Anticipation.. antici-pay-ay-tion

I really need Carly Simon singing this in the background.

It's been a while. It was a little bit touch and go for me there for a few weeks. I broke down, went to the doctor.. I never go when I should..I always wait until crisis time. And it was. I probably should have been hospitalized, in hindsight, but I'm as stubborn as they come.

Anyway, so I'm starting to feel better. That deep depression is finally settling down.. Finally. I'm still sad some days. I'm still trying to fit it all together in a nice, neat little package that I'm quite sure can't really be accomplished, but I'm finally seeing some light.

I'll see more light in March. I will be meeting my sisters for the first time. I will also be meeting their stepsister who grew up with them, and in turn, with my mother. I simply can't wait.

I'm terrified. Planes in general make me want to lose my lunch, I'm scared I'll be the unlucky one who gets the flight that goes down. I'm such a pessimist that way. I'm scared of seeing my sisters. I'm excited to see my sisters. I have every other emotion out there known to man to see my sisters.

God, it makes me cry to just think about it. And not in a bad way, for once.

Awesome.

Oh, and by the way? I'd snowshoe to Alaska or Greenland to see my sisters, don't get me wrong, but the fact that it's Hawaii? Come on, how frickin' cool is that?

that's frickin' cool.

I'm whining. You've been warned.

So my birthday came and went. I tried to keep myself occupied that day by doing anything other than thinking.. I think that in the days leading up to this "event," I went overboard on being afraid of what the day would actually be like. I dreaded it. I wasn't expecting a ghost to appear in my room, or anything like that, but her presence was with me the entire day. I got through it.. and in the weeks that have followed, which have been entirely stressful just because of my ridiculous stressors, I have managed to forget I am even adopted. I regressed back to the woman I was in my 20's, who didn't have the time, the energy, the want to consider that I even was adopted.

That worked for approximately 13 days.

Which brings me to today. The Wednesday before Christmas.

I am not in a holiday mood. I absolutely adore Christmas, I really do. Every year, I wait until the last possible moment to buy gifts. I say I work better under pressure but I'm really just a procrastinator. Every Christmas Eve, we bake cookies for Santa, go look at lights, come home, tuck kids in bed and eat the cookies left for the big guy. We usually do something really neat for the kids so when they wake up, they can see Rudolph's paw prints in the faded grass of summer, or sprinkle some glitter out in the driveway showing that yes, Santa really is real.

They're all too old for that crap anyway, these days.
I ate the cookie dough watching Millionaire Matchmaker yesterday afternoon.
I've kindof just checked out. I went to Best Buy yesterday to get a computer for one of the kids. I almost tore the clerk's head off his skinny little shoulders. I promptly went home, thanking Christ the other kids just want money this year.

Bah Humbug.

I'm sad. Just so sad. All I want for Christmas is my mother. I can't seem to get it together.Pushing this hurt and pain down is good for the other people in my life. They don't have to deal with it. So I walk around with a giant fake smile plastered on my face. Tell them I'm just fine. Inside I'm dying. I don't want to pretend to enjoy Christmas this year. Just one foot in front of the other these days. It's my only goal.
One of my mother's stepdaughters,April, has pictures up on her FB of one of the Christmases she was lucky enough to spend with my mother and my sisters and brother.She went out of her way to post these pictures for me, and I am forever in her debt. Oh, how I envy her. It was the same Christmas I woke up in the middle of the night, took my amom's candle that had been left burning all night, and snooped for presents. Unbeknownst to me, blue wax dripped around the entire tree, embedding in the lovely new carpet. I wish I had been with Betsy.

I guess I'm going to have to break down and get to the doctor. It's all just too much. They say you never know how strong you are until it's your only option.
I don't want to fake the smile this year. I don't want to drive the 2 hours to my aparents home and pretend that I'm okay because they don't want to hear otherwise. If I didn't have my kids, I would stay in the bed the entire day.. maybe the rest of my miserable life.

