Susana

January 27
   I know it's the right thing to do.  I don't have a job; don't have money, don't have education; don't have oh so many things.  What I do have is a world of love for this little girl--for you, Sweetheart.  I don't get to give you a name--that is going to be your mommy's job--but just between you and me, I already have.  Your name is Susanna.  Even if nobody else in the world ever hears it, I want you to know.  Susanna, I hope you know how much I love you.  I only get these few minutes to talk to you and hold you and give you a lifetime worth of love, and I know that's not enough, but I hope you somehow understand that it's because I love you that I'm giving you up.  If I were selfish, I'd keep you with me and make you suffer through my mistakes.  But I'm not going to be selfish. I love you too much for that.  So just know, my precious Susanna, that my heart is always going to be broken because I want you to be strong.
                                                         Love,
                                                                Mommy

February 14
Can it really be that over a year has passed?  I thought about you all day today.  I hope that somehow you know that you have inspired me.  Because of you, I've gone back to school.  I'm going to be a teacher, Susanna.  I'm going to teach elementary school, I think.  I have a long way to go, but I'm hoping that I treat every student--boy or girl--as if it was you.  I think about you every day.  I wonder about your hair, your eyes, your family...did you get my curly hair or your daddy's straight hair?  Did your eyes stay blue like his, or did they turn green like mine--or even maybe brown like my father's?  Do you have brothers and sisters?  Do they hold you when you cry?  Do you ever miss me?  I hope not, Susanna.  I don't want to be the reason you feel bad.  I love you so much.  I hope somehow you know that.
                                                                    Love,
                                                                           Mommy
December 25
Susanna, I know that you're almost 10.  My goodness, how time flies!  Did you have a nice Christmas?  I stayed with your grandmother.  This is her first Christmas without your Grandpa.  Oh Susanna, I wish you could have known him.  He was a great man.  I will always remember him carrying me piggyback on his neck.  I felt so tall--like I could almost touch the sky!  He made me feel that way, anyway, Dear.  He was a good, good man and I really miss him.  He died of a heart attack, but before he died, we had time to talk.  He knew about you, Little One.  I didn't keep you a secret.  Both he and your grandmother knew that I was pregnant.  We all prayed and talked it through together.  Susanna, did I ever tell you that I wasn't a teenager?  I was an adult--20 years old.  Your daddy and I were in love and planning to get married, and we chose not to wait.  We chose together.  When I got pregnant, though, he got scared and left.  He knew that I wouldn't dream of abortion, and he didn't want to raise a child.  Not that I would have asked him.  I knew we weren't ready.  But this introduction to responsibility scared him and he left.  Grandma and Grandpa didn't pressure me in any way.  We prayed together and decided.  It was an easy decision for me--I've already told you that I wanted you to have the best home and the brightest future possible, and I knew that couldn't happen with me.  I think it was really hard for Grandma, though.  I heard her crying in her room, but she never tried to talk me out of it.  I'm thankful for that.  Before he died, your Grandpa told me that he knew I did the right thing.  He said that if I ever got to know you, though, he wanted me to tell you that he loves you.  He's always prayed for you--his granddaughter.

My little girl--I know I shouldn't say "mine", but I still feel you in my heart, just like I told you I would.  That's why I've written this journal.  Just in case, some strange way, we should ever find each other, I want you to know that I never, not even for one day, stopped thinking about you.

                                                                   Merry Christmas, my little angel,
                                                                                Your mommy, who loves you

July 28,
Susanna, school is starting up again soon.  I know that you will be a freshman this year.  Are you excited?  I wonder if you'll go out for sports, or maybe play in the band like I did.  Do you have a gift?  Mine was always music.  Even when life was hard, music always lifted me up.  Coming home, I always had on my I-pod.  Sometimes I would hear people laughing and realize that I'd been singing along again.

