Month: May 2008

"March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path.  – Kahlil Gibran

So I told her I would process and I am. I have read her email over and over and each time it seems less intense and emotional and rather of matter of fact and dry. Why did it make me cry so much the other night?

I am at a loss of what to do next. What do I say next? How to proceed? Do I respond? Ask for clarification? Clarify things I believe she is totally off base on?

Or do I just leave it alone? Leave her alone?

I am at a complete loss. I vacillate between wanting to write back a lengthy reply to wanting to ask a simple question "What do you want me to do?". I ponder writing a list of questions that I would like answers to and I quickly scrap that idea.

What I crave is conversation, dialogue, two way, back and forth but I don’t want that in email. So much can be misconstrued and misunderstood. We are both strong writers, yes, but even still. It lacks a human element. Tone of voice, body language, and all those other little nuances that come from being in someones presence. I feel I have, at times, misunderstood or misjudged her to due to the cold nature of email. Having learned from that, my fingers feel frozen to reply via email.

My therapist says to be her mother. I laughed out loud in his face. Clearly he should go back and read her words. She doesn’t want that. Oh, contraire, he retorts and begins to cite archetypes and what he means by being her mother. On and on he goes and I remind him, rather curtly, that I gave up my rights to do all those things he is suggesting. I further remind him that NO ONE, including her, sees me as her mother, what is the point of acting as such? Its like acting like a clown at a kids birthday party while wearing a tuxedo.  I go on to say that I have no benchmark, no reference point. With my sons, I know them. I know their personalities. I know what makes them sad, happy, and fearful. I know when to leave them on their own and I know when to intervene.

I know how to be their mother.

My daughter? I don’t have a clue. I feel I should know SOMETHING about what she wants or needs and I don’t.

Some mother I am.

He tries to explain. I shut him down.

And so I wander and spin my emotional wheels and think and cry and sleep and laugh and go on with my life.

I am also angry. Not at her but at something. I am angry at my therapist and a few others for largely the same thing.

I did not get what I wanted or needed from them during this recent interaction.

While certain people in my life (interestingly, those that understand adoption trauma and the pain caused to first moms) were supportive, those that don’t understand that entirely were annoying as hell.

My therapist, my sister, a few others, while kind, were all gooey and basking in her fabulousness. I heard nearly the same thing from all of them. "She is brilliant". "She is an excellent writer" "She is this amazing thing" "She is that amazing thing" "This is good Suz. This was positive. She was this or that".

Yeah, yeah, I know, shes my kid, okay? She has been amazing since the day I gave birth to her. You are preaching to the choir. Can you focus over here? Hello? Over here. See me? Me. Yeah, me, the curvy woman with crazy red hair?  Can we talk about how I feel and why and not go on and on about her?

My therapist was literally in awe of her based on her email to me. I wonder if he wants her to come to our next session in lieu of me? (LOL)

And yeah, that was incredibly triggering. Imagine me, post partum, bloody episiotomy, new baby girl and everyone gooing over her and forgetting that I am bleeding and aching behind them. Imagine me spending years of my life in agony and everyone puking up the Adoption is Fabu vomit.

Flashback much?

And furthermore, if it was so good and so positive, while do I feel like shit? Why can’t I stop crying? Why is everyone around me waving pom-poms in the adoption reunion arena while I sit still on the bleachers wondering what the hell everyone is so happy about?

"Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.” -  Mahatma Ghandi

I heard from my daughter last night.

I had written to her to share a situation I thought she should know about and she wrote me back

Its been almost a year since I had heard from her.

I don’t want to get much into the exchange. It was tough and emotional and typical adoption reunion correspondence.

I am still processing and I am aching a bit. I am raw.

She asked that if I reference our correspondence that I use her own words and not paraphrase. Specifically, she asked me to use her email unedited and paste it here.

I am not comfortable at this time doing that. I feel protective of her and protective of me. I fear that if I shared her words those that love and support me would feel need to defend me and attack her. I don’t want or need that. Her words were honest, raw, emotional, painful, well written, thoughtful, and more. Her feelings are justified considering she is ultimate victim in this adoption nightmare. I am thankful she shared them with me. She is truly amazing. She is tough but amazing and I am proud of her. (As I write that, I am reminded of my own mother. I suspect my own mother would say the same about me. Many of my daughters traits, her honesty, her candidness, her awareness, is tough to handle. I have been told the same about myself and I KNOW I have given my mother more than her share of challenges.)

As such, I will not say much at this time.

I will say that I am very grateful for the blogs and friendship of many adoptees – specifically Joy and StillBorn. I have found you both to be the most raw, articulate, pained adoptees I know and that is likely because something in your written expression reminds me of my daughter. I randomly add and remove Joy and StillBorn from my blog reader as there are times where their pain, their words, is just too much for me to bear. However, last night and this a.m, I found comfort in those words and your experiences. So thank you for sharing.

Also thank you to Margie and my friend Jean for being there for me as well. It is intersting that in my anxiety, confusion and such last night and this a.m, it was the two of them – an adoptive mom and an adoptee – that I reached out to.

I did share my daughters email with Margie and she had some comforting words to share in return. And my Jean, well, she will forever be in my heart and someone special to me. She has her own mama now and I have my daughter but we will forever have our own sort of unique mom/daughter/female/sister relationship.

Many thanks again to Joy, StillBorn, Margie and Jean for being here virtually or online the past twenty four hours.