Loyalties

I was reading a post over on the forum today and something one of our members said really struck a chord with me.

...I wish all the people who've told me how lucky I am to be adopted and how wonderful it is, could have felt the confusion and sickness I felt after all that. I constantly feel, and I am sure all adopees get this, that I'm being dragged from one loyalty to another.

God this is SO TRUE. The loyalty thing! Adoptees are pushed and pulled in different directions all the time by our families, our friends, by complete strangers who think they have the right to dictate our lives to us. And to not even realize what they are doing, while telling us to be grateful for having people such as themselves pushing us around. It's insane-making. On one hand, you have the obvious pro-adoption camp who think that adoptees should "get over" their biological family and be happy/grateful/thankful/glad we have this super duper awesome forever family who so graciously let us sleep under their roof and tossed us some food from time to time. And then you have the seriously anti-adoption nuts who will tell you that your adoptive parents are nothing more than child abductors and any "love" I think I feel for them is simply Stockholm Syndrome and they are only merely fond of me as well. (Yes, I have actually heard those words from someone). And then there's the rest of society - people who are well-meaning usually, maybe they have no real connection with adoption so they don't know what to think, or maybe they know someone who knows someone who is adopted and they feel this way or that, so of course all adoptees should. And last but not least, you have your families, adoptive and, if in reunion/open adoption, your biological families. And I count my friends in here too, because they are close to me and are part of my "inner circle" so to speak. Everyone has an opinion on where my loyalties should lie. EVERYONE. And almost everyone feels they have the right to TELL me where my loyalties lie. What is it about loyalty anyway? I mean, why is it that society has this idea that adoptive parents are like a lover who is being cheated on if the adoptee decides to see where she came from? What's with this notion that because they raised me, I can't form friendships and relationships with people other than them? Oh wait...I can, just not anyone who might share my DNA. Because THAT would be "disloyal." I can call my mother-in-law Mom, but if I called my n-mother Mom? THAT would be a betrayal. And most people have no qualms whatsoever about telling me so, and making me feel like shit in the process. Because my own feelings and needs don't matter, apparently. And then to top it off by telling me how awesome it must be to feel this way. Do people listen to themselves? I don't think so. I don't think they even think about what is about to come out of their mouth most of the time. And damn this is turning into another anti-adoptive parent thing isn't it? LOL no, no, I don't hate my adoptive parents. Nothing could be further from the truth. And if they were alive today? I don't think they'd be the least bit bothered by my reunion and subsequent relationships with my biological family. At least I like to think they wouldn't, because they were pretty awesome people, and never once made me feel like I should be grateful for my adoption. They never used any of the tired old cliche's about adoption, and I'm so thankful for that. And you know, they ARE my parents. I DO feel a loyalty to them. But that doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't also have a space for the people who are my family by birth. What is so dangerous, or disloyal, about having more people in my life who love me? Do people tell their friends, they can't make more friends because the old friends will feel betrayed? I've never heard of that happening. But it's kind of par for the course in adopto-land. And it's funny, because when it comes to my biological vs. adoptive siblings, the sentiments don't seem to apply. Nobody thinks my adoptive brothers will feel betrayed if I list my biological brother as such on my FB family list. Nobody tells me I shouldn't talk to him because my brothers were the ones beating me up my entire childhood, not him. Nobody seems to care, they actually think it's pretty cool. But the parents loyalty thing is what's huge. And it's not like I can suddenly go back and be re-raised by my b-mom...it's not like my entire lifetime of memories is going to be wiped clean and I'll forget my a-parents ever existed. Yet people think adoptees must choose one or the other, pick sides, be loyal. I'll tell you what...I'll be loyal to those who show me love and respect and EARN my loyalty. And I - me, myself and I alone, will decide who that its. I don't tell anyone else who they should be loyal to...but for some reason, adoptee loyalty is open season. Sickening.