I've been teaching for quite a few years now.  Fifth grade, mostly.  I see so many little girls, and I wonder if that's how you look-or looked, you know what I mean.  Blonde and pretty, brown hair in pony tails, chubby redheads--all of them are you.  Not knowing what you look like, I know that any one of them could have been you.  It helps me remember to treat them all with love and compassion.  What if that little girl that I snickered about turned out to be my own daughter?  So even now I look for you in every face and treat every child (even the boys) as if they were my own.  Just another way you make me a better person, Susanna.
                                                                 Love,
                                                                          Mommy

March 18,
Dear Katie,
            Thank you for giving me the chance to see you.  I was scared about the idea of looking you up, but I always felt that there was a connection.  When I turned 18, I talked to my mom, and she gave me her blessing.  I wouldn't have done this so soon if she hadn't.  I didn't want to do anything that would hurt her.  You did give birth to me, but she gave me life.  She told me a little about the situation.  She told me that you were young, unmarried, and you wanted me to have the best.  She knew you from the letters that you had written to the adoption facility, and she was impressed by the love that you had for me.  She knew that it was hard for you to give me up, but that you were determined to do what was right for me.
           When we met, you said that it was like you were looking at yourself.  I'm with you! I think that the first thing that struck me was how alike we look.  Your mom (it seems funny to call her Grandma still, but I'll get used to it) says that I look just like pictures of you when you were 18.  I brought my photo album (and my phone) and she took hers out, too, and we were all in tears--it could have been me in your book and you in my book!! Honestly, it was hard to figure out whether we laughed more or cried more.
           Katie, I was so blessed when you gave me your journals.  Eighteen years' worth--20 books!  I can't believe you thought of me every single day!  You have no idea how close you came to truths about me.  That day that you worried about whether I'd find the right boy...I had found the wrong boy and came so close to making the same mistake you made!  But I remembered the nights that I'd cried in my mom's arms--why would my parents give me up?--that I knew I couldn't risk doing that to another child.  I don't blame you, Katie.  You did do what was best.  My parents are there for me, and I've had a great childhood.  But you must know that it hurts, even when you know that your parents let you go for the best reason possible.  We talked about that a little, and we both cried a little more.  What a day of tears!!
             I'm looking forward to learning more about you.  I'm glad you understand that I can't call you Mom--that's not something I can do--but I was thinking--I learned German, and the word for mom in German is mutti.  I really think I want to call you mutti.
             So anyway, mutti :-), I'm looking forward to more time together with you.  Maybe one day you can meet my mom and dad, too.  They're great people, like I said.  But we'll play it by ear.
              I love you, Katie.  Mutti.
                                                                          Love, your daughter
                                                                                          Savannah

how to cope with depression-or at least how I do it.

I know what you're thinking…
What?  Cope with depression?  Based on the earlier posts, I doubt she copes very well with depression!  Dear reader, I want you to remember that this blog is not only me trying to be a writer.  It's me crying out to those people who read, asking for prayer and hoping that I strike a chord with others who understand how I feel.  In fact, blogging is one way that I cope.

I have struggled with depression since I was young--probably since I was a little girl.  I was officially diagnosed in my 40's, but I knew that there was a serious problem much earlier.  When I was younger, every time depression cycled through, I became hurt, angry, bitter, judgmental, a victim, a user, and just a not-very-nice person to be around.  I'm sure that my depression was an important part of my being so isolated in school.  Yes, I was bullied, but so are many others.  Others were able to deal with the bullying and still have friends.  I was not.  The bullying entered into me, fed my depression, and made me both afraid to reach out and sure that I was exactly what they said I was.

When I was a young mother, I found out that I had hypothyroidism.  I received meds for that. Meds helped.  They helped a lot.  My children even remarked about it--I remember my son Val saying that I was mean mommy before, but I'm nice mommy now.  However, the meds didn't make the depression go away. Every once in a while, I would get really sad, really angry, get hurt really easily, just really depressed.  I saw my father going through the same thing, and I hated the way he handled it--manipulating us to try to get attention and help his perceived need.  I saw that he was driving his family away from him and I determined that I would never do that. What I didn't realize was that he probably had little control over his depression.  I don't know if he even saw it as depression.  I know that I didn't see it that way.  I felt that he was cruel and unfeeling to his children, that he tried anything he could do get attention, and that he never thought of others, only himself.  All of this was true, at least in part.  But with the wisdom of years, I can also see these behaviors in myself--with the important addition of feeling on the inside what he must have been feeling.  I now understand the sense of impending catastrophe that he must have been feeling.  The difference, though, is that I try not to feed on it and not to let it overflow onto others, at least not verbally.  It doesn't always work, but often it does.

