Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up
Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban Life
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Archive of "family life" Category
The one where you find out where I’ve been
Before Labor Day, I took a lifetime supply of books on “How to Write” out from the public library with the intent that I would spend some serious time improving my skills. As with anything in life, writing is a skill that if not used, you will lose. And for the last three months, I just haven’t been flexing my writing muscles.
Then again, I haven’t really been flexing any muscles. And there is now a Homer Simpson style butt imprint on my new couch that belongs to me and a little kitty butt imprint right next to it. (By the way, we adopted a kitty.) We are nothing but class at the Morgan household.The big reason for all of this was that I was on a medical leave of absence from work for 6 weeks and I’ve only recently gone back to cube land part time. I’d like to say that cube land missed me but there were some dust bunnies forming on my desk while I was out that had started to impersonate me. At least the dust bunnies got a head start on some of my projects for me.
As for the medical leave of absence, the long and short of it is that I started off with bronchitis that was later re-diagnosed as “Acute Asthmatic Bronchitis” (which there is nothing cute about, FYI). That diagnosis was problematic since I don’t have asthma but they treated the asthma I don’t have any way but the medicine they gave me angered my heart problem and then I was done. 6 weeks later, I’m still moving at a quarter of the pace that I am used to moving at and I feel like I massively missed out on summer. Which are side effects of the fun filled beta-blockers I’ve since been consuming twice daily.
So while everyone else was out there enjoying the sun and wearing bikinis on the beach, I was on the couch. All day. Every day. I’d like to tell you that it was exciting but the most excitement I got was the day I decided to watch all of the Terminator movies in one sitting (hence the Homer Simpson style butt print). I also had great plans that I was going to expand my mind while I was out of work, but I was really lying to myself. I did a lot of reading but my mind was so foggy (and still is to a certain extent) that I wasn’t reading anything challenging. For example, I’ve had Saint Augustine’s “Confessions” on my reading list for about three years and this was not my summer to finally read it. I think I lasted about five pages before I decided to go back to bed.In the same line of thought, I had great plans to do lots of writing. After finding a box filled with my poetry from college, I thought I spend some time writing poems. Or maybe I’d would spend some time creating some blog drafts and cleaning up a few writing projects that have been littering my kitchen table for a while now. I did none of it.
The most ambition I had all summer was fold hundreds of paper stars while watching movies and painting my nails at least twice a week.
I’m not saying any of this to complain but more to explain: at the moment, I am prone to rambling due to a lack of human interaction. Remember community? I needed more of it than I was able to receive for six long weeks. Sadly, while I’m able to hide my temporary rambling tendencies in person (unless you are Brian or Oliver, in which case, you are getting hit with all of it) hiding those rambling tendencies is a bit more difficult while writing. Because in my head I have so much I want to share with everyone that I haven’t said in months.
And I miss blogging. I miss sharing ideas and encountering new ideas I can barely wrap my mind around and I miss commenting. I miss twitter and Facebook and the good feeling that comes with a morning coffee (decaf these days) and a full Google reader that desperately needs attention.
It is good to see all of you again. Excuse the rambling, the books I picked up just didn’t help with that.
Save New Beginnings
Bensalem School District wants to cancel New Beginnings, a program geared towards helping teenage moms get their high school degrees and learn how to care for their children. I don’t live in Bensalem but this drives me nuts – the New Beginnings program is a great example of being proactive with a community problem. Run by Patti Pearson, New Beginnings has a 90% graduation rate for its program participants.
What I love most this program is that it breaks the cycle. By supporting these young women in difficult circumstances, New Beginnings give their children a better chance in life. Patti’s love for the young women she works with is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
The other thing I love about this program is that it is the community that solves the problem. Instead of waiting for the federal or state governement to step in and save the day, Bensalem School District took charge. These women were part of the community and were given resources to not onlyhelp themselves but ultimately contribute towards the community.
Please check out the following post by Kathrin Ivanovic at The Diversity Projekt. If you are able to help support this important program, it would be greatly appreciated.
