Due

I've had a lot of feelings lately and I'm going to address most of them in my next post, but today I want to talk about one set of feelings in particular.

I haven't been happy for a while now. It began with what my father used to describe as "general malaise." Then my discontent started creeping into other areas of my life, slowly and a little at a time, the way that hot cheese will escape the end of a Hot Pocket when you cook it too long. 

I was talking to a friend about feeling unhappy and she asked what changes would need to happen in my life for me to feel happy instead. I thought that a good start in answering was to list the things that I felt were contributing to my unhappiness, and I had an epiphany of sorts about the way that I've been seeing myself. In order to get you there, let's go back a few years.

Five years ago, June 30th was a Tuesday.

I wish I could say that I know this because I have the savant-like ability to name the day of the week that any given date fell on, like the girl with autism in that one Baby-Sitter's Club book that handled the issue of autism badly, even for a children's book from the 80s.

Alas, that is not the case. And parenthetically, precious few of the books I loved as a child have held up well over time from a literary standpoint.

I remember that June 30th, 2009 was a Tuesday, because it was my due date. Roo's due date. I knew that she wouldn't be born on her due date, because pretty much no one delivers on their due date. But the date still felt significant, because it was the date I'd had in my mind for nine months, and reaching it felt like a great accomplishment. So even though I knew she wouldn't be born that day, I felt like something should happen to mark the occasion of my due date.

Nothing did. It was a perfectly average Tuesday in every way, except for the fact that I was really super-duper pregnant and Roo kept kicking me in the kidneys (they must be pleasantly squishy or something, because she always kicked them). She stayed snug and warm in my belly for another week, and absolutely nothing happened on my due date. Despite my expectations, my hopes, and my timeline, all I got was a backache.

To quote my friend Rob, isn't that just like life?

I got to thinking about that the other day - about expectations and plans and mental due dates. How many times in my life have various due dates come and gone with nothing to show for them? Dozens, at least, if not a hundred or more. But despite a dearth of any savant-like skill with dates, I do tend to remember them, and more often than not I use them as a way of measuring my progress, or more specifically my lack thereof.

Three years ago I realized that it had been a decade since my high school graduation (May 24, 2001) and I quite naturally took inventory of my life in that space of time. It was an eventful decade, but I still felt like a failure, because I was single and fat and working part-time for $8 an hour. I always thought I'd have a college degree and a husband and children and a Volkswagen by the time my ten-year reunion rolled around. I had nothing to show for the decade that had elapsed since high school. It's been thirteen years now and I've still got nothing to show.

Even the revised life plans that I made when I placed Roo didn't come to fruition. I knew where I wanted to be when Roo was 1 year old, and 2 years old and so forth, and I am not in any of those places or stages of life. But, I told myself, that's okay. I just need to adjust my timeline. Change my when-Roo-is-four goals to my when-Roo-is-eight-or-nine goals.

I'd been feeling better about things last August, but then I took an online survey. I don't typically do that but at that time every single Target receipt I got had an invitation on it, and I needed to kill time while my cupcakes were in the oven. Nothing cuts to the heart of your insecurities quite like answering demographic questions. I already knew all of these things about myself, but it wasn't until Target asked me on one page that I thought, I am in my late twenties, I am single, I have never been married, I have no children, and I make less than $30,000 a year. That cheered me right up, let me tell you. I was glad to have cupcakes to look forward to; I needed them.

And then last fall I hit another due date, another deadline I set for myself. I turned 30. It wasn't as scary as I thought it might be. I actually had several days of birthday, culminating in a party where my fantastic friends surprised me with this cake:

(How you doin', Tom Selleck?)

I should mention that the very first thing I did in my thirties was put my contact lenses in, and then put my glasses back on. Isn't memory loss supposed to start in your forties? Anyway. After my week of birthday, I thought, well, shoot. I'm 30 now, and all I have to show for it is half of Tom Selleck's torso.*

All of those demographics that Target reminded me of (and more) kept coming to my mind. No husband - not even a boyfriend (not since the Bush administration, how's that for a frame of reference?), not much income, no children, thighs like a t-rex. It's a depressing way to look at your life, and the other day, when I thought about changing things, I wondered - at what point do I stop defining myself by the things that I lack?

Because that's what I've been doing since my birthday and probably my entire adult life. When I look at these due dates, at these deadlines, I feel that I've fallen short because of what I don't have. (And before you suggest counting my blessings, know that I actually have a list of my blessings. I am a compulsive list-maker; if you ever want to know what my faults are I have a Google doc I can show you.) I didn't used to do that. When did I start? When did I stop seeing myself as a whole person with innate value and start seeing myself as a collection of empty spaces?

My only consolation, if you can call it that, is that I know I'm not alone in this. I think it's a societal disease, this idea that who we are is what we're missing. I know plenty of other women who are put into boxes marked Single and Childless. How messed up is that? I've written before about how labeling birth mothers dehumanizes them. It's true for everyone, and especially when that label implies that they've come up short, that something is missing.

I want to get married. I want to be a mother. But I want to be happy even if neither of those things ever happens for me. I want to feel whole just the way that I am now. I want to see myself as the sum of what I do have, good and bad, and not as a list of unfulfilled dreams. I want to be enough. I want the woman that I am right now, right this second, to be enough for me to be happy.

When I was a child I was focused on what I could do, what I did well, and what I wanted to do. I didn't ever feel like I wasn't enough as I was. What changed in the past twenty years? I mean, obviously plenty of things have changed, but who I am fundamentally, as a human being, as a child of God - what's really changed? Nothing has changed. If I was enough then, I'm enough now.

I don't mean to imply that there's no room for improvement. I want to end each day as a better person than I was when I began it (how's that for an unattainable goal?). But I'm tired of feeling inadequate because of the things I don't have. Here's the thing - I'm never going to run out of due dates. I'm never going to stop having occasion to mark my progress and reevaluate my life. I don't have a lot of control over that. What I do have control over is how I let these due dates affect me.

Roo will be five in a little over a week. Another milestone - another deadline. I am light-years away from where I wanted to be when she turns five. I may never get to where I wanted to be at this point in my life. That doesn't have to matter. I can still be happy with where I am.

I know I'm not going to get there right away. It takes time to change the habit of being dissatisfied. But I want to start now. I want to learn to be happy with myself and my life, no matter what. It's time. I'm due.

*The left half. Well, my left, his right.

On Parenting and Being an Adult

Roo's birthday is coming up in a few weeks. I'm not sure where the last five years went but she's starting kindergarten in the fall and she has already started reading chapter books and is generally much smarter than any five-year-old has any right to be. She is my favorite.

That Roo has the parents she does feels like a gift to me. The more I get to know people the more I realize that P an M aren't just excellent parents. They are exceptional human beings. The world could use more people like them. I look up to them in so many ways and I hope that if I ever grow up, I end up being their kind of person. The only downside I can see to Roo being their daughter is that children so rarely appreciate their parents. I hope that Roo is the exception and that as she gets older she realizes how amazing her parents are and how blessed she is to be their daughter. I hope that as she gets older she knows that I wouldn't have placed her with just anyone, and that in fact I couldn't possibly have placed her with anyone on earth but P and M - not for a second.

