Leaving Neverland

The Plan

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 20:01:00 +0000

*Pause for major life changes*

AAAAAAAAAAAaaand we’re back.

Hi there! Thank you for joining me once more. A lot has occurred in the time that I’ve spent away. One day I’ll talk about it here. It’s on my ever-growing list titled: “Things That Really Are Important to Me, and One Day I Swear I’m Going to Get to Them, but Not Today Because I am So Very Tired, and I’d Rather Eat Junk and Go to Bed Early. So, Tomorrow Probably, or Maybe Not.” When I do, rest assured that it will be an eloquent summary of my innermost processing of topics that are highly relevant and connected to my purpose here both big and small.

BUT! Not today! Today is for venting! Today is shouting my pain into the internet. (You know, the place it’s supposed to go).

Today, like so many days in recent history, I find myself growing frustrated and impatient with adults. This may seem easy to do, because there are so many adults that are truly garbage humans. There are also so many adults that are trying their best, and they mean well, but are just tripping and falling all over this thing called life. Let me be clear, my frustration and lack of patience is not for these obvious targets. I have a surprising amount of compassion for those diverse classes of people.

My frustration and intolerance grows evermore for the “educated” and “enlightened” adult. The adult who doesn’t think they know better. The adult who knows they know better because they are the grown-up, and they learned about things in school or from their healthy upbringing. I am starting to believe that these people are more dangerous than those with obvious challenges and inadequacies. We tell ourselves and our children that we can trust these idiots. Yet, they lead us so continually astray.

Where is this coming from?

Thanks for asking.

So many many places.

But, today, in particular, I found myself sitting with a 10-year-old Sad kid. This is a child that has been through so much, and really needs the universe to give them a substantial hug. This kid is sad. This kid has every right to be sad. This kid is not disruptive. This kid is quiet, and hopeless. This kid does not feel that they can ask questions or advocate for themselves. Sad. You get the picture.

We are sitting together playing with slime (as you do) and this child spontaneously declares “my music teacher and I have a plan!”

“Oh yeah?” I respond with curiosity and naïve hope.

“Yep!” Kiddo pipes up. “If I have a good week, he has this plushy that has these squishy things in it, and he said I could have it.”

“Wow!” I join in kiddo’s excitement. “What exactly is a good week though?”

I’m asking because I want this kid to realize that “good” is a value statement, and it has no specific expectations, or concrete information, for anyone. “Good” is vague, and confusing, and means different things to different people. What I consider to be “good,” can be very different from what the music teacher considers to be “good,” and it likely is very different form what the math teacher considers to be “good.” This is confusing to kids (and me quite frankly) who are constantly looking around for some sign of what we want from them.

“It means, if I don’t get upset, and don’t use the cool down space,” kiddo clarifies.

*Here’s where I go off the rails*

For a whole week?! The expectation is that this child does not get upset for a whole week of music lessons, otherwise it’s not “a good week?” Also, we’re rewarding a week in which this child does not use the identified “cool down space?”

Step One: Don't get Upset

Step Two: if you happen to get upset (which you weren’t supposed to do), stifle it so that you can stay in class and not use the space we tell you is for going when you are upset.

Maybe you think I’m over reacting, and admittedly I am exaggerating my response some. I assume that this adult was well-intentioned. I assume that he meant to encourage the child to feel happy and participate in class. I assume the best intentions. It’s this assumption, however, that makes me angry. By attempting, in this way, to encourage happiness, this grown up is saying, uncomfortable feelings are to be discouraged, and doing something that tells me you are upset is not to be rewarded.

This is the message we all say to kids. We are saying, we want you to feel happy. We are saying, if you are unhappy, you are doing the undesirable. You do not get a reward if you feel something other than happy. Ignoring for a moment that the upset feeling itself is a lack of reward. Ultimately, what this boils down to is a message that unpleasant emotions in other people make us feel uncomfortable, and therefore we must discourage their safe and appropriate expression at all costs.

Earlier this year I was talking to a 7-year-old who screamed at me and called me names. He shouted, for all the world to hear, “you’re not making me feel better!” He was angry, and I wasn’t taking that away from him. How did I respond?

I sat down. I sighed. I said, “that’s not my job Friend.”

He persisted. He believed it was my job to make him feel better. I was there for him because he felt “bad.” What was I doing if I wasn’t fixing it?

I validated that belief and his anger, and I explained “you get to be mad. It is normal to be mad, and sad, and all other feelings you can think of. That’s normal. My job is not to take that from you. My job is to help you know what to do with it when your feelings are so big that you don’t know what to do. My job is to help you learn what to do with big feelings that are uncomfortable feelings.”

That’s our job folks. It’s not just my job. I can’t do it alone. It's for everyone. We have to manage ourselves, and to ask for help when we can’t. It’s our job to know our needs and to tend to them so that we don’t take them out in ways that are unhealthy and disruptive and make us feel worse.

We send these messages so early on that what we want from others is for them not to be anything other than “good” or “happy.”

“No more crying.”

“Don’t get mad if it doesn’t work.”

“There’s nothing to be scared of.”

Your feelings matter less than mine.

We want you to feel an emotion that doesn’t make us uncomfortable. That’s what we will reward. When you don’t, we’ll shame you and wonder why you didn’t make the right choice. We’ll wonder what happened in your life that made it, so you turned out to be one of those garbage people or those well-meaning adults who just can’t get it together. “What’s wrong with them?” We’ll ask ourselves, blaming you for the problems you have or cause.

The “functional”, “successful,” “educated”, and “enlightened” members of society will scream into the void at the traumas of the world and blame these people for not knowing how to behave in the ways that we told them all along they needed to. We will do anything we can to avoid looking inward and identifying how we contributed to it.