I am not okay. No one sees that.

this and that

There is something so touching about compassion. When there is compassion.. true, genuine compassion, it just makes me cry. Makes me just want to vomit out all these words and feelings. I am just some touched some days.

We went to my (a) parents house for Thanksgiving. I ate too much, but I did wear my fat jeans so I could , and be comfortable. I looked frumpy, but I was comfortable:)
That day, my (a) mom made this statement:" I am just so thankful to have you two girls. My life would be so empty if I hadn't adopted you."

oh boy.

I love my mom. I truly do-I just don't feel her compassion. I talked to her on the phone for the first time since July a couple weeks ago. She asked how I was doing.. I got out half a sentence and she replied "That's nice, you should see the wood floors daddy is working on." (then why the F did you ask? I'm drowning over here.)
Every single time I go to my parents house, I end up looking at picture albums from when I was a baby. I've ALWAYS been drawn to them. This time was no different, but my perspective was.

I've always had in my mind's eye what I looked like as a baby. This was the first time I've seen the pictures, though, since I found out about my Betsy. I looked at myself the other day as Betsy's daughter-and I looked different than how I remember myself looking. I searched my face, remembering the picture of my sister, Carla, as a baby.. Remembering where my mother and family was during those years when I was away from them. It just made me really sad.

I'm still really sad. Compassion makes me cry. I am not worthy.
Thanksgiving came and went.. The quiet screamed in my ears all day. This search was more important to me.. I get it.
I just want to matter. I want to matter to them, to my parents, to myself.
oh, Fork in the Road, which way will you lead me?


Oh, and this is my current favorite.. take a gander.. what a beautiful, heart-wrenching, gut-mangling writer my friend Ms. M is. She gets it. I hate that she has to get it, but she gets it. <3



http://marginalperspectives.blogspot.com/

why i feel the need, not really sure.

I've gotten some interesting feedback from my last post. Maybe I do not write as coherently as I like to believe, or maybe we just interpret things according to our role , our journey, our story.

Whatever the case may be, I'd like to clear it up once and for all, and then move on.

My post was directed at fellow adoptees who have searched, found, and were rejected before seeing, talking, meeting.. rejection BEFORE they were given a chance. I call it the 2nd rejection, but I'm sure there is a more PC term for this somewhere. People will probably argue with me about my choice in calling it a second rejection, in the fact that there are, indeed, mothers who didn't reject , per se` the first time. Surrendered. I can live with that. Surrendering not really being a choice, but laying it all down because you truly have no other options.

As sad as it is to say, there are some mothers who actually DID have a choice. They weren't shackled, coerced, knocked out cold. They made the decision to voluntarily give their baby up for whatever reason. We all wish that wasn't the case, but sadly, it is a reality many live with.

In saying that, there are many mothers that I know and love personally that had zero choice. They were coerced, tied down, shackled, drugged up, pillows over their faces. I get it, and it hurts my heart. Those are the mothers we would all love to find.

Anyway, pardon all my prefaces. My point to my last post was this: Option A) 2nd rejection. Option B) finding your mother had already passed, thus, keeping hope that maybe she wasn't one of the ones who wouldn't reject. That's all. No other scenarios, options. Just those two.

Of COURSE I wish my mother was not dead. My comparison was not to mothers who wanted their children very much, or that I hated my mother and wished her harm.. quite the opposite, actually. I wanted her alive.. I wanted to see her, feel her, touch her, know her. Of course I know there are a million different scenarios, because of a million different stories. My post was DIRECTLY at the adoptees who have it worse than I do. Who have pain and heartache because their mothers have been cruel and not one ounce of compassion.

I know we ALL have pain. I wasn't taking away from anyone's pain. I was simply comparing 2 and only 2 scenarios. I was also supporting my friends, I know their hearts, I see it everyday. I do have sympathy, it's all I can give. Just like they can only give me sympathy, as we cannot empathize with each other's plights. While our journeys mirror each others, our endings do not.

That's it.

i hate to say this.. but..