I have never worried even once about whether Roo is happy and healthy and loved. She has such a good life and such a good family. I used to wonder if, as Roo got older, I would wish I had parented her but the opposite is true. The older she gets, the more I love my choice and the less I care what anyone else thinks of it. Things people might say that used to offend me just make me laugh now. I wish that I were this certain of every decision I've ever made in my life!

But even though I don't regret my choice, I do still wonder sometimes what life would be like for me and Roo if I had parented her. I don't consider things too deeply because I can't wrap my mind around custody arrangements and child support and I honestly don't know where I would be living or working right now. But I do think, if I had parented, I would have an almost-five-year-old now. I would have registered her for kindergarten. How scary is that? I don't have a clue how any of that works. How do you know you've found a good school? A good teacher? How do you prepare a child to go from preschool to kindergarten?

I'll confess to ignorance in pretty much the entire realm of childcare at this point. I have no idea how much a child is supposed to eat or how much sleep they should get every night. I don't know when naps stop. I don't know what you're supposed to teach them and when. How much TV is too much? Do kids still get chicken pox? So many questions.

I know that most people don't know any of these things when they have a baby. They just figure it out as they go along, which is kind of a terrifying thought, isn't it? All these people who haven't a clue what they're doing are raising children, and those children are going to be adults someday whether they're raised right or not. It sounds like a terrible idea. Who came up with this? Somehow it works and enough of us make it to adulthood (relatively unscathed) to keep the world going. I'll never understand it.

P and M seem to have the whole parenting thing figured out. They're not perfect but I think they do a better job of it than anyone else I know (although I will admit to a slight bias in their favor). I think it's because they were ready for parenthood when their firstborn was placed with them. They were absolutely ready to be parents. They were prepared. They stay calm. They make rational decisions. They are adults.

This is, I think, my problem with the idea of me registering a child for kindergarten. I don't feel like enough of a responsible adult to be trusted with that kind of decision. I know myself. I do stupid things more often than I remember to eat and I make bad decisions almost exclusively. I had to have help picking a health insurance plan and I don't actually understand any of it. I once ate half a can of chocolate frosting in a single sitting. My mother could make a list entitled Ridiculous Reasons My Daughter Has Phoned Me and the Equally Ridiculous Questions That Followed. (I once left her a voicemail that went something like, "Hi Mom, this is Jill, your youngest child. I think I poisoned myself. Will you call me back when you get a minute? No rush.") I will make it through an entire day off work without remembering that I'm supposed to eat regularly. Last year I bought a t-shirt with a pattern of unicorns on it and I wear it to work (also, ask me about my whale shirt).

The idea that I am a both a registered voter and a government employee should terrify you. I am thirty years old but make no mistake, I am not an adult.

I used to bristle at the idea that as a birth mom, I chose adoption because I wasn't ready to be a parent. "I was ready!" was my battle cry. I thought that I proved it by parenting Roo for nine weeks. I think I even blogged about the not-ready-for-parenting school of thought, because I remember writing the phrase "I was absolutely ready to be a mother."

But what I've come to realize in the past little while is that, no, I absolutely was not. I wanted to be a mother. I wanted it desperately. But that doesn't mean I was ready. Looking back I can see that. And what's more, I still don't think I'm ready.

I want to repeat that because when I realized it, it hit me with great force. I am not ready to have a child. I'm 30. When I'm in a quiet room I can't hear my heartbeat because my biological clock is ticking too loudly. I am jealous of pregnant women I see. My insides feel all squishy when I see babies. My mind is blank of every thought but one: I want one of those! Babies are awesome and at my age, when I see one I am biochemically predisposed to want one of my own.

But that's not enough. What on earth would I do with one? For the most part I'm no better off than I was five years ago. I make a lot of the same stupid choices and I have some of the same bad habits and I am an absolute child about things for the most part. The biggest difference between the Jill who placed Roo and the Jill who is typing this is that the latter is five years older and needs a haircut.

I don't want to discount any personal growth I might have done. I am a slightly better person right now. But I don't think I'm any better prepared to be a mother.

I already know I'm going to get comments from mothers telling me, "Nobody is ever really prepared for parenthood. Nobody is ever really ready." People are going to tell me that you figure it out as you go along, that you get ready as you parent. People are going to point out that plenty of people who aren't ready to be parents still have kids and make a decent go of it. And I believe all of that.

But believe me when I say that if I met an amazing man tomorrow and we fell in love and got married, I would think long and hard before having a child right away. I have more issues than Newsweek. I know I'm not ready to be anyone's mother. And isn't this the perfect time to figure that out, now, while I'm not anyone's mother?

I wasn't ready for Roo and I'm still not. I am so, so grateful that her parents were ready, and still are. I couldn't have placed Roo with just anyone. I love her too much for that. I could only have placed her with them and I'm so glad I did!

I think there will come a time, maybe a few years from now, when I stop panicking every time a bill comes in the mail, when I do my taxes before April 15th, when I give up napping under my desk at work, when my therapist no longer calls because he's worried about me ... there will come a time when I unironically describe myself as an adult, when I will see babies and think not only of how much I want one but of how much I have to offer to one as a mother. It's going to be a good day.

I'm just not there yet.

Let it go

Last night I attended Roo's last dance recital. Dance is boring, she says, so she's going to try something new in the fall. She danced pretty well for a four-year-old. It looked to me like she knew the choreography better than any of the other little duck-costumed preschoolers on the stage. Her face really sold it for me, too. This girl was serious about her duck dance. M and I sat next to each other and we both took video of Roo dancing. It was one of those moments that could have been photographed for a PSA about open adoption.

After the recital M found Roo among the lines of tiny dancers filing out of the auditorium, and my heart felt full to burst. To someone who doesn't understand the beauty possible in adoption this will sound weird or even awful, but it makes me so, so happy that M is Roo's mom. They belong with each other. I see the two of them together and I think, that's what I want, if I ever have the chance to be a mother again.

I don't feel a smidge of sadness about the almost-five-year-old who danced so enthusiastically in a sparkly duck costume last night. She's got as good a life as any little girl could ever hope to have. She's pure sunshine - goodness and sweetness in human form. She makes me happy. It's impossible for me to feel any pain where she's concerned. In that sense, as far as placing a child for adoption goes, I am way beyond “over it.”

But this afternoon I got a reminder that there are some things I might never get over. It's a reminder I've gotten several times before but I keep managing to push it out of my mind. And, just like so many of life's disappointments, this one is because of laundry.

I was a mother for nine weeks before I placed Roo for adoption. When you've got a baby, you've usually got this entire collection of things for the small human in your care. It's quite amazing how many things accumulate for such a tiny person. I had a crib and a car seat and a stroller and a Pack and Play and crib bedding and blankets and burp cloths and dozens of teensy little outfits and socks. There were pacifiers and miniature fingernail clippers and bottles and stacks and stacks of other things that modern society says are required for the well-being of a ten-pound person. I spent every penny I had on accouterments for my baby. And I was happy to do it. I loved every last accessory.