#ADDRESSINGchallenge

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 16:42:00 +0000

Everyone is impacted by power, privilege, and oppression to some degree. I believe that awareness of your areas of privilege helps you to realize ways in which you benefit from your various privileges as well as how you might help those who need a boost. In school, we had to complete the ADDRESSING Framework for ourselves. It's a helpful tool. I challenge you to complete it and share it to start a dialogue. At the bottom, feel free to add other ways in which you believe that your life is easier or harder when compared with those around you. #ADDRESSINGchallenge

Age: I'm 31. I am privileged in that I am old enough to drink, vote, drive, and many other things. Though I lack the freedoms afforded to the youths due to the responsibilities of my age.
Development: (privilege) my intellectual and developmental are in line with my chronological age.
Disability: (privilege) I am able-bodied and in good health. I am able to enter buildings and use every day tools without requiring intervention. (Disadvantage) I am short and often need a stool or a helping hand. I also require prescriptive lenses and struggle with accurate depth perception. I take anti-depressants to combat anxiety.
Religion: (disadvantage) I am agnostic/atheist. I don't believe in a higher power or an after life. This is off-putting to many who would assume that I am a sinner or bad because of that.
Ethnicity: (privilege) I'm white. I had never been denied anything that I wanted because of my race. (Disadvantage) I have felt guilty or that people assumed the worst of me because of my appearance.
Socioeconomic status: (privilege) I'm middle class. I make a good wage and can always afford my bills plus the occasional splurge. I have almost no debt. (Disadvantage) I often worry about savings, and feel I need to save for the things I want.
Sexual orientation: (privileged) I a straight. I am attracted to the opposite gender, and have never worried that who I am attracted to will change how people see me or treat me.
Indigenous heritage: (disadvantage) I don't really know my heritage or the history of my family. I assume, because of my appearance and names that I am of European descent.
National Origin: (privilege) I live and am a legal citizen of the country in which I was born. I am afforded access to all the rights that go along with citizenship in the country I live.
Gender: I am a cisgender female. (Privilege) if you look at me my gender and pronouns are readily apparent. I do not get mistaken for a person of my gender. I am (relatively) comfortable in my body. I feel that it reflects who I believe myself to be. (Disadvantage) I have been denied access to things I want because I am a girl. I have had people call me hurtful names, cut me off, or treat me unfairly because I am a girl. I feel unsafe walking alone at night because of fear of attackers simply because of my appearance.
*I might add to this framework:
Political leanings: I am a democrat living in a liberal area of the country. I do not feel that my political leanings will be judged or disregarded. Though, I do have very closed loved ones who I interact with regularly who have starkly different political beliefs than I do. I have to work hard to check my values and beliefs and balance them with my love for those peoples along with my honesty to myself.

ETA: I also carry privilege in that I feel safe enough to post something of this nature without overwhelming fear of backlash or detrimental judgement.

Two Out of Three

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 23:43:00 +0000

I have never been raped.

I am fortunate. I have been supported by friends and family who allowed me to feel strong and taught me to stand up for myself. My loved ones have always contributed to my feeling of security and importance in this world. I am privileged.

I have never been raped. And still I have been made to feel small, weak, and undervalued.

As a middle schooler, I was followed home by a boy who was bigger and stronger than me. I told him to stop. The next day, he left before me and jumped out of some bushes a block away from my house. He wanted to scare me for a joke. I laughed because I was scared and I didn't know what to do.

I have never been raped.

As an adolescent, my male friends referred to my stylish braids as "handle bars." Again, I laughed. I felt uncomfortable.

Those same friends of mine once worked together to attempt to unbuckle my overalls because they learned doing so would cause them to fall down exposing me in my underwear. When I protested, the 2 of them pushed me forcefully into the nearby boys bathroom. I was backed into a stall, and yelled furiously as they laughed and unbuckled my straps. They then ran away, leaving me alone, in the boys bathroom, in my underwear. I did not laugh. I was astonished.

I have never been raped.

In college, I once had to forcefully shove my elbow into the padded belly of a man dressed as a tomato who felt that the dance floor of a Halloween party was an appropriate time to slither his hand up my shirt and cup my boob. I did not know him. I could not see his face, but I stomped his foot, elbowed his gut and shouted "FUCK YOU TOMATO!" I laugh about this now.

I have never been raped.

In my 20s, when I went out dancing with my friends, we regularly discussed how we would skillfully dance one another away from the unwanted advances of men who felt our enjoyment of music was an appropriate time to touch, fondle or kiss us. I remember spinning a friend away from a man who randomly stuck his tongue down her ear. With my back to him, on a crowded dance floor before we could get away, he grabbed my breast.

I have never been raped.

However, I once purchased a couch from a man who copied my phone number off the sales record. He began texting me. At first I responded, thinking of the possibilities. The messages quickly became uncomfortable, and I stopped responding. He showed up at my apartment a few days later. I hid from him in the elevator.

I have never been raped.

However I have been hit on by men who had wrong numbers and knew nothing about me other than that I sounded female. I once answered the phone at a clinic for survivors of domestic violence and encountered a man seeking treatment for batterers. After I directed him to the appropriate agency, he asked for my number.

I have never been raped, but I have clutched my keys in my hand while trying to find my car in a dark parking lot. I have held my phone tightly in my pocket while riding public transit alone in the dark. I have asked to be escorted to my car in the secure parking garage of my luxury apartments.

I have never been raped. Though some of what I have experienced constitutes sexual assault, I have never been attacked or beaten, and my experiences do not count in the eyes of statistics. Many of my experiences were brief, and easily escaped. Those that weren't, were reported and promptly dealt with before they could escalate. I have been protected, defended, and able to keep my self "safe."

I am one of the lucky ones, and these are facts from my life.

I have never been raped. At least not yet.

I Am A Writer

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 21:04:00 +0000

"My blog is important to me," I have said to myself, a thousand or more times over the last few years.

"I really need to get back to my writing," I thought, kicking myself repeatedly.

I am a writer. Ever since the littler version of me asked her mommy to help her make her own story book back in the beginning of my time, writing has been a part of who I am. I went through a melodramatic poetry phase. Then I wrote for my school news paper. I took creative writing in college. I kept a diary. Then, there was this blog. What I am saying is, I have always been a writer, until recently.

Writing has helped me to process all the thoughts, memories, and experiences that have stuck in my psyche over the years. It has enabled me to truly witness the development of those I help, while simultaneously appreciating my own growth.

For so much of my life, I have felt like a little girl. This sense of perpetual youth has admittedly been helped along by my stature. However, that is not the root of the tension. I write to process this. I write to discover myself. I write to understand why I constantly feel that I have tricked the world into taking me seriously as an adult. I write to understand that it might actually be the other way around. That possibly, the world has tricked me into feeling like a child. I write, because maybe that's not so bad. Children are wonderful, and insightful, and should be celebrated. Does that mean that as I grow up, I lose those things?

I write, so as not to forget myself.

My Imaginary Friend

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 21:04:00 +0000

Like many small children, I had an imaginary friend. My imaginary friend and I did everything together. Her name was Little Min. She was a miniature, older version of myself. We played together all of the time. Then, one day she moved away with her boyfriend. She never came back after that.

What Lies Beneath

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Fri, 08 Jul 2016 06:17:00 +0000

"First thing is first," the over-eager young woman said to me. "I want to learn how to control my anger."

