What I will do, what I won't do.

Alright, I just have to get this out there. I am not a wimpy girl who can't handle the truth. It is interesting to me everyone's perspectives.. but I am a big proponent on the delivery of the truth. I appreciate anyone who actually reads my writing, but really.. it is more like a journal of thoughts, some happy, some miserable.. I'd just like to ask a couple of things if you want to read my things.

You can't make everything better by "just kidding," "don't take this the wrong way," "with all due respect," etc.
Please read ALL of mys tuff..go down to the kidney stone story, or the pee'ing in a cup going down 95 one night at 3 am. See my happy stuff, my confused stuff.. If I'm having a bad day, whatever, let me have it-without judgement. To say things out of love is one thing, to say them out of condemnation, whether you mean them or not is not accepted here on Black and white.

Listen, I am not going to explain myself to look better in anyone's eyes. I am not going to try to convince you I'm a contributing member of society.
What I am is a mother of 3 beautiful children, a wife, a friend, a daughter, a sister. I am facing something in the past 6 months that I have never faced before. I have 37 years of issues that I am trying to confront and deal with. I'd appreciate the help, even the honesty, compassion..etc. What I don't need is judgement. I won't do it to you, you don't do it to me. If you feel the need.. just.. leave. It's so very easy to do, click that little x right up there in the corner, and you never have to read my truth again. I'm not here to defend myself. I am here to write my feelings so I can get them out where they won't destroy me. If you choose to say I'm immature, that I push and I pull and all those other things, fine, just don't say them here, where my healing is happening.
I seriously doubt that I can go back to the way I was. I was NUMB. I had no feelings finally for the woman who gave birth to me. I never wanted to meet her. I didn't want anything to do with her after I grew up. Now I do, so give me a break. Give me the same compassion each and every adopted child MUST FIND in their heart to search for his or her first mother.

Because trust me on this one: you'd have issues too if you thought the one person on the whole planet who was supposed to love you through ANYTHING didn't love you enough to keep you.

so I lied again.

In the last post, I said I wanted to find my mother to see if I had inherited psychotic problems-while that would be nice to know, I want to find my mother because I love her even though I have never laid eyes on her. Even though "they" say she never wanted to see me. (That hurt, I just can't get past it, even though well-meaning people tell me it could all be lies, it just hurts me so much.)
I miss her. I miss what I never got. I want to know she misses me too. I don't want to have to tell her if I'm ever lucky enough to find her (PLEASE GOD LET ME BE LUCKY ENOUGH-PLEASE SAY IVE DONE SOMETHING GOOD IN MY LIFE THAT WARRANTS THIS WISH) that she did the right thing, and "thank you." I don't want to have to thank her bc it will be a lie. And I want her to be like some other firstmothers I've met-that ache for their babies they gave away. Please God, let her have ached, let her be alive, let her have missed me all these years. Please. Please. Please.

there was a time when I had grown up to be everything I thought I should be. I had done well in college, graduated with a 3.78. I got married to a respectable man and I had 3 beautiful kids. Well, actually, I had 1 beautiful kid, then got married to the respectable man and had 2 more beautiful kids. I ended up moving to a small town, making friends with all the minivan driving mothers at the elementary school where my each of my children went. They never had to move around like I did..they've been in the same home most of their life. I thought I did it all correctly.I was so "lucky to be able to be a SE Teacher, meanwhile, it crushed the very life out of me. I lost myself to that person I thought everyone thought I should be.Actually, I guess I couldn't lose myself-I've never found myself if you would like to know the truth.
I grew up to be a PTO President who was afraid to speak in public-that is when I got a taste of Xanax, which helped me stand up on that stage that night as I mumbled something about thanking the parents for giving up a whole goddamned 20 minutes of their Thursday night-it showed how loyal they were to their kids education. Seriously, I said that shit. Meanwhile, I had worked my fingers to the bone for 6 years doing fundraisers, spring flings, raising money so we could get stuff for our classrooms, all the while with this stupid 1000 mega watt smile on my face thanking THEM.
Oh, yeah, I am adopted.
I'm sure I even threw the word 'grateful' at them at least once.

