Connections

My recent blogs have been heavy and full of emotion. I have found that writing affords me a space to emote in ways that feel relieving and safe. I am able to convey what's truly inside in ways that I can't in talking it out. It has been extremely therapeutic and every now and then I laugh to myself because while I am extremely picky and guarded about who I talk to and how much I tell them, I can write my whole life in such intricate and descriptive detail for anyone...ANYONE...to read, and feel relatively at peace with this.

I've made some big changes in my life recently. In recent weeks - or week even, I made yet another change that I feel truly closed the door on a very challenging series of moments I was enduring. Closing this door has given me my freedom back. It's given me my full range of happiness and calm back. It's given me my own sense of self back. With a change in jobs, a new place to live, acceptance into a PhD program, my professional and academic life have been wonderful and new and exciting opportunities await. The new space I now call home is wonderful and is filled with such positive and peaceful energy. Just what I need! And I've cleaned up my personal life alot, and as a result, I think I've tuned into myself more. I've been talking more openly and honestly with a few people close to me about all of this and I have realized alot about myself and my patterns. It's helped reconnect me with me - a constant work in progress, but rather than just going through the steps somewhat disassociated, I am actually completely present as I move through them. I actually feel like this is the happiest I have been in a long time. And while these changes that have been happening in my life are positive, I think it's because I feel much more deeply connected to myself right now than I ever have before.

I am reminded of one of my most favorite movie quotes: "My life as I knew it capsized, and then strangely enough, righted itself."

I am getting ready to travel to San Francisco this weekend for work. I'll be gone for a week. It just struck me today how I will be going back to the place that marked my first re-entry back into the US from Korea back in August. I never got to explore the town, I just had a 3 hour layover at the airport. I am excited to see all that San Francisco has to offer. Having never been outside the airport, it is a place that feels familiar to me. I never thought for a moment about the connection and meaning of this place with my travels back from Korea. It surprised me a bit of how it just popped into my head. Right now my thoughts on this sound like a constant buzzing or whirring. I can't quite pull out the various pieces. I just know that something's stirring. I think it will be interesting to see how things unfold while I am there.

As I've been moving into a more centered place in my life, it's allowed me to think more about my Korea trip, my adoptee identity, and I've let myself ask questions to the Universe. I don't find any solid answers of course, but the curious side of me is coming out and I feel strong enough to actually wonder, aloud at times, the wonders I have about these connections in my life. It feels good to tune in to me. I also have had some pretty incredible support - support that has been right in front of my face for a long time - I just never tuned into that frequency.

Onward I go.

Truth Through the Lens of an Old Camera

Neatly perched atop a dusty shelf on my desk in my home office are 6 old cameras. As I sit and stare at them, it's hard to believe anyone ever knew how to properly work them with all their manual dials, knobs, slots, and winders. Today our ability to capture images requires a media card and the ability to push a button. Machines and computer programs that get easier and easier to use allow us to manipulate that moment in life. No longer are we freezing these moments in time. Rather, we are continually re-shaping, re-molding, and re-designing what was supposed to be.

What have these old cameras seen? Have they captured monumental pieces of history? Did they witness new beginnings or endings we can only hope were filled with accomplishment and peace? Have they seen the landscape before it was decimated and forever scarred with highways, industrial sites, and buried toxins that poison the life around it? What truths have these cameras captured?


