The Birth of Me

December 20. Not a very important day in a historical sense. My admittedly very brief research only turned up 2 things that caught my eye. On that date in 1860 South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union.  Many years later, in 1957, Elvis received his draft papers for the US military, and served 2 years. Fast forward 20 short years, to 1977, Elvis died in August of this year and then you get to another historic event, the day I was born!

  It wasn’t a dark and stormy night. It was simply a day like any other. Until the moment my mother went into labor. And she knew exactly what it was because she had been through it 3 times before. My parents already had 3 boys, and even though gender determination through ultrasounds was available in 1977 my parents thought for sure they'd have another boy. All of my older brothers’ old baby clothes were laid out at home waiting for me and they had even chosen a name- Donald Christopher. To be named after my Maternal Grandfather Donald Kahler.

   About my labor and delivery I know nothing. I do know that as soon as I was born my dad asked the doctor, "how is he?" and the doctor answered in a surprised tone, "It's a girl!" I guess they had even the doctor believing I'd be a boy. 

  My Father owned his own business and had to call in a friend for reinforcements. He called in a close family friend named Linda, who understood all about these things because she had 3 sons of her own. Once everything had calmed down sufficiently my Father called Linda to give her the good news. That instead of a Donald Christopher they had been ‘blessed’ with a Donna Kristina! Linda’s daily struggle with 3 boys at home and her own desire for a daughter unfortunately defined her retort. In front of all of my Dad’s customers she screamed into the telephone, “I HATE YOU!!” and slammed the receiver down, effectively hanging up on him. They laughed about that for years. I regret to say that she never did have her daughter. But 3 years later she did have another son, who was my closest friend for many years.  Happily, she has now been blessed with 3 grand daughters.   

  After my Dad’s adventurous phone call he felt hungry, which to anyone who knew my Dad would not be surprising. My dad associated happiness with food, and to this day eating is a very social activity for me as well. So he went to the nearest restaurant, told everyone there that he’d just had a baby girl, and proceeded to place a huge order. A large steak, potatoes, salad, veggies. When the food finally arrived he said it was the most delicious looking meal he had ever seen, but he never took one bite. The happy excitement had finally given way to reality. He had a baby girl. His excitement and apprehension left him, for the only time I know of in his life, without an appetite.

  My parents dealt with having me of course.  My bedroom was re-papered with a print containing huge pink flowers. That’s probably a big reason why I’m only just now starting to like pink again. I still wore my brother’s old hand-me-downs, but I did have many dresses thrown in for good measure. When my hair refused to grow for the first several years my Mother taped a big bow on my head so people would know she had finally had a girl. I had a girlie nickname, Tina, and wasn’t too much of a tomboy. I did learn to eat quickly and hide any leftover food if I wanted to eat it later because my brothers were food thieves.  But overall my parents handled me very well. I wish I could say I’ve always handled myself well, but my life has been and will continue to be a learning process. But as of December 20, 2010, I am happy and content.

Foreign Policy

  Lets all close our eyes and pretend….

What would my life be like if I lived in another country? Not as a native. As a foreigner.  Perhaps for school. I could study art or fashion in Paris. Or perhaps  the Culinary arts in Paris or Italy. Somehow, some way I have ended up in another country because I firmly believe being there will enrich my life. Improve my life. Heighten my prospects. Give me happiness.

From the first second off of the plane the differences are already apparent. Thank god for the little man and woman generic symbols on bathroom doors or else there would have been an international incident right away. Lets assume I am super organized and am already prepared with a place to stay, because knowing a fair rate for an out of country hotel may prove challenging. And Oh wait, I have to exchange my money for their money first anyway. How do I pay my cab driver? Oh well, perhaps I will walk to the nearest location that will exchange American currency. If the world makes sense that would be in or near the international airport. But so often the world does not make sense so I can’t guarantee that. Maybe I was super organized and had immaculate credit and have an American Express card, which is supposed to be everywhere I want to be. I have my doubts about that too but I won’t be a Negative Nelly. After all, I just got here.

Perhaps armed with my new address, American Express card that actually does want to be wherever I am, and a cab driver that I can point to an address on a map I will get to my new home in a timely manner. Unpack. Refresh. Oh yes. School. As anyone who has ever been enrolled in college can tell you, it’s a lot of red tape and jumping through hoops. Imagine red tape and jumping through hoops from 10,000 miles away. You’d better have thighs of steel because that will have exhausted me before I even get there. I’m mentally and physically exhausted before the first day of school starts. Hopefully I had sense enough to get there a month before the semester starts.