10 weeks later: I cry
My grandfather once tried to teach me not to cry.
“Doie”, using his childhood nickname for me, “when you are dead and gone, you are just that. Dead and gone. Crying won’t bring you back so don’t cry when I’m gone.”
Of course, I cried when he was gone. And he was right. Crying did not raise him from the dead, nor did it further cement him in my mind.
All crying did was make my eyes burn until I was all cried out. Or maybe I was just so dehydrated, my body found it to be physically impossible to cry any more.
Either way, I didn’t really cry for six weeks even though I needed to cry. Sometimes a single sob would escape my mouth but I could not sustain it. There were no more tears to give.
I couldn’t cry if my life depended on it. I wanted to cry, I just couldn’t remember how to do it.
I didn’t cry when I read his obituary in the local newspaper and saw my name on the list of his survivors. And I didn’t feel like I was surviving.
I didn’t cry when my fingers touched the laminated prayer card I kept in my purse that my mother gave me before the memorial service.
I didn’t cry when we divided his belongings amongst us, looking like vultures but feeling like the desperate who needed to cling to a memory.
Instead, I finally cried in a mall food court like a raving lunatic on a beautiful , sunny Saturday afternoon. I cried so hard, I freaked out a little boy in a Little League uniform at the table next to me. He, in turn, burst into tears and spilled his chocolate milk all over himself.
No one else seemed to notice. No one else seemed to care.
He still didn’t come back even though my mouth tasted like a peculiar form of grief I had not discovered earlier.
Time had moved forward as time often does. While physically, I moved forward, emotionally, I stopped on February 19th. Since then, I merely went through the motions. It was all just make believe.
Sitting in a consumer wasteland, the truth of the matter was realized.
Define Family
For the last few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about blended families. I grew up in a blended family. My father is not my bio father. My mother is my biological mother. I was raised by my grandparents. And then I was raised by my mom and dad but not bio dad. And then I was adopted.
It gets confusing.
But I’m not the only one in this situation.
I would tell you that the face of a typical American family is changing but the truth of the matter is the face of the typical American family has not existed for years. I hope I am not telling you anything you had not heard or experienced before.
As the composition of families change, many of us are going to have to reevaluate our definitions of families. Does a family consist solely of a husband, a wife and at least one child? How do adopted children fit into our ideas of family? Can step parents be included in our definition of family while excluding bio parents? Can grandparents realistically double as parents? Is there really such a thing as immediate family versus extended family? Can a couple constitute a family unit? Does gender or sexual orientation matter when we talk about family structure?
As we struggle to answer these questions within the context of our own lives, we will also find that many companies will have to do the same thing. But, the upside is that as Gen X and Gen Y rise through the ranks of their organizations, their home life experience will have a large impact on how these definitions are shaped. We grew up in a world where these questions had to be asked. And while our Baby Boomer friends may have created that world, they never had to face the repercussions.
And really, that benefits all of us.
Passing On: my introduction to death and dying
- Dorie and Gampy
If you’ve been following along here for a while, you may have noticed that my grandfather has not been doing well. It’s been breaking my heart to see him suffer.
