Monthly Archives: September 2011

Sep 28 2011

25 Things (Part 2)

Here is the second half of my list of “25 Things”:

16. I will be 43 years old when my daughter leaves for college. [Today: When we only had one child, this fact somehow made me feel better about having had her so young. This changed when we had our son five years later. Today, I know that I'll be 48 when he leaves for college, and 52 when he graduates—not to mention that I'll have to work the next 30 years to pay off the debt of eight consecutive years of college tuition—and yet, this statement somehow allows me the illusion that I'll still be young when the kids are finally out of the house.]

17. I have been dying my hair since the age of 12—and, no, I don’t know my natural color. [Today: This has not changed, I'm still dying my hair—the last time was a month ago. I actually wrote a post on this, which you can read about here.]

18. I spend more time with my daughter than with anyone else. [Today: This is still true. As she has gotten older, I seem to spend even more time with her—watching television, talking, laughing, playing games, or just simply hanging out. I dread the day that this is no longer true. Again, the topic of one or my first posts.]

19. I once walked into a lamp-post when leaving work and had to get seven stitches. [Today: How do I update this one? I'm still a klutz. I haven't walked into any more lamp posts, but I have needed stitches once since then, but this topic is not exactly blog-worthy.]

20. I once stayed in a squat in Brixton, London for a few days. [Today: When I wrote about my time in England and the influence it had on developing my self-confidence, I pictured the place I stayed in Brixton as part of the back-drop.]

My daughter is on this! (Photo courtesy of @MillenialMonstr)

21. I am deathly afraid of heights (which is why I did not do #13). [Today: This hasn't changed. I now live—somewhat vicariously—through my daughter who is completely unafraid of heights. This summer, I couldn't even look at her as she rode roller-coaster after roller-coaster or sped down giant water slides. I loved her enthusiasm even as I was paralyzed in fear for her life.]

22. I have been a chamber maid, sunglass saleswoman, waitress, Dunkin Donuts clerk, teacher, and Editor. [Today: In the last year, I moved into a new position in my company and now have the title "Digital Product Manager." I would also add the sub-title "Blogger/Writer" to my list of occupations, even though I don't get paid to do it. I'm proud of this list of jobs, and I think each one of them has given me an insight into what it means to work hard.]

23. I have been wearing glasses since I was 7. [Today: I've thought about getting corrective surgery so that I wouldn't have to wear glasses—or contacts—anymore, but the idea of having any kind of operation on my eyes just freaks me out. My daughter got glasses at the same age as me, but she is so different than I was at that age. I was embarrassed by my glasses—even getting teased at times. Since getting contacts at twelve, I seldom wear them, and still don't feel comfortable in my own skin when they are on. My daughter, however, is so filled with self-confidence that I have never heard her utter a word about having to wear them, or a desire to wear contacts. I'm not sure how this came to be, but I am so thankful for it.]

24. My favorite alcoholic beverage is Guinness. [Today: This was true until I was introduced to India Pale Ale (IPA) a few years ago. My taste-buds have since been ruined, and there is only one kind beer for me.]

25. I once missed my train from London back to Lancaster University three times—on the same day—because I was so engrossed in a book. [Today: I often take the train from New York to Boston for work, and if I'm reading a good book—because of this day—I still have this fear that I'll look up and the train will have left without me. Thankfully, this has not happened. That being said, one of my favorite past-times is still getting completely lost in a book. Now the only thing I end up missing is the chaos in my house—and that's a blessing!]

In going through this list, I was struck by a thought: If I were to write a future list of “25 Things,” what would I include in it? Would I include those things from my past that ultimately define who I am—like meeting my husband on my 2nd day in Istanbul, or how I told my parents I wanted to travel the World after college? This current list is a snapshot of my life at thirty-four—and now at thirty-seven—but I can’t help but wonder what my list would be like ten, twenty, or thirty years from now. By writing a future list, I believe I would share my hopes about where I will be in the years to come, and to also document where I have been.