Then one day I didn't have a baby anymore.

But I still had all this stuff. Scads of it. Boxes and boxes worth of baby things. Most of them I was able to put aside without an overabundance of pain. Clothes were a different story. The last load of little laundry I did, the one after placement, just about killed me. I folded up clean Onesies and sleepers and knew that I wasn't going to put them on my baby ever again. I didn't have a baby to put them on.

Eventually all of Roo's things were packed into Rubbermaid storage boxes, which were labeled and tucked away into a back corner of the garage. The crib was taken apart and bubble-wrapped and nestled with the mattress on top of the boxes. The car seat and stroller were mummified in plastic and hidden with the rest of the proof that I used to be somebody's mother.

My mother consoled me with the idea that in a few years I would likely be unwrapping and unboxing everything with my husband, getting things ready for the child we were expecting together. I clung desperately to the idea of this storage being a temporary thing. I thought, I will be a mother again before this pink-patterned car seat expires.

But I wasn't. Roo turned two and her baby things remained untouched. I considered selling them but I panicked when I tried. I wasn't ready to let them go. If I ever thought of the boxes after that I decided to worry about selling their contents when Roo was three. I would be ready then. But I didn't think about the boxes very often. I wasn't at my mom's house very often and I certainly wasn't spending time in her garage. Roo's third birthday came and went and her baby things never came to my mind.

I found some way to block from my mind the existence of those boxes and that shrink-wrapped furniture. I would see baby clothes at Target and have vague memories of how, in my early twenties, I used to collect little outfits here and there for some future child but my mind never jumped from that collection to the storage boxes. I managed to forget about the sad reminders of my interrupted maternity until last month.

My sister-in-law is pregnant and due in August. This pregnancy is something of a miracle and, with more than four years having passed without a new niece or nephew, I am almost desperately happy at the thought of holding a Barber baby again. My sweet nephew Elliot died two years ago, before he was born, so every day Becky is pregnant with this little girl is an answer to prayer.

My brother and his family were in town for Easter. They're getting ready to move to Texas this summer and somehow or other it came up that they were going to have to buy a new crib and mattress for Baby Girl. My mouth knew what to say before my brain did.

“I've got a crib and mattress in the garage. It's yours if you want it.”

They said that they did, and I loved the thought of their miracle baby sleeping in Roo's old crib. I felt ready to let those things go. I was proud of myself. I was finally ready! They reassured me that I could have both items back when I needed them but I said I didn't think that day would come and they were welcome to keep what I gave them. And then the conversation moved on, and again I forgot about the things in my mom's garage.

Today my sister-in-law sent me a text message asking if my offer of the crib and mattress was still good. I said that it was. She asked if I still had the bedding and I said I had everything. When I used the word “everything” I was thinking of bumpers and blankets and I was ready to part with it all but then Becky asked what I meant by “everything” and I suddenly remembered the box of baby Roo's Onesies and sleepers and I lost it. I went full-on Kim Kardashian with my ugly crying.

I want my sister-in-law to have the crib and mattress. I want her to take the box of bedding. I'm ready for that. But those tiny clothes … will I ever be ready to let them go? Roo starts school in the fall. How am I still haunted by her gingerbread jammies? How is it that five years later the thought of her pink polka-dot Onesie reduces me to tears?

I have a box full of baby clothes that I'm not using, that I may never use. I want to let it go. I want to want Becky to take them. I don't want tiny striped socks to have this kind of hold on me. What's it going to take for me to be ready? How long will it be before the ghost of the baby who was mine stops casting a shadow over a box of clean laundry?

I don't know. I know plenty of birth mothers, including several who parented before placing, but none who placed before I did. I don't have anyone to look to as an example of what trajectory my grief hoarding might follow.

I've passed the point where I'm hanging on to little laundry for some future baby. I wasted a lot of time with motherhood as my only life's goal. It would be fine if I were married or expected to marry but I have to think differently as a single woman in my stage of life. I have to plan for a future where I'm the only one who's going to take care of me because there are no guarantees. I know that I wouldn't marry me right now. I've got too much baggage and I probably always will. I expect to unpack it on my own.

The memory of the newborn I placed is strong enough to keep that box of baby clothes in my mom's garage. I just wish that the thought of the five-year-old that baby became was strong enough for me to let the box go. I'll get there someday. Someday I will be able to open that box, to save a pair of jammies or two as a reminder, and let the rest of it go.

Maybe that day will be sooner than I think. The crib and mattress will be loaded into a Texas-bound van in July. And a few days before that, Becky and I will open the boxes that I haven't touched in five years. We'll pick out sheets and blankets for her tiny miracle. Becky is one of the strongest women I know. Maybe her strength will make me brave and we'll open the box that hurts me the most.

I've cried alone over these things for so long. Maybe crying over them with someone else will give me the courage I need to finally let them go.

Remembering

You know what I love? Going on vacation. I should do it more often. Two weeks ago I took a trip to San Diego, which was lovely and amazing and fantastic and wonderful and lots of other words that I tend to apply to both important life experiences and particularly good pizza (but I repeat myself). 

I went with my friend Emily and she unwisely allowed me to plan our itinerary. I tried to warn her that I have military fangirl tendencies* but she wouldn't listen. I think she regretted this when we ended up on the Russian submarine that is part of the Maritime Museum. Also later on when my camera and I wanted to spend 4 hours on an aircraft carrier. I probably should have joined the Navy in my younger years. I may have missed my calling in life.

Fortunately for Emily I only planned for one day of "Oh my gosh, look at that navy shipyard!" We spent the next day in Balboa Park, and we both touched dinosaur poo.

(Yes, I got sunburned. Laugh. Laugh at my pain.)

Anyway. Day three of our trip included a visit to Sea World. I've been to Sea World before, but it was a while ago. And by "a while ago" I mean "in 1987." A few things have changed at Sea World in the past 26 years, but it still felt vaguely familiar to me because I remember being there when I was little. I didn't think I would remember, because I had a traumatic encounter with a puffer fish and I thought I probably repressed most of that particular vacation. But I got back to the penguin exhibit, and I saw this:

and I remembered. (Unfortunately, I also remembered the puffer fish.)

Roo is the same age now that I was then. Roo is at an age where she will remember things. I suspect that, because she is so clever, she will probably have memories of being younger than she is now. I have memories of being about 18 months old. (I know that Science would probably call shenanigans on that, but I know what I remember.) But my clearer memories start at about three-and-a-half, Roo's age.

Which brings me to my point (hey, I've got one this time!). I've been more aware during the last couple of visits that Roo is forming memories of me. It's made me more than usually grateful for the progress I've made and for the person I've become. I'm far from perfect - every day I seem to discover some new flaw or weakness** - but I am so much better than I used to be, and I think I'm starting to be the kind of person Roo can be proud of.