As a loved one, it feels next to impossible to make difficult decisions during the end of life. Sometimes honoring their wishes means making insanely painful decisions. Sometimes it means watching and feeling helpless.After five years of struggle, my grandfather let go this morning and passed. I’m filled with a strange mixture of grief and relief. While I am so grateful that his suffering is over, I realize that I am now starting the next phase of my life and I do not have his wisdom next to me to directly guide me through this.I am so very, very grateful to have had 26 good years with my grandfather. He was more than a grandfather to me: he was my best friend, my mentor, my teacher. Grandfather became a term that was severely inadequate to describe all that he was in my life. At some point over the years, “Grandpa” was shortened to “Gampy” and that name somehow seems most fitting.I am grateful for a grandfather who helped me when I was small with my homework. He encouraged my curiousity about the world around me. He humored my experiments in making peanut butter in a blender when we ran out of Skippy (we never did perfect that recipe). He took me bike riding at Core Creek Park after Summer Theatre in the afternoons. He never just told me “no” or “because I said so” – he explored the why with me and encouraged me to ask tough questions of my surroundings. I will always look back with fond memories of times when he taught me about physics while also teaching me about world history (he was a pilot in the Civil Air Patrol so it works better than most people realize). He taught me about the importance of being mindful of current events while always remembering the past (by the way, he was not a fan of the current economic stimulus plan). He gave me his car when I graduated from college to give me a head start in my adult life.My Gampy taught me about how to give and receive unconditional love. He instilled a strong Protestant work ethic in me. He gave me a dry sense of humor (not very useful in a small child but I wouldn’t trade it for anything now). He made Patsy Cline, Glenn Miller and Ella Fitzgerald into the sweetest lullabies. He offered forgiveness freely and unwavering faith in my abilities and place in the world.I was blessed to spend a quiet, undisturbed hour with him last night that I will always cherish. I know when he slipped away, it was peaceful and quiet. It was with dignity. It was with grace. While I ache now, I am grateful that in the end his wishes were honored.I‘ll be taking a little break from blogging. I’m not quite sure how long it will be. I need to take some time to be quiet with my family and process what this major change will be for us. I am looking forward to connecting with everyone again after I have a better sense of how my life has changed.Thank you for all of your support. It is appreciated deeply by myself, Brian and our family.We are the lucky ones
I usually don’t like to blog about the recession – it seems pointless to me. My husband and I aren’t really that special as far as an economic example. We both have jobs, we have no kids, I have student loans, and we just bought a house. Sure there are differences between our situation and our friends’ situations but in most cases the similarities are greater than the differences.
And besides, usually the recession doesn’t hit too close to home.
Brian and I are the lucky ones. I work in pharmaceuticals and while there have been some layoffs in the industry, I don’t need to worry about it too much. Brian has much less job security than I do though. Why? He is a finish carpenter. He doesn’t work unless you want to build or remodel.
We’ve been lucky though. Most days there is work for him. Most of the time, he can bring home a full paycheck. And on the days there is no work available for him, we try to remember that we’ve been given the blessing of an extra day to work on our home.
We’ve heard the horror stories. We had a friend who kept showing up at job sites and asking if there was any work available. He had great carpentry skills but was usually find work as a punch out guy or a paint and spackle bitch. We know another guy who took a huge pay cut just to stay with the home builder he had worked for. It helped him survive the layoff but it certainly didn’t help him pay child support.
The faces at the job sites are changing. Everyone is just trying to get by and many of the builders are just trying to keep their doors open. Supervisors are doing the work usually reserved for day laborers.
This past week, there were three horrible days when there was no work for Brian. The first day wasn’t so bad. The second day was concerning and annoying. The third day had my stomach in a knot: how were we going to pay the mortgage? What cuts can we make to our budget? Is the peanut butter I purchase for his lunch every day too expensive?
I also knew I was being ridiculous.
By Friday morning, I was a wreck. Was this a sign of things to come? Would I become the primary breadwinner in our family? Had the recession finally hit our home?
Fortunately there was work for Brian. And my sanity quickly returned as I heard the news. I could have danced around the office in joy. Once again, we were blessed.
When times are good, it can be so easy for this carpenter’s wife to forget what the bad looks like. When people are buying new homes or remodeling their old homes, my husband makes considerably more money than I do. He makes a family’s life better by changing the space they live in, transforming it into something truly beautiful.
But when the economic climate changes, our lifestyle changes very quickly. Even when we are the lucky ones.
This past week was a reminder, while we don’t have to make any major changes to the way we live right now, this is the time to start cutting back a bit. Do we really need to spend this much money on a gift? Why do I think I need new clothes? How can I save money at the grocery store? Why do we have so many online game accounts anyway?
