On this day five years ago, I met someone truly special and unforgettable, someone who has totally changed my life in wonderful ways: you!  On this day, five years ago, I knew you were going to be born that day and I was so excited.  On the way to the hospital, we stopped and got you a special toy and a special outfit—little did I know then that clothes would become one of your favorite things!  It always makes me smile how you go into your closet and look at all your clothes, and still you come out wearing the zebra dress, or the pink Hello Kitty one, every day.  One day, you were trying to decide what to wear and you couldn’t make up your mind so, at one point, you just said, “okay, that’s IT: I’m just wearing my panties!”

 You have grown into such a beautiful and sweet and hilarious little girl.  I cannot tell you how much I enjoy watching you climb EVERYTHING in the house:  you climb on the windows, you climb on the bookshelves, you even try climbing the refrigerator!  You have the most infectious laugh, ever.  Lately, you’ve been on a Toy Story kick, and it is so fun watching you watch Toy Story 3: you laugh out loud when the potato head uses a tortilla as a body!  Joy and energy fill the room when you walk into it, and it delights my heart to see you so happy.  Confidence is beginning to shine more in your personality—you’ll say, “okay, Mama, here’s your choices, I either eat shells and cheese or Sloppy Joe Pizza”  (which really means Papa John’s). And you say the funniest things in the world. This time next year, I hope with all my heart that you still love all your “little toys”, and “squishies” as much as you do now.  Who knew how much fun Squinkies can really be? 

Alight, there are many things about you that are very, very special.  You’ve shown me what real courage is because, no matter what you’re afraid of, you always want to face it.  You’re scared of ghosts—but yet you want me to play games with ghosts in them with you, like having a ghost trap a Barbie doll.  You’re scared of skeletons, but you always want me to hold you and show them to you when we pass one. That’s real courage, and I hope that it shines light on the fears for you, and helps you see that there’s nothing to be afraid of, because I am here with you.  I will always be with you.  No matter what scary things might come your way, I will be here to help you up and to hug you and to shine light on the shadows for you. 

You’re not only courageous and funny and energetic, though, you are always so sweet. You always want to play with Breathe, and you always want me to hold you.  You said that you wished that today you were turning 3, instead of 5, and that next year you could turn 2.  I can’t tell you how sweet and warming I find it that you want to stay little.  But you don’t have to try so hard for that because no matter how old you grow, you will always be my little baby.  I wish that I could freeze time too, right now, and keep you exactly as you are: bubbly and joyful and full of energy.  I wish I could freeze time so that your hands would always be so little and when I ask you to do your daily affirmation, you always come back, saying, “I said I love Jesus!”  The other day, I saw you walking on your tippy toes, which you’ve done all your life, and it melted me.  I see you swish your little body back and forth when you are excited, and I wish I could freeze life and just watch you, because you are so wonderful. 

But on the other hand, if you stayed little forever, some of your dreams would never come true.  Like, you wouldn’t be able to ride the Sea Dragon at Beech Bend (which hopefully you can do THIS summer!).  You wouldn’t be able to ride a bike like your friends.  I’d miss watching you learn to read your first book all by yourself, or how to swim. I’d miss watching you discover new hobbies that would become life-long joys for you.  I’d miss getting to eat a meal that you’ll have cooked all by yourself (for real!!)  And I’d really miss getting to know how incredible your mind is, and what kinds of things you’ll come up with all by yourself.  I love having you little, but I love  watching your dreams become reality even more. 

You are one of my bestest friends on the planet.  And you’ve taught me more than I can tell you (who knew that I’d have to learn how to unlock a bedroom door for the twentieth time;  I’m a pro now!).  I never would have guessed that my heart could fill up with so much love…. it’s like you’ve taken a pink crayon and drawn a HUGE heart, one that fills up the whole page, and then drawn yourself inside the heart over and over and over until it’s full of Alights: that’s what my real heart feels like every time you ask me to read you a story, or play Squinkies with you, or give you an Elephant in the Jungle ride. I also love the special things about you that make you you, like how you still walk on your tippy toes and how you tip your head just so. There truly is no one like you in all the world. 

We treasure innocence because it’s fleeting, and because it shows us something about God.  Thank you for being one of the most beautiful treasures I’ve ever had.  Thank you for laughing with me.  Thank you for being the best little sister Breathe could ever hope to have.  Thank you for being a picky eater and for laughing at all my silly attempts to try and get you to eat (remember when we pretended you’d swallowed the mama and so you HAD to eat the next bite so that the little girl could find the mama!)  You love everything Princess, especially the beautiful Belle.  But not even Belle is as pretty as you.  Not even Belle is as kind as you are.  And no princess is as special as you are to me.  Thank you for filling my life with joy, with love, with silliness, with pillow-made tents and EVERYTHING pink. Try to find a window right now and look outside; do you see the sun?  Do you see how bright it is?  It is so bright it lights up our whole world–just like you make me feel lit up.  I love being your mommy.  I love getting to sing you to sleep, and feed you.  I love getting to brush your hair and watch you take a bath.  I love playing with you and then, late at night, I love watching you sleep.  God must really like me because He let me be YOUR mommy! 

I hope you have a wonderful, beautiful, happy day today and a fun week too!  I hope you feel like the special princess you are, and I hope that this year finds you growing in every way. I love you, Light Light, with every beat of my heart.  Happy birthday!!

Now then…

It’s in the third grade that I first clearly remember writing.  Several years ago, while looking through all my books, I found a story that I’d written that was before the third grade. I have no recollection of writing that story at all.  What I do remember, though, is writing the Mickey series.  I was a collector of the Baby-Sitter Club series by Ann M. Martin.  I really, really loved those seven girls. I have fond and hilarious memories of reading specific books from that series. One day, after finishing reading one of the series’ books, I thought to myself, “I can do that!  I can write!”  and I came up with the Mickey series.  In essence, the Mickey series copied the Baby Sitters Club series, except that the group of friends in my series didn’t babysit kids: they were just friends.  For the next four or five years, the group of kids in the Mickey series became my friends.  I used to pretend that one of them would come talk to me.  Then, one bright day while walking in Kroger, I read the back of  Danielle Steel’s  “Kaleidoscope.”  I think I was, like, twelve or thirteen.  “Kaleidoscope” is the story of three sisters who are separated;  the oldest becomes determined to reunite them (such a Tiffini-type story!)  As good as they were, the Baby Sitter Club series suddenly lost much of their appeal and once I read  “The Ring”, also by Steel, I was hooked. My writing changed about that time too.  I wanted to write real stories, longer stories, stories that would allow me to really get to know the characters one at a time (this is important).  “Broken Dreams” in ’91 was my first real novel.  After that, I left writing series and focused my attention on creating the most in-depth novels imaginable.

I still pretended that my characters visited me.  Usually, back then, they came at night, when it was dark and sometimes scary, and yet also quiet.  I would have conversations with them.  I really talked to these characters.  Landon, Clayton, Pete… these men were imaginary, but they were more than my characters, they were my friends.  When they visited me, they usually didn’t have a whole lot to say… but they always, without fail, hugged me. And when they did, I didn’t feel very alone anymore,  I didn’t feel like I was some sort of alien from outer space.  I didn’t feel like I was clumsy, or inept.  Even the shame seemed bearable. I never pretended that I was the heroine, I never pretended that the hero had come to marry me and take me away.  That wasn’t what I wanted.  What I wanted was Strength and warmth. Sometimes I’d be crying and, when I cried, one of them always showed up.  And hugged me. And made me believe that crying was okay.  Did you know that being strong is ridiculously hard?  But, when you’re not strong, what you’re doing is asking for attention…. and that’s selfish, and bad. At least it was in my world. Except at night, when the characters came.  It was pointless to put on a happy face for them, because they already knew my deepest and darkest emotions: they were created from those emotions.  So instead, they acted as Strength.  I’d pretend that they were holding me.  I’d pretend that it was okay to cry, and then I would.  At the time, this was a sanity-saving, critically necessary mechanism that I thank God for every day of my life.  I have no idea how I’d have survived without that imaginary world.

