3/17/2019 3 Comments 41 One Years On EarthThere's been a small unopened box on my desk for 2 years. It's 5x7 inches. The bright colors against the white background has been designed to illicit visual excitement. But I learned as a child that the brighter something is packaged, the more poisonous it is. Alarm bells scream in my brain and the package remains. Untouched. Harmless. When I think about opening it now, my panic pushes it further back into my mind. Why isn’t it thrown away, or locked in a drawer so I can’t see it? Because, just like being an adopted child, I will always be acutely aware of its presence in the world. That as much as I push it away, it lays silently in the chambers of who I am. This brightly colored box torments me even more before my adoption day. This day we celebrate the day my parents brought me home as a 7 day old baby. An unwanted child became wanted. All the secrets of my background would be sealed behind paperwork and country. It wasn't until my recent memory that DNA went mainstream. What if I suddenly know who I am with a quick gift of DNA into a tube? There. Is. The. Paradox. I have built the person I am around the unanswered questions of my life. I know this person. I was a lone passenger who suddenly appeared into thin air. Like a made up character in book. This character has learned to only hold a few people close to her in her life. Because she as much as she is strong, she is intensively sensitive. She can be so hurt by the world around her. How differently people behave than way she thinks they should. It can be debilitating. Her sense of honor and justice can illicit rage when she feels betrayed. She takes a long time to heal from it. Luckily she has had fearless guides that loved their way into to the heart of this rage filled child long ago. They held her. They supported her. They have given her a soft true heart that she hides beneath her armor. She needs this protected heart. She knows firsthand that some people will abuse their knowledge of adopted adult’s insecurities. Play to into their loss at birth. They will sneak and hide their demons passing the blame onto the broken parts of the child. They will try to weigh down her heart with the suffocating responsibility for their own happiness. The words and affection from these people have tried to smother the part of her that is rational. Carrying the load of their dreams and hopes, she almost forgets about hers. She becomes a reflection for their needs. But her parents have built her to be strong and sure of herself and it doesn’t take long for her eyes to be opened to these people. She is armed with more knowledge of how her brain and heart fight each other every passing year. She knows this world is so full of beauty, but she can never let herself surrender to the demands of others. She also can not close down her heart. She knows there has to be a place in between the two that she can live. She will continue to dig deep and try to coax her heart into letting the people that will hold and protect it in. It terrifies her. So that must mean it’s worth it. But what if this box disrupts some the carefully built walls she has made to protect it? A stranger’s DNA could bring an impact into her life she’s not ready for. After all, the person she’s grown into for 41 years, is all she knows. And this family is all she can see when she looks at herself. How can she contemplate opening her world? Maybe she’s worried for nothing, maybe it will settle some part of her. Fill some void that she’s unaware of. Her father often tells the story of his own heart growing when they brought home her little sister. That we don’t split ourselves. Our love simply grows. So maybe the box will open her heart to more? Or bring other people to see herself reflected back in. Maybe it holds the answers to questions that have burned into her. Could knowing something instead of nothing help, or torment her with all that stills lays unsolved? She hears everyone’s casual tone when they send away their DNA. Their excitement when the test returns. It feels like quicksand to her. What if she steps in and can never get out again? I sit quietly on the eve of my adoption day. Looking over the abyss of my past. Trying to catch a closer look at memories I can’t control the outcome of. I fight the weight of what might have been. Who I might have been. But I get to be me. Now. Right here. I have to cut the tether of a life already led. A beautifully gut wrenching life. Filled to the brim with uncomfortable truths about myself and others. I have to forgive myself for the parts I’ve played. And I have to forgive others for being the only kind of people they knew how to be. My year ahead shines like the people who fill my days with so much happiness. Who guard my heart with me. They hold the mirror up to me and show me that we are standing side by side equally reflected back. I am so thankful for all of it. So, someday if I decide to send my DNA off, I know I have my axis of people to keep their love intertwined around me. Mom and Dad. I don't know how to express the gift that you have given me. You loved me instantly and fully at first sight. Your love never wavered even when I would tear through the house like caged animal daring you not to love me. When I screamed the most hurtful things to try and force your hand, you took deep breaths and walked away to give me the space I needed to find my center and back to the softness of my heart. You have taught me what love is. Having this beautiful world that you have made for me is never taken for granted. I guard your hearts in my heart, because my heart is yours. To my sister who is so very different than me, but somehow exactly the same, thank you. Thank you for sitting in the dark with me holding my hand when I was scared of things that go bump in the night. I'm sorry for the times I was raging and it scared you, I was fighting my own demons. My family unit is my soul and I live in the light of your lives daily. And thank you to all of you reading this and being a part of my last year. For every laugh or tear shed with you is cherished. Life is brief. Live it fully. And I can not wait to see what 41 looks like. I love you.
