Garbage in Garbage out

Dedicated to my dear, very old (lol) friend, Chris.

As I realize that there is so much more to life than what meets the eye, I can't help but notice one of the most important of all characteristics of life lessons- one that is often learned late, and more often unfortunately, when it's too late: the ability to let things go. Most of what I know about, what I write about later, comes from life lessons. I fear to say that life lessons aren't learned from a book because anyone who writes most likely reads and anyone who reads knows that you can become quite enlightened from reading the feelings of those who write about them. So it's with delicate measures that I make the verbal assumption that learning's playground is hands on and the curve is ever changing. (I'll expand more later on this.)

Since my house has been torn up, my pysche has been in conjunction, crumbling as well, as has Sarah's I've determined. At least that's the only thing I can blame for her awful behavior recently. Maybe it's the fact that I have made spoiling children look like a work of art. Either way, I've noticed that there are lots of times in my life that I have not let the right things go, and slipped on the heels of the unscrupulous all too many times.

The sheer stress of making difficult decisions alone has just about put me in an early grave. But what I've noticed is, that it's not the decisions that are tough to make, it's recognizing and associating the value of the accompanying factors that lead up to the decision making time that distract us from making right choices. For example, your mind remembers numbers in one basic way. It's called chunking. It trains itself to break up numbers into small recognizable numbers which enables it to remember longer numbers easier than if you were to try to remember one long number. Telephone numbers are a perfect example of chunking. If you look at your daily decision making routines in that way, you can account for all the contributing factors that divide and conquer your mind, which ultimately influence your decision.

My outlook is ever changing, and it's only when I have moments of clarity and distinction that I can realize that it's not the actual problem that stems the unwanted results, it's my way of chunking out the underlying issues. I have always been a believer in fate, in destination, which would only allow me to believe that things will ultimately be OK. One would think that would negate any feelings of uncertainty, any unruly feelings altogether, which brings me to the final point in thought.

We live in a constant emotional state as we allow ourselves to. There is not a feeling in the world that will supply us with a correct answer- because there are no right and wrong answers. What is right to you might be wrong to me, and vice versa. There is and there is not, and it is all according to you. That is life. In math, your equations will either end up right or wrong, but there are lots of equations that even the latest and greatest could never solve. Everything is contradictory, and we are all human. That is one of the hardest lessons to learn.

If I can keep my mind in this state, I will be fine. Who knows what I will feel in five minutes. hahahahahahahaha. Point proven.

Letter # I don't remember at this point.

Dear Collette,

I hope you are sitting down because this is going to be a shock to you. Well I guess that remains to be seen. You may have been waiting a long time for this moment. Quick! Get out your camera. It’s in the junk drawer. C’mon, I know you have one. Everyone does.

 I was born on April 12, 1976 in Charlotte, I recently learned. I did not know my birthplace until last August when I found out that you were my birth mother. Since I found out, as you can probably imagine, I have been mulling over how to approach this situation.

Let me start by saying this: I have longed to know you all of my life, to know your people, who were originally my people too. I've longed to know my birth father and his people, too- not as much as you though if that's any consolation.  I learned in my search that you did not tell my birth father about me. I would still like to know who he is. I sincerely hope you can remember who he is. You are getting old after all. (Sad attempt to make light of this. Humor has always been my friend.)

I understand that request may be very hard for you to digest if you really never told him about me. I'm sorry that it might be very painful for you to even think about me, and even reliving that time in your life altogether might be excruciating. I can only imagine. I have a daughter, so I can somewhat relate. That means you are a grandmother. Sorry to inform you, if you were living life thinking you were still in your prime. I heard that you have a full head of gray hair which I guess is something I have to look forward too as well. That stinks, but it’s forgivable.

I want you to know that I don't blame you for what you did. I have an idea of what it was like for you being in college at the time of your pregnancy, and having two older siblings who both graduated college. One would derive that there might be some lofty expectations of you being the youngest to come out on top like the others. But I also recall in my notes from the adoption agency that your parents wanted you to marry the birth father and keep me. Either way, I imagine it was no easy feat for you to give me up, and to go all these years wondering what happened to me. I know who I am, and so I imagine you can't be that different. I feel things pretty deeply, as I imagine you do as well.

 I would like to know more about my heritage, my lineage, my health information, but most importantly- ABOUT YOU. I have gone my whole life wondering who I am, where I came from, what it would be like to know other people who look like me, who act like me, who are like me. Two words: missing link. Don't get me wrong. I have had a great family, a great upbringing- maybe it was rocky at times, but who goes through life without strife? Show me that person, so I can hug her- maybe she's Irish.

I am writing you today to see if you would be interested in meeting me. I don't want anything from you. I know you have a life already. I do too! But I thought you might be curious to know about me. After all it's been almost 36 years. I'm holding onto 30 though. Shhhh. I live in Charlotte, which is only a few hours’ drive from Jacksonville.

I know I have relatives out there. I sent a facebook message to your sister. So I imagine you might know that I was looking for you. She never responded. I assume she looked at my birthday and something might have clicked. Who knows? Assuming is bad. I do it too much. But when you have as little to go on as I have had all these years, your imagination becomes quite vivid and relentless on occasion.

I'd like to leave you wanting to know more about me. So, I don't want to tell you too much. It's like sleeping with a guy on the first date. He got what he wanted and he might not come back. I've never done that btw. I'm a good girl. Well that might be a fib, but I am a good girl anyhow. Now you're thinking, wow, this girl is crazy and a whore. You'll never want to meet me now. Maybe I should rethink this letter. Nah. This is me. I am who I am, and you are who you are, and I owe it all to GOD.

He's my real mom and dad. Knowing that has made it easier for me. And in all honesty, I have grown up very happy, very stable (that could be debated) I was a debater in high school. Nothing screams dork more than that. I was also a dancer for 15 years, until I quit because I thought drinking beer was more fun. Boy was I stupid. I might not have this beer belly now, had I thought that one through. I might have your genes to thank for that too. Eh. That’s what Weight Watchers is for.

I am going to record myself dropping this letter in the mail. I truly hope that you want to meet me too. You might realize that you have needed me all these years, and it's never too late to start over. I do it every day.

Please call me or write me back. You can find my number in most bathroom stalls in Charlotte bars on Central Avenue. Joking of course.

Love,
Brooke

Change your Lens dude.

How I wish there was a Starbucks in my neighborhood. No, actually, let's make it in my house, and on my nightstand right this second. Don't you wish you could just think something up, and it would happen? Some people say that you can. They call it the the law of reciprocity, which in essence, really means, that what you exert comes back to you. I don't know if I believe all that crap, but one thing is for certain. The people that you surround yourself with will undoubtedly change your outcomes if you let them. We will obviously have many outcomes in our lives because nothing stays the same, nothing is permanent, and life is a constant motion.

I learned this lesson the hard way in many cases, especially recently. I happen to be very trusting person, thus probably naive to the world and its many inhabitants. There are those who want to bring process improvement, who are driven by matters of the heart, who are not hesitant to help, and not thinking in terms of dollar signs, but genuinely want to help one another. And you have those who want to save the world, but who want and expect to get rich doing so, and instead of climbing the mountain with a walking stick, they climb over people instead, squashing them like ants on a sidewalk. And there are those who don't care period. They don't genuinely care about themselves, others, or anything for that matter. In their twisted mind they are "helping, " but the truth of the matter is, they are doing just the opposite. They are making matters worse. I wouldn't say that there are 3 types of people in the world because I'm not a fan of stereotyping. But I would say that people are often mislead. We are guilty of doing it, and we are victims of it.

I believe that setbacks are just lessons learned. Some happen to be more biting than others, but they are all the same whether we want to believe it or not. We should all try to constantly clean our lenses, and if you want to think in terms of the bigger picture, one could say that we all need to be viewing our setbacks as welcomed times for us to grow and learn and morph. It's all in your outlook. No problem is too big. None is worse than another. It's all relevant, and it's real, and you are always capable of fixing whatever it is that plagues you just by cleaning your lens. And while you might not be able to change the actual outcome or actually put the broken pieces back together because maybe some are missing, maybe some are cracked, you are able and capable of changing the way you let the brokeness affect you as a whole. You can choose to be aware of your surroundings or  be self aware.


Now I know you are thinking, "Brooke, that's bullshit. A 4 year old daughter who has Spinibifida is not comparable to your pipes in your house being shaken up a little. A terminally ill mother of 6 young children is nowhere near the likes of a car breaking down or a missed school bus, or a computer virus that shuts down your website." And while you might be thinking that they are not related, not in the same category of pain, same lines of stress, or in comparison by any means, they are all relative, and all manageable.

