Courage is fear that has said its prayers. 

~ Joyce Mayer

Possibly, but I need to think on that.

The days pass and tomorrow Julia and I will leave Brooklyn and head back to Madison.  I have started writing  few posts and either taken on longer topics that I could write in a short session or I find much better things to do.  Like talk to Cheshire.  Like watch a movie.  We have been busy -- museums -- Brooklyn and The Tenement, a show, cooking, visiting, and Les Mis -- but everything on a low gear.  Cheshire and Chris recovering from a stressful semester in grad school, Julia and I just recovering.

And now it is 10 in the morning and I have to get Julia up and her day started.  Soon.  We are all enjoying sleeping late.  I am sleeping later than I have in a very long time.  Of course, not going to bed before midnight.  Or 1.  Julia loves the lie ins, but has an incredibly tough time getting to sleep at night.  Once again, I had hoped to get her remaining sores healed.  Finally and completely.  But it has not happened this week.  She is still peeling her right heel and scratching scabs on one arm.   I am going to mount the effort again once at home.  Having her sleep in my bed and staying in med with her until she sleeps until school starts.  

To bullet point the time:

• started work on 2013 resolutions.  Some of it just repeating last year’s for sure but some for new, some rephrased.  I have less to give up, more positive activity and contemplation, and each to do verb is attached to the adverbial phrase ‘with intention.’

• being with Cheshire and Chris, like being with Lisa puts me face to face with loneliness.  I sent up the intention to live closer to someone whose roots have mingled with mine.

• the Wednesday before we left for NYC, during Crane meditation, I was following the simple movements when I felt, for the first time in two+ years, that my whole self was in my body.  It was a whoosh of realization although I have the feeling that there has been incremental gains over the past month or so.  And the feeling has stayed.  Another veil or haze of grief has been released and I can stretch into my full physical self.  Impossible right now to explain the feeling -- so physical, so mystical and spiritual.  So ordinary, really.  It was as if I suddenly realized that I had been hovering above my body, observing and directing but unable to truly touch the full physical impact of my experiences.  Is it because now, finally, the physical experience is not as excruciatingly painful as it has been?  Like holding a hand just beyond the hottest part of the fire and then getting the ability to grasp the flame and survive.

• possibly because of this feeling of being “in my body,” I spent a very low morning on Christmas eve.  I felt very sorry for myself.  Being in NYC reminded me too much of being here in 2010 and I felt bereft of familiar anchors to hold me steady.  And I could see how Cheshire was carving out her Christmas which includes the large and loving family that Chris is a part of.  I did not feel like I could melt into Cheshire’s plans -- Julia’s needs and challenges put demands on the structures of time and make melting into any social situation impossible at best.  For moments, I wanted only to escape the facade of a happy holiday and let Cheshire go into a family that is enjoying some simple joys of the season.  I could give her Christmas with Chris’ family and not cling to our holiday together.  But Cheshire and I talked, we cried, and we spent the late afternoon traveling into Manhattan for a glimpse of the big Rockefellow Center tree and ice rink, and Saks windows, and St. Pat’s chapels.  We went to Chinatown for soup dumplings and tofu curry and green tea ice cream and home again on trains in the rain.  

• this is the year of beginning again to find what we will do on Christmases to come.  It has taken some time to accept that  but i can now.  

• I met an old friend, Steve, for dinner two nights ago.  He is one of those people who was long absent from my life, someone I lost track of as we moved west and my experiences seemed far removed from his.  But he is one of those people with whom the connection is immediate and deep.  We met at a little restaurant on the lower east side and caught up and told stories and traded ideas about writing, work, art, life.  Of course, always life.  He is more exacting than I am -- he is taking photos and his photos are like his art and his poems.  I see something in what he is doing that I want to cultivate -- not the taking of interesting photos or the writing of poetry, both of which are mysteries to me -- but the cultivation of inspiration.  That is what I will take for this year.   

• Lisa and Michael came up to go spend the day with us.  To go to the theater and take a meal together and to talk.  How much more is there to say of family like this? 

I have been writing and re-writing as I try to make sense of Friday’s killings.  I will not post what I’ve written, but this morning a Facebook friend posted a link to a petition calling for common gun control.  Almost immediately those commenting began to argue, and after days of anger, fury and sadness, I was able to articulate this:

“There are those who will fight for their "right" to own and use what one commentator referred to as "formidable killing machine(s) eschewed by most hunters, unwieldy for self-defense, similar to weapons used by our soldiers in Afghanistan and the weapon of choice of the Beltway snipers."  Their voices have dominated the discussion to regulate and ban fire arms.  Those of us who have a different vision of our children's future must commit to change, stand behind our President as he engages in discussion and become the majority needed to move our policy makers  beyond the influence of the NRA and weapon enthusiasts.  Simply put, we must be the change.  As for me, I care for my children and the children of my larger community too deeply to do otherwise.”

Glass half full or . . .  I asked our Intensive team phycologist for some ideas on improving our morning routine.  My love and logic plan has not been completely successful at changing Julia’s morning behavior and motivation to get up, dressed and ready for the bus.  She still really wants to get on the bus and she wants to keep her iPad for the day but those two carrots are not sufficient to get her up and moving when the alarm goes off.  She prefers staying in bed as long as she can, dilly-dally in the bathroom without managing to do more than take off her pj bottoms, bring clothes downstairs and rush through her morning routine to just make it onto the bus.    I am not sure whether her inability to keep moving through the routine is sort-of normal preteen activity (I remember the same struggles with Cheshire at that age.) or a real inability to keep focused on the task on hand.  (umm, is that really the normal preteen behavior??)

So, I asked for more help.  One piece of advice I got was to give her her ADHD med about a half hour before she wakes up.  So, set my alarm for 5:30, shuffle into Julia’s room with a pill and a glass of water, put the pill in her mouth and give her the water.  

No, I am not happy about this one, but heck, if it works I’ll do it.

So, went through the 5:30 plan with the result of Julia being a whole lot clearer and focused when the alarm went off about wanting to stay in bed until the absolute last minute!  

Yes, kinda’ funny.

Julia lost iPad privileges for the day and she vowed to do better tomorrow.  And she will.  For tomorrow at least.  Someone said it takes 21 days to change a habit.  I think it’s a lot longer for me, and for a kid on the spectrum much, much longer.  

But we’ll get there.