Think of every negative adjective you can and that’s how I thought of myself in relation to other people. Shame used to waft over me in gushing waves whenever I  walked into a classroom–even if everyone in there was kind.  Suddenly, the Goth kid with multiple tattoos or the class geek with the Erkle-looking glasses seemed cooler than me. At least that Goth kid was a cool outcast and at least that Erkle-looking geek was smart and beloved by every teacher on the planet.  Me…. my only claim to coolness was that I was ALWAYS writing.  I never looked up.  The kids thought that was kind of neat but mostly weird.  I never tried to get them to understand.  And they never asked.  When the three bully girls wrecked havoc on my self-esteem by, one day, taking a page of my book, wadding it up and tossing it back and forth over my head, I staunchly looked down, whispered an apology to the characters written on that page and promised them I’d re-write them.  When the girls finally threw it in the trash, I calmly got up and rescued my characters, then spent long minutes smoothing out that wrinkled page. When, the next day, they came in, put catsup on a sanitary pad, stuck it to the TV and told the teacher upon his arrival that I had done it,  I cried from embarrassment and said not one word (the teacher knew they were full of it though).  My point is that my refuge was my writing;  my characters thought I was too cool and awesome to make fun of.  I fit in with them.

So, I clung to them.  I effectively shut myself off from the outside world.  I only talked to a select few students at school.  Parties intimidated me to death, and so I never went.  In essence, isolation became a sanctuary, a safe haven.

Then, a couple years ago, during a particularly rough time, I wanted to reconnect with high school classmates that had never mistreated me, that had, in retrospect, treated me kindly—classmates that, too often, I hadn’t been able to really see then.  The lure of possibly being able to do that captured me:  I signed up for Facebook.

In no time at all, I fell in love.

At first, it was just because I was able to “watch” the daily lives of people I was only acquaintances with.  Other people made jokes and complained about status updates that told really random and mundane things, like  “I’m cooking fried eggs for breakfast this morning. Hope the kids eat!” or  “I’ve been totally unable to poop ALL day!”  I, on the other hand, relished these totally unnecessary and random glimpses into others’ lives.  You know why?  Because I started to realize that a woman I’d admired from a distance for years was actually NORMAL.  She cooked, her kids weren’t perfect, she had runaway thoughts sometimes, just like I did;  she hated getting up early in the mornings but she liked her job.  For the first time in my entire life, I did not feel so…. strange.  I could relate to some of the thoughts people were posting, because I had the same thoughts myself!  I didn’t feel so awful if, one day, I woke up wanting to just quit because at the appointed time, I could logon and see that so and so “ignored the alarm clock” the same day.  All my life, people had told me that I was “special” and “unique” — but, in my head, that translated into “weird” and that translated into “bad.”  All I’d ever wanted was to be just like everyone else.  Thanks to Facebook, I started to realized that, actually, I am quite ordinary, I’m a lot like the women I see every week at church and those that read my books. Ordinary-ness: What a wonderful, revolutionary thing!

That was my first Facebook lesson:  that I DO fit in with other women.  It took awhile but, once that lesson began to really sink in, I suddenly found that I was more confident when I talked to other women.  I even went on a few lunch dates with other women for no purpose other than to “visit.”  That is what you call a miracle, folks. I was still scared.  I was still intimidated, and I still felt unworthy. But I was learning that everyone else had such thoughts too.

My second lesson was huge.  I reconnected with just a couple of really, really important people, people that I don’t think I would have reconnected with in real life.  Friends that I had known, and lost, and had deeply missed.  Facebook made communication safe again, and opened the door to the healing of some important wounds.  I learned that a couple of my high school birthday parties had been important and memorable for some of my classmates in school.  I learned that I wasn’t the only one who had a special relationship.  I was remembered.  And, for this, I will be eternally grateful for the creation of Facebook.  You see, truth be told, I have a lot of fears but my biggest, deepest, darkest fear has always been the fear of being forgotten.  I write letters to my children.  Now, it’s so that they can have them when they need them one day.  But, initially, it was because I was terrified that I was going to die before they were old enough to remember me.  I was afraid of requesting any “friends” because I was terrified that no one would remember who I was.  I was afraid of requesting to be “friends” even with those who I had cared about because I was convinced I was unimportant, that my “friendship” wasn’t even desired. I knew no one really knew me, and I thought no one wanted to.  But the “friendships” weren’t only made, they were nourished so that they could grow into real ones again.  I was afraid that my daily thoughts and activities would become a nuisance to people.  I was afraid that I would be the one people would write status updates about.  Instead, I suddenly found people stopping me at church and saying things like,  “you are so creative!  Everyday, I want to write down what you’re doing, it would be a great tool!”  or  “You wear me out”  or  “You’re a great mom.”  I even had people stop me to ask me about writing, or to tell me it was cool to see  “a book being written!”

I had never been given affirmations like this from my peers before.  I started thinking that maybe I wasn’t as forgettable as I’d originally thought I was.  Maybe I did have something to offer.  You see, I’d forgotten something:  I’d forgotten that –I– was the one who made isolation a sanctuary.  I had forgotten that it had been me who decided to stop communication with my peers,  to shut them out and instead be just a happy face.  I’d forgotten that while no one had ever really tried to get to know the real me, I had also never really offered:  instead, I’d relied on my imaginary characters to be my friends instead of risking any more rejection and heartache.  Behind the safety of the computer, though, it was easier for me to voice behaviors, to take thirty seconds to express my frustrations over the umpteenth break-down of a stupid car or the restlessness of insomnia.  It also gave me a safe place to voice pride for my books or joy over a great day of homeschooling. It gave me a quick way of jotting down all the funny, sweet or wacky things my girls say and/or do. Somehow, in other words, it seemed to validate my own thoughts.

Nowadays, I’m likely to post what I cook for dinner even though I didn’t used to want to clutter anyone’s wall with useless information. Except, it’s not useless information:  to cook a meal takes work and is done because I hope my girls will have a good, yummy and healthy meal to eat. Dinner matters in my house. And since I have to believe that I matter, then a status update about what I’m cooking for dinner also must matter.  Playing cards with my kids is a small thing. The fact that someone else went to an audition is a small thing. My car breaking down is, really, a small thing. That someone else is going on vacation is a small thing. That my kids thought I was a genius for a particularly fun or engaging lesson is really a small thing. That someone else hates a particular song is a small thing. That I’m tired a lot is a small thing. And yet…. the small things are what life is made up of, the little moments are what construct our whole world.  Big events, like deaths and marriages and births, are choke full of emotion and deserve attention—but so do the everyday moments that ultimately define who we have become as adults. No status update, therefore, is “dumb” because it’s a window into someone’s thoughts and emotions.  We are not islands, we are one big community and no one is greater than anyone else.  No one has perfect thoughts every day.  We all have strengths and weaknesses. I am not the sore thumb that’s sticking out and I don’t have to be afraid to talk to someone because, chances are, they’re not watching me in disgust or disdain or judgment.