How we deal with stressors in our lives that have potential to rip away layers of our very beings is most important. The way we react can often lead to our outcomes, and the people we involve ourselves with can interfere with healthy reactions regularly. This is a very sensitive topic for many people in the world today. Whiners and nay sayers will tell you over and over again that it can't be done, that there is no way, that you are naive in your thinking. And you will start believing their lies. So before you get entangled with people who don't think positively, and don't clean their lenses often, politely remove yourself from their realm. It's OK to withdraw. Your services have been rendered long enough. And some people you can never change. But you can always, always change yourself.

I have peace in my heart because I know that God is working on me and for me. You can always know that God is working in your behalf even when you don't see it. Often times you won't. And often times you will not understand your adversity. But if you embrace your adversity, you will grow in ways that you would have never thought possible especially,  "in that situation." But always know that He is working on your behalf- the silent partner. I owe it to God. Without him, nothing is possible.

Final Thought

A couple days ago a co-worker of mine, who I consider to be a real friend, because we meet at the mind quite frequently, and our hearts seem to be in sync also, told me something that resonated in me. She said that God can't fix your heart if you don't give him all the pieces. I think that says it all for now. I love our "smoke breaks" (Neither of us smoke. Smoking is yucky.)

Just because you avoid the net, it doesn't mean you swim better

I wish I could help you.
But I can't.
You are not what you were.
And I miss you.
There are times that I think about how things used to be.
Do you?
I tried believing your lies.
It was never your fault.
It never was your fault.

You hide your true self.
The drugs don't do the trick.
I can't tell if you're honest.
Nothing makes sense. I ran out of patience. I didn't mean to.

You're not who you were.
I miss you. You were great.
You can be that again.

But you can't be who you are right now.
You have to cut her off, snuff her out, let her go.
Let everything go.
The important things will survive.

You will survive,  find love, and be restored. Never forgotten.

Best of all...

You will forget this one day, and then realize that it was something... that you had control over the whole time.

I'm a sucker, but it could be worse.

It's official. I am a grade A #1 sucker.
I have been dealing with this ongoing water damage claim with my insurance, with three questionable construction men of sorts, all of which I thought I could trust, all of which thought they could trust me as well, and we all secretly didn't trust each other was what it really boiled down to. It's not uncommon for humans to act on feelings. People often comment that women are more susceptible to acting out on feelings, which leaves men therefore less inclined to act on feelings, and even further less inclined to show emotion. So they say. I have found that to be totally false, unwarranted, lacking of merit, and undeniably misdiagnosed. And I owe it all to a few pipes that wanted to rebel against the unruly and unforgivable raw sewage that forces its path through them. I don't know, but if I was a pipe, I would probably do the same thing. Who wants to have urine running all over them, much less #2? There are people in this messed up world we live in who do, but thankfully and somewhat surprisingly, I do not know them.

To make a long, very boring, and confusing story, digestible (pun intended- get it? pipes, digest, you are laughing inside. I just know you are.)

My house had either a clog in the main line, or a root growing through the pipe or it was demon possessed. I'm fine with entering a plea of a combination of all three. The truth is, I don't know what the heck the problem is with the plumbing in my house. Whatever the issue, it is still unfortunately unknown to me, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was unknown by all interested parties, and I use the word interested very loosely here. What makes an object of desire intriguing to one person is entirely different to another. Essentially, I'm saying that my best interest was not at hand, although I was told repeatedly by all parties involved, the insurers, the fixer uppers, and the friends of the fixer uppers, that I was being carefully looked after. I even told myself that I was being diligent in hiring the right people. After all, all people who were hired were friends of someone I knew. That is scary in itself. It's scary that all three of the people that I hired knew someone I knew, and all three were clowns, untrustworthy, grimy fuckheads. I say that with only the purest of disdain and bitterness. You'll have to excuse my French, but if you were me, and lucky for you you are safely you, you would probably have thrown a chair through your 15th story high rise window while you were still seated on top of it. I have maintained composure somehow. God helps. A lot. I will probably have to sit an extra 32 hours on the white couch, which will match my new white hair when it's all said and done.

In all of this nightmare that has both snuffed out too many of my semi-precious cell phone minutes, and raped me of three hours of my morning routine work day, which accumulate to about a weeks worth of real work, I have learned that people, not all people, but people in general are assholes. People will lie to your face, they will tell you what you want to hear, and they will do it without the bat of an eyelash. People run on emotions and act on feelings. It's probably why we live in such a litigious society, and why we make threats that we don't intend on ever following up on. We want to protect ourselves from the likes of ourselves. It's scary. I hate this world sometimes. By the time I die, I will be either very bitter or truly enlightened, maybe both, but either way, I will hopefully be wise enough to know when someone is telling me the truth. And if I know by instinct, then I will act on intuition, and go with my gut feeling.

Final Thoughts

We don't trust our gut feelings enough, which I believe is really the Holy Spirit. If we listened more without asking the whys and hows and just know that He is in control of all things, we would all be better off, and have less worry, less anxiety, and less need for control. I, for one need to believe God to do the things that he says he will do more often and quit trying to figure out why He does what He does, and just be fine with knowing that He's in control, and everything will be fine. It will all be over soon enough, and these worries of drywall and laminate vs hardwood will be nothing more than a fart in the wind to put it eloquently. And thank God. I can't take much more of this.

Letter #6...The Real Deal, Unrepressed

This has been a particularly rough month for me. I have had a lot going on in my life, at home, at work, sometimes they seem to be in unison because, I guess, because  I am human, and it is sometimes hard for me to separate the two. When I walk out of work, I try to leave my work-related stress in that little squishy red ball sitting on my desk,  and I don't want to talk about work at all during my time off.

But there are times in your life that your home life will spill into your work life and vice versa. It's unavoidable. If something in your personal life is eating away at your very soul, you can count on being preoccupied at work. No amount of coffee, sleep or working out can counteract ongoing stress. It's not called the silent killer for nothing. But I realized that the times that I feel most stressed out are the times that I feel the need to be in control. And the clincher here is this. It's when I relinquish my control to God, and trust in Him, when I feel most relieved.

People are always saying, "Don't take it personally. It's business." While, true, it might be business related, we are not robots. I don't care how many ways you try to convince yourself that you are someone different while at work. You simply are not.  You are who you are when it's 8-5 and when it's 5-8.  And just because I was born with a vagina and not a penis (if I had one, it would be bigger than average, I hope), I do not think with my heart in all instances. But if you do something that tells me one thing while your lips tell me something totally different, I am going to notice. I was not born last night. You know how I know? I just learned back in August 2011 what time I was born- thanks to Debi. I don't remember right now though. I'm guessing it was morning though- somewhere around the witching hour, since I am admittedly feisty and witchlike (on Mondays and Wednesdays only).

Recently, I had an organizational switch in my role at work, which I had absolutely no control of. No planned out line of questioning or prodding for truths would prove anything nor confirm or deny anything that I didn't already know the answer to, but for some reason I needed affirmation that I was still worth it. Worth what? Worthy of being wanted I guess, of being needed, of being employed. I needed to know that my efforts to please my bosses were noticed, that my role was not in vain, that my place in the company was not faltering. So I asked. I cried when I did, which is most unprofessional. But you know what?  I am human. I am real. When I want to know something, I'm gonna ask it. And when I don't feel appreciated, I will move on. Maybe that's a vain approach to life. Maybe I put too much emphasis on something as fleeting as feelings. Maybe most people don't place enough value on others' feelings, and that's what really bothers me about the business world. People want robots these days. It's clear when you look at formerly booming industries such as manufacturing and agriculture. When they say they want computerized, standardized methods they mean it in more than one way.

I enjoy cutting up at work. Practical jokes and boisterous laughter are often emitting like UV rays from my cube.What's the point in being so serious all the time? Who says work should be dull?  Being humorous at work is very unfortunately frowned on in a lot of companies though. I think that's bullshit. I can remember working for my Dad, and reading to him a cover letter than I once wrote, and his reaction that irked me, prompting me to never ask his opinion again on that topic.  He said it wasn't professional, not serious enough. Since when did the world get so uptight. It wasn't just my Dad. It's corporate America.

Sure, the letter was a bit daring, could have been a bit forthright, maybe flirting with conceit, maybe quirky, and probably somewhat humorous. It was too honest, too obvious.  But here's the deal. It was me. Do we really want to start something out on a lie? Why in interviews do we have to make shit up? We have Q and A books that we pour over while we are prepping for interviews. Should I make something up that blatantly is not what I am- a perfectionist, consummately on-task, on-time, on point?  On a role is more like it. Lies, all lies. Now, I'm a multi-tasker who often takes on too much responsibility? That's complete bullshit. If I was like that I would be the CEO. I wouldn't be sitting here answering your lame questions about my so-called work habits that may or may not be true depending on how gullible you are.

Good habits are a result of happiness- in your personal life and in cube living. It's evident. Wouldn't you rather know if I'm a good person or not? Would I lie about task completion? Would I cover up a mistake? Would I narc out a co-worker who was doing something he's not supposed to be doing? The answer to that is easy- no. Honestly, I don't think that employers want to hire someone who would say yes to that question. Employers don't want to see your true colors obviously because they ask such unimportant, irrelevant questions quite frequently in interviews.

