So, I’m going to keep writing on here from time to time, mostly about Mary, methinks. But I just wanted to let you know that the new blog I’m doing with my sister is up and running! We’re keeping to a fairly specific theme: looking at life through traveler’s eyes, traveling ideas, adventure, etc. It’s a lot of fun and I think you’ll like it!
Do it!
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Since getting our referral for little Mary and realizing that the little munchkin whom I have yearned for so desperately will be coming into my arms during the busiest time in my professional life, I have been giving a lot of thought to time and
money.
I was already cutting my work hours this fall down to 24 hours/week to accommodate my 16-18 hours/week of unpaid internship. But now Mary’s coming, people. And she’s a really big deal. Call me crazy but I’d always kind of pictured myself bonding with my adopted child in some capacity. The life I am currently living is not conducive to bonding with anyone. So, clearly, changes must be made. I could put off my internship for a bit. But then what? I’m still that far away from the meaningful, fairly lucrative, and kid-friendly career that I have envisioned. And Mary will still be a little person. She’ll still need time. And I’ll need time with her.
What’s looking to be the best option is that I take 12 weeks of unpaid family leave, continue to do my internship during that time (during which time she can be with her daddy), and then we just put our heads down and bust out what remains of the school year when that 12 weeks is up. But 12 weeks with no income is kind of a long time. And I need to adjust.
Kevin and I aren’t big spenders by any means, but neither are we obsessive, meticulous savers. Especially me. I mean, even in the midst of this current shift of perspective, have I purchased size 2t skinny jeans? Indeed I have. Indeed I have. Still, the fact remains that we are no longer DINKs (Double-Income, No Kids) and every time I buy stuff we don’t need, I feel the difference. Spending money implies that at some point I will trade in my time for more money. Saving money, spending less money, means needing less future time to get more money.
So now I remind myself, we’re saving for freedom. For maximized time with Mary. I like maximized time with Mary. I like it even better than seeing Mary in skinny jeans (though, for the record, they were only $11). I certainly like it better than seeing myself in new shoes. I like it better than going out to eat when there are perfectly edible items in my own refrigerator. I like it better than just about everything in the world.
So I say it again. Changes must be made. Wish me luck. Wish me discipline.
Posted in Adoption, Family, Feminism | Tagged Adoption, compromise, home, love, Mary, money, saving, shopping, time, work | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 was the single greatest day of my life.
After 22 months and 3 weeks of waiting, hoping, pining and complaining we got the call. A little girl. A perfect little girl. My Mary.
I was at work, minding my own business and, well, working when my cell phone started buzzing. I glanced at it, didn’t recognize the number and didn’t answer it. But then that same nagging, hopeful thought popped into my head. What if it’s THE CALL? Unfortunately, I’ve had that thought dozens and dozens of times before and it had lost much of its potency, its promise. Nonetheless, I couldn’t stop myself from just checking out the number really quick. I did a little reverse look-up on line and discovered that it was a Eugene number. The adoption agency is in Eugene. Holy crap.
By the time I’d done my sleuth work, there was a voice message on my phone. It was the head of the Philippines program. He had good news. We had a match. It was a little girl. I started choking up when he said his name, weeping when he said we had a match, and shaking when he said it was a little girl. A little girl! We’d wanted a little girl so badly!
I immediately called the number back and got the receptionist. I choked out something like this:
“Hi (sob) can I (sob) please talk to M_____? I’m (sob) crying ‘cuz I’m happy (sob). We just got matched (double sob).”
She transfered me and it went straight to his voicemail. Unacceptable. I just knew he was going to reach Kevin before I did and I simply would not allow such a thing to be taken away from me. I had to be the one to tell Kev. I hung up and immediately called back, this time explaining that I really needed to be sure to talk to a real person. This time the director answered. He told me about Mary. He told me about her history, that she was a tiny little thing when she was born, that she was at a sweet little orphanage outside Manila.
After a few minutes of collecting information, I called Kevin. He hadn’t heard the voicemail and I got to tell him. He was all whispers, repeating “A little girl? A little girl? Wow?” in the smallest voice. Then the email came in with her picture and report. We stared. We said “wow” a lot. We whispered. We felt ourselves turn into different people entirely. We’re parents. We have a daughter. Her name is Mary.
After a long, quiet, beautiful phone call with Mary’s dad, I ran out of my office to inform my boss that I would be underperforming for the rest of the morning. He cheered. I ran inside to call family.