I certainly wasn't there a few years ago. I forget that at times. Fortunately(?) I got a reminder the other day. I decided to start using Twitter again last week because I don't want to miss my chance to be personally victimized by Amanda Bynes. While I was trying to decide what to say to my two followers, I felt this compulsion to read through old tweets, and it was educational. I used to be a hot mess, you guys. If you don't believe me, feel free to browse the blog archive. Scary stuff.

But I think my wrong turn down memory lane was useful. Sometimes I need a reminder of how far I've come. Four years ago I was unemployed and poor and alone and eight months pregnant. Just look at me now - still poor and alone, but now I've touched dinosaur poo!

Seriously, though. I used to have more issues than Newsweek, and I am so, so grateful that at that time Roo was too small to get a sense of my personality. I'd hate for her to remember me the way I was when she was a baby. I hate to remember me the way I was when she was a baby.

I have decided, however, that every now and then I need to remember. Especially lately. I've been frustrated with where I am in life (single, poor, have touched dinosaur poo). I thought that my vacation would be a break from feeling like the last single woman on earth, but it wasn't. I felt like I was surrounded by couples in love - is it normal to see so many kissing people in public? - and the fact that Emily spent a lot of time text messaging her boyfriend didn't help. (I still love you, Emily.)

But there are worse things in the world than being single, and I've been through those things. More importantly, I've made it through them, stronger, happier, and better. And that's something worth remembering.





*Raise your hand if some of your happiest childhood memories are of watching "Wings of the Luftwaffe" on television with your father.

.
.
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Just me? Okay.


**A comprehensive list of my faults and weaknesses is available upon request.

Itchy Feet

This is going to be one of those personal posts that has very little to do with adoption. Except that it kind of has a lot to do with adoption, eventually. I promise.



Lately I've been restless.

I should be more specific. I tend to be restless physically as a general rule. I can't remember the last time I sat still. But lately I've been mentally restless as well, and it's getting worse.

I'm convinced it's a genetic trait. My paternal great-grandmother (for whom Roo was named) was born to an unmarried mother, her biological father having been the sort of man who does not stay in one place for very long. She married a man, my great-grandfather, who was also the restless sort. They had two sons, and their second-born became my grandfather.

But years before that, he got itchy feet. (Not literally.) At the age of sixteen he fudged his birthday and joined the United States Marine Corps. They gave him a gun and a knife, and then they shipped him off to the Pacific to fight in the second world war. When he got back, he married my grandmother. After a few years they moved. And again a few years later. And again a few years after that.

When my dad told people he moved around a lot as a kid they assumed his father was in the military, and he was. But my grandfather was in the Reserves after the war. The constant relocation was his own choice. He worked as a pipefitter and a foreman and he had a temper. Every couple of years he'd get sick of his boss, quit his job, and move the family to a new place. The wandering life seemed to suit him.

It did not suit my father. He wanted roots. Once my oldest brother started school, my parents were settled, and if my father occasionally felt restless like his father he hid it well with car trips or new ways of arranging the furniture. I spent the first 18 years of my life in the same small town ... and I hated it.

My father wanted roots; I wanted wings. I felt stifled; trapped. I was envious any time there was a new kid at school; I felt they'd seen more than I had, experienced more, been more free. My world was so small. I grew to resent it. I took any chance I could to shake things up. When we had a family trip planned, I would pack my suitcase weeks in advance (and end up unpacking one day at a time because I had nothing to wear). I loved moving furniture around, painting walls, planting flowers. Anything to shake up the monotony of my tiny world. Every couple of years I had to do something, anything, to make a change.

I never outgrew it. At college, I was the girl who would say yes to any trip, anywhere (even an ill-planned trip in an aging truck to the top of a mountain, in the snow, at 2am, to help my friend Connie look for her camera. None of us brought a flashlight, and I was wearing flip-flops. Sorry, Mom). I was desperate for new experiences, new people, new scenery.

Since the age of 14, I haven't done any one thing for more than two years. I had one job from 14 to 16 and another from 16 to 18. Then college for roughly two years, another job for two years, 16 months of beauty school, a salon job for about two years. Then two years of unemployment, during which I grew a human being in my free time. Then my library job - one position for a year, and 18 months in my current position.

And I am getting restless. I don't know how to have the same job for so long without getting itchy feet. I keep shuffling pictures around at my desk, trying to make things look new. But I'm starting to feel trapped again. It hit me a few months ago. I was refilling my water bottle and my brain was idling and I suddenly couldn't remember what day of the week it was. This happens regularly, but that day I realized that it happens regularly. That there is precious little to distinguish one day from the next. That the past year of my life has flown by as if it had hitched a ride on a cannonball. I had this horrifying feeling that the next two, five, ten years of my life could easily be the same kind of a blur.

I managed to shake the feeling for a few months but it's back in full force. My twenties got away from me and if I keep on keepin' on, my thirties will be an endless cycle of damnation - work-sleep-work-sleep-work-sleep. No progress, no change. There is no opportunity for advancement at my library, and the county has not given pay raises in over five years. I have reached a dead end. I'm not unhappy with my life, but I feel like there has to be more out there for me and I find myself getting more and more desperate to find it.

So a few weeks ago I reminded myself that I am not a tree. America is a big country - the land of opportunity. I have options. I'm not stuck. I can go anywhere I want. I started looking for library jobs in other cities (thank you, Houston, for letting me know how grossly underpaid I am). I imagined myself in Illinois, in North Carolina, in Texas, in Virginia. My itchy feet danced at the thought of a fresh start, a new city, something different to get tired of in two years.*

I would be alone in a strange city, and that made me a little nervous. But, I asked myself, isn't it worth the risk? What do I have to lose? What is there for me in Arizona?

And right away I knew the answer. Roo. Roo is here in Arizona. She is my precious, amazing, wonderful little anchor to the Grand Canyon state. Roo is here. How can I go anywhere else?

I am so spoiled to live so close to her - in the same city, maybe a dozen miles away. When I want a visit, it's a matter of weeks and very little planning (on my part, anyway). I've been able to go to her dance recitals and play with her at the park and have breakfast with her at a restaurant. I could do none of those things if I lived in Houston, for example. Visits would have to be carefully orchestrated, and they would be expensive for me. I'm afraid I'd feel I was missing out on the little things - things I'm invited to now because I'm close but that might slip past if I lived a thousand miles away because it would be so difficult for me to go.

Roo is getting older (she will be four this summer. Four!). The older she gets, the more important it is to have a good relationship with her and her parents. I don't ever want her to feel abandoned by me. I want her to be able to see me when she wants to. To get to know me if she wants to. I don't want to be some distant figure, someone talked about but not to.

The simple thing to do would be to find something new here in the valley. A new apartment, a new job. But ... I can't explain it. Arizona almost feels too small. Yes, all 113,990 square miles** of it. I have lived in Arizona for thirty years. I know it too well. It's too familiar. There's nothing new here for me, and my feet want to go somewhere new.

But how can I even think of going anywhere that Roo's not?

Yes, I know that I'm being stupid and that Roo probably wouldn't be bothered by my relocating. The truth is that I'm the one bothered by it. The thought of moving away from her scares the heck out of me. And yet the restlessness grows.