I still love my characters.

And they still come to help me through the nights.  I still talk to them.  I still see them.  And sometimes, they still hug me so that I can feel warmth. I’m still not a social butterfly.  I don’t have any real life friends that I see just to see a whole lot.  But I do have people whose lives I care about, people who I now think about and notice.  I still don’t have people inviting me over for dinner at their house;  I still don’t give invitations to more than my children’s parties. Speaking candidly, without fear of hurting or angering another person, is still difficult for me. I still cling to the safety of seclusion and the illusion of friendship my characters offer me. I’m still, in a lot of ways, a happy face with a chaotic, misunderstood heart and mind.  And maybe I’m just also egotistical, but Facebook’s comments and emails and “likes” encourage me to believe that people outside my family also care about me and my life.  Nothing dramatic usually happens to me these days.  I spend the days teaching and playing and the nights writing in solitude. But if I don’t wake up when I go to sleep, Facebook allows me to believe that not only would my girls and my family remember me and miss me, but others might as well.  And that gives me solace.

Every day, at the conclusion of Devotionals, the girls have to go one by one into the bathroom, look at themselves in the mirror and name, out loud, something that they like about themselves.  My oldest totally gets it.  My youngest doesn’t at all. But I remind her that, one day, she’ll remember to do an affirmation, and that, maybe, it’ll be an affirmation that will provide her with hope and motivation and, most of all, confidence.  I used to think that self-esteem was given to us or taken away from us.  Now, I think it’s a combination of social and environmental factors as well as internal dialogue. We have to work to maintain our self-esteem. Others influence it, we mold it.  Loneliness can make me believe I’m worthless, but a daily affirmation can remind me that, in the lives of my family, I am instrumental. Isolation can convince me I’m a freak but taking a chance and writing  random status update can result in positive feedback which, in turn, makes me think that maybe I’m just a woman.

Facebook should never replace human interaction but, for me, it has been a bridge from isolation to communication and has taught me that being me, even when I’m tired or even when I’m boring or even when I’m excited or nervous, is okay.  And I am thankful for the Facebook lessons.

The new novel,  ”Forget Me Not” is here!!

You can order it from Amazon.com under its title and from tiffinijohnson.com today for $10.00. Within the next two weeks,  you’ll  be able to purchase it from any major bookstore!   Also,  as a special release promotion, you can order the Kindle or other electronic reading device version for $4.00, a savings of 20%  off of the normal e-book price:  simply search for it at www.smashwords.com and enter coupon code GT57E at checkout!   In addition, you can listen to a chapter here at the blog, under its page, and you can read the first three chapters for free at smashwords or goodreads.com!

This is a very special, heartbreaking book, about the effects of touch deprivation and I am very excited about the dialogue I anticipate it will create!

Happy Reading!!  

Parents are supposed to teach their kids to be—if not scared, then wary of—strangers.  We’re supposed to tell our kids not to talk to them.  All candy and/or other treats offered by them is poisoned.  They are not allowed to offer assistance of any kind, ever, be that on the playground, a friend’s house or the church.   Strangers are the boogeyman.  I love my daughters, very much, so that is, basically, what I’m supposed to tell them.  It is one of the hardest rules of parenting for me to heed.  Because,  frankly, I love strangers.  Because, frankly, strangers have never hurt me:  the only boogeyman I ever knew was someone whose name I knew.

Strangers, on the other hand, have been saving graces;  angels who have lifted me up, e’ver I stumbled. Strangers are just friends I haven’t met yet.   When we were little, and our dad had vanished into thin air again, leaving us with no way to pay our light bill, or rent, strangers were often the ones who stepped up and took care of us.  I remember one Christmas when my sister and I got a few wrapped presents apiece from an organization that gave gifts to children whose parents were incarcerated.  I don’t remember the gift—except—I really do:  it was that a stranger knew about us and had taken the time to wrap, and then deliver, presents to kids they didn’t actually know.  Recently, my stupid car broke down for the umpteenth time.  I was on the side of the interstate, and was going to have to walk to the nearest exit.  Instead, a stranger pulled over and offered me a ride there.  All my training, all my 20th-century teachings, advised me against accepting the ride and made me hesitate.  But, in the end, I trusted my instincts, reminded myself that, contrary to what Hollywood and the local news at 10 would like me to believe, serial killers do not constitute the majority of the population in our community.  He was a nice, young guy that not only just took me to the exit, but also told me to put my money away because he wasn’t accepting any monetary form of repayment.    Strangers are the often the ones who write me e-mails and letters that move me to tears and make me grateful for the gift of writing  God has entrusted me with.  In high school, it was a stranger who held a door open to a restaurant for me and forever altered my world by reminding me that good people still existed.  He was a ray of hope, and he didn’t even look at me.  The homeless man who handed out bracelets but refused to tell people his name, and who pierced my heart, was a stranger whose face I recall every time I see someone on the street.  Once, when I was in school, I sat down at a table by myself to eat, just as I did every day, when a girl from a crowded, popular table tapped me on the shoulder and told me to sit beside her.  I didn’t know her name,  and I never saw her again.  She was a stranger.   I never forgot her.

And now…

Once again  a stranger has moved me to tears.

Tonight,  I checked my e-mail and received notice that “someone I know” submitted my name and story as a nomination for a photography package.  Apparently, this person told the photographer my story, and that I volunteer with children;  the stranger suggested that I deserve, out of the people the stranger knows, to be given professional photographs of my daughters and I.  Now.  I hope this sounds like a major ordeal to you, because, to me, it is massive.  Pictures are stories made visible.   I don’t just like them, I love them.  I ask for them for nearly every imaginable holiday.  Cameras are my friends.  And I sit and stare at pictures of my daughters all day long.  A good picture –speaks– it tells you what kind of personality the subject has.   Pictures can also freeze time–make you remember, years later,  the circumstances in which the photograph was taken.  They document our lives,  and preserve the memories we want to remember.  In my world,  pictures are big, big deals.   And someone I know—but apparently, not really—thought I should be able to have pictures taken of the girls for free.  That is,  for no reason.  By an award-winning photographer.

This is mind-boggling startling for at least three reasons.

Number one:  I was nominated!  There’s nothing special about me.   I try to be a good mom.  I write books that, really, just make people cry.  That’s it.  I have not been to war.  I have not saved anyone’s life.  I have not put out flames of fire.  Indeed, not only have I –not– done anything deserving of recognition, I –have– done aplenty wrong.  I’m wading through the Old Testament.  I just read the story of where Moses  struck a rock God said speak to.  And that incident kept Moses from entering Canaan. Now, I know there was really more involved than that, and I’m simplifying just a bit, but, still… Moses don’t have nothing on me.  In fact, reading the Old Testament where pretty decent people make a mistake and get killed by God’s wrath makes me afraid to get out of bed.  And yet—I was nominated.  I was nominated for a special award that will ultimately provide me with beautiful photographs of my girls that will help me remember this oh-so-wonderful time in their lives.

Number two:  I was nominated by a stranger.  Now, even if the person who nominated me was a member of my family, it would be special.  And it would still be powerfully moving. I don’t know many people better than  my mom or sister, and they are among the few that truly know me with all my flaws.  So even if it were one of them who nominated me, it would still greatly touch me.  But their reactions of obvious surprise to the news convinces me they knew nothing about it.  That means a stranger nominated me.  And that really just….it’s humbling, and it’s very, very special.  It means someone has taken note of the work I do and the life I lead and decided that, out of everyone else they know, I should receive a special gift.  A stranger’s spirit of graciousness and kindness means that my girls and I will receive the treasured gift of frozen time. I’ll be able to see Breathe’s smile as a seven year old years from now, taken by a talented photographer with an exceptional camera, and framed for preservation.  It also means that someone I don’t know cares about me.  It means that someone watching from the distance has decided that the way in which I handle myself,  and my past,  is appropriate and graceful and worthy of recognition.   A true blessing.