After listening to her explain how she no longer wanted to have explosions and get into fights with her loved ones, I indicated that I knew exactly how to help, but that the answer would likely confuse her. She assured me she was up for whatever I had to say.

"Well," I began. "You're not actually angry when you have an outburst."

Silence filled the room. "What do you mean?" She asked.

I followed with my patented schpeil about how anger is a secondary emotion. I explained that anger sits on the surface, and carries with it a variety of externalizations that are easy to act upon. We discussed how angry people often act without thinking, because anger doesn't require thought. She stayed with me, but insisted that her experiences were solely anger. So, I did what any self-respecting adult does when kids decide they don't know what they're talking about. I bet her a candy bar that I was right.

"Tell me about the last time you got really angry," I invited.

She provided a detailed account of an argument that occurred the night before when her brother had teased her for being forgetful and disorganized.

"Do you like being forgetful?" I asked

"Not really."

"What about being disorganized, is that something you're proud of?"

"I don't mind really," she insisted.

"Does it seem like it gets in your way though?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do your organizational skills make you successful, or unsuccessful?" I asked. I suggested she consider her follow through on homework, her grades, how often she gets in trouble at home, and what for.

"It makes me unsuccessful, I guess."

"Do you like to be reminded of that?"

She shook her head.

"Hmm, so there's some shame there huh?"

"Yeah!" She responded passionately.

"And what happens when you feel ashamed?"

"It makes me mad," she said.

"Bingo."

I didn't make her buy me a candy bar. Instead, we talked about what would have happened if she had chosen to tell her brother about her hurt feelings rather than explode on him. How that might have impacted her reaction, and if he would have received the information in a way that felt emotionally safe for her. Then, we went on to another example of a time she felt angry, and another. Slowly, we pulled out that her anger outbursts really stemmed from feeling incapable, unsupported, and unheard.

In later meetings, she and I worked to define a wide range of emotions so that she could enhance her understanding of how discomfort and pain can vary more widely than black and white; angry or not. Then, I told her about times I felt angry, and had her guess what feeling I was hiding from her. She made a lot of progress.

Did she stop feeling anger all together? Of course not.

Anger, as I have told her repeatedly, is a normal human emotion. We all feel it, and that's okay. The problem is that we often forget to listen to anger. It makes us communicate in ways that we can't hear ourselves, and others don't want to listen to us. This causes more problems than it resolves. Before we know it, we are angry because we are angry, and the original pain is so deeply buried under a colossal pile of anger that we feel suffocated. The trick to resolving that is to reframe our understanding of anger. We need to learn that anger is a cue to listen harder, to ourselves, and to those around us.

Evolution of Imagination

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Sat, 17 Oct 2015 22:33:00 +0000

"Um..could we go for a stroll?" A delayed adolescent boy asked me one day. Of course I agreed, and as we walked he asked, “do you like imagination games?”

I replied with a resounding, “I LOVE imagination games!”

“Would you like to play my imagination game?”

If you’ve read my blog before (which you might not have because it’s been literally forever since I’ve met you all here) this probably sounds like the beginning of my perfect afternoon. Time spent outside, with a kiddo, playing an imagination game, and exploring the themes he develops and works through. Um…yes please!

Unfortunately, this didn’t go the way I expected. The young teen walked me down to the football field, and proceeded to tell me the rules to “the game I play in my head.” The game was called “Clash of Clans,” and if you’re thinking that this is a game that already exists in tableland. You’re right where I am. Open-minded and optimistic, but confused.

***For the reader’s information - As I understand it, Clash of Clans is the new equivalent to a point and click adventure. While there is a back story and one or more goals, the overall action of the game is to “tap” on different parts of the map in order to collect whatever it is they are collecting. In order to play it, you basically sit and watch the game play itself until it has produced something you can “tap” on. Get it? Cool. On with the story!

Kiddo explains to me that we need to build the town barracks, fortress, or some unspecified medieval edifice.

“So,” he says, “first we need to collect wood by chopping down those trees!” He points toward the northwest corner of our line of sight, at about 50 degrees from midline.

“Great!” I energetically declare, as I grip my make believe axe and start to swing.

“No, no!” he reprimands, as though I’m missing the obvious. “You just tap here and slide it.” Kiddo then proceeds to “select” the same area he indicated prior, and slides it horizontally on the same plane. This is when I realize that the game he plays in his head is just that. It is a literal game, that he is playing in his head. What happens next involves me essentially gaping at him as he seems to project an invisible giant tablet into the foreground of his line of sight, and continues to “tap” and “select” unforeseen areas of the map in order to achieve some inexplicable goals.

He narrates the whole thing for me. At times he asks for me to take on a task. He gets annoyed that I attempt to act it out and explains to me, again as if I were an idiot, that I simply need to tap the thing in the air I cannot see. In theory, I should be tracking it. It’s not all that complex. Instead, I notice my heart sinking. I feel helpless. I become slightly annoyed with this game that “we” are playing. Suddenly, I start looking around for excuses to interrupt the game. I grapple with the tension between improving our relationship by allowing him to play, or impeding our relationship by sitting with him for a full hour, irritated with our activity. Eventually I claimed a mixture of “it’s too bright outside for my eyes” (a lame but true fact for those of us with blepharitis and no sunglasses) and “I think you should get back to class so you don’t miss anything.”

Over the next several weeks I struggled with this memory. I love the unexpected and imaginative things that kids do in their minds. It is my favorite when they invite me to witness it. I should find this delightful! So, why did I find it so off-putting?

It wasn’t until recently that I put it all together. I was sitting with a different delayed pre-adolescent. I was observing him to use jenga blocks to create an entire world. In front of me evolved what looked like a cityscape. The same wooden blocks were used as mortar and as character. Blocks spoke to one another, while more blocks constructed skyscapes around them. I was, to say the least, captivated. This was incredible. This kiddo was using his imagination to work out issues. The conversation between his humanoid blocks was rather unintelligible. I have no idea if they were discussing world piece, impact of trauma on world view, or just what ice cream they both like, but it doesn’t matter. This kid was practicing some very useful skills. Whether or not he was aware of it, he was testing the limits of reality, by using his imagination to play out some dynamic scenario.

This is play with a purpose. It is how we learn about ourselves and the world, and it’s crucial. Many species do this. All you need to do is turn on national geographic, and you are eventually bound to see some video of a polar bear, a lion cub, or tiger pup using play to practice very necessary survival skills.

