Let's Talk About When We Were Kids

My childhood bestfriend came to visit me recently!

As you can see he's a big goof named Ben. Yes, he did put somebody else's gum from the
Seattle gum wall into his mouth! Gross.



We did a million things together during his stay. Kayaking, mountain climbing, saw a Mariners game, bookstore exploring and a thousand other things and pictures I will not bombard you with. One of our activities included looking up the house our families used to share on google maps.

When we were just kids we fit nine children and four adults into this house. Looking back it must of have been utter madness for my parents but for the young it was like an endless summer. We spent hours and hours together, building forts, playing freeze tag and all around never ending games of tom foolery. It was heaven.

Because we had been apart so long my friend Ben and I discussed our histories at length. We did a lot of remembering and it got me thinking a lot about another part of my childhood that wasn't nearly as fun as this moment of time. While I appreciate everything I've ever been through, and truly I do, I'd like to talk a little bit today about a season that was very difficult for me, even years after it was over.

My family moved away to Portland when I was in fourth grade, after living with Ben's family for over a year, and I lost touch with all of the people I knew in Seattle. In my new school I felt immediately out of place. I was an awkward kid with purple glasses, who lived in a house where every day we had to clean out and reset the mice traps. It was a stark contrast from the always joyous home I was accustomed to having adventures in. I was in an odd moment in life. I was just starting to grow up and my eyes were opening to the reality of the world I lived in. I became aware of my family's financial instability through the taunting kids who made fun of my old clothes. I understood that we were not the richest folks on the block, and for the first time ever I was ashamed. I felt my family's financial burden like it was all my fault and I was helpless to relieve any of the pain. I watched my mother and father do everything they could to keep us fed and clothed and feeling as normal as possible. And they did a damn good job too. My father did amazing, selfless things to provide for my family and my mother, as well, used all her wits to save us two dollars at the grocery store or value village. They are incredible people. But I was just starting to grow up. I wasn't looking for the next game of tag or cartoon, I was looking at our old house, the beans and rice we had for dinner five nights a week and the strain in my mother's eyes when our garage sale barely made us ten dollars, and I knew. I knew we were struggling.

I was just a kid, taking in everything. In the midst of that bullies were relentless. In Seattle I had dealt with bullies but I still had friends who cheered me up. In Portland, in this new, strange school, I was alone. Everyday, for years, I was alone. I felt like at any moment things would just collapse on me. Like I was living in a delicate house of glass and soon I would just break. I'm sorry if this is all sounding so bleak and desperate. Please know that there were lots of moments of happiness in the midst of all of this gray as well and I wouldn't trade these years for anything in the world. All that to say, these moments defined me as a person and rather then explain it all to you in long paragraphs I wrote a poem. It's such a small thing but here it is.

         House of Glass

         I'm just a poor girl.

Wearing last year's shoes

Feeling oh so small. 

I'm just hoping 

You'll release me,

Because you never called.

I know my hair

Is greasy

And the kids they talk about me as I'm wandering down the hall.

But I was hoping I could love you.

We could climb the cherry tree in my backyard.

We could make a secret handshake and pretend we're super spies

Who travel off to places that are lost and very far.

I'd like to be your partner,

When the summer months are bearing us disentangled skies

And the days feel long and gracious and tall.

But I've no happy company

As the sun sinks down over the trees in fall. 

I'm just a poor girl,

Wearing last years fears

And tired jeans

From the drawers of my brothers.

And my mother she loves me

She carries me softly

In her arms and her heart as I try to abide in the weight of it all. 

I'm far too young,

To hear her tears fall through thin, hushed walls for the love of our family. 

A brave face betrayed in time,

By the worried laid in her brushed green eyes. 

Yet her smile stays golden in a lightless night.

It's in my heart as I go to sleep.

Quiet monster creeping up on me 

I shouldn't be ashamed of my reflection.

You grow up fast in a house of glass

Where your every step is measured by the pressure that your under.

There is no way of fighting back.

You just keep going

Tiptoeing through the lines so everything doesn't fall apart.

Leaving fingerprints on the panes you're holding up,

And every crack is an opening for wind to settle upon your heart. 

Till it shatters in the night.

You learn to take the small things with a grain of sight.

You learn to live with a gentleness for creatures who are misfits in the dark.

Loneliness made me powerless 

Poverty gave me grateful steps that moved me forward.

I found my little pasture in love for lonely, broken things

Who were just like me.

I'm just a poor girl

Who had nothing left to give but what she carried with her in her soul. 

My house of glass when the form gave way 

And the striking pieces in silence laid

Made mosaics that when patched together were beautiful and whole. 

Just a poor girl sure.

In a hopeful world 

With houses made of glass and some of stone

The power is not where the seed falls,

But where it grows.

And the beauty left to tell in the life it sows. 

So this is what I know my fellow readers. 

That very often trials make us softer not stronger. 

Growing up poor and being ostracized for my glasses and ugly clothes made me helpless and tired and at so many moments ready to give up on living at all. Sometimes overcoming pain is as simple as outlasting it. Winston Churchill has a quote that says, "If you're going through hell, keep going." I kept going and in that I found myself softened towards those who were like me. The lonely, unlovable and friendless were those who had my closest confidence. I never wanted another person to feel the way I did. Soon my pain melted away in the empathy I carried for the broken hearted. I was weak but my heart was softer, more open and more willing to love. Perhaps that's the real strength of this world. 

I still have a few scars from that era and whenever I see them nowadays I smile. Scars can be beautiful sometimes, we shouldn't be so afraid of them. God uses everything for the goodness of His purposes. He makes lovely things out of ashes. Now, please understand, I don't believe that you have to struggle in order to be beautiful or to understand your place in the world because God has his own way of making everyone who they're supposed to be. We can't overglorify the struggle because the glory isn't in the struggle it's the Lord's. Always, it's His. Whether you've been through hell or you've only glimpsed it from the outside, the Lord has us just where He wants us and He makes us prosperous all the same. I certainly reaped many good things but only because the Lord is so sovereign that even the emptiest of times have meaning. For this I'm always grateful. 

Many people who read this blog are people I know. I would like to take the time to tell you (friend) how much I value the love given to me by you. Your relationship is precious to me, more then you realize. 

- J