Truth. The older I get, the more foreign of a concept this seems to be. What is the truth? How do we actually know it's the truth? What was the origination of the meaning of something? How do we ever know that this is truly how it was meant to be or that this is what truly is? Most of the time it seems we course through our lives in such a haphazard way that we have evolved to think is systematic and smooth. My truth is that I am constantly trying to dodge bullets, but sometimes I get shot. I am trying to maneuver through the crowded noise that is the chaos in my head that keeps me up at night when I am beyond the point of exhaustion, but sometimes I am swallowed up. I whip around corners so fast holding the wheel with all my might so as to not fly off the road, but sometimes I lose control and find myself flipping end over end, most of the time landing upside down beaten and bloodied. I get the best running start I can to jump over the holes scattered throughout life or to be able to mount a seemingly insurmountable wall, but sometimes I fall through the holes or I go barreling into those walls at full speed. Yet with each knock down, each scrape, each cut, each bruise, each broken bone or broken heart, I continue to get up and move on. How is this possible? My body hurts, my heart hurts, and my core feels as if it's got nothing left. But, it's as if there is something inside me that I cannot see, touch, or even feel on any recognizable level that fuels my quest for happiness and fulfillment. And for some reason, I need to endure such horrendous battles in hopes...HOPES...of finding that place of peace and fulfillment - even when I just want to lie down and dissolve into the air.

From the day I was born, or at least two days after when I know I arrived at the receiving home in Korea, I have been lied to. I have been lied to about the most important and crucial things that life is built upon - a stable foundation of love, caring, safety, and belonging. I do not know the story of why I was given up, or even taken for that matter. I know that everything that it took to take care of me as a newborn was someone's job and that I just became something to check off on a list. I was a procedure, a schedule, a routine to earn a paycheck and to provide money to my own birth country who allowed for me to be sold. I was set aside or ignored for convenience or lack of ability to pay attention to me.

Growing up I was told lies, my whole adoptive family was told these same lies, about who I was and how I came to belong in their home now. This precious little child with no one who wanted her because they loved her and cared for her. This precious little child who didnt have the comfort of a mother's arms for the first part of her life. This precious little child who spent those early months with strangers knowing nothing else but to instinctually trust, but having that trust repeatedly violated or not returned. This precious little child whose life and well-being were thrown up to the Universe to take care of. She had no control and she had no say of her own.

As I moved through my life, this trust issue has always plagued me. The lies continue today as I search for the missing pieces of my life. I am still not given answers by those I have allowed myself to trust and given my whole heart to. I am still lied to and ignored because it's convenient for someone else or they have decided I take up too much space in their lives. I'm still tossed aside and in some cases, given up or thrown away. I continually assess myself and ask, "is it me?" Why do these foundational things in life that create those feelings of healthy dependency, security, trust, honesty, belonging, and love come as such hard painful lessons for me? I have a relationship with someone - any kind of relationship - friendship, familial, romantic - and something always happens as soon as I allow these people to be close to me. There's always some kind of violation of trust through lying and leaving that results in a loss that cuts so deep that the wounds have never healed. I'm 33 years old and still mourning my infancy!

It will take me a long time to open up and let someone in. I spent alot of my life disassociating from my feelings because I didnt like what was in there. I didnt know how to feel them. Instead, I got angry. I'm good at being angry. The primitive part of my brain, that has learned since I was an infant that people will undoubtedly lie to you and leave you, kicks into overdrive and goes into self-protection mode. I get angry and live there for awhile because then I dont have to feel helpless, vulnerable, and insecure. I dont have to feel 33 years worth of pain from the lies and the abandonment. If I do eventually open up, and there have been only a few times where this has actually happened - so few I could count them on less than one hand - without fail it always ends horribly and my heart is crushed. Why I keep putting it out there is beyond me. A person can only have this kind of bad luck so many times. It must be me!


I've never claimed perfection in my life. I am far from it. I am a continually evolving work in progress. I've visited and revisited, for many years, the trauma of my early moments of life and some of the major devastating and tragic experiences I have had. Healing has been a slow painful process and while I am not by any means completely healed, I have opened alot of doors into my own emotional realm and my memory that were so long sealed shut I had forgotten about them. Once opened, literally, it was like the flood gates had collapsed and there was no holding back. Yet still, I am left asking why? Why do I continually get doors slammed in my face and dropped when I have made myself vulnerable and opened my heart and my emotions to trust and love? Is it all connected? If so, how? More importantly, how do I fix it?