So far, the biggest changes we have had to make involve changing our remodeling schedule for the house. While we had hoped to put in new windows this spring (the current windows are ancient), we’ll have to wait until 2010. After all, there are 20 windows that need replacing. That could easily cost us four thousand dollars to do the job properly. We’re going to wait a little longer to build our master bedroom suite but that’s okay. Keeping a roof over our heads is far more important.
We’ve also had to rethink about how we want to vacation. While we had been hoping that 2009 would be a big vacation year, we just can’t spend money that way right now. And if at the last minute, there was work available for Brian, we would have to take advantage of the available work. We’ll probably go camping this year (while I have separation anxiety from my laptop until it fully sinks in that I’ll be able to catch up on my reading list).
Navigating a recession and keeping your sanity means you need to stay focused on what you have and what you can do. I have a husband who loves me. I have a roof over my head. I have a good life. I can feel grateful for what I have. I can make wise choices with the things entrusted to my care. I can keep my eyes on what is coming over the horizon.
Change is always coming. What “this too shall pass” really means is cherish it while you have it. Even if it is unpleasant.
Babies: How many should you have?
Last week in California, a woman gave birth in 8 babies. And by gave birth, what we really mean is that she had a c-section because humans are not animals designed to give birth to 8 babies at once.
The woman already had 6 children. She’s a single mother. She conceived all of her babies through in vitro fertilization.
And now America debates: How many children should a woman have?
And once again, America is talking about events that transpire between a woman’s thighs.
If this woman had birthed 14 babies naturally and without fertility help, people may raise a few eyebrows about the fun she must have been having at night but America would not be discussing her reproductive decisions. But her children appeared with the aid of fertility drugs and that’s where this gets messy. Why did she feel the need to be pregnant once again after already having 6 children? She was a single woman, she was pursuing her Master’s degree in counseling, she was living with her parents.
While the whole situation makes me shake my head in disbelief, I still must ask the question: since when is the number of babies a woman has any of your business? The last time I checked, that was an issue between the mother, the family, the doctor and God.
Yes, there is a concern if the state is picking up the cost of the children. Neonatal care for 8 babies does not come cheap. Diapers are not cheap. Formula does not come cheap (let’s face it: she doesn’t have the milk production that would happen if the mom had 8 nipples). Babies are expensive. And yes, there is a concern from the insurance company regarding the cost of hospital care and what they are legally obligated to pay.
But beyond that, why is America concerned? Is it genuine compassion and concern? Or is it, once again, a side effect of our voyeuristic tendencies and our chronic know-it-all behavior?
My belief is the latter.
But here’s the big problem with our behavior in this situation: by sticking our noses in another families business, we make it easier for our own lives to be invaded. Sure, the woman has 14 children. Maybe that does make her an easy target. But what happens further on down the line?
Could I someday be criticized because I want to have four kids? Would that become the government’s business, the community’s business, your business? Would someone outside of my family with no knowledge of my health or my ability to parent be able to make a decision about what was too much?
Or a scarier thought: could it someday be determined that you were not having enough children? Could the government or the insurance company someday inform you that you are expected to have three children when you really want one child or no child? By opening the door, this could go both ways although one way is much harder to comprehend.
Really, this situation has nothing to do with a woman in California who opted to have 14 children. We want to say it is to ease our minds but we’re only fooling ourselves.
If we are really honest, if we really want to think critically about the situation, we have to realize that this has everything to do with reproductive rights. The conversation is taking place in a different package than Roe vs. Wade but the heart of the conversation is the same. We’re okay talking about abortion these days even though it can still get a bit heated at times but we’re okay with it because we know what to expect. Person A is going to talk about how life begins at conception and Person B is going to talk about it is the woman’s body that matters and then Person C is going to say it is not a decision she could make but she will never restrict another woman’s right to make that decision.
So is it anyone’s business if a woman decides to use help to get pregnant by utilizing fertility treatments? And is it anyone’s business if she becomes the mother of a multiple birth? As a society, do we want to create a minimum or maximum number of children a family is expected to have? And does a single woman have a right to be a family with her children? Or is a family just a mother, a father and children? Where does this leave single parent households, grandparents raising their children’s children, gay couples and the polygamists?