Leave God out of it

I know I've blogged about this before. But it's a recurring theme in the adoption world, especially from the AP side, that somehow God plays a hand in making adoptions happen. For me, this is kind of a loaded statement. I mean I am a woman of faith; I do believe there is a God and I do believe that he loves all of us, little ol' me included, but I don't want to get any deeper into the whole religion discussion because that would take a mountain of blog posts and I want to keep the focus specifically on adoption. A vast majority of the adoptees I know from the forum and from FB and the blog-o-sphere are nonbelievers. This is something that makes me go hmmmm. Doesn't it seem telling, that so many people who were supposedly put into their adoptive homes because of an act of God, choosing to either walk away or simply don't believe at all? Ask any adoptive parent and I'll bet close to 90% will tell you it was God's will for their lives. Ask any adoptee (at least the ones I have spoken to/read blogs from) and they will say God doesn't exist, or God is an asshole for doing this. Telling. Telling indeed. For me, I don't think God micromanages any of our lives to such an extent. From my understanding of scripture, family (meaning blood) is extremely important, and Jesus never went around convincing pregnant Gentile girls to hand over their babies to his "deserving" Jewish buddies. Christians who truly want to keep to God's word are to care for the orphan AND the widow, and I don't think this can be interpreted as helping themselves TO the widow's little orphan. But that's just me, and I'm not a theologian. This is JUST my opinion, but one I have come to after much contemplation. I don't know. It just seems to me that bringing God into something that can be so painful and traumatizing to a person (adoptee) is downright damaging. To say that God somehow screwed up and put that baby in the wrong tummy is, well, sorry to be mean, but it's stupid and it won't take long for the little adoptee hearing that line of bull to figure out exactly how stinky the bull is. If there is a God, and I think there is, I don't think he would ever purposefully create a child within one woman just so that another woman can come along and take possession of it. I don't think a loving God would intentionally create a situation where two of the three parties are left feeling broken, alone, and full of grief for the rest of their lives. I don't think any adoptive parent, no matter how "deserving," is special enough in God's eyes to allow the to profit from another's pain. No, God doesn't play favorites. Whenever someone tells me that my adoption was God's will, I just smile and nod, knowing they are probably just trying to make me feel better. Although the intent is appreciated, I know better, and after years of hard internal work, I know better. I just hope that more people out there, especially APs, would think long and hard about the ramifications of justifying greed with God.

Wordless Wednesday...Adoption is SO BEAUTIFUL!!! (unless, of course, you are an adoptee apparently)