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It’s my birthday. And being 40 feels strange. Not because of how my face has changed. Or even how my life has. It’s like a dream looking back on my past. I know the road that led me here. I’m just scared I won’t remember the journey correctly. That somehow when I can’t recall that girl’s name that I learned to twirl a baton with, some part of me will disappear. That the childhood will leave me. And being an adult will be the only alternative. I don’t want to be the person that says I’m getting old. Or that’s what happens when you get older. I want to remain free of the ideas that bind us in aging. I want to still find myself inside. See past the sagging skin and feel the part of me that’s so far in the past, forever. I used to have this boss that would ask me everyday, “Ceiba, Ceiba, Ceiba... what is it all about?” I would shrug and say, “I don’t know.” Truthfully, I never really asked myself. The question seemed desperate and slightly alarming. If he was asking me, was I supposed to know? He was the adult? There was something about it that made me want to run. To be fair, I was 20. I was so much more involved in where I was going in life rather than what the hell it was all about. Avoidance is the cure for discomfort in your 20’s after all. 40 today. 40. 20 years in the future. Officially a time traveler. And, oddly enough, throughout my life I have found that I whisper to myself, “Ceiba, Ceiba, Ceiba... what is it all about?!”, all the time. It's said in almost a sigh. Like a chant. As if I ask it quietly and habitually, the answer will come. The ritual of the question was burned in a long time ago while the adult in me was being shaped. And maybe that was his point in asking me everyday. To make the question stick. I thought for certain with double the life experience I would know more than that of a 20 year old. That I would grow into the idea of being an adult. That life would make more sense. I would ease into the world around me tough and fearless. That authority wouldn’t make me jumpy anymore. That I would feel 100% comfortable in my skin. I would maybe prioritize sensible things over the pretty. That I would learn to properly frost a cake. Maybe I would even been a wife or a mother. My closets would always be organized. And I'd know what it was all about. I’m none of these things. But, I am finding peace in who I am becoming instead. I want to go about living this life for the people who love me. That cherish the weird, outspoken, dramatic adult child I’ve become. For my birth parents that gave me this life, and knew enough to know that my life was somewhere beyond them. For my parents that found me. Somehow, someway in another world, in another lifetime. The love I have for them can not be written in small words that try to describe it. For my friends that have been in my lane through all of its twists and turns. And show up for me day after day. For my all my aunties and uncles that have watched over me as I’ve grown. Ready catch any of one our tribe if any of us falter. For my extended family that let me know that love spans time, distance, and generations. For my sister who has been raised in a parallel universe with me. And is the only one that truly knows all the good, bad, and ugly parts of me. Who knows that we can fly, and never once questions that we probably could do it again. And, I guess, I know now that I have to live for myself too. To know my value. And make a difference in the world around me. To speak up when I see the unjust. To cry hard when I’m hurt. To hold on to the excitement of life. To trust more. To spend more time with the people that enrich my life, and let the others go. To laugh in the face of judgement. And to love the person I will become. Who I haven’t met yet. But I hope to find peace with whoever she turns out to be. What is it all about? I have no fucking clue. Even with the slow ritual of the question over the years I still haven’t come close to an answer. I listen intently when someone claims to. But it never seems quite right. I hope that one day, without warning, it will come to me like a bolt of lightning. Or, at least, I come to a place that I am content in not knowing. Today. I celebrate. For the child inside of me that I will never let go of. And for all my loved ones that have passed on and live inside my heart. Dedicated to Wally. Who made me think. And realize that there are so many beautiful questions. 6/19/2016 7 Comments For My Dad . . .It's interesting, I don't think about my birth father very often. Thinking of him now doesn't even bring up feelings. I suppose I have witnessed many a passing men dropping life into someone and then retreating back into a life of bachelorhood. So I have never seen his contribution being one of much sacrifice. Babies can hear their father's voice at week 22, but all studies show that men bond with their children after birth. So I only have one emotional bond with one father. There is no cross over of feelings. And the love I have for the human that is my father is like no other. There are two types of people, the kind that live through unimaginable tragedy and wallow, and the kind that live through unimaginable tragedy and flourish. My dad is the second kind of person. My dad lost his dad when he was 11. He stood on a shore on a sunny picnic day and recalls his dad's head going under the water. "He was in a brand new pair of blue jeans.", he says. The small detail of the day somehow magnifies the loss. As if he was searching his mind to remember every detail of his father who he would never see again. His father's heroics of saving a little girl's life, surrendering his own life, have made up my dad. One night while carving pumpkins outside we heard a horrible crash at the end of our street, "I'll be right back.", he says as he rushed into the night. When he came back he was covered in blood. He had held a man's hand that was flattened into the