So what is really true I ask? Where in my life can I say I have actually had anything built from a place of original honesty and love? With the kind of shaky, inaccurate, and untrustworthy foundation I have been put upon, is there really any hope for me or will I just always crash through my life with tumbles, spills, and wipe outs that will always leave me bruised and bloodied? Will my heart ever find the kind of pure honesty and peace that it deserved when it was just beginning or will my quest always come up short because that's all I have known? If I trust and love, I will be dropped, left, abandoned. If I reinstate the keep-everyone-at-an-arm's-length-away rule I will never feel that biting, stinging, stabbing, relentless pain, but I will also never feel those beautiful moments, however fleeting, of what I think are brief tastes of what that kind of honesty, trust, and love can feel like. It's a hard decision.

As I stare into the lenses of these old cameras collecting more dust while they sit in silence, retired long ago from their functionality and purpose, I wonder what they see when they look at me. If they could snap a picture now, what would my moment in my life right now look like? And how do I move on from this place of doubt and hurt knowing that while I most certainly will, without fail, likely find myself here once again asking the same questions? It's a weird mix of optimism and pessimism that I can't quite make sense of. I think I need to work on adopting the philosophy of these old cameras - capturing the moment for what it is and nothing more - no interpretation, no manipulation - just what it is in that exact moment.

Message in a Bottle

Inspired by my friend's play "Lost and Found" about various experiences and identity intersections of Korean adoptees.

Dear Korea,

My life journey over the past 30-some years has ranged from smooth, hill-less-ness, and straight, to meandering - wandering even - to seemingly impossible climbs and insurmountable walls. I've walked through parts of my life with relative ease. I've run into open arms sometimes and away from frightening arms other times. Sometimes I've even run from myself. I've crawled slowly through many complexities and over fragile ground. And I've even dragged myself through some of the sharpest of thorns, reaching desperately for something solid and stable to cling to. In some ways I have been given incredible opportunities to have new experiences and expand my life. In some ways I have felt slowed down, halted, and even stunned and hurt by painful and agonizing experiences and truths. It's been a long haul of glorious moments and many hurdles. In those moments that I am the most exhausted, the most miserable, and the most defeated, something wills me to continue to put one foot in front of the other and press on.

Returning to you has been one of the most, if not the most, significant experiences of my life so far. In the month and a half that encapsulates my preparation leading up to my return, the two week time period I was embraced by you, and the couple of weeks back in Minnesota, my entire being went through such a barrage of emotions it's hard to even be able to comprehend them. Some days I wonder how I am even still standing! Since I've been back I have searched and searched and tried to reconcile various components of who I was, who I am, and who I want to be all within the confines of understanding that at my core, there is you, Korea, and there always will be.

I cant step outside and take you in anytime I want to. I know practically nothing about you other than my body and my emotions yearn to once again touch your soil, breathe in your air, and be embraced by that which I consider to be my home home. Trying to figure out my place here when I constantly feel so displaced and trapped in that displacement is difficult. I try my best to do the things that remind me of you in ways that I know how - finding Korean community here, expanding on my research on identity intersections in Korean adoptees, eating and cooking Korean food, and never letting go of what it was like to be held within you for two weeks back in August when I felt truly at home. Yet, without actually being home home, I still feel such a gap - a gaping hole really.

It was on your soil I was born and it was to your soil I returned 32 years later, only to have to leave again. One day I will be back. I will come back to the land, the people, and the culture where I, for once in my life, felt whole and complete in all of my un-wholeness and incompleteness. I felt fully assembled in my disassembled ways. Parts of my life I have never been able to understand or even think about suddenly made sense in ways that I didn't and couldn't understand at the time, but in hindsight, what I do know is that my mind and my body knew where home home was. I knew where I was created and where I touched first. I constantly feel your pull and your presence in my life since returning to Minnesota, and it only grows stronger and stronger.

