He said She said

Ever notice how people who talk about their cars, boats, etc., refer to them as “she?”

They always refer to their inanimate possessions in the feminine…”Fill her up,” “She needs a new paint job,” “she’s got a 455 with a 3 on the tree.”

Yet you’ll never hear someone refer to their car or truck as a “he” (well, ok, maybe except for those dudes who think they have to hang a set of plastic balls from their trailer hitch, but those are probably the exception). I find myself doing it even…not hanging balls from my car, but with the name thing. My Volvo has been nicknamed Helga and my very first car was named Fluffy. Well ok maybe that’s a little more gender-neutral, but I always referred to it in the feminine - she was my first car, we had a lot of fun driving her around - you get the picture.

I wonder why that is…why the things we buy and own are so easy to consider female yet it seems out of place to consider them male. As if it’s perfectly fine to own and maintain a woman but a man can never be owned.

I don’t know what the point is exactly that I’m trying to make, except it strikes me as weird.

Sometimes I wonder, if I died today, would anybody attend my funeral?

If I somehow disappeared, how long would it take for anyone to notice? Or would anyone notice at all?

I keep myself at a distance from others because it's easier than dealing with the eventual loss. Because it will happen, sooner or later.

But I wonder what it's like to be loved, to be truly wanted and needed. It must be a beautiful thing, but I'll never know it. My phone never rings, my mail box is always empty. My heart is full, but nobody cares. Nobody sees the me that is craving to be cared for.

I'll never "fit in." I'll never be that person that gets thought of, that is remembered, that others want to hang around. I've accepted that, but sometimes the realization still hurts.

New Friends

So, my DS seems to have made himself a new little friend recently. I can't begin to explain how happy and relieved that makes me feel.

DS has always been the shy one - not your typical rough-and-tumble 9 year old boy, but very reserved, gentle, kind. A lot like me when I was little, we both tend to retreat into our shells and observe rather than participate. So over the years I have worried about him, because he never came home from school telling me about this friend or that. I was worried he'd never find that one best friend that I think everyone needs to have in their life.

And of course, my old "adoptee issues" rear their ugly head, as I am constantly reminded of my own feelings and abandonment fears and inability to fit in, and I worry. Worry, worry, worry.

I was teased constantly as a child. All through school, I was the one everybody picked on, I was the nerd, the wierdo, the outcast. I have flashbacks to the many times that a person in my grade would basically turn EVERYONE against me. Not just my grade, but the whole school (I went to a very small rural school). I had to go and face all those people, none of whom would speak to me, would be decent to me, would only tease and belittle. It was painful and only drove home more the abandonment and feelings of inadequacy. My own mother didn't want me, so why should any of these people, right? I was worthless.

And while I know that my DS doesn't have that in his life to draw upon, I still worry about him. What if the kids do it to him? He is such a tender soul, I don't know if he could take it. But if he even had one really good, tight friend to stick by him, he'll be all right.

I know I was, thank goodness for S, she was the only person who I could turn to, and got me through some very tough years.

And so I am excited, glad, happy, relieved...so many emotions come flooding in now that DS has finally seemed to find a friend. Someone he "clicks" with. I hope this is the beginning of a lifelong friendship for him, those are so precious and rare.

And I need to stop projecting my adoptedness onto my kids.

Now I need to go clean the house in case his little buddy does come over after school. I think we'll order pizza tonight....

Call me sometime

I tried to call my n-brother today. Not sure if he's still at the number that I have, but it sure would be nice to catch up with him. Of course, the entire time I was dialing, my stomach was in knots and I was scared shitless, I don't get that. Why do I get so damn worked up over calling my family? It's screwed up.

No word from mother in quite a while, I need to send our new family portraits up to her, maybe that will spark her into some sort of action. Well probably not, but I am perpetually trying. Such is the life the adopted, it's up to us to do the work if we want the contact, but it sucks. I just wish someone would want to make an effort for ME once in a while. Is that too much to ask?

Shouting it from the rooftops

I think I need to get more asters. Yes, in fact I know I do. My Purple Domes are all in full glorious blooming splendor right now, but I need more. LOTS more. So my yard becomes that place that everyone has to drive past in the fall and see the display.

Anyone got any you'd like to divide? I'll swap you some Purple Dome asters.

I was painting DS's room last weekend, the room that used to be mine here in this old house in the country. Of all the things I don't remember about my childhood, there are a few that I do, and one thing that stands out in my mind are times when I just hid out in my room, all alone, where nobody could hurt me. I was safe there.

My old room is upstairs, and the north window overlooks the part of the kitchen that was added on below. I could take the screen out of my window and crawl out onto the roof, and that's exactly what I did, ALL the time. Usually at night though, when my parents were asleep, because my dad wouldn't be too thrilled with me crawling out onto the roof in the dead of night. I wonder why.

But it was there that I would sit on the sharp scratchy singles and gaze northward, in the direction of the city of my birth, and think about her. Where was my mother...100 miles away through the dark sky and silent landscape, I knew she was out there, and I waited for her.

I waited for my "real" mother to come and get me, all alone on that rooftop, and holding my breath ever time a pair of headlights loomed on the horizon. I would hope - no, pray - that those headlights would slow down and pull into my driveway, and that mysterious brown haired, brown eyed woman would get out of the car and sweep me into her arms. I would finally see her face, finally hear her voice, I would finally be where I belonged.