How can I make my feet agree with my heart? I wish I knew. I don't know if there's a compromise. I don't know which part of me is going to win.

But I do know that it's time to start rearranging the furniture. 





*If you're thinking the whole two-year-itch thing means I'd make a good military wife, you're probably right, and I've thought so too. But single Mormon military men aren't exactly thick on the ground in the Phoenix metro area. So if you know of any, do a girl a favor, won't you?

**Thank you, Wikipedia! Also, I know that people have these ideas about Arizona because of Sheriff Joe. So I would just like to remind you that we are also the state that brought you Grumpy Cat. You're welcome, America.

Comparing Losses

I'm feeling introspective today; please indulge me.

Once upon a time, I was a psychology major in college. I was young and full of hope in those days and I hadn't yet realized that a bachelor's degree in psychology isn't worth anything; that more advanced degrees are required for any sort of enviable job in the field of mental health. Anyway, during one of my courses the instructor discussed stress. For fun (she had an odd sense of humor) she had each of us take a stress inventory. It was a list of life events - both good and bad - that are stressful and each event had an assigned point value. If you had, in the past twelve months, been through a life event on the inventory, you gave yourself the appropriate number of points, and you added up your score at the end and the total was, presumably, supposed to give you a good idea of how stressed you were. 

Personally I felt that if you needed a psychological inventory to determine whether you were stressed, you probably weren't. But I mention this because a few years ago I think I broke the stress inventory. In the space of twelve months I experienced the death of a parent, an unplanned pregnancy, the dissolution of a romantic relationship, the birth of a child, and the placing of that child for adoption.

I've been asked by more than one person whether it was harder to place Roo than it was to lose my dad. Without context the question seems a bit insensitive but I'm not bothered by it. I can see where people might wonder, as these two events occurred exactly a year apart, and both caused a grief, and both have shaped me, and both have left me to live my life without someone I love dearly.

But I can't say with any certainty that one was harder than the other, because they were such different experiences. I'm not even going to say they're apples and oranges, because apples and oranges are both fruits. Let's call them apples and roast beef. At the time, each experience was the hardest thing I've ever gone through. The difference is which I struggle with, several years out.

I once thought that placement was harder. My dad's death was a single event, with a very clearly defined end point. He was dying, and then he died – a medical fact. The rest of us were left to arrange things, because my father was gone. I remember being amazed at how quickly he was gone. One second my father was in the room and the next he wasn't, even though his body hadn't moved. My father's heart stopped beating and he was gone, his body a foreign object.The room had changed, just like that.

Plenty happened for those of us left behind, but it was the end of the line for my dad and for our lives with him. It was an end.

Placement, on the other hand, was a beginning. It was the start of a whole life of not being Roo's mother, a life of things that I'd miss and wonder about and mourn. Every day she'd grown a bit more, changed a tiny bit. For nine weeks plus nine months I was an expert on all things Roo. I knew her better than anyone. Placement marked the end of my being the Roo Jeopardy champion. I knew less and less about her. P and M took my place as Roo experts.

At first each day without her felt like an injustice and I almost longed for the relative simplicity of mourning a death. It seemed so much easier to handle, its trajectory so much neater. I had decades of memories to cling to in mourning my father. I had sympathy. In this sense, and at this time, placement absolutely was harder.

I find now that I have changed my mind completely. I prefer not to have to compare the two experiences but if I must I'd say that my dad's death was the hardest and continues to be the hardest and probably always will bring out the lost little child in me.

I am not Roo's mother, but she's still alive and happy and healthy and growing, and I get to see her and know her and love her. I have read books to her and been to dance recitals and I woke up on Christmas morning to a phone call from her. Roo makes me happy. Thinking of her brings joy. She is, as a friend of mine remarked, an affront to frowns. Roo is still here, and I still get to see her and be a part of her life. Placement was so hard, but it got better. I got better. I still have the occasional bad day but by and large the hurt is gone.

It is a million times harder to miss my dad, because he is gone not just from me but from this earth. I can't phone him when I get stuck on my taxes, or ask him to fix something on my car, or tell him that I love him, and I can't get a hug from him – the kind of hug only a dad can give, the kind that makes you feel completely safe and loved and okay, even if just for a moment. I miss those hugs. 

 

I can't write about him without crying. I miss him terribly. I kept thinking it would get easier, but it hasn't and I don't know that it ever will. I don't know if I'll ever get over the utter injustice of my father's absence. 

When you don't see someone for a while, you develop a mental backlog of things to talk to them about. My brother, for instance, lives in Utah now, and I find myself making mental lists of things to tell him and show him and ask him about the next time I see him. When he was in town for Christmas I didn't shut up for a few hours because I had so much to say.

When the person you want to talk to is dead, that backlog never eases up. The unasked questions, the unspoken conversations keep piling up until they become overwhelming, an entity, sentient. I've lost count of how many times I have thought or said, “I wish I could ask/tell Dad ...” More than once I've caught myself saying, "Dad will love this!" And then I remember: would have, not will. He has been in the past tense for 4 ½ years.

If I want to know something about Roo, I ask her parents, or Roo herself when I see her. That option is pretty much always available to me. But my dad's thoughts and opinions and memories left this earth years ago and I can't get them back - any of them. Every now and then I'll realize I've lost something more of him – the exact color of his eyes, his laugh, which of his front teeth was chipped – and I mourn him all over again. I dread the day when I lose the bigger things. What will I do when I've forgotten the sound of his voice or the feel of his arms wrapped around me in a hug? The less of him I remember clearly, the more gone he seems. 

I chose adoption, and so much good has come from it. Lives have changed for the better. There is so much joy! I can see so clearly how it fit into God's plan for the happiness of a few of His children. There was and is a purpose to placing Roo for adoption, and it is beautiful, and it is good. I can see that. All of that makes the sporadic bad day much easier to bear. 

I'm still waiting for that kind of reassurance in the loss of my father. I'm still waiting to see how it's been good for me or my mother or anyone else on earth. If I was supposed to have learned something by watching my father die, I'm sorry to say that I missed it.There's very little to cling to on days when I miss my dad. There never will be. It's okay that I'm not Roo's mother. But it's never really going to be okay that my father is dead.

I think this is the difference between the losses we choose and the losses that are chosen for us. We spend our lives learning to make choices and accept the consequences of them. We learn to be okay with our choices, good and bad. We learn from then, we're shaped by them, we let them make us better. I can see the good in the loss that I chose in part because I know why I chose it. 

I can't see the good in being deprived of my father. I never would have chosen this loss. It is monstrously unfair, and more than four years later I still struggle with accepting the consequences of his death. Part of me thinks if I always will.

FAQ: Do I Want More Children?

November, if you haven't heard, is National Adoption Month - today, in fact, is National Adoption Day. In previous years I did a LOT of blogging to commemorate. Spoiler alert: that will not be happening this year. I am way too busy (those cat videos on YouTube aren't going to watch themselves). I've also been too busy to answer e-mail and my blog e-mail tends to be crazy anyway; if you've written to me in the past 6 months, don't give up hope, I will catch up eventually. I hope.