I had forgotten about you for so much of my life only because I never knew you. How could I remember something I never knew? But in not knowing you and in forgetting you, I never knew that part of who I was and have always been. Day after day, moment after moment, I continually forgot about my own self. Just as I was removed from Korea, Korea was also removed from me. I've spent the last couple of years slowly beginning to find my way back. I will spend the rest of my life continuing to find that confluence in me of the two rivers - the River Han in South Korea and the Mississippi River in Minnesota - and my life will never be separate from where it all began and what has always been a part of me.

Angry 4:30am Rant

It's 4:31am and I am angry.

I have made it through the extreme sadness, cant eat, cant get off the couch phase, and now I'm angry.

I am angry that for the 4th night in a row, you've been a part of my dreams where talking to you is like talking to a brick wall.

I am angry that unless I initiate some kind of contact, you probably never would.

I am angry that you tell me that you care about me. You tell me at least we're friends. Yet, I've never been treated like a friend by you.

I am angry with myself for giving too much, sharing too much, caring too much. I trusted you and gave you alot of my life and myself that I dont just give to anyone, and for what? A door slammed in my face without explanation.

I am angry that I have to be so upset by this.

I am angry that it was so easy for you to walk away and never turn around. Ever.

I am angry that I could be treated so disrespectfully.

I am angry because I feel violated in some pretty deep ways.

I am angry that I am so angry.

I am angry that much of my life now contains this unwashable residue from you. I cant do much of anything without being reminded.

I am angry because it feels like I'm not allowed to talk to you. Again. I thought our agreement was to not slam doors anymore.

I am angry because I let you in when I feel like I shouldnt have if it was going to turn out this way.

I am angry because I dont understand. I get that you dont know, or at least that's what you tell me, but I can still be angry about it.

I am angry that it still has to hurt this bad.

I am angry because you keep coming into my dreams. Sleeping is the one and only chance I have to escape my sadness, my frustration, my heartache, and my anger. You wont talk to me in real life, but you wake me up at 4:30am...

I am angry because I thought getting this out of me on here would make me feel better, but it just makes me feel more angry that it didnt.

A Prisoner in Silence

For the past two mornings I have woken up on my couch. I don't even remember falling asleep here the night before. My body is twisted and contorted in the blankets as part of me is crammed into one corner, part of me is dangling off the edge, and at least one limb is wedged down behind the cushions. As I lie there trying to piece together the events of my life that have led up to this moment this morning, it just comes across as a blur - an unbelievable blur. My apartment is silent except for the light breathing of my two slumbering cats, and the lazy hiss of the radiator. I've been waking up around 7am and the sleepy morning light that streams through the windows is both inviting to engage with the world out there, but also insistent that perhaps buried in my couch is the best place to be today.

In those first few moments of coming into awakened consciousness, I feel restless. I know my dreams have been filled with a sense of anxiety, uncertainty, pain and suffering. I cannot remember them when I wake up, but my body and my mind are tired in such a way that suggests a battle throughout the night with these sorts of things. As my senses slowly tune into all that is around me, still twisted and half buried in my couch, all I can feel is the absence, the silence, and the sorrow. Yes it is another day and another start, but it is painfully lacking what used to be. It wasn't a smooth transition. It was a violent jolt out of what once was into a dark abyss. I am desperately trying to cling to the sides - to anything that will keep me from falling. And all the while I keep repeating, "this is not my life."

I have spent most of the past two days watching the world through tear-filled eyes. It doesn't take much these days - a sound, a sight, a memory, a place, a subtle breeze - hell, even a crumb on the floor would probably make me lose it. As I am walking from moment to moment I become so overcome with emotion that I literally cannot breathe. My throat swells shut and I have to stop and literally gasp for air and try to calm down. I feel out of control of my body. It does what it does. I try and control my emotions and my thoughts. I expend so much energy each day trying to get through it without completely losing my composure. To say it is grueling would be an understatement. It's constant, persistent, nagging, abrasive, and refuses to give up its occupancy in my being. It makes me tired, yet I refuse to give up. I refuse to give into this fight for something that I believe in and know in my heart of hearts is true. What kind of a person would I be if I did that?

