Effortless Effervescence

Read Part I here.

I love watching TV on DVD – I don’t have to wait until next week to see what happens in my favorite characters’ lives, and I don’t have to deal with annoying commercials. (Pet peeve: how the volume goes WAY UP as soon as the station cuts from TV show to commercial.) My latest obsession is Grey’s Anatomy, which is addictively awesome in all the ways I like a TV show to be awesome: very realistic characters, bruised and raw and sometimes unkind; epic storylines with plots of epic OMG!ness, and lots of very attractive, very talented actors who manage to make an environment I will NEVER work in seem incredibly familiar to me. In other words, Grey’s Anatomy has managed to nail the human condition right on the head.*

While working my way through season three a couple of weeks ago, I found myself moved to tears during nearly every single episode. This may have had something to do with the pregnancy hormones, but I’m not so sure. It really was an emotionally wrenching season for the show’s main character, Meredith Grey, and I found myself “feeling her pain” even more than I usually do. One episode in particular touched me deeply – in a good/bad way.

In case you’re not a fan of the show, let me give you some background. Meredith is an intern at Seattle Grace Hospital; the show follows her professional and personal life, as well as that of her coworkers and friends. Meredith is a real mess (one of the reasons that I can relate so well to her) but by season three, she’s finally found some peace and happiness. Meredith’s mother, Ellis, is also a doctor, and was a brilliant surgeon, revered in the medical community, until she had to retire due to early-onset Alzheimer’s. Meredith clearly had a difficult relationship with her mother, but we don’t realize how difficult until one day Ellis wakes up, completely lucid, and she and Meredith pick up where they’d left off five years before – spitting the worst insults they can think of at each other.

Ellis is horrified to find out that Meredith has been “distracted” by a love affair and isn’t working harder to make a name for herself in the medical field. At one point she growls, “I raised you to be an extraordinary person. So imagine my disappointment when I wake up five years later and find that you are no more than ordinary!”

Wait, wait, wait. I can’t do this scene justice. You just need to watch it for yourself:

One would think that having a child become a doctor would be enough to make most parents proud – but Ellis Grey isn’t most parents. To her, good enough isn’t good enough. Professional greatness – at the expense of goodness in every other area of life – is the only thing that will satisfy her. Her own romantic relationships died painful, strangling deaths and her relationship with her only child is suspiciously civil at best and downright antagonistic at worst, but she doesn’t seem to regret the fact that she is slowly dying alone and unloved, because she was an “extraordinary” surgeon. Meredith knows instinctively that her mother’s worship of professional greatness is nothing short of pathological, but she cannot help but feel that maybe she has failed at life, by failing to give up love and friendship for the sake of making a name for herself.

Ellis’s abusive rage reminded me all too well of the times my former pastor would scream at us for imagined slights and innocent mistakes. For five years, I lived for his approval, hoping to figure out what God wanted from me by decoding my mentor’s emotionally manipulative behavior. I can’t imagine being raised by a parent like that; I’m surprised poor Meredith is even capable of interacting with other human beings without dissolving into a puddle of anxious terror.

There was a time when I believed that everything must be sacrificed on the altar of “greatness,” but that time is long passed - something that was quite clear to me as I watched Ellis unleash her hateful insecurities on her daughter. “Boy, did she get it all wrong!” I thought. “What a sad, pathetic person.” Perhaps I’ve healed, learned and grown more than I realized. Perhaps I’ve been transformed by this brand new person whose physical, psychological and spiritual health depends largely on me getting the hell over myself. No matter the reason, I was horrified at the thought of letting my career or my “mission from God” get in the way of my relationship with my family and friends. I made that mistake before. I’m not doing it again, dammit.

So what if my life is ordinary? So what if I succeed in being a good and loving person, but no one outside of my small circle friends knows my name – is that so bad? I used to think so, but I can’t hold onto that foolishness any more. Where I used to recoil from the idea of living an unexceptional life, I now recoil from the idea of living an unloving life. I don’t want to reach the end of my days I regret how I treated my child, or my husband, or my friends, because love is what makes a difference, a real and lasting difference, in this life and the next.

It’s quite clear to me now what the difference is between good and great.