By the end of the day, I had cried so much I could barely keep my eyes open. And the people I love–friends, family, coworkers, nice acquaintances, students, pleasant looking people on the street–had cried, too, when I told them the news. I received close to a hundred text messages, tons of emails, phone calls and hugs. I felt loved. I felt LOVE.
I have been staring almost constantly at Mary’s picture ever since. On Tuesday I had to drive across town to meet up with our community group at our garden but I started to have a little panic attack from not seeing Mary’s picture for a few minutes. I opened my laptop and left it sitting in the passenger’s seat so I could glance at Mary on my desktop every few seconds.
There is still so much to do. We can’t go get Mary for at least three months, even up to six months, because of immigration requirements. We have a large pack of paperwork heading our way. We’re working on a photobook to send her at her orphanage so she can learn our faces and so her caregivers can get comfortable with these strangers who are coming to take away their sunshine. I’m glad there are things to do. When they’re done and I have to just sit and wait, things might get ugly. But for now, I float everywhere.
Posted in Adoption | Tagged Adoption, good news, love, Mary, match, Philippines | 13 Comments »
Brave sister! Teach me what it is to write about happy things!
Well friends, you may recall promises of increased blogging come springtime. Then you might have thought, “Springtime is here.” Yes, yes, you are correct. And do I have exciting news for you! (Or at least exciting-for-me news that I’m telling you!)
My beloved, articulate, creative sister and I have decided to start a blog together! Instead of focusing on things that make me sad or mad (politics, sometimes religion, etc.) we are going to write about our shared loves: travel, adventure, and capturing every minute of every day for maximum awesomeness. We are still in the beginning phases but I will soon be alerting you of our new website and will eventually have this one go straight to that one.
It’s going to be a very positive change for me and the timing couldn’t be better. I’m ready to be happy.
Posted in Living, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Sad thing about me: I have been a wannabe crafter my whole life, yet I do not have a single crafting hobby. Not one. I run, I read, I shop, I write a bit, but the crafting universe has always been closed to me despite (or partly because of) my deepest desire to rule it with an iron fist.
When I was younger, I wanted so badly to be able to paint or draw or sculpt or sew or make cute little cards from craft paper. I tried it all, but was far too uptight to really enjoy any of it. The tiniest mistake while making a harmless homemade birthday card would plunge me into a state of utter despondency and self-loathing. A crooked “R” (slanted in an awkward way, not a homey-intentionally-off-kilter sort of way) would mock me, boldly pointing out my own lack of talent, reminding me how utterly average my abilities really were. So I’d quit. Every time. Every craft. Quit.
I wanted to be like my friends, creative, confident, full of optimism–and most
I believe! I believe!
importantly–good at stuff. Is it so bad to want to be good at stuff? Is it?
So, for most of my 20′s I gave up on such ventures, sometimes writing them off as silly, mindless, boring (while secretly scouring etsy stores not to buy, but to dream). And now I am 29 years old. 29 years, 9 months and 15 days old. And you know what? I think I’m ready. I think I can do it. I think I can learn to sew.
Sewing has always been the pinnacle of craft ventures in my heart and mind. Fashion Designer was my dream job from the age of 5 until I was 18 (or 29 3/4). I remember going to a garage sale when I was maybe 8 or 9 and buying a huge box of miscellaneous sewing supplies, assuring my mother that my fashion career would start that very night. I got a tiny sewing machine for my 10th birthday but I never learned to use it. Part of it was that I was a young, flighty kid who lacked the focus needed to sit at a sewing machine, but most of it, the vast majority of it, was fear. I was afraid to try sewing and fail and thus have no more dream to dream. So I just never learned.
I tried to face this again when I was 21. Someone donated a sewing machine to the orphanage and I decided to go at it. But the same weird attacks of self-loathing and insecurity hit me. And I quit.
But I realized something the other day. At 29 and three quarters years old, I’m almost positive that I have now been through enough heartbreak, failure, success, hardship, joy and pain to kill those little head demons that have attacked me so brutally in the past. It’s the most unexpected result of a hard-knock life: I am now emotionally stable enough to learn to sew!
IT’S A MIRACLE!
OK, maybe that’s a bit much. But I am excited. I have now fully realized that I shouldn’t be immediately good at stuff, that almost no one is, that learning stuff is hard and takes a long time and that this reality does not mean that my life is meaningless (a tad hyperbolic, sure, but aren’t most secret thoughts pretty exaggerated?).
I’m not sure how much time I’ll have for it in the next couple of months (did I mention that I decided to start my internship early?), I’m going to use what bits of time I do have to learn, learn, learn. And then this summer I’m going to be the craziest sewing craftologist you have ever seen. Even if my lines are a little bit crooked.
