Just two songs

Not a whole lot to share today. Just plugging through life, realizing that we've really been caught up in the trap of being too busy to really live life. But listen to these two songs that have really touched me today.

Pretty much sums up my journey right now!

My heart HAS been breaking

So last month, I earnestly prayed that my heart would begin to break. That I would become soft again to the heart of God, that I would see my children and others in a different light and learn to love again. Fully love. Well, God has been at work. Many, many of these stories are for another time, as they are still developing and transforming me. But I'd like to share a story from today, one that, as I continue to process my day and the events that happened, I'm finding it hard to not cry and just sit, mulling it over. Instead, I will write. It's what I do.

I'm not sure how much of someone else's story I should share, but I've realized that my level of deep, sometimes severe, transparency comes from my dad's side of the family. My half-siblings and I don't seem to hide much. So I will share, and if I offend, I'm sure they will tell me. :)

I have 4 half-siblings. Travis is 38 and his parents are Jan and Gary. I am 36 and my parents are Faye and Gary. Earlydawn is 35, Brandy is 33, and Willie is 31 and their parents are Renee and Gary. We also recently found out that we may have a new sister, Howi, who falls somewhere in between Earlydawn and Brandy. I met Early, Brandy and Willie when I was in 3rd grade. We went to school together. They knew I was their sister, but I had no clue who they were. I actually lived 2 blocks from my dad, and had interactions with the "crazy Indian guy down the street" a few times prior to meeting him...but never knew he was my dad. He knew me though.


When I was 8, I was introduced to my dad and siblings. The emotions that have accompanied that over the years are, once again, not a post for today. But I loved those siblings from day one, although I didn't always know what to do with them or how to "be" a sister. As we grew up, I was very close to Earlydawn since we were the same age and grade and kind of felt like twins (we're 9 months apart), and to Willie since he was the only boy and the baby (I have only met Travis 2 times, so he didn't really count growing up). Brandy and I haven't always been as connected but I have always loved her just the same, and love so much about her. In the past year, we've really started to talk more and I love that.

So, fast forward a bit. Willie is 16, I'm 21. He's moving out of Dad's house. I never really talked a lot to my dad. I was never really comfortable doing it, uneasy about the different lives we lived and his "issues" he had. Oh yeah, I was also a bit self-righteous and persnickety. If he was alive, and I could do things differently, I would love him where he's at in his life journey, and accept his love even though it didn't come packaged exactly as I thought it should. Again, post for later times. Anyway, Willie is planning to go live with our Aunt and Uncle, but spends a week with me. It was one of the best weeks I remember ever having. I had a little brother to drag around with me. We laughed, he played softball with my boyfriend and our church team, we ate out and saw movies, he got to have family dinners at my house (which was dysfunctional in it's own way, but not a lot of people ever saw that. I know, save it for another post). At the end of that week, I was able to use one whole paycheck to buy him school clothes before I took him down to Salem. After that week, we didn't really see much of each other. He came back a few months later for my wedding, then years would go by. We'd run into each other here and there, but really...nothing. I heard about him, but I wasn't really talking to any of the siblings.


Then my dad got very ill, and after about 2 weeks, he died. I saw the siblings, but they were all in a very different place in life than I was. I had a baby and was a good, law abiding, prissy, church lady type girl. (I say this very sarcastically--I was uptight and rigid in my beliefs and lifestyle). Way different lives. Their journey through dad's death was not the same as mine. I'm grateful for my support system, but devastated that they understood and experienced Dad's love in a way I never will. I'm elated that I do not have the challenges and baggage they've accumulated since his death, but my heart breaks over those challenges and baggage. Enter my heartbreak (you knew I'd get around to the point of this at some point this year, right?)

