Reconnecting

One of the things I committed myself to doing while on my "break" was to reconnect.  Not only with myself (which is going pretty well, I think), but with a couple of people I have lost over the last couple of years.

At least one of those relationships is irreparable lost.  That I know and reluctantly accept.  I hate when friendships end.  I always have.  I've always thought that it's because my parents and I left all the family we ever knew to come to America.  We actually spent about 6 months of my life visiting everyone one last time, taking 8mm film of me and my mom standing alongside grandparents, uncles, great aunts, cousins...waving goodbye.  All before I had turned five. 

Keep in mind that in 1967, when we moved to America, you just didn't hop on a plane and fly back across the ocean once a year for Holidays.  It cost lots of money back then and there were few intercontinental flights.  So, for my parents, this was it for a very long time.  For my mom, she never returned to Britain until dad took her ashes over to scatter in several very special places.  Dad didn't return for 30 years, six years after mom died. 

So...all my life, friends were all the extended family I knew.  When I was a little girl, I remember hating Thanksgiving and Christmas.  All the kids on the playground would be talking about Grandma This and Uncle That coming to visit and bringing them presents.  I would walk away and try not to listen.  I couldn't understand why I couldn't have that.  And in my house, Thanksgiving was a foreign holiday (back home, we used to celebrate Guy Fawk Day on November 5th, with fireworks, big bonfires and potatoes roasting on long sticks, stuck into the fire).  Mom was good though.  She managed to pick-up the American traditions quickly, so much so that by the time I was in high school, I remember begging her to go back to a more traditional English X-mas. And from that point on, even the year she died, mom made Christmas Pudding from scratch, starting in July so that the rum would have plenty of time to ferment! 

Since I was a little girl, loosing touch or feeling out of contact with friends is like leaving England all over again.  Since working for BBBSA, several friends have dropped off from neglect.  My allowing work to consume almost every segment of my life has resulted in feeling isolated and friendless.  That's not to say I haven't made wonderful friends and formed amazing relationships at BBBSA.  I have.  But those I left behind have haunted me.

So, beginning in August, when I began my break, I started to reconnect.  I began with a former colleague from Catholic Big Brothers (CBB), someone I both supervised and worked side-by-side with for nearly ten years.  We had stayed in touch via email for a year or two, but then, once I started with BBBSA, I found less and less time and energy. 

Kate now works for BBBS of NYC (under the supervision of another former CBB employee) and with two other former CBB staff I'd supervised.  We've already had dinner twice and caught up on work, family, friends and life.  Kate is 67 and only tolerated retirement one year before putting herself back into the BBBS world.  She has lived an amazing life: born and raised in Buffalo NY, lived on a commune in San Francisco, had two girls, husband left her, went on welfare, got a job working for welfare, got a nursing degree, ended up doing social work in NYC (and often appeared before Judge Judy in NYC Family Court!)  She's lived in the East Village for forever, is a die-hard city person, even though she threatens to go back to Provincetown MA where she lived and worked for a dozen years while with her 2nd husband.

In late August, I tracked down Teddy, an Occupational Therapist, choreographer and part owner of a NYC dance studio.  Teddy is almost 60 and a pistol!  In many ways, your stereotypic Jewish New Yorker - lots of moxie.  We worked together at VISIONS/ Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired for four years.  Since then, we've had dinner about 3x a year and I would get invited to her major life events.  Until about 4 yearsago.  So, we are working on reconnecting and getting back on track.  For me, Teddy has always been someone who I knew, if things went really bad in my life, I could go to and be safe. 

Then I reached out to MerriLee.  We shared a casa at St. Joseph Youth Center in Dallas.  Eight emotionally disturbed teen girls lived in our casa (one of eight casa's on campus).  ML was the Residential Therapist.  I was the Recreational Therapist for the entire campus.  After we both left St. Joe's, and before I left Dallas, ML moved to the U of Arkansas, Fayetteville, to get her PhD in Psychology.  And she got married to the Psychologist at St. Joes.  I saw her at least once a year for about ten years after moving to NY, then it suddenly ended.  I just don't know why.  I'd write and get no response.  Maybe they moved and she never got the letters.  The phone number changed....Finally, in another reconnection I made in August, I got a phone number and address.  I left a voice mail and wrote a letter.  I've heard nothing.  I guess sometimes it's just too long without a connection. 

And then, today.  I found my courage to make the most difficult of the reconnections.  My old pal and mentor from BBBS of Harrisburg, Stephanie Strayer.  We had done so well staying in touch.  Then, May of 2006 she emailed me and I kept putting off the response.  I was deep into the conference and felt like I had no bandwidth.  I told myself I'd call her after conference.  Then Regionals started and I just continued to struggle.  I was tired, angry, discouraged and preparing to quit.  I didn't want her to have to deal with all that crap, so I put off calling her.  Why can't I trust that people who love and care about me can tolerate my pain?  I can't.  I retreat and withdraw.  Stiff upper lip.

So,  over 17 months later, I called.  And hoped.  And she called me back.  And told me about her scare with lung cancer (they removed 1/3rd of her lung before they discovered that the growths they were seeing were related to her rheumatoid arthritis).  I wasn't there.  I wasn't there for her.  For 2 months, while they ran test after test, she believed she was dying of lung cancer.  Makes frustration with conference logistics seem pitiful, doesn't it?

We ended our call today on a good note.  Now I'll need to prove myself to her.  Prove I'm committed to changing and to not walking away or shutting down.  I'll do it.  Steph has given me so much over the years - she taught me the definition of quality, the importance of standards, and we always drafted program policies for our agencies together.  I've missed her. 

And so...that's one of the things I've been trying to do on my time away from you.  I think I'm just about through the list.  Now the work really comes!  To keep my priorities in order.  To remain dedicated to my extended family.  To allow myself the benefit of good friends and supportive relationships.