I’m a social person. Maybe after a day of jet-lag I want to see the town, go out and meet some people. I don’t speak the language but people are people, right, so that shouldn’t mean anything.  Quickly I realize that talking to me simply is too much work for most people. It’s like suddenly being thrown into a classroom when you never agreed to be a teacher and aren’t even getting paid. Beyond commenting that I have a quaint accent and chuckling at a few of my pronunciation quirks, conversations don’t go far. And as we all know, Rosetta Stone included, the ONLY way to get fluent in a new language is to converse in it. I get strange looks from the people who’s reaction to me is, “If she wants to be here she needs to learn the language!” (Despite the fact that I’m fresh off the plane and haven’t had time to learn ‘from the horse’s mouth so to speak). The other, more willing persons only get through the every day niceties. Which means I soon can say ‘Hello’, ‘How are you’, and ‘I am fine thank you’. Not enough to ever be fluent. Much less order in a restaurant. I may forever be pointing to the menu when I’m lucky enough to have a picture menu, and totally massacring fancy foreign dish names when I’m not that lucky. Oh, wait, the dishes aren’t foreign. I am. Can’t forget that. But when I don’t speak the native language fluently can I ever really forget I’m  foreign? I don’t think so.

Let’s not forget when I start classes. Those classes are in the language that I don’t speak. I may quickly learn words related to my topic of study but that still doesn’t help me with regular everyday conversations. And will I have a patient teacher that will take the extra effort that I may sometimes require for instructions on assignments, or explaining the finer points of a subject where a simple analogy clears up the problem for others, but I don’t understand some of the words in her ‘simple’ analogy. I certainly hope so. Because that bright future I planned for myself, a lot of it depends on my teachers' patience and ability as a teacher. I hope that they have the inclination to offer specialized help, as well as the time and skill.

I’m so far from home! Making friends is difficult because I am different and don’t understand a lot of what people say, especially when they talk very fast. I don’t like to admit that I don’t understand because I don’t want to appear stupid. I’m not stupid, I’m actually very smart but so few people can realize that because I don’t have the language skills and they don’t have the patience. Because I am surrounded by such a different culture than my own I have to actively work to keep my own culture alive in myself. (What is my culture? As a side point, I don’t even know. McDonalds and country music? Who knows.)

Let’s heap on top of that another factor. What if people automatically mistrusted or hated me because of my being from America. Or because of my skin color. Or because of my religion. Perhaps I would become the one size fits all cookie from their personal prejudiced cookie cutter. And what if no matter what I said, no matter what I did, no matter how I conducted myself I could never be anything to them but some personification of their own bigotry. What if they never saw me for me.

OK, lets wake up to reality. I was getting kind of scared. But here I am, in my secure little English speaking town living my little English speaking life surrounded by my English speaking friends. Could this situation have played out? It could have. However in most other countries, a huge majority of the people have at least a little knowledge of the English language. They cater to us. I’m sure there are places where Americans are hated but that’s not a frequent occurrence. I’m sure there are places where Christianity is a foreign idea. And where someone as pale as I am would get stares that would make me blush and that would provoke more stares. But for the most part, when I talk to my friends that have traveled to another country for a visit or as a foreign exchange student, their experiences have been positive and enjoyable. They come home with actually a surprising few foreign words learned, because nearly everyone they came in contact with knew enough English for them to get their points across.

What am I trying to say? I’m not really sure. I have this impression that people who come here legitimately to better their lives and take care of their families are judged based on appearance, race, religion, and placed into their own little category of our preconceived ideas. When they speak their native tongue, they are told to ‘learn English’. When they practice their native customs they are belittled and put down for being different. For being strange. We question their traditions and make our judgments without asking questions. We assume that when someone can’t hold a ‘normal’ conversation with us in English that they are somehow intellectually inferior.  In order for someone to come here and face all of this, they have to be incredibly brave. I would never be brave enough. I am envious. I believe lessons in hard work, determination, and perseverance despite adversity can all be learned from such people. Because here, surrounded by us, they don’t have it easy.

Snapshots

   My Father was a professional photographer. For over 35 years he played with babies to make them smile. Spent long days ‘talking’ his stuffed animals at toddlers, and tossing around balls with elementary school children. There wasn’t a sulky teenager anywhere that he couldn’t get a smile out of, no matter how strongly they resisted. And he had a never ending store of jokes to loosen up even the most uncomfortable adult into a winning smile.

   So needless to say there are countless numbers of photographs of myself and my brothers as children. And because I am the least photogenic person I know quite a few of mine are horrific. These days the only photos of me that I like are ones that I take myself. And that’s only because I snap 30 to get that 1 good one. Nobody else is willing to look at my mug that long until they get a good picture.

   When my father was alive, he was of course my photographer. He somehow mostly managed to be able to capture what I believe he always saw in me, my inner beauty. And every picture taken also brought back the memories of my father actively playing with me and laughing to make me laugh. Looking at them brings a smile not at what the picture is showing, but the memory that it evokes. Those pictures were more than recording how much we’d changed and grown, they were a faithful record of a father’s love for his children.

   One absolute certainty in our household was that on the first day of school, every year, Dad would have his equipment all set up and ready that morning and he’d take pictures of us kids before we headed out. It was tradition, and as cool as it was looking back at family albums later, what it represented was that my Dad was always there for us on that exciting day.

   I remember the year that I was 5. I had thought I would be starting Kindergarten but my late birthday delayed me for another year. So I was up with my older brothers bitterly disappointed that I wasn’t a part of their yearly ritual yet. I sat on a stool watching my Father photograph my brothers in their nice school clothes and large excited smiles, and I felt sadness. 