* Another favorite show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which goes even further by taking a fantastic, unrealistic premise (fighting vampires and demons in SoCal) and making observations about friendship, identity, self-worth, interdependence and morality that are completely relevant to the real world. Joss Whedon, I HEART YOU.

I used to think – or, at least, hope – that I was destined for greatness.

I had fantasies as an adolescent of being a famous actress (not much of a stretch, had I actually worked hard to hone my dramatic talents and went through the painful and ego-crushing experience of attempting to make a career in film or on stage) or rock star (ironic and impossible because I’m not musically gifted AT ALL) or writer (I began writing imitative stories when I was in just fourth grade; at the age of eleven I read Gone with the Wind and was convinced I’d produce an equally paradigm-shaking work of art by the end of middle school) or famous-by-association because I dated someone very talented/rich/intelligent/respected/yougettheidea. I believed that someday, someone would notice me, notice how special I am (cue The Pretenders), and call for the attention of the whole world: “Check out this Emily gal! She is something else.”

Some would call me a raging narcissist. I prefer to think of myself as a very sensitive soul who dealt with standard childhood rejection by escaping into a world where everyone worshipped me. And I don’t feel all that bad about it, especially since I know that world doesn’t exist and I’m (usually) content to live in the real world, where more than enough people love and appreciate me.

Speaking of raging narcissists, my Evil Ex-Pastor used to tell his minions that we were destined to do “something great for God.” The person who should have taught me the value of humility and selfless giving instead preached and modeled an intense self-focus that did very little to cure me of my need to be “special.” The environment that should have fostered gratitude for God’s grace freely given – no matter how much or how little we have to offer Him – became an environment that made me think I had to measure up to some cosmic yardstick. “To whom much is given, much is required,” was a verse oft-quoted in our little cult – and never once did it occur to me that maybe Jesus wasn’t talking about working ourselves to exhaustion trying to earn something that cannot be bought or sold. Never once did it occur to me, when my pastor would go into one of his red-faced screaming rages about how we were pissing our life away and how God had created us to be spiritual giants and we were making choices that would lead us into sin and obscurity, that maybe my pastor – and I – had it all wrong. Maybe God hadn’t handed us a heavenly to-do list when we were born and shook his head with disappointment when we didn’t check off our daily allotment of assignments.

It never occurred to me that God’s idea of greatness might be different from ours.

After I was liberated from the cult, some of the things I was taught were easy to throw off – I rebelled against them openly, almost offensively. Other things I understood academically but struggled to feel their truth. Still others I didn’t realize were lies until years later – and I’m sure there are still some deeply embedded grains of deception that I’ll be discovering for years to come. That’s all right, because life is long and recovery is a process and I don’t think God ever meant for us to heal in an instant.

I had an inkling of what living a great life might really mean when my ex-husband’s father passed away in early 2004. He was a poor man, unlucky in love, unemployed and without any assets to speak of. He lived with my ex and I, and sometimes made remarks that indicated he considered himself a burden – the very last word either of us would have used to describe him. I’m sure he felt, at the end of his 54 years, disappointed with the way life had turned out, regret over the choices he’d made, and bitter toward those who’d abused him. I’m not sure he understood, though, what a wealth of love he had given to his son and me, and many of our friends. I only wish he’d known how much he meant to so many people, how fondly we remembered him and celebrated his life. Even today, as I write this, I find it difficult to keep my composure as I think of such a valuable person gone too soon from this world.

It was as I prepared to speak at his memorial service that I began to understand the truth of 1 Corinthians 13:13, “These three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” All we take with us into the next life are those intangible things we hide in our heart, not the material things we acquire or the accolades we collect. So what ought to be our focus in life?