If I answer your questions the way some 1976 Harvard PhD grad who is now working as a business consultant for companies like Google and AT&T tells me to answer them, I am not only lying to you, but I am also unoriginal. I am not what you are probably looking for. I have my own mind, and I am actually intelligent despite the fact that I don't have a degree from an accredited university. I make up my own decisions on the fly because I like to think. It pleases me to please you Mr. Bossman Interviewer. I don't usually follow suite, which might make you uncomfortable because,  well I guess, because, I might take your job one day. No,  I don't fit your mold. I like to make my own mold. I think they call that thinking outside of the box. But really, it's thinking inside the box. When you are thinking inside the box you are using your own uniqueness, your own creativity, and utilizing your gifts. You are being yourself- what you were put here for.

What got me riled up tonight is the thought of interviewing. It's the thought that I have to pretend that I am not who I really am to get a job. I can't stand to be a fake. It drives me batty. Please don't ask me to lie; it will eat me up. I'm not saying I don't ever lie. I'm human. I lie. In fact, I lied to a friend about something totally ridiculous recently, that ended a twenty year friendship. It was coming anyway. We had grown apart. It was actually very innocent, and I lied because I took someone else's bad advice. But that's beside the point.

The point here is this: Be yourself. But care for others as you are doing it. The letter that I wrote below is an honest depiction of how I feel about Colette on occasion, when I am thinking only about myself. Nevertheless, it is not something that I would ever convey in that manner to her because I am not that mean. But if people were as clear as day as we sometimes feel, we would all hate each other.

Jesus said in John 10: 18, "I have power to die, and I have power to live again." Sometimes we must mask, sometimes smother our true feelings so that we can get past pain. We do it because we know it's right. We lie sometimes to prevent heartbreak.

I feel like I need to be honest right now. And because honesty takes a toll sometimes, I wanted to give you fair warning that what you are about to read below is gritty, and not withholding. One would never know happiness if before, he didn't experience sadness. Most people never let this kind of truth out, but I don't mind, because I know that everyone hurts sometimes, and everyone hides it. You might hide in a bathroom at work when you cry. You might scream in your car when you are angry. You might punch a hole in your bedroom wall (an expensive method of expression I wouldn't recommend for some obvious reasons). However you express yourself behind closed doors is your choice. I choose to write. You choose to read it.

Dear Colette,

I am your birth daughter. You gave me away to total strangers when I was born. You kept me a secret as if I was never born. You stripped me of knowing where I came from all of my life. And I don't know if you have any remorse for it, because you have never tried to contact me to even let me know.
They say that I should be writing you nice words. I don't really give a shit right now what they say. They aren't me. They didn't grow up feeling like a missing link. They didn't have a million questions rolling around in their coconut that most normal people have definite answers to immediately when they are asked. They also didn't selfishly give away a baby like you did.
One might say it is a selfless thing to do. I might agree one day. One day I might vehemently disagree. At any rate, I'm not gonna sugar coat this. I'm pissed at you right now. I have made a few connections with you, and you again, have made no attempt at knowing me. Denied once again. How many times will you do this to me? Does it bother you that I'm hurt by your lack of care for me? Are you so far stuck up your own ass that you can't even look at me? Are you human? Do people love you? I wonder what it's like for you to live your life knowing that you had a perfectly good child and you gave her away. Because, why again?
I don't know you and frankly, right now, I could care less about you. I think very low of you right now, almost to the point that you did, when you signed the papers, when you didn't visit me in the hospital, when you didn't tell my birth father about me. You're dead to me. Just like I was to you 35 years ago, only I was an innocent baby, a sweet, healthy, pretty baby. You are old, probably haggard, and most likely unhappy. I don't want to write you any more sweet letters. This is it. I'm done writing your pathetic, weak ass. I don't care anymore. I don't know if I ever truly did.
This note will probably mean nothing to you. Just like I meant nothing to you when you gave me away. You bitch. You don't deserve to have children.
Why am I so pissed? I don't know. But I'm blaming it all on you right now. I've planted the seed that I wanted to meet you. You must be aware. You have to be aware. You should be ashamed of yourself. I hope you are. I hope you get some help because what you did to me is despicable. Anyone who has unprotected sex and gets pregnant should take responsibility for their own actions. Abortion is wrong. And giving your child away is a cop out. Grow a sack. Explain to me why you did that to me. Why you separated me from others who are like me, why you left me. I deserve to know. You owe me at least that much since you took everything else away from me that should have been my fucking birthright. I can't even imagine what it would be like to live your life knowing that you gave your own child away. I don't care how many "circumstances" surrounded you, I am a fucking person- a living, breathing, capable, wonderful person. I deserve to know why you did what you did.
I know who my Father is. So that makes it easier for me to forgive you, BUT, I still don't like you. This will be no different for you seeing as how you never knew me from the beginning, and you don't have to try now to make up for all those years. You can just curl this piece of paper up in your little fist and throw it away, just like you did to me when I was born that day- just toss this out like an old magazine. Have a nice life you cold hearted bitch.

No one,  who's a someone

The Voices that Brought me to 13

While lying under the soft, thick covers of the twin bed I was very uncomfortably and against my will, but insisted upon sharing with my daughter, Sarah, on Valentine's Day during a sleep over at my aunt and uncle's house, I had a great and wonderful feeling come over me from something that most people would find small and insignificant. I was lying there, straight as an arrow, blindly looking straight up at a seemingly never ending ceiling. Without vision correction, I am legally blind, I just recently learned at an optometrist visit. I laid there stiff as a board as if I was a corpse in a coffin six feet under with saddened family members stomping on the ground above me. There was no room for elbows or bent knees because of the impending little arms and legs that curled up beside me, leaving me practically dangling from the edge. As I laid there, thinking about the day that had ended and mentally preparing for the future 6:30am alarm, I was lucky enough to have a feeling come across me that many people probably wish they had more often.

I felt like I was again at home, not my current home I share with Sarah, but my parent's home that I grew up in- that home that they sold in 1999. That was the home that we grew up in. This feeling that was spreading throughout my body and mind was almost overwhelming. And what it stemmed from, was something routine and ordinary, but to me, was out of the ordinary, and felt extraordinary.

You know how sometimes when you are lying in bed and your eyes are open, but the room is pitch black, and you are somehow mentally transported to your childhood bedroom by just the way the light is hitting a wall? You lay there imagining your closet door hanging open with its built in blinds that as a child you always envisioned was concealing some form of monster or ghost. And you can picture your chest sitting there against the wall right beside your bed draped with your trinkets and childhood jewelry box or mementos that your grandfather who died when you were 13 had given you, but somehow during your lifetime you managed to regrettably lose. Perhaps they were stolen by a friend or worse, your brother's friend. Perhaps  misplaced in a move and unknowingly left in a dusty moving box in the attic, and had you known they were there, they might be currently sitting proudly atop your new dresser that you bought yourself with your first real paycheck from your first real salaried job. Whatever the scenario might be for you, you know that you will never forget your childhood bedroom no matter how many times you might paint it a disastrous orange or adorn it with unsightly hair band posters which rivaled a neighboring Kirk Cameron in a blue blazer and white t-shirt poster, all stuck to the walls with some yellow, greasy silly putty knock off that never really did the trick, so you resorted back to the old stand by- scotch tape. It worked every time.

As I was frozen, mentally trans juxtaposed in my alternate reality that now mostly provides me with fond memories, there was nothing I could do to get myself out of this state of mind. There was nothing I wanted to do. I enjoyed it. It was like I was 13 again, only I was happy.

My early teen years were particularly painful because of mean girls at school mostly, accompanied by the obvious hormonal changes that alter even the sweetest of little girls' demeanour, and there were days I felt like committing suicide. I would never do that, but the thought of being dead meant not having to deal with mean three-way calls and sitting down at the lunch table and having every single person at the table get up and walk away. I will never forget how painful that was. Those people who stood up with their brown lunch trays probably don't even remember doing it, maybe they don't even remember my name.

What brought me back to that awkward time of my life, minus the awkward, was something so trivial. I could hear from downstairs the voices of my Aunt Linda, my Mom, and my Uncle Neil. They were talking and the TV was almost drowning out their conversation. That's all it was- the sound of men and women talking that was traveling up the stairs to my room above. It's been almost fifteen years since I have been in an upstairs room and heard adults talking below me. The house that my parents bought after we moved from that house didn't have an upstairs room that I slept in. I mostly slept in the basement apartment or on the same level as they did.

Who would have thought that something so small, so insignificant, would have invoked such feeling. I would love to have that feeling everyday. But as it is, I don't think I will. It felt good to reminisce though. I love moments like that. You can't replicate the feeling of family. You can, however, appreciate what you have when you have it. It's in those moments that I feel most alive, most grateful.