street, a hero to person who's life was tethered to his in that moment. And a hero to me when he returned. I knew I'd always be safe with my dad, because as much as he was brave, he was even kinder. He was raised in a land of women and God, and maybe that's how he learned that being a man isn't defined the way we all have come to believe. Maybe, just maybe, it's past all the stereotypes. Somewhere undefined. My dad is walking in that path. Undefined. Have you ever fallen in love at first sight? My dad has, every time he looks into a stranger's eyes. It scares me sometimes, his blind love for people. I stand back and watch the world questioning it, he helps me embrace it. He helps me realize that blind love is better than any form of hate. He doesn't see anything other than a person stripped of all labels in front of him, waiting to embrace them into his life. With every, "What is your name?", he brings even the smallest unseen person into his light. With his father gone my dad put his children first, never wasting a moment with us. Forgoing a life that was career greedy. He was home for dinner and homework every night. He made sure that even though he had daughters, they knew how to use a drill, check their tires, oil, how shut off a main water line, change a filter, smell for leaking gas, and how to use a breaker box. But he also taught me to see the world. To slow down, and really see. From tiny bugs to the birds, that everyone else hates, he loved them, and so now do I. I could weep from the gift. He taught me to know that world isn't made up of us, and them . . . but we. He has nine lives, but I suspect he has battled to live, despite hearing he wouldn't, more for us, than himself. He remembers the loss. The scar is deep and he knows the fight is worth it so we don't have to feel that wound for as long as possible. He gave me his dad's first name, Ruscelina (Russell). It's my badge of honor. Reminding me to always fight like my namesake and my father, but to know that I, no, we, should all be capable of sacrificing oneself in the name of another. My life is tethered to the man's hand that lay dying on the side of the road all those years ago. His story is ours, and my dad's his. Because maybe without my papa's sacrifice all those years ago on a sunny Arizona day my dad wouldn't have been there. And maybe someday I'll have to give some great part of myself to another. I know it's what my dad would do, so, I will, without any hesitation, because my dad has taught me to be a hero. Daddy, thank you for: Blowdrying my hair straight when I was little, and trying to iron it straight. Making it a point to spend quality time with us even when you didn't have enough time. Making me see the danger of unattended candles in the house. Loving all creatures, great and small. Getting me my first toolbox, because there are no gender stereotypes in our home. Cooking amazing pies and continuing grandmother's famous recipes, it makes me miss her less. Feeling guilty every time you had to punish me. Always believing me despite what circumstances looked like. Taking the the night feedings when I was a newborn. Crying with me. Making me feel safe and loved. Telling me daily, "whatever you need, I'm here". But mainly for being a special brand of father, that wasn't quite invented in your time. You are a pioneer. Your "girls" may be the center of your life, but you're the spirit that holds us together. I love you.
Some questions or statements offend me like no other. The first one is, "Do you know your real mother?" It lands on my chest like a bullet every time. No, my mother didn't carry me in her womb. She carried me through this life.
My mom taught me . . .To be a thinker. To dream and create. To problem solve. To love myself. To be free. To know that a girl can do anything a boy can do. To follow through. To make the rules. To know my worth. To make my own path. To live with conviction. To read. To love the person, not the package they come in. To listen. To see the world. To see all people as equal. To understand myself. To cry, and not be ashamed of it. To say, "I'm sorry". To love deeper. To push harder. To share my soul. To laugh. To take time to smell the roses. To fight fair. To trust myself. To be humble. To express. And that the path of becoming a mother doesn't always look one way. She is a gift to this world. My mother is my quiet strength. A fighter without anger, judgement, or despair. She is a listener when the rest of the world are talkers. She is the person you don't notice at first, but in that quiet moment in the middle of chaos, she says something to softly draw you in. She is powerful beyond measure. She cries when I cry because our souls are linked. She is my favorite person. My heart swells when I see her face. I would fight the world to save her. She saved me from myself, and of what I could have become without the right life guide. She can't sleep if she knows I'm suffering. Her empathy for the world is inspirational. The way she looks at my dad let's me know that all great love is worth waiting for. She would fight the world for anyone she loved. And even in times where being a mother was daunting, she never let me feel any resentment. I am not half the woman my mother is. But I have the privilege of calling her mine. But, yes, I also have a birth mother. But, no, I don't know her. I know her name. I know I came into this world as first born. But I won't ever know how she felt. My parents always told me as a child that she loved me so much and couldn't take care of me, so she gave me up so I could have the best life possible. This might be true. But maybe her skin crawled every time I moved. Maybe her faith or conviction wouldn't let her do what she longed for. Maybe she never looked at me, or held me. Maybe I was brought into life with hate. Or . . . maybe the story meant to soothe a child is true. Whatever the case, I cry when I write about this strange life giver, some deep tangled