When I'm depressed, really depressed, nothing seems to help but time.  I have to do the daily things everyone else also has to do--go to work, go to rehearsal, go to church.  But I try to be as quiet as I can about my depression.  I know that I look like I'm hurting--there's nothing I can do about that, other than take the day off work or  stay home from rehearsal, etc.  When I'm in a situation and not talking about it, the worst thing that you can do is try to talk me out of it.  Nothing you can say will help, and many things you say can really make it worse.  I am amazed by those who decide that they have the right answer and are able to fix another person.  If I ask you for advice, that's one thing.  But if you come up to me while I'm trying to stay out of the spotlight and thrust me into it, you deny me the ability to deal with my pain and force me to listen to you.  While others might benefit by this treatment, in me it revs up depression into either anger--bad--or despair--worse--or hopelessness--worst.  I am in a public place not to make you feel bad for me but to a) do my duty (or my job) or b) try to get some contact.  What I need is the freedom to be.  I will appreciate a friendly smile and maybe a hug far more than your words of wisdom.

Sometimes, however, I do come to a meeting or public place with the specific goal of trying to get help, or at least to make my voice heard. This morning was an example.  I came to a meeting where the three of us all talk about our issues and how we dealt with them over the week.  I was asked to go first, and I thought for a second about hiding my issue and saying something neutral.  Rightly or wrongly, I didn't. Having opened up, I then received both friendship and advice.  That's fine--it's the proper venue.  But if you give me advice, no matter how good it is, please don't expect me to act or respond to what you say with any sort of emotion or gratitude.  It's not that I'm angry at you or refuse to take what you've said seriously.  I don't respond because I need time.  I sometimes can't push out of my depression far enough to give you the socially acceptable response.  That's one reason I try not to be in these outlets unless I know the people involved and feel very comfortable around them.  This morning, I was advised several things, one being to lay on the floor and ask the Holy Spirit to indwell me.  I couldn't get to a good enough place to acknowledge the wisdom of that remark--but I did try that when I got home.  Did it help?  Maybe.  And that leads me to my next point.

Don't expect depression to come and go at will.  At least in my case, it cycles.  Something might start it, but equally often it just comes.  When it comes, I pray that I recognize it.  I have come to realize that I can recognize it when it comes out of the blue; I can't recognize it when it comes as the result of another issue.  For example, my depression really started this year because of tiny little triggers.  I caught a couple, but they kept coming and coming and I stopped counteracting them.  It became overwhelming, and at some point I lay down and let it bowl me over.  It didn't happen overnight and it won't go away overnight.

Having said all that, maybe at this point you're thinking that depression is too overwhelming and hopeless to deal with.  That's not the case.  Here are some things that I know to be true.

• Depression can be managed, at least in part, by medication.  If you don't have a reason for your depression and you are depressed anyway, you should talk to your psychiatrist or doctor and see if you need something to take the edge off.  Again, though, you have to be realistic.  The commercial with the girl who has coat on or the rain cloud over her head shows truth:  the coat is near her, the rain crowd is off to the side at the end of the commercial, but they never go away.  Medicine will not save you from depression--it will help you control your depression.

• You need to be self-aware, not self-absorbed.  When I'm depressed, I look at myself to figure out if there's a reason.  If there's a reason, I try to understand why I'm depressed because of that reason.  Usually I can, and usually that helps.  However, please don't think that the reason I give you for my depression is the only (or even the most important) reason.  Unless you are my counselor, I probably won't tell you the full story.  I might even give you the least offensive of reasons that I'm depressed.  I'm just like everyone else.  I don't want you, my friend, my family member to see how someone's actions have set me off--especially if they're your actions.  Again, the difference between depression and getting your feelings hurt or needing to confront is vast.  I sometimes have to get the depression to a manageable level before I can begin to work with what is bothering me.  When I do, what is bothering me might stop bothering me.  I can only realize and properly deal with its smallness when I'm free of the cloud of depression that was its companion.

