To You, Dear Readers. Thanks For Helping Me Deal.

Your outpouring of support for my last post (The Life And Times of Six-Year-Old Jane) has touched me so. Especially when I’ve been such a horrible reciprocating blogger of late. I’m going through some (not serious) health issues that have me pre-occupied. All is well. I will be ok. Just extra distracted, scattered and annoyed with the struggles.

I’m great at putting emotions or moments I’d rather forget in a drawer and never thinking about them again. Or, brushing things aside and saying, “I’ll get to that later.” When my husband and I have had an argument and much later he says, “Remember when we disagreed about….” I can actually feel the memory of that uncomfortable moment start to show his (because bad memories are always male, right?) ugly head. I’ll stop my husband in mid-sentence and say, “No! I don’t want to remember. Let’s just move on.” Yes, I’m the one with her fingers in her ears singing “La, la, la, la,la,  la!”  

But I’m learning that you can’t truly move on unless you’ve dealt with it head on.

When Dawn and Tori inspired me to write a post, tongue-in-cheek, about a 6-year-old memoir, I thought, “Ooooo. This will be fun.”

It wasn’t.

It reminded me of things I had stuffed.  Things I hadn’t dealt with. Things I’d rather forget. And I chose not to write about the heavy, heavy stuff. Too painful.

I cried a bit, writing what little I wrote. I miss that little girl. She was cute and always smiling. She loved music and listening to baseball games on her stuffed Tiger with the transistor radio tucked inside.(Remember those?) And she just wanted hugs, approval and love.

Don’t get me wrong. My parents did the best they could with what parenting talents God gave them. And I have many happy memories. But most of those happy memories don’t involve my parents. I think that’s why I am so hell-bent on creating happy memories with my own children.

I have a soft-spot for children who are ignored or forgotten. I suppose we all do. But I have always gravitated toward charities, causes, and professions that could help those children. When I dabbled in foster care and had those two beautiful girls in my home it was the most rewarding and emotionally draining year of my life. I’ve thought about becoming a child advocate volunteer many times. But I always stop short, knowing that I may have to open a cupboard or two and deal with a few of my own demons.

And at for-sen-sumpin years old, I’m still not ready.

Baby steps.

Tiny baby steps.

Thanks for pushing me along.