Something came over me

I was sitting on my couch yesterday afternoon, friends on both sides of me, one with his hand on my knee, occasionally giving me the it's ok pat, an extremely nice gesture considering we had known eachother for less than 24 hours. We were reading one of the letters to my birthmom that I had online, but hadn't mailed.
Something struck me this time. For some reason, I couldn't read it aloud without my throat cracking, and tears welling in my eyes. I was overcome with emotion that I hadn't previously felt. It felt like something was crushing my heart capillary by capillary. It was somewhat reminiscent of what it feels like talking about my Dad now. He suddenly died two years ago of a heart attack while watching a movie with my Mom at home on the couch. It's hard for me to talk about without being flooded with emotion.
When Dad died initially I wasn't like what most people would imagine someone would be having lost a loving parent and at only 33 years young. I was not torn up and distraught, crying myself to sleep on my favorite childhood "lovie", nor withdrawn from society, and quietly drinking myself into oblivion. I have never been accused of being quiet in any way, shape or form.
I was somehow the strong one when Dad died.
I had to be. My mom, who is always the strong one had fallen short of her well-reknown motherly distinction. She is not a crier- never has been, never will be I suppose, at least not in front of me, nor anyone else for that matter. I may be able to count the number of times I've seen her cry on one hand. That's not to say that she doesn't cry. She just doesn't do it as often as most people who sit down to pee do.
And who knows how people handle pain without shedding tears? I can't understand it. Tears are a natural reaction to pain. Aren't they? Physically or emotionally, and they are in cahoots, it is evident one way or another that you experience pain.  It is true that when you have deep emotional trauma, better known as depression, you feel physical pain.
Am I going through a stage? This might be something I could consult a phychiatrist on, or even better, WebMD- that would be the cheaper route. I'm not sure it would be better though.

VD is finally gone.

I unassumingly let VD (my humorous declaration of Valentine's day), pass by again, but not first without my sending cutesy cards to people I love first. In theory, I covered my bases, and did what I should have done, except one major thing. I didn't send the letter. It's still sitting in my free Columbia Management black faux leather zippered notebook that managed to end up somewhere in the middle of the heaping pile of junk mail and miscellaneous tax documents on my kitchen counter, amass all of the other random papers that should be filed away neatly in some labeled manila folder in a dusty, black fire-proof file cabinet that looks like it was born in the middle of WWII and sold at a general store somewhere in the back of the store near a bathroom.
I think I may have mentioned that because some pipe in my house has decided to have an upheaval and somehow roused all the other pipes to rebel again the rest of the house with him, my house is a wreck- more than normal. My peaceful chaos is now complete chaos, and the only real room in the house that I can find any peace is the bathroom- which I guess, in truth, is not too far from how it normally is anyway. Come to think of it, I'm not so sure why I've let this pipe and water issue rule my psyche the last few weeks, which is creeping into a month now, to think about it even further.
My toaster has come down off it's high horse atop the fridge, and is now meandering with the lowly appliances, like the broken microwave, and the clock radio. My 15 cookbooks which did nothing for me, but thin out my bank account- they were mostly impulse buys, are now scattered across counter space that normally would be reserved for the paper, and since the paper space is being used for that, the papers have made their way to the kitchen table, so the table, as of recently, has not been used for its original design. This whole thing has thrown off my life as I know it. Just one little angry pipe has caused this total disruption.
Anyone who says that life is not a byproduct of cause and effect is a fool. I think that guy with the crazy haircut and mustache was right when he laid out his theory of relativity. One doesn't have to be a scientist to discover that when one thing is broken it causes other things to be affected.
I'm not going to gripe anymore about this problem. The way I see it, and if I keep telling myself this out loud and online, I think it will finally soak in, and be true. If this is the worst problem that I have to worry about, I should be thankful. Yes, I am thankful that I was able to buy a house at at time when most others could not. I got the house that I wanted at the price that I wanted, and I have poured more money than Trump has in his ankle wallet at any given moment,  into said house to make it home.
I haven't been writing much lately either, but I don't know if that is a byproduct of my current housing disarray or of laziness. I'll choose the ladder to keep it honest.
I thought about mailing a letter to my birth mother as Karen suggested for VD. But it was a fleeting thought, just being honest again. I never put any real and quantitative effort into picking out a card and looking for the handwritten, on a piece of white printer card stock,  letter I wrote, than spans the front and back of the page, partially because I already knew where it was. I guess I can maintain that not all is unraveled through this temporary housing set-back. I might have to write another letter because thinking back now, it might be slightly accusatory, and against the proper rules of engagement as deemed by every adoption agency in the country and probably world. People are people no matter from which continent you find yourself breathing air. We all have hearts. We all have minds. We all hopefully have a heart mind connection and if we don't we should be locked up somewhere and labeled with a reactive attachment disorder diagnosis.
Back to the letter. I might have some free time tonight after I get home from this incredible night that I am lucky enough to embark on later today that involves lifting up teenage moms. I am very excited to learn from these young mothers. I was asked to be a mentor to one of them for the night, and possibly ongoing, I'm hoping anyway. And even though I'm supposed to be the one who is leading this young girl who I am paired up with, I have a strong feeling that I will learn more from her than I might be able to teach her. Just when you think you will be the one sharing with someone else, you find out they are sharing more with you. I have learned that lesson many times over. I am happy to be a part of something wonderful, and like I said a thousand times, and like you probably hate to read it, if you don't have a church that you are involved with and crave to go to, you need to find one. Don't let another day go by. People who love God are happy people, and people who are involved in making others happy, lead happy productive lives. We go back to the theory of relativity. Thank you Einstein for pointing out the obvious but making it more complex than DNA. We go back to my adoption. Ain't life grand?

The call that got the ball rolling

After reading parts of my blog, those posts pertaining to my adoption, I realized that there are large volumes of information left out. While it has been fairly easy to document  my feelings on the matter, I realized I have failed at presenting the facts. So, in light of that, I will describe how it came about that I found out who my birth mother is. This is a story that is quite incredible.
 Let's go back to the night when I was at mom's house sitting down at her dining room table with a notepad and a pencil frantically taking down the words that rolled off of Debi's tongue.
Debi is the wonderful angel who took her time to find out who my birth mother is. She is the one who stayed up until 5am when she had to be at work at 8am on many occasions mind you. Risking losing her job, she allowed me to call her at work during our narrowing down sessions. Was it this school? Was it that school? What we didn't know in the beginning, until I found out an exact year anyway, was that the key for us finding out a name would be in the birth mother's fifth grade report card.
What a lot of people don't understand about closed adoption is the power of anonymity. When they say the records are sealed, they mean it. The amount of people that actually have names to go by is even smaller than the chances of having a story that ends happily ever after.
As Debi told me that I needed to sit down because she had a name, I was in shock and amazement as I recall. But once I had her name, I don't remember what I felt. Was it numbness? I don't know. But whatever it was, it wasn't what I had imagined. I didn't feel like a huge weight was lifted off. In fact, I felt more unsure- until I spoke to Barbara.
Barbara is the birth mother's best friend with whom she grew up. They lived in the same neighborhood, and pushed their baby dolls in their little baby doll strollers down the lane together when they were toddlers. They grew up to become women together, and knew each other probably like you know your best friend- complete with her idiosyncrasies, and  occasional irritating behaviors, both of which you patiently tolerate because in truth, you love your best friend. But as is with most best friends, there comes a time when you grow apart. There comes a time when you change and the other does not, when you move on, and the other stays. I have just recently come to a cold and stark realization that friendships do not last forever like some might say. In fact, they last for seasons, and with good right. No one stays the same, and if you do for a long amount of time, you're probably complacent, stagnant.  Someone said once, the only permanent thing is life is change. I concur.
They grew apart, Barb and Colette. One went to college at one school, the other, elsewhere. As many friends who live in different cities do, they slowly stopped talking on a  regular basis. They didn't know what was going on in each others lives. They didn't tell each other about the latest news around the dorm. What difference did that make now? By now, they were living in different dorms since the last time they spoke of it. Who was dating who was not a daily conversation, nor who in the family had done what to the other family member- both pretty common daily conversations,  but those weren't taking place anymore. They were living their lives now- separate, like many of us do these days. The grew up. They got married. They had kids. They got divorced, and moved on again.
So, what was so amazing to me besides the fact that Debi got lucky and just so happened to call Colette's best friend and point blank asked if she knew a girl who was 5'7, weighed 120, had thick dark brown hair, green eyes, had a sister who was a physical therapist, and a brother who was newly married (in 1976), and on and on, what amazed me even further, was that she knew about the pregnancy.
After all, they had gone their separate ways. Why would she know about it? How could she know? She wasn't a staple in her life anymore. She didn't have Saturday morning bike rides with Colette anymore, or bump into her at the gas station.
Colette told her a few years later, as I recall her telling me,  while they were on a beach trip. The wine got to flowing and so did the lips. I'm sure Colette felt the need to tell someone. It was a secret from most everyone, even her own brother from what I was told.
How could one keep a baby a secret? To me, that's like having a baby and throwing it in the trashcan. It's similar to having an abortion- no one knows except the ladies you share the waiting room with, and then you're done. It's like nothing ever happened. What baby? Huh? I'm not pregnant.
When Debi asked her the questions, she immediately said, "I know her. I know exactly who you're talking about."