These days, I am no longer that person I pretended I was. Eventually, I just burned out. I was tired of being friends with other women who were nothing like me. The good southern ladies who went to church, would never consider being friends with someone "like me." I never told anyone my husband had adopted my oldest child. I just always added a year to my anniversary and hoped none of my kids would speak up when I was lying. I, myself, should have known the damage that could do to my child, but I was selfish. Ashamed.
None of them like me anymore, anyway. A couple are on my FB friends list, but I think that's more to do with the fact that they would like to keep up with the scandalous person I have become. Yeah, I really have. So, I hide in my house, having no real friends anymore. And I really was a good friend to people. I gave EVERYTHING to be a good friend. I'd take care of one of my friends for over a year when she got so sick she couldnt take care of her own family. I'd take care of her while she was in bed (i'm not exaggerating when I say a year, either), played with her 3 year old so this poor little girl wouldn't feel ignored. I'd make them dinner, clean up their house, BATHE her children bc her husband didn't want to, and then travel over to my house at night to do it all again with my own family.
Eventually, that wore me out, of course and our friendship faded.. She still is sick, 4 years later. I won't get into it. Some mysterious 'disease' that no one has labeled yet. I've got your disease.
Why did I feel the need to be that friend? Was it bc I was trying to gain points, so that if I ever needed anything, I'd have a person that owed me? I mean, I loved them and all.. but why did I do that? Was I afraid they would leave me if I didn't kiss their butts?

I don't know.
I do know that the way I eventually treated all of my friends was what I abhor most in others when they do it to me. The number one fear in my entire life is being left. By men, by women, by anyone. I have no problem, though, just cutting people out of my life ..feeling guilty for a little while about it, but eventually, just ducking my head under the covers and just forgetting it all. Is it selfish? Yeah. Or is it self-preservation? Hurt them before they hurt me kinda deal?
Why is it that I am destroyed when people leave me? (redundant.)
It's always been this way. If I feel like I have to say goodbye, I'm FINE if I'm the one leaving.. I don't think twice about treating others poorly. (Funny, bc I'm such a compassionate sort of girl..my heart bleeds for other people-animals-lost souls, whatever, it bleeds, so I know I'm not a sociopath or anything[i think])
Godforfuckingbid someone dismisses me or leaves me. I get suicidal. I swear to God I do.
I'm there now. Well, maybe suicidal isn't exactly it. It's not like I have the guts to hurt myself. I want to be a pretty corpse, anyway, and I'm afraid to die. I just want to die, I don't want to be here anymore. I wish I never was.
So sad, bc I'm a pretty fucking amazing person. Just the inside, all dark and oozing just hurts too bad. It trumps the amazing and makes me feel like I just want to go.
I want to run, get out of here. I just have no where to go.
That stupid college education really didn't help me any since I "chose" to stay home and end my career prematurely. Who wants a dumb broad that's convinced she has Alzheimers bc she can't remember things? Nobody, trust me.
I have my pride, too, I'm not that woman who can go work in a gas station to make ends meet. I won't do it. I'll stay in my pretty house with my pretty kids.. And I'll be miserable probably the rest of my days.
I just truly want to find my mother, so I can at least find out if I'm insane legitimately or if I'm just in pain, or even if that would help me.
I just can't go on like this.
Don't worry if you're reading this, you don't have to call 911 or do an intervention or anything. These thoughts are bi-weekly, since I was oh..11.

..

Happy Father's Day-where ever you may be..

who, where,what,why (are you?)

I want to write about..her. The one woman who has been with me (albeit only in my head and my heart) my entire life. I want to, but I can't. Not today. I'm so tired-I've been emotionally steamrolled and I want to get back up;can't, won't..not today-soon.

pull the trigger(ed)

Triggered. I've only recently come to understand how this word is used in association with a deep psychological issue, and it's spot on. Perhaps it's because I live in the south, where progressive thinking is slow to come, if at all. Maybe I just haven't paid attention-which would mean I am paying attention now. Whatever the case may be, I now have a word to describe what happens to me (to all of us) when just sitting around minding my own business and bam, I'm destroyed by an offender.

