Emotional Memory (Present-Day, Not A Look Back)

(Note: This post is kind of personal, and maybe a bit of a downer.)

Some time back (probably a few years, now) I read an article about "emotional memory," a type of essentially subconscious memory that had no locational or situational details but in which a strong emotion was imprinted in a way similar to how memories of people and events are imprinted.  I haven't followed up on it, but I remember(!) there being some pretty good arguments in favor.

Fast-forward to yesterday.

We're in Maryland, and life here has been as thoroughly disrupted by the pandemic as you might imagine.  Of all the closings, delays, postponements, etc., the one that has had the greatest personal impact on the Pipsqueak was the closing of all schools in the state as the beginning of last week. This means no public school, no Chinese Dance program on Saturdays, and the closure of SBA so no dance classes or dance team rehearsals.  Things being the way they are, the result is that Miri has been with Grandma & Grandpa from relatively early in the morning until sometimes as late as 10:00pm in the evening every weekday.

We knew this wasn't the greatest of all possible arrangements but really didn't have any choice.  We're a close family, and Miri loves her Grandma & Grandpa a great deal (and they are absolutely crazy about her), but it means the very sudden cutting off of almost all physical activity, the loss of first-hand interaction with friends, and basically being a not-quite-11-year-old stuck with only older adults 24x7. Yes, she's able to do schoolwork (we scraped up enough cash to get her a Chromebook "just in case" literally hours before the school closure was announced), and the BFFs all use FaceTime and texting to gossip & chat, but none of that is really a good replacement for personal contact. As for the dance... well, Miri has always been in motion (witness her dancing her way down the aisles in the supermarket when she comes shopping with me, or just standing in the kitchen & going through the moves of onr or another dance routine to the music in her head) and we're doing what we can, but she hasn't been this sedentary since she was in the SWI in China.

Outwardly, Miri seemed okay... but I'm a firm believer in the saying, "Still waters run deep" and we all know how very true that is with her.  Sure enough, on Monday I got a couple of joking-but-desperate texts from her about really wanting to talk to me & how unhappy she was beginning to feel, so I promised her we'd spend some time & take one of our long-missed walks together so we could talk.  After taking care of a few unexpected errands & such yesterday (including an absolutely infuriating bit of legerdemain on the part of Express Scripts basically screwing over my parents, yet another story), Miri and I set out from Mom & Dad's house for a walk through the neighborhood.

We hadn't even cleared the front yard before she was off & running about how much she missed all the things she used to do every day, and how much more she missed spending time with her friends. We wove in & out of related subjects, but she kept coming back to feeling lonely because she's the only kid in the immediate family (all our cousins in her generation live at least a very long drive, if not a plane ride, away). This kept coming up in various forms until she suddenly burst into tears...

"Mommy told me that when I was still a baby in China and when you first picked me up I used to hug myself because I didn't have anybody, and I feel that way again now!"

We had to stop walking and I held her 'til she calmed down enough to resume walking (this happened a 2nd time a few minutes later) and she continued talking about how she had been so lonely and so isolated in China, with no one really there when she needed someone to comfort her, and how this was beginning to feel the same.  Some of what she said had to come from things we'd spoken about with her as she grew up, but there were feelings she spoke about that had to be coming from some deep-seated memories of loneliness.

Emotional memories.

A resurgence of the feeling of being lonely and isolated and having to be self-dependent, even at times she was not physically alone.  She talked about knowing how much we love her and how she knows and strongly feels she is as much a part of this family as anyone else, but she kept returning to how this was making her feel lonely and isolated "again," and how hard it was for her to deal with the feelings that she didn't think she would ever be feeling.

I did a lot more listening than talking for much of our walk (almost an hour) and told her that while we all knew this was hard on her, I doubted that any of us had realized just how deep the feelings of loneliness went or how painful they were for her.  When I apologized she just said, "I know, it's okay" (and began crying again), and said that it was hard for her to put her feelings into words... but kept going back to the theme of isolation and loneliness.

Later that evening, AJ & I had an extended FaceTime session (with the Pipsqueak kibitzing and occasionally joining in) and tried to come up with some ways of handling the situation to minimize Miri's feelings of isolation.  A big part of the problem is that AJ works in healthcare -- there are very few of moms who can take on Miri as an extra daughter for 12+ hours a day, but the real kicker is that many are (understandably!) worried about possible contact with something that AJ may have unknowingly brought home from her facility that could then be passed on to their families.  I'll be hosting Miri at my place a few days on & off, and AJ is going to start taking occasional days off so they can spend time together at home...