Debi had a picture of me that she had copied from my FB page, and emailed it to Barb while she was still on the phone with her. Her jaw dropped and she said, "Oh my God, that is Colette, revamped. If I didn't know it, I would have thought that was her."
Can you imagine what this felt like to me? Just hearing someone say that someone else looked like me, was amazing. My daughter, I'm told by many people doesn't look like me. Occasionally, I'll meet some saint who tells me that we look just alike, and I hug that person, and they probably think I'm weird. So to hear someone say that I look exactly like someone else made me ecstatic. It brought tears to my eyes, and I lost my breathe again. I had to look around the room for some kind of sign that maybe God was at work in my life in that moment. Maybe, just maybe, that feeling that I had, was His sign. This is such a small part of the grand story, but had such profound impact on me, that I had to tell you.
Barb agreed to speak with me on the phone. I called her, and what did I say you're thinking. I told her,  "thank you so much for letting me call you." Then the probing began. What is she like? What does she look like? Do you have a picture of her that you could send to me? She did, but it was too fuzzy, and I couldn't see it. And the other one she sent was one of them as little girls with their strollers. We could have been twins.
I immediately felt like I knew Barb. She was very easy to talk to, but I think she was extremely unsure if what she was doing was right or justified. She told me that Colette was, "easy to know, fun, but serious when the time came to be serious, professional at work, laid-back, etc" And she said some thing that Colette  had remarked on that sounded eerily like something I would have blurted out a time or two, that she was "living in sin." She was referring to her live-in boyfriend. Before the Lord, I think I have said that about myself before, when I was living with Justin, and clearly, we were and still are, both single, and at the time marriage didn't play a role in the consideration of living together for either one of us. My views have since changed. I know how hard relationships are, and I'm not willing to live with someone and go through that hard work until I meet that man who wants to cram a ring on my fat little Vienna sausage finger because it's not until then that I will know that he is serious about making it work, and I'm not settling for less.
Since our conversation that night, we have had a few more on the phone, and a few via Facebook. She even sent me some handmade, by her, Swarovsky crystal earrings for Christmas that are quite stunning. I was happy to receive them. I tried to ask for her address to send a thank you card, but she hasn't responded to my texts or Facebook messages until yesterday. And it was not a good response.
I had just asked her what was going on. She had told me that her and her husband had some issues, well mostly her husband did, and she put up with abusive behavior. Frankly, I was worried that he had hurt her physically. When she responded she said, she didn't know anything, that it was out of her hands, and that it was up to me, and that a lot was going on with her life. The way she said it was very frazzled and upset. I hope she is OK. I reminded her that Jesus wants to help us all, even when we feel like he doesn't or when we feel like we aren't worthy.  I'm sure that hearing some 35 year old's advice on dealing with problems is the last thing she wanted to hear. But it was probably the best thing she needed to hear, so I don't mind offending her on God's behalf, as if He needs me to root for Him. Nevertheless, I wanted to let her know that there is something much bigger than her current problem. I need to remind myself that in a lot of instances, practically everyday. And it is practical for everyday thinking and living.
That's the beauty of being a Christian for me. I can't do anything to make God love me any more than he already does. It's by His grace that we all are saved, not by anything that we did to earn it. It's not an easy concept to grasp and believe for many people because we live in such a merit based society. I partially blame our excessive need for control and understanding, for if you don't understand, you can not have control. Faith comes into play heavily here. If you do not have it, you will never reach the kingdom of heaven.
I think she is not telling me the whole truth. I guess she probably got an earful from Colette, when she told her that she had spoken to me, when they met at that funeral last month. We all know how funerals run a gamut of  out of the ordinary conversation, mostly stemming from the obvious life shattering events that brought people together in the first place. I don't know it all, but we'll see. More to come.

Writing takes a back seat

I had a fractional hiccup in my day to day routine, if you dare call anything in life routine. It's nothing that prayer and cussing can't heal. I just wanted to let you know that I am still contemplating the actual snail mail drop (of the letter). I am pretty sure that Colette knows about my knowing. The cat has been let out of the bag. I feel certain. She is probably freaking out about now, just like I was when I found out about her. It's taken me a quarter of a year to decide whether or not I even want to involve her in my life. Who's to say that she doesn't have equally amounted hesitation and some initially, I'm imagining, denial.

I need to read more on the topic. So, I just wanted to put it out there, that I am still in cold pursuit, because it's definitely not hot at this point, still in pursuit of finding some people like me in the world, people who resemble me, and are obnoxious like me. Wait, let me think about that one. I don't like obnoxious people. That's funny isn't it. I think I just realized something about myself.

I have an interesting story to divulge. It involves another reunion. For some great reason, I am constantly put in front of people who have stories to tell of reunions. Maybe God wants me to write a book about reunions. Hmmmmm....I will write it later tonight, provided I get my laptop from my house. It's an eye-opener. And who doesn't like those?

the 4th grader who ran off the salesman

Another day, another dime. One might say that I've become complacent. Another might say the opposite. Either way, I'm not doing what I want to do. I'm slowly sinking in a sea of sameness, in a corporate world that doesn't like people like me- people who say what they think, and put themselves out there, people who take risks. I am a scheduler for an asset management firm. It's my job to keep mutual fund wholesalers as they are called, a fancy term for salesman, in front of financial advisors so they can sell our mutual funds. These salesmen are not like your door to door AT&T salesmen who get paid a nominal commission after back breaking walks through neighborhoods, door knocking,  your foot travelers, dog avoiders, and latch key kids scarers. They get paid big bucks. They don't deal with scared fourth graders or lonely housewives, but sometimes, I bet they wished they did, which reminds me of a story.
Once, when I was a child, probably in 4th grade, as most of my memories of being at home alone seem to be around that age for some reason, a salesman once incessantly knocked on our front door. I was too scared to answer the door. I have no idea where my younger brother Wilson was at the time, probably getting into trouble elsewhere, as he was famous for.
Finally, I yelled through both doors, the glass and the heavy wooden front door that you had to jam with your hip as hard as you could to get open, and shut for that matter, "what do you want?" It probably was more of a whimper come to think of it. I was less likely to make anyone uncomfortable back then. I was even shy on occasion.   The man said he needed to see my parents. To which I replied, like a fool, "They aren't here." I guess he didn't believe me because he then made his way to our side door, which thankfully was locked, and knocked further, until I finally decided that going outside was the right thing to do. I stepped outside to make sure he was walking away, with heart pounding, and telephone in hand, the kind with the long curly cord. We are talking eighties here. Our phone cord could wrap around your kitchen table, through the hall closet, into the bathroom,  and out around your mailbox. No one had cordless phones back then, at least the Fairleys didn't. We didn't have anything until it had been out long enough to be 50% cheaper than its initial cost. That's just how we rolled. Well, that's just how my Dad rolled. I'm not sure if it was because he was cheap or he just didn't see the need to have materialistic things the way most of our neighborhood friends did. I'm thinking cheap because looking back, he had everything shiny and new that pertained to outdoors- the best of the best for camping gear, for kayaking, rock climbing, and anything boy scout related would probably safely fall into that category.
I was scared at this point. I had my fingers ready for that rotary dial. I walked outside to see what this crazy man looked like. He was already walking away at this point, with his hands in the air, as if he was throwing in the white towel. He had had enough. People weren't answering the door, and when they would, it would be nothing more than a scared 4th grader.
I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I thought I was protecting the house? It was pretty ballsy looking back. He looked just like the painter on the TV show who painted happy little trees. He was no taller that him, but with a rougher edge, and with little to no sense. I mean really? What idiot knocks on a door repeatedly, when a child says there is no one home just to sell a lawn service, which as I recall, was his lame intention. Oh OK, maybe I was the idiot for confronting  this possible child molester. His next remarks were shocking to me as I recall, "Wow, what happened to your driveway?" O......K. As if suddenly his mind switched from Chester Child Molester to Producer of HGTV Curb Appeal.
My parents always had a leaky car for some reason. There were huge grease stains on the driveway where both cars would be stationed, some cars for longer than others,  as was my brother's case with the two-door Buick. It was grey and pimped out. Not really. We just joked around that it was. It sat in the driveway for a number of months once, broken down, sad, musty and rusty. It saw a lot more action than some driving cars did though.
My brother, Wilson, who was a notorious pot head, practically lived in that car. His buddies would come over and they would sit in that mildewed antique smoking their cigarettes and pot. They would sub out that car until you couldn't see a thing from the outside. It would look like the car was on fire, and all you could hear was the baseline of the rap or techno music they would be thumping to in the driveway. I'm sure the Middlebrooks hated us. In fact, I don't recall them every being very neighborly, although they had their own issues to deal with. Seeing my brother and his friends smoking pot in his broken down car through their kitchen bay window on a daily basis was probably not what they had imagined life would be like in Governor's Square in 1994.
Mom would be inside cooking dinner, probably shriveling up a perfectly good pork chop into a miniature hockey puck that our Keeshond, Hershey, was quite fond of, I would be dancing around the house in my blue leotard, and Dad would still be at work, or on the way home. Wilson and his cronies would be out in the car smoking up. They would sit in that car smoking pot with the windows up, maybe with a slight crack if there was a female who bitched enough about not wanting her hair to smell like smoke. I never understood how he could sit out there and smoke pot and I  couldn't do one single thing without getting busted.Wilson could walk around with a joint rolled up hanging behind his ear, and no one would even say anything to him. I wonder if my parents just chose their battles, and figured if pot was the worst of his problems, then he wasn't that bad off. No, I doubt it. I think they were just clueless sometimes, ether that or their noses had no sense of smell. That car incidentally had a marijuana plant growing in the floor board from all of the seeds they threw down. We talked about taking a picture of it and sending it to High Times magazine, but we never did.
He had the most beautiful natural white blond hair, and it was so thick. It always drove my Mom and I crazy that he shaved it bald sometimes. But he did what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it. That trait has always run in my family. Although Wilson and I were both adopted, and therefore not blood related, we both had very similar ideas on life, and how we wanted to live it. It was very unfortunate that he had to die at such a young age. He was a character. He spoke volumes without even saying anything. Just his size alone would do all the talking. He was 6'8 1/2, but would say to everyone that he was 6'9. Round up, right? Right. He did a lot of things that might not have been appropriate or legal. Selling drugs was one of them. It's no secret. Most anyone who knew him, knew that. I never condoned it. Nor did my parents. I think they turned a blind eye. I never asked. I didn't want to know their take on it. I wasn't in the best of positions at that age either, but I never sold drugs. I might have sold other things, but never drugs. I just did them.
That salesman finally left for some reason. Maybe it was the fact that I went inside and slammed the door and told him he needed to get out of my driveway. It's amazing the things that a brain can remember, and forget. I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning, but I can remember that incident from 25 years ago. Man I am getting old.