Thinking about the last year, one way or another, I am focused on teaching Julia independence and self-care.  Some of it I also taught to Cheshire, but teaching Cheshire was teaching a person who was always almost out the door.  She wanted the teaching or took to the teaching because she could see that she would need it one day.  Maybe not consciously, but her outward trajectory was always present.

Julia, not so much.  I teach her to shower, to wash her hair, cut her nails, floss her teeth, put dishes in the sink and to always put water in her oatmeal bowl.  And Julia learns and practices, but if you asked her, she is always going to live with me.  And she might.

I’ve lost my train of thought.  Julia had some lovely parts of the day.  In the car, between school and speech therapy, I asked, as I do every day, what she did in school, making her tell me three things and probing for details.  Math, multiplication (grouping really), lunch, ate everything and sat with Quinnie, reading with  . . . someone else, and they worked on questions together.  When I ask about spelling -- 100% on last week’s 25 words -- asking if she does it alone with a teacher or with a group, she very proudly tells me she “has a group.”  

And then, Julia asks me what I did today.

She has done this a few times in the past weeks but it still is a surprise.  I scramble to make my day at Waisman sorting through information about special education to summarize into a single information sheet, sound exciting to her ears.  I end telling her that I learned something and she asks a follow up question!  First, she tells me that she likes learning and then she asks me ‘how much do I like to learn.’

And for a moment, I can almost be sure that one day I will really have a reciprocal conversation with Julia.

Of course, if she can really do that one day, she will definitely not want to live with me for her whole life.  And that makes me smile.

The student-speech therapist who has been working with Julia, under Linda’s direction, made a writing resource book for Julia.  It has adjective and adverb word banks, visual maps for writing paragraphs, and sample lists for generating ideas.  Julia used the word banks after she got home to write her “perfect paragraph.”  The topic this week was what she liked to do on a weekend morning and the content and sentence structure, even on this first draft, is markedly better than at the beginning of the school year.  

And adding three numbers is beginning to be a bit easier.

That brain is stretching and so, a bit of difficult behavior is not hard to take in stride.  

Tonight, I went to the fourth meeting of the Pocket in the Rocks workshop.  The work is going slow and although some of the exercises are interesting, I don’t know whether doing them -- lots of drawing and short talkings in small or larger groups -- offers much.  However . . . after tonight’s session, four of us around the table stayed for a few moments after the session.  Two of our number has missed the last session and the other two, including me, caught them up.  That was powerful, with the other woman who was there saying, “you mean, you feel that way too?” about her comment last month that she did not belong in this group.  

Just maybe, we found the key to the workshop.  Is it when we start sharing without need of direction that we find ways to build resilience.  

Interesting concept.  Possibly a good lesson?

After so much woe, I got up and picked up the shades.  It is snowing!  First snow of the season.  Although I may not welcome the weather with such heartiness in February or March, today it looks like a sign from above and beyond to be full of good cheer.  My eclectic holiday mix is blasting throughout the house, Julia is putting up jelly window decorations, I am figuring out how to light a shrub.

Magic pierces the dark.  Light and babies are cause to celebrate.  So is snow and glorious music.

No, I don't believe that my micromanaging deity or dead true love is sending signs but I do believe that there is wonder in the world and it is available and I can claim it as my own.

Happy.  Merry.

Writing and not posting here.  At that point that I get to every so often of complete overwhelm.  Behind on so many tasks that those not necessary for survival are falling away -- do I really need a clean bathroom, a dusting before decorating, cooking?  Good?  I am not sure.  The day to day is stressful right now and I need to breathe into each moment.  Pain does not go away by pushing it aside, but there is a fine line to walk between the push and the wallow.

Holiday stress weighs heavily.  I lug the baggage of grief like an oversized carry on bag.  It slows me down.  Shopping for gifts which I began today and my list is very short, becomes almost too much of a challenge.  I started with Julia and did a small bit for Cheshire.  I can distinctly remember a different me who reveled in it all.  I know that life has changed and I might never get back to the energy of those times,  I brought some decorations upstairs from the basement yesterday and we will do a bit in the house today but truth be told, if I was alone, I would have nothing.  Maybe a candle.  I love the lights, the bright baubles on shelves and walls, but all of it is so laden with the past, with memories of what I don’t have.  

What I don’t have.  Living in the past with needs and regrets.  Just wanting to be there, not here.  On waking this morning, much too early and not going back to sleep, my mind jetted back to waking so many mornings when David was alive and turning to snuggle together.  So many times, sleep came again, and when it didn’t, there was comfort.  Damned physical comfort.  The delight of the beloved’s arms.  

Really struggling with lighting the Chanukah candles.  I can do it with Julia -- again, I would not do this alone.  I can say the prayer and tell some story -- Julia’s favorite book of all time is about Chanukah although we read it at anytime during the year.  And it just hurts.  Maybe because we have no family or community to share it with.  Maybe there are no new memories being created.  There is only what I remember.  I could reach out to some friends who would probably be very willing to share some Chanukah celebrating but I don’t.  What we did was just for us and it is hard to break that habit.  And the busy-ness of the season makes it seem like an imposition to demand to share someone else’s family time.  

Just breathe.  And again.  Breathe.

Sad right now.  It all still sucks.  Met another widow of two years at a Waisman grandparents’ support group (A work assignment for me.).  We traded a small amount of information and hugged and almost simultaneously we said, “It sucks!”  Ah, such eloquence.  Wanting to plan my way out of it and/or at least not wallow, stuck in the mire of pain.  Realizing that this is still a tunnel that I am slowly making my way through.  

I thought about how to cultivate joy last night.  I had no such thoughts last year.  I tried to revive my gratitude practice last week and found it unbearable, but I will write something, maybe just a complaint, maybe one day of gratitude.  I will grow more patience.  True, it is only because I have to.  I have been dragged kicking and screaming into healing.  Because, because . . . well, there is nothing else to do.  I am alive and I’ve promised myself to live full out.  I see now that I can’t will myself to heal and become whole again, but I cannot heal without a very strong will.  Finally, here is an excellent use for my eternal stubbornness!  There is a blessing to count.

Julia had a rather bumpy day yesterday.  Lots of not listening and loud no’s.  Ending with peeling the sole of her foot after she was in bed.  The last of the bug sores that are on her wrist are healing -- I’ve been medicating and wrapping recently redoubling my efforts to heel everything!  From time to time she has peeled the heel of one foot starting with that dry skin that all of us have this time of year but ending with a fiery red heel that must hurt to walk on.  She wears socks and gloves to bed every night and so she has to take both off to do this.  We talk over and over again about how she can call me to help her.  Actually, I was next door to her in my bedroom while she was doing this.    I struggle with this.  Really not sure why listening was such a challenge yesterday.

