picture of who they were from other family members with good things to say about them. They lived with us a long time, and passed away when I was into my late teens and early twenties.

The truth is, I didn't like Grandpa or Grandma Eden very much as a child.

Grandpa was slow, and mostly seemed to sit instead of stand or walk. His teeth were dark and stained, so I didn't like it when he smiled, although I did like to hear him laugh when he occasionally did.

All he and Grandma ever seemed to do was watch wrestling on TV, and he swore up and down that it was real. Even as a little kid, I knew it wasn't, and I found it boring.

I would come in and sit with them, when my parents indicated I should.  We would sit with them at Christmas and I tried to help my mom take care of them as much as I could.

But they scared me - when I was with Grandma Fowler, who seemed so much happier and lighter, old age didn't seem so bad. Around them, old age looked to me like a curse coming at me like a freight train. Was this what I had to look forward to someday? Growing up like this?

My little brother Mark adored them, and they adored him. I would see Mark sitting with them many, many times since he was small. I couldn't understand how that worked, but it did plant the idea in my mind that maybe somehow I'd gotten off on the wrong foot with them, and maybe they weren't as bad as I thought...although our personal relationship never improved.

Grandma Eden 

I also couldn't get along with Grandma Eden very much - she and Grandpa just seemed so different from me that I mostly avoided them whenever I could, something I regret now, but I couldn't do anything else as a child.

She seemed very negative when I did listen to her, but she did talk more than my grandfather, so I did get some family stories from her once in awhile. My mother remembers her as very supportive and accommodating, so that was another secondhand impression that was different than my own.

She suffered in my mind from comparisons with my earlier memories of Grandma Fowler - she didn't seem to me as pretty or nice. She was harsh and brusque with me, and seemed just as happy for me to ignore her as I was ignoring.

When we moved to Maryland, Grandma started having massive strokes, and all of a sudden, I watched her lose the power to communicate. Her mouth and arm didn't work right anymore, and she couldn't think straight anymore, and she knew it. It scared her, and she would mumble through her thick mouth and tongue and cry a lot after that, which I absolutely could not take. I left my mother to take care of them after that, and avoided them as much as possible.

The first couple of time I came home from school to see an ambulance or a chopper taking my grandma away to the hospital, it was scary and shocking. From the third time on, it settled down into some sort of cynical reality that never felt right to engage in, but I did - oh, there she goes again. Another stroke.

Once when I was about twelve, my parents took me to the hospital to go pick her up after her treatment for stroke. I didn't know what was going on, or what to expect, other than I was going to 'help' her get home.

I was completely unprepared for what I saw - the image of my emaciated grandmother, stark naked on a hospital bed, crying and flailing, unable to take care of herself. My mother and father got busy getting her covered up and getting the staff to help us get her out of there, but I froze. It was like a nightmare, seeing that happen to a person. Especially a person with the same gene pool as yourself. That image got burned on my brain that day, and that same question kept coming to my mind on the way home - will that be me someday?


She eventually required a lot of hands-on care, and I got called on to help my grandmother with applying her hemorrhoid medication (and yes, even with the gloves on, it was truly as awful as it sounds, on several levels).

We couldn't handle it anymore at some point with me moving out and my mother working full-time, and she and my grandfather went to Florida to live with their youngest son Alan and his wife Denise.

Denise was a champion, and she really took care of them well after that. It was a relief for everyone that they were finally getting the care they needed. Eventually my Grandma Eden passed away, cut down after her seventh stroke, and Grandpa Eden never acknowledged that she was dead. He would just start crying whenever Denise tried to gently tell him the fact, but he couldn't always remember things himself.

Grandpa passed away from complications of Alzheimer's in a rest home a few years after Grandma went.

And even to this day, I think about them and wonder, "Is that my future?" I can't help it.

My experiences with them left their mark on me in many ways.

Personal History - Meet the Great-Grands

Do you remember your great-grandparents?

Meet the trees from which I sprang...none of whom I ever met in person, but whom I've gotten to know and love after their passing.

Clinton Harvard Stockwell (Mother's Maternal Grandfather) 

We know the most about Clinton, from childhood onward. He grew up in Nebraska, but then moved to Wisconsin where his mother passed away, and his father needed to be closer to family.

He grew to work on construction and in the lumber industry, but he had the heart of an artist. He wrote comedic poetry to his kids and nephews and nieces, and poetry that addressed spiritual matters in a simple but profound way. He drew caricatures of himself, always using whatever paper happened to be on hand - food lids, used calendars, and other shreds of paper.