Children have the uncanny ability to dream, and to dream BIG. As adults, we often lose this ability amongst our many obligations, like our jobs, the bills, our kids, and our homes. If I were to think back on my dreams as a child, I would remember wanting to be a chef, a farmer, a mother, a poet, and a writer. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had a list from when I was eleven in order to see how far I’ve come in life? So this is my advice to my daughter: make a list of what she has accomplished in her eleven years, and to include those things she hopes to do in her future. At the very least, she will have this list to look back on when she is older.

Sep 25 2011

25 Things: Nothing Changes

It’s funny how little things actually change from year to year. Often, the things we notice are those that show a physical change: children getting taller, hair getting longer, wrinkles forming around eyes. Other parts of life, however, appear the same from year to year. Just today, I came across a list I wrote three years ago—you know the kind—“25 Things” about me shared with friends on Facebook. When I read the list, I was so surprised to see that much hasn’t changed.

I’ve decided to update the list to see how my life three years ago compares to my life today.

  1. This is the second time I wrote this list tonight. [Today: I still find myself spending possibly too much time writing. The main difference is that I now do it in a blog.]
  2. I find parenting a child (age 3-4) to be one of the most challenging tests of self-control—they have no concept of consequences, and “If” clauses mean nothing to them. [Today: My son is almost seven, and I am unbelievably happy to be past that age.]
  3. I speak Turkish fluently. [Today: The word “fluently” should probably be used loosely—I don't speak it often enough. However, recently I found myself speaking with an elderly Turkish woman at my son’s taekwondo class. It’s still there—I think I just need to go spend some time in Turkey to help it come back.]
  4. I like to relieve stress when I get home from work by blasting music and dancing with my children. [Today: I now work from home, so I “get home” from work about an hour earlier than I used to, and my stress-level is much lower. That being said, most days as soon as I am done working, I have to take my children to at least one after-school activity—so no time for dancing.]
  5. My left arm is much stronger than my right because I unwillingly carry my son around and he weighs 45 pounds. [Today: My son now weighs 65 pounds, and I no longer carry him around. Although, I must admit that when he first wakes up in the morning, and he’s climbing down the ladder from his top bunk, I can’t help but grab him and hug him—and maybe carry him to the living room.]
  6. I met my husband on my second day in Istanbul—12 years ago today. [Today: Although it’s not the exact same date, the count is now up to 15 years, and tomorrow is our 12th wedding anniversary. You can read about how we met here.]
  7. My son’s middle name is Rohat which means “sunrise” in Kurdish. [Today: His middle name hasn’t changed, however he has recently adopted a nickname that more and more people seem to be using. It’s only happened a couple of times, but it's very strange to refer to my son as something other than the name we gave him.]
  8. I have been driving the same car for 10 years, and I will drive it until it drives no more. [Today: The car is three years older, and still going strong.]
  9. Before children, I would read a book or two a week, now I read a book once a year (if you don’t count the nightly ritual of reading “Where the Wild Things Are”). [Today: I do spend more time reading, however my new distraction is writing, and reading others' blogs—but that counts as reading, right?]
  10. My biggest pet-peeve is not closing cabinets or drawers (it makes my skin crawl, like that scene in “The Sixth Sense”). [Today: This hasn't changed, but my husband and children have gotten somewhat better at making sure to close them.]
  11. My house caught fire when I was four (with the 4 of us kids still inside), and my older sister—who was five years-old—called the fire department. [Today: This is the house that I wrote about in "Looking for Home." I just learned that it's for sale, and I'm tempted to go to an Open House just so I can see if the inside is as I remember it.]
  12. I graduated from college with a degree in English and Art, and I specialized in painting and photography. [Today: The one thing about the past is that it can't change, it is part of what makes us who we are.]
  13. I went to Paris and didn’t go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. [Today: I am afraid of heights, and I don't know whether or not I will ever be able to go to the top.]
  14. A friend and I were kicked off of a train in Italy, and taken off of a subway in Berlin. [Today: I alluded this to in my post "My Journey Continued: Moving to Istanbul."]
  15. When I graduated from college, I told my parents that there was no way that I was getting a job. I wanted to waitress, save money, then travel the world—which is what I did. [Today: I just realized that there are many topics in this list that are identical to the topics I used in my earlier blog posts. I either have a finite number of interesting facts about my life OR these are just the things that have had the biggest impact. I prefer to think the latter.]
After going through the first half of this list, I now see that it’s much longer than I had originally anticipated. For this reason, I’ve decided to split it up over two posts—the second half to be delivered in a couple of days, along with my advice for my daughter.
Until then, I’d love to know at least one important—lesser-known—fact about you, so please leave a comment.

