Beyond Childhood

I went to Japan for a year. It was a bittersweet year. There were adventures to be had, people to love, miles to travel, a language to learn, and I did them all, but I was struggling with the loss of my brother and the loss of belonging. Someday I will travel again to Japan, probably won't stay a year, but I have a yearning to see it again.

When I came home, all my friends had moved on--marriage, graduation, careers--I worked for awhile in a furniture factory 'till I had the funds to return to college. I kept to myself for the most part. My sister was newly married, a new Mom and living close and we became fast friends for the first time. I studied to be an English teacher and came close (9 quarter hours to go)--but didn't finish. My profound loneliness drove me out of my self-imposed isolation. Luck (or providence) brought me Jim. We knew each other only 4 months before we were engaged and, just a year after coming home from Japan, we were married.

I have been lonely many times in my life, but only before Jim and after Jim has it been so keen. Fortunately, loneliness is not fatal.

I went to Japan a devout Seventh-day Adventist, but while there discovered that morality is culturally defined, not divinely mandated. It was an uncomfortable discovery. Jim was also a member of "the church" when we married, but apostacized soon after. I was unexpectedly pregnant within 5 months of our wedding and I agonized over the soul of our unborn child. Jim assured me that he would not oppose raising our children in the church, but he asked that I explain to him what I believed so that he could defend my position to them. I was certain that was an easy task and studied assiduously for my position statement. That was the beginning of my own apostasy. I withdrew my name from the church books 5 years later.

Looking back, this was a milestone. I moved from a rules-based culture, nested under my father's roof (a slightly spoiled, wild-child) to an environment were no decisions came easy. I was an uneasy mother and wife, and had to rely on my own resources to survive emotionally and spiritually. Jim and I were financially destitute for most of the first decade of our marriage, but our lives were rich with adventure and challenge. Instead of calling upon God's forgiveness to excuse "sinful" behavior, every act was measured on the basis of principle and very little was forgiven. I was challenged to my very core. I found my niche as a mother. I loved my babies. I loved their daddy, and regardless of the vagaries of our existence, I was their anchor. Those were wonderful years.

My baby girls are grown and gone now, but still very close in my heart. If I never do another truly fine thing in my life, my girls are enough.