Another rant

Well it's been a long time since I last posted. That is partly because I haven't really had much to say. Well I do now....and holy hell do I ever.

I have to take this adoption thing in bits and pieces. I deal with it for a little while. Then I have to put it on the backburner for a little bit. Then I can re-examine it. Lately it's been back on the frontburner and today it just exploded. I'm sitting here with nothing better to do than to blog and to ruminate about what I just heard.

Here's the thing. A good friend called me up and told me to listen to an upcoming segment on a local radio station. It was called "Ask a Birthmother". Since I don't live in the area anymore, I pulled up the website and streamed it as I sat here.

So they brought on two birthmothers who had placed their children for adoption at various points. I thought I would listen to see if adoptees were properly represented as well. They weren't. The adoptee representation was one of the show's hosts who doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about his birth family. He didn't find out he was adopted until he was 13. His parents literally told him the "baby store" story and meant it. The only reason he found out that they were serious was because he found the paperwork. Somehow he's magically OK with all of this and "he has his family" i.e. the same family that lied to him for 13 years. But that's a whole other story.

So here's where I have to try to be just a little bit diplomatic. I get it. Not all adoptees have problems with their adoptions like I and so many others have. I also understand the whole "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent" thing. But I stand by what I think and feel. When adoptees who have no problems with their adoption (God bless them) are given the microphone, it tends to minimize those of us who do. Why? Because people who aren't involved with the subject and therefore don't engage in any nuanced thinking about it, have the take home message that the adoption purveyors have been hoisting on the general public for decades.....that adoption is a neat and tidy solution and everyone is happy with the outcome. Bleeccchhh!!!!!!

The entire segment was just wrong on so many levels. God bless them....they tried. But they really really missed the boat. The first was the host that was adopted. It was almost to the point of seeming like a token effort. The choice of birth mothers was a feel good choice. The birth mothers that they had on the show talked about their lack of regret. Yes they did talk a little bit about depression and one even mentioned being suicidal. But then she quickly qualified that by saying that it was something that she had struggled with before she was pregnant.....not because she had JUST GIVEN UP HER CHILD.

But none of this compares to the two things that irked me the most. The first was that there was a call-in from a birth mother who was struggling with whether she should go to the baby blessing. She was so emotional and I could feel her raw edges in my soul. She was struggling because she didn't want her emotions to ruin the occasion. That's fair but at the same time it's not. In a way it's perpetuating the same things that have been the problem all along. This woman has every right to every emotion that she has. She gave up her baby. If she shows up to the baby blessing and can't hold her feelings back she is judged because her emotions are socially unacceptable. If she doesn't show up, she is judged for being selfish and not putting her baby's "well being" ahead of her own by joining in the "celebration" of her baby going to a different family.

Seriously why is it that adoption is supposed to solve so many problems but so many more are created? The birth mother who "gave up", "placed", whatever the damn PC lingo is.....who is lactating for a baby that's not there anymore, who still wakes up in the night when she can feel her "placed" baby crying. Some live their lives so racked with guilt that they never move on from it and never have any more children. Or the child, who, whether they acknowledge it or not, will always have a hole in their heart for blood relations that were taken away without their input. Then, when and if they get the opportunity to reunite, something that should come so naturally usually doesn't. Blood relations that never got the chance to grow and develop and must be so awkwardly worked through after years of change and evolution of all involved. Not to mention trying to fit in with people that weren't always designed to fit together. Now I realize that even blood relations can feel out of place amongst each other. I can't claim special circumstances from that. I'm learning so much from the adoptive parent perspective too. Some have even said that if they knew now how difficult it would be to merge with another person's child, especially if that child was older and severely traumatized, they probably would have reconsidered and definitely had different priorities.

Expectations are surely dashed all around. It's not the pretty picture it's purported to be. When will people, not just those affect by it, get real about adoption? I don't see it ever going away which is sad because I tend to think that it hurts more people than it helps. But that is just my perspective.

P.S. I sent a text message to radio show asking why there was no adoptee representation. The hosts feebly answered that the one host was an adoptee and the other was an adoptive father. Yeah! And how awesome did your segment turn out to be? MY POINT EXACTLY!

Smoke and Mirrors

As one who has never lived in Southern California I can only speak from casual observation. I don't know how it is really. I can only say what I see. That being said, the closest metaphor I can come up with for the past four days in SoCal is "smoke and mirrors". A study in stark contrasts, perhaps?

Here's the thing that started it all. 6 years ago was the last time I was there. I was on a work assignment similar to ones I had done in the past where one of my best friends was always there. Not so this time. He had just been diagnosed with a very serious illness so he was in the hospital and I was working without him. I had also just barely started learning about adoption issues a few months before that. So not only was I up in arms about my friend, I was very fragile emotionally as I began that journey into dealing with all the adoption issues. Not a good combination really. I don't remember much about that trip besides overwhelming sadness.

As I headed back there last week I wondered how it would be now that things in my life are so much different yet somehow the same. I still struggle with the same issues as I did then but to a somewhat lesser degree. I've definitely become older and wiser as the story goes. How did it turn out? My head is still spinning from it all.