Today, my younger brother Willie, who has always, always had a different kind of hold on my heart (all of us girls' hearts, I think) was released from prison after 2 years. He's not the only convict in our group, so don't think too badly of him. :) Just so it's clear, he was imprisoned for theft. He had a very serious drug problem (he's not the only Hopkins to struggle with addiction)...his problem led to choices that weren't so smart. What's still undecided is if his drug problem preceded his mental problems, or if the drugs CAUSED the mental problems. But he has some severe mental problems as well. So today, us 3 sisters drove to Olympia, all of us contributing in different ways to clothes, underclothes, suitcase, hygiene items, junk food, and the best thing...an mp3 player. Could you imagine 2 years without music?

Anyway, us sisters set him up as best we could, with our limited resources. Did you know that most prisoners get released with NOTHING? Just a small box of they're personal stuff and some prison issued clothes (which at the end of the night, he gave his prison issued coat to Brandy since we got him a new one, and he left his prison shoes there...guess who walked away with those shoes? That's right, I'm not about to let only Brandy have some cool prison garb!!) We fed him a bit, spent some time with him, and laughed with him...then got him on the bus on his way to live with our other brother, the kind of absent one, in another state.

It was so great to see Willie again, to help him, to love on him. But I'm so scared for him too. I saw the mental illness, although I DID see "my" Willy in there still too. I also saw the pain in his eyes, the determination to succeed this time, the tiredness, the desire for hope, the need for survival but maybe a lack of faith that he could...I wanted so badly to transfer my faith to him. The faith that he could do this, that life will not always be hard, that things CAN be better. But how do you tell that to someone who has never, ever, ever had an easy life?

He has never lived a life that he wasn't expected to be, at some level, self-sufficient. Both his parents are dead, they were both addicts of some kind, one was a convict as well...does anyone ever really stop and think that our comfortable lives, our nice clothes and cars, our kids' music lessons and CYT classes and sports teams, our warm churches and food on the table and reliable job...that there are hurting people out there who DO NOT know what that is? I'm so struck by the canyon between his life and mine, that we could be from the same gene pool (well, 50% shared) yet have such different lives.

My heart is just breaking for him, because I love him and I want to make his life better. But I can't. It has to come from his resolve and his decisions. It's also breaking because of the stupid mental illness. There are parts of Willie that will never, ever come back because of it. I miss those parts. I don't want to see what's left of him disappear into the illness. I don't know what his future holds and I find myself so scared. But I'm also so grateful to have seen him, and don't want 11 years to go by before I see him again. And I need to look around at my comfortable life and see why I find so much to whine about?

William Earl Hopkins, I love you. Earlydawn and Brandy love you. Madeleine loved meeting you and seeing us all together. You CAN do this. You have so much inside you that is fantastic, and you CAN survive this road you've been placed on and persevere over the darkness.


Anyway, that's how God is breaking my heart today, on this journey to better loving. I also really saw today how I used humor to deal with life. My motto is if you can't laugh at the lemons life hands you, then why bother living? There's really so much that happened that was hilarious that wouldn't have happened if my brother wasn't a convict with mental illness...so I'll take it. I'll be grateful that there was a reason to laugh, and that he's alive for me to love. I'll just take it.

Break my heart for what breaks yours...

I'm in the middle of composing an email response to a dear friend, telling her how I'm doing and talking about my miscarriage. I just wrote this,

"I think I'm more upset that I'm not more upset, like maybe if I was upset then I'd be emotionally motivated out of the slump I feel stuck in."

Then I started to think about how I've felt dead for many years now, emotionally dead. Like, when I was healed of my severe depression, a different type of depression set it. One that was intended for mere survival. If I don't feel, then I won't go out of control. So I allowed myself to just turn off. I used to be someone who was considered "emotional". I HATED being called emotional. I had big feelings, I was passionate, I was motivated and moved by feelings. The last 5 years or so, that hasn't been the case. I'm kind of stoic, logical, dead. And I've seen it in my feelings towards my kids. I don't feel love like I used to. My heart doesn't swell with overwhelming emotion towards them or Teddy. I am clinical, going through the motions, and have allowed attitudes and actions to appear that would have been abhorrent to me before.