But then how could she, right? She didn't know where I was any more than I knew where she was, but in my little girl's brain, she had to have some sort of mystical power to just know. Our connection was spritual, and I knew I could "beam" my thoughts into her brain.

i tried to every night, especially those nights when I waited for her to come.

I think back on those days and feel so sad for that little girl. Ironically enough, the adult me is still stuck on that roof, waiting and waiting, for a mother who is just not going to come. This time she knows where I am, she knows how to reach me, but she either can't or simply won't - and that realization has been getting pretty obvious. Perhaps I need to beam more thoughts her way.

Thing is, it used to just kill me, it hurt so bad that I would stuff it and deny it and, well, go searching for some low-lying fog where I could sip my kool-aid. But as time goes by, it doesn't hurt as much. Maybe I am just numb, or maybe I am just tired of being hurt. But I still think about climbing onto that roof sometimes, just in case.

Fall

I love fall. Back to school, dry air, cool nights, falling leaves...ahhh. My favorite favorite time of year. I met my mother for the 2nd time in my life in the fall.

The kids had their meet-the-teacher conferences today, and will start school tomorrow. It's so weird going into that Elementary school where I used to go, some of the same teachers are still there even! Wild.

I was going through pictures the other day and came across some old ones of me & my dad picking apples from the trees in the yard. I loved that. Although picking up the fallen, rotting apples before mowing was not one of my most favorite activities. But I miss apple picking, and I miss my dad. A lot. I feel so cheated. About everything.

The family I was born to gave me away and the family I was adopted by are all dead.

I feel a little like I have been washed overboard of a ship in the ocean; my little life raft is keeping me afloat but for how long? And who will come to rescue me? Nobody, the ship has sailed, they are going on to bigger and better things.

It's amazing to me how many times different family members cross my mind every day. If I spent as much time in the real world as I do with my thoughts, hell I just might get something accomplished. But as it is, I like my little internal world. It's a place where mothers don't give their babies away, where heart disease and cancer don't exist, and where weeds never invade the flower beds. That are full of bright and colorful asters and mums this time of year.

Girl's Night Out

So, I had a rare "girl's night" last night, one of those things that are so hard to do nowadays. It was nice - I like catching up with my girls and dishing about ex's and gossiping about this or that person. It's a nice break from everyday ho-hummery.

Besides the fact that on the way home I hit and killed a cat (which was very traumatic, I love cats), the friend who rode with me to the other friend's house was just triggering me up and down. This is the friend who I have known since high school; we have been through thick and thin, know each other VERY well, but she has always had a problem with my reunion and has been simply unwilling to support me in any way.

So as we made the 30 mile ride home, talking about our kids and the past and all that stuff, she started talking about her mom and dad and told me a story of how her son was absolutely devastated that grandpa couldn't come to his birthday party. And how her kids are staying at grandma's and how much they all love and adore their grandparents.

Nice stories - but it just drove home all that I've lost. My kids will never know their grandparents. I never got to give my mom the good news, "I'm having a baby!" which I know she would have been over the moon about. No dad to walk me down the aisle or dance the father-daughter dance. No nights at grandma's, no grandpa teaching them to ride a bike or take them fishing. It has been 13 years since my dad died, and 12 since my mom. I still feel it as sharply and painfully as I did so many years ago.

And then she goes on to talk about missing her grandpa who died 10 years ago, and I totally understand, but through all this not once, not ONCE, did she even bother to acknowledge what I may be feeling. I even mentioned that, yeah, I know, I miss my parents and think of them every day. Her reaction? One of surprise, like oh yeah, I suppose you might just miss them a little.

It was all just so hard to listen to.

And I don't want to be that person who nobody can talk to because I'll get all triggered. I'm not, and I am always there for my friends, but this time it was just so....I don't know. Difficult. Perhaps if she had even made one teeny tiny acknowledgment that she understands or empathizes with me, but no. It's all about her, all the time.

Then she went on to tell me about her older brother who she misses, he moved away when she was 6. She told me how they were SO MUCH alike and how it's amazing that they can be so similar, how cool it is to have that biological connection to someone.

No kidding.

I ended the evening by saying, "Yeah, I've never had that in my life, nobody around me is even related to me."

She just kind of changed the subject quick and we said our goodbyes.

GOD WHY IS IT SO HARD. I want to support her, I want to be there for her, but why can't se fucking acknowledge me at all? I sometimes wonder if this friendship is even worth it. I feel like I am doing all the giving and she is doing all the taking. But I can't just walk away from someone, I've had that done to me and it sucks, I can't do that to another human being. Not unless they reslly, really deserved it.

I don't know. So today of course I'm stuck with all the memories of my childhood, of my mom and dad and how much I miss them, and playing the "what if" game - what if they hadn't died, how would they be around my kids, how much would my kids adore them. It's so unfair, and I have nobody to really talk about it to, because nobody I know has lost both their parents (well, all 4 actually) by the time they were 23 years old. Nobody understands, and nobody wants to even try.

It would be nice if my n-mom could grow the fuck up and be a mother, but I've learned long ago not to count on her.

So I'll just turn to the only comfort I have - spending the day listening to sad sappy crap music and disappearing into the bathroom now and then for a fit of crying. I've never felt as alone as I do right now.