That’s the difference. The mind tablet lacked utility. Kiddo was not using play in the way it was developmentally intended. He was not practicing social skills. There were no social skills being used. The game was entirely one sided. Even when I participated, I had no idea what was going on, and he typically ended up taking over for me. He wasn’t working through survival skills. The clashing clans were warring with one another and protecting their territory, but Kiddo just “watched” and then “tapped” when it was over. The only thing I can see him learning from this process is patience. The work was definitely not hard, and the topics were flagrantly simple.

My sadness and irritation then comes to the question of why? Play exists to help us learn, and kids are incredibly adaptive. Which, means that this kiddo has got to be working through something, and I don’t understand it. This leaves me wondering if I have reached that very depressing aspect of adulthood when I no longer understand “kids these days.” Or worse, is this the work of modern children? Is it becoming a 2-dimensional and nonreciprocal world of “sit and wait,” or “tap and slide”? How painfully sad would it be if children physically reenacting stories turned instead into watching flat projections that no one can see and engage them with? Is our thinking becoming more and more 2-dimensional? Or have I lost my ability to connect?

Time

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 02:21:00 +0000

Having come down with something, I took today off from work. With no responsibilities other than to improve my well-being, I slept in until 11am. I then got up, and planted myself on the couch. I laid there, watching tv, and falling in and out of consciousness all day. (I'm pretty sure I took two naps). With all that rest in my body, all I can think about is time.

In the last year, it seems like something shifted, and there's no more time any longer. My New Year's resolution was to finally begin reading for fun. Since grad school was over and I'd gotten into a routine at work, it seemed that there was finally time to read for pleasure. Well, I've been slowly chipping away at the same piece of KidLit since then. I have a to do list in my brain a mile long. Every time I think I'm close to completing it, another life changing thing adds on to it. It just seems that there's no time for it to ever be complete

Don't get me wrong, I love my life. I'm pretty freaking happy with how things are evolving, but that's just the thing! My world is constantly evolving and changing, and at some point in the last year it picked up the pace. Suddenly, I can't keep up with it. As I try to, I'm reminded of all the time I've lost track of.

Growing up is a process that we so often forget to observe. We get so easily drawn up into the drama of daily life. Before we know it we are rushed down a stream of bill paying, dish washing disputes, un-laundered clothes, car payments, and broken headlights. We get bogged down by the necessities of the holidays, and planning the traditional milestones of our lives that we don't even allow ourselves to notice the time passing by.

Today was perhaps the first in months that I have allowed myself to lay in silence and savor the time. Congested and achey, I provided myself with a long overdue stillness to appreciate the time.

The Only Constant

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 04:45:00 +0000

As a little girl, I enjoyed merry-go-rounds. I would find quiet moments on playgrounds to sneak off to the spinning structure, swiftly run around it, jump aboard, and lay down. As the world spun frantically and madly around me, I'd close my eyes and focus intently on the wind rushing through my hair, the air passing crossed my face, and the sense of movement all around me while I lay their motionless. In the midst of my frenzied and ever-revolving surroundings, I was still.

Just as the younger me spent hours attempting to root myself in an moving and changing climate, the older me frequently attempts to find consistency amongst change.

This is a difficult task, and it's a task many of us take on. Over and over again, we learn that the one thing we can invariably count on is that there will be change. Like it or not, things will be as they are until they aren't. Sometimes we know that change is coming. At times we fear it. Other times we anticipate it. Some of us hunker down. We put our feet in the ground, and we refuse to move with the change. We get stuck, and fall behind. Then there are those of us who attempt to control the change. We try to force it. Knowing growth will come, we apply pressure to our circumstances in an attempt to coerce the change into something that is predictable and expected.

Our varied reactions are a result of discomfort. Change is hard. As a young professional first entering the world of mental health, this was my mantra. I found myself labeling this for kids, parents, and colleagues frequently. Change is hard, and we so rarely allow ourselves to acknowledge that. We want to be okay with change. We need to "be chill" and roll with the punches, but it sucks and we invalidate that all the time.

Change is a fact of life. Our brains and bodies are constantly growing and stretching. The seasons change, and bring a multitude of weather systems. People come and go. Buildings go up. Trees fall down. The ground moves. The waves crash. The world spins...endlessly.

All we can do is look for an opportunity to hop on the merry-go-round, be still, and experience the changes as they come.

Turning Five

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 02:01:00 +0000

Image found here

Recently I found myself seated across a distressed mother asking for my advice. We were discussing her resilient daughter's most recent birthday. She turned five earlier this year, and though she was a bit eccentric this girl was particularly normal. Yet, because of my career path and educational background this mom, like many other parents in my social circle, felt the need to seek out my knowledge. ̶ This is beginning to happen at increasing intervals. It's as though my job reminds people that they could mess up their children, and they need to confirm whether or not they have as soon as they are aware it's a possibility. Fortunately, this has come largely from the well-intended and, albeit neurotic, healthy members of my community. So, I get to smile and listen to cute stories, and reassure people that their child is alright and any screw-ups made obvious are what I like to call "normal."

On this particular occasion, this nervous mother comes to me to ask my opinion of an apparently odd behavior her child had engaged in the night before her fifth birthday. She explains that their family tradition mandated that she read each child a birthday story and tuck them in the night before their birthday. However, on this particular birthday, this woman's daughter struggled with her nightly routine. She power struggled over tooth-brushing, and dawdled in picking out her jammies. This was, evidently, atypical for this little girl. She, unlike most children, had no issue with getting ready for bed, and in fact seemed to enjoy the daily routine. So, my friend was understandably confused when this particularly special nightly routine took upwards of an hour.

But she muscled through it, as all good parents do. She summoned the patience to apply and reapply toothpaste in just the right quantity. She tolerated being targeted with whining words as she calmly brushed her daughter's hair, and she maintained composure as the young girl tried on every single set of pajamas in her dresser. After all, this was tradition. It was the eve of her baby girl's fifth birthday, and she couldn't be more proud of this bossy little girl in front of her.

Eventually, they got everything all settled. She tucked her daughter in, and read her the birthday story. When she was all done, she closed the book and repositioned to look directly at her daughter.

"Tomorrow morning," she whispered lovingly, "you're going to wake up, and you'll be five years old."

She intended to go on further, explaining the excitement and pageantry planned for the day, but she didn't get to. This tireless mother paused because something did not seem quite right. She looked at her little girl, and saw that her widened eyes were full to the brim with tears.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

All at once, this soon-to-be kindergartener wailed out "I don't want to be five!" Before she could even respond, the little girl threw herself in her mother's arms sobbing and heaving. Streams poured out of her eyes, and she repeated in gasping breaths, "I- don't- want - to - be fi-ive!"