As I was writing this email, I realized that I'm scared. I was severely hurt by people I cared about and trusted a few years ago, and was told that the way I am is not right. So I feel like if I allow emotion to have it's way in me, I am doing something wrong and I am vulnerable to that abuse again. But I want to be swept away with this rush of love for my kiddos; I want to be giddy with lovesick flutters when I think of my husband. I want to cry again at the Hallmark commercials and give money to every homeless person and be moved to change the world because my heart breaks for a sick child. I want to be me again, no matter how emotional and dramatic that is. God gave me this heart and I want to let it breathe and feel again.

So, in writing the email to my dear and loving friend, Cindy, I realized that this is all I want for Christmas. I want Jesus to break my heart. I want to allow my heart to feel my hurt and to stop being protected, because I feel like I can't forgive and move on until I let the arrow penetrate all the way in. Then I can yank it out and heal. And maybe then, I can find that love feeling again...that overwhelming sense of being so lost in someone that their entire essence permeates everything I am.

So with that, here's a song that has meant so much to me over the years, even when I'm mad at God or feeling alone. My favorite part is the bridge, my prayer if you will,

Heal my heart and make it clean, open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks yours, everything I am for your Kingdom's cause

Where are you Christmas?

So I've been trying to get into the Christmas spirit. Really. I've been focusing on advent and not presents; trying not be sad that our Disneyland trip needs to be postponed and instead focusing on the positives of our current situation; and trying to dig back into the Bible to find my way back to the faith that I've lost.

So I sit here, trying to see how this next problem is going to play into finding Christmas and my faith. I know it will, as I've seen God's hand very clearly in some situations lately. As some of you know, a year ago I started a weight loss journey and was doing very good for awhile. Lately, it's been hard going, but I'm still traveling the journey, confident that I will see health before I'm 40. Between losing weight and all the miscarriages have had (7 total, with the last 3 being in the past 5 years) I figured we would officially say we are done with babies. So, Teddy volunteered to make that decision permanent. This was about 4 months ago and it was an awful experience for him. Just awful. So awful that he never went back to make sure things were permanent. I hope you're following. THEN, the last 6 weeks, we have been all getting regular chiropractic care. Who knew, all these years of my infertility, that all I needed was regular chiro care to have regular cycles. So I've been having some regularity, my husband isn't sterile like he's supposed to be (apparently), and I found myself about two weeks ago experiencing some symptoms very similar to pregnancy. Two tests were negative, and one was iffy, possibly a faulty test. So Saturday morning, when my dear friend showed up 9 days late, I had a feeling I knew what was going on. I've been down this road enough to know what losing a baby looks like.

So I endured, and even enjoyed a little, Teddy's work Christmas party on Saturday night. We stayed the night at the Red Lion where it was held, but even with all the fun of the night and stuff, I was in pain and uncomfortable. More so than usual. Sunday afternoon was very stressful for other reasons, and by the time I got home from some errands Sunday around 6pm, I was hardly able to walk. Crying, hurting, needing to clean up. What transpired over the next 30 minutes was me, officially having a miscarriage.

I'm not as upset as I should be. I mean, it's number 8 for me and truth be told, I'm not totally convinced that it was a 'real' pregnancy. I have had ones before that were 'maybe babies', where if it had continued we probably would never had heard a heartbeat. Sometimes I think they're like chemical pregnancies, something like that. I wasn't trying to get pregnant. In fact, I was hoping I wasn't, except my kids would be so happy. But honestly, I'm not really upset. At least, yet. And lately, my mothering has been so awful that I don't deserve any more children! That's not saying I'm happy either. And I have a few friends whom I love dearly who are hurting over worse things right now, so my pain is in perspective and I'm grateful for that. But still....puts a bit of a damper on Christmas celebrating, if only for a little bit. I know God can make beauty appear out of the ashes. This is what I'm praying for, for myself and for my hurting friends, and for my family's Christmas.