Going Viral

Some of you who are dialed in to the adoptee rights movement or are in some other way involved in adoption stuff may have noticed the onslaught of FB pictures of adoptees searching for the mothers & families. While I’m happy that it has worked for some and it’s a great resource for those of us who live under the oppression of sealed records, it also saddens and angers me greatly. The fact that any of these men & women have to publicly beg for a tiny shred of information, all the while facing some very sharp criticism from well-meaning (and not-so-well-meaning) people is demeaning and dehumanizing. People like to drone on about “privacy” - but if adoptees had the right to access their own birth records, then that “privacy” (which is a myth, by the way) could be respected much more by not forcing adoptees to blast their information all over FB and the internet. What should be personal and yes, private, is now very public. But I don’t even want to get into the open records spiel. I want to get at the public perception of adoption and reunion and this romanticized image that people have of the whole ordeal. Everyone loves a warm and fuzzy happy reunion full of tears and hugs. They like to be voyeurs to something that is so fraught with emotion and get caught up in the happiness and joy of it all. But what they don’t see, what the television talk shows and newspaper stories and viral photos don’t tell you, is the incredible aftermath. Meeting your family and suddenly having your dreams of what could have been turn into the reality of what should have been can leave a person feeling devastated. The term “roller coaster” has been used to describe it, and it’s an apt description. The initial highs can be followed by some very deep and profound lows. Nobody who has not lived it can possibly understand the paradox of meeting your own family, but knowing you’ll never really be a true part of that family, because it’s impossible to make up for that lifetime of memories and shared experiences that truly make us “family.” It’s seeing parts of yourself reflected back in the features and actions and attitudes, for the first time in your life, and FINALLY understanding exactly who you are. It’s like coming home, but knowing you will never be able to stay. Because the push and the pull from other parts of your life make it impossible. Your adoptive family feels betrayed; your friends think you need to forget it and move on; your SO just wants the “old” you back, the one who wasn’t constantly obsessing over every tiny detail of every moment spent with your new-found relatives. The one who still had time for them and wasn’t so wrapped up in this new discovery. And then times goes on, things kind of even out, but distance makes it hard to develop a relationship and your own fears of abandonment force you to keep a comfortable distance. For me, the fact that my mother kicked me out of her life twice, really made me afraid. I thought, well, if my own mother can walk away from me, what’s to stop the rest of the family? And so we pull back. We distance ourselves to protect ourselves from the inevitable fallout that we feel certain is going to come. And this pull back is often misunderstood, seen as a lack of interest or maybe a rejection of them of sorts, but we are afraid – afraid to make our feelings known because all our lives, we have been expected to keep our feelings in check in the interest of not hurting our adoptive parents or upsetting someone. Because we are expendable; we are the second choice children, society is quick to remind us, we have no right to this life because our mothers could have taken us out of it via abortion and we’d better be good and grateful. It’s a hard thing to shake, even for the strongest of us. This is why records should be open (ok, ok, I brought up the records). This is why it’s so sad to see my fellow adoptees, my fellow human beings, resorting to these public displays of pleading which might very well pay off, but at what price? We should all be allowed to know the most basic information about ourselves…who we are, where we came from, who we were before our birth certificates were legally falsified and the originals locked away forever. And then you have the nay-sayers…the “you don’t know what you’re going to find, you might not like the outcome, I know a person who was adopted and had a bad experience and now has nothing to do with her birth family!” Really? Well good for your friend. I’m glad she knows. It is her right, and what happened after reunion is also her right. I often tell people (ok, I don’t, but I would LIKE to) that we can’t get closure from fantasies. We can’t come to terms with only our imagination. No matter what the truth is, good or bad, at least it can be DEALT with and processed. It is only through knowing the truth and, if it is indeed not pretty, being able to face it is the only thing that will allow us to heal and become stronger. Society recognizes the value of facing all sorts of problems and traumas…we know that to “bottle it up” is unhealthy, yet adopted people are expected to do just that. Bottle it up, get over it, ignore it, just stfu and be grateful. Really, it’s no wonder so many serial killers are adopted…we’re expected to somehow magically get over something without ever being allowed to talk about it, to process it, to explore our own feelings for the sake of those around us. Including complete strangers who think they need to give their opinion on something they know jack about. So what exactly is the point I’m trying to make…I don’t even know. Lord knows I’ve made a ton of mistakes in my own reunion, and I can say it’s been a mixture of both good and bad. But it’s mine and mine alone, and no matter what has happened, I’m glad I did it. I wish some things could have been different, I wish I had done some things better, but at least I KNOW and can have peace with that. I just hope that all my fellow adoptees get the same opportunity and wish that someday, they can all do it privately, in their own time, without having to get the approval of complete strangers or beg like children for a crumb of information. Let’s stop the inhumanity.

On being "chosen"

A lot of people like to adoptees that we're special; that we were "chosen" and should therefore feel really good and blessed and happy. It seems to be a favorite (right after "you could have been aborted," which if you think of it, how does one go from being a worthless and unwanted thing to be gotten rid of to being special and chosen in one breath? Talk about a mind fuck). I know I heard it, I think pretty much all of my adoptee friends have heard it too.

As a young child I really used to buy into it too. I would imagine my parents driving to the adoption agency, their faces lit up with these huge grins of anticipation, their hearts pounding as they arrived at the place where they would CHOOSE THEIR BABY. I pictured a big room filled with other adoptive parents just like mine, and soon a line of ladies would come from an inconspicuous wooden door off in the corner, each one smiling brightly as they each carried a plump and adorable baby dressed in white cotton dresses with eyelet trim. These babies would then be passed around the room, from adoptive parent to adoptive parent, and whoever was holding the baby when she stopped crying would "choose" that baby and they'd adopt her and go live happily ever after.

I had an active imagination as a child.

Chosen...was I chosen?