Number three:  I was chosen!  The photographer chose my story from countless other, more worthy stories.  Undoubtedly, she read of soldiers’  wives who are trying to raise kids while fearing they’ll receive the news of their husband’s death.   She probably read stories of people who have, with God’s grace, beaten cancer or other life-threatening illnesses.  Maybe she’s read of people who have looked down a darkened road where suicide seemed a viable choice and who decided that life was worth another chance.   I don’t know the stories she read—it makes me sad thinking about all the letters a photographer probably received, detailing the lives of ordinary people who are struggling to make ends meet, who are tired, and who need to feel special.  Like I felt when I read the e-mail that told me she’d selected me.  All my life I’ve compared my story to that of others.  When I was younger, it was Holocaust:  I was much better off than survivors of Hitler’s war, and whatever happened to me was insignificant in light of concentration and death camps.  Now, it’s single parents who have just been laid off and don’t have a way to bring Santa Claus to their children.   It’s my mom.  It’s my sister.  But, for some reason,  I was chosen.  By a stranger.

When we start to feel worthless,  when we begin to think nothing we do matters anyway and no one is going to notice—it’s then when a stranger will often step up, offer a smile and change our lives.  I recently went to a Michael W. Smith concert with my sister.  During that concert, Michael told a story of a woman who was contemplating suicide when she heard one of his songs on the radio in the car.  She pulled the car over and wept—and her life was never the same.  She did not know Michael.  He was a stranger.  Yet his words impacted her in such a way as to leave her altered.   My pastor has a habit of asking the congregation to bless those around them—-he’ll say, “if you feel the need to tell someone across the room something—go tell it to them, even if you don’t know the person, even if you don’t understand what you’re saying.   If you feel the need to give someone something, do it.”  This habit of his has led to enormous gifts being offered, and received, between strangers:  gifts of great magnitude.  All because strangers cared.  The good Samaritan did not know the stranger he came across.  All he knew was there lie a man in need and that simple knowledge stirred in the Samaritan compassion.  I guarantee you, the injured man would have been forever altered.  Stopped at a red light, we see them in the car next to us.  Sometimes, when we’re not in a hurry and when we’re not distracted by the phone or the radio, we wonder for ten seconds about their lives—where they are going, what song they are singing,  their name.  We see them sitting in the pews in front of and behind us when the preacher tells us to stop and shake somebody’s hand.  When I was in college, I frequented this gas station near campus.  One day, the lady who worked there said to me, “I’m so glad when you come in.  You’re always so happy and cheerful.”  I didn’t know her, and she (obviously) didn’t know me.  But she made me feel better about being me.  Strangers see things that we don’t see, that our families sometimes don’t see, that our closest friends miss.

They are not the enemy.  They make our life richer.   Indeed, our lives would be incomplete  without them.  Thank you, whomever you are, for nominating me to win this photography package: your act of kindness has been felt with the heart, and will long be remembered.   Also, thank  You, God,  for the strangers I’ve met, for the ones I will meet tomorrow and for the ones about whom I’ll never know.

***

An audio excerpt from the new novel, “Forget Me Not”, to be released December 2011.

To be quite frank with you,  I don’t know the answer to that question.

Somewhere in the last oh, we’ll say, several years, an epiphany began to dawn on me.  And it said, loudly and insistently, “HEY!  You are sabotaging yourself, chickadee!”  I scoffed, naturally, and replied, in essence, “Whatever.”  But, lo and behold, given enough time, most of us all embrace, however reluctantly, acceptance.  And it appears that my personal Jiminy Cricket may have had somewhat of a valid argument.  Jessie, my character in the book that’s proving traumatizing to me, pointed it out awhile back with all the hideous research her story’s required of me.   See, Jessie hates being touched.  A nice kid tried to hug her and she broke his nose for it.   She lost it when she went to the doctor’s office because he put his hand on her shoulder and she could not get past that. She gets violently ill when touched, so virulent is her dislike of it.  But, here’s the kicker:  she doesn’t hate being touched because it hurts.  She hates being touched because she doesn’t know what it’s like to be touched and so she has decided that she would rather go on not being touched than risk realizing that it’s not so terrible.  She does not know that refusing to let others touch her appropriately is actually hurting her more.

Hm.  Stop.  Feel my heart just break a little.  Breathe again, and continue.

I just got out of a garden tub bath.  You don’t have any comprehension how much I love my garden tub.  I fill it full of steaming hot water, light two candles,  make some bubbles and get in.  I lean back and do… nothing. I close my eyes for a few minutes and breathe deeply.  The bubbles start seeping into my skin, making me feel soft and rejuvenated. Then I open my eyes.  I am still.  The water feels so nice, and the bubbles feel wonderful, too.  I’m uncomfortable laying back, though,  so I sit up and rub some of the water up one of my arms and then do the same to the other arm.   As I sit here, I’m gritting my teeth, forcing myself to admit that the bubble bath in my garden tub feels good.  At least, that is, until I feel the familiar pangs of guilt.  Then, the following is what goes through my head, all within a matter of a minute or two.  Soaking in a tub,  how self-indulgent.  I should be cleaning.  I should be writing.  I should be doing something. Besides, what if the girls wake up?  They won’t know where I’m at, and they’ll be scared.  I should get out.  I’ll just sit here for one more minute or so…. hmm, this water is hot.  That’s so strange, how my skin feels soft right now…  I am being so, so silly.  This is totally wasting time.  I’m getting out.  And, out I get.

I started thinking about the question:  what feels good?

I can think of only a couple of things:

1)  Hugs.  I’m a firm believer in hugs.  They are, most often, warm and wonderful.  But they are totally justifiable in that you can’t receive a hug without giving one in return and so there’s huge emotional incentives involved in hugs.

2) Cold air from freezers or air vents blowing directly on my face.  I love the feel of this, and have since childhood.  The air can sometimes help my migraines.  Also, strangely, I’ve never felt guilty for pausing for a few seconds in front of a blowing vent, or standing in the freezer a moment longer than necessary.

3) Bubble baths in the tub.  It has no redeeming qualities.  It doesn’t help my migraines.  Really, it just feels good.

Now, over the years, there’s been a few notable exceptions but, generally, these three things are really just about the only physical things I can attest to having felt really good.  I find this both odd and sad.  You see, the truth is, I think, somewhere along the line,  my subconscious decided that being touched was entirely too risky and so it built these nearly impenetrable walls. Whenever someone or something nice touches me, I instinctively block the sensation. I tune out so that I can’t feel or acknowledge it.  If  it’s really good and I can’t block it, if it starts to make a crack in my walls, I simply remove myself from the source of the touch.  Guilt gone, problem solved.

This is prime sabotage, people.

I mean, I’m not Einstein, but I can hold my own in intellectual conversations and, you know, I know touch is a good thing.  In fact, I’m writing a book about how traumatizing and life destroying the lack of touch can be. The research for this book has been mind-numbingly, staggeringly awful. It’s so sad I don’t even want to finish it, which, if you’ve read most of my other works, says something.  And, as for the guilt, that awful companion I wish would take a long hike…

What, exactly, am I guilty of,  if  I allow something nice to touch me?