Christmas on Spring Street
We didn’t set up a Christmas tree this year. I thought about setting up one on Black Friday so I could avoid shopping but instead I stayed in bed with a good book. Sure, the living room is a bit bare now but with all that is going on in our lives at the moment, I’m grateful that I don’t need to find time to take down a tree next week.
We didn’t hang lights from the front of the house either. I don’t really have an interest in going outside in the cold to hang lights from the house. I’d rather be warm. My husband works hard everyday and when he gets a day off, he’d rather be renovating the inside of our home than putting transition objects on the outside of it. I don’t blame him.
We didn’t really buy gifts this year either. I picked up a few things for Brian – things he needed for work and a trinket he would value for years to come. We really don’t need more things to fill our space. And I’d rather save the money for new furniture for our new house.
As far as festive holiday cheer, we’ve baked a lot of cookies while listening to Christmas music (Brian is very, very close to perfecting his peanut butter cookie recipe and each batch turns out better than the last). I’ve folded hundreds of paper stars and given them as gifts when the moment arises. My grandfather taught me how to make stars when I was a little girl and watching my fingers fly through strips of parchment is a reminder of who I am and what I am made from.
So far, it has been a very low key Christmas. And I enjoy it far more than I ever thought I would.
We’ve tried to have low key Christmases in the past but it has always fallen through. Inevitably, someone would get very upset about the lack of presents and we would cave. (One year, we tried to have a book Christmas where we announced that the only gifts we wanted to give or receive would be books but then no one bought us books and we ended up with even more stuff.)
This year we have a recession to help us out.
Maybe the recession is good for our souls, reminding us that we really don’t need all of the stuff that we think we need, want and desire. I might love the jewelry that my husband gives me but I really don’t need it to be happy. I find that I’m usually happiest on the days we are curled up together with a pot of tea and a good book in hand. My laptop might be nice to have but my laptop isn’t going to offer to rub my feet when I’ve been in heals all day and I’m getting cranky.
And none of the stuff would make me happy if I didn’t have a husband to share it.
Sure there is a part of me that still gets excited at the idea of Santa Claus coming. When the local fire department drives around with Santa on the back of the truck, I can’t help myself from running to the front of the house and yelling “Merry Christmas” at the volunteers. But really, it is the community that comes together to create that experience for the neighborhood that gets me excited. And in the context, Santa has very little to do with the experience.
I don’t think we’re really Pro-Christmas in the Morgan household, but we certainly aren’t Anti-Christmas either. We’re in this weird middle ground because it isn’t about the presents and the hoopla and the chaos and the madness. And then I realize that Christmas is really just the most visible reflection of our family’s priorities compacted into one emotionally charged day.
Adoption 13 years later
Thirteen years ago today, I wore a plaid skirt and a red turtleneck at a courthouse. I also wore a deer in the headlights look while a judge in Doylestown, PA approved my adoption. I was 13 at the time.
I didn’t know how adoption would change my life. At the time, I just thought that it meant that I would get my dad’s last name. I also knew that it meant that if something ever happened to my mom, no one would be able to take me away from my family. I had no concept of the larger changes it would create.
I grew up in a single parent home. I don’t have all of the details of how we ended up in that position but they aren’t really necessary. No child really needs to know the personal details of their parents’ divorce. And in my case, it probably would have been too much for me to comprehend. What I know is this: my mother left Florida and her first husband when I was five months old. The divorce was final around the time I turned two. I have no recollection of my birth father – I have not seen him in at least 24 years.
I didn’t realize when I was little that my home life wasn’t “normal”. My grandfather and my mother’s younger brother stepped up to the plate and fulfilled most of the dad functions. I took my grandfather to the “Daddy & Daughter” dances my Girl Scout troop held. My uncle sewed buttons on my Halloween costumes and went to all of my recitals. In fact, I was slightly confused by the two parent household concept that my friends experience (wait, you have a dad and he’s always here?).