I'm not really sure why the social worker deemed it necessary to write some of the things she did in my non-identifying information. What was left out from a few posts before was the emotional things she typed and gave me. (According to those in the know, what I received COULD be all lies. Where does that leave me? I don't know.Maybe lies are all I'll ever have.. Are lies better than nothing at all? Lies on paper are AT LEAST tangible.)
Four things (maybe Five or Six, we will see):
1. "your birthmother didn't EVEN name the father on the bc." (that 'even' part just pissed me off)
2. "your birthmother didn't EVEN want to see you." (again..could she have at least refrained from typing that word? Why was it necessary to EVEN put that [see? its just a word that could technically just be 4 exclamation points] in the mix?) (Try doing a diagram of THAT sentence.)

I digressed. I usually do.
According to the lies (or truth) of the tangible evidence I do have, though, something incredible has come out of it-but it's left me distraught, like a child, wondering how in the world to change my thinking. Perhaps I shouldn't change my thinking just yet, but how can I not think about it? Wrapping my brain around these whammies leaves me anxiety-filled. I don't know what to do.
You would think these are bad things I am talking about-not at all, if they are true.

The first significant positive was that my ffather wanted to marry my fmother when he found out she was pregnant. She blew him off. He moved out of state. That made me cry. Not for the loss, necessarily, but because he actually KNEW (and knows.. ) that I existed. I'm not a huge proponent of getting married "just because of a pregnancy," so an 'atta girl to my fmother for that one-again, if it's true. Just to know though, that he knows about me fucks my head all up. I've ALWAYS been under the impression that he "probably" didn't even know. If he did know, he "probably" didn't care.

Second was a story about the foster (father? not really sure what to call him..) who took care of me in the 6 weeks my fmother had to change her mind about giving me away. The day he and his wife were taking me to meet my "parents," it said he was quiet and had no words to describe how he was feeling. It said he was gentle as he placed "the baby" in the carseat and said "they better do right by her." That made me cry.

Third, and perhaps most important, although, I really don't know why it's important to me, because I know my dad loves me is that on the day before my parents took me home, they came and "met' me. "They each held her in turn, and her adoptive father found it hardest to let her go." That was really heartbreaking to hear. My dad has never ever been emotional with me except maybe once or twice, or when a Little House on the Prairie episode makes him cry. He's stoic. He's unemotional, to a point where it's always been maddening for me. Absent, a lot of my life-his career was most important. He was gone a lot. He would do TDY in Korea for a month at a time. He always came back and it would freak me out.
Once, I got off the school van when I was in Pre-K in Myrtle Beach, SC. I was 4. A man who looked like my dad was standing across the street, but how could it be him? He had a mustache and he was tan and smiling. He scared me, I had never seen him with a mustache. I was shy-why I remember that, I don't know.
I always had issues with my dad growing up. He's a brilliant, brilliant man. He is so incredibly brilliant and the way he interacts with people is condescending. I don't think he knows he does it-but if I didn't understand something he was trying to teach me, he'd get the little baby voice that's slow and try to explain it. Like that helped. That just made me feel dumber than I already felt. "Now, Rachel..."
In my teenage years, when I needed my dad the most, I felt like he wasn't there. I felt like he was ashamed of me. My sister (in my mind-people try to tell me even now that it was just my perception-I don't believe it to this day) was the goddamned golden child. Everything she did was gold. Everything I did was tarnished brass. I try to shock people to this day, especially the family on my mother's side by referring to myself as the black sheep of the family. I WANT them to know that I KNOW.
Anyway, I love my daddy in spite of all of this. I try to put myself in the "daddy's girl" category but somehow always fall short of actually feeling it. I know he loves me. I know he loves my kids. He just has a weird, harsh way about him, unemotional. I hate that.

Recently, while waiting for the non-id stuff to get here, I was having lunch with my family. I had assumed (not really sure why) that my fmother all these years had been 17. My mom got indignant with me that day saying she was 19 and why in the world would I think she was 17? Like I was a crazy person (well, this remains to be unproven..). Anyway, I just couldn't believe, when my dad shrugged his shoulders in an exaggerated fashion, threw his hands up in the air, and said "I don't remember" when I started asking questions about what the social worker had actually told them. How could he NOT KNOW that this was important to me? How in the FUCK could he think that those memories shouldn't be important?
I ran out of the restaurant in tears. Ten years ago, I would have walked back into the restaurant, gathered up my kids and haul ass back home. That day I didn't, maybe I'm growing up. Who knows. When I got back to the table, he apologized, told me whenever I was ready he would tell me what he DID remember from that day. That surprised me, my dad has never been one to apologize.