Hm.

Well…

To peel back the first layer of raw wound…. there was once a little girl with my name, and she went through some terrible things, things that hurt her spiritually, emotionally, physically and mentally in ways that she still probably hasn’t fully grasped.  And, even if I’m magnanimous and say I wasn’t responsible for her til I was a teenager, the fact is there was a point where I knew what to do to make it stop–and I chose not to.  I haven’t heard anything yet that’s convinced me I can excuse myself for that.  My pastor came close.  But the problem is — no one else was me.  No one knows what I knew. And even if my reasons were honorable and good and just, in the end, it still boils down to the fact that I chose to allow terrible things to continue to happen to a little girl.

I can’t forgive myself for that.  And I can’t forget it either.

Somewhere during my first year of college, my subconscious made a promise to the child I once was.  The promise went something like this:  “I’m sorry.  I will not allow you to be hurt like that ever again.”

How was she hurt?

Through touch.

So… I’ve pretty much forbidden myself from experiencing anything good.  An act, after all, is an act is an act:  call it love or call it abuse, the physical act of touch is the same.  Context may differ, but it was the touch itself that traumatized that little girl, so, be context what it will… I’m not allowed to receive positive touch.  If I’m hurt, the only way I’ll take medicine is if the pain is interfering with my being able to mother my children in the way they are used to.  Giving isn’t against the rules, so I’m allowed to give good touches all day long, to anyone.  But I’m not allowed to receive.  As for intimacy…. I didn’t see what the problem was, if I was giving all the time.   The truth is, though, that’s a contradiction:  by only allowing yourself to give touch,  but never receive it, you’re also denying the other person from being able to give you the gift of a pleasurable touch.  In the end, then, it’s called sabotage and perhaps explains why, with a few notable exceptions, I can’t name something specific that would classify as feeling good.

::sigh::

In order to fix it, I’d have to first convince myself I wasn’t responsible for staying silent.  Then I’d have to somehow forget or excuse away the most important promise I’ve ever made.  Jessie crosses my mind: that sweet eight year old who won’t allow a fellow kid to give her a hug, who freaks out at the mere thought of a gentle touch.  What is depriving herself of?  Or do I even want to answer that question?  Probably not really so… instead,  I”ll smile and, once or twice a month, indulge in a five minute bubbly soak in the garden tub.

Very few books are capable of doing this.  Even “The Holocaust” by Martin Gilbert,  that infamous, graphic and oh-so-sad book that rocked my world, didn’t scare me.  Even really sad books like Donahue’s  Room or The Book Thief don’t scare me.  Frankly, it’s kind of hard to scare me.  I mean, seriously, what could possibly scare me worse than the things I’ve already experienced and seen?

Anna Quindlen managed to do it.  Scared me spitless.

I  have harbored a great respect for Quindlen for years, ever since, long time ago, I read her book Black and Blue.  That book pretty much traumatized me, and has haunted me for years.  I studiously avoided reading anything else by Quindlen because Black and Blue gave me a really good glimpse of the kind of breath-taking emotion she’s capable of evoking in me.  But then… I decided to read one of her more recent works,  Every Last One.

And got scared spitless.

Brief recap….

In this book,  Mary Beth Latham is a mother to three teenagers and a wife to a doctor.   She is the quint-essential mother—at least, in my opinion, she is.  She’s their friend, but she’s also their mother.  She’s attentive, she’s a good listener and she cares about who her kids’  friends are because (and this is only my guess) she knows that her friends’ are a good way of staying connected to her own kids’ lives.  Her daughter, Ruby, is seventeen and has been dating a boy that has been a friend of the family’s since the kids were small.  Ruby decides to break up with this boy and when she does, small cracks start to show in the family’s “all-American-ness” that culminate in a terrible act of violence that leaves Mary Beth reeling.  The rest of the book is, in essence, about coping and learning to live in the midst of tragedy.

Quindlen’s writing can almost seem boring because the pace, at first, seems way too slow.  Then you realize that she’s  doing it deliberately because that’s the pace of life and, if you’re able to stick it out, you discover that one day bleeds into the next and then that day bleeds into the next, and it’s really all just a monotony of getting up, eating, working, worrying and going to bed only to get up and do it all again the next day.  The pace of life is slow.  Then something catastrophic happens and life, pretty much, freezes.  At least, it does for you.  Everyone else moves on, but you’re trapped in a fog.  And, while you’re in this fog, life lessons eventually become crystal clear—lessons that, while life is good, you don’t see or understand or, maybe, simply don’t acknowledge.

For instance…

In the book, one of these “life lessons” that Mary Beth comes to realize concerns her children.  She writes a blood-curdling line.  Paraphrased, this is it:  “I realized that, when the kids were little, I didn’t believe in the worry.  I plugged up the outlets because I was told to but my kids were never REALLY going to be electrocuted. We were seatbelts because it was the law, but my kids were never REALLY going to get hurt in a car crash.  I didn’t believe in the worry.”   Then she goes on to say, in essence, that no matter how good of a mother she was—it doesn’t matter.  Tragedy and pain and sorrow visits every family,   no matter how good of a parent one is.  I can be the best mother in the world,  I can make sure that my house is “childproof”,  I can be the safest driver on the planet,  I can teach them all the “right” things.  But I can’t stop some idiot from driving drunk.  I can’t stop a terrorist attack, and if I believe that terrorists won’t attack Nashville, TN,  I’m deluding myself.   Did you know that it is actually possible to surgically implant a GPS-like device in your kid so that you know where that child is at all times?  Obsessive as it sounds—I kind of understand it.  But just knowing the location of your child doesn’t mean you can keep terrible, awful things from happening to her.

Bottom line—no matter what I do,  I cannot guarantee the safety of my girls.  In the end, this was the point of the book  Every Last One.  Quindlen even comes right out and says so in the  “Discussion with the Author” at the end of the book.

Now.

I’m not into self-delusion as much as it may be assumed.

I’m a realist more than I am an idealist.  I can handle the truth.

Furthermore,  it’s not like I didn’t already know this.  Of course I did.   My city suffered a severe flood not too long ago and I distinctly remember feeling that my safety and that of others I cared about were out of my control.  Hurricanes.  Tornadoes — we’ve seen our share.  Turn on the news and it can produce some rather terrifying nightmares.  It can also induce OCD—check, double check, triple check the locks;  pay for an alarm system.  So I already knew that I can’t protect Breathe and Alight from everything.   Not only natural disasters, but I can’t protect them from every human on the face of this earth.  As much as I believe in and cling to the good in all people (it’s been my lifeline),  I realize there are evil folks out there.  I know, very clearly, all the bad things that can happen. So the book didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.

But Quindlen doesn’t offer much hope.  She doesn’t try to explain why tragedy occurs (probably because there is often no explanation).  And she doesn’t assume that things will “get better.”   In fact, the end of the book isn’t particularly satisfying.  There is no “happy ever after”, there is no “magic cure’ and there is no sense that “time heals”  (in fact, she says, it doesn’t.  It merely passes).

See…

I’ve always liked to believe that, when bad things happened, they happened for a reason.  But that justifies it only when the one hurt is me.  It does not help when it’s my kids or my family.  Hurt them, and I really don’t care about the “good” in it.   My job, my whole sense of purpose, is being a mother to my two girls and the number one priority in being a good mom is to make their safety and happiness my top priority.  Nothing is more important.  If I ever get started on a cleaning spree that goes beserk, all I have to do to stop is remind myself that I don’t want my kids’ memories of me to be cleaning;  I want their memories of me to be playing with them.  I work very hard to make sure that they know I love them, and that I like them, and to keep them happy and safe.  Quindlen was telling me that it was all for naught.  That, sooner or later, they’re going to be hurt and there’s nothing I can do to prevent it.