Just like any good mother does, she wrapped her arms around her daughter, perplexed by her reaction but modeling self-soothing through tacit and rhythmic shhhushh-ing. After some time, the little girl began to calm. Her tears slowed, and her breathing regulated. The mother waited another minute or so, and then quietly asked "why don't you want to be five?"

And the little girl responded with the answer that would make this mother later wonder what she had done wrong. "Because," she answered, "when you're five, you're a big girl, and I don't want to be a big girl. I like being four. I like all my toys, and I like being at home with you. I don't want to be five."

"What do you make of that? What does that mean?" This mother asked me not too long ago, looking for my diagnostic impression of her child.

"It means you've got a smart kid," I said, and I really meant it.

Readiness to Change

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 04:52:00 +0000

I give my dad a lot of flack and some mild public flogging for the excessively rational manner in which he raised me. My all time favorite thing to razz him about is the time he tried to coax a much younger me off the side of a mountain by telling me I could choose to stay there forever. As an adult, I think back on this encounter and cannot believe someone would say something like that to a child. However, it was so effective that I have since made it my goal to attempt this paradoxically supportive intervention.

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Several years ago I saw my first opportunity. I was working with an oppositional 6 year old boy. We had gone out to a special playground for the afternoon. At some point in the day, he had managed to climb down into the middle of a cylindrical ladder and was pretending to be a caged prisoner. When it was time to leave for the day, we cued all the children to line up. After the chaos of transition, we counted all the little heads and determined we were one short. When I went to find him, he was claiming to be "stuck" inside the barred structure; citing fear to leave. I did what I could to support and encourage him, but it quickly became apparent that his "fear" was more related to a distaste for the end of play time. So, I changed my tact.

"Look dude," I said. "The way I see it, you have two choices. You could choose to stay out here forever, bu-"
"Fine," he cut me off.
Startled, I stammered "but, like, what if you have to go to the bathroom?"
"Okay," he said flatly. He was still fairly young and thus unconcerned with voiding outside a restroom.
"Um...who's going to feed you though?"
"I don't know," he said with a startling degree of ambivalence. The idea that someone might not was not a reality in his mind.

I attempted to persuade him into seeing that there were better choices available to him. However, his developmental state did not allow for getting past the idea that he could choose to stay on the playground forever. I had inadvertently given him permission to defy my expectations. We were screwed. Ultimately, I admitted defeat, and wound up calling my supervisor for back up. She came right out and began the slow but ominous count to three. Problem solved.

Lesson learned. The intervention is a particularly complex one that requires a significant degree of skill and the right kind of child to be able to hear the underlying message. So, I tucked it back into my memory and set it aside for refinement and later use.

Then the time came.

Not long ago, I found myself hanging out with a particularly anxious young woman who had recently learned of an upcoming transition. We sat together as she lamented the difficulty inherent in change. I listened to her express fear of possible failure upon adjusting to something new. I validated her feelings and praised her for past ability to manage herself; attempting to remind her this was not her first experience with change. She continued to evidence worries and concerns to the tune of "what if I can't do it?" "What if nobody likes me?" "What if it's hard?" "What if it's scary?" Allowing me to challenge her on all of these concerns but not yet feeling confidence in herself, she joking declared that she was going to wrap her arms around a nearby structural pillar and refuse to leave her present location.

"You could definitely try it," I smiled.
"Really?!" She looked at me with widened eyes, baffled by my response.
"In fact," I offered up. "let's do it together." I stood up and started to walk towards the identified pillar. My friend remained stationary; staring at me with a perplexed expression.
"But you know," I stopped and turned back toward her. "What are we going to do when you get hungry?"
She shrugged.
"I mean, I guess we could probably arrange for someone to bring you food, but that's probably going to make you feel guilty.
No response, minus a slight smile.
"And, what about when you have to go to the bathroom?"
She knit her eyebrows and slumped her shoulders, an expression I had grown to recognize as irritation with a good point. So, I sat back down and continued in a playful manner.
"Even if we figure that out, eventually the paint on the building is going to chip. Then you're going to get paint chips in your hair, and the maintenance team is probably going to need to fix it, which will result in them trying to physically pry you off, and that sounds awkward."

Her affect started to brighten. Together we began to laugh and joke about the various different factors that would make her release her grip on the building. As the conversation dwindled, I looked her in the eye and delivered the moment of insight I had come to after that cold day on the mountain so many years ago:

"My point is, no matter how bad you want to hang on, eventually something will happen and you will feel ready to let go. It may not be because you want to, and it may not be until after it happens, but eventually you're going to realize that you were ready for a change."

Forcing the Fairy Tale

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Sat, 17 May 2014 03:08:00 +0000

One of the more memorable children I have encountered was a young woman who had a strong affinity for cosmetics. Much of our time together was spent discussing the pitfalls of my eyeliner, or the decorations on her nails. She enjoyed experimenting, and was quite skilled with her materials. This type of rapport building was necessary, as this adorable and likable child was incredibly insecure. She had been raised in poverty and neglect. Described as "the neighborhood child," she spent much of her childhood providing for herself as her ailing caregiver slowly perished in front of her. As a young child, she tended for the one adult she had to love, and fed herself by journeying to the houses of unsuspecting neighbors who took pity on her.

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When this phase of her life regrettably came to a close, she was transported in the middle of the night to a family friend's house where she was told she had to stay with no explanation of why or what had happened. She then lived in transition, without acceptance and space for her grief. She was shuttled repeatedly between households of adults who believed her to be a burden and treated her as such. Forgetting her lack of proper parenting, and refusing to acknowledge her own emotional reaction to loss, disruption, and distress, she was forced to abide by rigid and irrelevant rules.

While in my care, she lamented the world around her. Expressing that adults, well intended and not, had instructed her to believe that the world was an awful place. She'd been coached to radically accept that life sucks, and it never gets better. She was in a pivotal place in her life in which she was attempting to construct her own independence within a framework of dismay and artificial hope.

She sought my guidance often about what to expect for the future. I joined with her in frustration for the "supports" she'd been given, and attempted to convince her that it didn't have to be that way. I spent hours being real with her, telling her that life gets better, while admitting that it always remains hard. She listened attentively. It was a nice story that she liked to hear. She wanted me to tell it over and over again, but for her that's all it was. It was a fairy tale that I was desperately wanting her to buy into.

