LifeLearners

Nally 8 years 6 months

Nally woke up in them middle of the night because of jetlag and looked for her homework.
i looked at her this morning and thought -- look how much you’re grown baby girl.
All the years of struggling in kindergarten and first grade paid off, you are finally self-disciplined. It moves me especially with her. Since i know unlike her brother who is a focussed, goal oriented bullet, this process hasn’t come easy.
It has taken hours of dropped pencils, ripped slices of donuts, clocked in hours at Starbucks, on purple plush arm chairs, me insulated with 4.5 years of Psych reading to keep me properly distanced and prevented from killing her every second she gets distracted by a change in air pressure.
Today, she can finish pages of chinese, a language she hates and is counting the years till middle school where she doesn’t have to do it anymore. Today, she can take the total number of homework pages divided by 4 and find out what she needs to do per day.
More than that, she has accomplished what i feared she would never do ( Which her father is still trying to master ) -- learning to do what she does not like doing.
Yesterday i heard her banging on the piano for a good 30 mins. No small feat for someone who runs to her bedroom crying every time i ask for a replay. It’s been a practice for me to not meddle, take 50 steps back and take my anxieties to my therapist.
But almost 9, she is just beautiful. Grown up and poised. Learning how to “handle” her brother. i watch her talk him down from escalated mood swings, distract him from full blown tantrums, and i think “ Girl, even if you don’t end up a therapist, you have more skills and knowledge about how to handle your brother and men than i ever had your age”.
But she has always been an old soul. Bonding with adults as a baby more than her peers. Her brother rambles on and on about the private lives of his classmates. She misses her CLUBBED camp leader Albert and writes to him.
Everyone says i got my hands full for the teen years, but for now, she loves and respects me. And somehow her affection is worth its weight in gold.

Exhuasted

So tired after a week’s work. 6 clients today. 6 little ones at the school. The energy is different. It’s lighter, it’s less directive, it’s focussed on rapport building. i measure every week’s success on how increasingly comfortable the little one feels with me. How they love their sessions. How they trust me more.
It still takes so much out of you. i ended the day with a teen. And 16 year olds are so much more rewarding. She was worth the wait, worth staying till 4pm. But after that, after watching my son’s basketball practice and sitting at a Haiti fundraiser for 1.5 hours. i am beat.

Exhuasted

So tired after a week’s work. 6 clients today. 6 little ones at the school. The energy is different. It’s lighter, it’s less directive, it’s focussed on rapport building. i measure every week’s success on how increasingly comfortable the little one feels with me. How they love their sessions. How they trust me more.
It still takes so much out of you. i ended the day with a teen. And 16 year olds are so much more rewarding. She was worth the wait, worth staying till 4pm. But after that, after watching my son’s basketball practice and sitting at a Haiti fundraiser for 1.5 hours. i am beat.

Valentine's Day


Valentine's day is a sore spot this year.

When my husband asked to go to Haiti, i didn't think i had to put in a disclaimer not to leave on Valentine's Day. i didn't think that i had to communicate how after 3 weeks of preoccupation, i deserved at least one day of presentness. i didn't think i had to tell him after he rescheduled his plane tickets on different days, and then rescheduled them back onto V-day that he should tell me instead of hope that i didn't notice. i didn't think that i had to tell him that leaving past midnight on the 14th is actually the 15th, when you have to check in at 9pm and then 7.45pm the evening of the 14th.

At least it'll be a memorable one.

And i've made a deliberate decision to be pissed about it. He should be grateful i am. There were years, i refused to even admit it was Love day.

But God took care of me today. As i drove to church alone with the kids because my husband was too busy preparing for his trip to go to church, fought a split moment of abandonment, wondering which is worse that he abandons me or God on the day of his big trip, He sent this sweet Parking guy to let me park in the handicap spot so i can check in the kids on time.

As i worshipped, i praised Him for tangibly reminding me that i will lack nothing. Even if i am a single mom this morning, or feel lonely like the widows in the Bible. He will never let me " go hungry ". He sent this sweet older gentlemen to roll out the red carpet for me and my children this morning and i felt so loved.

Decided to watch a play that i declined to go earlier in the week because i was too mad. Daddy Long legs and it was just perfect. It got under my skin on such a visceral level, it was the perfect blend of romance and realism, so i don't get so nauseated i start falling asleep to survive. 

It was a beautiful play that got to me on so many levels.



Relentless letters and no response

As i listened to letter after letter this beautiful girl writes to a man who never once writes back in 4 years. How her letters went from romantic, childlike wonderings to this heart wrenching break when he didn't show up for her graduation, i couldn't help drawing the parallel to my constant bids into a space with what seems like no response. It broke my heart to see her letters go unresponded. It broke my heart to hear the last song 

i have ripped my heart from you.

The Romance of the Unknown

A part of me relates to her as a writer and as a dreamer. The part that has been dreaming about my prince charming since i was 13. i had journaled and asked God about my husband for years. i had believed that God was preparing him for me in parallel. That God knew and God knows and the only reason why we weren't together was because he wasn't ready and perfect for me. My heart just tugged as she sang " i want to know the color of your eyes" " i want to know if you are bald". All this time, she was longing for someone she couldn't see, Daddy Long Legs was right before her eyes.