Again,  I knew this but… still…. it scared me spitless.

I started coming up with more OCD-mom-like plans of attack against the world.  I’ll be the slow driver everyone hates.  They won’t be playing at friends’ houses unless I’m there, too.  No school,  for sure.  Homecooked meals so as not to risk all the potentially fatal diseases lurking in the bacteria that’s just waiting for my kids in the form of happy meals.  Not only an alarm system, but a light system too. Maybe video surveillance of my neighborhood. And, on second thought, that implanted GPS-tracking device isn’t such a bad idea.  I mean, if I knew where they were, I could put a stop to terror right fast. I’ll interview personally every woman, man and child who wants to be a part of my kid’s life.  No more walking anywhere alone in our church because, after all, evil idiots exist everywhere.  As painful as it is to me personally,  no longer will I see the humanrace as a good and positive thing: instead, all you people are out to hurt my kids and, therefore, you’re my arch enemy — even if, up to this moment, I’ve thought of you as my friend.  Trust…. that’s where it all starts to rot.  We offer trust and if we offer it enough times, long enough,  we get burned.   Who once said,  ‘The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you.  The trick is to find the ones worth suffering for.’   The only ones worth suffering for are my girls and family. If you’re not part of that—then I can’t trust you. Oh, and also, we’ll wash our hands no fewer than fifteen times a day,  we’ll drink three to four glasses of water and also get a meal that contains all five food groups three times a day because I can’t rule out the stupid fact that my enemy may come in the form of a virus.  As for the terrorists—maybe we should move to some remote village because terrorists only really attack major cities and political symbols. I mean, they COULD attack the cabin that sits in the remote mountain ranges, but chances are, we’d be okay.  I have to rule out Disney movies, too, because,  after all, you did know that there were subliminally suggestive scenes that only kids saw in the movies Aladdin and  The Lion King, right?  I didn’t believe it either until my Bible teacher, one year, brought the movie in and showed it to us.  Bet you money kids knew it all along, though.  So—have to nix poor Disney.  Actually, the more I think about it, the more I’m thinking that living on some Amish plantation or something sounds like the smartest and safest idea.

I mean, people, I started panicking.

But, then, as I was driving and thinking about all of this, a quiet  voice whispered gently,  “And that’s why you believe in Me.”

Scriptures tell us that He won’t let the least of us stump our foot against a rock.  It tells us that He’ll hold our hand.  It promises us that He’ll watch over us as we sleep.  It doesn’t promise us that bad things won’t happen to us, or to our family.  That’s kind of sad.  But if we can keep our focus on Him, peace will shadow our lives and, even when bad things happen to us and to those we love, we’ll be able to bear up under the weight because we’ll know we aren’t alone.  The problem in trying to be SuperMom or Super Spouse is that we end up becoming an island—responsible for every bad thing and every good thing that happens to everyone we care about and we end up forgetting ourselves, thinking  we don’t need someone to take care of us, we don’t need help because we’re the provider, we don’t need our hands to be held because we’re strong.  All of those are lies that ultimately trap us—unless we remember that we’re only as strong as grace allows us to be.  When we’re supported, and can rest in the assurance that we’re loved, then we can stare evil in the face without breaking.   Furthermore, as cliche as it sounds, tragedy really does build character, and it really does broaden one’s horizon.  Tragedy has a way of building bridges across hearts — when there’s a national crisis, it does not matter what race you are, it does not matter how old you are, it does not matter what language you speak; if you are an American citizen, then you suddenly care about those strangers in Florida, or Utah or California or Alaska.  You near death and suddenly people come out of the woodworks from all sorts of places to offer condolences and to support you when you thought you had no one.  It’s easy to think we’re invisible, it’s easy to think we’re unimportant.  But we’re not; the truth is that we’re being watched by someone, somewhere, all the time.

Our children depend on us to keep them safe.   True story.   But, even more than that, they trust us to love them and care for them and respect them.  If we do that, then all the scary unknowns of all the tomorrows can be bravely and compassionately faced.  Every last one.

Unless we’re  “friends”  on Facebook, chances are you don’t remember me.  Which is understandable.  We had a graduating class of 1000 students and me, well, I tried really hard to be invisible.  I had Dr. Estes lock me (quite literally) in the AP English classroom rather than attend pep rallies.  I made the art teacher let me stay in his classroom during lunch. I went to the Junior prom with my sister but didn’t dance a single dance.  I did not go to the Senior prom. I didn’t go to one party.  I was not part of any school-related extra-curricular clubs/activities.  I never went on a single date.   And, with the exception of a very few couple of people,  we probably never spoke… and, even if you were one of the three or four people that –did– communicate with me somewhat—I didn’t really give you the opportunity to know me very well so… chances are fairly good that you don’t remember my name anymore.  That’s okay.  Because, once upon a time, you –did– know my name.  I know this for a fact because, after moving away, when I returned to McGavock the following year, you would actually smile at me and say, “Hi Tiffini” when you passed me in the hallways.  You have no idea how this stunned the heck out of me.  You have no idea how much it meant then,  nor how much it continues to mean today. I used to be terrified that no one would want to sign my yearbook because no one knew me.  But, lo and behold, when the yearbooks were distributed, each and every year, not only did you all sign it for me but you wrote really kind things.  I know, because I went back and re-read some of the signature notes the other day.

By the time I got to high school, I had decided that I would rather fellow classmates think that I was a snob because that would mean that I was a loner by choice, rather than simply because I had not the foggiest notion of how to make, or be, a friend.  So,  I stuck my nose deep into a book and did not remove it.  In fact, I was so buried writing all the time that the Astronomy teacher asked me one day what I was writing.  When I showed him that it was a book, he said, “Oh.  I wondered.  I thought, ‘ it can’t be notes she’s writing’.”  I wrote because I was afraid.  I was so, so very afraid…. of you.  My 9th grade year, I went to a private school that, pretty much, left me drained and not very happy.  I felt like a bug there.  My mother was scared of McGavock.  My sister was scared of McGavock.  And I should have been.  The place is enormous;  I was blown away when I realized they have 2 large cafeterias and, not counting the Central Office, four  offices.  I thought the lockers were the stupidest thing ever because who could get from their locker when it was downstairs North side when they had to be in their classroom that was located UPstairs  in the far South corner in a mere 7 minutes?   I never had a locker for that reason. McBee and Wright’s 60-kid class intimidated the heck right out of me;  but it was in that class I learned the names and types of 100 plants.  I thought it was insane to stand in line for a ticket to get a spot in a certain teacher’s class but I knew on day 1 of his class that Stackhouse’s class was worth the line.  The presence of the police pretty much should have paralyzed me with fear. The rumors I’d heard about all the gangs and drugs and fights and who knew what all else should have scared me spitless.

It really should have.

I was not very healthy as a teenager.

I was hurting.

A lot.

And I was scared.

A lot.

But something beautiful happened to me at that school.

You.