First of all, my hotel roommate was a fellow adoptee. How serendipitous! I had to marvel at her strength and things she has overcome. She's only 18. I still had my head stuck up my hindquarters when I was 18. I had no clue why I was so sad all the time. So I have to give her props for that. I was grateful for the opportunity to meet and talk with a fellow adoptee/kindred spirit. We had a couple of good talks but she also wanted to be with her friends. So I don't know how much of a friendship we will have but I guess I'll just have to see how the universe works this one out.

I also struggled, once again, with being there without my friend. He's from there. I heard so many stories about SoCal from him. Very gritty and crazy stories because he came from several bad neighborhoods. So that's partly what I base my theories and observations on.

What are my theories? I see sharp juxtapositions. Gorgeous scenery blanketed with heavy smog. I see areas of heavy poverty and crime yet I marveled at the beauty of some of the graffiti. We saw all this as we drove to and from posh museums on the hills that contain some of the most celebrated art pieces on the planet. Being surrounded by gazillions of people yet being able to sit on a beach surrounded by said people and being able to have a few minutes of pure peace and oneness with the sounds and sights of the sea. The ultimate was having some time to wander on my own in a shopping center near our hotel in Anaheim. There was a karaoke talent contest with impressionable and beautiful children, no more than 6 years old, participating. God bless them for chasing their dreams and paying their dues in the trenches. I could never take that away from them. But I have to wonder.... how much of it really is their dream? How kind will the world be to them in chasing their dream? Not very. What are their chances, after paying their dues, of keeping their head on straight and seeing through the smoke and mirrors that is fame? Celebrities whose lives have turned into train wrecks just make me sad for them and those who choose to laugh at them. Sure they chose that life. But everything is supersized there. The myth of Hollywood hangs in the air. Its intense and its intoxicating. I even found myself groping in the smoke and mirrors a bit and I was just watching that world from a bus window and meandering in and out of it on our various stops.

There are many things and places that make my soul sing in SoCal and many people who I think would be my kindred spirits especially compared to my current locale. I have to say though that going back there was exactly the stark contrast I needed to show me where I was back then to where I am now as well as how much some things never change.

Much needed reality check!

Happy Mistakes

OK so....about my plethora of art classes..... I'm having a great time and also realizing how much I still have to learn. I'm taking the time to learn and practice to get all the concepts down so things look right or as close to right as possible.

Best of all, I'm becoming very acquainted with the lovely concept of happy mistakes.....the kind where the project or the medium doesn't do what you had envisioned.....it does something way better! How fabulous is that? It's kinda stressful in the process to watch "good" plans go out the door. But that's where the magic of the happy mistake comes in!

I love that I am also becoming more acquainted with my personal style of handling the mediums. I've already had two drawing professors tell me that they like my style. One called it edgy and modern. The other called it lyrical and modern.

And the creative groove?! Fabulous and zen and funky and everything else. LOVE. IT!

A Zen-like Birthday

So how did I spend my birthday today? I did a watercolor. It's not fantastic but I'd say pretty damn good for being my first formal watercolor. I was in the zone. I was trying things and most of them worked. Overall, not a shabby way to spend my b-day.

Clay Play

Looking back, it's amazing to realize how much learned about myself just by fiddling with lumps of clay for four weeks. I really sent myself through the wringer on this one. It really is a reflection of life and having hurdles to jump at every level of the process.

My first disclaimer: Watching claywork on a potter's wheel being demonstrated just looks oh-so-soothing and oh-so-easy. I'm here to say......it's not!

First of all, just centering the clay is a challenge. Even seasoned potters still have their days where they can't center worth a crap. That definitely helps me feel better. It does help if you have good aim to just plop it down smack in the middle of the wheel. Then you have to hold your hands properly to mold the mound so it stays centered and works out the air bubbles (hopefully there are none). The process involves molding it into a sort of cone shape and then pushing it back down several times. This makes sure the clay is on true center if you do it right. If you don't or you are having an off day, it's just an endless source of frustration. You also have to make sure that your hands are wet enough to make the clay more pliable but not so wet that it's saturated. This comes more into play later. If clay is not wet enough, it's too abrasive and your hands get a microdermabrasion treatment which I can't say is entirely bad. Exfoliation never really is. With practice though, you can figure out the right pressure to use and get your feet to coordinate the speed of the wheel.

So once the centering is mastered then you can move on to opening the mound up so that you can raise into the form of your choice. Our first obstacle was the cylinder. An 8" high x 4"wide tower of clay. Frustrations galore. Too much pressure, too little pressure. Too much water, too little water. Not raising the clay in proportion to the speed of the wheel. Not having your hands in the correct positions. The result was all the same......collapsed towers of clay. There was also the issue of checking the thickness of the walls and the bottom. It had to be the perfect thickness so that it wouldn't explode in the kiln. I had that happen on several pieces. My other problem was that when I was attempting to raise the clay into the cylinder form I would get bowls, plates, candleholders.....everything but an 8"cylinder. However, I do remember the magic of the moment I finally had the perfect combination of water, pressure and hand placement. The clay raised as though it was touched by an angel. Such a fleeting and ephemeral moment. That is when I learned how much the clay responds to what you are thinking, even if you don't know that you are thinking it. Somehow, in that moment, I was in the zone. It fleed as quickly as it came when I came to and started intellectualizing it. However, I did learn to get to that point easier so I could continue to make semi-successful pieces. I can't wait for school to start to be able to go back and start practicing again.