My amom told me a story one time that before they adopted me, they had received a call from the adoption agency, telling them that a baby girl was available for adoption. She was everything that they had hoped for...except for one dark stain on her record, her mother had been on drugs. (Insert audible gasping in of breath). So my parents in all their parental wisdom decided NOT to take that particular baby. Which leads me to wonder; what if they had? What if they DID adopt this little girl? Then there'd be somebody ELSE sitting here in my chair, with my name and all my memories and living MY life. Who, then, would I have become? Where would I be? What would my name be? What kind of life would I be living?

For I sure as heck wouldn't be who I am today.

My parents waited until the NEXT little girl was available for adoption - mois - and the rest is history. But I don't think of it as being so much chosen as just being the next available baby for the people at the top of the list. They didn't come into a room and select me from a group of other babies. They didn't pass me around and keep me because I stopped crying for them. No, I am who I am because of simple logistics.

I wonder about that little baby that was passed up. Where is she now? WHO is she now? Did she get as good of parents as I did, or was she abused and mistreated? Does she know she came *this close* to being ME? If she went to the people who were next on the list after my parents, would I have went to them if she had been chosen by mine?

God it is such a mind fuck.

Hi.

So I have been pulled back into the blogging world. I really haven't had a lot to say for the last year or so, I guess life and work and everything with it has consumed my time and my thoughts, but all the fuss that has arisen over a little letter I wrote has got me to thinking and spurred me to action. I figured since a lot of other people are posting it, I might as well too, and try to address the comments on my own blog instead of everbody elses. (Sorry, iadoptee!)

So I will post my letter on a separate page here at the Cabbage Patch. And, hopefully, I will find the time and inspiration to blog again. I've kind of missed it anyway!

Why do I do this?

I've had an ex boyfriend on my mind for a long, long time now. Well, not just an ex but my first ex, he was my first everything. But he's not on my mind in a way that most people would think; I've been thinking of his lost sister.

Every time a new female member, around the age of 43-46, joins the forum I get a little twinge of excitement. Is this her? Is this the girl his parents gave up before they were married? I have this dream of finding her and reuniting her with the family. A great family, and one that misses her very much.

But why? Why do I care so much? It's been over 20 years since I dated D, and I left him pretty devastated when I broke it off. His parents were, no are, awesome. I miss his mom even to this day, she was just the coolest person I ever met. And she misses her daughter soooooo much. I bring it up to her from time to time, when we happen to bump into one another; I ask if she's started looking yet, offer to help with all my adoptee stalker super powers, and every time the tears start welling up in her eyes. She feels like it's not her place.

So I dream of finding this woman. Hell I wish I WAS her (although, that would be kinda gross because then I would have lost my virginity to my brother) but that is one family that I know would not get all weird on her if they ever do find one another. D would not flake out on her like my nmom did to me; her little brothers would not get all jealous or toddlerish or freakish. They all know she's out there and would love to have her back in the family someday.

So, any adopted women out there, in their early to mid 40's, born in South (or was it North??) Dakota, make yourselves known. Your nparents got married, had 3 more children (all boys, your brothers!), and are still together to this day. Your brothers all have this fantastic wit and sense of humor (the one thing I miss most about D, the humor he found in such random things), they are down to earth and normal, and miss you very much.

Even if I play no part in it, I would love to see this happen. I know it's not even remotely my place, but I feel I at least owe it to D for breaking his heart, and to his mom for just being the mom I always wished I could have.

Family Envy

We took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese this weekend. No particular reason, we just haven't been there in ages and the kids love it. And it's nice to just be able to sit back while the kids can run wild, and just be kids for a while.

While we were sitting there, among the hundreds of other parents & families and kids running wild, a family was seated next to us. They were celebrating a birthday for one of the kids, and I found myself completely and totally crushing on this group of people.

I mean, they could have stepped right out of some feel-good family oriented television show, maybe even a sit-com, they were just that perfect. Now I can't be sure of how they were all related but it looked like Grandma was there, three women who were probably her daughters, and a plethora of kids. And the adults were all totally into the kids, everyone was holding the littlest ones, everyone was completely involved in these children, and you couldn't even tell whose kids were whose because everyone expended the same amount of love and attention to them. And there were probably about 10 of them, from the ages of about 1 to probably early teens.

And I just couldn't take my eyes off them. I found myself wishing I could be in that family, that these women could be my sister or aunt, that I could love and be loved the way all those kids were.