The students that passed me in the hall and said goodmorning or hello or even just smiled.  I completed a full year there my 10th grade year.   When I started back there as a Junior, I cannot explain the joy I felt at recognizing some of you, and of having –you– recognize me.  I got to sit in Mrs.  Waller’s class for a 2nd year.  I got to know that Stackhouse got to his classroom at the break of dawn, then disappeared for about twenty minutes before the first bell.  Even though I never went there, I knew where the smoking porch was.  I knew that I could buy an orange juice and a little snack between second and third periods in an upstairs classroom from the teacher, if I hurried.  I knew that there was no pool on the third floor, but paid 2 dollars for a key that supposedly unlocked the gate that led to the staircase one year because it made me so happy to BE a part of McGavock.  Like everyone else, I was terrified of Dr. Estes who, the first time I met her, wasted no time in correcting me when I mistakenly called her   “Ms Estes.”  But, once I was actually in her class, my fear turned to compassion and confusion when I passed every, single test she ever came me with an A—-even though I KNEW half the answers I gave were wrong.  When a boy stopped me in the hallway to ask me about a test, and we spent 2 minutes pondering the mystery,  I was so…  touched.  I wasn’t an island.  I was… part of… everything.

One year, I gave a girl I didn’t know very well my Senior book to sign.  Unbeknownst to me, she started reading my reflections and discovered the name of the boy I was quite sure I was destined to marry.  He sat just a few seats ahead of her.  When I heard her gasp and I turned to see her face, she stared at me with an open mouth, then looked at the boy. Fear rushed to my face and I made the “shh” signal.  Miraculously, as far as I know, she never uttered a word.  She didn’t embarrass me or use the knowledge against me, as people in other schools instantly would have done.

I moved to Memphis over Christmas break my 11th grade year.  It traumatized me.  When I came back for a visit, I went to say hello to Mrs. Waller and Stackhosue.  On the way up the stairs, I saw two girls. We’d always been friendly to one another, but we didn’t really hang out or know each other (which was the relationship I had with most everybody at McGavock).  But she told me I was missed, and that she wished her sister could see me before I left.  She made me feel like the kids hadn’t forgotten me yet, and that I had been missed.   When I sent a letter to a friend in the care of her foreign language teacher, the teacher actually gave it to my friend, who then took the time to write me back.  Amazing.

One day, while in Stackhouse’s class, I mistakenly said, “I can’t do grammar.”  He signed deeply and then, right in front of you all,  said, “The only reason YOU can’t do it is because you keep TELLING yourself you can’t and, quite frankly, Tiffini, I’m about tired of it.”  I was shamed, and embarrassed, and wanted to cry.  But then, one of you said, “Yeah.  What he said,”  which made me smile.  When he put his hand on my shoulder, another time, and said, “Will you put your hand –down– for  awhile, you’re starting to make me feel bad?” one of you said,  “And she’s prettier than you are, Stackhouse, too”  (unless you were a part of Stackhouse’s class, you’re not going to understand!)

One year, in my AP Psychology class, we had a sub.  We were supposed to be working but Pete Moore could not find his pencil. I gave him the only one I had. When that made the sub question whether or not I was working, Michael Burkitt actually stood up for me and said, “Hey,  now, she just gave him her pencil.”  And Pete Moore (the one I was destined to marry!) said, “Yeah.  Tiffini’s probably the sweetest girl I know.”  I was floored.  For the first time in my entire school career, someone had stood up for me…. and to a teacher!  And, not fifteen seconds later,  someone else called me “sweet.”   Imagine that. When I went to Paris with Coach Bozeman (the football coach who promised his team he’d do something wacky to his wacky hair if they could manage to WIN one game),  I bought both Michael Burkitt and Pete Moore mini versions of the Eiffel Tower back and smiled the whole time when I gave it to them.

One day, my mom was a little late picking me up and Jonathan, one of the nicest people I had ever seen,  sat in his mom’s car and waited until my mom got there before letting her leave.  He didn’t know me.  We had never hung out.  But he was watching out for me, and I knew it.

A special group of kids came to my birthday party.  We had a limo pick us up at school, then take us to the horse stables and joked for years about Charles lowering his window and saying, ‘Excuse me, do you have any grey poupon’ to a woman in the car next to us.  We felt like princesses and princes.  At least me and my sister did. We did this for two years.  And they were the best birthday parties I have ever had, especially when the limo did NOT return us to the school—instead, we rode in my cramped car, some of us in the floorboards, some of us on each others’ laps, all of us laughing.

In 2 and 1/2 years,  there was only one bomb scare.  Everyone panicked.   But they didn’t close school.  Still, like most of the students’, my mom wouldn’t let me go to school on the day the bomb was supposed to go off.  I was disappointed because I wanted to be there to help you all if a bomb DID go off.  Of course, it didn’t.  It was just an empty threat.   Contrary to all the rumors and bad press the school had garnered, I never saw a single drug deal, I only witnessed 2 real fights.  I never saw a weapon.  I never felt unsafe at school.  I never felt bullied or intimidated or inferior, either.  Instead, I was just one of you.

I begged to come back to Nashville for my Senior year so I could graduate from McGavock.  Due to an administration’s oversight, I had to take 7 tests, plus 2 AP tests, in 2 days in order to graduate.  I was stressed out.   But everyone looked out for me.  The teacher in each subject had to write the test for me that would determine whether or not I graduated.   I didn’t get to be a part of Stackhouse’s 2nd Semester, since we had moved (something that I deeply regret).  The only thing he covered in his first semester was grammar.  He knew I hated grammar but logic said he’d give me a grammar test.  He didn’t.  He told me to write him an essay instead.  I wanted to cry, and I remember trying so hard to write the best darn paper of my life.  I wanted him to be proud.  When, after all the tests were taken, I apologized to Mrs. Waller because, on the AP Placement test, I only scored a 4 rather than a 5 which, I was terrified, meant I’d disappointed her.

One day,  I carried a baby doll to school with me.  I was in the 11th grade.  Not one person laughed at me.  I, incredibly, got to go to Europe with my group—a dream come true. I remember standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, unable to believe where I was.

The truth is—-I don’t know what you thought of me,  when you saw me.  I never did anything that I can recall that stood out.  I just went to class, wrote and went home.  So did you.  But you changed me.  I knew I wasn’t normal, but you never made me feel like an outcast. You never laughed at me.  So…. even if you didn’t know it, you were my friends.  And I never forgot you. I never forgot Jenny, the girl who adored everything Eeyore.  I never forgot walking in those halls.  I never forgot sitting in those desks and listening to teachers who actually cared teach and inspire.

I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend to the lot of you.

I didn’t know how to be a friend.  I was so afraid of being hurt that I chose to isolate myself, who kept me from really getting to know you.  But I have missed you.  I remember standing in the back of the Municipal Aud., in line for graduation and Pete Moore could not find his cap or gown.  All of us cared.  All of us cheered when, moments before the procession began, he ran down the hall waving his cap in the air and donning his gown.  A success for one of us was a success for all of us.

We were fragile, and we treated each other as though we knew it.  At least, that’s how you treated me.  I felt respected.  I felt accepted.  By the teachers.  And by you, the students.  Having been a part of you makes me proud.  I signed up for Facebook because I was trying to track down any of you.  I still visit McGavock once or twice a year, to see Stackhouse (who still gets there at the crack of dawn).  I maintain a special and important friendship with Mrs. Waller.  I actively search for Dr. Estes because I really want the  opportunity to thank her personally (if you know where she is,  PLEASE help me  out!)  And, in my heart, I still cherish all of  you, the students who shared that year with me–not only in my graduating class but anyone who was there. McGavock was, to me, what schools are supposed to be.  The beauty of a school with 2000 kids is the diversity—no one is an outcast.  Once, I sat down at a table in the cafeteria, eating my pizza stick. I was by myself, because my sister didn’t have the same lunch that year as I did.  I hadn’t sat down long when a girl from a crowded table walked over and tapped me on my shoulder.  I did not know her name,  I had never seen her.  But she told me to come sit at her table.  So I did.  And I never forgot her, even though I never saw her again after that day at lunch.  No one is an outcast, but only because we didn’t let them be.