I hear the girl waking up.  Tears begone!  Breakfast, therapy, decorations!  I think I need a lot of candles today.

1 December 2012

Mid-air heading east & DC

Traveling to DC to attend the AUCD Conference.  Two planes, an afternoon and most of an evening’s travel.  I sit and read the Richie Davidson book that I’ve been carrying around since the summer.  I take his 6 true and false tests about assessing emotional style.  At this moment, I wonder what my style would have looked like last year or the year before that.  The statement that stops me cold is “I expect that the next ten years will be better than the last ten years.”  I think I have always been able to answer “true” to that one.  I really can’t right now.  I’ve grown in resilience and regained some optimism.  I have some reasons and objectives and goals, but I cannot help but miss joy and the awareness of being the beloved.

Still, the switch that was thrown a few days before July 5th remains firmly in place.  I assess as resilient and focused, at least by my own appraisal.  And I am.  

Nice hotel -- Hilton in DC but I don’t know this town at all and I am scheduled almost every minute of my stay.  Tonight’s after-flight dinner and perhaps tonight after 8 are what I have free.  Two lunch times are taken, and if, perchance I really do network, I could fill more.  Right now, I feel a bit of a whine coming on about a full dance card but I know that busy and time filled is where my comfort zone is strongest.  And the fullness is my choice of exciting options.  

They don’t take credit card in cabs.  I have a map.  Maybe I’ll do the run/walk -- and you know where I will be -- tomorrow morning just to see the neighborhood.  The physical activity wouldn’t hurt me any.  Needing very hard to be back to activity.  I brought sweats and sneaker thinking this might be the time.  

Cable tv in the room and after surfing for 20 minutes, I have no regrets of living without it at home.  My junky tv comes in on Netflix and Hulu.  It’s all I need.  There is so much noise on tv.

Bedding down and sleeping without a thought to who is sleeping in the next room.  Funny how it is like turning off a light somewhere in the house.

Yet again, I am caught up in started posts that I leave for “later.”  One for each of the last three days.  And now it is day four.  Travel and then immediate immersion into my quickening currents have left me yearning for some good escapism after Julia goes to bed.  Added to that, my four-day excursion to the AUCD conference next week has bee making lists and not wanting to admit that I am really going away for that long.

So, I am giving myself this hour to get something down.  I’ll use snippets of what has already been written.  I have a whole bunch of Julia things to write about and a whole bunch that I should have made note of.

I have a conference this afternoon with the Julia’s teachers -- the newish long-term sub who is not a special ed teacher and her special ed teacher from the last two years.  I am hoping that we can work out a plan for what and how Julia will learn until the new special ed teacher starts at the very end of January.  Although I felt that I needed a lot of guidance during the past few weeks, after working with Julia every day last week, I have a handle on what I’d like her to learn.  In math, adding three single digit numbers, adding double digit numbers, carrying over when adding double digit numbers, and the explanation for multiplication.  From the math sheets that Julia has been bringing home, only the multiplication concept has been touched on in school.  Julia has brought home sheets that are too easy or much too hard for her.  I need that to stop.  I stridently wanted that to stop while we were in Maryland, I can breathe into it today.

If the teachers have other ideas, I can embrace them.  As long as they are moving Julia forward and challenging her in such a way that allows for some success.  The too-hard sheets that present a dozen different problems do not reinforce any concepts and Julia learns nothing from the scatter-shot method.

Yes, I know.  I am the mother from hell.  What I see is that Julia is still in a very good place to learn.  She still asks to do math games or reading comprehension exercises as rewards.  This balance might tip when she hits puberty - anyway, that’s what I’ve heard.  That day is coming and coming soon.  I can’t afford to ease up on the learning.

In Maryland, Julia and I walked Lisa’s labyrinth most days.  It was not a pure meditative experience, with Julia chattering constantly and calling for my attention to the latest discovered bug or leaf or pile of deer poop.  A few times she jumped the paths to catch up with me when she slowed down to check out a discovery but most of the time she carefully followed the paths and me.

Every time that we walked Julia gathered cattails, and when we were finished with the labyrinth, we’d walk over to the bamboo grove where David’s ashes are buried.  Julia “planted” the cattails in front of the grove and talked about Daddy.  When we walked on she made a point of saying that we were leaving Daddy there and we would visit again.  I had no idea that she remembered about the rather casual laying of the ashes that we did last year, but Lisa did do a bit of speaking when we did it, and Julia listens.  

On Thanksgiving, we went out with Nick to pick some dried flowers and greens to put in vases for the table.  When I finished gathering what I wanted to use, Julia wanted to cut some bamboo shoots.  She was very bossy directing Nick to go with her to the bamboo grove.  Nick complied and it was very sweet to see the two of them feeling so comfortable together.  It strikes me that Julia demands relationship.  She knows what she wants and she is not shy about asking for it.

When we were on our way home on Sunday morning, Julia told me that it hurt to miss Cheshire, Lisa and Nick.  I agreed with her and she went on to something else.  I wondered if she could go beyond that thought but did not push her.  Tonight, with a therapist, she asked me if she could call Cheshire.  (They are working on phone calls.)  I haven’t heard what she will say -- they rehearse phone calls and also messages.  She doesn’t always have the words to move beyond initial thoughts or feelings, but not long ago there were no initial thoughts.

I’ve been noticing these days that Julia is looking into my eyes more often when she speaks to me.  It is usually when she initiates the conversation and then it is about something that interests her or some demand or desire, like noodles for supper.  Therapists and teachers still have to ask for eye contact.  I hope for generalization.

This morning waiting for the school bus, Julia got in the face of some of the neighbor kids and wanted to talk to them.  She gets too close, she doesn’t provide context, but she insists on conversation.  At least, until the other kid asks her a question in return.  She comes off as a social bull in a china shop, but again progress and a new awareness of a big world.