We parted some time ago. I sent her on her way, set up with as much as I could give her, but knowing it was not enough to fill the unhealed wound that was her childhood. Though I would continue to think about her, I had to accept that it was likely the last time I'd see her.

Until I recently re-encountered her in a circumstance I cannot fully explain, except to say that there was a stage and an open mic. I had seen her early on, sitting in the crowd by herself; her hair hanging in perfectly curled ringlets that covered her face. Near the end of the event, she got up quietly and made her way to the stage. While up there, she caught my eye and we exchanged amused expressions. She seated herself cautiously, gripping the mic with a shaking hand, and sang a melancholic version of Payphone by Adam Levine.

I found myself misty eyed as I watched this young woman nervously sing. As she crooned the following words, I was transported to visions of that poor little girl extracted from a situation without explanation and given to people who would not allow her to process her loss.

"I know its hard to remember the people we used to be. Its even harder to picture, that your not here next to me. You say its too late to make it, but is it too late to try, and in that time that you wasted all of our bridges burnt down. I've wasted my nights. You turned out the lights. Now, I'm paralyzed. Still stuck in that time when we called it love, but even the sun sets in paradise. I'm at a payphone trying to call home. All of my change, I spent on you. Where have the times gone? Baby it's all wrong. Where are the plans we made for two? If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this. All of those fairy tales are full of it."

When she finished, she smiled bashfully at the crowd and returned to her seat. As she passed me by, I couldn't help but reach out and touch her shoulder. She startled and turned toward me.

"That was beautiful," I whispered.

She widened her eyes, reached out both of her arms, and crashed into my shoulder. For just a moment, I gave a tight squeeze back. When she released, we exchanged bittersweet smiles before going our separate ways.

Commitment Issues

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 03:30:00 +0000

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Let me first start by apologizing for my prolonged and unexplained absence. I had an unexpected change to my work schedule that resulted in a lot of late appointments and difficulties rearranging my day to day needs.

This came at a bad time in terms of my writing progress. I was feeling like I just finally got back in the swing of things. My recent blogs were sounding and feeling less forced than they had been. Then, bam! Change of schedule. My routine broke up, and now I'm out of practice again.

To be totally honest, this frustrates me. Just a few years ago I found myself to be frustrated with my blogging peers for their own intermittent commitment to their "passion." At the time, I was following multiple internet authors, and gaining information about the process of running a blog. I found that I enjoyed the predictability of regularly scheduled blogs, and the writing quality seemed to improve with blogs that posted frequently. So, when the posters I followed began to slowly trickle off the internet I declared confidently to myself: "I will never do that."

Certain I could sustain such a problem, I trudged forward with a goal of weekly posting. Thus began Monday Musings. And, I was fairly successful with it. For over a year I faithfully published a post every Monday. Then came my graduate thesis and my internship, and a hiatus seemed in order. It was with great displeasure that I announced my break from Leaving Neverland to finalize my academic pursuits. The plan was always to resume weekly blogs once I earned my degree. However, I'm clearly not holding strong to that plan. My epic writers block and jam-packed schedule have made blogging and book-writing take a back seat, and I hate how this looks. It would seem like I no longer care about this endeavor, and the truth is far from that.

So, I'm understandably dissappointed. The problem is, I just don't know how to move forward. I'm suffering from a strong case of writer's block; going on 6 months now. The only thing I can think of is to implore my readership for ideas. I'd like to resume weekly blogs, but clearly I need a storage of ideas and topics. Either that, or I need to readjust my schedule. Which is where I look to you all. What are your thoughts?

Automatic Answer Syndrome

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 18:18:00 +0000

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When I was little(r), I was somewhat of a know it all. If I was comfortable, I could be quite the chatter box. Any question pointed in my direction likely got a lengthy monologue in response. Sure, I was pretty cute, but even the cutest of little ones can exhaust the attention of those that love them.

After seemingly endless periods of squeaking my every thought and observation, I eventually encountered the much too advanced wisdom of my father. I recall conversations in which he spoke at my wee tow-head about the concept of noise pollution. Believing himself to be helpful, he explained that my excessive verbalization was just adding needless sound to the world. He guided me through picturing what the air would look like if we could see sound, and insinuated that I was soiling breathable space with my desire to talk without purpose.

This was not as awful as it sounds. Though my not yet fully formed brain was momentarily stifled by the all too scientific advice of my apparently heroic father, I didn't actually stop talking. It's possible that I may have slowed down some in response, but historic reports of my family members would indicate the inaccuracy of this assumption. On and on and on I prattled; selfishly soaking up the sound space around my loved ones.

In particular, I loved to prove my intelligence to my father. As you may have discerned from the above story, my dad was pretty clever himself. I'm pretty sure that was always obvious to me. I even imagine myself as an infant, craning in his arms, thinking "whoa! this dude is smart!" So, naturally I had to rise to the genetic occasion. As a bumbling tot trying to form my own understanding of the world, I assumed I had to prove my worth by immediately answering every question that even seemed meant for me.

Obviously, I got a lot of questions wrong. That's what happens when you increase the frequency of your attempts at anything, you increase the chances for error. Eventually, as it always did in my family, my behavior led to another paternal teaching moment. I recall a family dinner, with us all seated at the table discussing our days, and likely answering trivia questions to the key of "for an extra two points!" I must have exhausted the patience of others with my interrupting and attempting to guess at things I didn't truly know, because my father finally spoke out against it.

"You don't always have to know the answer," he calmly stated. "There's nothing wrong with saying you don't know." He then guided us through acknowledging our ignorance, and confidently stating "I don't know." From then on, both my parents would pause us when we demonstrated notable sensitivity to the unknown, and guide us through calling ourselves out. We were repeatedly coached to practice alerting others to our dearth of knowledge.

I found this activity irritating for the vast majority of my childhood. I hated telling people I didn't understand them. I abhorred acknowledgement of my inadequacies in a public forum, and I resisted encouragement to lay it all out on the table. Only recently have I realized that this ongoing tutelage actually took.

In my adulthood, my academic and professional careers have been marked by my insistent confession of inadequacies. It is possible that I call out my lack of wisdom all too often. However, I'm frequently praised by superiors for indicating that I have yet to glean what I need to. Personally, I often attribute it to my sense of innocence and inexperience with all things "real world." Though, I have started to notice my own frustration with colleagues and superiors who lack the strength required to assert their ignorance. I find myself often grunting vexation with "knowledgeable others" who automatically throw out suggestions unrelated to the questions I have asked. My head spins with annoyance when I turn to seasoned professionals who attempt to guide me through basic responses to situations I am comfortable with, and ignore my pointed questions about how to deal with advanced complexities.