But I feel like I should do something for November, because I think adoption is really rad. So I'm going to steal - no, let's say, appropriate an idea from my friend Brittany. She's been answering frequently asked questions on her blog each week and I've decided to do the same. I already have a blog FAQbut it hasn't been updated in ages; I had a lot of anger issues when I wrote it and I think I'd probably explain things better if I were to re-write it and I think that I will eventually, but not right now. Wow, that was a beautiful run-on sentence, wasn't it? I think I might look into National Grammar Month; I need it.

Anyway. I have been asked other questions, by friends and acquaintances and by high school students who have been subjected to my story during their child-development classes. I want to answer some of them here. Today's question is courtesy of a teenager who apparently missed the phrase "I always wanted to be a mother" sprinkled liberally throughout my story.

Q: Do you want more kids some day?

A: Short answer, yes. Slightly longer answer, yes, absolutely, but I'd like to be married first.

I would not be me if I left it at that, would I? I love words too much.

I have always, always wanted to be a mother. I know that in today's modern world women are supposed to be ambitious and have their own careers and lives but I've never been that type-A. I think I'm unambitious out of self-preservation; I tend to take things to extremes and when something is important to me I give it 500%. Ambition would be the death of me. Being a wife and mother has always been enough of a goal in my mind. That's probably not the sort of thing a woman is supposed to confess to but there it is.

My pregnancy was a surprise but not an unwelcome one. It wasn't the way I'd planned on being a mother but I was disinclined to be picky. I wanted a baby and I was having a baby. Maybe it's because I know exactly why I made the decision I did, and because I know so many other birth mothers whose decisions were similarly selfless, but I am always surprised when someone assumes I placed Roo because I didn't want to be a mother. Placement had nothing to do with wanting to be a mother or not wanting to be a mother. It was about what was best for the little girl I love so much. It was a choice I made as a mother.

I very much want kids. I know that single women aren't supposed to say that because we come across as baby-hungry and people get these ideas that I instantly assess every date as a potential father, that I've picked out names for all my children, that I can't hear normal conversation over the sound of my own biological clock ticking. Judge me if you will, but I do want children. I would love to have children, and preferably before my fertility starts to nosedive. But I'm not going to do it by myself. If I don't get married, I'm not going to have more kids. I don't care how well-off I end up, how successful or happy or anything else. I will not be a single mother again. I wanted Roo to have two married parents who love each other. Why would I want anything less for any other children I might have?

There's a selfishness behind this determination as well. Here's another uncomfortable truth: my pregnancy was the absolute bloody loneliest time of my entire life. I don't think I've ever felt so alone and I hope I never do again. I hated going to doctor's appointments because I was frequently the only woman in the waiting room without a husband or boyfriend. I invited H to come with me at first but I stopped after a few months because it was obvious he was never going to. I would surreptitiously assess the relationships of the couples in the waiting room and, without exception, they seemed to love each other. It hurt. I'd stare at my hands and wonder what I had done wrong that the father of my child didn't even like me.

I will not go through that again.

I want children, but I don't -just- want children. I want more for my children than I can give them by myself. Which means that although I would dearly love to be a mother, it's probably not going to happen. I'm okay with that. Because I had Roo, and if she's all I ever get, she's enough.

Birthday Wish

I don't remember the last time I blogged twice in three days, but this is a special occasion. Today is my birthday!

I hate my birthday. Well, no, hate isn't the right word. Mostly because I like cake, but also because I like cake. Dean Koontz said that where there's cake, there's hope, and there's always cake.

But as I may have mentioned last year (I'd give you the link but I don't feel like finding it) I tend to have disappointing birthdays, and sad birthdays, and so I have learned to have absolutely zero expectations. My birthday is just another day. Shorter of breath, one day closer to death, right? As long as I get my cake, I'm okay.

This year, there is only one thing I wanted for my birthday. I wanted if for my last birthday too but I was more patient then. I wasn't sure it would happen this year, even though I wanted it to very badly. It was completely out of my control, and all I could do was pray. Then I heard that it was going to happen ... and then maybe it wasn't, and I got a little angry at God and frustrated with the general unfairness of life. It wasn't something selfish I wanted. It wasn't for me. For the first time since placement, I wanted something for someone else more than I wanted anything for myself. I wasn't asking for a miracle. Well, maybe I was. But only a small miracle.

About a week ago, I had hope again, and I prayed quite desperately for several days, telling God in no uncertain terms what I wanted to happen and for whom. Just this one thing, and I wouldn't even care what happened for at least the rest of the year. I just needed this one little miracle, and I could handle everything else.

Last week, I got my birthday wish. I got my miracle, by which I mean that P and M got theirs. My little Roo is a big sister! I don't even have words for how happy and excited and grateful I am. It doesn't matter to me how my birthday goes anymore. If I start to feel sad, all I have to do is look at the picture I have of Roo holding a chubby-cheeked new baby (with a little help) and the world is an awesome place again.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

Today is this blog's third birthday! I feel like there should be cake. There should always be cake, don't you think? Not just for birthdays but in general. There should always be cake. I would bake one but I tend not to bake, as I live alone and I lack the self-control to keep from eating everything that comes out of the oven. Although if I'm honest, sometimes I don't even turn the oven on. There's no need to lie to myself. I make cookie dough for eating, not for baking.

I digress. Today my blog is three. Birthdays are a good time for self-reflection, aren't they? No? Well, too bad. To answer the question that no one has asked, I have not gone back and read my blog to commemorate the occasion. I tried that last year and had to have an extra session with my therapist to curb the ensuing bout of self-loathing. (I have evolved since placement, and I quite sincerely thank God for that.) A few minutes ago I read through the first two entries of this blog, and I decided that was enough. I don't need to go back. I know where I've been, because I was there. I will occasionally reflect on the dark days of my adoption experience, but only as a means of gauging how far I have come. Going back for more than a moment or two would accomplish nothing. I want to go forward.

I wish I could achieve that sort of psychological clarity in other areas of my life. I like to think that I possess the right mental skill-set to achieve that. Every one of my grade-school report cards mentioned my critical thinking skills (also, that I seemed to be bored a lot). The problem is that I have not yet learned to use my skills for good. I am like a teenage superhero, doing my best to save the world but occasionally using my superpowers for nefarious purposes by accident. While there may not be any comically-nicknamed villains on the streets of Mesa because of my neglect, there are consequences, and they usually involve a tearful existential crisis* in my therapist's office.

Because in addition to being untrustworthy with baked goods, something I know to be absolutely true of myself is that I am a world-class Monday morning quarterback. I don't know of anyone whose second-guessing skills rival mine, although in all fairness, I have had decades of practice. I am the Muhammad Ali of rumination. And I blame my brain.