• Find an outlet.  Yes, it can backfire.  Right now, Part of my situation is fueled by issues regarding my avocations.  That does not mean that I should quit my avocations.  The fact that I continue in spite of the depression is a sign to me that I can continue to function in spite of myself.  The fact that I can blog through this very significant depressive episode gives me hope that next time the episode will be less.  Yes, I have thought about quitting.  No, I am determined not to.
• Finally, take care of yourself.  I want to do nothing but eat and sleep when I'm this depressed.  So right now I'm chewing gum at the computer. I did go to Burger King and take a nap, but I refuse to let my weak moments define me.  I'm up now. I'm not eating now.

If you also suffer from depression, I'd love to hear from you.  Many of us suffer alone, and I know how hard that can be.  I am determined never to allow that to happen to me again.  I know that there will always be depression in my life, but I have decided to always allow sunshine in my heart as well.  So if you want to talk further, email me at meggiev7777@gmail.com or comment.  We are a brotherhood, and there is strength in numbers.

baby steps to the dance

You sit in your corner
Isolated, alone
Protected from the world by your own inability to move forward.

"The world has hurt me, so I can't trust anybody or anything to ever come close again."

For years, the words have made sense, kept you safe.
You tell yourself that the people who try to break through to you
 have only more evil in mind for you.
They must at all costs be kept out.

But then, somehow, someone--something--gets through.
In spite of yourself, you find that you cannot live a completely solitary life,
and so you tentatively reach out for help,
and someone else takes your hand
and the dance begins.

It starts slowly, haltingly, with many falls along the way.
You have forgotten how to dance.

Dance?  Hell, you've forgotten how to walk!

And so you slide on your rump, trying to get the feel of it again.

It is so painful.
Trying to talk to someone.
Trying to connect.
Over and over, you think that you will give up.

It's just too hard.

But the newly-released spirit within you refuses to allow you to slide all the way back into your hole,
and so you try and try
and try again.

More and more grateful for the steady hand
That is always ready to lift you up.

"I had nothing to do with the mess that has become my life."
"It was the addiction, the illness, the abuse, the molestation, the divorce"
It was him.  It was her.  It was them.  It was a million different excuses, each one more believable than the one before.

You teeter and totter, clinging to the outstretched hand, not ready to take the next step.

Crutches of hurt and blame have kept you where you are, and you will not be able to dance before you can walk.

And so, slowly, gently, with many baby steps, you finally let go of the hand,
Turn to face the dawn,
And realize that you have been answering the wrong question.

It's true, you had an awful break.
What happened to you should never have happened.
You lived through a tremendous loss.

Those are great answers, but you misheard.

The question is NOT why did this happen to you?

That question has long since been answered.
You answer it still--
Over and over and over.

The question of the moment,
Sweet child of God, 
Is this:

What are you going to do about it now?

 All this time,
Face on the floor,
Head in the sand,
Stubbornly clinging to your pain and pride,

You did not even realize that your spirit has moved on.

All this time, you have been answering the first question,
And the second question,
At the same time.

By staying stuck in the first step,
Identification,
You have been unwilling
Unable
To proceed to the second step.

Can you move on?
Can you look at the second question and take a baby step toward the answer?

It will lead you into the dance.

So Sweetheart,
Look at it:
What are you going to do now?

The hand is still there,
Outstretched,
Nail-scarred.

Stand with me and let him lift you up.

Say with me,
I choose to live.
I choose to walk.
I choose to dance.

I will walk by your side,
I will help you in the walk

and that other hand will always always be there for you.

So take your first baby steps to the dance of freedom.

No, you won't immediately begin to samba,
To do a beautiful waltz.

It takes time.

But soon enough you will be walking,
Then running,
Then dancing,
Then flying.

All it takes is trust.

Trust in me,
Trust in him.
And trust in yourself.

Go forward into the dance,
And God bless you as you learn the movements.












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