...but now we realize, underneath it all, there is an imprinted memory of wanting physical contact, a little bit of personal one-on-one time with both parent figures and peers, of needing comforting and having none. We all clearly remember the sight of the Pipsqueak obviously retreating into herself, sticking a thumb in her mouth and wrapping the other arm around herself like a little bird trying to hide its head under its wing.  It was heartbreaking to see (Mom has often said she knew things were going to be OK only after we stopped seeing that behavior), and just as heartbreaking to realize that in some ways she's still doing that internally.

I still remember Miri's first night with us in China; her crib was between our beds in the hotel room and around 2:30am she woke up and her whimpering woke us.  She & I happened to be facing each other so I reached out and stroked her hand and spoke to her quietly; she got the most shocked expression on her face I could remember seeing on a child that young, then looked at my hand stroking hers, looked back at me, and immediately quieted down, falling back asleep within moments.  She didn't remember that, but it's obvious that the impact and the associated emotions are still with her.

The frightening reality of all that has been stopped, pushed aside, lost, or forbidden due to the current pandemic is teaching everyone just how important it is to have the freedom to share, to be with others, to be part of something larger... and of how powerfully negative it is when we are isolated.  Most of us (and by "us" I mean the vast majority of people) take for granted the links we have with other people but for some folks those links cannot be taken for granted.

My niece keeps teaching me lessons about the world & how to view it, and just did it again.  As strong as familial bonds may be, for an adoptee there is going to be an emotional memory -- perhaps buried deep and barely remembered, perhaps near the surface and raw -- of what it is like to have an empty space early in life for the rest of us is (usually) filled, of the most powerful form of enforced aloneness being a daily reality.

If you are an older adoptee, please make sure you stay connected with your families and friends as much as you can during these times that seem hell-bent on making everyone feel isolated and alone. And if you're an adoptive parent, pay attention to things your kids say about loneliness, about lacking, about missing people. They may not have all the words they need to tell you that this is a place they've been before that they never wanted (or expected) to have to return to.

Stay clean, stay healthy... and make sure you stay connected. None of us should be completely alone, but some of us already know that feeling far too well.


PS - A couple of hours ago the two-week school closure was extended to almost the end of next month.

Old Memories & New Milestones

Looking Back (memories)...

Ten years ago, we were still cleaning up the mess left by Snowmageddon.  Despite the last snowfall being weeks earlier, sidewalks and alleyways were frequently still blocked by snow, ice, and/or debris. Aside from that everything looked normal -- but upon closer inspection, "normal" usually included trees, bushes (and occasional fences & other structures) that were bent, broken, or even absolutely shattered by the weight of snow and ice that had piled up on them either due to weather or due to people running out of places to pile snow every time they tried to dig out from another storm.  (For example, by the time things began to melt "for real," I had built a small mountain of snow on the little bit of ground next to my parking spot that was noticeably longer, wider, and higher than my full-size SUV.)  People walking around their houses with cameras & insurance checklists were a relatively common sight.

 Meanwhile, as the snow & ice melted, the adoption logjam seemed to be even more solidly frozen than before Snowmageddon had begun.  AJ's agency was trying to make reassuring noises but that was almost all they could do, since the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs, since renamed "China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption" or CCCWA) was processing at most a small handful of applications each month.  As I noted in the video I made of AJ & Miri's adoption story a few years later, China seemed very, very far away...

One nice (albeit ever-so-slightly bittersweet) event that March was the 3rd birthday party for the daughter of one of our MIT group.  It gave everyone a chance to ooh and aah over some very cute little girls, and in a sense provided tangible proof that someday all the waiting would be over and my sister would indeed become someone's Mommy.  I also think the birthday cake was one of the nicest examples of baked art that I've ever seen...

Looking Around (present day)...

The weather's been a little crazy 'round these parts of late -- as in, "if you don't like the season, wait a couple of hours and it'll change... again."  The result is that everyone keeps coming down with little sniffles and such.  However, it seems that my sister has a bit of a competitive streak because instead of just sniffles, she got really sick, as in "really bad ear infection (complete with ruptured eardrum)" that required a full week at home... just in time for one of Miri's dance competitions.  Of course, Miri was unhappy over the idea of missing a competition that she & the rest of the team had put a lot of work into preparing for (plus she didn't like the idea of letting down her teammates for the numbers she was dancing in), but she was also torn between dancing and staying home to help Mommy get better.  Eventually AJ was forced to admit there was no way she could go to the competition (just sitting upright was a problem) so she worked out a deal with one of the moms on the team with similar Mommy-ing style to her own.