mourning. This empty story of a birth mother and unwanted child. This hunt of finding myself is a circle that will never show me the finish line. I won't ever know what she gave me that makes me, me. I still love my birth mother, in some sort of hateful way. It's so complicated to convey. The feeling. The loss of her. The gain of my mom. My mom lets me know it's okay to still love my birth mother, something only a secure person can do. I thank her silently every year. She is dream that my mother has helped me piece together. She was my vessel to life. She gave me more than anyone should have to sacrifice. I wish I could tell her that her gift never goes unnoticed and that I am more than okay, I am loved beyond measure. That her giving me up, gave my mother to me. There's an unspeakable bond that my two mothers share that I'm not sure I'll ever truly understand. And I don't need to, it's private, and they thank each other in their own way. Yes. I have two mothers. But only one real mom. To my mother, Who stands in the background because she doesn't need the stage. But the light should always shine on you for you are the star of my life, and you and all you are should be seen. Robin Winters thank you. We all have 1 million different mothers. Our grandmothers who taught us our past. Our aunts who taught us that our mothers are people. Our friends who teach us that our family is not just immediate. Our sisters who are our connections to our childhood, and our future. The women in my life have pushed forward, bravely, unflinchingly, and lovingly through their roles as mothers. I take things with me on my journey in this life that are gifts these women have given to me without even knowing. They whispered into my heart through all of these years, guiding me in some magical way without me even noticing. We all are really just one big family only separated by our own twists of fate. To those of you who have lost your guiding light, may you shine on in their memory, and be all they imagined you could be. 3/10/2016 1 Comment How to Celebrate Your Life...There is a homeless woman who stands watch day and night in a parking lot by my salon. She is beautiful. She stands with grace looking over the horizon like she may one day see the meaning of life. Her certainty gives her power. What everyone thinks and feels as they pass her is inconsequential in her quest. I know I will never believe in something as much as she does. Layered and tattered, the pillar of her solitude day after day gives me peace. She. Is what we are all looking for. Purpose. I turn 38 today. And some days I wake up and think, “What the fuck?! Who the fuck am I?!” [Excuse my language.] Sometimes anxiety runs through me like lightning almost knocking me off my feet, the idea of getting out of bed seems like a great undertaking, and the idea of smiling all day makes me want to cry. I have trudged through this life at some points, and then I always decide to fight back. I owe too many people to not do that. I believe happiness is something you have to decide on. If you try to get happy, and can’t, then you need to reach out to someone who can help you. Sometimes that person isn’t a family member, and that’s okay. We have to know the darkness to know the sun. But every human should have the right to live with purpose, compassion, and joy. And today, and 95% of the time, I do. This is part of the reason I celebrate my birthday like a 5 year old. I know the darkness that creeps in from life all around you. Sitting on your chest waiting for the moment you give in. With every breath I take I try to live like I've been given a great gift, instead of being bitter about turning another year older. I have watched loved ones fight to live, I’ve seen the weight of the world on my family every time it happens, and I have seen what happens if they lose. I remember when I heard that one of my heart links in this world, who was laying in the ICU, might not make it. My body took the news and it sank to the bottom of my soul, then twisted it , and wretched it back up. It was the coldest moment of my life. But he’s still here, and I get to hug him, and share with him whenever I want. I get to say I love you. I get to have new memories with him. But there are others that I don’t get to do this with anymore. Ones that shaped my heart and my life. So how could I mope and whine about getting older? How could I disrespect the gift they no longer have? I don’t. I celebrate. I share stories of their love, I say, “I love you.”, and, “Thank you.” to them today. I get to be here. I know the blackest sorrow. The loss of what you were and what you thought you might have become. That the world can be unkind and feel unjustified. I know that it is also beautiful. That even though this woman stands in her parking lot, and what ever pulls her there gives her life meaning. That until we stand in her shoes we will never really understand the inner workings of her person. What she does, is, get up, everyday, and carries out something that her mind has figured out to get her through this life. And there is a subtle beauty in that. For I have seen countless people of privilege that never find the same thing. So, I bring this to you. Start something radical. Rejoice in your next birthday. Find your happiness in it. Life is brief. It is full of amazing people and adventures. It is a gift. For some reason we have taught ourselves to see wickedness in celebrating ourselves, and to find pride in shame. Now it is time for that to stop. We need to find our value. And we need to find strength in our joy. If it helps, send a kiss to whoever was your Nana, your Bruce, your Dick, your Charlie, your Papas, your Grandmother, and take this next 365 day journey with them in mind. Live, because they can't. Love, because they gave you love. Rejoice, because you get to. Be a pillar. How to celebrate your life?
It’s simple. Celebrate it. |
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