It made me sad for what I have lost - my n-family, who are exactly like this, I could have and SHOULD have been raised in this type of close family; and for the adoptive family I was raised in who never gave a hug, never cared about family, who only saw each other at weddings or funerals and even then it was strained, you could tell nobody gave a crap about anybody else.

I'm glad there are families like this out there. I wish more families WERE like this. And I bet, that if one of those ladies had gotten pregnant at 15 or 18 or under any less than favorable circumstance, that that particular family would never, ever let that baby go. Adoption would NEVER be an option.

I guess that's where my n-family got it wrong.

Family? What family?

Have you ever looked at pictures of your family and had the painful realization that you will never BE a part of that family?

Sometimes I just want to un-friend all my n-family members from facebook. They are such a close, happy family who truly enjoy each others company and are always getting together. They are involved in each others lives. And they like to post pictures, which I love to see, but at the same time, it's like a huge kick in the gut.

I never had that with my adoptive family. They all pretty much hated each other, and the ones who didn't hate one another, well, just had a sort of mild tolerance for each other. So needless to say, I saw my 1st cousins about 6 times in my life, usually at a funeral or a wedding. There are countless 2nd- and beyond type cousins and extended family that I have NEVER met. And never will. Well, not that they even consider me a part of this family either, because being adopted I am not blood and therefore subject to suspicion.

I should have been raised with the people who are like me. I needed that. Still do! All I have now are my kids, my in-laws, and two a-brothers who could care less if I was alive. Well okay to be fair, I suppose they'd care if I died, but the simple fact that I am living is enough for them.

And I am really giving up on all my grand illusions about my mother. Perhaps the last of the fog is slipping away, or perhaps I'm moving through the next "stage" so to speak. The ONE person who should care about me and my well-being, the ONE person who is supposed to love you, obviously could care less. She has been abandoning me over and over, and I have let her. Why do I keep setting myself up for this pain and frustration?

I could never do that to my kids. But then again I would never abandon my children to adoption in the first place. No way, no how, you'd have to pry them from my stiff dead arms. And then I'd come back and haunt the adopters.

I guess I'll leave my mother to her beloved anal jerk of a husband, that is where her happiness truly lies, and try to find some sort of contentment. But I really just wish adoption had never happened to me. Oh what it would be like to be normal.

Coercion, or not?

My mother gave me away. She chose to do it.

There are many people out there who would say it was cercion, she was brainwashed, she didn't *really* have a choice. Even me, I thought that once, and not so very long ago. But I am really beginning to wonder now. Just where does blaming coercion end and facing responsibility for your own actions begin?

Yes, adoption agencies and "counselors" all have a very powerful and effective marketing strategy. It's business, and if you're to succeed in sales, you must be able to pitch your product and sway the public.

I was unable to sleep one night, a while ago, and well when you are awake at 3-4 a.m. there really isn't much on the television worth watching. I found myself glued to an infomercial, Chalene Johnson was telling us about her amazing Turbo Jam workout, and you know everyone who bought it has lost soooooo much weight it's unbelievable. And I have to admit it was not my finest moment, but I was sucked in to this, swayed by the emotional aspect of hating all this baby weight and feeling like such a loser for having it, and she what she was offering really did seem like the answer to my prayers, the one and only thing that would help me.

I ordered it.

And when it arrived, and I stood looking at these 4 DVD's and an overgrown green rubber band, I thought, what the hell was I thinking? How could I have gotten sucked in and led to think that I needed this?

At the end of the day, I did not place all the blame squarely on the shoulders of Chalene. I was not coerced into buying this. This was purely my fault for allowing myself to believe that what she was pitching was some magical cure to all my ills.

I should have stepped back, and used my brain instead of my emotions, and really thought this through and weighed the pros vs. the cons, the "is this really what I need?" and "is there any other way I can succeed without resorting to spending my hard earned money?"

And I'm just talking about 30 bucks for some unwatched DVD's. This isn't even nearly as monumental as giving away your own freaking child.

