Roots

Confession: My whole life I have felt like I wouldn't end up HERE, living just a few miles from where I spent most of my childhood. I always, always thought I would give in to my wanderlust and go someplace else to live. Even though I married my high school sweetheart, I still did not see myself settling down in the Metro Detroit area. But of course life doesn't always unfold the way we think it will, and marriage and children do tend to complicate things. I'm not the only person I need to think about anymore, so what is best for our family as a whole has to be the top priority.

My mom and I moved far away, to Arizona, when I was a kid. There were aspects that were difficult, but looking back I see that time of my life as a positive experience. True, I missed my family back in Michigan tremendously, and I imagine it was even harder for my mom to be away from her parents, siblings, and the neighborhood and friends she had known all her life. But it was an adventure. We had to meet new people, depend on the kindness of strangers, and adjust to a new climate.

Besides our big move to Arizona, we never stayed put for very long, and year after year I was the new kid at school. This taught me how to make friends and acclimate to new environments. It wasn't always easy, but the way I grew up made me the person I am today. As an adult, I can appreciate that. But as a kid I didn't always see the positive side of things. I was mad jealous of my friends who had known each other since kindergarten. I wanted roots.

Now that I'm a mom, I feel torn. There is still a really big part of me that doesn't want to be here, in southeast Michigan. There are times that I hate it, just literally hate it. I know, in retrospect, that going all the way across the country to live was an integral part of my childhood that I wouldn't change if I could. I know, also, that moving frequently taught me a resilience that I would not have otherwise learned. I know that if we moved (and families move every day, to other cities, states, and even countries...) my kids would be okay. They might be angry at first but they'd get over it and they'd adjust, and probably someday they'd be able to look back and realize it was a good thing.

My wanderlust and my yearning for roots are at war in my heart and mind. Where I live is not a horrible place, not at all. I just struggle to be happy and satisfied with where I am.

A couple weeks ago I went for a long walk to the library, which is over three miles each way. On the way back I had a thought. I had recently spent some time with my great aunt and uncle (my grandfather's brother), and my uncle had treated my mom and me to stories from his childhood. He talked about his grandparents' farm, the streets where his aunts and uncles lived, and the plot of family land his father used as a huge garden, coming in from the city on weekends to care for it. These things he was telling us about, they were all in the city where I now live.

As I walked, I let it sink in. For generations, dating back into the 1800s, my family has lived right here in the city that I call home. I was walking where my great-great grandparents once had a farm, where my grandpa came to visit as a child, and where my grandmother grew up. I walked past the place where her school once stood, and the church where my grandparents were married. I thought about what the area might have looked like back then, with fewer houses and dirt roads. I wondered if any of the houses I was looking at were around back then.

I realized that the roots that I've always wanted are right here, in the ground on which I walk and drive all the time.

When my great-great grandfather's widowed father decided to move his family across the ocean in the mid-1800s, from Switzerland to the United States, for some reason he chose to settle HERE. Maybe he already had family in the area, maybe he knew someone else, I'll probably never know.

Decades later, in the late 1920s, my grandmother's Canadian father decided to move his family from Detroit to HERE. Again, I'll probably never know his reasons. But somehow the stars aligned for his daughter to meet the grandson of a local farmer, for them to fall in love, get married, and have a family together. And now, here I am, raising my family where the seed of theirs was first planted.

My great-uncle had also mentioned that there was a cemetery not far from me where many of our ancestors have been laid to rest. I have lived here for over five years and never before had thought about my ancestors being in this cemetery, which I have driven past countless times. On my walk home from the library, I decided to stop and have a look.

I walked through the small cemetery, studying each tombstone, and marveling as the wheels turned and clicked in my mind. The origins of the names of many local streets were suddenly apparent, and I thought about how these families must have once lived where street signs now stand, bearing their names.