When I came home from Korea, I remember having similar battles with my body and my emotions. I was scared and felt completely out of my element. My life and the world that I knew was completely tossed upside down. In coming back, I had no choice but to make sense of it again. Try as I might, there was a void that could never be filled. And while it has ebbed and flowed since I've been back, I can still feel its presence or some left over pieces of it floating around - unable to be corralled. I gained a new perspective, many new perspectives, on my own life throughout that experience. As the emotions swirled, the thoughts jumbled and collided, and as my body broke down, I knew I had to find a way to heal.

The ability to use my voice, whether audibly or written, has been one of the most healing aspects of my various life journeys, including Korea. For the past couple of days I feel that I have not been able to use one of the my most therapeutic and necessary tools. Holding my words, my thoughts, my emotions in, with no release, is destructive and imprisoning. I'm held captive by my own silence. Let my voice be the flashlight. Let my voice be the ribbons tied to the trees so you can find your way home. Let my voice continue to speak of beautiful things that you know are true and you know are right within your heart and mine. Let my voice be heard in a way that you haven't heard it yet. Please...

Another Beginning to be Had

Finally, a curve in the road. I could finally see what lie ahead of me instead of staring into the back end of a maroon Toyota Scion. Brake lights on, brake lights off, brake lights on - sustained for about 7 seconds - brake lights off, brake lights flicker and blink momentarily - inch by inch we crawl forward.

The bend in the road allowed me to see the snaking traffic as it coiled and slithered its way around the lanes of the freeway as they divided off into various directions - casting cars off to where? Home? Evening jobs? The gym? Out with friends? To nowhere? Perhaps ust to more road to travel for many purposes, or no purpose at all.

In a sea of taillights reaching - stretching - further than I could see, I let myself zone out into the music that coursed through the interior of my car. It allowed for a dissociative kind of retreat from the back of the Scion and the countless red lights sometimes swelling in luminosity - brake lights off, brake lights on, etc. The ambient tones of the music and the rumbling pacing beat of the bass offered a much welcomed auditory massage. I hate rush hour traffic.

As I was rounding the bend where 35W winds its way down to 94W, I remember glancing over at the Minneapolis skyline. The steam that rose from various buildings created a low lying cloud of sorts that blocked out the bottoms of the skyscrapers. It was a floating city, hovering silently next to the noise, the buzz, the sloppiness, and the impatience of rush hour traffic. My music seemed a fitting soundtrack to this floating city. The juxtaposition both visually and emotionally was alarming and jolting, yet, in that moment, it fit. It made sense. The effect seemed natural and familiar. The mismatch was one that only a smack back into reality could demolish. Otherwise, I am fairly certain I would have lived the rest of my life thinking Minneapolis was a floating city and the traffic was the sea of red that churned and coursed below its surface.

I was on my way to meet a friend I hadnt seen in some time. I was late. Only finding relief in that brief moment I glanced over at the skyline, I was annoyed by the traffic, my dirty windshield from the road spray, and the slower-than-snail's-pace that we were crawling. As my eyes shifted from the buildings back to the road, my phone rang. I answered. What happened next would mark one of the hugest significant changes in my life.

For the past several months I had been working extremely hard applying to PhD programs. This included taking the much dreaded GRE. In not a whole lot of time I dedicated my life it seems to writing personal statements, revising writing samples, filling out applications and dealing with frustrating technicalities, and gathering letters of recommendation. I shed more tears than I wanted to studying for the GRE. I wore out my brain and I wore out my body. I have been waiting for the last month to hear whether or not I would get into a program. I met with faculty in the departments I applied to. I still have more meetings yet to come. I researched and gathered as much information as possible. Most of all, I sent out as much positivity and hope to the Universe where I truly felt a door was open for me. If I was good enough, and this was really my time, I would be allowed to walk through.

