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Better than This

A while back, something really terrible happened to a friend of mine. The kind of thing that leaves you thinking “Damn, I am glad that didn’t happen to me.”

When something terrible happens, I think it is a good opportunity to see exactly what kind of people your friends really are. Well, in this case, I showed myself to be a flaming jerk. I screwed up. Instead of supporting my friend, I backed away. When she really, really needed compassion and support, I was nowhere to be found.

It was not my finest moment. Not by a long shot.

I can make excuses, but they are all really dumb. What kind of excuse is there for being an asshole? (And yes, one can be an asshole by simple failure to act.)

I have been carrying around that black smudge of karma. I tried to avoid thinking about it, but it would bubble up from time to time. My subconscious wouldn’t let it go. Then, all the sudden, the universe let me know that it was time to address my failings.

Yesterday, I took the opportunity to apologize for my small roll in a much bigger hurt. In my family, we just pretend that bad things or conflict never happened, but that would be the pussy way out.

I had to apologize, even if there was no good reason for anyone to forgive me. I had to say it out loud and own it, so I did. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but it was the right thing to do. It didn’t erase the damage, but at the very least I took responsibility.

I always liked that (Dr. Phil??) saying “When people show you who they are, believe them.” I not only showed my friend who I was, I showed myself. I don’t like that person.

I am working on it. I am learning to be a better friend. I am trying to be a compassionate person. I am not perfect, but I can be better than this.

Giving Thanks.

Here is the deal. I know you all want a post about searching and I want to write it too. But that kind of post deserves the chance to have a proper comment-discussion and that isn’t going to happen on Thanksgiving.

No one is sitting at their computer so we can chat. We will all be sleeping off our tryptophan and pumpkin pie hangovers. Also, I suspect that post will require two posts because there is so much ground to cover. Tomorrow I am required by internet law to post my annual Thanksgiving post, so I wouldn’t be able to post two in a row if I posted it today anyway. So I am sorry, but we will have to wait a few more days.

Instead, I am going to make a list of things I am thankful for this year. You know me, I am not generally the mushy type, but this week has brought it out.

I am thankful for:

My two beautiful daughters. Even though they wear me out and drive me crazy more often than not, I couldn’t imagine my life without them.

My adoring, long-suffering husband. The life we have built together surpasses my wildest dreams of happiness. He tries to make me happy, I try to make him happy and together (who would have thought!) we’re happy!

The circle of friends I have found in the past few years. I can’t tell you how much it means to know so many wonderful, snarky, amazing women. I had missed the kind of camaraderie in my early years of parenting, now I take it for granted. I am a lucky, lucky girl.

My wonderful home. Though I don’t deny wanting to move, we have a safe and lovely (if somewhat messy) house. Even more than that, we have found a community we love.

The kindness of strangers. This year, there have been several people who who have offered assistance and information that I never could have accessed on my own (at least one of whom reads this blog–Thank YOU!). In this big, big world, it is amazing how willing people are to reach out to our family asking for nothing in return. I hope I can pass along that kindness to someone else one day in return.

That’s it.

It doesn’t look like much, but it is everything to me. My life wouldn’t be what it is without those five things. I am so very, very thankful.

Pub Night

Last year, a rag tag group of women who live in my town and have kids started meeting at a local pub once a month. It has totally made living in our smallish suburb 100% more pleasant.

An additional plus that I have finally found someone who can fit as much of their fist in her mouth as I can. (It only took about 3 beers before we consented to this picture being published on the internet.

It is a special bond, I have with these women. Very special indeed.

I love pub night.

(That is me on the right. I have more depth while my friend Karen has more width to her mouth.)

PS. Here is another picture that really confirms that Amy and I have extremely long tongues.

Making Connections

Earlier this week, I read the book this article was excerpted from and it gave me a lot of food for thought. You can click to read the article yourself, but it talks about the affect of parenting on kids’ racial preferences. There is a lot of food for thought in that article, but I was particularly interested in the stuff about how more diverse environments do not necessarily mean that kids will make friends with kids of other ethnicities. In fact, the more diverse the environment, the MORE likely kids are to self-segregate and the LESS likely they are to have friends of a different race.

I have read this article over a few times and it gives me mixed feelings. The liberal white girl inside me says “Oh noes! What do we do? How can we force the children of all races to hold hands and sing kumbaya together?”

On the other hand, I am not raising white kids. As a white mom raising Asian and hapa kids, my first and foremost concern has always been that my kids are comfortable relating to other Asian (or hapa) kids. (I know! I should have my liberal white lady card revoked for admitting that out loud!)

Sure, I think it would be swell if my kids have friends of all different ethnicities and backgrounds, but isn’t it more likely my girls will be friends with kids who share commonalities? Last year in school, one of the girls M became close friends with has a Chinese American mom and a white dad. I can’t say I was particularly surprised.

Exactly how many close friends do Mr. A and I have who are nothing like us? Most of our friends fit into more than three of the following categories:

Former classmates (high school, college, law school) or coworkers
Parents whose kids go to our kids’ schools (preschool, elementary, Chinese school)
Lawyers and/or lawyer’s spouses
Neighbors from our town
Parents of children the same ages as our kids
Moms who don’t work
People who share our values and political views
Families who are similar to us socioeconomically

It makes sense that we are hanging out with people who are similar to us. We meet these people because they are where we are, doing the things we’re doing. We can relate to their lifestyles and values, because they are our values and lifestyles.

I used to feel a lot of pressure to find Asian kids for our kids to be friends with. Without any real effort (via seeing them at both preschool and Chinese school), we made friends with a couple other families. Unfortunately, their kids don’t go to the same schools as our kids, so we see them less often than we would like. (Not to mention both families are hard working overachievers, so they have busy schedules, not unlike our family.) When we ran into both these families last Sunday, all the little girls were thrilled to see each other in the hallway. Now that Chinese school is back in session, we are planning to hang out more often.

It is funny though, how I used to think about needing friends so the girls would know other Asian kids, but now these friends are friends because our families have a lot in common: all three families have an Asian lawyer, we all have 6 year old girls, one has a daughter adopted from China, one couple is white/Asian, one dad is 2nd generation Asian American, they all like dim sum etc. It is nice to have friends who don’t think we are crazy for trying to make the girls learn Chinese and for wanting to travel with them while they are young. These other families are doing it too.

I don’t worry so much any more about finding Asian kids for our friends to be friends with. I think the odds are good both L and M will end up being able to relate to other Asian kids because they have a lot more in common than just their appearance. Our family’s values are pretty typical of other Asian American families and our girls will have a lot of shared experiences with Asian kids, I think.

Thinking this through, though, I wonder if L will be able to relate as well to other transracially adopted kids. Since we decided to pull her out of regular Chinese school, I contacted our local FCC to see if she can still sign up for their introductory language class. She will be starting a class there this weekend. I will confess, I am more nervous about showing up at the FCC class than I was about Chinese school. I am hoping we can find people there who we have more in common with than just a kid adopted from China.

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Better than This

Giving Thanks.

Pub Night

Making Connections

Brilliant Blogs

Friends and Neighbors

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