WordSisters

Category: Personal Growth

  • The Gift of Randomness

    The Gift of Randomness

    Monster Dolls
    Monster Dolls

    I used to tease Crystel that I was going to give her seven American Girl dolls to the nursing  home. But, it really wasn’t teasing. “Why do you need so many dolls?” I’d ask.

    One of my first jobs was as a nurse’s aide in a nursing home. I recall women lovingly stroking a doll’s hair, cradling the doll, and putting the doll to sleep. The doll was like her baby. I thought, what better home for these 18 inch life-sized dolls of Crystel’s?

    When the children were young, their giving amounted to them filling up a paper bag with toys to give away before they could get a new toy. “We have to make room,” I’d tell them. From there we moved on to going through their closets and dressers to give away clothes they had outgrown.

    Antonio and Crystel are 13 now.

    Recently, Crystel joined me at the police station. She was assisting me with maintenance on police cars. This amounts to going through a check sheet to make sure all the bells, whistles and lights work on the cars and that there is a teddy bear in the trunk. Teddy bears help police officers relate to youngsters after car accidents, domestic violence, and abuse. I had explained this to Crystel. She decided that she’d add one of her Monster Dolls to each teddy bear. It intrigued her that some random person would get her doll.

    F3646_styling_chair_1[1]A couple of weeks after that Crystel decided that we could give away a doll crib and American Girl doll hair salon chair. I walked the items over to our neighbor. She had a visitor. The visitor’s eyes lit up when she saw them. “I might have an American Girl doll to go with these,” I told her. “I’ll have to check with Crystel.”

    Crystel brought out Molly. She sat on the floor and carefully changed Molly’s clothes. She wanted her to be dressed in the same clothes that she had come to her in from the American Girl doll store. I couldn’t help but think how similar this looked to Jody and I bringing Crystel home from Guatemala. Crystel and I talked about that as she was straightening out the pleats of Molly’s dress and picking out an extra outfit for her.

    After brushing Molly’s bangs, she straightened out the red ribbons that held her braids tight.

    “Ready?” I asked.

    We walked across the street and knocked on the door.

    Molly
    Molly

    Crystel handed her doll to the lady that neither of us knew. The woman wiped away tears. She said that she hadn’t worked for a few months because she had been caring for her sick mother. In doing so, she didn’t get paid and was worried about what she was going to give her granddaughter for her 5th birthday and for Christmas. That was until Crystel gifted her.

    The following week Crystel went to the Mall Of America with Jody. I was shocked when she came home with new outfits from the American Girl doll store bought with her own money. I thought we were giving away American Girl dolls and their clothes, not buying more. Then Crystel explained, “I’m going to take a doll to Guatemala on our next trip to give to some random person,” she said. “I want the doll to look nice.”

  • Downsizing is a Seismic Shift

    Downsizing is a Seismic Shift

    The move looked like upheaval, but changes had reverberated through our lives for several years before my husband and I sold our house. Our sons no longer needed us daily, so we had stepped back into an advisory role. We focused more on fun, less on careers. The shift—from raising children and working full-time—was as natural and inevitable as tectonic plates moving.

    Our old house
    Our old house

    We dreamed of a new life. The vision was a little vague—we wanted to live in the Twin Cities instead of the suburbs, in a neighborhood where we could walk to shops and restaurants, in a house with more character, less yardwork.

    our old backyard
    Our old backyard

    What we chose is a 90-year-old, story-and-a-half house with a postage stamp-sized yard to replace our 40-year-old, three-story walkout with a generous yard.

    Our new house
    Our new house
    New yard
    New yard

    But the change is deeper and broader than square feet and location. We chose a life that offered new possibilities. We are counting on ourselves to invent the life that goes with it.

    Although I’m pleased with the new home we chose, occasionally I feel disoriented. Everything that was familiar has changed. How much room we need. How much activity we want. How much noise we can stand. How to stay connected to people who no longer live nearby. How to be good citizens in a city of activists.

    Sometimes I feel like I’m on good behavior here. I pick up clutter and put away dishes obsessively—which goes against my messy nature—but I’m trying to learn new ways. I think carefully about what we bring into this house since we have so much less space. We gave away many of the fine things we’d accumulated during the past 25 years. Once we’d unpacked we needed to give away even more. But really, how much stuff do we need? And why? The habit of coveting is hard to break, though.

    Walking around in my nightgown with the blinds down is odd, but our windows face the neighbors’ windows and I value my privacy. I’ve had to get used to locking the doors with a key. All the time.