Hurray!
Posted in Craft, Living | 2 Comments »
When I was a little girl I daydreamed about being a missionary. I imagined myself surrounded by dirty-faced, bright-eyed children whom I’d saved from some evil-doers, performing emergency surgery on an injured farm worker (highly unlikely since I can’t handle any bodily fluids), and getting all “Dead Poets’ Society” on a group of bright, impressionable, and previously-underestimated street thugs all of whom would grow up to be important Senators and civil rights activists.
My motives were, of course, mixed. I have always had a God-given, desperate passion for coming alongside the suffering and hurting, of advocating for the oppressed. But that’s not all that’s inside me. I have long held to a (now largely debunked) romantic ideal of being a hero to people who needed me, a la Avatar, if you will. It’s gross, I know. But it’s there.
But that’s not the only sketchy motivator rolling around in my messy little heart. I have also always carried around what I wittily call “rich white girl guilt,” based on the fact, yes that’s right, that I’m a rich white girl (I use “rich” loosely here, as in at least relative to most of the world population). And I recognize that my own discomfort with the privilege and entitlement I was born into plays a rather large role in my motivation to help others. Not ideal, but it is what it is.
After three years living in the Philippines, I brutally came to terms with the fact that I’m nobody’s hero, that many of the people around me living in poverty were much more clever, hard-working and impressive than I’ll ever be. That dream is thoroughly dead, along with the feeble little hope that rich-white-girl guilt can ever be assuaged through serving others. If anything, the fact that I’m able to “come along side” and “help out” whenever I want to just highlights my own excessive privilege.
So, you might wonder why I’m rambling on about my own questionable motives in engaging in benevolent acts. Well that’s simple really. After reading about the ten Americans currently detained in Haiti after attempting to “help” 33 children right out of their country, I think it’s time for all of us who were born into relative privilege and opportunity to think long and hard about what help is and why we do it.
Now, I don’t want to judge those people. I’m sure their motives were mixed, as motives tend to be. I do believe they have some, er, confused understanding about what the good life really is (i.e. better to be ripped away from your family and grow up rich than to stay in this nightmare with the people who give your life meaning). And I believe that this is a problem most of us have. What is help? Why do we help? And does help, sometimes, do more harm than good?
I have been challenged by these questions throughout our very, very long adoption process. I had a family member pointedly ask me why I thought it was so great to take a child out of their home nation just so they could be middle class with me in America. Good question, really. Not the kind of question I particularly appreciate in the moment, but a good question nonetheless. And I can honestly say these are things that Kevin and I both deliberated over tirelessly well before we filled out an adoption application.
I have seen parents adopt for the wrong reasons, especially the “I want be somebody’s hero” reason. The effects are generally devastating.
But there are no easy answers to any of these things. Adoption, Big rich countries helping small poor countries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, all of these ventures are risky and confusing and everyone involved has to come to terms with the fact that despite their best efforts and good intentions, there will be some bad mixed in with the good. They also must realize that if not for their very, very best, most vigilant, most humble and introspective efforts there could quite possibly be a lot more bad than good that comes out their work.
I have no great insight into this other than that it’s a journey, that all involved must be willing to call themselves out, answer the tough questions, flee from cynicism, but never, never stop holding themselves accountable for the mixed motives in their hearts. None of us are fully free of the clutches of selfishness and arrogance that often show themselves as racism, sexism, classism, and various other very ugly and destructive -isms.
But we can’t quit trying.
Posted in Adoption, Practical Christianity, justice | Tagged Adoption, Haiti, help, motives, racism | 2 Comments »
I know I just did a little post on my intention to start writing again in late March, but here I am with all of this angst and nowhere to put it. So I shall deposit it into the blog-o-sphere:
I am full of mommy-mania. My maternal clock is screaming. I am becoming, quite literally, hysterical in the old-fashioned Freudian sense.
As some of you might know, the huz and I have been in the process of adopting for more than two years. More accurately, we’ve been in the process for roughly 8 years. Almost as soon as we moved to the Philippines back in 2001 and I started working at Rainbow Village, we knew that we wanted to adopt. We even looked into starting the process then. The only problem with our little family plan was that we were basically still children ourselves and didn’t come close to meeting the age requirements. Besides, everyone told us, “Oh, you should have your own first, then adopt!” The very idea of “our own” made me a little grossed out but I thought, “Hey, maybe that birthing instinct is going to hit me any time.” So we waited.