So anyway, I did have some semi-successful pieces only to destroy some of them when trimming them too much or having them be so thick that I had to carve them tremendously to save them or not carve them enough and have them explode in the kiln. The delicacy of touch applies just as much here as it does in the process of throwing the clay.

Even fewer pieces made it past the bisque firing. Once they did, I knew I was pretty safe. The only thing to do now is not to mess up the glazing which I did do on a couple of pieces. Some glazes don't play well together. Even with all of my knowledge on color theory and color grouping, I still managed to make some pretty decent raw pieces look pretty horrendous. Oh well!

So many lessons and obstacles at every point. But I learned so much about myself through this process. I worked really hard and spent a lot of time on it. I came face to face once again with my perfectionism and my tendency to think too much. I have friends that I rag on for thinking too much about things and here I am, just as guilty as they are. The few fleeting moments where I was able to step outside of that and to give up the control and just go with the flow of the clay and the wheel were the moments where the magic can begin to show itself.

I can't wait for school to start again!

Back to the Drawing Board

Being back in an art class was like stepping into another world. My instructor for my drawing class was lovely. He kind of took the view of giving us a subject and just waiting for the surprises on how we interpreted what we saw. He said that was the fun for him....putting an ordinary subject in front of us and seeing 15 different takes on it. I couldn't believe how freeing that was. I think I would have been more discouraged had he graded on technicality and execution etc.

The zone that I would go into was just indescribable. I would start out being so overwhelmed by the subjects. Sometimes it was all I could do to put the pencil to the paper and just put a line down, especially when I saw the skill of some of my fellow class members. Then somehow I would start to sketch, endlessly trying to just get the forms just right. It would get frustrating because I can be such a perfectionist. Then, all of a sudden, a light would come on and somehow I knew how to make it work. I would go into a flurry of sketching then stop after a bit to look at the grand scheme only to see something better than I could have hoped for. Sure, it wasn't dazzling in all of its intricacy. It certainly won't make it onto any museum walls. But it was me! It was my artistic voice starting to come through. It was such a self confidence boost especially since it has been so long since I last attempted anything like that. I loved how each assignment just challenged me even more and opened me up for taking more rewarding risks. The teacher was just amazingly good at seeing what I was trying to do and encouraging it with just the smallest of suggestions. I wish that I had him again for the upcoming drawing class. However I am excited because the person I do have is a truly gifted artist who is pretty well renowned in these parts and I can't wait to see what I can learn from him.

Am I Living the Dream?

OK....so here I am back.....back to the old blogging board. I'm here in my new stage of life. I took the leap and feel quite intrepid at times.

I'm living out in the boonies and realizing just how much of a city girl I have become over the last 12 years. I'm in prime ATV country now so I will admit to falling for that redneck-ish vice. I'd even go out shooting....as long as it was clay or paper targets. No hunting for this one. All things considered, I really don't fit in with people around here. I consider myself pretty progressive on most issues. People around here believe everything Fox News tells them. I've had to do more censoring of myself in the last two months than I have in years. I didn't say much to most people before about my opinions on issues. Now I do it even less. Sad.

Thankfully I've got a lot to keep me busy with school work and all the necessary things for my grad school application. Thankfully my classwork in artistic endeavors doesn't require me to censor myself. Equal opportunity therapy.......what a lovely concept.....which is why I'm so in love with it. Maybe I really am living the dream. In fact, all things considered, I'm pretty sure that I am.

What's the balance?

OK what gives? I have spent so much time wrapped up in my past, tossing it around in my mind, reliving it constantly etc. You always hear the quotes about not remembering the past and therefore being condemned to repeat it. Even one of my favorite Bob Marley songs says "In this bright future, you can't forget your past."

With some really hard emotional work I have learned to not get so caught up in my past destructive cycles. I've put my behind in my past as Pumbaa so eloquently said in "The Lion King." I have a real chance at grabbing something that would be representation of the hell that my past was and the partial victory that I have acheived over said past. I have decided to help adoptees who don't have the voices that they need in a sort of unconventional way. It is absolutely perfect too. I get so excited just thinking about all the possibilities.

Interlaced with this past is a life that I have built in the city where I am at right now. That includes old friends and attachments to this city and things I would do here. It also includes great newer friends who I feel have possibilities for more great times and learning experiences. I've built a life here. But in some ways I can feel doors closing as well.

I'm just so torn because I see the fantastic possibilities and I'm so excited for them. On the flip side, I feel terror at giving up something that has in some ways become mediocre (even with the good new stuff) for something which I'm pretty sure would launch me into what I dream about versus what I let myself live with.

The pursuit of happiness?

Its been a particularly good day, even up to the last week or two. I'm happy right now. In fact, I'm REALLY happy. Its not even to rebel against all the doom and gloom of life today. Everywhere I turn it seems like there is something wanting to steal my happiness. I don't want to let it go though. I think I subconsciously decided to put a Patronus Charm around myself so that all these Dementors couldn't have their way with me. Sorry I just got done watching that particular HP installment so that was the first comparison that popped into my brain. As I've walked through my happy days recently I've thought about the phrase "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". I used to use that phrase a lot when asked how I was doing or what I was thinking about and didn't feel particularly inclined to share. But that's just me. I'm a smart a** that way sometimes.