I was talking to Julia’s very wonderful speech therapist the other day while her student was doing therapy with Julia.  Linda is aggressive and demanding.  She has pushed Julia, constantly setting goals just beyond her reach.  She suggests exercises, ways of talking to Julia, ways of reading with her that get to the heart of Julia’s challenges.  And yet, today, as we were talking about Julia’s memory and the holes that we both see, I told her about what is referred to in the adoption community as “Teflon memory” (or is it Teflon Brain?) -- kids who learn and forget, kids who cannot seem to keep what they have learned.  I’ve heard it connected with attachment or trauma.  Linda had never heard of anything like that.  

Now, possibly what I am talking about is an urban legend among us adoptive moms, but what struck me, what sent a rather cold chill down my back was that maybe I knew something, maybe a whole bunch of somethings that the professionals individually don’t know.  Yes, I’ve known this all along, but some of the sacredness of the trust that I hold struck me straight on today.  Maybe it hit me because Lisa asked me how much of Julia’s needs I’ve written down, ‘just in case.’  Maybe it was today because Linda is so very knowledgable about many speech/communication topics and it is the first time that I’ve come up with something she didn’t know.  

I had a meeting with my spiritual advisor, Ellen, and the topic of conversation and healing was my “genius.”  Genius in quotes because . . . well, because I don’t think that I am in any way a genius, but rather that there is specific work that my soul is here to do and I am compelled to do that work in the best way that I can.  So, why haven’t I been doing or pursuing that “work” for the past 50 years or so -- 50 years gives me a few years cushion to be a kid and grow up some.  What has held me back from this work?  Why have I waited to long to begin? Another well . . . some early training, some lacks in my life, some gathering of love and strength and nerve, some fears held over earlier times, and the need for a lot of training.  There have been times when I could have chosen other paths that might have led me to the one that I am on in a more direct way but I may have needed the learning that I’ve gathered at an unusually slow pace.  Possibly I have had opportunities (which I did not take) to remind some part of me that there was some path, to make sure that the thought of this path was deep inside and growing a strong root.  Oy! Garden metaphors!  Do I have a strong anything?!

Someone in my chalice group replied to my description of my LEND experience as a “trainee,” wondering if I wasn’t too old to still be called a trainee.  My peers are imagining retirement; I envision new working ventures.  When I think about it -- “it” being my current state of student-ship -- objectively, I nod my head vigorously.  My sister and brother-in-law did all the training, working and raising up kids at the standard times and are now enjoying retirement.  When I look at my situation from her eyes, I raise my eyebrows and imagine her saying, “Suzanne must be nuts!”  I have to agree with all of them, and then add my “but’s.” 

But I have the itch to see this through.  But I have ideas -- almost new ideas that others are not pursuing.  But I don’t have to make a living right now and I have been offered opportunities.  But I am not ready to give up an ambition to do.  But I promised myself to live full out and these ideas appear to be a part of that.

And that is my rational for pursuing my genius.

It came to me one morning waking up in Maryland that I want to try my hand once again at fiction.  There is an old story that I spent much time on which seems to have fleshed itself out in some corner of my brain without any effort on my own.  This in itself might be the reason that I have not pushed myself to write here.  I can almost hear David rolling over and groaning -- of course, because he has no grave, I am having a hard time visualizing the rolling and groaning of ashes.  There is a pull, not that the pull has been absent at other times.  I would add that it is different this time, but I probably could have said the same thing any number of times.

I was reading a friend’s blog, another adoptive mom who creates beautiful art pieces.  She writes in complete small stories carefully crafted.  Crystal life slices.  Reading this ramble over and aware of my own perchance of barely making sure that most words are spelled correctly, I am somewhat shame-faced about my inability to crystalize anything.  I don’t mean that I intend to change.  Why don’t I feel the need for that sort of perfection here?  

The big bird in in the oven - stuffed, herbed, and jacketed with butter and wine -- the small bird is in the smoker with apple juice steaming and apple wood smoking. The most healthy among us are 5k trotting, and my little one is awake and glued to a teenager who is lovingly listening to her prattle. Nick is vacuuming and NPR is getting me in touch with the greater world. Fresh sage, rosemary and thyme are bruised and treating my olfactory system. I have the time to step back before the first basting. This day is no more a gift than any other. No more deserving of thanks and gratitude. It is intention that shapes the nature of the day. It is the frame around the day. I give thanks. Happy Thanksgiving.

It is early afternoon.  I’ve made turkey stuffing for tomorrow and Lisa’s made part of the sweet potato casserole.  Julia spent time with Reflex Math (on the computer) and she made four sheets of wrapping paper for our Christmas gifting which will go on Friday.  She is drawing now.  I stepped outside to pick peppers to put in the stuffing but we’ve been cloistered inside on a very beautiful day.  I’ll write this and then we’ll go out.  I am inclined to say that we will start our day but we’ve been having a full day so far.  

I am relaxing.  Letting the stress -- self-imposed -- and drive fall away.  It is Wednesday.  I’ve been here since Saturday late afternoon.  I am finally relaxing without guilt or worry.  There is no dragon at my back.  I am not terrified that I am wasting this day or this time.  I am just here.

So much I don’t understand on any level about being present.  I rush and push, myself and Julia.  We sat yesterday for more than an hour, just putting a 1000 piece puzzle together.  Talking to Lisa and Sarah Grace, but doing nothing else.  

Right after David died, I resolved never to waste another moment.  To live my life full out and with purpose.  I have internalized this very fine aim to become a terrible driving force that allows for no rest.  This dragon encourages guilt and restlessness, and dissatisfaction, and the ultimate feeling of failure.  And also a laziness that is the rebellion against driving ambition.

How do I make the desire to live in the moment, to live full out and to learn into a garden of tasks and goals.

I wonder this.  

20 November 2012

We are two full days into Maryland by now.  Julia and I are alone in Lisa and Nick’s house this morning while they work.  We have a dog and a few cats watching over us, but we sit on the living room couch doing our morning planned work -- word problems and addition with carry-over numbers for math, a worksheet packet of reading and comprehension activities (The lion and the mouse -- a real favorite of mine!), an online puzzle, two conversations from Conversation Builder (an iPad app), and some questions/answers from another app.  We are working about an hour and a half.  Julia is not complaining at all.  In fact, she goes willingly from activity to activity, checking each one off on her  I don’t expect we will work on Thursday and possibly not after that until we get on the plane.  

