Transcript: Episode 8
8. The China Cabinet
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
I'm sobbing and it's ridiculous. I'm crying and crying because we just sold a china cabinet. Which is so silly. I'm not a person that needs any kind of status. And I don't care about those kinds of things. It's not who I am. And it's not even that it's important. I know it's just a piece of furniture.
But we're moving, unexpectedly, suddenly, more quickly than I ever could have imagined happening. I got home from my week away and barely walked in the door when our phones went off with an alarm that we had set, like a notification, from an app that we hadn't even used in almost two years. We had set it to notify us if any homes large enough for our family opened up in the town where the husband's parents live. Because there was nothing when we tried to move down here when the pandemic started and the hospital sent us to the country for our daughter. Well, there were two and the one closest to his parents at the last minute they decided to sell instead of rent to us. So we came to the only home there was big enough for our family. And that still was sharing rooms and dividing up spaces. We are not picky and we don't need fancy. But there's eight of us, and that's a lot to squeeze into a home, even if it's just basics.
And we landed in this beautiful place on our hill. And we've played so hard and so long these months, almost two years, 20 months, one week and three days. And finally today they announced vaccines for 5 to 11 year olds. Our children cheered and jumped and I cried that we had finally made it when it's been so hard and so long, even though also we've been okay. So I don't mean to complain, but it's been far more emotional than I expected. I came into this with a daughter who was dying, and we've all made it out alive. Not just alive, but rested and thriving, well-nourished and doing well. We are happy.
It's like the years that took together our family were so traumatic and so difficult. And yet, by default the pandemic and the quarantine we've endured offered us some kind of sabbatical away from the world, away from the court system and foster care, away from even pickup lines and drop offs. Just us. Together. Here. And it was good for us, even though it was also hard sometimes.
And because I learned to grieve here, I learned to cry here, and my worlds overlapped here in ways that were not good for me outside of our land. Even though our home itself has been beautiful and perfect and beyond description, I can't even tell you. With the animals, horses and cows and goats and pigs and llamas, the chickens, foxes and birds, butterflies and dragonflies, humming birds. I can't tell you how magical this place has been for us. How sad I am to leave it. Even though also leaving is what I wanted, and now my wish has been granted.
When the pandemic started and we were searching for a home, we used an app and set notifications just to alert us anytime a home opened that was big enough for our family. Because it has been so difficult to find housing. We have been entirely content here. Except the husband has been gone since Valentine's Day. Almost a year. Nine months now. And when delta hit and things got really bad here, he couldn't come home at all for over four months. That's too long, even for our family, who's used to taking turns because he used to travel for his musicals and productions. And I had to travel for work. This was too long, and it was too hard. And I can't care for them and myself on my own entirely. Even with resources, when delta hit, I don't know what we would have done without the chickens. The grocery stores closed and we couldn't get to more food. I had some saved and friend sent some through the mail. But it was difficult.
And we've complained a lot. The one thing that we do complain about is the internet here. Because of satellite, it's been so difficult to stay connected to do podcasting, to attend zoom meetings, or to get our computer to even work. And that's what I'm most excited about for moving, that we'll have internet again.
But our phones went off that day I got home from my trip. And we were both surprised the husband and I. And we looked and it was a beautiful home. There was no way we even had a chance of getting it. But we applied anyway. Because it's just down the road far enough, but not too far from the parents, his parents. And it's in the best schools in town. So the children will be safe when they go back to public school. And have the IEP accessibility stuff that they need, like an interpreter for our oldest daughter. Whereas they wouldn't have any of that here, just because they don't have the resources. And it backs up to the woods. So even though we won't have country roads and animals like we did here, we have friends who are helping with the animals already, who will keep them. Who shared them with us and let the children grow through those experiences. They'll take them home and the animals will be happy with their friends, their brothers and sisters and cousins. And the children are happy to know that.
But it is next to the woods in a good way. And there's a cave and a creek and plenty of room for the children to keep exploring and playing outside, even though it's also a neighborhood with families next door with children their ages. And they've been kind to us already. So I'm not even as anxious as I thought I might be. And they're all vaccinated, which matters to our family not because of politics but because of our daughter are. So there are safe people to play with outside. And our children will have friends for the first time in 20 months. It is good and right. We had to try.
But we also had to be transparent. We need a place we can stay not a place that we're going to have to find another home in six months. We can't keep moving them around. We've had to move so much because of the hospitals. But now it's time to go home. This town where the husband grew up. They need a home. They need friends. They need attachment. This is where the children are from. And so it's good for them to come back. And after all of them are vaccinated, they'll be able to visit their biological families again as well, in ways that are safe and appropriate, and healing for them.