Reverently, I walked up and down each row, and again and again I saw names that I knew belonged to my long-deceased family members. I took pictures of their tombstones and wished I had photographs to match to each name. I thought about my grandmother's beloved hobby of genealogy, which had always interested me as well, but now I felt a sudden deeper connection, and a renewed desire to learn more about my family's history.

It's strange how things happen sometimes, how something minor, like deciding to take a long walk, can really change your perspective.

The tomb of my great-great grandparents.

P.S. Are you into genealogy? If so, what do you think are the best websites out there? There are so many, and it's hard to say if paying membership fees is worth it or not.

Family Ties: 10 Years Later

For 10 years, I’ve been struggling to find a place in my father’s family, and the truth has been slowly dawning: it’s been such an impossible effort because there is no place for me. I can’t continue to hurt myself like this, trying to carve a place out of nothing. It is too painful. 

Confession: I do a fair job of hiding it, but I am actually a deeply sensitive person.

My paternal grandfather passed away a few days ago, a man who was not a grandfather to me in anything more than the biological sense. While his children and (legitimate) grandchildren mourn his loss, I mourn the lack of loss. Having lost an actual grandfather, on January 4, 1997, one whom I loved very much and who was there for me from the day I was born, I cannot really say which loss is worse.

Is it better (or worse) to have loved and lost, or to have never loved at all?

I gather that this largely unknown grandfather of mine was a pretty special guy, one who valued family and was a man of great love and integrity. I don’t know any of the stories. They are not a part of my history. On a handful of occasions, I witnessed a kind and gentle soul. That’s all I have, and yet really it has nothing to do with me. 

In the scope of this family, I belong nowhere, and that is a pretty unusual feeling, an untethered sort of sensation.

Being around them is difficult, although they are mostly polite when they happen to notice me. I see their bond, it is nearly a tangible thing. They laugh and joke and, despite the miles that separate them most of the time, when they are together they present a unified front of intimacy. They seem to exude the message: our family is a huge, loving unit. That might be true, but it is a sentiment that certainly does not include me.

I can’t really blame them. They don’t know what to do with me, this outsider, this interloper. They acknowledge my existence, but they do so hesitantly. Not rudely, but in a way that makes it clear, intentionally or not, that I am not a member of this particular club and no provisions will be made. 

What they might not realize, is that I am the vulnerable party. They, with their shared love and tight bonds, have the collective power to hurt me very much. I am not strong enough to force myself in, at the risk of further rejection.

It’s a sink or swim situation, and in this case I’m just going to have to sink. I made the initial effort, to find them, to connect. I tried, tried, tried…but now I’m done. Perhaps they expected more effort from me, but why should I have to bear the continuous strain of the Herculean effort of simply trying to fit in, to be a part of what should be my own family? The answer is, I shouldn’t, and I no longer will. The more likely scenario is that they have no expectations of me, simply because they do not think of me nor consider me at all.

When I was growing up and didn’t know my father, didn’t know who he was or anything about him, I constantly wondered two things: what he was like, and why he didn’t want me. These questions were an integral part of my childhood, I lived and breathed them right up until I was 30 years old and finally had the opportunity to discover the answers. It was a certain kind of background pain, a shame that was always there. The questions extended to the rest of the family, I was aware that at least some of them knew about me. But they seemed to have made the mutual decision to do what was easiest, which was to quietly agree that I didn’t exist.

I thought meeting my father and getting my answers would change everything, and it did. Just not necessarily in the way I thought it would. Turns out, that pain and shame of my childhood have been replaced with a different kind of pain, and a different kind of shame.

Now I feel the pain of exclusion, made sharper by knowing what I’m being excluded from. I feel the shame of being unwanted, but I now know the faces of those who don’t want me. I think, honestly, that it’s harder now. In some ways my imagination was more forgiving. 

I can see now, in hindsight, that probably it was better that I didn’t know as a child what I know now. Because no matter what, I was always destined to be an outsider in this family. Even if my father had claimed me from the start, I would have, at best, been a peripheral member of his family. As an adult I am better able to handle the disappointment and heartache that inevitably comes with this particular territory.