As I said, I was just beginning to understand this. Post-cult life was difficult; I had to forge a new identity. Actually, it’d be more accurate to say that I needed to discover my true identity, but that’s not what I tried to do at first. I tried to make myself into the person I thought I wanted to be – someone special, extraordinary. I began to daydream again of making a name for myself as a writer or artist. I had fantasies of being a guest on the Oprah show and having her just gush over how wise beyond my years and fabulously gorgeous I am. I dated a lot – or rather, threw myself into the arms of a variety of totally inappropriate pseudo-boyfriends, trying to get them to recognize what a unique and special snowflake I am, dammit. (They did not cooperate, which now makes me breathe a sigh of relief.) As the years went by and I never finished my Great American Novel, as I plugged away in my safe and steady and not-at-all flashy job, as I entered and exited ill-advised “relationships,” I would sometimes, late at night, be consumed with the fear that maybe I was truly gifted, and meant for greatness – but I would never achieve it because I was too afraid, too lazy, too timid, too broken.

I was living a secular life, but I still felt bound by the fear I felt while eating, sleeping, breathing church – that I wouldn’t measure up. Good enough wasn’t good enough (that’s actually a line my pastor used!) – I had to be GREAT. And what if I wasn’t? Then perhaps my life had been wasted. How would I bear the regret of reaching the end of my days without accomplishing something of real value? Considering that my definition of “something of real value” was “something that made me rich and famous,” the chance that I would have to bear that regret was very high. This terrified me.

To Be Continued…

Photo credit.

Last night the temperature fell to 28F. Rarely do we see lows lower than that here in Virginia Beach, so I guess one could say that it was literally the lowest point of the year.

Yesterday was also the winter solstice, the day with the fewest daylight hours all year. So one could say that it was figuratively the lowest point of the year, as well.

I, like many others, find my mood deeply affected by these long winter nights. I’m usually okay up until New Year’s, but the long wait until spring, without the excitement of the holiday season to distract me, is hard. Some of my darkest periods of depression took place during the months of winter. My soul wants to crawl into a dry, warm hole in the ground and drop into a death-like sleep. It just wants to skip this time of year and get straight to the invigoration of spring: longer days, brighter hours, budding flowers.

Perhaps the experience is different for my friends in the southern hemisphere, where the “winter holidays” of Christmas and New Year’s are not winter holidays at all. But for those of us who are bundled up in the month of December, it’s a peculiar juxtaposition: the joy of the holidays (both manufactured and genuine - both are exhausting in their own way) occurring at a time when the sun has cut his workload to part-time hours and nature is closing up her doors and windows, getting stingy with the warmth and sustenance that she gave so freely just a few months ago. And for some people, the weather does nothing to help their already foul holiday moods. Christmas is difficult for some people - I’d venture to say, for MANY people - because of loved ones who have passed, families that can’t be civil, marital disappointments, distant teenagers, and this year more than ever, economic hardship.

Some churches hold services to mark the winter solstice, the long dark night of our earth’s soul. It’s an opportunity to gather with other people who are feeling lost in the gaiety of the season, who want to be able to admit that they’re sad and not feel like they’re ruining everyone else’s good time. I can’t help but think that this approach to dealing with grief could be improved upon - after all, who wants to feel like a leper that needs a “special” church service so as not to spoil the fun and excitement of the “real” Christmas service? Still, it’s good that Christians are allowing themselves and their fellow believers a chance to stop wearing the fake-Christmas-smile and be honest about their pain.

I take comfort in the fact that today will be a little longer than yesterday, and tomorrow a little longer than today. Our hemisphere is slowly moving closer to the sun, and soon I will see signs of rebirth all around me. Until then, I will remember that life is a dance of dark and light, good and bad, seasons of death and of growth. There’s no need to pretend that I’m whole when I’m not, and no need to despair of ever feeling whole again.

I will remember that the only way out is through - but at least there is a way out.

(Photo credit.)

Outside my window…
There’s frost on the ground and sunny skies. I probably ought to pull out my winter coat for the first time this year!

I am thinking…
About family drama, and drama in general. The older I get, the less tolerant I am of pettiness. And by tolerant, I literally mean “able to tolerate;” my body and mind have been reacting in extreme ways to conflict, and I need to figure out how to deal with my emotions in the least toxic way possible - especially now that I’m sharing my body with another human being.

I am thankful for…
A peaceful weekend with my hubby and friends. I was very productive and had lots of fun - it was just what a weekend should be!

From the kitchen…
I made Chicken Parmigiana last night and it was HEAVENLY. Even my husband, who HATES chicken, loved it. Recipe to follow shortly - if I don’t get too distracted!