  Mom was off driving the boys to school when my Dad came up to me and said he wanted to take my picture, too. I had on a ratty T-shirt and my hair wasn’t combed, but I reluctantly agreed. I had a condition for my Dad though. I insisted that I wanted to take an ‘angry face’ picture. My father said sure, if that’s what I wanted. I crossed my arms over my chest tightly and made the most ferociously angry face I could muster, and Dad snapped the picture as promised. Then he asked if he could get another one for himself. I don’t remember what my Dad said or did, but I remember feeling better.  

   Two weeks later when I saw the pictures that he had posted in the family scrapbook that so lovingly chronicled our lives, there it was. A full page 8x10 of me in my ratty T-shirt and unbrushed hair with a glowing, radiant smile. And what was that tiny wallet sized picture pasted in the bottom corner? Me, arms crossed and angry. My Dad made me see that day that when I have a sad, disappointed, angry feeling, it is only a small part of who I am. It’s a tiny wallet sized part of my full 8x10 sized happy self. Every time I looked at that picture I smiled.

   I miss my Dad. He passed away in 2007 and I miss him every single day. On the really hard days, I miss him so much that I can physically feel it. An ache in my chest and throat that swells and pulses inside me. When my Father died I was not in a good stable place in my life, and I worry that he died worrying for me.  

   What is life but a series of snapshots? Basically one long bar graph where you can keep track of your progress. We’re all hoping for that upward trend even though there are a few low spikes in there mixed in. I enrolled in college the other day. To me enrolling was the first day of school. No turning back, I’m committed to it. I sat in my truck before my adviser appointment and took out my cell phone. I thought of my Dad. And I snapped a picture. One more snapshot of my life to document where I’ve been, how I’ve grown and changed, and where I’m going. Definitely an upward trend. Look at that picture Dad. And smile.

My Life As A Druggie/ Thank God For Lexapro

I have been experiencing recent battles with anxiety. Including pretty much the last 5 years, but it's been growing steadily worse since my Dad died 3 years ago and then in the last 6 months especially. Tears were a daily occurrence. Hysterics weekly. Stress all day every day, whether there was any real cause for stress or not. Panic attacks arrived out of the blue and then vanished just as suddenly. Second guessing myself was routine. Guilt was overwhelming, most especially when whatever making me feel guilty was quite obviously not my fault. Concentration was impossible, sleep completely out of the question.

 20 days ago my doctor put me on Laxapro, and Xanax. I immediately had a panic attack, and took a Xanax. Seems funny to me now that the mere fact that I had a Xanax prescription written for me made me feel more stressed out instead of less. Xanax prescribed to someone else is a routine necessary medication for a chemical imbalance or a stressful period in life where extra assistance is needed. Xanax prescribed for me meant I was crazy. Even while I told myself the ridiculousness of this faulty logic I couldn't adjust my reasoning for anything. Until the Lexapro kicked in.

 All I can say is- WOW. 20 days into this medical regimen of 1 little Lexapro pill daily, I can already tell a huge difference. I am actually sleeping at night. I don't think I have ever slept at night, my entire life. Even as a child I remember having trouble sleeping, counting thousands of sheep and eventually when I was older just giving up at 3 am and reading a book instead of continuing to lie with my hands folded and my eyes shut just...thinking. That's what it always was. A constant flow of thought traffic through my head. A song stuck in my head that no amount of jumping numbered sheep could dislodge. A replay of an occurrence from that day that kept replaying itself in my head unasked that no amount of zen-like 'OOOHHHMS' could throw from my thoughts. My brain, for as long as I can remember, has been going 150MPH. And going nowhere. I lay in bed every single night at a reasonable time and usually spend 8-10 hours in that bed 'sleeping', but honestly I have probably been getting 4-5 hours of sleep most nights. So now, my druggie self sleeps like a log every night. And perhaps that's also a part of why I was so stressed. No matter what time I went to bed, I was always tired, and thus always overwhelmed.

 Now that I am sleeping...everything else seems to be falling into place. Little things no longer stress me out. I am now content when I have done my best that i couldn't have somehow squeezed out some kind of superhuman strength to accomplish more than I did. I can CONCENTRATE for the first time in ages. I realized that I am moving more slowly than I used to, but accomplishing just as much. Because I am more focused. And not getting stressed keeps me concentrating on the job at hand. Professionally and personally I am thriving.

 I wish I didn't have to be on medicine. I wish I could have the ability to sleep and be realistic and reasonable without the aid of chemicals. However, now that I know how my life can improve from these medicines, I could never go back to what I was. That person, that stressed, frantic, crying, overwhelmed person- that was NOT me. I felt every day that I wasn't ME. And today, for the first time in more years than I can count, I am comfortable in my own skin. I've had flashes of what this should feel like over the years, good days when things looked rosy and possible. But this is hanging with me, and I like it. And even if it takes the drugs, I will stay here.