I blame my brain for a lot of things, because pretty much every problem I've had can be traced (however tangentially) back to my brain. My brain is a jerk. Have you ever seen the scumbag brain meme? Here's my favorite:

When I found that on Pinterest, I laughed for about ten minutes. I was tired. Anyway. I blame my brain because if it didn't remember things so well, I would have less to ruminate on. Of course, my brain doesn't remember everything well, because that would be convenient and useful.

For example: I've been playing the piano since I was Roo's age, and the only song I have ever been able to memorize is "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." So I have to scan the room before I mention my piano-playing skills. I won't tell anyone that I can play if I'm in a room with a piano, because then they'll want a demonstration, and I'll play my little song, and I can practically hear people think, "Wait, did she say she's been playing since she was three or since she was twenty-three?" It's humiliating. I can play really complicated pieces if I have sheet music, but I'm useless without it.

My brain refuses to remember the notes to a song I have played more than a thousand times, but it will remember conversations word-for-word, and it will remember them for years. This is especially detrimental for someone as socially awkward as I am. I can recall pretty much every stupid thing I've ever said, and the uncomfortable looks on the faces of the people I said them to. I can recall, and my traitorous little brain comes up with other, less-embarrassing things I could have said. Come on, brain! Why can't you come up with better things to say when I can still say them? What good is a snappy comeback three months later?

One of the things I like best about writing, particularly on the computer, is editing. Until I hit "publish," nothing is permanent or fixed. I can take as long as I need to come up with just the right combination of words. For instance, the third paragraph of this post was re-written nine times and I may edit it once more before I publish. I can mull it over, read it out loud to see how it tastes, add and subtract words and phrases and rearrange until it says exactly what I want it to say.**

I can't do that in real life. My car did not come equipped with a flux capacitor.  So while I can remember conversations I've had, and while I can think of how I could fix them, I can't actually go back. Ideally, this knowledge would keep me from constantly editing past conversations. Ideally it would keep me from looking back so desperately and with such agony.

I'm pleased that I've gotten there with adoption. It has taken me nearly all of the past three years to stop looking back and thinking of things I want to edit. For my next trick, I want to stop editing the rest of my life. I don't imagine I can live my life completely without regret. But there's a difference between regretting something, and re-living and editing it at night when you ought to be asleep. I tend to do the latter. Again, I blame my brain.

You know, I would love to say that there is a point to all of the preceding, but I confess I've quite lost track of it. Sheesh. This is embarrassing. Where was I going with all this? Blog birthday, self-reflection, scumbag brain ... hmm.

.
.
.
.
.

I think I was explaining why I don't read my own blog. Well, that'll teach me to ask and answer my own questions, won't it?

I meant to self-reflect and talk about how far I've come in three years and I ended up talking about why I should probably be seeing my therapist more often. But you know what? I kind of don't care that I ruminate a lot. Is it really the worst thing in the world? No.

The fact is that I have come really, super far in the past three years. I am a different person entirely. I am a happy person. There was a time when I thought I would never be able to say that about myself, but I'm saying it now and it's true. I am happy. I am happy almost all the time, and sometimes I am really ridiculously happy and people probably want to punch me in the face for it. My life is quite far from perfect, but that feels so unimportant to me. Far from perfect is still pretty rad.***

I'm not where I thought I'd be at this point in my life, and that's not a bad thing. I think I've ended up where I needed to be. I believe that God has a plan for me that's a lot greater than anything I could ever come up with. I know that when I've trusted Him in the past, amazing things have happened. I trust Him now get me where I need to be next.

I'm not the same woman who started blogging three years ago and I wouldn't be her again for anything in the world. It makes me wonder how much more awesome I'm going to be three years from now. I can't wait :)
****






*I am proud to say that my therapist decided last December that I am a sane, functional adult, and I only see him four or five times a year now, just to check in. I could probably see him less often but I've decided it's good for him to see someone who is happy and doing well, even if it's only seasonally, because I know that his office deals with a lot of sexual deviants, and I feel like he probably needs the occasional mental hand sanitizer to keep from crying himself to sleep at night.

**This doesn't mean that I am proud of everything I have ever written. I think most of this blog is crap. But everything I have posted here was, at one point, exactly what I wanted to say and I felt pretty good about it at the time. Even if I'd never say it now and am now in fact slightly ashamed of having wanted to say it ever.

***Sorry about that. Two weeks ago I caught myself using the word "rad" and I don't know where it came from but it's like a virus. I can't seem to stop using it. I counted a few days ago and I described more than nine different people and things as "really rad." I think I need help.

****I was pretty stupid to say that everything I've posted on my blog was, at the time, exactly what I wanted to say. It's not even true. I'm not happy with the conclusion of this post and no amount of mulling has fixed it. The smart thing to do would be to think about it for a while and come back to this post, but if I don't hit "publish" today the post's point, such as it is, would be moot. What I should have said is that everything I've posted on my blog was good enough at the time.
Also, I feel like I should apologize for the sheer volume of my footnotes today. I'm not going to, but I still feel like I should.

Change of Plans

It's Father's Day. If I were more thoughtful and a better planner I'd have something deep and meaningful to say about the importance of fathers; or something about birth fathers, and H in particular; or something about how my big brother has been a good substitute dad since my own father died.

But in thinking about Father's Day I've found my mind consumed with thoughts of my dad, who died almost four years ago. I've been missing him a lot lately, more than usual. In honor of him, the best dad in the world, I want to share something I wrote last year for a college class. I also used it as a speech in Toastmasters. Now I'm blogging it; I think my dad would be proud that I've found so many uses for this essay.

I typically write about pretty personal things, but this feels somehow more personal than usual, so please restrain any urges to critique my writing and know that it did earn me an A. This is a little long, but I think it's worth soldiering through.

When I was little, I decided that I wanted to grow up to become an astronaut. My parents were supportive, as all parents of six-year-olds are. My mother took me to the library for books on the stars and planets, and my father took me with a telescope outside on clear nights to help me find Mars. The city offered a summer kids’ program about space, and I attended with great enthusiasm, certain that the knowledge I gleaned that June and July would help me on my way to a successful career as an astronaut.

Then I discovered opera. I adored opera. I decided that my new aim in life was to headline at La Scala. I had a delicious mental image of myself wearing a horned helmet and ornate breastplate, hitting notes high enough to shatter glass. But my newfound enthusiasm came crashing down much like the chandeliers in my opera fantasy. I couldn’t be an opera singer if I was an astronaut. I turned to my parents for guidance. My mother told me, as she so often did, that I could do anything I set my mind to, and that there was no reason I couldn’t sing opera in space. My father was a bit more pragmatic.

“Well,” he said, “you might find it hard to do both. But the nice thing is that you don’t have to decide right now what you’re going to be when you’re older. You’re allowed to change your mind as many times as you want.”

“Did you ever change your mind?” I asked.

He replied that he had. It wasn’t until I was much older that I came to understand just how much his mind had changed over the years.