I'm making my dad out to be some monster. He isn't. Before I actually put a label on all of this emotional turmoil in my life, I really did think that a lot of what I did, and the choices I made were because I didn't have the emotional support from the man in my life, my dad. I've always thought teenaged girls (most importantly) should have a strong father, to show them the way, to show them that they are special, and worthy. While he would meet dates at the door and scare the living hell out of them (boys always were scared to ask the Thornburgh girls out on dates, they had heard..stories), he would also be the one sitting in the chair in the living room with a baseball bat waiting for me when I would sneak out of the house citing "Well, you never know who youre going to try to sneak back in with." Which was just an asshole thing to say, in my very humble opinion.
I could go on for hours, but I won't.
My point is this: When I got the info I realized (again this being my truth for it's all I have right now) is that the first THREE men in my life(although, the first, at least thought I was important enough to marry some fat chick who was apparently a bitch to him according to this bitch of a social worker who deemed it necessary to put her two cents in) apparently thought I hung the goddamned moon. I have been oppressed in some relationships (one particularly..) because I am a very weak woman. I've always attributed that to the fact that I felt like no man should love me, because I'm a royal fuck up. What do I do with all of this now?
The one sentence about my dad just broke my heart, and I don't know why. I feel like I've lost years with this man who found it the hardest to let me go back to that social worker. I want to believe that is how he still feels.
I'm sobbing as I write this, and I don't even know where the hell it's coming from. I have a picture-of me when I was about 1, a tiny little baby..15 pounds at a year, on my daddy's shoulders. It personifies what a relationship should be like for a little girl and her dad. It's so false, to me, but I cherish it. I think because I WANT so bad to believe , I want so bad to have that bond with my parents. I just don't. I want it so bad, I can't even explain how much I do. I just feel like I can't though,not really, because it's not a natural bond. If I ever find that first guy, will I automatically have a bond with him? I've heard conflicting stories-the jury is still out. I don't know if the jury will ever actually walk in the room and give me my verdict. Am I strong enough to handle it if they come back in and tell me I will never ever have a bond with any of my parents? Am I royally fucked by this game called adoption? Do I NEVER get a bond with anyone? I'm 37 christ killing years old and this shouldn't be an issue-I'm an adult. Inside, though, I'm still dealing with that oppressive, night-marish feeling that I just can't shake.

Whatever the reason for the trigger-it started sometime yesterday afternoon- I'm in a funk. That picture of my dad holding me is blown up to an 8x10 and sitting on my kitchen table in a beautiful frame ready to be mailed. In beautiful calligraphy on the mat " Each held her in turn, but her adoptive father found it hardest to let her go."
I hope it makes him cry. I need him to cry for me.
Since I've started the process of finding out all my truth, I have a hard time, because I've always suppressed my emotion-buried it.. never dealing with it. This is such a foreign thing to me, to be dealing with it , talking about it, FEELING all of it . I am living with this pain , 37 years worth is finding it's way out of me, so quickly. It wears me out. It is prohibiting me from lending emotion to anything else in my life. I can't seem to make anyone realize how much I need to do this. However, I can't do this AND be expected to be in the present with all of the regular day to day stuff that needs my attention. I feel like I'm between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Do I address this pain, emotion, with everything I have, or do I take care of those around me? I just have a hard time doing both. While my usual take on life is to just cross the bumps in my road with very little thought, just take it for what it is and keep moving, I can't do that this time. Deal with it now, or deal with it later. The dealing with it now thing has never happened before, so this is all a different concept to me.
I'm in a vast ocean, it is dark. My sail is broken, I have to get out of here, I need to be rescued. There are sharks in the water;I've hit an iceberg;I have no way of calling out for help;I have no emergency beacon.
This is the first Father's Day that I realize I actually do have a 'real' father, and another 'real father." What the hell am I supposed to do now?

i don't understand "TMI"--I have no filter, I tried to tell you

on coming home..(may, '07)

Saturday evening, my sister and I got back to Rhonda's house around ten. I had missed the exit and wanted to cry because all I wanted to do was get back and get in bed, had to have the rental car (cheaper to rent an entire vehicle plus gas than to put gas into my guzzler) back on Sunday morning by ten.