I am wearing…
Jeans (because my yoga pants are in the laundry!) and the t-shirt I slept in last night.

I am creating…
I worked on a scarf for my cousin-in-law this weekend. I misread some of the instructions in the pattern, so it didn’t turn out quite the way it was supposed to, but it still looks pretty good. I hope.

I am going…
To take a shower and get ready for work. As soon as I finish this post!

I am reading…
The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems: Sleeping, Feeding, and Behavior–Beyond the Basics from Infancy Through Toddlerhood. It’s a ponderous book with a LOT of information. And just one of the many books I’ve been reading about infant and child care! I hope I can remember all this stuff when the little one gets here.

I am hoping…
That I’ll be just as productive this week as I was over the weekend. And that I can resolve the drama I alluded to above with honesty, kindness, and self-respect.

I am hearing…
My dog barking. He thinks NO ONE is allowed to walk down our street.

Around the house…
The need for a MASSIVE cleaning is becoming apparent. Having seven animals (eek!) means we have seven thousand pounds of pet hair lurking in each corner, under cabinets and book cases and beds. I may try to scrub/dust/vaccuum the daylights out of this place next weekend, so the house feels tidy and comfortable for Christmas and New Year’s.

One of my favorite things from the past week…
FINALLY finishing the hat I was making for my OTHER cousin-in-law. I made three different attempts, and the first two failed miserably.

A few plans for the week ahead…
Lots of crafting, mail some books for PaperBackSwap, hopefully mail off my stepson’s Christmas presents. And, of course, my day job!

A picture for thought…

The absurdity of this picture allows it, if need be, to stand on its own. A dark comedy about a serial killer who kills serial killers plus… cupcakes? Buh? Wha? However, if you read the post this picture came from, the picture becomes so much more absurd. And meaningful. And HILARIOUS. Photo credit to Mommy Wants Vodka and the narcotics-laced cough syrup she’s been swilling.

Pssssst! There’s more Quick Takes over at Conversion Diary. Check ‘em out!

Take 1: Last night I had a lovely date with my friend Bethany; we dined at Olive Garden then saw the movie Precious, which I’ve been looking forward to for months. It was, as I expected, a brutally honest portrayal of child abuse, yet somehow managed to end on a note of hopefulness. It’s a kind of against-the-odds story; most young people who are abused become abusers themselves, and from some of Precious’s actions, I can see that she’s already starting to react to life in the only way that’s been modeled for her: violently. Still, something in her knows that she and her children deserve better, and she’s lucky enough to have people around her who won’t let her give up.

There’s been a lot of talk about Mo’nique’s performance, and for a very good reason. She was both terrifying and pitiful as Precious’ abusive mother. If you’ve heard of Mo’nique before, you probably know that she’s had a fairly successful career as a comedienne; if you’ve seen her stand-up, you know why. She’s hilarious! And yet she managed to go in the opposite direction and pull off one of the darkest dramatic parts I’ve ever seen. Big, big kudos!

Mo’nique as Mary, Precious’s mother.

Take 2: I was tempted to subtitle this week’s Seven Quick Takes “Links to a ton of cool blogs I just discovered,” because, well, I just discovered a ton of really cool blogs! The first one is Mommy Wants Vodka, which is crass and irreverent and HILARIOUS. The best post I’ve seen so far is “Aunt Becky’s” Thanksgiving gift to all of us blogging peons: Blogging for Dummies. Her advice is wise, honest, and… crass & irrverent. My kind of girl. Seriously, you gotta check her out.

Oh, and if you are tempted as I was to steal some of Becky’s most entertaining turns of phrase, remember: “Stealing gives you herpes.” (Yeah, she wrote that, not me.)

Take 3: And then there’s 1000 Awesome Things, which is (as you might have guessed) simply a daily log of things that strike the (unidentified) author as “awesome.” My favorite? #622 When the dog’s really excited you’re back home. SO TRUE. When I hate the world, all I have to do is walk through my front door and see those tail-wagging furry bundles of joy, and I feel better.