Money

It also brought up this wonderful dialog about the rich and the poor. The discourse of being able to "buy" someone with money, to take a little orphan girl and give her a college education and what happens when she gets a scholarship and find a job. Daddy Long Legs despairs when he no longer has her dependency. When he struggles with not being able to control her. i love the discourse on freedom of choice. Of what money can buy.

Charity 

There was this most amazing song that i thought addressed enoch's recent trip: that charity actually builds a wall between giver and receiver that neither of them can climb over. That in actuality, it divides, and separates and puts distance instead of dignify each party as rich givers. 

i loved it.

Enoch and i have been Theatrework subscribers for years now and i have been unimpressed with theatre lately. Mostly i am too jaded to be distracted by a song and dance. But today, the play was the perfect blend of sentimentality and realism. It got under my skin and had my husband and i walking out of the theatre holding hands.

God knew how to sneak in the perfect Valentine's day after all.


So ironic it's funny God.

How did we end up here ?

He feels like i don't appreciate him for providing for us financially. i feel like he doesn't see how every thing he does/is today i have paid for with my career and my time home with the kids.

It's especially painful because it's so hard for us.

Him working and me staying home. 

He hates working. And staying home with the kids was excruciating.

And his emotional absence those years still grate on me. It makes me set up this even bigger standard and grudge -- you weren't there for me when it was hard. You told me to suck it up. Why in the hell would i support you now.

i supported you and you have no intention of caring for me.

You left. 

Why should i stay now?

You left when i had my existential mid-life crisis -- why should i stay for yours ?

i've supported you before -- and now you're shaming me for my happiness.

i need to spend my life protecting myself from you.

You confine me daily with your urgent care hours, my career and our family life and you talk to me about fairness?

About not getting what you want?

You are some piece of work.

My grandmother




My grandmother joined us on this weekend trip and it's so precious to have her. At 80, she is lucid and mobile. Every year i wonder if it's the last time i'll see her. She strikes such a chord in my heart because she was my primary care giver my first year of life.

She just lost her maid of 12 years so i spent most of my time listening to her tell me how much she misses her, how the new maid falls so short and i am tickled again at the culture of maids in this country.

She listened to me rant and rave about my marriage, my in-laws and my despise of rich people -- the latter of which she secretly shares with me but refuses to admit. She quotes me scripture and coaxes me to "close one eye".

My professor is right, there are somethings you would only heed from the mouth of 80 year olds.

But it's so lovely to see her with the kids, to spend this weekend with her and to enjoy the later years of her life.

Halloween

It's my parent's first Halloween in America, and it was especially meaningful to have them watch the celebrations this year at school. We did our usual 4 event circuit: school, one local street, the Assisted Living Facility with door to door with the old folks ( with close friends ) and we ended the night at church with Trick or Trunk. It was a long day but the kids had a blast and we didn't even eat that much candy! Just the day before, i had told them about the forecasted rain and my little girl suggested prayer. Me of little faith, thought about giving her a lesson on meteorology but true enough God held back the rains and gave us a dry Friday, pouring rain on Saturday and sun again on Sunday. Thank you little goose for having so much more faith than i.

Reading

My child is learning to read in 3 languages. And if the first was anything to go by, it would be a "Whole Language Process" where i cannot hurry the process, will need to constantly keep in mind the goal of reading, protect at all costs the joy of it, and remember to trust the process. As i watch Nally take off with her English reading, i am much more inspired to do the same with her Chinese reading and Piano. Teacher Vicky alluded to the process one day, after our first lessons back with her. " Don't worry. One day it will happen, i've seen it over and over again. " Her understanding and communicating the magic of that process was worth every expensive dime we pay her. She gets it. And as i partner with her Chinese teacher to craft out Nally's Chinese goals, i am reminded of how my daughter learns : at her own pace, all the time, when she's ready and because she is positively inspired.

My favorite Professor


i love one of my professors this quarter-- the complete antithesis to my other one.

Prof I is quiet introverted, and deliberate. She is dignified, intentional and intense. She is dressed to the nine in a suit, with ruffled blond hair and the years of experience show on her in a grounded dignity.

She is a blast from my Semiotic days of Lacon and Derrida. She read The Unsayable too, and it's our little secret between us, she is obsessed with semantics and signifiers as i am.

She speaks in lyrical, completely complex sentences, so poetic and so well composed, i am furiously transcribing them verbatim.

She is spacy, lectures in a stream of consciousness and is completely unstructured.

It's funny how different Professors get a rise out of you, but she just strikes a chord.

Working again


Just when i finally weaned off the adrenaline from work, i landed another gig.

i am always so amused at how God's timing. He always gives me my heart's desire, when i don't need it anymore, when i am not pining for it to give me my identity. It's always a place of challenge for me, when i am desperately needing to work, or now when i am gathering up my wits again to get into the groove of consulting.

But i am grateful and bemused. Trying to be faithful to whatever God puts in front of me, thankful for the work, for the ability to pay my way through school -- faithful in the small things. In BSF, we learn about how Jesus needed 30 years to prepare for 3, 30 years of small tasks before He performed His first miracle, 30 years of being unseen.

Thank you Jesus, help me to give You glory and do it in Your strength.