private email enclosed...

Last week, on Friday actually, I had this cockamamie idea to send an email to my BM. Not a good idea. I didn't do it. I was just feeling impulsive. And yesterday on WFAE 90.7 there was a show on the Diane Rhem show that my close friend Chad filled me in on. He knows all of the entailment's of my adoption and the whirlwind of emotion that accompany it. Because I only caught the tail end if it, I have been trying to find it since. The discussion was of the fairly newly adopted DNA testing and its prevalence in adoption with regard to finding the unknowns. As a result, I thought my friend over at the CHS, where I was adopted, the former adoption counselor, Karen, would be interested in hearing about it.
So I emailed her again. Although I know she is extremely busy in her new role in family finding, I have a feeling there are lots of adoptees who still make their way back to her inbox frequently. She was a post adoption counselor at the CHS for a number of years that I'm not aware of, but judging by her familiarity with the situational atmosphere which I'm assuming is pretty common amongst all of the adoptee stories, it was probably a good number of years. I think she might be in her late forties, early fifties. I'm guessing here. Whatever her age- I love this woman. She has been a blessing to me and my sanity. She has taken a number of hours to spend talking to me. I know that her workload is sizable, and she probably doesn't have time to talk to me for hours on end, to counsel me. But she does it anyway.
I thought I would share an email she sent to me this morning. Yes, I know this is private, and no I didn't ask her permission to publish it, but I feel that she wouldn't mind. In fact, I'd bet my paycheck that she wouldn't. I won't put her contact info. I have had a few people ask me privately the whole story on how this all got started, and Karen, I feel, is sort of at the center of it all. She works for the Children's Home Society where I, among thousands of other adoptees over the years, was adopted back in the seventies. She was not the original counselor, because I'm imagining she was only a teenager at the time. But she was/is my go-to person. This weekend, I plan on writing out the whole story, and scanning my birth documents. Actually, I might do this right now. Yes, yes I will. Just so you can have an idea of what we had to work with, what little we had to work with.

Hi Karen!

I bet you thought I forgot about you. I hope all is well with you. There is a great show on the Diane Rhem show on WFAE today that will be in the form of podcast later today that everyone over there might be interested in listening to, just in case you weren’t aware. It’s about the entailment's of adoption, and most all viewpoints were recognized. I only heard a sliver of it, but intend to hear the whole show later today or tomorrow.

I haven’t mailed anything yet. But I do have a letter written. I think she knows I’m looking for her because I think her best friend might have told her. She hasn’t responded to any of my texts lately- just after in December she mailed me some Swarovsky crystal earrings she handmade for me. Kind of odd, huh? But, I haven’t felt pressed to inquire further. Guess I’m nervous of what she has to say. Oh well. Tis the day.

I still think you’re great.

Brooke

Hi Brooke –

Good to hear from you.  I didn’t know about the show on Diane Rhem, but I love Diane & will try to catch this on podcast. 

It sounds like your birth mother may indeed have the head’s up about you searching.  I suggest that it’s time to move forward (if you’re ready).  I encourage you to let her friend know you plan to contact your birth mother by letter, and then send the letter.  This will give her support system some notice and ability to respond.  I can’t stress enough how important it is for the letter to be kind and non-blaming, and also clear on what you want from her – health information, a photo, family history information, to have the opportunity to meet one day, whatever it is you would like to have happen.  It’s important for a birth parent to know that their child is okay, and that she had some of the things the birth mother hoped for her baby (good parents, stable family, opportunities) when she made the plan of adoption.  And then be prepared to wait a long time.  It may not be a long time, it may be that you get a reply immediately, but more than likely, she will need time to process this, and it can take as long as it takes.  If you can, keep going to group in the mean time.  Valentine’s day is coming up; this may be a good time to let her know she’s been on your mind and in your heart for many years.

Good luck with this, and please let me know how you decide to proceed and what happens.

Best,

Karen

For those of you thinking about sending a letter, please take into careful consideration what  Karen said. I have, and I think I will take her advice and after I rewrite the letter, because I might have been a little too scaly, I will drop it in the mail, and let her friend know to be on the lookout for Colette's call.

The meatless night

Last night I stuffed my cheeks with an ungodly amount of meat, and no it wasn't that kind of meat you sickos. A part of me wishes it had been, but then there's the good Brooke, who knows that would have been bad, and guilt inducing. Who likes to feel guilty anyway except maybe Joe Paterno, and it clearly killed him. No, instead, I went to dinner with 3 of my girlfriends. These three ladies, of whom, I feel like I can pretty much say anything around, are friends of mine from church. They are not the goody two shoes that I thought they once were. In fact, they all have issues, like most of us single ladies do.
While we were at the table, my friend, who was sitting across from me was having a staring contest with a seemingly eligible bachelor at another table nearby. I'm sure she was mentally undressing him, and smearing wildflower honey all over his rippling muscles and licking it off. Gross. He wasn't that cute to me, but she thought he was. You would have thought she was enjoying the flirting with him more than the mounds of bloody flank steak that was served by incredibly cute, and barely legal boys who looked like they were extras from the Pirates of the Caribbean. I fully enjoyed sexually harassing them all. They loved coming to our table. Making jokes about their sexy accents to them was the highlight of my night, and they really loved my request to bring back the loin cloth. I think we got special attention because we were such a fun table.
And all of this...sans booze. Go me. Yes, it's been almost 3 weeks since I've had a drink. I wasn't a big lush, just a small one. But I realized, and this is very personal, but since when did I have any secrets, I realized that alcohol is, you should write this one down, bad for your health. Wow. Seriously though, the stark realization came when I realized that it did nothing for me. If I need to drink around people to make them more interesting, then I need new friends. Point blank. And if they need to get wasted while they're around me, then they can deal with their own hangover, while I skip across the front lawn doing cartwheels because I will feel great, and they will feel like shit. I really am just saying all this to make myself feel better, because I know that drinking really does liven things up on occasion. Either way. I made the decision to quit drinking, and I guess I am proud of myself.
Back to the cute boys I was imagining in loin cloths. They whisked around the tables with their meat, no not THAT meat. Man, you are sick. There is something seriously phallic about pulling a juicy piece of meat from a knife with a little tong from some handsome young boy with a beautiful South American or Italian accent. It was pretty sexy-the whole ordeal. I loved it.
My friend, who was playing imaginary footsie with this boy across the room from us, was in full control. She made all the right moves, I guess. What do I know? I have no clue how to play games. I usually fowl out the first quarter. I gave up on the games a long time ago. I know everyone says that games keep men interested, but I feel like if he isn't interested in what I am, then I don't need to waste my time trying to lure him in. Plain and simple. If a man is not enamored with me, I could care less these days. I might change my mind on that by the time I go to bed, but I doubt it very seriously.
She whisked her long, flowing hair out of her face just the right amount of times. She stared him down, and let him know she was interested, and then guess what happened.
He approached our table. That must have taken some big kahunas. One man, with horse teeth, his breath probably wreaking of apples, from having eaten them all his life, approached a four-top of beautiful, I'm being generous with myself, I fully think the others are gorgeous though, intelligent, funny, witty women with nothing but a handshake and an introduction. I have to give it to him. The man had some balls. He confidently introduced himself, asked Courtney if she was going to have a drink elsewhere, and then after she gave him a polite nope, he left with his pals.
Here's where he went wrong. He didn't introduce himself to all of us, and he didn't introduce any of his friends, who were an ear away and could have just waved hello. He didn't give Courtney his card or his number written on a napkin, which would have been so Pretty Woman. He didn't even ask for hers.
But here's the real clincher. After he left with his pals, I asked my friend why she didn't give him her card. She instantly was slapping her forehead. Mandy and I were like, "Oh well. Another one bites the dust" but the other half of the table were ready to chase him down to the Epicenter, which was not right outside the front door, which was as far as I would have walked for that scenario. OHHHH No. Absolutely not. A woman never chases a man down- unless it's her husband. It just looks desperate. If a man is walking away from you with no means of further contact, he is not interested enough, and therefore not worth wasting any thought on. Take a chance some might think. Who knows he could have been the one. Nope. "The one" wouldn't walk off like that. He would make sure he knew how to get in touch with you.
When I got home last night, I was on Twitter, another time stealer that I've reluctantly, but quickly found myself fully immersed in, I came across an article that I felt all women should read. It actually prompted this post. Women are keeping men lazy by allowing men to text for dates. They are repeatedly texting invitations for encounters. And what's worse? We are responding to them.  There's no reason a man should hide behind the screen. A smart woman wants a man who can lead her with great confidence, and should accept nothing shy of it.
I guess the truth here is in the caramel truffle with two small scoops of raspberry sorbet on the side, which was one of our heavenly desserts, the best of the two actually. The truth is this. Men who care show they care. Women will know it when a man cares. And if you are ever left hanging in the breeze by a man, he is just not good enough for you. Don't worry one minute over a man who keeps you wondering, because it's not really a game to him- it's the truth- he's just not that interested.