My initial assumption was that this played on my own inadequacies. My primary response was to think "they must really think I'm stupid if think I've forgotten the basics," but then I realized it wasn't this at all. Due to my own prior experience with automatic answer syndrome, I quickly understood that the truth was they don't have the answers either. It is they who lacks the knowledge to further themselves. Because they never had support to build comfort with their own lack of understanding, they have habituated time-wasting discussions of things that don't matter. They don't understand the utility of recognizing a deficit in order to build upon it.

My Hats: The Asshole

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 05:16:00 +0000

Today, I am an asshole. I am the bearer of bad news. I am the nay-sayer, and the barrier to fulfilled wishes.

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This is the nature of my work. I am so many things to so many different people, and generally that is okay. For the most part, I'm able to acknowledge my varying head wear and done it accordingly. In fact, the variety serves as a protective force for me. In one day I can be a savior, an attachment figure, an authority figure, and a friend.

The peculiar paradox is the difficulty inherent in the days marked by consistency. Today was one of those days. I got to wear one hat today. I wore it all day long, and that took a toll on me. It's hard to wear the bad guy hat for a sufficient length of time and not internalize it. Eventually, it wears on you.

While I know that I am not truly a bad guy, and I understand that I am far from being an asshole, it's how I feel today.

My Wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 04:44:00 +0000

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If there's one bit of wisdom I could impart on the next generation it is this: it never stops getting hard. It seems that I have had a number of encounters with adolescent men and women complaining about the difficulties they face. They compare themselves to others, and hope for an extreme change in circumstances that will solve everything.

I truly believe that they have the best of intentions. Their forward thinking and individually focused minds want to believe that there is hope for something, anything, to make their lives easier. The only problem is, that thing is almost impossible to find.

The truth is that life is wonderful. It's awe-inspiring, and incredible. Life has so many rewards and benefits. However, it is simultaneously, weird, confusing, stressful, and challenging. No matter who you are (and I've confirmed this with a large variety of individuals) there will always be periods of time that feel unmanageable. You can count on the fact that you will go through times that feel monotonous, aggravating, or down right depressing. No matter how hard it feels, those of us who stick it out find it all worthwhile.

Self Discovery

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 04:53:00 +0000

About two weeks ago I came home from work at my normal time, flopped on the couch, and declared epic fatigue.

"I'm tired!" I whined, perplexed that this normal every day experience had resulted in complete and total lethargy. Being someone who must understand everything, I felt rising irritation at the irrationality of my listlessness. There seemed to be no reason for me to feel this out of sorts. Yet there I lay, trying to stave off the inner toddler rising to tantrum within me.

Then I did as I always do, I gave in. This is a piece of wisdom I gleaned from many years of facilitating and safe-guarding the worst hissy fits imaginable. I now know, after endlessly trying to circumvent hysterical meltdowns, that it's pointless. One way or another, the emotion is going to catch up with you. I learned to just prepare myself and others for the experience, because that's the only way to learn from it.

So, melt down I did. In my own modified adult way, I let the child within me loose. I cried for a minute or two, whimpering about how profoundly busy I felt. I bellyached about my active lifestyle and how I knew it was irrational for me to actually miss my couch. I tossed and turned, and catastrophized that I hadn't had a moment to myself in years.

As I started to pull my act together, I began to actually listen to my petulant rant, and the logical part of my brain made the connections. I'm an introspective type. Regular readers may have noticed that my thought process often follows an inward train. My own self-exploration comes from down time and zoning out while "doing nothing." For this reason, it is crucial that I provide myself with regular relaxation time. I need to sit in a comfortable space and allow myself to get lost in my own musings. When I don't, I lose myself. Though highly motivated, I forget who I am in my endless drive to the next step.

Thinking this through, I began to realize that my catastrophic thinking wasn't entirely unrealistic. In fact, I'd spent approximately the last 2.5 years working a variety of jobs, moving, attending graduate school, moving again, doing a high stress internship, volunteering, researching and composing a painstaking thesis, and beginning a career. All the while haphazardly making some of the best, most life altering, decisions ever.

In my last couple of years, I forgot the meaning of transition. I jumped from one thing to the next without even taking a beat. In most cases, one thing overlapped with the next for quite some time. I had forgotten to pause, and I definitely didn't stop to think.

So, yeah, I was tired.

Braggart Reform

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 04:20:00 +0000

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When I was younger I could be quite the know-it-all. Teachers liked me, because I sat quietly in class, raised my hand, and answered the questions I was asked. At home, I would jabber on and on about all the things I learned in school. I would talk my parents' ears off as I described every accolade and academic triumph of the day. I'd chatter away bragging about all of my skills and scholastic strengths until my dad would sigh with exasperation and declare,

"If you're really smart, you won't have to tell anyone."

As a small child this advice baffled me. Of course I have to tell people, I thought to myself, how else will they know? I truly believed that I had to prove my worth to others. Because of this, I took my father's advice how I always did. I ignored it.

I went on striving for perfection and asserting my value to all who mattered to me. All the while, my father repeated his advice every time he was subjected to my self-aggrandizing daily reports. I'd roll my eyes, stomp my feet, and complain that I was merely trying to describe my day.

I never thought this advice effected me much, except to confirm that my dad could be rather insensitive. However, as with all mild irritations that are set on repeat, I slowly internalized his words. Without realizing it, I took on his meaning. Before I realized it, I grew into a strong young woman who speaks to others in simple words while resisting the need to prove my intelligence. I now equate my wisdom and skill with that of most people. I recognize my competencies, but I see myself as no better or worse than any other person just with a different set of privileges.

Error-genic

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 05:03:00 +0000

"Parenting," as my father says, "is a job you can only do wrong."

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It may seem overly cynical to say so, but I've had a variety of encounters throughout my life that would confirm this very belief. I have worked with and known parents who could be described with adjectives such as good, bad, perfect, mediocre, wonderful, awful, intense, amazing, and even crazy. No matter how I've come to know these parents, they all had one major thing in common. All of their children have had "issues."

In fact, that might just be the prevailing theme in life. Everyone has issues. We all have something we struggle with, some weakness that needs bolstering, and some sensitivities that need considering. Babies are born into our world ripe for learning behaviors from their predecessors. Their brains are literally programmed to observe and mimic what they see. These learned behaviors impact thought development, which creates internalized responses, and before you know it there's a whole new generation of neuroses walking the earth.