I've been reading some blogs by other adoptees.. I do it often, so it's not really random. At the beginning of my search, I thank the gods that I found the community founded by the fabulous Elaine P. when I did. Christ on a crutch, I don't know how I'd be right now had I not stumbled onto that page.
Anyway, this isn't going to be a long blog, the time change makes me want to go to bed at 4.30, so you can imagine how I feel at 7.08.. but I've come to a giant conclusion-it was something I had supposed was true, but now I feel it's absolutely true, not just a theory. Please feel free to chime in-I'd love to hear perspective either way.

I feel, as a grownup who was adopted as a baby, searched for her mother, only to find her ashes are scattered in the Gulf of Mexico and I will never ever know her.. that it would be easier to find a mother already dead, than to be rejected again.
I understand.. maybe, perhaps.. that there COULD be hope if the mother is still alive and on the planet.. but I will swear that I doubt that's the case.. not for me, anyway.. I've got the wound.. it's shredded me.. I honestly don't know if I would have the fortitude some of the adoptees I admire have.

I know life, in general, is putting one foot in front of the other--to keep going.. when the going gets tough and all that crap.. so ,another cliche, we do what we have to do, and it is what it is.
My sadness these days is pure grief.. the what could have been.. the questions, unanswered. The wishing, the wanting.. all of those plus more, I have, and they have annihilated me. I know I will stand again, but for my comrades, the ones who have lost the hope, have had the second rejection.. you're on my mind and heart tonight. I'm just so sorry.

So, this is to you, the ones who have found, and have had the knives pushed in even further. It quite possibly could even be worse than the first wound, I have no way of knowing, but I suspect that is the case.
You have my respect, and my sympathy.. I just wish we all could have gotten lucky to have found living, breathing mothers that wanted us, still.
I really, really ache for you, my sisters, my friends, my allies in a war we never asked to be in.

a month from yesterday

my birthday is on december 9th. i just noticed on my little calendar icon the date. where have i been for the past few months? where..did..the time go?

I will be 38 years old in a month from yesterday.
It will be my very first birthday, where I'll know she's not thinking of me. No more wondering as I have for at least.. oh.. 34 years.
she died at 54-ive seriously got to change my lifestyle so i dont succumb. or.. not.

sunny sag, where are you? come..back soon.

dazed.

dazed, confused, im just waking up--literally, figuratively. coma is a good word.. putting one foot in front of the other, existing, mourning, laughing, loving, hating, missing you, missing her, missing me.

the grief process has been interesting, grieving for someone you never knew is hard to explain to people who just won't get it.. but they can't.. but i still blame them, somehow. or, maybe i did know her very well.. i feel, even though i never had a conversation with her, that our hearts were connected.. on some biological level, i know exactly how she felt.. or maybe its only because i inherited her depression. i have no idea.

i'll never know the entire story. there is still that storage shed in galveston, dusty, dark, alone.. quiet.. screaming with my mother's secrets, entombed are all her earthly possessions-locked down like the secret of me has always been. is there no one who knows? does anyone care? i do.

i think ive put her safely into a good place in my heart. the last contact i had with the eldest of my sibs was in the form of a box, pictures, my mothers ring.. bracelet, a charm. in case of fire, get these things.. i keep telling myself, hoping i'll remember. her sock monkey when she was a baby. the tail still holding on to the shape that looks like she sucked on it.. or held on to it for comfort.. my mother's little sock monkey. profound. it helped. a lot.

that was kind of her, my sister. it really was. this abandoned adoptee is grateful for that.

still not so grateful to be sitting out here wondering who my father is/was. wondering how i fit these people that i just pushed my way through to get to so that one random monday, their lives were changed, as well. push and pull. maybe ill always have that piece played on my gameboard. i want to get it out of my head-i want to be looked for. ive done the looking, the searching, the hoping , the praying, the hard work. . so now i sit. it was more important to find than to be found. im tired. exhausted, really.
i see the dark place ive found, once again. this time, its a little different.. i hate it here. i hate being lost. i hate not finding the sun. turn on the lights so i can find the doorknob and get out of here. i want to live now, please,and thank you. with you, without you, i dont care, i just have to live.
or i die.