LadyCygnet.com

I would like to post daily, but my laptop keyboard has three dead keys, and I’m despairing over buying an external one.

Just the same, though, I’m tired of copying and pasting the letters from the dead keys.  It’s old.

And it’s just my luck that inspiration would come when it was most frustrating to express it.

Sometimes, people ask me about the handle I’ve had for over a decade now.  I usually say it has to do with “The Ugly Duckling,” and leave it at that.

For people who are curious, here’s the story in fairy tale format:

Once upon a time, there was a shy, fat little girl.  She loved to run, jump, and play like other little kids, but unlike other little kids, she took way too long to learn how to ride a bike, whistle, tie her shoes, swing, or do any number of things…and she was still fat, and on top of that, she was different from everybody else, so people called her “weird.”  Her peers rejected her, and she was sad.

Fortunately, she had a cousin who was fat like she was, but this cousin had blossomed into a svelte beauty, and she wasn’t weird at all.  The little girl’s parents often voiced hope that she would lose her “baby fat” and blossom as her cousin did and change into someone universally loved…but it never happened.  The girl just kept on getting fatter and fatter, and while she had some friends, she was still strange, and a social outcast.  She wrote stories, sang, performed in plays, but she was still outside looking in.  She was still “other.”

The fat little girl became a fat woman, and she went to college, got a degree, got married, got a job, got divorced, moved to another state, had a baby, moved back, and lived with her family again.  Meanwhile, she had won awards for her writing, her art, and her photography, but all anyone ever seemed to see was the strange, fat little girl.

While she was in high school, the fat girl felt very unloved and unwelcome.  She came to identify with the Ugly Duckling, and she hoped that one day, she too would become a beautiful and beloved swan.  She took the name Cygnet, because cygnets become swans.  When she went to register it as her email address, though, “cygnet” was already taken, so she chose the name “LadyCygnet,” and it became a part of her, over time.

Now she is a woman almost middle-aged.  She is still fat and weird.  She has accomplished much, but it is hard for her to see it, because she never became thin, beautiful, and beloved. She does have a child, though, and her child is thin, beautiful, beloved…and just as weird as her mother.

But even if her little girl were fat, ugly, or both, the fat, weird woman would love her child just the same, because she doesn’t want her daughter growing up thinking that her worth depends on her weight or her ability to fit in with others.  She wants her daughter to know that she is more than her looks or her social standing.

They are both odd ducks…but they are also swans.

And they lived oddly, yet contently, ever after.

I was prepared to offer up a happy blog with happy things today, but there’s been a miasma over the whole week.  A beloved family member lost the child that he and his wife  were looking forward to bringing into the world. It happened today.   We know what caused it and have answers to the biological whys, but that doesn’t make the grieving process any easier.

I too have had pregnancy losses.  Most of them were so early as to barely count as miscarriages, but there was one that was so late that it could almost have been a stillbirth, and that was the one that traumatized me the most.

I can’t claim to know what my relative and his wife are going through right now–each experience is different, and we all grieve in our own ways.  I can speak to my own losses, though, and how they affected me.

First of all, they hurt like hell.  Not just the cramps, but the loss itself.  From my earliest memories, my biggest dream was to be a mother.  My career aspirations changed all of the time–doctor, opera singer, botanist, actress, writer, art therapist, curator, webmistress, hospital administrator, small business owner, etc–but the one thing that never, ever changed was that burning desire to have a child of my own and raise him or her to the best of my abilities.  To have my own body deny and betray me was hard to bear.  I felt like less of a woman because my body just refused to let me carry a child all the way past the finish line.

With only one pregnancy loss, I was married–the other times, I was single or past my divorce.  Sometimes I was in relationships, and sometimes I wasn’t.  I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve done, but I refuse to believe that my unborn babies died for my sins.

I am a follower of Christ, and as such, I believe that Jesus died for my sins and was resurrected on the third day.  I do not believe that my children were taken away for my sins–Jesus took care of that.

There is one reason and one alone that my unborn children died:

Shit happens.

Life is imperfect.  Circumstances sometimes deprive us of the things we desire most.  It’s not out of some cosmic desire to punish us for being the fallible creatures we are.  We don’t all have perfect bodies.  We aren’t all nubile and fecund.  We don’t all have genius in ways that will bring us fortune and fame.

We are who we are.  Life happens to us whether we are prepared for it or not.  Sometimes great things happen to us, and sometimes unspeakably painful things happen to us.  Sometimes we don’t even realize what a good thing we had until it is gone and can never be replaced.

What matters most is how we react to loss and pain.  Do we allow it to destroy us or delay us, or do we learn from it and build something beautiful on the ashes of the loss?  There’s nothing wrong with a little destruction, as long as we rise from the ashes of our loss with courage, wisdom, and the strength to build a better life in the name of those who we have lost.

At the end of my life, I want all of my children, regardless of whether they were born or not, to be able to be proud of the woman I am when it is my time to go.  I want to hold them all and let them know that I always loved them, and that they are all a part of me.  I want my living child (and any future children I have) to look at me and see strength, wisdom, courage, and a role model.  When they lose something they hold dear (and because they are human and life is imperfect, they will), I hope that they look at my life and find the courage within themselves to carry on with faith, hope, and love, knowing that they too can make the best of any situation and draw strength even from the gravest of losses.

