I'm 50!

Hey there! I keep saying I'm going to get better at blogging on a regular basis. I still haven't been able to accomplish that feat but I most enjoy blogging when something of note happens.



On July 5Th, I celebrated my 50Th birthday! My husband and I share the birth date although he's a smidgen older. He doesn't like to acknowledge birthdays but I am just the opposite. This has made it a little difficult over the years but he usually wins out and we celebrate quietly.



This year was different. I declared early on that there would be a party celebrating my 50Th year. It was really important to me to celebrate and declare my survival on this momentous day!


I've had a rather interesting and sometime crisis filled life starting with my birth father's death. There was nothing accidental or natural about it. It was pure malice on my birth mother's part and as life would have it...she got away with it. It was an incredibly traumatic experience. Our home life was always turbulent, and quite often violent, and it was for that reason I was not surprised when one did not survive the other. There were seven children in my family, 3 boys and 4 girls. I was the 4Th born and at the age of 5, left in charge of the "little ones". Finally we became wards of the state. We spent time in orphanages and foster homes. We were divided, reunited, then divided again. Eventually were were adopted into several different homes, allowed to visit once or twice a year and then slowly weaned from the pack.

I was adopted into a wonderful Christian home. The only real problem - I was both ADHD and had Reactive Attachment Disorder. Back then there was no diagnosis for these maladies. I was just a "difficult child" and I'm sure my new Mom and Dad were more than a little tempted to disrupt the adoption on several occasions. I was not frilly nor lady like. I had no real concept of "manners" and wanted nothing to do with indoor life or the mixed vegetables that consistently appeared on my dinner plate.

Life was always chaotic and just a shade off kelter. I was smart but not a good student. I was a tomboy but not at all athletic. I had little self confidence and struggled constantly with the belief that one day I would be told the storybook life would never be and would I please just go away and leave these good people alone. That is RAD in all it's glory.

Relationships were never allowed to develop, I pushed others away as soon as I suspected they might actually come to love me or I them. RAD "victims" would rather be alone than risk being hurt or abandoned. It was sadly evident by the time I reached college that I was not "normal" but I had by the ripe old age of 17 developed "coping skills". I was really good at "acting" normal but underneath I just simply wasn't.

By the time I graduated from high school, I had developed a new problem - this time it was a curious string of physical maladies. It was not that I was seriously ill or stricken with a terrible disease. I just seemed to be sick or injured most of the time. I think my parents were a little embarrassed. They just didn't understand how I could be sick so often or so clumsy that I was constantly getting hurt. No explanation was imminent so I went off to college.

College? Well let's just say that is an entirely different blog topic. It was not a great experience. It was not even a good experience. So....let's NOT go there at all. I wasn't successful there and once again disappointed my parents, flitted from one romance to the next avoiding flypaper relationships, and sadly, hurt a lot of people along the way.

There is a pattern here but no one could see it nor could they imagine there could be a connection between all of these events and attitudes. Finally I dropped out of college, attended a tech school, got my certification as a Medical Assistant and moved on into my second stage of life....marriage.

Ouch! "Disastrous" is a kind word for my first marriage. The only blessing was the birth of my son. It was a short lived union and more than a little damaging to my psyche. I have a friend who refers to her first marriage as her "practice or test marriage". That actually makes sense to me. Isn't that a scary thought?!

Eventually I did marry again and this time the marriage lasted. We're celebrating our 25Th Anniversary later this year. We adopted a child 18 years ago - a little girl who managed to develop all of the problems I had as a child of the foster care system and more. The point is we survived - each other and a myriad collection of mishaps and crisis.

Of course, most anyone who has met me in the last few years has knowledge of my "brain events" - the surgeries, infections, etc, etc, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. Once again I survived.

Are you starting to see a pattern yet? Well it took me a long time but it finally occurred to me that God must have a plan for me that He is just determined to see through because I have been allowed to survive a lot of stuff in this lifetime. He does not now nor has He ever asked my opinion about how my life should unfold and I think it's obvious He isn't going to start now. It's a darned good thing too! I've managed to make a mess of things when I was in charge.

I'm starting to realize that although this is not the life I would have chosen it has been a life I can be proud of. I am not good at the things I expected to excel in and I seem to have found talent in areas I had never even considered optional. I still find myself in chaos and crisis. I think "weird" just follows me around, in fact, I know it does! But none of that matters because I have learned two incredibly important facts in the last fifty years.....it's not about me and I am not in charge! I'm learning daily to enjoy more, worry less, forgive myself and others and most important... step out on the limb of faith and sway in the breeze! So what if I do fall? I've survived worse!