Sep 21 2011

A Relationship With My Sister

This past weekend was an unusual one—my brother, two sisters, and I got to spend the evening together—along with our combined children, cousins, and spouses. Like many families, the four of us don’t live near one another: two of us are in New Jersey, one in Virginia, and the other lives in Istanbul. When we are together, we are reminded of our shared youth. We laugh as we recount stories from our childhood, each of us filling in the gaps in our combined memories. Even the things that once pained us about ourselves—our insecurities, the mistakes that we made in our youth—now make us laugh as we recount them with one another.

I realized this weekend that, although each one of us has a unique—and somewhat different—perspective on our childhoods, the truth is that each of us has had a direct impact on making each other the people we are today. It is this impact that I want to understand better, to see how each of my siblings has helped make me the woman I am—the wife, the mother, the friend.

I will begin with my sister—the youngest.

There is a three-year age difference between my sister and I, but growing up, it may as well have been a lifetime. When I was getting ready for school dances, she was playing Kick-the-Can with neighborhood kids. When she was graduating from high school, I was in England studying Shakespeare. When she was at college learning about being in the military, I was falling in love in Istanbul. And when she was in the Army stationed in Germany, I was back home learning to be a mother.

I didn’t really know my sister—not the music she loved, the friends she had, nor the heartbreaks she had experienced in her life. If it weren’t for a chance meeting we had when she was seventeen and I was twenty, this may have always been the case.

Our parents divorced while she was a junior in high school. She was the one who witnessed first-hand the devastation that occurred the day our father walked out. In the days and months that followed, she was the one who stood by my mother. And I believe that, in truth, my sister was the reason our mother got up each morning. I was not there for my sister during this time. I dreaded coming home, so I stayed away as much as possible, even going as far as moving to England the following year—the year she was graduating high school.

Our father should have been the one to take her to Ireland as a graduation present—a tradition in our family—but their relationship had been almost irreparably damaged. Instead, I took a week off from my studies in England to travel with her. It was during this trip that I think I truly saw her for the first time. I remember putting make-up on her and being surprised by how different her features were from mine—I had always thought she looked like me—but her lashes were so long they almost touched her eyebrows, and her lips were smaller and more delicate than my own. It was as if by seeing these differences, I suddenly wanted to learn more about who she truly was, not the person I had always thought her to be. We spent the week getting to know one another, and for the first time, we connected not as sisters, but as friends.

One of my fondest memories occurred just a few years after this trip to Ireland. My sister, after attending a military university and joining the Army, became stationed in Germany. She had only been there a couple of months when my daughter was born. Although we hadn’t lived near one another prior to her leaving, just knowing that she couldn’t come home to meet her niece took away some of the joy of her birth. My sister, being the incredibly loving and selfless person that she is, came up with a plan: she would fly home for Memorial Day weekend to see the baby and surprise my mother. It was an elaborate plan that involved my brother (who picked her up at the airport), my older sister (who provided a place to rest prior to getting on a bus to Atlantic City), along with my mother’s best-friend (who picked her up and drove her to Cape May) and her daughter (who videotaped the arrival). It worked perfectly, and because it was being filmed, I am able to watch—over and over again—my sister meeting her niece for the very first time.

In so many ways, my sister—with her selfless approach to life—has made me want to be a better person. Through her, I have learned how to be strong while still being compassionate. As I think now about the advice I have for my daughter, I can only think of one thing: to see my sister as I do, and to know how fortunate she is to have such an incredible woman in her life.

Sep 19 2011

My Blog is Being Critiqued Today

Okay, so you’ve probably figured out that this is not a new post. It’s been an extremely busy week, and I have been unable to find time to sit down and write. That should change this evening.