I wish I had really known you, and I wish I had been able to tell you then how much your kindness meant to me.  I wish I’d been able to be a better friend to all of you.  So…. eleven years later….  thank you.   Thank you.   Thank you.   I do and will remember you.

Today proves it.

The grass tickles a young woman’s ankles;  it is soft against her bare feet.   She abandoned her shoes long ago, choosing instead to cherish the freedom of walking barefoot.   Hours earlier, when they first got here, the grass, heavy with early morning dew, was cold—almost unbearably so– but  then the sun lapped up the last of the dew, leaving the grass pleasantly soft and cool.  Fall hadn’t come in earnest yet, but the temperatures had dropped just enough for an entire day to be passed in the sun without a desperate need for water.  Flocks of birds flew in V formations in the pristine blue sky above, headed farther South.  Ancient, enormous trees tower above her, making it easy to pretend she’s in the rainforest.  They’ve caught sight of two rabbits, scurrying from one side of the wooded trail to the other;  they’ve heard numerous crickets serenading one another.  They came upon a tree, fallen and laying across a pond, and here they’ve stopped to rest.  She’s seated on the log, her legs bent Indian style on the log, her back resting against another tree.  Across from her, he sits.

The strong  jock, he beat her in an arm wrestling match on the grass earlier, then claimed victory by tenderly locking an errant strand of her hair behind her ear.  His smile sends butterflies dancing throughout her entire nervous system.  The day is perfect because of him and later, when he’ll kiss her, fireworks will burst behind her closed eyes;  angels will sing and her own name will be totally forgotten.

She’ll call it love.

…

Twenty years later,  she’ll find herself married to a different man.  Nature no longer sings;  rather, it’s just the dirt from muddy feet that she’ll have to wash from the floor of her home.  Walking barefoot in Fall seems a grand way to catch a cold.  Secluded paths in the woods are dangerous places, not romantic islands in the rainforests.  He goes to work, eats dinner with the family, then visits with the TV while she ensures the kids are bathed and put to bed before retreating to a world of sewing needles and fabric.  Sometimes a full twenty four hours will pass without an adult conversation,  but words don’t seem as necessary when the other knows her so well.   Later, when he’ll kiss her goodnight,  the comfort of familiarity replaces the excitement of fireworks.  Tucking her hands beneath her cheek, she’ll lie on her side and watch as he sleeps.  She’ll roam her gaze over his stubble, over his textured face, long eyelashes and confident mouth and see not an angel but a man.  Eventually, she’ll fall asleep and wake, hours later, to a gentle kiss on her forehead.  She’ll open her eyelids, roll over and smile as she finds a note wishing her a good day.  Maybe one night this week, they’ll have real time, she muses;  go to dinner someplace nice, use candlelight and soft music.  They’ll kiss.  Angels won’t sing,  but sweetness and meaning and tenderness and experience will prevail.

She calls it love.
….

Putting aside noble and lofty ideas of love, putting aside poetic definitions…  what, really, is love?  is it the youthful exuberance, the “sparks”,  the chemistry?  Or is that infatuation?  Is love more realistically the trust that’s developed only with time and a clearer understanding of each other’s weaknesses and flaws?  Is it the excitement or the comfort?  Or is it both?  Is it possible to even have both—once a certain level of trust and familiarity is established, is it natural for the electricity to fade?  Once the “honeymoon” is over, then what?  Is that when you see what the relationship is made out of — real love or just friendship?   Or should the honeymoon remain, if even in a more subdued sort of way?  How can it with the stress and responsibility of day to day life—better yet, how can it when, given enough time,  hearts are going to be hurt?  It wasn’t in the story but Prince Charming was the source of Cinderella’s tears, too, at some point.  And Cinderella was the source of Prince Charming’s tears, too, eventually.  And not just once, but, if they stayed together long enough—they hurt one another deeply more than once.

But still, they stayed.

Why?

Isn’t it possible to stay with someone for the wrong reasons?  Isn’t it natural to protect that which is most vital to our well-being:  our hearts?  How can you be certain of something one day and equally certain it’s not right the next?  On the other hand—-there is a wise quote that says,  “The fact of the matter is that everyone is going to hurt you.  The trick is to find the ones who are worth suffering for.”  You could search until the day you die and no one is ever going to truly treat your heart and your dreams as carefully as they do their own—no one is ever going to survive a lifetime with you without breaking your heart because, despite the glowing halo you imagine you see above their heads, everyone still bleeds red:  everyone is still merely human.  What, then, are you to do?  Does accepting this reality, this inevitability of heartbreak, mean you give up on finding soul wrenching happiness—does it mean you stop looking for that “over the top, gotta have it” kind of feeling that fairy tales and romance books promise you exist?

Does it depend on what your definition of love is?

“A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet”  sayeth Shakespeare.  What I might call infatuation, you call love.  What I call love, you might call infatuation.  Love is in the eye of the beholder.  But it’s also… not.  True love is played by two.  It isn’t merely the accepting of another, it’s the giving of yourself;  it isn’t merely the giving of yourself but the accepting of another.  It’s that moment in time when your eyes lock with someone else’s and you realize that whatever it is you’re feeling inside—s(h)e feels it too.  It’s a connection that cannot be faked,  a real connection that cannot be forced or faked.  It’s in the beauty of the fireworks and the quiet assurance in the monotony of day-to-day life that the connection will be felt again in the foreseeable future.  It’s the knowledge that, whether you’re in the midst of one of Nature’s concerts or sitting silently across from each other,  your soul is connected to the other’s and, no matter what, all that’s required is a glance and the connection is felt by both.   When both souls know they’re bonded by something more powerful than themselves, regardless of outside circumstances…. that’s love.   When the realization comes that you’ve brought heartache to the other,  it’s the selfless desire to assuage the pain, whatever the personal cost.

Love is not merely knowledge of another person.  You can know someone from the inside out without ever touching that person’s soul.  Love, however,  is the assurance that your heart and soul has been touched and that you’ve touched another’s soul.  It’s a relationship.  The mundane routine of everyday life will remain enough if your soul is nourished and your heart loved;  if the invisible, but present,  scales between what’s being given and what’s being taken remain balanced;  if, despite their flaws, you still feel close enough to believe you’re capable of touching h(is)er heart and soul instead of merely h(is)er body…. that’s love.  The initial spark of electricity is important because it’s the first moment that your souls connected.  After all, you’re not attracted to every individual that’s attracted to you.  People sometimes mistake the loss of the spark for the end of love—but that’s wrong.  It wasn’t the spark that compelled you to pursue that relationship; it was the feeling of touching someone’s innermost being–and of having your innermost being touched.  The monotony of every day life won’t destroy that connection, if you’re both receptive to learning other ways to continue to connect in a way that’s different from how you interact with friends or coworkers.  Comfort and familiarity set off as many sparks as The Kiss.  At least, if the love is real, if the soul is touched, it will.

Love isn’t so much about intellectual knowledge or perception of the other person as it is feeling and emotion because words can only tell you so much.  Love is a conversation that feels as tangible as a physical touch;  it’s a physical touch that feels like a meaningful conversation. Love is undefinable, yet it’s what makes us feel like princes and princesses, even when we’re lounging around with bedheads and mismatched pajamas.

Love is.