The result was a brand-new milestone: Miri went to a dance competition without a single member of her family on hand.  AJ & I tried to watch the livestream of the competition, but the connection was abysmally bad so we didn't actually get to see too much.  I took a few screenshots, but both the stream quality and the on-site camerawork left a lot to be desired.  The two numbers that Miri danced in were tap ("Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious") and jazz ("It Don't Mean A Thing").

My niece's semi-solo trip to the competition also got me thinking about how grown up she seems to be these days (even though she's officially just a "tween"). For example, compare the photos below; the one on the left is her in costume for "Supercali" (above) and the one on the right is from her first-ever "dance recital" back in March of 2013...

Or, for a bit of a height comparison, the photo on the left (with Mommy) is from July of 2013 and the photo on the right (with Grandma) is from earlier this week:

As amazing as it's been to think of Miri being home for a full decade, it's even more amazing to see the development that's happened just since she graduated from toddlerhood to now.

On the other hand, some things really haven't changed at all. For example, there are about 8 years' worth of selfies on various family members' iPhones (here's one from about three weeks ago)...

...and the Pipsqueak still has the same almost magical ability (that she first demonstrated on Gotcha Day) to fall asleep at a moment's notice, in any location, in any position, no matter what she may have been doing seconds earlier.  Witness this pic from earlier this week taken moments after the complaints about Mommy taking too long to get ready to go home because "I'm tired, Grandma!" very suddenly cut off...

Oh, yeah, almost forgot... This also happened this month (Dude, you are getting old!):

Of the gifts received, the one I liked the best was the little wooden sign that Miri made sure to let me know was specifically just from her that says, "Uncles are like dads... ONLY COOLER!"  :-)

Looking Forward (what's coming)...

The weather is still volatile, but it tends to be nicer (and warmer) for longer, so I've been able to get out for some walks.  Everywhere we look, Spring is indeed finally springing forth...

...but we're keeping an eye and an ear on the news as COVID-19 makes life a whole heckuvalot more interesting than it ever needed to  be.  The stupid "She's Chinese, she has the virus!" bullying that was beginning to surface among a thankfully small group of Miri's classmates has been cut short by the state closing the entire school system for the next two weeks, but we're all waiting to see what kind of fallout there is afterwards (while my lil' sis and I gear up to do battle if the stupidity continues without the school addressing it a lot more directly and immediately than they have to date).

Miri's actually been taking it well, sometimes reporting it to a teacher and sometimes hitting back with some zingers of her own that have kept the bullying to a very low level (but we still want it stopped by the school, period).  Of course, she's also reached the point where she is getting very quietly scared by the news; when Mom walked into the after-school care to pick her up the other day, instead of a "hello" she was greeted with a bit of a lecture from her granddaughter about how she and Grandpa needed to be careful because they were in the main at-risk group, and they have to be careful who they're around and need to stay home and keep washing their hands so they can stay healthy. We all have our fingers crossed that we all do stay healthy and are taking precautions -- but knowing my niece (remember the phrase, "still waters run deep"?), we'll be hearing about both her health concerns and anger over being bullied as the supposed source of the coronavirus for a long time to come. ("Uncle Brian, it's not fair, and it's just so, so... RUDE!")

Meanwhile, the next couple of dance competitions have been cancelled, the dance studio will be closing down for the same two-week period as the public schools, and the Pipsqueak will be spending a lot more time with Grandma & Grandpa for the next couple of weeks than over the last several months. It's gonna be interesting... even Miri is trying to figure out why only certain types of food are running low in supermarkets but toilet paper and paper towels have apparently gone extinct.  (Not to mention that anything even vaguely resembling alcohol seems to never have existed in the first place.)

I hope you all "out there" and your friends & loved ones are all healthy and taking the proper precautions during the largest global medical emergency since the Spanish Flu pandemic[1] of 1918... and that I'll see everyone here again with my next post.   :-)





[1] A quick, and topical, side trip into medical history... The "Spanish" Flu got its name mainly because Spain was neutral during the war, and thus did not impose the same news blackout on the rapidly-growing number of deaths due to the disease as combatant nations, leading many people to believe the disease originated there simply because it was the first (and for a while the only) nation reporting the problem. The Spanish, in turn, called it the "French Flu" because they assumed that's where it came from -- but there is only anecdotal evidence of that strain of influenza originating in France. Another possible source is England, but the waters are again muddied by a combination of mass troop movements (many American troops who had been exposed to the virus in Continental Europe passed through England on the way home) and secrecy assigned to reports.  However, more recent studies have added another possible location as the source of that pandemic. Based on the movement of large numbers of laborers brought into England & France by those governments to make up for so many of their own citizens being involved in the military, it is now thought that the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 could have originated in... <sigh> China. :-(