He had a strong and commanding personality, and a deep voice. He was also a talented gardener, whose yard was filled with fruits and flowers and vegetables. A veritable paradise in his later years.

Grace Gwendolyn Hall (Mother's Maternal Grandmother)

Grace was Clinton Harvard Stockwell's first wife (shown here with Clinton and their son Allen) - it's unknown why they split up, but the family rumor mill claims it might have been because she chafed under some of the rules of Clinton's religion, the Two-By Church.

She was a strong woman, from a strong mother herself, and she did things like send her oldest boy on a five-mile walk to kindergarten in wolf-infested territory because she was too busy to take him in the car. To her credit, she worried about him. A little. A master passive-agressive manipulater, she claimed to have a 'water cabinet' around her heart, and all she needed to do when she required compliance was to grip her heart and fall back - who could tell her no when no might kill her?

Grace had some other trouble with her children as well, and when they grew to adulthood, some of them avoided her because she had a tendency to interfere in their lives too much, and do things like, adopt their children away - but she did show love to her grandchildren, even raising some of them herself.

Her last husband, August Link, was a laid-back German man, and a perfect foil to her stubbornness and strength. The most surprising thing (and coolest thing) I've learned about them so far was that they went to nudist colonies together.

Robert Emmett LeBleue and Nadeoui (Mother's Paternal Grandparents)

We know little to nothing about these two - not even sure of their names. Their son misrepresented his own life in public records so badly that we know little for sure, but we're still looking. We may at some point break into his coffin and get his DNA for a DNA test if we get desperate and wealthy enough to do it.

Her step-father's family have a long and honorable pedigree that we're proud to be part of as well. His family were mostly Methodist ministers, and connect strongly with the Delano family (as in Franklin Delano Roosevelt - that's right - FDR is a step-cousin.)

Charles Edward Buzzee (Father's Maternal Grandfather)

His nickname was Chas, and he worked as a painter, then for the railroad and then for a wallpaper factory in New Jersey. Made decent money for the time at the mill (about $50 a week), but he only gave my grandmother half of it to feed the kids and run the household, and then he drank the other half. Most men in that time spent a lot of time in public houses, and my grandfather was no exception.

When he was in the hospital dying of alcoholism at age 43 (naturally), his wife found out and asked him why he did that. He replied that he needed some spending money of his own (naturally).

The only picture we have of him is this formal photo he sat for, that looks like a dead ringer for Martin Freeman in his 'Sherlock' years. My grandmother remembered him as a strict disciplinarian. Combined with alcoholism, that surely resulted in some interesting family drama, which is unfortunately lost to history.

Matilda May Stockwell (Father's Maternal Grandmother)

Matilda had a bit of a tragic life. Her home life was unstable - she ended up in an orphanage at some point, and was taken in by a foster family who never adopted her.

She had children after she married Charles, but could never breastfeed. Her first child, a daughter, starved to death as a result. Afterwards, her other children were raised on canned evaporated milk.

There's not a lot of detail about her later years, but she might have gotten disabled from falling out a window at some point, because her own children also went to live with others during a certain period.

On top of all that, she lived a very long time, eventually passing away in 1962. But the pictures we do have of her are mostly all smiles, so presumably she was something of a cheery personality despite all she went through.

Charles Henry Eden (Father's Paternal Grandfather)

Looked a little like Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz. Lived and died in New Brunswick, New Jersey, like his father and his father before him.

Worked at the New Jersey College for Women, which is now part of Rutgers University, although we still don't know what he did. It was probably at a desk, whatever it was, which was a step above most of the other members of the family.

His nickname was also Chas, amazingly enough. Not sure if the two Charleses ever met each other in person, but they'd have probably either loved or hated each other.

He died of diabetes in 1965.

Bertha May Cox (Father's Paternal Grandmother)

Bertha...looks like a Bertha.

She and Charles had a largish family of eight children, five of which lived to see their fiftieth anniversary, and she seemed to have spent her life as a stay-at-home mom, as many women did.

The only other story I have about her at this point was a story I heard as a child, which I'm going to try and tell as accurately as possible.

One day the circus came to New Brunswick, and Charles and Bertha took the whole family to the show.