    But eating breakfast in the glow of the little lamp on the buffet is cozy even if the blinds are drawn. My gardens are so small that caring for them is fun now instead of drudgery. I like walking to neighborhood coffee shops and hiking alongside the creek. The energy and variety of the city appeals to me. Most days, I drive toward my new home without lapsing into autopilot and heading south of the river.

    The bedrock our lives—raising children and working full-time—has given way. The foundations of our new life are couplehood, part-time work, and fun.

    We’re still figuring out what our new life should consist of. So we rearrange the elements we want to keep (good meals, time with friends and family), discard ideas and activities that no longer fit (PTO and soccer practice), and relish the new possibilities (guitar practice and art history classes for my husband). For me, the choices are yet to be determined. I’m making it up as I go along.

  • Why Get Married?

    Why Get Married?

    P8100024-1-2reducedJody and I are asked that question. Maybe we were asked that because we were married 12 years ago in our backyard. And that person thought that celebration was perfectly fine so why do it again?

    The question made me stop and think. Why was getting married on August 10, 2014 important to me?

    A myriad of reasons.

    The most significant is that getting married made me feel legitimate.

    Regardless of your political leanings my not being able to be married as a same sex couple and having the same lawful standing as my heterosexual neighbors is as close as I can get to how illegal immigrants in our country must feel.

    You always stay a little hidden. A little under the radar. Don’t make waves. Someone might not like your relationship, your family and you will be discriminated against.

    Discrimination is undeniable.

    P8100031-1reducedToday I feel seen. I feel valid. I feel rightful. I have a partner. And her name is Jody.

    This blog isn’t a political rant. Jody and I aren’t activists. We’ve quietly lived our lives as a couple on our cul-de-sac, with the same ups and downs, the same challenges as all couples. We have two children. We worry about them as you do yours.

    Often we’ve had our children’s friends and parents over to our house to show how normal we are. Antonio was in Scouts and I was a den leader; Crystel in Scouts and Jody a troop leader. Antonio in soccer. Crystel in dance. All of us active in Tae Kwon Do.

    Being a Police Reserve Officer I always hoped that ‘badge’ carried a little bit of weight when we were being sized up as a different kind of family.

    P8100034-1reducedI hoped people saw us as safe even though we were a same sex family.

    Jody and I never thought that same sex marriage would be legal in our lifetime. And, I’m not sure that either of us cared. We were going to do what was right for us and protect ourselves by having a will, power of attorney, assigned beneficiaries, second parent adoption, and the same last name.

    12 years ago, August 10, 2002 flowers had opened to their utmost bloom and spread their green leaves their widest. Bees darted for nectar, dragonflies with iridescent wings dropped to the swimming pool for a quick drink. Butterflies watched from the fringes of the yard.

    P8100020-1reducedMy wedding dress was sky blue, sleeveless, floor length, with a swoop back. It brought out the blue in my eyes and matched my toenails. Jody’s dress had the same design, and was champagne.

    P8100021-1reducedMy niece, Jenny, was our flower girl, laying rose petals along the pool where we walked to the gazebo for the ceremony. Barefoot, we felt the softness of the roses.

    Aunt Jo, my mother’s sister, an ordained minister, performed the Holy Union ceremony.

    75 friends and relatives surrounded us while I told Jody, “I take you as my life companion. I pledge to share my life openly with you – to speak the truth to you in love. I promise to honor and tenderly care for you – to cherish and encourage you – through all the changes of our lives.”

    And she, in turn, said the same to me.

    155999_10204865713428150_1746575820117958063_n[1]12 years later, August 10, 2014 we did it again.

    But this time 150 friends and relatives surrounded us, our lives having grown twice as large because of our children and because we ourselves had grown.

    Crystel was our flower girl and best lady. Antonio our best man.

    Our Officiant was Minister, Judie Mattison. Butterflies and dragonflies once again danced among the attendees.

    And when “All of Me” by John Legend played and the words, Love your curves and all your edges All your perfect imperfections Give your all to me I’ll give my all to you, Jody and I held hands, rotated in the gazebo and slowly turned to face all of you- – –

    P8100136-1reducedMy mother-in-law, sisters and brother in laws, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, fellow writers, Tae Kwon Do peeps, school and work friends, friends from long ago, and next door neighbors.

    Then right before the ceremony ended we rotated once more and breathed in your good wishes and blessings to the music of Gloria Estefan. If I could reach, higher Just for one moment touch the sky  From that one moment In my life I’m gonna be stronger Know that I’ve tried my Very best I’d put my spirit to the test …

    and we came out of hiding.