Stress is bad, very very bad.

It takes a lot to stress me out. the vote is in. It's official: I am stressed out. Work is taking it all out of me. I need to find something new. I think it would be safe to say that I am a card carrying member of the flood of people who are miserable at work. I'm a MOW. I am not cut out to assist people. I don't like being held accountable for other people's livelihoods. Yet, I feel that I would make a pretty good manager. Lord, give me patience today and prevent me from bringing in a shotgun tomorrow and blowing off the heads of every person who looks at me crossly or has bad breath. That's just offensive. Buy some mentos for crying out loud.

Feeling Christine Caine inspired

I've been attending Elevation Church for a few years now. I can't say anything bad about it- not one thing. Each time I walk out of those double doors, Sarah trailing behind me or in tow on my hip, I can't help but feel rejuvenated. If I tried to deny it, I would be a fool. If I tried to understand why God does the things He does, I would be an idiot.
So why do I have a hard time believing He will fulfill His promises? I know that I'm the one to blame for this inadequacy in myself, and that He will always be there to protect and love me, no matter how I screw up. And believe me when I say this, I screw up a lot. I think that's fairly humanistic.
I attended the CodeOrangeRevival last night to see Christine Caine, and I was lucky enough to have been asked to sit on stage, a new thing that Pastor Steven felt would be encouraging for him and the other preachers. Some of them are traveling the globe to be here, in Charlotte, NC, and have set aside their families and churches to be able to speak the word to our church. For that, I feel very thankful, along with the other thousands of Elevators in our city and across the globe.
When I say globe, I am not embellishing. There is one pastor, in particular, who came all the way from Australia to be with us. Her name is Pastor Christine Caine. She is an inspiration to womanhood. She leads and speaks with passion and takes human rights very seriously. Having started a campaign called A21, Christine Caine is nothing shy of extraordinary, although I feel she would never admit that.
A21 is a campaign against human trafficking. There is a shelter set up in Greece as a safe haven for trafficked women that offers safety, comfort, medical attention, financial help with college studies, psychological care and a place where the victims can be restored with the love that God has for them. She took this challenge on with her faith in God, and with the knowledge that God can do anything, and to quote scripture, "through Him all things are made."
Why can't I take that thought, that all- withstanding truth, and apply it to my own life? I trust Him with my finances, for the most part anyway. He has always come through, and I have never gone without in that regard. I trust him with my health. I have had what some might call, some pretty bad scares in my life, but I have reemerged unscathed.
In fact, just last week, I had talked myself into believing that I had some kind of tumor on my cervix. I was freaking out and went to the doctor only to find that what I was feeling in that woman part of mine, was in fact my cervix. But as I was sitting in the doctor's room, very vulnerable, very unsure, very worrisome to the point of tears, I looked over to my left. And there, sitting in the magazine rack right in the very front pocket was a children's Bible. You know that Bible. It has the enlarged B for Bible, and with it's hardback blue cover, so familiar to me, I guess because I had seen it over the years at various offices of sorts, usually doctor's offices, as I recall. Its original print date was probably 1972, but the Bible doesn't have updated editions, so what real difference does it make to have one that has a more recent picture or one of a woman wearing an Afro and bell bottoms?
I picked it up and opened it to whatever page it landed on, like many of us thoughtlessly do, which I've been told is probably not the right way to read the Bible, because when we open it up and expect that we have opened it up to the page that God wants to speak to us through, we are giving ourselves the credit, when really the credit should always be given to Him.
Irregardless, the page that it happened to land on, the page that gave me comfort at a time that I needed it most, in that instance anyway, was Genesis. I think it's a fair assumption that most believers and non-believers know what story that is. It's the story of Adam and Eve. It's the story that describes the beginning of time, the creation story, and the story that forced humankind into the labors of life that we will constantly toil with. But the end of that particular story, and even still there has not been a true end to God's story, and never will be, I might add, gives birth to hope. It shows God's infinite love for us, and reminds us that even though we screw up, He will always love us. It never says we won't be punished for our actions. We will be. That's life on Earth, and maybe in Heaven, but I haven't been there yet to be able to write about it.
The point that I got lost on though, while thinking about everything that has recently transpired in my life, is that I don't truth Him enough. I don't trust that He will do what He promises. The only way that I know I will be able to do that, is by exalting Him, and through surrender. No one more than me hates the idea of surrender. Surrender? I'm not doing that. That means I have to give up? No way. I am all in, all the time. I refuse to say that I lost, another common denominator of humans. We are fighters. We are finishers. We are competitive by nature, even those of us who falsely, yet profusely proclaim that we aren't.
I need to try to learn that in His time, my life will come together. And the thing is, humans created time, not God. We put a ticker on everything, like Pastor Christine said last night. I stand guilty as charged.
We think that we are the deciders of fate. How presumptuous of us, how inflated, how inequitable.
This is where I start to stumble. If we are to wait on God, to let Him lead our lives, then how can I be proactive? I've always been told by my Mom that God helps those who help themselves. So how am I to know when I am not helping myself?
Is being on Match.com against the rules? Should I be patiently waiting on God to bring me a man instead of putting my antennae out there? I struggle with that sometimes. I want to have a man in my life that loves me, that I can love, but more importantly who loves God just as much as me, if not more. I haven't had any luck thus far. It's been about 5 months, and I'm about to cash in on their 6 month guarantee. You watch.
I believe that He is working on me still. He knows that I'm not at a point in my life that I can fully give someone else the love they need, and I am not fully capable to receive it. Some might think they are, and they stay in these destructive relationships for years, ignoring the obvious because they are too afraid to be alone. They don't want to start over. It's pretty scary to start over for most people, me included. I stayed in a loveless relationship for 6 years of my life. Then went on to another for another 3 years. For what? All because I was too afraid that my heart might hurt a little? My schedule might change? My child will miss him? There's a common excuse for many people. But the fact about that is this. Kids are resilient, much more than adults are. They forget quicker, and they don't understand the ramifications of a break-up because they don't know what true love is. So using that as an excuse is lame. Sorry to say it. The effects of staying in an unloving relationship until your kids grow up and are able to understand what true love is, is far more damaging and will require much more psychological attention in the long run.
I was concerned that my circle of friends would be broken, and it was. I was worried that I wouldn't do the same unGodly things that I did, you know what I'm talking about here, and I didn't. Let's be honest here. It's not sex that we crave. It's love. It's someone who cares about your well being. It's knowing that someone is there for you when you fall on your face. It's having someone help you brush yourself off and boost you up when you are too timid to try again. I crave that. I don't crave sex, and God tells us that sex before marriage is not the way. He doesn't say that there won't be incredible temptation. He doesn't say that it doesn't feel good. It does; we all know it does.
I'm trying to help myself trust Him more with everything in my being. Sex is something that, like most people, married and single, I like. And knowing that He doesn't want me to do it before I get married makes it even harder to do it. It makes it unpleasant even, when normally it would be great. I'm not speaking of anything recent here, just saying that since I have really started injecting God's word into my life, I have been a changed woman. I make better decisions. I think more logically. And I trust Him certainly more than I ever did. As soon as I can fully surrender to Him, I will be in much better shape though. I'm looking to make myself better, and in the process help a few others make themselves better.