Even though we are sad to leave this beautiful place that has been such a respite for us, leaving is good and right. And our new home is lovely. And with a huge, great room in the bottom floor that we can divide up into more rooms. It ends up with everyone having their own space. Even me with a little cubby area in the closet, where I can podcast and do zoom meetings, without the children having to go outside or have to watch a movie. Plus, they'll be in school sometimes, which gives me space for therapy again, for the first time in two years. Space to let myself fall apart. And maybe that's why I'm crying already. I'll have an office, and there's space for my work. And there's space for that husband do his crafts and his projects and his musical production preparation. He has new projects lined up and things are starting to develop again as quarantines lift and the theater world comes back to life. And it's all given us hope.
I even had my appointment with the ENT, my surgeon who did my cochlear implant surgeries. And he's given me the medical approval for new upgrades to my cochlear implants. I don't have to have surgery again. But just his signature means that my implants will go from $20,000 apiece to only $2000. And that makes it possible. I'll be able to hear again. I'll hear music in both ears for the first time. And I'll be able to edit podcasts more frequently, more easily, and better quality without it taking so many spoons or so much time.
It's as if life is starting again. Slowly, carefully, intentionally, with enough transition that I don't feel pressured or rushed like I was afraid I would. As if quarantine being over would just be a day I woke up and no one warned me about. I feel like it's happening carefully. And I know that it's coming, and it's giving me time and space to adjust. Even though it's still hard.
And it is hard. It was weird to see people in person even just to get our lease signed for the house. But after meeting our family and seeing the children, he waived our deposit, which saves us money to be able to take our time moving one van load at a time because we're not going to pay for a truck, because we can't pay for movers, and we can't ask for help from the church until after the littles are vaccinated.
All of this just to tell you a silly story that doesn't matter to anyone except for me about the china cabinet.
I have fancy china with fancy stemware and glasses from Europe. It only matters because I have so few good things from my childhood. It's not about any kind of impression or anything that anyone notices. And I don't keep it stored away like my mother did. We eat on it every Sunday and every holiday Anytime that children make up a holiday. They like using the tea cups. And tea parties are always more fun with fancy dishes.
But over the years through all our moves, we've had to make special trips to move the china cabinet on our own, carefully, a certain way, because it was the only way to get it move safely. And it's been pretty epic. Because the sides are curved glass, glass that would be difficult and expensive to replace. Glass I could not afford to replace. And so it's been very difficult to get it moved every time. And in places like in Kansas where the houses are built up instead of out, it was difficult to get it upstairs and around corners and try to get it in its place. And when the husband and I talk about traveling someday, it's not a piece of furniture we could take with us abroad or somewhere else if we wanted to live there. And so it's something we've talked about from time to time over the years. It's not like it's been out of the blue.
But somehow it's sacred. Somehow it's sacred in a way that got passed on to my children. They have often argued about who might inherit it when I die. Even when I remind them I'm still in the room. But it really was not going to make another move. That top part was being propped up by pieces of what was left of one of the legs of the front. And in the new house, there was nowhere really good to put it safely, wherever children wouldn't break it. And I decided that I didn't want to see it die. I didn't want the children to feel the weight of being the ones who broke it. And the house has a place to hold the dishes for Sunday.
It's not that they've not broken dishes before. They have broken pieces of the China before. And that's what we used with some cheap cement—which is ironic, really, and such a mixture of reality—but that's what we used to make a marker for my mother's tomb. Well, where we buried her ashes, I mean. Because I could not pay for a tombstone. And so I just made one out of broken china. Somehow that was symbolic of her who so wanted to be someone she was never allowed to be. And a generation before therapy was accessible or acceptable. A mixture of China and cement.
I grew up Dusting the china cabinet. Cleaning the house and doing my chores for protection and my own effort at survival of my childhood. I dusted it carefully, the edges of the glass, around the corners all the way down the sides of the china cabinet, in between it's bear paw claws on the floor. I cleaned the glass. I kept it nice. It was the only nice thing that we had. And I took care of it my whole life
But here's the thing. That china cabinet is not my mother. The china cabinet is not a replacement of the mother, of the relationship that I wish I had had with my mother. The care I gave it does not replace the care that someone should have given me. And I am tired of carrying around weight that does not belong to me. And it was time to let it go.