When I think of pursuit I think of running after something and it implies a certain degree of exhaustion something implies to me that the "pursuit" is always there, seemingly just beyond our grasp....sorta like a treadmill, running and running and never getting anywhere.

Is this what Thomas Jefferson intended when he wrote those words? I've thought quite a bit about it lately and I really don't believe so. On their own, these are great and powerful happy words. However, I think that in order for you to see where I am going with this you need to consider it on the basis of it being a family of words, not the individuals themselves. Life and liberty are the parents and the little rugrat is the pursuit of happiness. The definition of life is pretty self-explanatory. You have to be breathing first of all in order for this to work. My Random House dictionary tells me that the definition of liberty is "freedom from arbitrary or despotic government" or "freedom from captivity and confinement". Even though this is coming unhinged in today's society it still more or less exists. So we're alive and we're free for the most part. Good for us. So now that we are alive and free, what comes next? The "pursuit" of happiness which, I believe, is a product of being alive and at liberty to choose the path and station which we believe will give us the peace and prosperity that we desire. I believe that that is what our Creator had in mind for us and that is what I believe Thomas Jefferson meant when he wrote this. The problem is that somehow we the people have screwed it up. Somehow we have turned, as a society, toward thinking that happiness is external so therefore it needs to be "pursued". In other words, we have actually taken Thomas Jefferson literally, way too literally. We have learned to think that happiness comes in the form of other people or things. So that automatically sets us up for problems. Not only are we denying our inner arsenal and capacity for real love and happiness but we do endlessly crazy things like working at jobs we hate, spending money we don't have to buy things that we don't realize won't fill the need, all the way down to inflicting violence on ourselves and others. Most of us are no longer acquainted with our power because we as a society gave it up for whatever reason. Everything we need to create real and lasting freedom, happiness and to stop giving away our power is right here within ourselves.....no mad grasping or treadmills involved.

Change of Gratitude, Change of Attitude

I've done a lot of venting about various adoption issues so far which has been very cathartic. I just re-read some of my posts and can see that the venting did its work because the edges don't seem quite so raw today as they did at the various posting times. Don't get me wrong. There is still anger and sadness attached especially to the issue of sealed adoption records. I've done plenty of reading over the past couple of months to know how saturated this issue is with special interest influence. I've learned a lot more and been disgusted a lot more.

I don't want to focus on the disgust though right now. I want to focus on what is right and good with my life. I've spent way too much time living in a fear-based mentality. Over my lifetime I have suppressed so much. I was one scared puppy. When I learned about adoption issues and started to tap into it I was absolutely inundated. I dwelled in it because I was so scared by the massive volume of it and I just wanted it all out. That is a sure recipe for life drainage. So I've done the work I needed to get the catharsis that I needed....at least for now. I'm realizing how truly blessed I am in many regards now that the edges of my pain aren't so raw and many issues have been mitigated if not eliminated. I don't want to say that my grief work is done because I don't know what life has in store for me. Something may happen that may trigger it again. I don't know. I do think that I am better equipped now to handle it should it appear though.

So like the changing of the seasons, I find myself changing. I'm feeling more in sync with the universe. Somehow it is showing me how to function without the things that I used as defensive coping mechanisms in world that didn't understand me and understanding myself even less. It is lovingly teaching me how out of touch I was and showing me a better way. I've seen the life that I have created in my unconsciousness. My life was just a manifestation of that unconsciousness. I don't want that anymore. I find myself craving a life with less anger, more acceptance and less grief, more joy and less emotional violence.

I didn't ask for any of this adoption stuff, but I can't change it either. I can't change the fact that I was given up, both chosen and denied. It's a paradox that still messes with me even if it doesn't define me as much as it did. I can't change the fact that none of us understood the nature of adoption so there were a lot of needs that weren't met on all sides. Believe me, that takes a lot of grief work and eventual forgiveness to get to the bottom of it. I also didn't ask for this perpetual hole in my soul that never completely goes away. I didn't ask to be placed with a family (with huge societal expectation of gratitude) that still feels a bit alien to me. The beautiful thing is that this has all worked together to teach me just a little bit about the grace of God. For whatever reason, I had to go through being chosen and denied. I was granted a family that for all of our personality struggles, they all have good hearts and they are trying harder now that they know better. The hole in my soul is being somewhat filled by some friends who are more understanding than I could have hoped for and by acquaintances who share my same struggles and have become a "virtual family" that I can depend upon. I've been very blessed to make the acquaintances of many people over the Internet who are touched by this issue. I've learned from their wisdom and strength. I have also been able share some of my own wisdom and knowledge. We are all at different points on our journeys and some have definitely had a rockier road than I. These are all kind and beautiful souls and I feel blessed to be able to call them friends even though we probably never will meet in person. I found a fantastic counselor who validated me from the start and has been a lifesaver at helping me get rid of most of my negative coping mechanisms and replace them with ones that are infinitely more productive.

So it goes. I have seen what I have to be grateful for and I'm making it concrete for myself in the form of an anonymous shout to the world. I am so blessed. I feel it growing too. Feeling and expressing gratitude makes room for receiving more and more things to be grateful for. Even things that didn't previously seem like blessings have the benefit of hindsight to show that they were blessings in disguise. It truly is a beautiful and transforming thing.