Thanks for reading my blog. I appreciate every one's active interest in what little ole Brooke has to say.

Cherilyn, I miss you.

I am missing my friend right now who was brutally killed at the hands of some unknown criminal who undoubtedly is wreaking havoc somewhere either behind bars or loose on the streets, provided he isn't dead already. I didn't attend her funeral because I couldn't find the write-up anywhere- not online, not in the local paper, not word of mouth. We hadn't seen each other in probably 5 years, maybe 10. I don't remember.
She was a staple in my life when I was in junior high, and then came in and out of my life when the time was right.
We got in a lot of trouble together, so much trouble that I can't even talk about it to this day with my mom. We can however, talk about her death, about how untimely it was, how young she was, about how her parents must still be devastated, but because of her mother's strong faith, she is probably doing better than her father, whose faith I am unsure of. Regardless, they both have bleeding hearts and I'm sure that Christmas has never been the same.
This is the girl who convinced me to frost my bangs in 7th grade. It was no coincidence that she went on to become a hairdresser. She cut my hair a few times for free at her mother's house, which incidentally, was very close to my parent's new house out at the lake.
We grew up in the same neighborhood for many years, and then when we were both in our early twenties, both of our parents moved out to the lake, and lived in about a ten minute proximity from one another. It felt really good at the time to know that my good friend lived nearby even though I was still in college, and living in another city.
She visited me quite a bit while I was in school. My house was about as big as a booger, but it was always full of people, some more than others, and looking back now, I should have probably said no more to the out of town guest's requests for visits. I may have graduated college had I been stricter with my personal time. Either way, I had fun, and I'm not ashamed, nor regretful.
Cherilyn and I double dated a lot, if you can call them dates. It was more like, go to David's house and play quarters, or run around the club scene. We we were always doing something.
She was the one who convinced me to pay my last $20 to dangle from a ridiculous height, from an even thinner cord that somehow suspended both of us, and insisted that I pull the cord, which would release us to our most certain death, at least that's what I felt in that single moment. "I'm going to die, and I'm only 15. And it's Cherilyn's fault."
Everything was her fault. She was the instigator. She was the fun one, the wild one, the stupid one. I can just imagine what happened in that hotel room that day that she and 3 others were shot to death. She ran her mouth. She said something to the wrong person and BAM! Her life ended.
I found out that same night it happened. My mother called me and told me once more, "Brooke, I have some really, really bad news." I had just bought my new home and Sarah was sleeping soundly, without a baby monitor present mind you, in her recycled brown wooden crib that I had just bought from an extremely nice Indian couple living and working temporarily in Charlotte for BOA, because working locally, they say, they got paid more. I later had to give the mattress away because it smelled like curry. No joke.
I sat there, at the top of my stairs, and stared out the window at the tree. I couldn't believe it. My friend, my best friend, was no longer around to call. She was no longer alive. And I had plans for her to meet my new daughter soon. I hadn't made contact with her, but I knew that day would come.
It didn't. It couldn't now. I would never see her again, with her tall, lanky ass, with her over bleached blond straight hair, with her beautiful almond eyes, and long fingers which held her Virginia Slims so effeminately.
She made smoking look cool. She looked elegant, and sophisticated, like a model in a 1950s commercial.
She was tall enough and thin enough to be a model, but I could only imagine her demeanor on set. A Primadonna. "Have that little bitch get it for me. That little fat one." That sounds so mean when I type it, but if you knew her at all, you would know that she wasn't malevolent at all. She may have been feisty, but she wouldn't have ever hurt anyone deliberately. But she said some funny shit. She kept me rolling, and there were jokes that we had hundreds of revisits to throughout our twenty year friendship, that would have definitely made it another forty, had we both been fortunate enough to live that long.
One time her mom barged in her room to yell at Cherilyn for something she had done, only she was topless and braless, droopy boobs, which I heard she had fixed later down the line, flopping around every which way. She stood there pointing her finger, and every time she shook it, her boobs jiggled more. We laughed hysterically after she finished her rant and finally left. That was how close I was with her and her family- her mom would walk around topless in front of me. I solemnly promise to Sarah right now, I will never scream at her with my boobs hanging out.
I pronounced her name wrong for years, until at age 25 she finally corrected me. I always said CheriLYN. It was actually pronounced, CHERilyn. She let me mispronounce her name for all those years. I guess she liked the way I pronounced it, either that, or she just didn't mind. That's how cool she was.
I could go on and on and on with stories. But I'll spare you.
Her mother somehow knew. She knew that Cherilyn would die at a young age. She would never admit that. That was her daughter, her firstborn, her baby. She would never admit to knowing that Cherilyn was destined for early death, but I know she knew. I felt like we all did.
Just like when my younger brother died at the young age of 20. I knew. My mom knew. I can't explain it, but it was like God was preparing me for it, preparing us for it, those of us who were listening, and I don't know that I was holding out my ear for what God had to say at that time in my life- probably not come to think of it.
I know that sounds morbid, and many people won't understand that. I'm sorry for even saying it, as it sounds prophetic.
Cherilyn had a great family. She had a younger sister, who I'm sure misses her tremendously. Although she might not have been the perfect roll model for a sibling ten years younger, she emitted the perfect love. And although Cherilyn wasn't the queen of making good decisions, she was a good friend nonetheless. I miss her.
She was the kinda gal that you could miss for ten years, bump into at a grocery store, and it was like you never missed a beat. All those years shaved off instantly.

Those kind of friends are the kind that you don't ever let go of.

I have cried many tears for her, and although we hadn't seen each other in ages, I felt like I had lost a family member who I positively interacted with on a daily basis. I will see her again one day, and tell her how much I missed her. But until then, I will have a bank of fond memories to recall when I think of her. I'm proud that I had the chance to know Cherilyn Crawford.

New Year's Resolution recognized....Letter #5

Dear Colette,

As a part of my New Year's resolution to make drastic, healthy changes in my life, I decided to include you. I have reason to believe that you are my birthmother. I have a feeling that you knew this day would come, but what I don't know is how you will react to my finding you.

Over the past 4 months since I've been aware of your existance, and whereabouts, I've been given lots of advice on how to handle this, mostly from loving family members or friends who genuinely care about me. I've taken all I've heard and read about to the heart, but will do what I feel is right because at the end of the day, it's my life.

But, it's also your life. And God placed us together for a reason. But it could also be argued that he placed apart for a reason. I try not to figure out His moves because I get too sidelined, and realized that He is the ultimate decision-maker, and I am just a fart in the wind.

So, after painstakingly hard decisions, I've decided to write you a letter instead of calling you directly. If you are going to shock someone, shock them gently. I heard that there's risk of heart attack in your side of the family, and I would hate to attend your funeral before I attend Thanksgiving. That was a joke just in case you were wondering.

I would like to meet you, and my other biological family. At first, I thought that I would leave it up to you to decide whether or not you wanted me to intrude or not, but having known myself, and I am pretty true to form, as you'll find out, I am letting you know now, that I plan on making some form of contact with the others whether you like it or not, because I feel like that's my right as a human being. Just because you made a mistake, I should not have to live in your shroud forever. And I hate to call myself a mistake, but after thinking about it over and over and over, hahah, there are a lot of people in the world who are mistakes. My daughter, for instance, is the most beautiful mistake I've ever made.

I feel it neccessary to say that because, in the event that you decide that meeting me might not be something you are willing to do, it's something that I feel I deserve, and I don't feel like I deserve a lot in life. It's not my personality to feel owed.  Having lived a wonderful life comparibly to the poor children and adults who never received love at all, having grown up in orphanages and unloving foster homes, I don't feel the absolute need to meet you and the rest, but I don't think I can put to words how much my soul would love to find others who are my genetic predispositions.

Please make contact with me when you have the strength and will to do so. It took me over four months and a lot of brainstorming and writing to get the courage to send this. I'll understand if you take a few months, but please also know, that I am patiently waiting. This is a long overdue meeting that will be nothing but incredible for both of us.

You need me. You have missed me and wondered about me all of your adult life, and if you haven't then there's something wrong with you. Another joke. Now it's your turn.

With love and heartfelt gratitude, your birthdaughter,
Brooke