Important Safety Instructions

I bought a new hairdryer, in hopes of stopping the frizz that keeps happening, and stopping my daughter from hi-jacking mine. She can have my old one now and leave me in peace!

I was reading the instructions for this hairdryer, because that's the kind of girl I am. I know, we all know how to operate one, but what if there's something new to learn in those instructions? What if all along I've been using it wrong and if I just read the instructions, I will end up looking like I have a stylist living in my closet who does my hair everyday (kind of like a trunk monkey, but BETTER!)

This is what I learned from the instructions for my new Vidal Sassoon Ionic Technology Hairdryer Model VSDR5540 (not every rule is listed, just the new or interesting ones). Be prepared to be WOWED!

1. An appliance should never be left unattended when using. (Really? Because I l turn my hair dryer on, then leave it alone on the counter all the time, don't you?)

2. Close supervision is necessary when this appliance is used by, on, or near children or individuals with certain disabilities. (I have never thought of that. What kind of disabilities? Mental? Physical? Educational? What'd they do, test it on an people with different disabilities and come to this conclusion? It seems kind of discriminatory, and they don't say what kind of disability. It's just a random, weird rule.)

3. Use this appliance only for its intended use as described in this manual. (Like, don't use it to dry my nails after painting? Or use on the engine of my car somehow? Or to dry my pants after getting water on them?)

4. Never use while sleeping. (Uh...okay.)

5. Never drop or insert any object into any opening. (Again, okay. And that's really just a good rule of thumb for anything in life, dontcha' think?)

6. DO NOT use outdoors or operate where aerosol products are being used or where oxygen is being administered. (So, I can't take it camping. Okay. Can't spray certain hair sprays around it. Okay, right? I've NEVER used aerosol hairspray around a hairdryer, have you?)

7. Never block the air opening of the appliance or place it on a soft surface, such as a bed or couch. (Shucks, I can't blow dry my hair in bed anymore. Son of a gun.)

So that's the gist of the crazy rules. Maybe these aren't news to you, but I'll NEVER attempt to use my blowdryer while sleeping, now that I've read these rules. You learn something new everyday.

What I learned from a 10 year old boy

My son Benjamin isn't always the easiest kid to get along with, or to parent. The reasons why aren't a discussion for today. Just know that he's never had TONS of friends. CYT has seemed to help him open up in different ways and a few new guy friends.

This latest CYT show was a new experience for us all. First show in 2 years that Madeleine hasn't participated, first solo show for Ben, Ben didn't have a super strong audition, didn't get called back, got a smaller part than he's previously gotten, he wasn't super excited about his costume (I thought it was adorable) and he hated his makeup (although after I let him vent initially, he never complained about it again). Then, he got sick for one show and had to miss it. I knew he was going through some trials but I was excited to see what God had planned, what kind of growth Ben was going to experience.

Ben was cast as one of two crabs, and the other crab happened to be a boy (I.) we've gotten to know a bit through a couple other shows. He and Ben really started to bond over "boy" stuff during the run of the show. Ben attempted to stay the night with I. on opening night (but doesn't do sleepovers so ended up coming home), and that night I saw something new to me in my son. He was crying when he came home, because he felt bad for his buddy. He worried about how disappointed I. would be when he woke up and found Ben gone.

Ben and his buddy are the two crabs.

Courtesy of Five Wishes Photography.

Then, during our closing show party, something happened that I will never forget. Awards were begin given out, and an award was given to Ben's friend for staying in character as a Crab. Disappointing, since there's only 2 crabs and they basically did the same thing, but the awards aren't like the Academy Awards or anything. I was happy for I. but sad for Ben. A few moments after that award was given, I see Madeleine walking with Ben to find me, and they are both crying. Madeleine says, "Ben is sad because I. got the award but not him." Ben lunges for me, sobbing so loud and making a bit of a scene, getting red makeup all over my white lace shirt. But as his Momma, all I could do was hold him and let him cry. It's not like anything wrong was done, or there was anyone to talk to who could change it. It was what it was....just a part of how life goes. I.'s mom came over and asked what was wrong, and I briefly told her, making sure she knows we weren't mad or anything, just disappointed and working through it. (BTW, I.'s mom is one of my favorite people ever). Ben seemed to be fine after a few moments, and we proceeded to get ready to wrap up the party.