Julia has rediscovered marble run here.  We have a set at home that she rarely touches but she loves it here.  She does have a bigger audience to help with and admire the work.  And she loves that bigger audience.  Sarah Grace has at least two or three teenaged friends around her at all times.  These are great kids and they dote on Julia often.  They took her into the back “shed” (quotes around that because there is heat and light in the oversized outbuilding) to play pool yesterday and she loved it.  They engage Julia in conversation and they never hesitate to listen and also to make sure she says hello and good-bye whenever they come and go.  And they come and go a lot!  

On Sunday, we went to church a lot!  I was like a Baptist church lady!   Lisa is the minister at the local UU church and I have always enjoyed watching her work.  Now that I am a UU, the work is more meaningful to me.  Her church is small enough to have a single Sunday service and because I usually go to service when I visit, the same people see me/us at least once a year.  We went to morning service, then a discussion on understanding by rephrasing the seven UU principles, then home for a bit, then a back to church for an evening worship the strives to have congregants participate in the service.  I must be becoming religious in my own way.  I enjoyed it all.

Linette, thanks for the book suggestion.  I did some of that sort of reading a few years ago before Julia learned to read and a tiny bit about number awareness.  Getting some understanding of the “why” of math operations is an excellent idea.

17 November 2012

Julia and I are on a very crowded plane winging towards Baltimore.  Babies are crying, my carry on bag no long fits comfortably in the overhead bin, the  pretzels are so small that I wouldn’t give them to a toddler for fear of choking, and the leg room -- well, I’ve never been happier to be a mere 5’5”.    We are traveling Southwest and the upside is price.  The only upside is price.  I am grateful that I can afford to go to the east coast three times in as many months (wedding, thanksgiving, christmas) but  . . . my thoughts are not very grateful.

Julia is missing two and a half days of school next week, so I asked that work be sent home.  What came home was disappointing.  Two books with questions written by the sub, not her reading aide.  The person who she usually reads with picks challenging books and writes good questions on sticky notes for Julia to answer as she reads each page.  The sub sent two books that are way below Julia’s reading level and wrote the most obvious questions.  We just went through one book in about 15 minutes.  The math sheets sent home are no better -- although some are too hard.   Yes, this woman is trying her best.  I do not doubt that.  And we are stuck with her until the end of January.  I sent an email about some math papers that came home -- one that had drawing and writing on it, and a variety of problems that are mostly too hard.  I am sure she was given this sheet and left to her own devices.  And then what?  I have no idea.  No one looked at the sheet before it was sent home?  

So, more of those sheets were sent home.  I asked at the conference for a math plan, and asked if she’d begin multiplication soon.  Multiplication sheets came home.  Two sheets on the concepts of multiplication and a number of fact sheets.  

I went to the Learning Store on Thursday and brought home some new workbooks -- some reading comprehension after short paragraphs which are pretty hard for what they say is second grade.  I may have to go back and get something easier but I’ll try slogging away at the one I bought for the week and see if Julia can do it.  I also got a money workbook and the easiest multiplication workbook that I could find.

We started talking about multiplication a few minutes ago.  I drew triangles and asked Julia to put them in groups of 2’s or 3’s.  We counted the groups and she was able to say, “there are 3 fours,” to which I replied 3 fours can be written 3x4.  Then she counted the triangles and could answer that there were 12 triangles and 3 fours were 12 and 3x4=12.  I think we have to do this for awhile before we take another step.

There is a big caveat here -- I have no idea if we should be working on multiplication right now.   I have no idea of what is next in math or how to introduce it.  

I think I was in the place a few summers ago.  Before Randall and Deb Rumpf.  I am cranky about having to go back to this place, this mindset.  On the other hand, I remember where we were when last I felt so alone and felt the responsibility to figure out what and how to teach Julia.  Julia barely knew a few sight words, she was reading by memorizing texts that we went over and over, she could hardly write her name, her first name, and there were no numbers, no time, no past and future, and David had a very short time to live.  

Today, Julia reads.  She counts, she adds and subtracts.  She spells and wants to write stories.  She can talk about tomorrow and yesterday, and we -- she and I -- are a stronger family.

And I see I am finally and still an optimist.  Low, sad, cranky, frustrated, but resilience and strength is returning.

I went to a parent teacher meeting yesterday.  I cannot help but reflect on the parent teacher meetings that I went to when Cheshire was in grade school.  Meetings during which teachers would gush and praise and during which we never had many questions or expected to discover much that we did not know.  Meeting what sometimes ended with time to spare.

Now I go to parent teacher meetings with questions and worries and apprehension.  Will I hear about inappropriate behavior?  Has Julia begun hitting again?  Is she scratching and bleeding?  Showing her underpants?  And work??

That’s what goes through my head.  Experience does shape outlook.  Is that depressing or realistic?  

Anyway, most of the news was good.  Julia is doing solid second grade work, a bit better in reading.  She is actually in math and reading groups, and is spending all her science time with her science group without much redirection.  Her classroom teacher thinks her behavior has hit new highs, and there are even those two girls who invite her to play with them.  Slow, steady and good progress.  I almost don’t want to dissect it.  Looking at her current IEP, which will be ready to be renewed in February, she has met many of her goals.  I don’t know if it is half but close.  She is, well, really, they are, working on almost all of her goals and feel she is progressing.  Again, this marks a change from the years of not seeing any, or only a few goals progressing or met.  And her classroom teacher tells me that although there are time when transitions can still be a bit dicy -- talking back, sassiness, and a few times when Julia hit her aide on the arm -- what brings her back to her better/more controlled self, is to say that if she cannot act appropriately, she will not be able to stay in the classroom.  And rarely these days, does she get sent out.  

Another thing that her teacher told me was that Julia works hard and does quality work, she does her best.  Sometimes, or perhaps most of the time, that work is modified for her, but she seems to have adopted a very good work ethic.  I saw a “water cycle” poster that she drew in class yesterday.  It was clear that she copied the picture because the style was not her own.  The mountain looked like an illustration, the rain clouds were perfect, and the big curved arrows were where they were suppose to go.  She was one of the few kids who finished in the time allotted.   

There is a lot here to be proud of.  And I was able to breathe a bit easier when I left.  My guard still cannot be dropped.  Maybe one day.

The unfortunate news, which has nothing to do with Julia’s behavior is that the sub who took over when the special ed teacher left will stay until the end of the semester.  And it will be a newly minted special ed teacher who is supposed to be quite good who will take over in January.  Julia’s classroom teacher likes the present sub and she has heard good things about the new teacher.  I have not been able to establish good communication with the sub which is disappointing.  I am just cranky about this.  I know that kids have great teachers, awful teachers, and everything in between and survive.  And learn.  This crabbiness is just my intense pursuit of the best that I can possibly get for Julia.  Always and constantly.  

