Penguin...

Today in therapy, I was working on my insomnia issues. When we got to the end, I had two thoughts running through my head:

The first one was, I feel like a penguin among seagulls. Although I would now edit that to be a penguin among beautiful jungle birds (I don't know what else to call them...but the pretty sing-songy ones). I think I only thought seagulls because that's what was playing on the "white noise" music...

A penguin among colorful jungle birds...why?

I often feel as though I don't belong, that I don't fit in...that I don't really have a place yet.

While everyone else gets to fly away on their colorful wings, I am left to swim the depths alone. Sure, everyone else can stick their feet in, get a little wet....but I swim deep into the ocean, into the darkness...away from the sun and sky....

We can meet on solid ground, and there be equals....but we are nonetheless separated by our wings....

My second thought was: "Am I my Mother's daughter, or my Father's daughter?"

The answer is, of course both...but who am I more like? Who will I model in life?

I know I have a choice in this. I am not someone who believes that my fate is entirely decided already. But my parents are very different...

My Dad married a wonderful woman not too long after my parents got divorced. They have had their ups and downs--in typical marriage style, but have maintained a loving relationship throughout.

My Mom has never married again. She has a a series of long term relationships, and it almost seems as though there is a timer in her brain, and after a certain amount of time--she just has to leave whomever she is with. My relationship with her makes me think that maybe she has difficulty letting anyone close to her, that she had been hurt so often and so much that she is unwilling to share her vulnerability with anyone.

So...door #1, or door #2?

I know which one I want...but the thing is, you don't get to just swing open the door and get the prize in this instance.

First, there's an uphill climb in the snow followed by a polar bear plunge swim across a lake. Then there's a muddy obstacle course, complete with one of those ropes hanging down a smooth wooden slatted wall. Next, you have to use two oxen to plow a field, plant seed, and wait for the harvest to take to market. You use your earnings to purchase a parachute so you can skydive out of a plane and into the ocean, hopefully close to your rowboat. Row, row, row your boat to a deserted island, where you make camp and try to make fire. Then you spend the next 4 months in survival mode, trying to find whatever you can to eat. Finally your smoke signal catches the eye of a helicopter, so you must catch the basket, climb in, and stay balanced enough to get hauled up...but then they drop you into a surging river. So you do your best to keep your feet pointed downstream until you finally catch an overhanging branch long enough to pull yourself out. At which point, you come face to face with a bear. So as your heart pounds somewhere between your throat and lungs, you struggle to remember if you're supposed to act big or small (for bears, it's be small and dead; mountain lions, be big and scary). After the bear is done playing ball with you, it's a race to find your way through the wilderness, where you finally find a road, which just happens to take you right to Wheel of Fortune. So after you have finally solved the final puzzle, you choose door #1!! Vanna White opens it to reveal...your chance to be on Jeopardy...and all of the categories were the ones that you either didn't take or failed in college. After an eternity of questions (and Alex Trebek), you risk it all and end up with $1 more than everyone else...so you get to donate your cash to your favorite charity, then jump through the ring of fire that has somehow appeared in the studio...and finally...

There's door #1...

And it takes all the energy you have just to pry it open.


There you see...an uphill climb in the snow.


But just before your heart drops...


You see someone who loves you, handing you a snowsuit.

As you suit up, they reassure you:

"Let's go. We can do it together."




And that is where I will find out whose daughter I am...if I can share my strengths...and weaknesses...with someone I love, and someone who loves me.

Are you tired yet? ;-)