
"Serendipity: to make discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things not in quest of." – Wikipedia.org
Its been two days and I am still shaking. I still cannot catch my breath. I still feel dizzy and disoriented. I feel drained. Depleted of all my energy.
Ever been in a car accident and end up okay but also end up shaking and traumatized for a few days? I feel like that.
My breathing becomes more rapid and shallow and my eyes well with tears just recollecting the events that transpired this past Sunday.
Yes. I visited the amazing powerful Claud. Claud and I met at a diner in the same town that my daughter goes to school in. Of course I knew this. Of course I let her know. Since we have not met F2F and only correspond via email, I felt it terribly important to let her know this. Why? Well, I was very concerned that if, by any force of any god, we ran into each other she might think I had become some crazy stalker. I am a bit crazy but I am not a stalker.
My daughter made it clear when we first reunited that she did not want to meet YET. I have not pushed. I have developed the relationship slowly, followed her lead and let things flow as they may. That being said, I won’t deny that I am anxious to meet her. Anxious to sit with her and share coffee, talk books, look at her beautiful face, hear the sound of her voice, listen to her laugh. To touch her again. To be back in the same room with a piece of my soul that left me 20 years ago.
I told her of my visit via email. She did not respond. That was okay. I felt I had done my duty of “warning” her.
Saturday morning I happen to check her away message on AIM. It says “parents”. This confuses me. Was she home for the weekend? Was she sick? Did something happen? On a whim, I check her school academic calendar. I learn that the weekend I will be in town is parents weekend. Her aparents will be there the same time I will. We will all be breathing the same air.
I get nervous. I rethink my plans with Claud. I decide against canceling. I realize I am being foolish. I cannot plan my life around where she is at any given time. I cannot avoid that part of the State simply because she is there.
So, I go. I drive 70 miles to visit Claud. As I enter the town we are meeting in, I cross over a street named Michael Avenue (name changed for privacy). I gasp for air. Its like a tidal wave hits me. I shake. For the past year I have been mailing letters and packages to my daughters school on Michael Avenue. I felt like crossing that street was like going over a threshold, opening a gate, passing into some sacred space. Her space.
This is where she goes to school. For the past two years, my daughter has walked these streets. Something touches me deep inside. I feel short of breath and start to cry. I keep driving.
I meet Claud. We laugh. We talk. We drink too much coffee. We joke about the possibility of me seeing my daughter in town somewhere. Claud shows me her TWO pairs of dark movie star sunglasses she brought with her. I laugh.
Claud leaves and I begin the second part of my journey.
My daughter and her friends hang out at a certain café/diner in town. She talks about it frequently, posts pictures of it, etc. I had the idea to get her a gift certificate to the place. I am currently preparing her birthday package and I was so pleased with myself with my ingenuity
I had no idea where the place was. Only the name. I ask at the diner. This nice lady gives me directions. Tells me to go three blocks and when I get to Named College to take a right. I gasp.
“I am that close to Named College?”, I say.
“Yeah, its right there”, she says.
I thank her and run to my car. Again the shaking, the problems breathing. She, they, are like right here, somewhere. I ponder not doing it. Again, second guessing myself. I go for it.
It was her nose that I saw first.
I walked into the small café/bakery, crowded with college students (mostly girls) and for some reason my head is pulled to the left. I see her nose. Right side of her face, nose piercing. Her back is to me. I see the hair. Poker straight, like mine. I pass by and glance over and ITS HER. My daughter is next to me. No longer is she just breathing the same air in the same town. She is in the same god danged room with me.
But I cannot say anything. She does know I am there. She has not given me permission to be there. She does not want to meet YET.
I honestly don’t know how I managed this. I pushed through the crowed and stuttered my request for a gift certificate. She was two people behind me.
I got the certificate and turned and glanced her way again. Yup. Its my baby. My only girl. My daughter. Have not seen her in twenty years and here she is in front of me.
Something about her is so oddly familiar. The slant of her back, the way she is slouching in the chair, the look on her face. Her hair. I know what it would feel like without even touching it. I just know. Her jewelry. Her cool style. MY BABY MY BABY MY BABY!
I leave rapidly. The tremors are back. The breathing is labored. I am honestly afraid I will shriek and keel over on the floor.
I get back in my car and I drive 70 miles home. On the way, I call my younger sister. I am crying. I cannot breath. I am shaking. She is worried about me driving. I assure her I am fine. I am hysterical that I did the wrong thing – again.
I just left my baby AGAIN!
This time it was my choice. Did she see me? Sense me? Did I do the right thing? What else could I have done? Pulled up a chair and said “Hey, can I join you?”. I don’t even know if she tells her friends she is adopted. I know she has kept me a secret from her aparents. What could I do?
I had to respect her. Regardless of what my needs were or are, hers are more important.
Do I tell her? Do I not tell her? OMG, what do I do?
I told her. I wrote her and she wrote me back. And I wrote her and she wrote me.
And she is cool with it. She was glad I did what I did. OMG. She was cool with it.
Well, yeah. Of course she was. She is cool.
And oh yeah, she was sitting at the café with her AMOM!!!
How, why does this cosmic shit happen to me? What does this mean?
I am still digesting. Still processing and trying to find some positive reason for this happening.
My baby girl is a beautiful woman now.