Possibility

I dwell in possibility.
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I will not live in vain.
We turn not older with years, but newer every day.

The above are quotes attributed to Emily Dickinson. I have the first one on a poster that used to hang beside my desk. I like it a lot. It fits me well.

I was reminded of that poster and sentiment as I was reading through other people’s diaries/blogs. Thinking about it made me curious about Emily Dickinson, so I did some internet reading about her. It sounds like she lived a very sad life. Most of the articles I read described her as a social recluse. To me she sounded depressed, terribly talented and depressed.

I do dwell in possibility. I am an "I can" person. I am able to look at most any situation and see a way to make it better. I love to be given the opportunity of turning around an inefficient or unproductive system.

I attribute this ability to my father. When I was growing up, he worked for Columbia Gas (a natural gas supplier). About the time I entered Junior High he started a new position with the company. He would travel throughout Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and to Delaware, visiting various offices, working with them to turn around their deficits. But he was never satisfied with mere improvement. He would turn fiscal disasters into what the company identified as "orchid" offices. It was a complete turnaround. I never got the details–especially when he would dwell on numbers. I did, however, catch the spirit and the drive–the vision for what could be and the consuming drive to get there.

The second quote caught my attention and initially I was ready to say that it really summed me up. The more I thought about it, though, the more it just didn’t seem to fit.

I was reminded of the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. Remember when the Wizard was ‘caught’ blowing smoke and then pulls out his bag to give them what they sought? The Wizard offers the Tin Man a heart shaped watch, a testimonial. The Wizard says something about how the heart will never be practical until it can be made to not be broken. There was a time when I might have agreed. But just as I don’t think my purpose is to be about saving everyone from having a broken heart, I don’t think the best heart to have is an unbroken one.

A baseball player wouldn’t walk into the game with a glove that hadn’t been broken in. A marathon runner wouldn’t show up at a race with shoes that had not been broken in. Without understanding pain, loss and sadness can I really appreciate love? If one knows no disappointment, can one really know joy?

Is that too overstated? Perhaps I need to make that more personal, individual. It reminds me of a conversation I was having with Beth recently. We somehow got onto the topic of my family’s dynamics. We were classically dysfunctional, but I didn’t know how much so until I started reading about dysfunction and double bind when I was living in Kansas City and in CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education). It’s sort of odd. As a family we’re very dysfunctional and in the midst of it all I am the picture of resiliency.

To begin with, I was the anticipated and longed for child–except I had the terrible misfortune of being born a girl. An instant disappointment that lasted until my brother’s birth. So in some ways I have the characteristics of a first born, but many of a second born. Talk about identity confusion.

Then I had the added burden of being born with a defect. Now granted, it wasn’t totally disfiguring or limiting, but it was constantly held up as a burden of finances and time. There was no way I could make my eyes work together. I was wearing classes and patches when I was only two. I cringe when I look at pictures of me as a toddler and throughout school. In the days before lazars, I was a test case and experiment. The science was being perfected. At 48, I still have a horribly ‘lazy’ eye and no hope for improvement. I wish I could describe how frustrating it it at times to be talking directly to someone only to have them look over their shoulder in an attempt to see who I’m really looking at.

Then my parents had another child. Soon, not only was not the golden child, I wasn’t even cute. My little sister was born and she was perfect. Thick curly locks framed her cherub-like face and huge deeply perfect eyes.

The competition in our household was extreme. We competed most for our parents’ attention and the meager displays of affection. The relationships between us as adults continues to be strained. I think our parents meant to encourage us to be better, to do better, so there were often comparison statements made. They may have been effective in their immediate result, but the residual sucks.

Never feeling like I could measure up, I threw myself into perfecting my behavior. If what I was wasn’t good enough then perhaps I could find the approval I so naturally craved through recognition of what I did. I became a human doing. I applied this theory to my spiritual life as well as all other aspects of my person and my relationships. I constantly strived for recognition and approval, but rarely believed what I got.

There have been three key relationships in my life that were focused on proving the ‘love-ability’ of another person. Each one could have "destroyed" my facade of perfection. Each person keyed into my neediness and vulnerability. In each I allowed myself to be victimized, controlled, lost. I nearly killed myself with the last one. Looking back, I believe I did want something to die. And something did. I did.

It was through breaking that I finally was able to be whole. The amazing thing I am learning is that the wholeness has very little to do with the image I thought was so important. It isn’t about winning a competition. It isn’t about the praise and awards. It is about feeling good about me, overweight, crooked eye, popping jaw, thin hair, beat up car, unused degrees and all. It’s about knowing that right now I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing and being me–no more, no less.

I felt this other day very clearly when I was talking with the Lieutenant Governor and Mr. R. When Mr. R made comment again about getting me back into teaching. I said out loud (to my own amazement) that even if I could just teach part time, that would be more than I hoped to happen. Right now, I am very content with my job and see it as important work. The value might not be seen by others, but I saw Friday afternoon.

We are going to be starting a new procedure of stamping our parts with an identifying mark and date. The machine we use, if not used properly, could seriously injure a person. I wanted some input from my Team Leaders about who they saw as being the most qualified for the job. So, at the end of the day I pulled them in for a meeting, explained what I envisioned and invited their thoughts. Their eyes were big as saucers–someone wanted, requested and valued, their opinion. I knew the look, I knew the feeling, because not too long ago I felt it when I was told how much I was valued there.

As I sit here typing in my living room with Nelson asleep in the hospital bed across from me, my eyes are full of tears. I had been used to having my opinion sought. But I always assumed it was because of what I knew, what I did, and how I did it. It wasn’t until I lost all position and started over from the heap of brokenness that I began to realize that I don’t have it all looking put together to have value.

So I see my purpose not in keeping hearts from breaking, but in helping others start to see the beauty in the pieces that remain. I’m about rebuilding. I’m about seeing the possibility. It’s like creating mosaics: taking the pieces and making something beautiful.

I like the way the sounds. I like the fit on that. It’s a lot of who I am.