Take 4: The last great blog I have to share with you is Free Range Kids, written by Lenore Skenazy, author of a book of the same name. You may have heard of Skenazy in the hooplah that followed her April 1, 2008 column in the New York Sun, “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone.” If you DIDN’T hear about her during that media feeding frenzy of mama-piranhas, you may not be surprised to hear that most folks on the internet with an opinion (that would be all of them…) thought that Skenazy was America’s Worst Mom.

I have to say that I think she’s pretty awesome. It breaks my heart that kids nowadays don’t enjoy the same freedoms I did just 20 years ago. I mean, it’s not like I grew up in an idyllic post-war Leave It to Beaver world; I lived in a small city, in a neighborhood sandwiched between the richest and the poorest sections of town. And yet I had the freedom to walk to my best friend’s house (crossing a busy street and encountering all manners of strangers in the five minutes it took me to get there), to ride my bike to the local playground, to disappear for hours on end without an electronic leash by which my parents could maintain some illusion of control over me.

It seems that the prevailing attitude today is that we must protect children from every risk - Not just every harm! But EVERY POSSIBLE RISK - at the expense of their freedom and autonomy. Whatever happened to teaching kids right and wrong, giving them tools for decision-making, and then letting them go their own way? Am I a fool for hoping I’ll be able to raise my child as I was raised - trusting that he or she will get through life just fine, so long as I provide the guidance he or she needs?

Take 5: A friend of mine recently noticed and commented on the fact that I have several Helen Keller quotes stored in the signature lines of each of my myriad email addresses. “You must be a fan,” he said. “Indeed I am,” I said. How can I not be? Her optimism and drive to succeed in spite of her handicaps challenge me to remember that no matter what setbacks I encounter, I can and should choose to push beyond them.

Helen Keller, circa 1904.

My favorite Helen Keller quote? “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Rock on, Hel. Rock ON.

Take 6: My mother, who is THRILLED that she’ll be a grandmother for the FIFTH time when my little bundle of joy arrives, has bought quite a substantial library for me of secondhand pregnancy, childbirth and childcare books. If you know me well at all, you know that I love to read, and that when I have a new interest I try to absorb all the knowledge I can about it - but I try to be as discerning as possible in the research sources I choose, weeding out the quacks and weirdos whenever possible, and taking each piece of advice with a grain of salt.

One baby care book my mom sent to me that I thought for SURE I’d find absurdly unhelpful is The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems (by Teaching You How to Ask the Right Questions): Sleeping, Feeding, and Behavior–Beyond the Basics from Infancy Through Toddlerhood. I was sort of familiar with Tracy Hogg’s technique, and I figured it was a load of hooey. How can one possibly expect an infant to stick to a schedule? Or to fall asleep on his or her own? I mean, come ON. I figured my mommy style would be much more Dr.-Sears-granola-crunchy-ish: you know, cosleeping, feeding on demand, etc. But I’m starting to wonder if maybe the Baby Whisperer might have something worthwhile to offer. At the very least, I’ll give her book a fair shake and a careful read.

Take 7: I consider myself a freak of nature because it wasn’t until I was an adult that I truly appreciated the stop-motion holiday TV specials that nearly every other person of my generation has long loved, such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. I just thought they were… BORING… when I was kid, so I don’t feel any nostalgia about eagerly awaiting their appearance on network television each year (you know, in the world before VCRs and DVDs). I like them plenty okay now, but when I think of the holiday specials that made my childhood, the two that come to mind are A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.

However, if I was going to pick my ALL-TIME FAVORITEST HOLIDAY STORY OF ALL, I’d have to go with A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I don’t care which “version” of it you want to watch (tho the Kelsey Grammer musical version really did kinda suck), I just LOOOOOOVE the story. Ultimately, it’s a story of redemption, and I think that’s what draws me to it. We all run into Scrooges in our lives, and sometimes the only thing that keeps us from going postal on those cold-hearted bastards is the idea that maybe, someday, they too discover the value of love, family, friendship, and generosity. I mean, if Ebenezer Scrooge can be reformed, can’t we all?

By far, my favorite adaptation of the story is Patrick Stewart’s audiobook - which, so far as I can tell, is not longer available for sale. SADFACE.

So tell me, What’s your favorite winter holiday story or tradition?