It's an endless cycle that can only be circumvented with acceptance. This is our fate. Whether guarded, defensive, fearful, or reactive, we all have our vulnerabilities. Often times these issues have been selected from a preordained set of environmental, hereditary, and social dynamics. There's little anyone could do to avoid creating issues. It's possible that special focus and attention may have prevented development of a specific sensitivity. However, it's more than likely that hyper-attentiveness in one identified area would actually create neglect in an another unrealized realm; causing a whole different set of difficulties.

This is not to say that we should all just throw up our hands and surrender to our flaws and shortcomings. Truly what I point to is the opposite. I bring up our inevitably flawed experiences, in an attempt to point out that we're all striving for improvement. This experience is not unique to any particularly sick set of people. We're all working on change and betterment of ourselves, because the future depends on us.

(Not) Helping

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 05:09:00 +0000

I work a 9-5 now. I got home at 6:45pm today. I could have stayed later. I should have stayed later.

This is the nature of my work. I'm currently operating at a half a caseload, and the amount of action items and steps to take on is overwhelming. It's never ending. There's always someone to talk to, and something to do. There's always someone who wants something and someone else who needs something from me. I'm quickly learning that my job involves a massive amount of identifying who and what does not get my attention.

I took this job because I like spending time with children. I'm energized by working with kids in need, and I have a knack for intervening in a crisis. I took this job because I want to help, but what I'm quickly learning is sometimes not doing something is the only help I can provide.

What I Am

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 04:18:00 +0000

I spend a lot of time thinking about what I represent to others, and I recognize that it's a lot of things.

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For some people I represent The Answer. I am the authority that holds the knowledge that gives insight. For other people I am The Power. I hold the keys to the doors that get you toward what you need and away from what you hate. They do not see me. Their thoughts tell them all they need to know.

Some people believe I am The Innocent. I am a youthful representation of freedom and ignorance. When some see my size, stature, and appearance, they assume I am without wisdom, skills, or know-how. They don't hear me. Their perception tells them who I am.

There are those who see me as The Maternal. I am The Savior. I am The Nurturer. I am the person who holds people when they cry. I am the one who makes everything all better. Then I am the one who flees when there's a need. I am The Abandoner. I am The Perfect Bitch. I am the Spoiled Child. I am The Privileged One. There are those who believe I represent everything they are not or cannot have. I am a reminder of pain and misfortune. They have no sense of me. Their history and experience forms their impression of me.

There are also those in my life who clearly see me as The Hope. I have been inexplicably called The Favorite in a variety of realms. I represent Something That Could Be. I have the skills or the prowess to turn things around, to enact change, to make things better. These people hear me selectively. I cannot ask them for help, because they do not perceive me to need it.

There are others who perceive me as The Needy. The Distant. The Reactive. The Disengaged. The Nosey; Over-involved.

I am a variety of things to a wider variety of people. I am The Projected. The Absent. The Superimposed. I spend the vast majority of my day, my week, and my life filling the role I am assumed to have given the situation, relationship, and context. I represent what I am to individuals, groups, and systems. I try my best to work with this, but it is so moment to moment, that much of my life I find myself assessing what I am in each specific scenario, and I forget to ask myself what I truly represent.

Representing so much to so many, leaves me forgetting who I actually am. What is my role to me? What do I want to be? Who am I to me? Who even knows?

Secondary Gains

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 03:57:00 +0000

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People do some ridiculous things to get attention. They act absurd. They make a fool of themselves. They harm their images, their loved ones, their bodies, and their psyches, all for the sake of recognition. But we live in a paradoxical world where a little bit of attention is never enough.

Being the focal point of the moment seems to fill just enough of the void to remind us that one was ever there. It brings about panic at the thought that we might have to deal with ourselves for even for a short period of time. The thought is so unbearable, that we can't even begin to process or cope with the idea. So we do the only thing that's ever abated this particular breed of anxiety. Something. Anything, to remind us we're not alone. We act in ways to remind others that we are important enough to notice, because we can't even begin to remind ourselves of that.

Identity Solutions

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 04:03:00 +0000

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Writing has been hard for me lately. Sitting in front of my computer on Monday nights has turned in to pulling teeth. I essentially have to isolate myself, and limit distractions in order to get anything out. Even then, it's difficult to focus. About every 1.5 sentences I stop to check my phone, pick at my split ends, or play with my cat. It's become a slow going, painstaking, process, and I've been quite distressed about it.

See, I conceptualize myself as a writer. Clicking keys to make meaningful materials has nearly always come easily to me. Writer's block freaks me out. It screws with my identity, and makes me question my understanding of myself and who I am. Writing is how I process my world. Without writing, I feel confused and unfocused. So, naturally I've been concerned about my most recent bout of writer's block.

Last week I began to ponder my three month long impediment. Rather than fixate on my overwhelming sense of curiosity about why I wasn't writing, I started to think about my most prolific periods, and I discovered something peculiar. My best writing is often regarding a topic that has given me a degree of mental anguish. Bursts of frequent essays on a variety of topics often spring up during periods of my life characterized by transition, identity crisis, and general lifetime turmoil. I knitted my eyebrows as I processed this information; not quite sure what to do with it. Until it occurred to me that maybe I'm not writing because I'm happy.

Next Month

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 02:38:00 +0000

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I can't wait for next month.

Lately I feel like all I do is run around. I find myself to be jumping from one location to the next, in order to keep myself active and connected to all those I love. As a result, my life has been chaotic and disorganized. It seems like nothing is truly getting my full attention. All this bouncing around has me somewhat unfocused in many aspects of my life.

While this is entirely frustrating and not my typical
style, I find myself largely accepting of the situation because I know it's all temporary. I can continue running around, because there is end in sight.

Next month, everything I need and want will come together in one place. Next month, I will be active and connected at the same time. Next month, I will be focused and grounded. The distance between all my destinations will be visible next month.

Maturation

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy Darling) — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 04:05:00 +0000

In many ways growing up is similar to grieving.

Sure, there are gains, skills earned, and new experiences to be had, but getting older involves a great deal of loss.

As we age, we constantly lose securities and familiarity. The world we have grown to know, changes around us, and we are repeatedly forced to give up things we love. Over and over again, we are expected to say goodbye to the only things we have ever known. Unknowingly, we leave behind old versions of ourselves as we indulge our maturational tendencies. Then, we reach a point when we realize we no longer are who we once were.

As a group, we give much of our attention to celebrating milestones. We honor achievements, and we rejoice at annual accomplishments. However, all too often we forget that getting older means leaving something behind.