Blessed Timing

I got some news a couple of days ago that I am not happy about. I am once again being railroaded in my search for my birth family by the laws in their current form. More hoops to jump through, more time to wait. More sadness is building too. I'm still in the stage of anger. It is not the seething anger of the past though....or at least a lesser degree of seething. I still wonder when my government and fellow citizens will look at me and finally see the need and demand that I be treated in the same manner as them. I wonder when my identity will not be a "state secret" and kept from me "for my own good." Time and a lot of hard work have healed or are currently healing me from many of my emotional wounds. This is where I have to defer to my faith in my God that gave me this information at time when I could better cope with it and not be quite so derailed by it. Right now I'm more sad than anything. Sad for people's lack of empathy. Sad for many things. I will not be derailed though. I will still do all I can to help people understand and pray for that day to come. In the meantime, I've got a life to lived and for once I actually have a desire to really do something about it. So off I go.............

Emotional Vomit

I've only told one friend about this blog. I know that it is publicly searchable so I don't know if someone in Timbuktu or Vancouver or Ireland has found this. This was my reason for creating this blog. I still want a degree of anonymity but I also feel this fantastic need to reach out and share my story and my struggles. That is why I made it publicly searchable. I will tell you why one more time.

I know the nature of adoption, especially if its a closed adoption. For the adoptee, it forces a certain silence. It requires a degree of self sacrifice. It forces your knees to bend and to bow in submission and gratitude for being "saved" or "chosen" even if the circumstances they come into through adoption are even worse. Some can deal with it. Some...like me are continually dealing with it. Some force it down and pretend like its not an issue. Who are they harming? Themselves. Denial is never a good thing even if it is serving the purpose of sheer survival as it did for me. It will come out in the end in some way, shape or form. There is a beautiful side and a truly ugly side to adoption. Never has there been more of a need to understand the truly ugly side than now. I find myself repeating over and over again both here and in my conversations with people the need to look beyond the "rescuing" aspect. I repeat a lot of things. I find myself thinking of new ways to say the same things hoping that maybe that will be the ticket to universal understanding. This is why I use the term "emotional vomit". I stole this from the friend who I've told about this blog. But to me it fits because when you are truly sick to your stomach you don't just vomit once, you do it multiple times....however many times it takes to get the junk out. I'm speaking. Its not pretty. Maybe someday people will start to listen.

Christmas this year!

I really had such high hopes for this holiday season. No working retail. It sounded like a good start. I even decorated a big tree which my roommates love and several visitors have complimented us on. It all worked for a few days. Then reality set in. All the Christmas trees and music and holiday sweet treats are not working.

MY FAMILY (SO WHOSE FAMILY ISN'T DYSFUNCTIONAL ON SOME LEVEL?)

I had a wise friend of mine who I chat with over the Internet just put my dilemma so simply today. He talked about how his family is in no way traditional. He is a fellow adoptee and talked a bit about his struggles with his family. It made me realize that perhaps I'm fighting for and wanting something I won't ever have with my current family. Maybe I can find a spouse who can give me what I am looking for. But with the personalities of my family right now it will never be "traditional". That would involve me changing them to fit my ideal and that just won't happen. To their credit, my parents have come a long way in being more sensitive. But those annoying personality things will always be there. The sooner I accept that, the better off I will be. I just get so tired because of the face I have to put on when I am around them. I can't be myself around them. I never have been able to. I have to be the me that they are comfortable with. I know that this is a common dynamic with parents and their adult children. It doesn't change it from being utterly exhausting and fodder for self-flagellation for months to come. I realize that there are people who feel misplaced in their natural families. it just seems a lot more common in families touched by adoption. I hate it. I crave having somewhere to belong. I really want to believe that my family has my back. They do help out a lot but some of that is contingent upon the face I present to them.

FELLOW OCCUPANTS OF PLANET EARTH

I put on a face for the world. It says that I'm ok with being a lone wolf. Most of the time I am. I also know that we humans are programmed to be interdependent, to need each other in various ways. I guess the trick is to find the healthy balance of independence and dependence.....interdependence. Throughout my life I have reached out and tried to include people in my life. Some say great and stick around for a little while. Some say whatever and stick around even less and some have flat out said no. I know that is just the way life rolls and I can accept that. Humans tend to have some sort of game or angle or need that they are stealthily trying to fulfill. This adoption thing is me. Its part of my package. I've had everyone tell me all kinds of stuff about how I should feel and how I should deal with all the crazy feelings I have about my adoption. They try to fix me. They always have. It destroys the happy stories they've always been told about adoption. Yes I am not good for adoption image and PR. It messes with people's equilibrium for me to be like this. So to make themselves feel better I become a fixer upper project. I cannot stand that! I am me. I am occasionally witty. I try to be empathetic all the time. I like to smile and laugh to get a break from the constant dull ache in my heart. I have my issues but I am trying to deal with them in my own way and learning more and more all the time. I've had to learn and relearn a lot of things about human interaction throughout this process. Just because I want to spread the truth about adoption and increase awareness does not mean I am an evil monster.

