Ramblings

Little Poor_Statue,

June is going to be quite a month for me. There are a lot of stressors now. And I'm sad that I didn't see you, and sadder still that you wanted me there so much you are pretending I was.

Lately, you have been fascinated by your family. You want to meet everyone. You wonder who lives with who and how everyone is related and you ask to see the cousins you know you have all over the country. You are also working on what our relationship means. Extra aunts and cousins and grandparents are no big deal, but even at your young age, it is clear that you recognize that having a birthmother is different. It is clear that your heart understands something your head isn't ready for and so you mull over how mothering and birthmothering are the same and different.

You have inherited my packrat tendencies. Your mom says you hate to give anything away and I wonder how much of that is just your genes and how much of it is because you were adopted and have known loss at its worst. You told me that you don't want to swim alone because you will miss your mommy while you swim. It doesn't seem to matter that she is always waiting at the finish, you don't want to miss her. Is it that you don't want to be separated from another mother?

I wonder what you are able to understand. I wonder how it will be for you. I've wondered since the days when you were in my womb- in those early days when I felt like adoption was one of the worst things you could do to a child. While it comforts me to see you happy- to see you living the way a child should- I will still wonder. Will you be okay? Will you want to bury your adoption experience or will you be vocal about it?

I worry about me, too. Your mother was relieved that I had finally started grad school. When I met her, I was in grad classes. Having you interrupted things. I think she was afraid I wouldn't get my life back. I'm not sure if she realizes that I will never get my life back. You can't go back.

My sister and I spent a lot of time talking about adoption last weekend. I think it has been especially hard on her. I think she struggles with what her role should be, even now when you ask for her every time I visit. I wish she could be your aunt, but you met when everything was still so unsure, when your biological family was still a threat, when all these extra relationships were considered too confusing. I think she wishes she could be called aunt.

It's funny what there is in a name. I worry what to call you as you get older. That fine line between privacy and secrecy between embracing and denying. Will you be upset if I call you my daughter? Will you be upset if I don't? I wonder how I will know, if I will ever have the courage to ask.

I am silenced. Just as I was coming into my own. Just as I was starting to embrace who I was. Just as I was putting my past in the past and healing oild wounds. I took a million steps back when I placed you. I became unsure again. I became quiet again. I lost my confidence, my assertiveness, my sense of who I was. I am rebuilding, but I will never be that woman again and just as you may wonder who you would have been with me I will wonder who I would have been with you.

I wish you could meet that girl and so each thing I make for you, I am compelled to add a piece of who I was before- I liked these things, I looked like that, I was living on my own, I was on my way to this.

Some days I feel embarassed by what I've become. I wonder if your parents remember the girl they met or if they can only see the girl I am now. I'm not even sure I can remember that girl.

I never really understood how much adoption would alter the very essence of who I was. It doesn't matter what books you read or who you talk to- there are no words adequate for the inner shift. There is before and after- that is all. Our situation would be considered a model of the best and yet I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. It is that jolting. It is that unimaginable. It is that shattering- and not just shattering in the sense that I am devastated- adoption shatters your beliefs- the very core of who you are- your definition of family- the person you will become. It doesn't just affect the relationships then, it affects them forever-including the ones you don't even realize you're going to have.

I just hope I haven't shattered you. I just hope that in these all important years, you will be able to work all of it out. I just hope you will never feel another loss. I just wish that I could hold you when it hurts.

There are so many stories out there. So many realities. Still, some themes run throughout.

And yeah, I miss you tonight. And every night.