Finally, still merrily childless in July of 2007, I turned 27, thus meeting the elusive age requirement. We really had been quite happy as our own duo up to this point, but I knew how long the process took (or thought I knew) and convinced Kevin that by the time we started the process we would be well into our baby-ready stage of life. I immediately requested an adoption application from Holt International and Kevin and I excitedly filled it out.
The months following were full of paperwork, psych evaluations, and some very scary times following a required physical exam in which it looked like Kev might have thyroid cancer. Thankfully, he didn’t and we eventually got every little bit of paperwork turned in and before we knew it, we’d been approved for adoption.
Here we are, back in 2004, naively exposing our hearts to the most lovable children in the universe.
That was June 25, 2008. We’re still waiting.
I have a little counter on my igoogle page. Today it tells me that we have been approved for adoption for 566 days. 566 days!
There have been seasons where it has been unbearable, particularly when I first started working at an elementary school and was overwhelmed by the hilarious, energetic, adorable ways of the children. Sometimes, when I had to walk across the playground during recess, I’d get choked up and have to look away, hoping not to actually trip over any of the little ones I was trying not to look at. But usually those tough season (often not more than a week) would give way and I could focus on the fun, beautiful, busy craziness that is my life. And, of course, I constantly remind myself of what a very bad mom I would be right about now between my moderately consuming job and my excessively consuming graduate program. So it’s good, right?
But lately, since we hit the 16-month mark back in September, the tough season just won’t go away. I am constantly heart-sick, constantly aching for this little hypothetical creature whom I do not know, can’t even imagine. I don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl. I just know I love him/her.
The 16-month mark was hard because when we started the program, that was the estimated wait time. And I remember thinking to myself, “Well, that’s the estimated time for regular people but surely they’ll see how nice and lovely we are and that we lived in the Philippines for 3 years and they’ll match us much more quickly!”
What a dummy. January 25th will be 19 months since we were approved, with nary a peep of a hint of a suggestion that our little one is ready for us. And to take away even more hope, most adoption guidelines have moved the expected wait time for referral waaaaay up, saying it could be up to 24 months.
Sigh. Sigh Sigh.
How can I possibly think about controversial theological, philosophical, or social issues when there is a cute little munchkin out there waiting for me?
Posted in Adoption, Living | Tagged Adoption, mommy angst | 2 Comments »
OK, so I was thinking I was pretty much done with this thing, mostly because I get sick of the petty arguments that seem to be an inevitability in the Christian blogging world. But then a few little events occurred that made me realize that I’m not done, that I love writing, and that the blog format is the best way for me to share my thoughts and concerns and whatever other personal sorts of things I might want to throw out to the universe.
What I am going to do, however, is take the next 10 weeks off and begin with a passion in the spring. The main reason for this is school. This term (which started today, woo hoo) I have 60+ hours a week of school and work responsibility. Thus, no room for blogging. But all of this will end in the 4th week of March and I plan to get back in the blogging habit then. I’m not sure what direction it will take, but I’m hoping (perhaps irrationally) for less weird angry debates between readers that are only loosely related to my initial posts. That’s my hope. I also know that I’m at the a more confident, peaceful, healed-up place and I hope that will be reflected in my blog entries. We shall see.
So, talk to you in the spring!
Chrissi
Posted in Thought, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Ezek. 16:49ff. ”Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it.”
Posted in justice | Leave a Comment »
One concept I’ve been thinking about lately, during my respite from excessive thought, is whether thinking itself–or more specifically thinking about broad, esoteric concepts such as theology or philosophy–is particularly beneficial or if it might be perhaps a bit destructive. Of course, this is an entirely personal question. No one can (should) answer this question for the general population. But I mean for me. Is my hiatus from the world of debate, study, discussion good for me? Should I make it permanent? Or am I falling into numb, comfortable lethargy without even realizing it? This is the nagging thought I’m not thinking. But I am thinking it.
First, let me explain where I’ve been lately. I have been enjoying a magical land that I often visited as a kid but had almost forgotten about it. You guessed it, I’m talking about Summer. This is my first year working for the school district and I am absolutely LOVING the whole summer-off concept. I’ve been working a bit at my dad’s insurance office, doing some school work (Ironically, I have work off in the summer and school very much on), but mostly doing whatever the heck I want. And in this new (and transient) state, I’ve noticed my brain has been very, very quiet.
So now I’m debating with myself as to whether this new, simpler, more optimistic Chrissi is the better Chrissi. It feels better. But it also feels sort of, well, inevitably temporary.
Perhaps this is a sign that old Chrissi is emerging and ready to get back to the good ol’ anxiety-ridden, impossible-question-asking, theology-wrestling days of Autumn. We shall see.
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
