Nope, I've nae written a thing for quite a while, still physically "not right" and watchfully waiting as well as collecting names of Doctor's in the event I stop waiting.(Ok, things got bad enough by the end of this writing that I am going to call for an appointment ASAP)
I've not left the house in over 9 days, barely left the bedroom, so don't blame me for playing the "what city are you quiz" (see below)...travel sounds right lovely about now, but it is one of those things that the being physically out of sorts reminds me is beyond my ken at the moment. I've had lots of time to pray. I'd like to say I've read a lot but other than reading more than I want to know about all sorts of "woman's medical issues" not so much.
Without wellness for much else this week, the web got an occasional glance, blogs have been read. I did manage to locate and look at, a web page about the girl I considered to be my best friend in 6th grade I'll call her L-G. (I can't recall if she breezed into town for only 6th or if she was also there for 5th, possibly.) This is the girl who was and had everything I thought I would like to to have and to be. She had glossy stick straight chestnut brown hair (with auburn flecks that glinted in the sunlight.) She was everything I was not, or so it seemed.
We were friends only a short time as she moved away after 6th grade. I don't know if I appeared to her as an equal friend or if my feeling less than and glad to be in her "light" was obvious to her then, as it is to me now. For some reason or another we hung out together after school, likely because children were scarce in the well to do neighborhood our parents had each bought into. (She did have one other friend, a neighbor girl who wasn't allowed to play with me for reasons I don't know and didn't understand. The stories that came out of the other girls house over the years make me thankful now that such was the case.)
I'd have said she had dark steady brown eyes, but perhaps they were even green, a rare and fascinating color. She had a retainer and reading glasses (hardly exotic but L-G had them so she bestowed upon them desirability.) She had freckles. She had two first names, hyphenated and both used. She had a petite southern mother, who spoke to her openly and calmly, about growing up and "becoming a woman" thereby letting Laura-G into some secret society of maturity. (I had a 57 year old mother who left me to read about the curse on the back of a Kotex box, although thanks to a book about "Susie's babies" I could tell you all about hampster reproduction, what every 11 year old needs to know.)
Her mother WAS southern womanhood at it's finest, she was at the very least "The Junior League" (Could there have been snobbery running in the veins of a true southern woman? I think there could have been,though perhaps it was just me. I felt a tad like a border state clod of unpedigree'd dirt around her mother but was tolerated, if just. It was the closest I've ever come to thinking that the USA does have a class system.) Sure we both had Madame Alexander dolls LG had the stately 21 inch Scarlet O'Hara and the Bride doll, I had 12 inch Heidi and Alice and Wonderland (picked by my mother who thought I should like dolls.)
If the dolls were foreshadowing I was destined for Rabbit holes, running late and goats, she was destined for Green Velvet, horses and a turnip free life. (I note with gladness that Mother didn't buy me the Marie Antoinette doll.)
Unexpectedly but not unpredictably, after 32 years of parted ways, L-G's photograph reveals that she looks every bit as "posh" as I recall and appears all the more to have "done with her life" on paper, what I'd want on paper about my own self.(I don't kid myself, anyone's life can appear desirable in print but this is L-G her life WILL be at least appear to be posh, even up close.) She is still shiney haired, appears effortlessly trendsettingly thin, has two lovely children, has received many awards for her Poetry, is an associate professor of English at a reasonably prestigious women's college, earned a master's of fine arts at an exclusive writers program, and credits mentors in her early days as a writer. (I on the other hand had math tutors, those are not mentors trust me.) To be fair I did have several teachers and adults who told me, indeed insisted that I write, even WRITE!!! but mentors they were not. I was sure the adults were only suggesting writing in fervent hopes I'd shut up and go away, not because they saw any instrinsic ability. The literary version of "go play in the traffic."
All the mentors in the world cannot give one talent, discipline, drive. It would have taken far more than a mentor to subdue the lifetime of self loathing which forms the corpus of my inner critic. No mentor could have swept aside all the conflict I have felt over the proper place of writing for a Christian wife and mother. Oh and then, even if the time arrives when writing could occur, there is always laziness and fatigue to deal with. Overcoming that, as soon as pencil and paper are in hand, the inner critic returns, revived and suntanned, presumably from a coffee break on the French Riviera, all while I was trying hard to get ducks in a row so that I could return to writing. If I "work at writing" he works too.
Back to dissecting envy and comparisons. Yes, one can read between the lines of my childhood confidante's angst ridden poetry and say, hey, perhaps she felt as inadequate on the inside as I was sure to be skin to core. Yes, a painful divorce is noted on her bio. No there is no evidence of her being a woman of faith, much less one who finds her entire being in Christ.(In Annapolis, they attended "The Historic St. Anne's Episcopal Church," a church that held more mystique and poshness in it's every dust mote than my Lutefisk loving, stodgy, solid and equally spiritually dead, Lutheran church could hold in it's modern brick edifice )So where does this leave me with my reflection of 44 years, none of which are degreed, none of which published in posh literary journals, only half of them thin, and never fashionably so.