In the mean time, I am very excited to tell you that today my blog is being critiqued by three incredible bloggers over on www.thesitsgirls.com: Mel from www.momcomm.com, and the creator of “The Do-It-Yourself Blog Critique,” Kat, the fabulous writer from www.mamakatslosinit.com, and Fran—an expert in blog navigation—from www.thesitsgirls.com.

The feedback is amazing, and I can’t wait to sit down and make some changes to my site. I’d love it if you’d read their feedback, and then maybe give me some feedback of your own. This is the day to do it! Be as open and honest as you like—I am ready!

Thank you!

Sep 11 2011

After September 11th: Our Story

We lived not far from Manhattan—just fifteen miles north, on the other side of the river—when the tragedy struck on September 11, 2001. As my husband and I drove home from work that day, we could see the smoke rising above the place where the twin towers had stood just that morning. All we could talk about—all we could think about—were those lost in this horrific attack.

A few days later—after the initial shock and horror of the attacks turned into a numbing grief—I was suddenly confronted by a paralyzing fear. It was not just the fear of another attack occurring, I was struck by a desperate fear for my husband. We had started to hear stories of violence toward Muslims—even against those who just “looked” Muslim. My husband is from Turkey, and he is Muslim. These words are not the first two he would have used to describe himself. If asked, he would have said that he is a devoted father, a lover of history, and someone who enjoys anything alien-related. He is not religious—his being Muslim is the equivalent of someone who is born into a Christian family, but never attends Church. It was part of his culture, his background, and therefore part of his identity. But suddenly, this detail—out of the many that makes him who he is—was the only one people could see. The people at his office who were suddenly using the words “fucking Muslims” loud enough for him to hear, or the neighbors—who never before stopped to say hello—suddenly stopped and stared every time we were outside.

I was afraid for him to go anywhere by himself—afraid someone might hurt him. He was not a citizen. He didn’t even have his green-card—we’d had the interview, but we were still waiting for it to be official. It felt as if we were living on uncertain ground, and I didn’t know how to find a life that was safe once again—a life in which we could raise our daughter free from the fear and prejudice we now felt was all around us. As the weeks turned into months, this fear slowly began to ebb. It would take a long time, however, to once again feel a sense of equilibrium in our lives. During that time, when our daughter was still a baby, I would sometimes wonder about the world we were raising her in, about the identity she would take with her out into the world.

Years later, when she was starting kindergarten in a new school, we had to once again teach people how to pronounce her name. She has a Turkish name—it made her stand out, made her somehow different from the other kids in her class. The beauty of children is that they do not see these differences. As she got older, she would find that her friends would sometimes ask her questions about her life: What’s Turkey? Do you celebrate Christmas? Do you go to Church? Her answers were simple and straight-forward: It’s the country where my father is from. Of course I celebrate Christmas. I don’t go to Church because I’m Muslim. For my daughter, as it was for my husband, this is just a detail, not very significant, and not one to define her.

When she’d come home and tell me about some of these conversations—not because they upset her—she was just curious as to why they would be asking. I would do my best to explain that kids can sometimes be interested in details that are different from their everyday lives. I felt such a sense of pride in her strength. And when she would complain about the way people mispronounced her name—even going as far as wanting to change the spelling—I would tell her that her name makes her different and that someday she’d value that. In addition to wanting her to be someone who isn’t influenced by what others think, I also thought that maybe by declaring this detail about herself—this one small detail out of many—that she might get people to confront their own idea of what being Muslim means. In our own way, I thought our family might also do the same. We do not fit into a stereotype.

When my daughter was in 4th grade, she had to do a project for school about her heritage. She could have picked her Irish or Scottish side, but instead she wanted to teach her class about her father’s side—her Kurdish side. Being the competitive student that she is, she wanted to guarantee an A on the project. To do this, she decided to not only create the mandatory poster-board, she also created a Power Point to be used on the whiteboard, she brought in music to teach her classmates how to dance, and she dressed up in a traditional Kurdish girls’ clothing. Parents were allowed to watch the presentations, and I wish I had taken a picture of her father’s face as he saw his daughter gather her friends in a circle as they danced to the music of his childhood. The parents who stood near us were intrigued about the information she was sharing, and they asked us a long stream of questions. For both my husband and I, it was a moment we would never forget.