My father was the fifth child of a Marine Master Sergeant and a homemaker. The homemaker, my mild-mannered grandmother, has always been the kind to take life in stride and brush off awkwardness or insult with a few murmured words. Master Sergeant Barber was a horse of a different color. I’ve heard his behavior explained away with any number of diagnoses. One relative suspects Grandpa had bi-polar disorder. Another of them chalks it up to a dangerously short fuse, a gift from his Scots-Irish forefathers, ostensible pugilists. Yet another says it was his gypsy blood. But whatever the reason, every few years, my grandfather would lose his temper at work, quit his job, and move his family to a new city to start over.

This had no small impact on my dad and his brothers and sisters. While they became accustomed to frequent uprooting, they never took to it the way Grandpa did. My dad was still in Little League when he made a vow to himself that he would never, ever allow himself to turn out like his father. At this point the Barber children numbered six. The colloquialism these days is “menopause baby” but in 1965 my uncle David was simply called a surprise. My dad, who was nine, had absolutely no use for a baby brother.

“What was I supposed to do with him?” Dad said once. “I couldn’t throw a baseball to him and he couldn’t fire a pellet gun. He was useless.” Dad had no previous exposure to babies, and so his experience with David soured him on the prospect of parenthood. He decided then and there he would never have children. “I always hated kids,” he would frequently say of his younger self.

Kids were off the list, but marriage was still a possibility until his sister wed, also in 1965. Her marriage was hasty, precipitated by a surprise pregnancy (those seem to run in the family). My aunt Patty was still in college at the time, as was her new husband, and their first apartment together was, my father reported, “a hole.” The newlyweds simply couldn’t afford creature comforts. Dad added to his list of personal vows: he would never, ever be a poor, married college student.

He would, however, attend college. Bad vision killed his dreams of becoming a fighter pilot, so the military was out. In the fall of 1974 he packed up his baby blue Superbeetle and moved to Flagstaff to study computer science at Northern Arizona University. He drove home on the weekends to visit his girlfriend, but his plans for the future were firmly set in his mind – a college degree, a successful career in the burgeoning computer industry, and a solitary life of academic pursuits. But the longer he dated his girlfriend, the harder it got to leave her on Sunday nights.

“One night I was driving home,” he recalled more than once, “and I realized that it physically hurt to be away from her. I decided I had to marry her.” He dropped out of college after three semesters – he was not going to be a poor married college student - and got a job working for Salt River Project. My parents married in October of 1976. My oldest brother was born the following July, and my dad must have discovered that babies aren’t so bad after all, because I am the youngest of four.

I couldn’t have asked for a better father. Sometimes he worked long hours, and he frequently threatened to throw away the toys I left on the floor, but I never doubted the depth of his love for me and my siblings. He wasn’t perfect, of course. He worked hard and he expected the same of his children, even the one who is by nature a lazy girl (that would be me). He yelled at my brothers for fighting on a regular basis. I don’t remember the words he shouted, but I do remember overhearing a subsequent conversation between my parents. My father was frustrated.

“I never wanted to be like my dad – never. And dang it, I’m just like him. Just like him!” my dad told my mother. The older I got, the more I came to realize that precious little of my father’s life had turned out according to plan. Every few years he would talk of taking a few college courses so he could finish his degree, but the money was never there, or if it was, he lacked time. SRP paid the bills but we were never wealthy. My dad did keep one promise well. He moved his family exactly twice, and both times were before my oldest brother was in school. Mine was a very stable upbringing.

I think that’s why my father’s brain cancer diagnosis was such a shock. It was unstable. It didn’t fit in anyone’s plans. “Man plans, God laughs,” my father quoted when I complained. Still, it seemed terribly unfair. Why did this have to happen to my daddy?

His attitude was the exact opposite. “Why not me?” he said more than once. “I’m not so special that I can’t get cancer.” He didn’t seem to realize that to me, he was special. He was my daddy. But I suppose he was right. He wasn’t invincible. Still, he pulled through the two surgeries that followed better than his doctors had hoped. He seemed to respond well to radiation, and the chemotherapy pills he took each month kept the cancer at bay.

We planned a family trip to Disneyland for the following year. My father knew his prognosis, but he was determined to beat the odds. He also knew that he needed to keep working until he turned 55 in order for my mother to get the best benefits when he died. He went back to work as soon as he was able, and for a little while it felt like business as usual. The only sign that anything had happened to my dad was a pencil-thin white scar that ran along his hairline, vertically bisecting his left temple.

The day before his 52nd birthday, my father attempted to write a grocery list and failed, suddenly unable to properly write his letters. We took him to the hospital. The news was bad. A snip of tumor that had, in June, been the size of a shelled peanut, was now the size of a lime. My father was going to die. Soon.

“Well,” my father said with equal parts Zen and Midwestern stoicism, “we knew this was coming, and here it is. I’m going to die.” There was a catch in his voice as he said the word “die” and I wondered if it really hit him just then as he said the words out loud.

I was stunned and devastated. I’m sure I sputtered something about out forthcoming trip, about retirement, about grandchildren. I don’t remember my words from that day, just the feeling that the laws of physics had failed me, and that a black hole had managed to open up in that curtained-off half-room, sucking away light and joy and air. But I must have listed off a number of things that my father would never get to do, because of what he said to me next.

“It’s okay,” he said. It seemed strange for him to be consoling me. After all, I wasn’t the one with a terminal cancer diagnosis. But there was a strange sort of peace about him. Several times over the next few days he would say that he didn’t much care about his own mortality but he felt awful for those of us he was going to leave behind. At that moment, he told me it was okay.

“You know, it’s not like I’ve got a list of dreams that will go unfulfilled. Nothing’s really left on my bucket list. I married a great woman, I have four children and seven grandkids and they're all on the right track. I know where I’m going when I leave this earth. I’m not going to be able to re-trace the path of Lewis and Clark, but I don’t think your mother was looking forward to that one, anyway.”

It wasn’t that he wanted to die, he explained, but he didn’t have a say in the matter, and he felt like he was as ready as a person could ever be. He’d lived all the life he’d hoped for. To him, death was just another adventure, another change of plans in a life full of them. He died a month later with one last shuddering breath that left me gasping for my own.

In the time that has passed since then, I have thought plenty about my father’s words in the hospital that day. It seemed wholly implausible that he could die without a single regret, without any unaccomplished goals. How could that be possible for a man who had once had so many ambitions? It was illogical.

But the more I think about it, the more grateful I am for that last meaningful lesson my father taught me. It’s not our grandest accomplishments that define who we are, or that even bring us the greatest sense of achievement. It’s the things that seem little that mean the most. My father was the smartest man I knew. I think he could have cured cancer if he’d put his mind to it. Instead, he died of it. But he was content with the life he led, because he had a family he loved, who loved him, and of whom he was immensely proud. It was not the life he’d planned, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t just as fulfilling. He would have made a fine fighter pilot or computer engineer. But he left a much greater legacy by being a good husband and father.

The life I’m living at present is the complete opposite of what I planned so carefully in my younger years. Sometimes I get frustrated by that. So I try to remember what I learned from my father all those years ago. It’s never too late to change your plans, and sometimes the new plans we make – the unexpected changes - can lead to much greater things than we can ever imagine.