LOSING FAITH IN THE FELLOW OCCUPANTS OF PLANET EARTH

I took a dumb quiz on the Internet not too long ago where one of the questions really summed up how I feel right now about the holidays. It has been there in the past when I worked retail because the same feelings would come up watching the lengths that people would go to for the commercialized ideal of Christmas. It was sickening. My head would literally spin. But I digress.....back to the quiz. It said something along the lines of when do you know it's the holidays. One of the answers was.....when I have once again lost all faith in humanity. This is too true for me. I thought I might escape it this year and be able to stay hopeful because of not working retail. The election this year about did me in. In past election years I have tried to get involved and then just lost it because of the whole game of politics and how dirty and ridiculous things would inevitably become. But I stuck it out. It took me weeks to decompress but I somehow managed it.

I voted for Obama because I felt that he spoke to hopes and dreams. I felt stirred up in fear and loathing every time I listened to McCain and the thought of Palin just gave me the dry heaves. For my own sanity, I can't afford to lose all faith in my fellow human beings. I'm already wrapped up in various fears about my past and how to live my life now. I have to have some hope. For example, I want to believe that I made the right choice by voting for Obama. I want to believe that he and his buddies had NOTHING to do with the whole Blagojevich thing, not just being two steps ahead of it. I want to believe in you Pres. Elect Obama. Please don't make me a fool for believing in you. I'm willing to stand up and do more to help out like you asked for. I'm kind of worried about Rahm Emmanuel and Hillary Clinton as Cabinet choices. People like Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh are sticking in my brain too. These two are the guys who are going to be the monkey wrenches for Obama. Between these guys and the fact that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi seem to be showing more of their true colors I'm starting to lose the hope that I felt on November 5th. The fact that Palin's 15 minutes haven't run up yet and blowhards like Mitch McConnell and Saxby Chambliss managed to get reelected make me want to put a gun to my head. Then there were a couple of local elections that just iced the cake of ridiculousness. See! I told you! Politics make my head explode! I need to believe that Obama really isn't going to be Bush-Lite. On that note, I need to believe that Bush, Cheney, Rove, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld etc. will not be able to escape justice anymore. They need to be held accountable for their actions. There needs to be justice for Darfur and people caught under regimes like Mugabe's too. There needs to be justice for those whose greediness has brought our economy to its knees. There needs to be justice for all the things done in greediness to this planet of ours. We have been given a stewardship and we are failing at it. There needs to be justice for all things done in private which have so completely damaged the lives of its victims. People who profit off of other's pain and misfortune are particularly irking to me. They are the ones that I would most like to see brought to justice. I come from Christian upbringing and have spent a lot of time trying to reconcile everything done in the name of God, religion, etc. It is utter insanity. No love, just greediness and selfishness. I believe there will be justice in the end. That brings me a lot of comfort. But how many people have to die and suffer so exquisitely before the justice comes?

The Spy Book Genre Writers Should Study My Life...

War games, espionage, KGB/CIA etc. That's nothing. We're talking about true mind games here, memory erasing, everything. Only a select few know the classified dealings of the innermost sanctums of our lovely United States government. For this level of concern, I must have known something or been something truly dangerous even though I was only a newborn baby. Maybe my birthmother or father knew something they shouldn't have and this was their punishment. So the plan moved forward. Let's take a look at the secret meeting. Pan left on the scene opener where I was given a substitute family for "my own good". Hell, they done themselves good! They are scoring themselves a bonus because they say I even look like my substitute family. It's all too perfect. The ruse is completed with a nice pat on the back. Now the kicker is to say that this child must never know. We will lock up her identity and make it so she never finds out the truth. She might even grow up knowing she's with a substitute family. In fact, we'll encourage it. These new parents should let her know how she was "saved " and that she is "special" and what "blessing" she is. But all of this is top secret classified. Everything is done by intermediaries. The more "cloak and dagger" the better. Why is all this stuff "for my own good?" Because I am………….A BASTARD CHILD! 32 years later I'm still a bastard child, not a bastard adult! Oh the horrors! I need to be protected from my illegitimacy, from the stain of my birthparents' sin.

I have a few words to say to these lovely people!

Oh wonderful day! You have saved me from myself. You have protected my parents from ever having to face the consequences of their actions. How can I ever begin to thank you oh mighty and fallible US government and corrupt and sanctimonious adoption industry? Truthfully, you really have not done any of us any favors in the way you do business. I am not a state secret. I am not a commodity to sell to the parents willing to pay the highest bid. I am a human being. I may not have been created in the "ideal" state of marital love but that does not mean that I don't deserve my roots just as much as any other human being. My life is a paradox. I have dual realities to live with. I was both chosen and denied. Do have any idea of the confusion and helplessness that comes from trying to reconcile these dual realities? There are some valuable tools that are missing thanks to you. It gets kind of tricky improvising too. It's just a whole rat's nest that is difficult to explain and it's sad that I even have to say these things. So here's a novel idea! Let my birth parents and I decide if we want to be in each other's lives. Biological ties exist for a reason. By holding my information for ransom you are profiting from my losses and deciding what is best for me. Who are you to make that decision for me? Who are you trying to protect? Why do you keep tying hands when the logic that pervaded in the past has been proven wrong time and time again? Us adoptees and birth families are hurting big time. We don't need to be protected. We need the truth. Please stop profiting off our pain and let us make the decisions we need to make for our relationships. If some of your dirty dealings in this area are exposed then the public will be all the better for it. We already ready know you make mistakes. We see evidence of it every day. Quit trying to make yourselves look better than you are!