After getting in bed, I realized that something was attacking me..I think it was sand fleas. God, I love Florida. Or chiggers, perhaps. All I knew was that I was itching and there was no way I'd be able to sleep for a few hours before I had to get up.. so..I got up. 12 a.m. Took a shower, hoping that whatever was eating me alive would get washed down the drain, got a huge cup of coffee and hit the road at 12.30. Now, if you know me, you know that I haven't been awake at that time in oh.. years. All I wanted to do was get home to my babies for Mother's Day and sleep in my own non-sand flea bed.

It started out innocently enough, I had my phone charged (but who could I call? hot coffee right beside me, gum in reach, and a pop tart in case I got terriblly hungry. The only thing I really hadn't thought through was that I'm a decent looking enough female that I probably shouldn't be wandering into rest stop bathrooms by myself in the middle of the night in Florida. Hmm.

So, after going through an hour and a half of smoke so thick that people had pulled over and had hazard lights on.. (I should have stopped right then and there..Florida is on fire!), I got to Jacksonville having the entire huge cup of coffee sitting in my bladder pounding with it's fists that it had to come out. What to do at 2 am when you have to pee so bad, you wish you'd worn a diaper? Well, you do what any normal person would do..you contemplate the cup where it came from in the first place. You probably shouldn't be wearing jeans when you attempt this, though. After figuring out that any trucker would see all my girl parts if I peed in the cup driving 80 through Jacksonville, I decided I'd pull over and try to pee off an exit. (Why, my sister asked TOO MUCH later, didn't I go to a well-lit gas station? I'm not the brightest crayon in the box, I just had to pee..).

So, I pulled off the exit, drove into an Applebee's parking lot, picked a spot where no one would see me, and took the seatbelt off. I can do this, and be back on the interstate in 44 seconds, I told myself. Until the guy pulled up beside me and said "Hey baby." I almost fainted. Sooooooo..I put my seatbelt back on, while tearing out of that parking lot for dear life (still having to pee..) and got back onto the interstate at 95 m.p.h. I was being chased!! The guy followed me! He caught up with me after about a mile..got beside me, stared me down, then got in front of me. I had the phone, I was going to call 911..(and tell them this story, of how I had to pee..) when blessed be, he got off at the next exit. Needless to say, I didn't follow him.

Still had to pee , though. After that, I figured I'd just pee in my jeans, better than being killed by a stalker. No, really, who wanted to sit another 6 hours in wet jeans? Not me, so I got the cup out again. Truckers be damned, I had to go. Putting all my weight on my left foot to hold me up the 8 inches that I needed to clear the giant coffee cup, I dropped my speed to the safe speed for peeing and driving at the same time, and precariously drove and peed. Fine. I felt bettter. Until the cup overflowed. Who knew my bladder was bigger than your average traveling mug? We do now. Panic ensued as I wondered just what to do. Well, I stopped the stream, tiniest bit too late, who am I kidding, WAY too late, put the cup where all full cups go, in the cup holder, and tried to shimmy back into my wet jeans (so they hadn't been pulled down far enough, I was scared the truckers would see my girl parts, I already told you that!). Shimmying into wet jeans is about as hard as it sounds.

After getting back into my pants, thanking God for saving my life, and the adreneline got back to normal, I really thought about the predicament I was in. I had wet jeans, I had a giant coffee cup of Rachel pee, and I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was get home. Still had way too long to drive, so I formulated a plan. I'd stop in Savannah and sleep next to my parents car. Wouldn't wake them up, though, that'd be rude. So, I drove, knowing I could park there, and lay my tired head on my pillow just for a second, dump the cup, and then drive the rest of the way home.

Except that, as soon as I got there, 2 guys felt the need to park there, as well. I dumped the pee, prayed that I wouldn't have another episode like Jacksonville, and didn't move, hoping those drunk guys would go inside or leavve, or do whatever normal guys do at 4.am. in the morning.

No such luck, they stayed. Now I was faced with having to pee again. (My sister asked me , again, MUCH TOO LATE, why i didn't just knock and wake my parents up. That'd have been rude, I said.) Sooo.. I filled the cup again, this time, not overflowing, dumped it and left.

Got home at 7, took off my (still wet) jeans, cried, peed in a real toilet, cleaned the (rental) car seat, cried some more, kissed my family and went to bed. Slept all of Mother's Day away.

Now, I'll go take a shower and get to work. What a drive.