Having a tough time letting go of the fact that school is not perfect.  I need to lighten up a bit.  Even without a real special ed teacher, Julia is taught and supported.  I have to remember that last year at this time, we were neck deep in dealing with rashes and bug bites and constant and intense scratching.  And we are not there this year.  

Switch.

Recently, it has been difficult for Julia to get up in the morning and get herself going.  I’ve tried lots of things and last week they were all failing and I was just incredibly angry.   Angry at her for not listening, angry at me for my anger which gets us nowhere.  A good conversation with Marilyn got me back on some better track.  I decided to finally use a Love and Logic approach to the morning.  I did a bit of research into the system a few years ago but Julia didn’t seem ready to use it.  Now, I hope that she is.

I told her about it this weekend.  If she doesn’t get dressed on time, we will put clothes in a bag and go downstairs.  She can try to dress downstairs but she must also eat and do that part of getting ready.  If she isn’t ready by the time the bus is due, she will miss the bus.  She will call school and tell them she will be late and why.  I will drive her to school and she will do what she needs to do to catch up in the car.  She will also lose her iPad for the day.  

So Monday went perfectly, today, not so much.  She watched the bus go by and she moaned and groaned about it.  I took the iPad out of her backpack.  She called school Then we walked the dog before I took her to school.  This is sort of a tough love exercise, and it could end up with her getting dressed and eating breakfast in the car which would not be comfortable as the weather gets colder.  I hope I don’t have to repeat it much, but I can’t continue to be completely responsible for getting her out the door.  She needs to find it in herself.  

Can I pray for a better tomorrow?

An unfortunate comment on Facebook -- political, what else? -- led a friend of a friend to tell me that she used to read my blog but stopped years ago.  She didn’t say why but at least right now, she does not like my politics.  I had to think about how much politics was on my blogs -- some, but not an extraordinary amount.  I don’t think.  (Traci, you can correct my impression if I am wrong.)  Rashly, I responded, “Was it death, disability, politics or religion?”  My take on any of those could offend.  I will not check for reply.  I have posted a moderate amount of political stuff on Facebook this election season, and I am sure that I have been “hidden” or “defriended” some.  I have done the same to some of the most rabid right wing political postings.  Conservative viewpoints are just part of the discussion, but the musings of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, I don’t need to see.  I don’t even disapprove.   Free speech and the like, but I don’t need to entertain it myself.

For a moment, reading that this adoptive mother, stopped reading my blog made me feel badly.  In part of my gut, I want to please. I wanted the sweetness and light of the lovely adoption blogs that I visit from time to time.  Gosh, I hope that some of them are absolutely true.

But they are not my experience.  Hell no!  The last six years have battered and bruised me.  I’ve written unkind things, unfair things, maybe some wrong headed notions, but also truth.  Not universal truth by any means, only my own very fallible truth.  I fail frequently.  I omit some of the uncomfortable.  I write as much of my truth as I can manage.  And so, I should not be surprised that I’ve offended.  Of course, I have.

As long as I am standing high on a soap box, I will be a bit more daring.  The other day, for the first time since David died, I missed physical intimacy.  It has taken 27 months to miss sex.  I’ve miss having a partner in so many other ways, it is almost funny to arrive at this missing.  And I am rather embarrassed by it.  Maybe it took too long, maybe it is still inappropriate.  But there it is.  

…when someone tells me a dream … [I have made a rule] to say first of all to myself ‘I have no idea what this dream means’ then I can begin.   ~C.G. Jung  

A series of dreams over the past few nights.  Hopeful and filled with something like joy.  Waking up and holding onto the message, to the tone, to the hope.  Possibly it is just that I cannot stand the vacuum of joy any longer.  I am desperately seeking what I took for granted for a very long time.

In the dream, I was in bed with someone.  It was a man that I knew and was very fond of.  I knew that I was happy.  We were waking up.  It was nothing passionate or suggestive, but I was aware, very much aware the I should be thankful for someone to care about who felt the same way towards me.  It was not David and I knew that it could not be David.

Then we were walking on a busy street, a street of my childhood in Belleville, New Jersey.  We were on the main street and it was busy the way that a street in NYC, maybe the Village, is busy.  We were crossing the street and we held hands.  Again, I was very much aware of this gift of caring.  The man, who was tall and lean with short cut dark hair and facial hair, was not someone who I knew.  His name was Eric and although for a short time a long time ago, I dated someone by that name, this was not that guy at all.  We were crossing the street and in the middle of the street, he stopped and turned to look at me, his eyes wide and almost ready to cry.  I asked him what was wrong and he told me that he thought that he saw David on the other side of the street.  My heart started beating very quickly, with the idea of seeing David, with the idea that this man beside me was feeling like he might lose me.  I did not even look for David from that street because I knew that it was not him.  He was dead.

Then we were on the other side of the street and an old acquaintance, Hilly, was walking towards me.  He recognized me and hugged me hello.  Hilly, Hillel was his given name, was a good friend of Lenny, the husband of Marsha, a good friend from the early 80’s.  Hilly never became a friend of ours apart from Marsha and Lenny, but he was a kind, deep soul.  He is also someone that I have not thought of in years and years.  It is amazing what dreams will excavate.  

In the middle of his hug, Hilly pulled away from me and asked where David was.  His tone was accusatory.  It suggested that I was with some strange man when I should have been with David.  I felt a pain in my heart to tell him that David had died more than two years ago, and Eric moved from holding my hand to putting his arm around my shoulder in a protective way.  

And then I woke up.  The feeling of being cared for stayed with me all day and into the next.

A friend who is also a Facebook friend shared this post from an 18 year old who has a long term health issue:  

“Well,I can honestly say my first and most likely LAST election as a legal adult has suck. I don't think I can explain how terrifying this is for me. I don't even care what anyone thinks of the fact that it has brought me to tears. When I say "Obama being president for another term will be the death of me" I mean it literally. When it come to Obama Care,people who have a major illness or a life long illness..such as myself,are pretty much not far from their death bed. Once it takes full affect he will be making those people with a major or life long illness comfortable until they pass because we are too expensive. SO YES,I have a reason to be upset and I have a reason to cry. I already had a time limit on my life and with the help of Obama care it's even shorter. Congrats on your win for a second term. Next time anyone wants to say "Obama cares about everyone" remember people like me,and how we pretty much have a time limit on our lives.”

