MAKING OUR WORLD SMALLER

I can't say for sure, but I think I was about four years old when my parents purchased an old red cottage on Devils Lake in Manitou Beach, Michigan.  I didn't know it at the time, but that cottage would become my forever happy place.  No matter where I've been in the world, that cottage has my heart.  There was nothing remarkable about this cottage either.  We had no air conditioning, no heat, slanted floors, spiders, no dishwasher, steep narrow steps, a tiny kitchen, no cable or VCR.  Why so great then?  It holds every happy memory from my childhood.  I laughed more, played more, used my imagination more, relaxed more, day dreamed more, explored more, tried new things more and felt safe and accepted there.  To this day when I am having a great dream and I remember it, I was always at the cottage in that dream.  Over the years my parents painted it yellow and did some fixing up, but it was still just an old cottage house.  Now that I'm a mom of a big family I truly understand the amount of work my mom put into every wonderful weekend spent there.  It's a family joke that people would show up with their entire family for a weekend and bring a watermelon.  My mom was the greatest hostess of all time.  I had no idea what she went through to keep up that place and feed us non-stop.  I am pretty sure the cottage is a huge reason I wanted to be a mom so badly because my mom always made it such a wonderful experience.  She had rainy day activities and I honestly don't remember ever complaining about being bored.  It was a magical place for me that holds countless memories.

As a child I wore very, very thick glasses and needed them to see.  I wore them if I was in a swim meet or playing softball or riding my bike.  I had no other choice.  I had braces too like many other kids and in eighth grade had to start wearing a scoliosis brace twenty-four hours a day.  I honestly sound like a bad country music song when i write this stuff out.  I guess what I'm getting at is that I was teased and suffered from pretty low self-esteem most of my life.  The cottage was a safe place for me.  A place to just be me no matter what the world had thrown my way.  It was a small sanctuary in a world full of chaos.

John grew up under very difficult circumstances that most kids don't have to deal with.  He was adopted by his parents when he was around one and very wanted and loved by them.  His father suffered a heart attack when he was very young and went on to be very ill most of John's life in and out of the hospital.  John spent countless hours in waiting rooms or living with relatives while dad was sick.  His mother suffered from mental illness as well and was often in and out of the hospital herself.  It was a roller coaster for him, but he had a deep love and respect for his parents and a sense of duty and responsibility to care for them and their needs.  He was kind of always the man of the house. I'm sure this is why he is in the medical field today.  His one bright light was camping at Sonny's camp ground.  Most of his relatives had campers like his parents and he spent wonderful weekends, swimming, fishing, playing cards and having camp fires.  He loved his time there and for him it was his happy place and sanctuary from it all.

We have both always said we don't want to retire in Florida, but on a lake.  That sounded great in theory, but we have lots of kids of different ages in different stages of life.  We are rooted in a community and we don't know any different than this suburban lifestyle.  Every passing year our job as parents has become more and more difficult due to issues we face through no fault of our own or even that of our kids.  The kids who are still with us at home struggle with a myriad of issues mostly rooted in early childhood trauma.  The time they spent in orphanages and the losses they suffered so early on in life.  Reactive attachment disorder or RAD is a constant companion in our home.  I am no doctor and I could list all of the definitions, symptoms and reasons the boys struggle with this, but the truth is their brains were just hard wired early on to not trust others and to not believe they are worthy of happiness or good things, so they sabotage everyone and everything that is good in their lives.  The I'll hurt you before you hurt me thing.  We deal with lying, stealing, sneaking, school issues, broken rules, destruction of property, no cause and effect, no remorse or empathy and a seemingly endless entitlement list.  Special events are targeted, looking forward to something is pointless and not having a schedule is detrimental to all involved.  I make it sound horrible and most of the time it is, but it's our reality and because we have no biological children, we don't really know exactly what we're missing.  It's hard not to take the behaviors personally, but it's even harder to take the isolation and judgement of others.  Our kids seem completely normal and sweet to the outside world.  It's the people in the trenches fighting to love them that take the brunt of the behavior.  it's taken me over ten years to understand what we are up against and to not care what anyone else thinks about what I'm dealing with.  I had to pull up my big girl pants, pull away for a bit and just do the dirty work of being the mom who can't let her kids do what every other kid their age is doing....and for good reason.  We are not a normal family so why on earth we think we can live a normal life here in suburbia and have it all be wonderful is really very comical when I think about it.

John and I have come to realize that we are not getting any younger and our boys are not changing and able to traverse life among their peers in a world full of technology and temptations that their brains are unable to handle and cope with.  We are the square peg family trying so hard to live in the round hole neighborhood.  The place we live is absolutely wonderful, full of amazing people and families, we just know our kids issues and limitations and it makes it hard to blend in when you look like a crazy helicopter parent at all times.  John and I are exhausted from being mad and tense all the time.  We are tired of constantly reigning our boys in from the constant influx of videos and other inappropriate things they are easily exposed to and most of all we are tired of seeing how tired our boys are of it all.  They need to be free to be who God made them to be and it's time for us to find a way to make that a reality.

Through much prayer and discernment, John and I are hoping to make our dream come true and provide a more isolated, safe environment for the boys but with tons and tons of freedom and fun things for them to do.  We don't even want them to realize what we are doing.  We have been working tirelessly to get our home fixed up and pulled together to sell.  We know God is calling us to move and we are excited about that.  It can't be too far since John loves his current job so much.  We have no idea where we will end up, but our prayer and dream is that it would be to a lake house somewhere.  Something small and easily manageable so we can spend our weekends playing and making happy memories rather than begging our kids to try to follow countless directions to keep up our big, beautiful life in the suburbs.  My hope and prayer is that this move and home God leads us to will one day be seen in the eyes of my kids as their happy place.