Some say that time heals all wounds.  I respectfully disagree–time just gives us the ability to be stronger than our pain and carry on.  The ache is still there, but it becomes more bearable with each passing day.

If you are grieving a lost child, please know that it gets better. Reach out for help if you need it–you don’t have to bear your burden alone!

I was going to go run errands and visit our Shelter Gardens, but I had a nasty allergic reaction and was felled by a flareup of a health issue I have, so I took some benadryl and spent the bulk of the day resting whenever the pain would let me.

Fortunately, I have the kind of boyfriend who is okay with plans getting changed on account of sickness, so we’re watching cartoons with my daughter and cuddling.  We plan on tidying up around here, then getting dressed up a bit and taking some fancy pictures together, just for fun.

But look for a very special blog either later today or sometime this week.

I wanted to do a big, huge, happy post today, but the realities of life dragged me away from writing.  Fortunately, I’ve got some wonderfully relaxing time this weekend with my loved ones, and I plan to do my big blog post of happiness on Sunday, after I get some footwork and errands out of the way.

Monday was spent at the doctor’s office getting poked and prodded and getting some news that made me sad, but I can face up to it.

Tuesday, we walked to Samantha’s doctor’s appointment and found out that she’s tall, but underweight, but we’ve got stuff to help her gain, and she seems to like it so far.  I also got a package from Martin Page (who is awesome personified), and that lifted my spirits a LOT.  I also got to catch up with my BFF, and we talked for HOURS about everything and nothing.

Wednesday, I got sick and ended up lollygagging around, reading and napping and taking care of Samantha instead of doing all I meant to to.  Argh.  I did fit in some exercise before things got really bad.  I also did some dishes and laundry.

Today, though, just got started.  I need to get some sleep now, but I have a big laundry list of things to accomplish by the end of the day.  We’ll see if I make it!

About an hour ago, around 5000 people started forming a wall of love and support for local hero Spc. Sterling Wyatt.  He was 21 years old, and he died July 11, 2012, in Afghanistan while serving our country.  Today, his family and friends will honor him and lay him to rest.

Unfortunately, a hate group whose name I will not even mention because I do not want to sully my blog with it is coming to protest the funeral.  They rejoice when our soldiers die, and they claim that God hates the United States because we do not punish people for being homosexuals.

Now, I don’t claim to speak for God, but I do know what I’ve read in the Bible says that what that group is doing is wrong on multiple levels.  As long as what a person does doesn’t hurt children or animals, it’s between them and God–it’s none of my business.  Besides, if God were really punishing the US for not persecuting people for being homosexuals, He would also be punishing lots of other countries who not only don’t punish homosexuals, but also permit homosexuals to marry, raise children, and go about their business peacefully. Oddly enough, those countries seem to be doing pretty well compared to the US, so their “logic” is not only ridiculous–it’s flawed on the most fundamental level.

Anyway, these people are coming to spread their message of hate, and they, of course, advertised that they were doing so and passed out information about it.

And once they got word of it, the City of Columbia, as a community, rose up and said, “We’re not having it.”  This group is still coming, but organizers got word out, and over 5000 people over two events posted on Facebook alone (not counting what measures may have been taken by word-of-mouth or other social media outlets) have said that they will stand as a living, peaceful shield of love and support between Sterling Wyatt’s loved ones and this group of hatemongers.  Organizers have asked all of the people showing up to wear red, to stand quietly and respectfully, and to ignore the group in question no matter what they do.

I am proud of my community.  People of all ages, shapes, sizes, genders, ethnicities, political affiliations, and belief systems are standing together as one today.  Today, we have put our differences aside as a community and stood strong together in the face of hate.  Together, we will show this group that love, respect, peace, and community will triumph over hate and evil.

Today this group will see the face of God in our community.  Whether they will continue to turn away and blaspheme the Heavenly Father with their hate is entirely up to them

But today, they (and we) will see what love can do.

May everyone learn from this day.

In my efforts to get The Temple of the Muses up and running, I accidentally broke the WordPress for it and had to remove and reinstall it.  Because Fantastico doesn’t allow me to choose names for my separate installs of WordPress, I killed the one I thought to be the install for Temple, only to see that the broken Temple install was still there.

Let me tell you, I freaked out in a BIG way.  You see, I hadn’t backed up my files, which meant that everything would have been GONE.

Fortunately, I had just removed the WordPress files that I had downloaded for this blog, so the blog wasn’t killed.  I just downloaded the WordPress files to this directory again, and everything was right in my little world again.

Oh, and the Temple of the Muses is coming along as planned, and I’m sure that you’ll be as pleased with the results as I am!

I also downloaded all of my blogs, just in case I ever manage to really kill this blog, and I’ll be doing backups regularly to ensure that I don’t lose any of my work.

You may have noticed that my posts have slowed down.  This is because a key on my keyboard has opted to die, and I’m waiting on an external  keyboard to arrive.  Stay tuned!