I can’t really say I regret doing what I’ve done: finding my father, meeting my father, maintaining a relationship with my father. I am glad to know him. I also wish things were different, but wishing doesn’t make it so. Action won’t make it so either, unfortunately. Nothing can erase the past. What I think is that this is simply the hand I’ve been dealt, what I must accept and constantly forgive, day after day. There is no going around it, the only way is to go through it, which is what I’ve been trying to do for nearly 10 years. 

It is a solitary journey, and not a smooth or easy one. I will continue on, but while keeping self-preservation at the forefront. No more trying to turn apples into oranges. No more looking for what isn't there.

    

The Little Tooth That Made Me Cry

Yesterday I posted on Facebook that I gave my kids a list of chores and shut myself in my bedroom to get some work done. Not five minutes later I was interrupted (for the first time, but certainly not the last) by a screaming Mathilda.

She was distraught and inconsolable. Her tooth fell out, and even though she has seen this happen to her older siblings repeatedly, she was totally not expecting it.

Neither was I.

Mathilda is five. I am about 99% positive that the other kids lost their first teeth at age five as well, but I'm also pretty positive that they at least made it into kindergarten before they reached that milestone.

This is my last summer of pretending Mathilda is still my baby before she heads off to big kid school in the fall. Somehow I thought things like this would not happen until we reached that stage. When I saw her in my doorway screaming and holding her little tooth, I thought to myself, "she is too young for this!"

But of course, she's not. I'm just not ready.

Bethany, Connor, Lucy and I rallied together to calm Mathilda down and convince her it was awesome to lose her first tooth. We reminded her about the tooth fairy, whom we assured her would most definitely respect her wishes to leave the tooth under her pillow. I hugged her and kissed her and high-fived her, and eventually she stopped crying and understood that she didn't do something wrong to make her tooth fall out.

Finally I got the kids out of my bedroom once again so I could get back to work. And then I cried.

I couldn't help myself. I had to indulge in this awful feeling of despair for just a moment or two. I know, I know. That probably sounds a little melodramatic. But I felt like I'd been sucker-punched. Time is going by too fast, and at moments like this I feel like I'm being pushed along by gale force winds.

Stooooooooooop! But it can't. It won't. Time and tide stop for no man. The only way to slow the clock a little is to live in the moment and to resist the powerful urge to cruise through life on auto-pilot.

Sometimes we need auto-pilot. Sometimes the only thing standing between us and the loony bin is auto-pilot. But we can't allow ourselves to be allured into its comfortable numbness for too long. We have to snap-to and sometimes work pretty dang hard to find pleasure and peace in the monotonies of raising kids and all that it entails.

That little bitty pearly white tooth knocked me off kilter a little yesterday. It kind of took the breath out of me and kicked my feet out from under me. My baby girl is five. She's going to kindergarten in a matter of a few excruciatingly short weeks. She's growing up and I can't stop it.

What I Want for My Children

Christmas is right around the corner, and I have to admit that we love spoiling our kids at Christmastime. Every year we say we're going to cut it way back, and we sort of do. But no matter what, we try to make it amazing for them. This year is no exception, and I cannot wait to see their excitement on Christmas morning. With four kids, plus the gifts that Chris and I exchange, our living room will be pretty insane. While that's all well and good and incredibly fun, what I want for my kids goes far beyond material possessions and a room full of wrapped gifts.

Self-confidence
     Empathy
          Joy
               Resourcefullness
                    Magic
               Love
          Connection
     Gratitude
Knowledge

Friendship
     Laughter
          Peace
               Beautiful memories
                    Adventure
               Wanderlust
          Curiosity
     Strength
Open-mindedness

I feel the bone crushing weight of the world on my shoulders, to provide all of this for them, and so much more. I want them to have what I didn't have, what I did have, and what I hope to have someday. I want to open their eyes to the world around them, and make sure they know that their place in it is more than just that of a casual observer.