So - how is an adoption worker pitching adoption any different? They know how to play on our emotions, they know how to hook you and pull you in. But what you DO with this is up to you. It was up to my mother. SHE, like me and Chalene, allowed her heart to rule her mind.

So when does it stop being coercion and start being a choice, albeit a bad one, that ultimately is her own fault? She could have sought out other opions, she SHOULD have stepped back and thought logically about it. Just as we all do when we are faced with any type of decision in our lives...but I don't think it does anyone any good to cry victim and claim coercion.

Because at the end of the day, Chalene didn't call the number and order the DVD's for me, I did it myself. And the adoption agency didn't give birth to me and sign away their rights, my mother did.

Nmom's letter and WTF

This has been a strange weekend. Bot the kids were sick, I mean really really puking in a bucket all night and day sick, and it ended up being strep. WTF?

But anyway. I stayed home with them on Monday and while they were watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs over and over and over, I got myself down and busy cleaning. Cleaning out the mud room, cleaning out the desk, going through piles of old papers and letters and finally pitching some shit that needed to go. Ahhhh that feels so good, now I have room to stash more shit.

In the midst of my cleaning and pitching, I cam across a letter that I thought had been lost. It was the letter my mother wrote to me right after the social wrecker contacted her to let her know I was searching for her.

I haven't opened it up until this morning.

One thing really stands out to me, in the very first paragraph...

...All of the mixed emotions that I had made the decision of adopting you out very difficult. I had to think beyond the love I had for you and concentrate on your future life. The adoption agency counseled me as I had many questions regarding adoption. I and your father then made our decision that this was the right thing to do....

The Agency counseled her, all right. For almost 4 months, while I was hidden away in some foster home, probably being ignored and drugged up on phenobarbitol, the agency "counseled" her. And of course, with me being out of sight, out of mind and the undoubtedly constant pressure on her to "do the right thing" I became another statistic. Another boost to their profit margin.

I feel like swearing.

And to this day she holds on to the belief that she did the right thing, even in not naming me because she "felt that she would be giving my aparents a great gift by letting them be the ones to name me." Guess she wasn't told about sealed records and amended birth certificates, because they would have just renamed me anyway.

And I wonder what my foster carers called me for almost 4 months. I mean, jesus, the had to call me something.

This is all just completely fucked up. My foundations are of abandonment, isolation, neglect. No wonder I have felt like such an outcast all my life.

But on a happier note, my nbro has joined FB, I am so happy. Now maybe we can finally "talk" more and start a decent, real relationship. We have missed out on so much of each others lives, I don't want to waste any more time.

Relating to the APs

I have been doing it again. Reading the blogs of APs and PAPs and finding myself getting all annoyed and wondering, just what the hell is this world coming to?

Anyway.

I was reading one particular blog post by a woman who is adamant that her infertility pain entitles her to adopt a child, and to hell with the "haters" (as she calls us, lol) because HER adoption will be open and wonderful and everyone will feast on jellybeans for breakfast under their bright red with white polkadotted toadstools. Because adoption is a fairytale wonderland like that, dontcha know.

And it got me to thinking, wow, this woman is going to be in for a very rude awakening someday. Maybe not until her adopted child hits puberty, or turns 18, or is 34 and giving birth to her third child...but it will hit home eventually.

I can't think of a single adopted person, that I know personally, who hasn't thought (if not said) to their ap's, "You're not my REAL mother." I never said it, but boy did I think it. Lots.

And nobody can say I didn't love my amom. She was the best, the best of the best, but there was always that part of me that kept that distance real. I don't know how else to describe it...I mean my amom and I were close and I loved her soooo much, but deep inside, I always had that....knowledge? Understanding? that she wasn't my REAL mother.

I remember getting my first period. I didn't know wtf was going on; I mean I knew what periods were and all that, but you know, it was kind of a surprise and I was a little bit scared. I went to my amom of course, and she was all understanding and told me what to do, but all I kept thinking was, "I want my mother. I want my REAL mother." As great as my amom was, I was just convinced that she had absolutely NO understanding of this sort of thing. I mean, she adopted me, right? So that probably meant she didn't even HAVE periods.

Yeah yeah corny I know. But it just goes to show that even in the best of adoption relationships, there will be that tension...that separation...that, shit, I don't know how to describe it. But it's there.