And then when I was eight, my mother met Thomas. Four months later, they were engaged and one day shy a year from their first date, they were married. And from that moment on, he wasn’t “Thomas” anymore. He was my Daddy.
He wasn’t just a step dad. He was my family.
He was the one who was insistent that I participated in summer theatre, even when money was tight, because I loved it so much. He was the one who commuted over an hour to work each day so I wouldn’t have to change schools after the wedding. He was the one who took care of me.
In his first year of marriage, my dad was the sudden parent of a nine year old girl (at a point when my parents should have been enjoying the honeymoon phase of marriage) but he did it with such grace and consistency that you would have thought he had been he had been there since the day I was born.
While I would love to tell you that I was just so lovable you couldn’t help yourself from loving me, it isn’t true. I was a pain in the ass. But my dad loved me and I am so blessed for that. I never thought of him as “my mom’s husband” because he immersed himself in creating our family.
His love was unconditional, even when I thought it wasn’t. Which might be a universal truth about learning how to be parented (something we all must learn) but it was so profound for me. I had/have a very hard time with letting myself be loved because once a long time ago, a man who was supposed to have a biological urge to love me unconditionally did not. Learning how to accept unconditional love was a painful and bitter process but something that I could not have survived life without.
My family
This Unhinged Life
I’ve never been the poster child of a balanced life. I’ve always been a person of extremes. I used to tell people that it was a side effect of my ADD – I couldn’t choose what was going to take my attention but when something did have my attention, it had it completely. For the most part, I was okay with it.
But it does not lead to a balanced life.
As an adult, it leads to a very unbalanced life.
Part of me wants the balanced life because everyone else wants the balanced life. And if everyone else wants it, then I should probably want it too.
But part of me wants the balanced life because I think it would be easier on my husband. While he says he knew what he was getting himself into when he decided he wanted me to be his wife, I’m not always sure he fully comprehended just how unbalanced I can be when I am left to my own devices. I have this idea in my head that part of being a good wife is being a balanced wife (this goes hand in hand with my suburban dreams of vacuuming in pearls and my house making it on the home tour).
So I’ve been trying to measure my success in a balanced life daily. Did I go to the gym today? Did I work a reasonable work day? Did I cook dinner? Did I spend quality time with my family? Did I accomplish all necessary grooming activities? Did I pay the bills for the week?
But I’ve been forgetting about the “me” things. My writing isn’t exactly a group activity. I love to paint but I don’t think I’ve managed to spend time in my studio (a corner of my basement) in at least a month. Reading is a vital to me as breathing air but I find that I have not made a dent in my books to read pile and I’ve stopped writing down titles that I think might interest me.
In my quest for a balanced life, I’ve become unhinged.
Part of this has to do with my buying into the suburban dream that we can have it all. We can have the perfect house with the perfect meal on the perfect table and the perfect job pays for the perfect meal with a perfect family with perfect manners sitting at said perfect table. But life doesn’t work that way.
Part of this has to with the fact I never really established what my own balanced life would look like but I made criteria to judge my progress. I put my cart before my horse. And since I didn’t know what my own personal balanced life would look like, there was no way for me to integrate that with my family’s balanced life. I needed a good, strong definition but all I really had was everyone else’s ideas.
The biggest part of this has to do with me trying judge a balanced life daily. I was staring at the grain of sand and I thought I knew what a desert looked like. I lost my sense of the big picture and with that, I lost my sanity. I was making myself insane with unrealistic ideas of what balanced looked like.
Maybe the solution is to realize I won’t ever be able to judge a balanced life in terms of days or weeks. The overall balance is much more important that what a Monday looked like. Maybe the only time we can truly decide if a life was balanced is after we retire.
For now, I’m trying to abandon my dream of a balanced life. I’m not a balanced person and I want the freedom to be unbalanced without feeling guilty for it or disappointed in myself.
All I really know is that I don’t want an unhinged life.
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