I want them to remember to enjoy life, to set lofty, improbable goals, and to remain vulnerable. Vulnerability allows us to love deeply and freely, without worrying about what tomorrow may bring. When we build walls to protect ourselves, we keep people out and prevent ourselves from growing.

I want them to fall down 100 times and get back up 101 times. I want them to let their tears flow and to never hold back their laughter. I want them to do what they fear and to love with wild abandon. Heartbreak and failure may come, but have we lived fully if we have not experienced both? Let your hearts break open, my babies, it means that they are bursting with love. Where love is, more will grow. You have taught me that.

I want them to hold success in their hands, whatever that may mean to each of them individually; to breathe it in and relish its essence. I want them to understand that their lives are malleable, that they can change so much, but that some things are out of their control. I want them to not lose sleep over those things that they cannot change.

I want them to apologize and forgive. I want them to never doubt my love, and to know that I'm so sorry for all the times I screwed up, for my mistakes, miscalculations, and angry outbursts.

Of course, this is an incomplete list. It's only the tip of the iceberg, really. I think it's fair to say that I want the world for my children, the parts that can't be ordered on Amazon or picked up from Target. Christmas will be fun, and they will love all of their presents. But when the gifts have all been opened and the wrappings are in the trash, I hope all of the other intangible things are what they cherish most and remember most clearly. That magic of waking up early and quivering with excitement.  The joy of giving. The flood of love and gratitude. The knowledge that someone knows them and loves them so well and so dearly, and has noticed them and paid enough attention to them to choose just the right gifts. The warm tingly feeling of togetherness and sharing.

All of these things I want for my children, more than anything that can be bought. Some they will have to earn and find for themselves, but I hope more than anything that I'm setting them on the right path so that they can do just that.
           

November Thankful #22

In honor of Thanksgiving, I'm doing daily thankful posts. I'd love it if you'd join me by commenting here or on MichiGal's Facebook page.

November 22

Today I'm thankful for my family, our little party of six. I grew up in an unconventional family, not that there's anything wrong with that. But as a kid it can be incredibly difficult to explain to friends and teachers why you don't know you're dad and you're living with your grandparents and sharing a room with your mom. Or living with your mom and her boyfriend. Actually nowadays maybe it wouldn't be so difficult, but when I was a kid, anything other than the "normal" two-parent family was completely out of the ordinary. Truthfully I felt like an outcast, always. Add to the family situation the fact that I moved all the time until 7th grade, when we finally stayed in one place until high school graduation, and what you get is a whole lot of awkwardness. There were good things about the way I grew up,  to be sure, but what I longed for was a regular family and a regular home.

Before Chris and I got married we knew we wanted to have children. I myself could not wait to have a baby. I still remember the day when Chris called me at work and suggested it was time to start a family. We had just moved into our first real house and we were feeling pretty domesticated I guess. I made an appointment with my doctor, went off the pill, and poof! was preggers pretty much instantaneously. We were beyond thrilled! I could hardly stand to go to work every day, when I had a nursery to decorate, baby names to brainstorm, and a million baby things to buy. When Bethany was born, it was dizzying how much our lives transformed immediately.

It took us seven and a half years to complete our family. Looking back, it seems so long ago that we had only one baby, and then just two, and then three. But it flew by, much quicker than I could have anticipated. When Connor was born, a lot of people thought we'd automatically be done because we had our boy and our girl. We put the thought of more kids on the back burner, but kept ourselves open to surprises (read: weren't very careful with birth control). Lucy came at the best time, when we were saddened by the loss of my beloved grandma and needed a little light in our lives. And finally, two and a half years ago, we were blessed with Mathilda during one of the most stressful times of our marriage. 

Sometimes it doesn't seem real, that these four little people are my own babies. Other things in life haven't gone exactly as I'd imagined they would, but every single day I feel blessed beyond measure that I have this family. When all is said and done, the importance of anything else pales in comparison. The little stresses of daily life (okay, some of them aren't so little) can't diminish the joy my family gives me. The six of us constitute our own party, wherever we go.