Looking back on these last ten years, I am amazed to see how far our family has come: my husband is a well-respected business owner, a man who is surrounded by incredible friends, and a citizen of the United States. We have settled into life in our small town, and we no longer feel that people see us as somehow different—or at least not in a negative way. I wanted to share this story with my daughter, in case she is ever faced with any type of prejudice in her life. My advice to her is to always be strong, and by being herself, she may inadvertently change people’s perceptions—and that is always a good thing.

Sep 7 2011

Back-to-School

For me, this past week has been absolutely consumed by getting the kids ready to head back to school: standing in line at Staples, braving the crowds at the malls, and navigating my way through the grocery store in an attempt to stock up on lunch supplies. This is a big year for my kids—and for me and my husband. Our daughter is entering her final year of elementary school, and our son is starting 1st grade. I’ve been waiting for this day since the beginning of August—you may remember from the post “The Long, Lazy Days of Summer”—and now it has finally arrived.

The early morning was filled with the excitement of putting on never-before-worn clothing, double-checking that backpacks contained all of the shiny new school supplies, and impatiently waiting for the time when we would finally leave for the unknown adventure that is school—for a 1st grader, that is. In other words, it was just shy of total chaos.

As I was walking my kids up to their school, I was suddenly struck by two overwhelming emotions. For my son, I felt utter joy that he was finally going to attend a full day of public school. No more daycare, before-care, after-care, or any other kind of “care” that requires us to make a monthly payment. For the last ten consecutive years, we have been paying someone else to watch our children so that we could go to work. Not anymore! If you could have seen me waving good-bye to him for the last time, you would have seen a smile on my lips, and a happy dance in my eyes—I think I may have even skipped a little on the way back to my car.

Before experiencing this moment of joy, however, I had just felt quite the opposite. As I stared at the back of my daughter’s freshly curled head running toward her awaiting friends, I was overcome with a feeling of dread. She barely said good-bye to me. I didn’t even have time to tell her to have a good day, or to say that I loved her (not that I would have actually said it for fear of getting one of her angry stares—but that’s not the point). This is it, the last year before middle school, the last year before she becomes a true teenager with all of the angst, drama, and erratic emotions that comes with them. This is the last year that I will be able to identify every child in her class by name, and—for the most part—recognize the corresponding parent. In just ten short months, elementary school will come to an end, and no matter how much I wish I could slow it down, my daughter is rapidly growing up before my eyes.

I’ve been trying to think of what advice I’d like to give her as she heads back to school. If I remind her to make sure she studies for her tests, listens to her teacher, and turns in her homework on time, she will roll her eyes and tell me that she already knows to do that. As I write this, I am suddenly reminded of a post I recently read by Scary Mommy called “Too Pretty To Do Homework.” In the post, Scary Mommy writes about a t-shirt that was in the news because of the outrageous—and completely ridiculous—message it contained. The t-shirt read: “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.” This made me think about some advice I once gave my daughter that is probably appropriate to repeat as she heads into Sixth Grade.

I told her a fact about boys and girls that I believe to be true: as she gets older, she will more than likely witness some girls—maybe even her friends—making themselves appear less intelligent just so that boys will like them. I also explained that she will more than likely encounter boys who will make fun of her for being smart or for working hard in school. When I first told her this, my daughter looked at me in complete disbelief—she couldn’t imagine why anyone would act stupid just so that a boy would like her. I think her disbelief stems from the fact that she likes being smart, she is competitive and would never willingly do poorly on a test, and she honestly—for now—doesn’t care what boys think. Just last year, she was presented with an award by the Board of Education in our town for achieving high success on a National test—she was the only girl, and she was immensely proud of herself.

So, my advice to her—if she ever finds herself not raising her hand even if she knows the answer just because some boy had called her a “nerd”—being smart and doing well in school will take her wherever she wants to go in life. I hope she always remembers how she felt that day in the hallway of the high school—standing amongst boys older than herself—when she was recognized for working hard, and for her success.