Seeing mom

I am excited, I will be seeing my mother in two days. Nothing spectacular, just meeting up for dinner, but it's something.

Usually our emails are sporadic...well, I will email her pretty consistently and jump to reply to anything she sends to me, but coming from her, it takes days and days to reply if I get one at all. So when I asked her if she was busy on this particular night, I was quite shocked to get an instant reply. And not one but many as we planned the evening.

I had been trying to get in touch with my brother too, and she gave me his phone number. I hope he can make it, I haven't seen him in so long.

I've been debating back and forth with myself if I should share my blog or even possibly the forum with him. A big part of me thinks that he would be very receptive to this, that he would in some way understand, and that it would help solidify our relationship and bring us closer. We don't talk directly all that often but, I don't know, maybe by just being able to read what I say at his convenience, it would help. But then again there's that small adopted side of me that says "Don't do it!! He'll reject you for sure!!" I hate that part of me.

So wish us luck, I hope the evening goes well. I doubt any serious, deep discussion will happen, but it's a tiny step forward in this all but stalled relationship.

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....

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.

Deal with it

I was linked recently to an adoptive parent's blog, I don't have the address handy (okay, okay, I'm just too lazy to go get it and I really don't want to create some inter-blog posting/commenting thing anyway) where the purpose of her blog, from what I can gather, was to help other adoptive parents deal with their adoptees' issues of separation, grief, loss, etc.

Well that's cool, I'm pretty down with that.

But what I hope that this parent, and the readers of that blog and all the adoptive parents out there realize, is that how I, and every adoptee "deals" with our adoptee issues is not a consistent thing. There are variables...depending on the adoptee's age (I don't think most people can truly even grasp the magnitude of what being adopted even IS until you've reached some level of maturity, say, at least into your teens); to your mood, the events that have shaped your life thus far, etc. and so on and so forth.

The post that this AP took to her blog was just a snapshot of my feelings that I happened to write about on a particular day. I was feeling a little tired of the overall societal view against adoptees reuniting, particularly my own good friend thinking it is so inappropriate, simply because, why, I am adopted? So I shouldn't miss the woman who gave birth to me, who I did bond with in utero, who I did LOSE and therefore have a right to miss and want some part of her in my life?

But at the same time, some days, I am quite surprisingly normal. Some days, I don't think about it. I don't miss her, I don't care if I talk to her ever again, or see her, or ever hear her voice. Some days, I could care less. Other days, not so much. There are days when it's all I can do to get out of bed.

But the important thing is that those days happen...in between the good days, when I seem to be not affected, when I seem to be the "normal, happy adoptee" that everyone likes to see and everyone is most comfortable with, sometimes it is there. Sometimes, I do get mad that I was abandoned, that I was given away, that I feel second-best and inadequate and like a huge failure as a human being because my own mother didn't want me.

It doesn't have to be there EVERY DAY to mean that it ISN'T THERE. I don't have to talk about it verbally or openly for it to mean that it ISN'T THERE. And, I NEVER would have told my adoptive parents, because, OMG that would have hurt her, crushed her, that would have shaken the very foundations on which our relationship was built (not that this is probably true, but as an adoptee? The LAST thing you want to do is hurt your aparents, because if your own mother could abandon you, what's to stop them from doing it too?)

But really, I didn't even begin to explore or even acknowledge a lot of these feelings until I was well into my 20's, after reunion, after I had children of my own. As a child, I was pretty satisfied with the whole "She gave you up because she couldn't take care of you" and "she was just too young and she loved you so much she wanted you to have a good life" kind of blah blah blah. But as I got older, and ESP. after having my own babies, I just realized, how could anyone give away your own child?

How?

So, just in case anyone from that other blog ventures here and reads beyond the one post, I hope you take this to heart. If your little one doesn't seem too affected now, don't take it as a sign he or she will never be. If he or she doesn't talk about it, don't think it may not be there. Adoptees are masters at hiding our true feelings, we are pros at stuffing and masking and burying this stuff.

But don't take it from me.

I'm just one adoptee who's been doing this stuff for the last 35 years.