TTFN

Self Imposed Silence Comes At A Price

Don't ask me why I do this. I'm kidding myself when I act like I don't know the reason for my brain stuffage. I know exactly the reason why I have been so silent this week. It's because on Sunday I was in a room with about 30 people. There was a discussion going on about documenting one's own life so that the future generations can have record of life on this planet….at least the ones that will exist until the earth blows up, burns down, floods over or whatever catastrophes of Biblical proportions are to come. I understand that everyone has their struggles and things that they are not proud of or painful memories they would rather not rehash. I was absolutely dying by this point because I KNOW without a doubt with all the things that I have been through that………

1.) Painful memories don't get easier by refusing to think about them. No matter how far you push them away or stuff them down with food or drown them out with alcohol (pick your vice) it just simply does not go away. In fact the harder you push, the more it festers. That is why my 20's sucked so badly. All the anger and hurt and frustration that I had been stuffing down unconsciously with food for all those years growing up came tumbling out in a very messy way and I'll be damned if I could stop it. Once I read the adoption books and started exploring that avenue I told myself that I hadn't known that that's what all my sadness was attributed to. I know I even said it in my maiden blog post. But if I want to be totally honest with myself I truly have to admit that I did know and that I was not letting myself go there. That would mean that the face I had put on was false and that I really wasn't OK with being adopted. In fact I was very pissed off. But I couldn't be pissed off. I couldn't risk being more ungrateful than I already was told that I was.

2.) I really just wanted to tell these people to stop being so selfish. Their progeny was going to want to know them. If their children and grandchildren etc. choose to judge them unkindly because of things they did or went through then that is not on their heads. What will be is the fact that they are not providing a history for them to know and to learn from. I know next to nothing about my birth family. I know loads of stuff about the family that I was put into and told that their history would be mine. I'm sorry but it doesn't work that easily. I would be ecstatic beyond belief to know my natural family. Everything in me CRAVES it. I don't care about any of their skeletons or foibles or whatever. I just want to know something about me and where I come from. I have a partial history aka my memories of my years on this planet. For my own sanity, I really do try to not let what I don't know ruin what I do know. Sometimes I really can't help it. When I get into conversations or situations where I see people who take that for granted it just gets to me and I react very viscerally. I shouldn't. I pretty much have to forgive the world for its ignorance because it is such an unbelievably primal feeling to be able to look at their families and see themselves mirrored. Most people just do not have the framework to be able to comprehend what it would be like to not have that. Adoptees do. I was told quite a bit that I look like my family so some people never believed that I was adopted. That never worked for me because I know just how different I am from my family. Looking back now I realize that it only served to rub salt in the wound because it implied that I shouldn't have felt uncomfortable because not only was I "saved", I also got the privilege of "looking like" my family. A close to perfect replica. Isn't close enough good enough?

This sounds like a lot of thoughts to be having. Believe me. It's easy for thoughts to race like this when discussions are touching you in such a raw and visceral way. But this is the kicker. I never spoke up. My thoughts were racing because I knew what I felt and I spent a goodly portion of the discussion listening with half an ear while the other half was trying to devise a way to say this in as neutral a way as possible. I needed to speak up and did I? NO! I was too worried, once again, about sounding whiny and offending people! So I was shaken and knocked down off my high horse about being "silenced no more". Who was I kidding? I got knocked down good because I have held all this in all week. Hence the mind clutter and now it's all coming out like Niagara Falls with more on the way. I guess like everything else it’s a journey. I should be more realistic. I'm not going to speak my mind 100% of the time right off the bat. At least I'm trying.

Quandaries

I've been in a bit of a quandary the last few days. I've wanted to write because so many bloggable thoughts have crossed my mind. I would think about it and then literally not know where to start so I would stop. The result is a brain that is stuffed to the gills and ripe for spontaneous combustion. Here I go off into Blogger Land for awhile so that hopefully I can get some things off my chest and I can then get some sleep.

Scrooge No More

Christmas was always super fun for me growing up. I used to love decorating especially. I would harrass my parents endlessly to ask them when we could put up them up. Finally, when I was about 10 or 11 they just let me take care of it altogether. I would decorate to my heart's content. Then I would sleep on the sofa as much as I could over the course of the month so I could bask in the glow of the Christmas lights. I loved everything from the presents to the goodies that we would deliver to friends on Christmas. But then again, I was a kid and Christmas is for the kids. At least the commercialized version that we all live with today.

Christmas since I have been an adult is another story. Now I buy my own stocking stuffers. I still get a kick out of decorating the tree. But Christmas itself is not nearly as much as when I was a kid. I used to think it would be great to work retail when I was a kid. I had "Miracle on 34th Street" type pictures running through my head about how jolly and fun it would be....especially during the holidays. But I got my wish and learned the meaning the hard way of "be careful what you wish for". I did it for four years and I must say that those were the most depressing Christmases of my life. Watching people storm the store on Black Friday started out as slightly amusing and turned to just shaking my head in dismay over the years. People's evil twins inhabited their bodies for that month. Screaming, clawing bloody commercialism at its finest....or worst. Add in the extra hours to keep everything in tip top shape and it was a bad combination for me the underpaid retail worker. I quickly came to understand why people indulge in "holiday cheer" so much. They need all the liquor or whatever they use to cope with all the madness. Me.....I just slept because it was such a precious commodity. Each year I did it I swore I would never do it again. It was not my "Miracle" vision and all the joy that I used to feel at the season soon left. I learned to dread the holidays.