Afterwards it must have been dark as they made their way back to the car. At one point, Bertha vanished inexplicably. The others searched for her and called for her, and when they eventually found her, she had fallen into a pit that had been dug for the elephants' convenience, if you know what I mean. Unhurt, but terribly, terribly soiled.

She smelled so bad that she had to ride home on the outside of the car, so as not to get the inside dirty. And needless to say, the experience was an upsetting one that the family got a kick out of retelling for many years to come.

Again, don't know how accurate that one really is, but I love it myself.

Personal History - In Life and Death, He was Complicated

When and where did your father die? What do you remember about it?

I'm one of those lucky people who still has most of my family still alive and intact later on in life. When my father-in-law died, it was painful, but we were so far away from him and the family that the impact on us was relatively minimal.

In some ways, my father's death was the same. And in other ways, it shook me really hard.

How did he die?

It was expected, and unexpected.  He'd had heart problems for years, that required him to retire, but he kept going. It felt like he would always keep going.

There were some signs though, and Sam and I talked about the possibility and thought through some scenarios. My youngest brother and his wife decided to make a visit out to see them in Maryland where they lived, just because they felt like something was up. He said it was a good visit.

I couldn't financially visit, so we tried to call them. I figured by this point, maybe enough water under the bridge meant we could try again to have some sort of happy father/daughter relationship.

But on the video call, it was painfully apparent that would never happen. I couldn't reach him at all. He wasn't interested in talking or getting to know us or our family, so I finally let that thread of hope go. At least I tried.

He and my mother were planning a trip to Florida for their 50th wedding anniversary coming up in a few weeks - maybe on this trip, Mom would get her chance to go to the tip of Florida and touch the end of the United States, something my father had denied her when they were engaged, and something she'd playfully teased him about for 50 years.

But on May 7th, 2017, my phone started ringing and the Facebook messages started flying. My little sister called - she was worried. Dad was having some issues, seemed really sick. Mom was worried about him, and all I and my siblings could do was call each other.

I put the phone down, and talked to Sam about what to do. The kids started praying.

It wasn't soon after that that my sister called again. It was over, just like that. The ambulance came, but he was gone. He'd left instructions not to resuscitate him (guess where I got my everlasting dislike of hospitals from?) so their hands were tied.

It was over.

I dropped the phone and sobbed for a few minutes. Couldn't help myself.

How was the funeral?

My older brother worked for American Airlines - had been with them his whole career - and the company bought all of us plane tickets to get to and from the funeral. We were staggered at the generosity of it, and I still feel really grateful for that even today.

Sam came with me, and so did two of our kids who were available. We all invaded my younger brother's home, who still lived in Maryland near my mom, and it was so cathartic to be able to see them all again after all these years. We hadn't all been together for about 17 years, so it was incredible to see so much family in one place, with kids and grand-kids.

When we arrived, some of us wanted to go see the body. I felt kind of hesitant, but Sam really wanted to go, so I went with him and the others.

We were warned he might not look too good, since he'd donated some body parts as he'd agreed to do previously, but we were okay with that. As we walked into the parlor and stood over him, I couldn't stop crying - not because he looked bad, but because he looked so good it was hard to believe he was really dead.

The mortuary had really underestimated their jujitsu skills of body preparation. He looked like he could have opened his eyes, jumped up off the bier and said, "Gotcha!" like he used to do when he played a trick on us. But it was no trick. When we left, they took him off for cremation. No more "Gotcha!"

We talked and cried a little while we were there, and then we said a prayer as a family. My sister offered the prayer, and used the word 'complicated' when describing my father - it was a moment of emotional vindication for me, and really helped me feel better from that time forward.

The funeral was beautifully done, and we met a lot of friends we hadn't seen in decades - another wonderful experience. It really closed a lot of doors that were left open over the years, and I really felt like I could say goodbye to Maryland and move on at last.

Do you still feel like you're grieving for him? What was the grieving process like?

I knew there would be aftershocks, and strong feelings afterwards, in the grieving process. What I didn't realize was how 'inappropriate' those feelings would be.

I felt relief, almost glad that he was dead. His presence hung like a cloud over the whole family for so long. After he died, it felt like we were able to somehow get closer to each other, in a way we couldn't do before. And other emotions surfaced that I thought I had successfully processed, but hadn't really. Rage I hadn't felt in years...a really deep anger.

When it started interfering with my current life, I did something about it.