Tonight around 6 o'clock, stuck in rush hour, and existing in a moment of surrealism, staring at the floating city wandering off into my music, and reality, watching in agonizing frustration the back of that Scion, I got a call. My primary application reviewer was on the other line. In all of the words he shared with me of my acceptance into the Family Social Science PhD program, all I remember are the following: "We all think you're terrific" and "We hope you will choose Family Social Science." There was something about February 19th, which I think is the welcome retreat and more about a letter I should be receiving in the near future.

My body was so overcome by excitement and joy. This acceptance means far more to me than just furthering my academic and professional pursuits. It signifies the beginnings of a new beginning. It's a prominent mark in my life journey and I honestly believe it is the Universe giving me an opportunity to begin - begin so many things. In those few minutes after the call, I traveled to the furthest quadrants of the world! I traveled back through almost 33 years of life and back again. The only thing keeping me in one piece was my seatbelt! If I didnt think I would cause the death of innocent drivers or even myself, I would have thrown on the emergency break, jumped out of my car, and sprinted through the lanes of traffic pounding on hoods, screaming, laughing, and crying. With my heart pounding, my body literally vibrating, my face numb, an ear to ear smile, and tears in my eyes, the phone calls rolled out.

2010 ended with a bang. 2011 has begun with an explosion! I still wait to hear from the School of Social Work about whether or not they will accept me into their PhD program. I should hear sometime in March. For the time being, I for sure know I have the option and opportunity to begin my studies in Family Social Science focusing on adoption research and the intersections of racial, ethnic, and cultural identities and GLBTQ identities. I am beyond excited to embark on this new adventure. Thank you to everyone who supported me and helped me in various ways. Thank you especially to those who had to put up with me during the process when I wasnt the most pleasant to be around. Your belief in me and encouragement has meant so much - much more than a thank you could ever convey. For now a thank you is what I have. Perhaps if I studied my GRE vocabulary more I would have a better selection of appreciative sentiments!

Hockey Ponds, Woods, and Monkey Bars

The house I grew up in is situated in a precarious place if you think about it. It's almost is if the very land it sits on exists only to provide the ground on which to support a house, a yard, and many many memories. The address is at the dead end of a residential street on a neighborhood that has been around since, I believe, sometime in the 40s. The long dirt driveway that descends into the cozy hollow where the house sits, surrounded by a small patch of forest that has lost its denseness and extensive land cover over the years, is actually owned by the city. As part of the easement with the property, we have permission to use it as a driveway - our only escape to the rest of the world, at least by vehicle.

Our backyard looks out upon a newer housing development that tore up the woods and poisoned the ground water with toxic chemicals that leaked out of metal barrels buried beneath the ground by a major corporation that built up on the land just a couple of blocks away. The street that winds its way through this newer neighborhood, created sometime in the early 90s, is lined with modern houses that went up in less than two weeks. Every third house repeats a similar design and color-scheme. It's drab and commercial - unexciting and a symbol of our desire for fast, new, material and cosmetic things. Our backyard still contains the monkey bars built by my father in the early 80s that now provide a secure structure and foundation for various vines to scale - twisting, turning, and hugging the wooden beams and metal bars as they continue to reach for what lies just beyond. Rising above the monkey bars and our crab apple tree, the old, white, stucco house rises higher than the other homes upon its throne as it sits on top of a small hill that used to provide hours of sledding fun in the winter for two little kids who were barely taller than the snowdrifts that accumulated back there.

