Patience and Peace

Patience: It's over sixteen years into reunion. Reunion is a very good word for me. Torn asunder and now stitching, mending and reuniting ourselves. It's taken quite awhile to learn to hold steady for myself, for Joy, for our recovering what we lost of ourselves and our identities. It has seemed horrific at times, facing the loss and pain. For a long time I barely hung on, running over circular anguish in fear that I could lose even more. Now I am finding my place in this world. I am finding Joy's place in my world, getting comfortable and familiar, including her in my general and casual conversations. It all comes from accepting my loss and taking time. I don't have to go anywhere or meet any time limits. I am trusting that each step I take towards our loving open relating is building a foundation together. Being able to check her blog several times a day, getting email messages, sending email messages is such a relief. Looking back at relinquishing I think I would have been a stalker if I'd had a clue to her whereabouts. Now I cruise by whenever I pass a computer and it's OK! I'm just checking, the way one might check a baby sleeping. Yep, she's there. She's breathing, yelling, laughing, crying, creating beautiful images. She is well. I am well. We are discovering ourselves.

Nine Weird Things

Nine Weird Things: After giving this tag a great deal of consideration, including some discussion with someone close to me, I've only come up with 4 weird things.
1. I'm devoted to large Thanksgiving Dinners, preferably in my own home. I made cranberry chutney and fresh cranberry orange relish, roasted a turkey with herbs and a grilled turkey with lime and oregano, two types of sweet potatoes in additon to mash potatoes, special green salad, roasted green beans with pine nuts, cornbread and chile stuffing, two types of rolls. Actually my kids make the mash potatoes and a jello concoction. The guests bring pies and wine. If we do end up going to someone else's house, the next day, Friday, I make my own at home, with only one turkey and one kind of sweet potatoes, and I make the pies too.
2. I think skirts are way more comfortable than pants. I hate any clothing that grabs my crotch.
3. It's fun for me when Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormon missionaries come to the door. I take it as an invitation to share MY point of view and on rare occasion make a convert.
4. I frequently give into the impulse to run or skip in public even at my age.
5. Oh! Another one is that I really don't care about drinking wine even though I live in "wine country".
6. Now I'm getting on a roll. I don't eat garlic or onions which makes going out to eat these days an interesting dialogue with the wait staff...
7. I have very wide feet. I was very happy to learn that the native women in Oaxaca had feet like mine and made beautiful sandals to fit them.

That's all I can come up with for now.

Oh God

Let's be friends. I just read Suz's post about religion which aroused some unfinished business here in me. When my boyfriend's mom found out I was pregnant, she pulled us over for some advice. She had been overtly hostile to me before I was pregnant. Now she was insisting that we must be wed, in the (Catholic) church, so that "the baby" would be legitimate. Immediately after the birth, we'd get an annulment. That was the last time I saw her.


Months later at the adoption agency I was asked about my religious preference. Anything but Catholic. My baby was not going to have to put up with the kind of mothering I'd seen from boyfriend's mother.


Decades later I was told that boyfriend's sister wanted to adopt our baby but wasn't allowed to due to my no Catholics restriction. Ironic twist of honoring my wishes, eh? IF that's true, why couldn't they have talked to me, say before I signed the papers?


So there's still anger here. There's still hurt. I want to come to acceptance. I want to know they were doing their best without judging their best as pathetic. I want to accept how much it hurt --That their best, doing what they thought was right, was so wrong to me. I felt so alone -- wrong and wronged.

Misunderstanding. I forgive myself for judging myself for being hurt.

Dancing with Abandon...

This past week on two occasions, I saw people wearing a green t shirt saying "Everybody lies. Nobody cares."

I do. I care. I lie and I care. I try to catch my lies and come to the truth. I love to watch the TV program House, where the main character, Dr. House is chronically pointing out how much people lie and how it does or doesn't serve them. He is shameless and consciously purposeful with his lies and I love that. And when he discovers his lies are not serving him he investigates to find out how that works.

I want to be ruthless, to root out lies and self deception.

In my early morning reverie that connected somehow to abandonment, justification and control issues. A post formed in my mind that seems to have evaporated this evening. I'll go on anyway.

A dear friend said, "Control is the master addiction". I see my efforts to control boil down to fear of abandonment, fear of being alone.

Lee Michaels' song Heidi hi -- Don't be afraid if you're all alone. That's how you started. It's how you're going to go.

We're all afraid of being alone sometimes. That's abandonment. It spreads out to everyone. It's a function of our egos, our minds and emotions. Part of trying to control it is having a good reason for it. Some of us have very good reasons, elaborate stories, really valid reasons, justification for being scared. Sometimes we don't even know the story. We don't have a reason. But you know, when you're afraid of being alone, you don't always need a reason.

I love feeling like I belong, being a loved member of a family or community. It buoys me up. It's fun. I love connecting. But when I lie in order to insure my connection, it becomes false and desperate, dissatisfying. That's why I want to be ruthless. It takes time & courage to go inside and find out what I'm lying about, but it's very satisfying.

I have two people in my life that have "abandonment issues" including issues with my insensitivity to their abandonment issues. But sometimes I think all issues are "abandonment issues". We just try to maintain our control by pretending they're something else. It takes time and courage to be still and hold to our connection.

God Bless you. I love you. Peace, be still.

Recycling

I would pick her up and carry her away. We'd fly to another realm where she would be bathed in a crystal fountain and all vestiges of separation would be transmuted into free energy.

MY Daughter in My Life

WE come and we go. Except I keep coming over and over. I don't really care about adoption in general that much. I come to see what's going on in Joy's life, mind and heart. How is she feeling? What is she thinking about? She is so clever.

Most of the time I turn to the links on her page to see what she may have been reading -- reading others' thoughts and feelings.

I've been looking at a pattern I've had of trying to fix things/people up. I've not been very successful with that. It's gotten a bit crazy in fact -- Trying to fix things up. It's very much like that Joni song she quoted, plus sputtering and sparking emotions.

My "productivity" has really fallen off, as I sit reading and wondering and checking again. (Is this properly taking care of myself? I think so actually.) I've discovered an addiction to information. I google the things she refers to because I want to know what she knows. I want to keep up with her, to understand what she has to say, what she thinks.

Reading about "open" adoption tripped some thoughts. If I had known of open adoption -- If it had been mentioned as an option -- I can't imagine taking it. If I'd considered it, I think it would have led me to not relinquish. Given the opportunity to consider actually being any part of her life, the possibility of contact -- I don't think I could have taken just one sip. If I had known where she was I don't think I would have left them alone.

Even though I'm not getting much done lately out in the world, I'm expanding inside. I'm realizing I'm not going to fix it up at all. That's not an option. I am learning to watch and listen to myself. I'm learning to sit with the things that set me off balance.

And I'm talking again. Right after relinquishing I talked about her to everyone, looking for a way to cope with the loss. I learned there was not help for me that way. It's different now, because she is in my life. Grieving still goes on. There is also growth in our relationship going on.

Learning that my experience is similar to others has given me validation and confidence to communicate my experience, my reality, to people who had no idea that I have another daughter. I'm finding that people love to hear about her. They feel honored when I share my feelings and experience and love for her. It's another way of including her in my life. It's indirect. But I can do it anytime, anywhere.