Do I have a green eyed monster? I suppose that depends on what one looks like. I certainly am happy for my friend and wish her all the best, that being primarily a life of unsearchable riches found in Christ. She is talented and has used that talent to reach goals that likely she set and worked hard for. If it is envy to feel the passage of years, to wonder about how one has spent one's days, to consider how much of who we are is already bound and established even at 11, how little we change, how opportunities and people shape who we are today, and yes to feel a twinge of the lie "life would be o so much sweeter if you were thin, had an mfa, professorship and glossy brown hair" as I swat said twinge away, then ok, it's envy.
That said, I am a rabid providentialist (oft accused of being a fatalist by those who are uninitiated into the whole God's over-ruling man's responsiblity parallel.)If I were envious and discontented it would be a sin to be repented of, God has appointed my days.(As poorly as I feel it is understandable that I wonder if those days are shorter than I'd expected though what would lead any of us to think they are longer than the next breath does boggle the mind.) Yes I have to confess where I've have not lived up to my potential, including the potential to clean bathrooms and make beds, the potential to share the gospel, to redeem the time, to listen rather than be heard, to pray for others, and yes, possibly to write as well. If I envy vs reflect, I would be expressing ungratitude and anger toward God, not toward the ever blamed "circumstances" or "lack of opportunity." I can only be tremendously, failingly thankful to God for everything, EVERYTHING such that to list one item seems to demean the magnitude of the whole. The unlistable everything, or at the very least the list that would begin and rightly never end for the praises that rightly belong there. Supposing that is what eternity is for.
Everything God wants for me is and will be in my life for His glory and my good. To my shame there are ugly ragged marks of sinful decisions and failures, to God's glory, I'm still standing albeit figuratively at the moment. To God's glory and mercy I don't have what I deserve, that being a confirmed reservation in Hell for eternity, or the consequences of every sin I've ever done etched on my face for the world to witness. We are all spared as well, the consequences of other's sin to a great extent, by the merciful restraining hand of a God who orders our world. These are all unfathomable unmerited mercies. So why in the world would I be pensive reading the biography of my friends' successes?(Soul meets flesh; has a tussle?Desire meets reality:ouch.)
The camera, the scale, the literary journals do not measure nor reward as God does, nor see as God does, and by this I don't suggest how "bad" L-G would look in the eyes of God (I have no knowledge of the state of her soul in any direction) rather the fearful reality of how bad I look against a holy measure. If I value success as scripture presents it, righteousness, servanthood, love, prayerfulness, humility to name just a few, how will that affect my days?
Something to ponder as I lay here realizing how many years of discipline and effort it takes to achieve success in anything, and how the lessons can be learned too late, if ever. I've never wanted to climb Everest, but it would be really pathetic if I decided it was the culmination of my life's dreams in the last week of life. Such reflection makes me incredibly glad my souls redemption was not left to me. If I can't even achieve what can humanly be done in this life with any enviable measure of success, how would I ever have done right by my soul?
I've seen enough of the shortness of life to wonder if I ought to be much more serious about doing and saying today anything I'd not want to leave undone. I'm also old enough to know how very insignificant I am,such that there is nothing I could leave done or undone, that would barely be noticed. I know that though I could be a means to various wee things (encouragement, humor, blessing) in the lives of others (with of course the attendant and ever present likelihood that I'll also be annoying, frustrating and selfish.) I rejoice that nothing other's need, will be left off or undone if I'm not here because it is God who wills and does for all those I love, not me.
Yes I do desire years of life with dh and dd and those I love (though selfishly speaking heaven looks really better) but I'm not irreplaceable and when I am gone, unless I turn out to be Shakespeare or Queen Elizabeth, my passing will fill over like sand and water fill a footprint on the beach, writing or no.
After I visited my old friend courtesy of the web, I did something I do a few times a year often with increasing frequency toward her birthday,I checked the adoption reunion boards to see if there were any postings that would indicate my first born daughter Rachel (what I called her, no idea what she is called now) might be looking for her birthmother. If she is still alive she will turn 27 this April. I ran all the searches I could think of, and with each one, I felt that incredible sadness and frustration such searches can leave me feeling, concern for her, hopelessness, despair, shame, unworthiness, loss. At the very last I typed in "Rachel where are you?" but of course, the web doesn't answer back. I wondered if I were to die, would Rebecca, keep looking for her sister, would she know how, would it fit into her life to check occasionally? I wouldn't want Rachel to check the boards, find nothing and assume she is not remembered, not missed, not sought out. I cried and cried pressed up against the back of my dear bear like husband's toasty snoring self. But this/that is another story...
And on a lighter note....
| You Belong in London |
A little old fashioned, and a little modern.
A little traditional, and a little bit punk rock.
A unique woman like you needs a city that offers everything.
No wonder you and London will get along so well. |
I don't know if most of you know this, but I have always been very fond of the style and content of Puritan grave stones. They have various repeating icons, Sometimes a tree of life often represented by the weeping willow. Other stones feature a skull with wings, what I refer to as the Puritan death angel, seen here.