Through our front yard, yet another newer housing development built during the late 80s/early 90s, depleted the large grassy hill that was the site of kite flying in the summer and sledding excursions in the winter. A holding pond stands between the limits of our front yard and this neighborhood. I grew up learning how to play hockey on this pond. During the winter, I remember waking up and peering out my window which had a nice bird's eye view of the pond. If I saw anyone up there, I was immediately out the door, my jacket barely on, dropping a trail of skate blade covers, hockey pucks, and mittens as I sprinted up to the pond to join in the fun. I would be on the pond from sun up to sun down. I can still hear the sounds of our skate blades scraping the smooth surface of the ice, carving out our existence and our memories. I still see the pucks racing across the ice slapping from stick to stick. The footbridge that one of the neighbors built across the pond is filled with boots, skate guards, extra sticks and pucks, and slowly accumulates more jackets and hats as we strip layers as our games pick up and we sweat more. The neighbors would plow the pond after a snowfall and would occasionally flood it so we had a smooth surface on which to play some massive neighborhood pick up games. The neighbors installed strong flood lights that would illuminate the pond through the night. Some of the best memories of my life have taken place on that pond. It was the central hub that not only brought together two neighborhoods, but also the friends and families of the residents of these two neighborhoods. Holidays oftentimes brought extended families and distant friends. It seems everyone found a place on that pond whether it was playing hockey, sledding down the hill between the houses, or warming themselves by the fires that we sometimes built on the frozen shores. As I've grown older and moved away, so have all of the kids that I played hockey with. Sometimes when I am visiting my mom, I will find myself gazing out of my old bedroom window at the old pond. Today it is desolate, dark, uncared for and as much as I am filled with the memories of yesterday, I am also filled with some sadness of my distant childhood memories.

I think about the places, spaces, and times that used to be home for me - the significance of their meaning and existence in my life then, and the memories I have of them today. Many times I long for the days when life seemed easy - get up and play hockey with the neighborhood all day, build forts in the woods in our backyard, fly kites on top of the grassy hill, and the variety of competitions we would have on the monkey bars. Life was carefree and easy. I didnt have to think, I just had to play. The only worrying I did about tomorrow was hoping that there'd be enough people on the pond to play hockey or that my neighbor friends would be home and able to come and play in the woods. Today life is far from a day-long hockey game or an awesome tree fort in the woods. What home and family has meant to me has never changed in definition besides all of the oftentimes challenging events that have taken place in my life. When I'm visiting my childhood home, where my mom still lives, I can see us in the cul-du-sac playing baseball or street hockey. I see all of us racing our bikes down the street. I still remember the one neighbor yelling at us all the time for tearing up his yard playing football. It was just the perfect yard for it. How could we not? I am still up on the pond playing hours of hockey. I am exploring the woods with my friends building tree forts and having Goonies (80s movie reference) adventures. I am still climbing all over our monkey bars with my friends - making our way to the top and shimmying out to the middle to sit talking about those important life topics that 13 year-olds find important.

For me, becoming an adult was not an easy transition. Rather, it has been full of many challenges, difficulties, and pain. Of course there have been many positives as well. I certainly dont mean to paint such a dreary picture, but, something happened along the way that jolted me away from those fun, carefree childhood memories. People left my life. For many years through adolescence into early adulthood, I felt like my life was comprised only of people leaving, relationships ending, and people I thought I knew becoming strangers to me. Worst of all, I think I became estranged from my own self. The past 6 years or so have marked a journey of self re-discovery for me. I've worked hard to connect my childhood with my adulthood by filling in the gaps of those missing lonely years. The path is unfamiliar and sometimes feels too challenging to continue on, but, every moment of every day, I continue to put one foot in front of the other. Each step I take I am discovering something new about myself - or perhaps I am reacquainting myself with parts of me I forgot or left behind long ago.

I was reading my friend's blog the other day and she had posted a poem by Veronica A. Shoffstall. One of the lines in there really stuck out to me and I wanted to share it here:

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

As I continue down my life path, I have come to realize that no matter how much I want someone to bring me flowers, no one ever will. I will say I dont pride myself on my green thumb or interior design abilities, but I also know I have barely tried. As I begin this new calender year and this new year in my life with 33 fast approaching, I commit to myself to hone in on my gardening and design skills. Even if it's sloppy and the flowers don't grow right away or choke each other out, I will continue to try. I promise to not clutter my soul with old habits and thought patterns because life and people in my life are good. I am good. I deserve to tend my own garden and to choose my own wall-hanginings. I will try to live my life on that old hockey pond and in our woods - places that not only remind me of home, but ARE home. And it is in my home where my garden exists and continues to grow. Now, it's time to water.