Not this year! I'm unemployed. So I know that I could have the opportunity to ruin another Christmas just for the sake of having a job for a few weeks and praying that it goes permanent. Sorry....not for me! Places really aren't hiring holiday help with this whole "bailout-and-HOPEFULLY-it pulls the country-out-of-the-crapper" thing going on. Honestly I'm OK with it. Yeah the money situation sucks. But I'm ready to feel the real magic of Christmas again. I can feel it creeping up on me. I felt it yesterday when I hauled out all my decorations and my hand-me-down fake tree and just decked it out. The feeling that I had as I surveyed my work and sat there in its glow was just like I remembered it as a kid. Seeing all the ads for sales and bargains and seeing the blatant hallmarks of commercialism are still annoying and very saddening. Christmas is making a true comeback for me and for all the "flaws" in my situation...... I wouldn't have it any other way!

TTFN

Maiden Blog, Maiden Post

Well here I am! I am welcoming me, myself and I to the illustrious world of the BLOGOSPHERE! Yeah! The cheers are echoing! I can just hear them. I'm really good at living inside my own head so maybe I'm just being a semi-legend in my own mind. Whatever it is, the important thing is that this is my way of getting out of my head. I also looked at my journals earlier this year and did kind of an abridgment on most of them because they were just so damned depressing. I just rehashed the same dramas endlessly. I hardly ever wrote when anything was good. So this is my way of keeping my promise to myself to live more fully in the moment. I will write when things are good, not so good, and even downright depressing.

There is a reason for the name of this blog. I am giving myself the permission to my thoughts, my feelings, my reactions. I've spent way too much of my life censoring myself and changing my feelings, thoughts and opinions to make those around me comfortable. Plus I and others have stories to tell. People need to see past the stories that they are sold by the purveyors of adoption. It is not a panacea. It is a more legitimate alternative than abortion but there needs to be WAY more information, education and safeguards out there then there is. Most of all, if adoption does occur, there needs to be a fundamental shift in thinking that dictates that the adoptee DOES deserve his/her information, not just patchy medical histories and selectively chosen non-identifying information. Everyone else can have their birth certificates. Why must adoptees pay for the birthparents' mistakes? Yes I am a bastard child. Yes I do get fired up about this issue. But that doesn't mean that I deserve to be discriminated against in the midst of trying to protect my birthparents. But I will save that rant for another blog.

I learned to be quiet and squash my feelings from an early age. My parents never hid the fact that I was adopted. It was always such a joyous thing for them. Aunts, uncles and family friends would always corroborate this story too. Yippee! Everyone is happy happy happy! The only problem was that I wasn't. I was sad beyond belief sometimes. I never said it though. I never felt like I could. I didn't want to seem ungrateful. I got told what a spoiled and ungrateful person I was too many times for other things that I didn't want to have this on top of that. It was just something I had to deal with.....this sadness I felt. I did have a couple of friends who I let my guard down with. I remember my friend Mita from the fifth grade (?). She used to ask me if I ever wanted to find my birthmother. I really did. But something changed at that time. I still wanted to but I convinced myself that it wouldn't be right to try because it would bring up bad memories for her. I denied myself and made it all about my birthmother. Then there was my friend Sarah in junior high. I used to judge her so badly because she was so rebellious and I was the "good girl". I didn't dare rebel especially against my father. I was always so intimidated by him. I also said I was OK with being adopted which I knew deep down that I wasn't. Looking back now I realize that it was my survival mechanism. That and eating, eating, eating. I never got really fat per se but I was definitely pudgy. So that made my growing up years even more tumultuous. I learned to eat my feelings away very early and very quickly. In my twenties, once I was finally away from parental control I lost it. I did everything I had judged my friend Sarah for doing back in junior high......and I had no idea why. It felt freeing but I also became so clingy and vindictive too. I was feeling so small and had literally lost almost everything. But I still had no idea why until...........

One day I was wandering through Target and picked up book called Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew. Its by a fellow adoptee named Sherrie Eldridge. I was immediately bowled over by the title and reading it while standing there made me breathless. I felt like I was reading my life story. How did Sherrie know? What was this extremely visceral reaction that I was having ? Was it all possible? All my sadness, craziness and bad decisions were attributed to my unmourned adoption losses? Mourning? What was mourning? Death was and is such a cerebral concept to me. Its one of the few things I haven't been able to touch yet even with all the work I have done. Suddenly everything started making sense. All my survival mechanisms, all my dysfunctional ways of dealing with my sadness.....everything. I started voraciously reading other adoption books by other authors and doing A LOT of thinking and analyzing. I'm going to put the favorites down in my book link section. Now several years later I've made so many strides through several avenues. But this is the one thing that remains......a persistent feeling of voicelessness and helplessness.

So I now declare that through this blog I am no longer voiceless so hopefully it will help in making me feel less helpless and help to dispel some of the madness that surrounds the issue of adoption.

TTFN