I keep a paper journal that I write in longhand, and one day, I wrote him a letter, where I laid it all out, as if he was standing in front of me. Told him exactly in great detail, everything I was thinking and feeling. I reminded him of everything that had happened, and how I felt about it. Even though I'd done all this emotional work so that I could function as an adult later, a lot of that internal blockage was still there.

Then I closed the book, and slept so good. Better than I had in a very long time.

A few weeks later, I was driving home from somewhere, when I got the impression that I wasn't alone in my car. I even looked over at the seat next to me, but it was empty. Empty, but not empty.

It felt like my dad, sitting with me in the car.

He wanted to apologize - it felt like he got my letter. He was sorry.

I forgave him. I cut that tie of anger that wasn't doing either of us any good. I told him so, out loud.

And then he was gone.

I guess I'm still grieving when I think about him sometimes, or when I read something from my journals or the past that reminds me of how broken we were.

But there were some good times too.

The day he went with me to a party at Church, both of us dressed as hobos.

A campout we did, where he made me breakfast and I saw a deer in person for the first time.

The night he came to one of my high school plays, and told me he enjoyed it and thought I was good.

The day I left for college, after everything was packed in the car, where he ran out right before I left, then handed me a $20 bill, and walked back into the house without a word, tears rolling down his cheeks.

Those were good times. Maybe I didn't get as many of them as other kids, but I still got them, so overall, I'm good. :-)

Personal History - When in Rome, Watch it Fall: The Epic Collapse of a Family

Where did your spouse's parents live? 

When I first met them, they lived in Manteca, California.

California is mostly where they've always lived. I met Sam's parents, and a few of his younger brothers and sisters, that first Christmas after his mission where Sam proposed to me, and we agreed to marry.

What was your relationship with them, and your spouse's family?

It seemed to start out very well.

Except for my father, the rest of my family had never had any trouble getting along. We were very close and good friends with each other, and I couldn't envision being a part of a family that was anything other than that. Somehow, it didn't occur to me that different families could feel differently.

Sam's father played the guitar, and seemed solicitous and charming. His mother also; we got along famously. The younger kids smiled and talked to me in a teasing way about their brother, and then Sam would grow unaccountably angry and chase them away from me, for seemingly no reason.

That was the first red flag I didn't recognize....

Later on, when we were in our own home and would talk about his family, he would tend to dismiss the entire conversation with 'I don't care...'

This seemed very unlike him, as my experience with him was that he was compassionate and cared very deeply about people and issues. This piece of him didn't seem to fit with the others.

It took a long time, and many conversations, for his past to unfold before me, and without going into details that aren't really mine to share, it wasn't pretty.

I started to understand just how much baggage he carried from his past...from painful interactions and dysfunctional dynamics within his family. All that had shaped him in such a profound way, sometimes for good and sometimes not-so-good.

I still hoped for a happy in-law relationship with them, though, and I did try, from a distance, to create something positive. Sam refused to live closer to any of them, and if even half of what he told me was true, I couldn't in good conscience argue the point.

After awhile though, the kids of the kids grew up, and in growing up, they revealed the painful truth of what had been happening behind closed doors and online smiles.

His father passed away, and we couldn't make it to the funeral - Sam was able to visit him before he passed away, but couldn't bring himself to make it to the funeral itself. Marriages suddenly ended without explanation, except in whispers, and then new marriages just as suddenly sprung up in their stead. Suddenly, one affair became three affairs, and families completely ruptured. Hospitalizations and suicide. The aftershocks of such revelations were horrific, and there was nothing I could do to help. Sam was overwhelmed, and when he tried to help, it either seemed not enough or way, way too much.

Eventually, our help was no longer wanted.

After that, our very presence caused offense, and 'compliance' was demanded. We were no longer acceptable company unless we molded ourselves and our ideas to their standards.

And I knew then it was over. 

I mourned as we disconnected. We let almost everyone go. There was nothing else to do, other than fight over the computer forever or pretend to be someone we weren't.

We still keep in touch with one or two of his seven siblings today, but the others have gone silent in our lives. We still keep in touch with his mom, on holidays. But every contact starts to feel like the ripping off of a bandage that covers a festering wound that we are unable to heal.

All this makes me even more grateful for my own crazy mom and siblings. They are a drink of water in the desert of family, for both me and my husband, who has been generously adopted as one of their own.

Tentatively, that is. I think sometimes they're still not sure what to make of him or us, but they do make an honest effort, and for that I'm very grateful.

Family is never easy, but it sure is a relief when it works...