This young woman was in my thoughts all day yesterday and I could not go without responding with the aim of providing her with some help that she desperately needs:

T has been on my mind since I read your post.  I hope that you will pass this along to her.  I am posting this privately because I don’t need to start another political debate.  It is time to heal.

I am deeply sorry that there is someone or more than one person who is giving her the wrong information about the Affordable Care Act.  As the parent of a child with special health care needs, I have examined the legislation carefully and have also spoken with advocates and lobbyists who specialize in working for the disability community.  With great respect, I feel a need to point out how T is wrong.  The Affordable Care Act will allow T’s parents to keep her on their health insurance until she is 26.  It will allow her parents and eventually T herself to move and/or change jobs and get insurance for her even though she has a serious preexisting condition.  I am assuming here that T is covered by private insurance.  There is no provision of the Act which demands that T or her parents change their health plan or that her health plan will need to change her benefits.

If she is covered by some sort of Medical Assistance and/or long term care assistance, the Affordable Care Act will improve her coverage.  There will be no “death panels” and treatment options will be no more limited than they are now.  At present, insurance policies, private and public, have caps on services and restrictions on treatments.  I don’t believe that the Act will change that, that is, expand caps or restrictions.  Experimental treatments will probably never be covered.

State medical assistance plans and advocacy groups vary widely from state to state, but I hope that T will find an expert, an advocate, or someone who understands benefits for people who are disabled and have a serious conversation with them.  I urge her not to depend on the rhetoric of the extreme conservatives who have dominated the conversation but to seek out moderate voices for information and help.

Here are a few websites and articles to get T stared:

http://specialneedsplanning.net/2012/07/what-obamacare-really-does-for-individuals-with-disabilities/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carla-lohr/health-care-law-disabled-people_b_1636159.html

http://www.care2.com/causes/kids-adults-disabilities-fear-less-scotus-aca.html

Also, if she looks on the National Disability Rights Network (http://www.napas.org) about half way down the page, under Latest News, there is a downloadable pamphlet/guild entitled “How does the Affordable Care Act affect people with disabilities?”  It is good reading, a bit dense but with lots of answers.

I’ve also given your comment about the passion of liberals a good amount of thought.  Why do I have a passion to extend the civil rights that we, as able, straight Americans take for granted to people who experience life differently than I do?  I guess because I can.  T’s desperation and fear is exactly what is wrong, of course in my opinion, with current conservative thought -- prey on the weak, scare them to death and fill them with fear and hate for people who are trying to solve problems.  That’s what Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter sound like to me.  

I know you are conservative and I’ve worked and played with conservatives, but it is the current crop of radical conservatives that keep me as far left of the conservative ideology as  I can get.  I hope the the most recent election causes an earthquake in the Republican party and that moderate Republicans take back their birthright.  Then, the discussions about solving problems can begin again.

Another sad first.  When are they ever going to stop??

My family was in no way political and except for a few years of Time magazine coming into the house and even though my father spent his working life at a newspaper, we did not talk about current events or the news at the dinner table as I was growing up.  Presidents were history and they all seemed to have beards and be really old.  But I was a kid when Kennedy was running for the White House and the nuns who taught me prayed for his election for what seemed like months.  And I was a kid when he was killed.  With those two events -- the energy that flew around my small world -- my interest in politics was born.

As a near-adult there was one election that I watched with friends and some old boyfriend until David came along.  And then we watched and waited together for about 36 years.  Sometimes he would go to bed first to wake up for the next day’s work and sometimes I would fall asleep in front of the tv.  Whoever was the last up would wake up the sleeper when one or the other candidate won.  We mourned together -- Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and the election that was ‘stolen’ from Gore -- and we breathed some sighs of relief, even when Clinton’s personal behavior appalled me.  Considering the lying that Mitt engaged in this year, Clinton’s behavior just doesn’t look so bad.

But we did it together, whatever the outcomes and consequences.

Last night, I did not watch results on a television.  My television is for movies and a few wii games.  I was glued instead to my computer screen.  I shared my views and fears with facebook friends, and any plans for watching a movie last night was dashed by my obsessive website checking.  

I am glad that the ritual has changed for me -- it may have kept me a bit more on even keel -- but still feel the sadness of having no one to share the hopes and fears, victories and defeats.  Being alone just sucks.  

So, even victory is not a joy.

So much better a handle on the week as compared to last week.  Today is the quintessential early November day -- pretty cold, very grey, a constant drizzle, and kinda’ dark.  It was snowing, just flurries, earlier this morning, and I was so grateful that I  had finished up all of the yard work last night!  I cut, raked, and piled garden debris and leaves in the back garden on Sunday and then in the front and side gardens yesterday.  By the time I finished yesterday, the street lights had turned on.  Twilight not dark, and I was exhausted last night.  I need one more 2-3 hour slot to clean the garage so that my car fits in, and I need to bring my snow blower in for a tune up.  Then, I will be ready for winter to begin.  

I worked the weekend on my DRW project.  I had an idea to follow through on.  I did the research on Saturday night and part of Sunday and then made phone calls on Monday morning.  This is what my supervisor needs and for the first time I feel like I can give her something of value.  This satisfied feeling does not mean that I want to continue there.  In fact, I think that I could work so well and efficiently because there is an end in sight.  I am not sure of the timing of the end but I am planning to ask that it not be longer than the end of the semester. Likewise, in the satisfaction department, the resource center work is going well.  I have an assignment and I feel like I can ask questions.  I also am finally getting a vague understanding of the systems -- federal, state, county -- that offer service to kids with special health care needs.  I am just learning the kids system.  The adult system is totally different.

This week seems to be about coming out of the fog and chaos that has prevailed since school began and into a quieter, more orderly place.  Julia has art therapy right now and when she is finished, we will go home and be alone tonight.  I am planning on an early dinner, watching the end of Chicken Run, playing some wii sports, and then to bed.

Yesterday, I discovered that Muta, the cat, has been peeing on Julia’s bean bag chairs in her room.  We had a corner set aside for reading with a carpet, bean bag chairs and a large stuffed horse.  The carpet and the horse could go into the washer but the chairs are in the garbage.  I am not sure there is a why here.  It might be because I filled the cat box with a litter that had some odor control.  I had tried to use it when the cat first came home and he would not use it.  He has been going out at least once a day and I assumed that he was peeing outside.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.  Julia was disappointed that her chairs were ruined but she took it in stride.  Taking disappointments or changes in strides comes more often but I never know when the obsessive need for control will rear its head.  