We also had a solemn ceremony of some sort designed by my children, in the most adorable and safe way, to let go of the football the therapist mailed back to us, to let go of the pages of notebooks that we wrote to her but never talked about that became our book. We have the book, the outline of our story, the things that we need to talk about in therapy. We don't need the notebooks anymore. not the old ones from before. We got them organized and typed up and the book is published. And we know our story. So it's time to work on it in therapy directly, with new notebooks if we need them. But I don't need to move them to the new house. All of our appointment cards and all the letters that she's written, and the cards that she sent, and the things that confused us about what our relationship meant, we let go. Because it's not healthy to be confused about what is being offered, or what is being given, or who you are to someone.
Because I matter in the world. And I am important because I'm me. Not because someone else pays attention or not. Not because someone else notices or not. Not because of a piece of furniture. And I am not a piece of furniture and my own life. Or in someone else's. I'm a person. And I'm going to be treated like a person. And the things in my home will be things that the husband and the children and I created to be comfortable, and cozy and function as a family. Not a museum of things and pieces of a life that cared nothing for me, of a life that harmed me. And so I've been letting go of things, of pictures, of pieces of a life that never was. Because waiting for that to be something is a kind of dissociating from what really is. And I want to be present and aware, and see what there is to see and know what there is to know, and have an accurate understanding of my own experience and the world around me.
And so I cried this morning. I cried hard. Because men showed up to my house, which is always a trigger for me. And they took my china cabinet apart and put it on a dolly and wheeled it away. And now there's a blank space on my wall from a life that never was. A life where I tried really hard to be what was expected of me. A life where I tried really hard to be good enough. A life where I tried really hard to present myself in the best way to be accepted, to be loved, to be chosen, to be cared for, to be responded to. And it never was this was.
This was my end of quarantine. Saying goodbye to the illusion I've held on to for so long. Saying goodbye to myself. That was still waiting for someone to care. This was my beginning of going back to life. Choosing myself. Of saying hello to the world that does participate, that does care, that does tend to me. To those who have tried so hard to show that they are here, that they see me as I am, and love me as I am. All of me.
It was a death of Hope moment, watching the china cabinet roll away. Because my parents aren't coming back. They're gone. They're dead. My parents aren't going to care the way I want to care, the way I needed them to care. My parents are never going to show up the way I needed them to show up. My parents are not going to be tender to me. Because they weren't, and it's done.
But also, as I've learned to feel my feelings and to see truth in my life, I've also learned to define myself. That there are boundaries between me and the world. That those boundaries keep me safe. From harm, from neglect, from torture, and people who cause harm. And having caregivers who hurt me is about who they are, who they were, who they chose to be, not about me.
So it's not just letting go of a china cabinet. It's letting go of the responsibility for it. And my burden is lighter. I am lighter. The world is lighter. We are moving less than we have ever had to move before. And not just because we don't have babies anymore. But because I’m not responsible for the whole world anymore. Because I'm not waiting for the world to keep their promises anymore.
I'm here. And I've learned to be here, to hold my own space, to fill up my own space, to care for me, and to tend to me. I am not in any kind of desperate situation waiting for someone to rescue me or solve my problems. I'm doing just fine. Even while my story continues to unfold. Even though I'm not finished. It's not a piece of furniture that's sacred. It's me. My life. I am holy and pure and real because of who I am. Because I am. Because I am me. Because I'm here. Because I'm a child of God.
How people treat me doesn't change that. My circumstances don't change that. What's happened to me doesn't change that. Trauma doesn't change that why they're my parents cared for me their best or not, doesn't change that. Whether my family cared about me at all, doesn't change that.
There's grief still. And so I cry. But that's okay. Because it is a sad thing to be alone. It is scary thing. It is an awful thing for no one to care, for no one to stop the harm, for no one to step up or show up. That's worth grieving.
But in the present, I am not alone anymore. I am here. I am acceptable. I am worthy. I have something to offer. Not in trite affirmation kinds of ways, but in real and authentic and substantive ways. And the people who do care, and the people who are present, and those who do participate know this, appreciate this, respond to this, participate in this, are present in this with me as we share our journeys together.
I came into the pandemic in crisis betrayed, violated, retraumatized and alone. I'm coming out of the pandemic with deep knowing, progress in my healing, an increased capacity to be strong, to tolerate my own feelings, to stay present, to know what I need, to know what's good for me and what isn't, and how to say so.
And I have friends. In learning to feel my feelings, and to be real with myself about who I am and what I need, and why it matters because of what I've been through, I've developed friendships, relationships, connections with other people, humans on the planet like me. We are not alone. We are in this together. And we are more than a piece of furniture in this world. And we are worth more than any piece of china.
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