Well, Teddy comes up a couple minutes later and tells me that Ben needs to share something with me in the car. I asked him to please just tell me and I'll feign ignorance in the car, because if it's something bad I don't want to overreact. He tells me that after the awards, I. came up to Ben with his award certificate. I. had crossed out his name, wrote in Ben's, and on the back wrote, "You stayed in character better than me." He then told Ben that he was his best friend and deserved the award more than him. Oh. My. Gosh. I started to cry, super hard then found I.'s mom and gave her a big hug, telling her that she raised a boy who's heart is so good. She started to cry too, and said she just told I. to go give Ben a hug to encourage him! I found I. and blubbered some dumb things about being a good kid and a good friend and has a heart for God and yada yada yada, probably overwhelming the poor 10 year old kid!

But I will never forget what he did. I. valued his friend's feelings more than his award, even though I. deserved the award. He cared more about encouraging Ben than having pride in himself. He showed initiative, kindness, compassion. I think it might be the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for Ben. Ben didn't really care about the award. He cared about being noticed, and I. took the time to NOTICE Ben. Isn't that what we all really want? To know that we are SEEN? That we matter? I. did this for Ben, and in the process taught me about loving another person...something I've not been too good at lately. And taught me a little about what I truly desire from God...to know that He SEES me and KNOWS me.

Thanks, dear I.'s mom, for raising a boy of such character. You should be proud. And thanks, I. I hope you are my son's friend for a very long time, and I hope I can be a little like you when I grow up.

Lots to say

I have lots to say, so much on my mind. Those of you who know me well, know that I typically do not go to sleep before midnight. However, the last two nights, I've gone to sleep at 10:30 and 9:30. Tonight was 9:30...but here I sit at 1am, having woken up and not able to get back to sleep. I know it's mostly because of heavy thoughts on my mind. Oh how I wish to unload them onto you, my faithful readers, in hopes of some clarity or relief. But I also don't want to ONLY write about deep thoughts and severe emotions. Since these heavy thoughts aren't concentrated to one topic only, it does seem difficult to write about here. They include continuing faith issues that I've previously shared, as well as marriage junk, parenting woes, pre-teen drama, bd parties coming up, the holiday, bankruptcy issues, Christmas plans going awry....ahhhh, so much to think on.

So instead of delving deep into those, I thought I would share one of the beautiful things that happened this week!

Madeleine turned 12! Good grief, it seems like just yesterday I was looking at that stick turning pink with a positive sign. Her birthday was on Sunday and we had Ben's closing show and party for The Little Mermaid, but her morning started out with the cast singing her happy birthday after Sunday worship! That was fun! Then, after the strike party, our family went to dinner (including our good family friend, Kiana, who Madeleine considers one of her very best friends even though she is 6 years older--she's more of an older sister to her!). Kiana also stayed the night with her, which was fun. After dinner and after a quick trip home, I took Kiana and Madz to the store for a movie and some breakfast foods (and I made sure to act very embarrassing throughout the store). I also got them a treat at McDonald's and we had some funny times there. This coming weekend, Kiana is helping me to give Madeleine a bd party...not a lot of her friends can come, but it should still be a good time! I still can't believe that God blessed me with such a kind, caring, responsible, loving, mature, funny, and loyal first born child. I feel so lucky to have the children that I have, and so undeserving. I also can't believe I have a 12 year old!!!

A really great thing happened to Ben during the strike party of Little Mermaid that I can't wait to share, but it requires a longer posting. I will save it for later. For now, I am hoping my close friend Insomnia will leave me alone and let me get on in my journey toward slumber!