When we were in speech therapy yesterday, she HAD to fold paper used in an activity exactly on the dotted lines provided.  It did not really matter how it was folded but she could not get over the fact that one of the papers was not exactly correct.  Her need for perfection robbed her of concentration and her ability to respond to questions.  Thinking back over much earlier behavior, I wonder if she had this feeling more often and this was a reason for some of her very stubborn behavior.

At school, there is testing going on all week.  I have no idea what they are doing with Julia and I am not sure exactly who to ask.  Her special ed teacher left a week ago for a new position and Julia has had a sub (who is not a special ed teacher).  The sub may be long term and I am trying not to stress about how what is going on.  I have a conference with her classroom teacher next week, and I will wait until then to ask questions.  I am not confident that there will be a replacement anytime soon.  It might be next semester before Julia has a permanent teacher, and then we have to go through the process of getting to know each other and developing a relationship.  Suddenly, this second year of fourth grade does not seem like a guaranteed success.  Oy.

Trying not to stress.  Breathe.

Last Saturday, it was my turn to go to church school with Julia as the parent helped.  Julia has told me before this that church school makes her sad.  When I  have asked why, she said that the kids didn't like her.  I've been telling her to talk to the kids, but from what I saw on Saturday, she was pretty dead on correct.  Only one kiddo there gives Julia the time of day.  On Saturday, Julia and I sat at a table alone during the class.  Another girl who had been sitting at our table when we sat down, moved almost immediately.  The teachers are very nice but I think they don't have a clue that this is even an issue.  I’ve written to the religious ed director and we will be meeting in the next few days.  I hope that we can do some education of the teachers and the kids within the next few weeks.  I am not sure that I can return Julia to the class until some change in put in place.  I love to be in church listening to services but I can’t do it at Julia’s expense.  

Tonight my heart is in my throat.  It is just after 8:30 p.m. now and any thought I had about doing work was just crazy.  This is the first election that I have been cognizant of that I have not sat glued to a television set.  I have no cable and no want to get local stations, but I have the internet.  And so, and so, I sit here, trying to read over what I wrote today and flipping back and forth among facebook (to see what my friends are saying), the New Yorker website (I just like them), MSNBC, and just a bit of Fox.  After I post this, I will start some junky movie -- romantic comedy would be my preference, nothing that will tax a single brain cell.  After the 2000 election, nothing can be taken for granted.  

Halloween.  Okay.  I need a good wallow.  Right now.  Julia had a wonderful time going out from house to house saying almost appropriate things at times to strangers and neighbors.  I am still trying to protect her, interrupt her, stop her from more inappropriateness.  And she doesn’t really care.  It is me and not her.  My own need to be in the neuro typical club.  Most of the time when we are alone we are in our own normalized world.  We can add those grownups who accept her and one or two kids who are the same, but let her out in the general population . . . but it is my problem.  She is working it out for herself.  One of her aides today in school commented about how much better Julia is working.  And Julia is working it out -- tonight, I saw her ask a few kids their names or complement them on good costumes.  Sometimes she is still using a script of sorts.  Sometimes she talks much too loud or invades space, but she uses the skills that she has learned.  

Forgive me, but tonight I just want to know that she will have a place in this world when she grows up.  Living this day, present in the present is my lesson.

Last night, we watched an episode of Avatar - The last air bender during which Ta, an earth bender, tells her friends that her father has let her travel around the world.  She is going with her friends.  Julia ask me why Ta would want to travel around the world.  I told her that it would be a great adventure.  Julia loves the word adventure.  All our trips are adventures.  Then, she asked why her father let her go.  “Wouldn’t he miss her?”  I thought that her father would miss Ta but that sometimes kids grow up and want to travel alone or with friends.  Julia took my hand and said, “Mom, when I grow up I will go around the world with you.”  

If Cheshire had said such a thing when she was little, I would have smiled, maybe told David about it, or possibly told the story over lunch but it would not have been more the just sweet.  To hear Julia say such a thing is so much more.  First, she now talks about growing up.  There was a time when she would almost have a melt down if someone asked her what she was going to be when she grew up.  She is owning her own growth.  And second, she wants to go with me.  We may not be perfectly attached but we are family and she wants me with her.

Both great strides forward. 

But then . . . in school the other day, Julia’s teacher needed to correct her for something.  Maybe transition behavior.  Nothing awful and no big threat.  Julia turned to her teacher and asked that if she didn’t do as she was told would she get sent back to China.  I think it knocked the wind out of her teacher.  Yes, it is sad that Julia says this but I see it as positive as well.  Julia is aware of cause and effect.  She understands that her behavior can impact how others treat her.   She has a wider world.

Julia finished her time line tonight with one of her therapists.  She is excited about bringing it to school.  I have to go into school tomorrow for a meeting first thing in the morning.  Maybe we will bring it in then so she doesn’t have to handle it on the bus on Friday.  We helped her a lot but the core of it, the content of it is so much her.  I’ll post pictures in the photo blog.

And today, I said something to my LEND mentor about not completing my internship at DRW.  It is an interesting place, they do great work -- advocacy and lobbying.  I work for an incredible woman.  But I know that I don’t want to be involved in the systems level world.  I respect what they do -- and oh, how much i wanted to work there when I first moved to Madison -- but I don’t belong there.  I feel like I never do enough work there and I really don’t want to bring that work home.  Truthfully, I don’t have time to bring that work home.  I am barely reading anything that I had planned to this semester.  I am overloaded -- yes, I did it to myself -- and this is what must go.  I am going to feel awful withdrawing -- a bit like a failure -- gosh, I have to please everyone!  What a stupid burden.  Just too much of my own anxiety around doing “enough.”  

Ellen left me with something last time we spoke.  “Holding my part is enough.”  You know, this too is something about coming out of the grief mode.  I’ve lost my anchor, he who reflected back to me.  I need to do it for myself and at this point, I am still lousy at it.  I’ve always had a fierce need to please and I’ve taken my worth from how and who I pleased.  In some ways this made me a good partner, a good team member, but I need to be able to look in clear water and see my own reflection and decide for myself if that is pleasing.  

One more thing that will take time and patience.