I finally have had the heart to get back on. Its been another rough week. Knowing there are people out there who get it helps. The fuzzy duck was right. She encouraged me to start. Many thanks to all the people who left comments. I have been reading the links but not commenting much. I think it is time to mend my ways and jump in with both feet. Most of the time I feel like I have nothing worthwhile to add. Now I know that sometimes just knowing someone gives a damn helps. Its probably another stupid holover from fog land. Since I was told that I just needed to get over it and move on with my life I thought that I had a problem when that was not something I could really do. I really believed that relinquishment was like having you wisdom teeth out, it hurts like hell for a while but you get over it soon enough. So who misses their wisdom teeth? I spent 36 years trying to get over it. Since I didn't end up on the streets or kill myself I suppose that makes me successful.
Now I know that reunions are hard. There is so much baggage on both sides. It involves two people who are both hurt and vulnerable. We can hurt each other in ways that no one else can and it happens. I think behind it all is the fear of rejection. I can understand why the fuzzy duck thinks I could just walk away when things get rough. I am not only the one who relinquished her in the first place, I also refused contact when she first reached out to me. There are a lot of days when I wish that I didn't understand what that did to her. I have given her two very good reasons not to trust me. Knowing that I keep trying to show her and tell her how much she means to me. I keep bungling it. I,m at my worst when things between us are at their best. Thats when I think we are past the hardest part and just look forward to our next conversation/e-mail/time together. Thats also when she thinks it is too good to be true and is sure that it can't last. At least thats what I think is going on. So we hurt each other again. We talked yesterday and I hope we will talk again this weekend. I wish I could know what to do. HELP, I need a reunion rule book. I'll even settle for the Cliff's Notes version if that all that is available. This is way too important to keep makimg mistakes. I am sitting in the middle of a blizzard with an impassable driveway. This is a good day to troll the blogs.
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3 comments:
Ah, Fuzzy Rat... so this is where you hail from. I'm so happy to read your blog and to see you and your daughter working at this.
A Cliff's Notes for reunion. Don't we wish? I do so wish. I think all of us involved with adoption could use one. So far, after many years of adoption relations, the one rule I've learned is "listen." When I forget it, I'm screwed. Just, ... "listen." It is the only thing that has ever helped, even when the one I need to listen to is only myself.
Your posts make me feel melancholy and sad. I feel there is no way on earth an aware, awake, alive or... normal mother of any variety could lose a child for any reason and have it be like losing wisdom teeth. The idea that people have expected/demanded/wanted you to feel that way (or, vice-versa, for your daughter to pick up and go on as if being adopted is not somehow a painful way to start her life), is well... it is one of the saddest things I've read in a blog (to return what you wrote to me).
Yes, it's just sad, because it's so misinformed about mothers at all. The only mothers I know (and, yes, I have known a couple in a clinical setting) who did not seem to have that had profound psychiatric disorders. I just do not see how it's possible to love a child, lose them, and move along.
But anyway. I hope to God you don't delete me or that I didn't write anything that seems horrible or crazy. You visited my blog and you commented, and I wanted to visit yours. This feels kind of like arriving at someone's door with a casserole in one's hands, unannounced, and hoping to God the person likes tuna or chicken or whatever's in the main dish.
I hope to come back and I hope we can learn something. I find the fact that you and your daughter are blogging together to be wonderful.
Hi there Ratty,
Yes it is wonderful to hear your struggling voice in reunion. And special fun to have both you and your daughter on the same site. While I never refused Joy contact, I drug my feet a looooong time before being able to accept the damage done by relinquishing her. I've felt suddenly slammed against the crap I thought we'd put behind us and am learning to take it one step at a time. It's a lot of work but SO worth it!!!
Cheers to you and the fuzzy duck.
Can I ask you why you refused contact initially?
I am trying to discover this, my mom, obviously didn't, and this seems really personal, so if you want to email me privately my email is joymadsen21@yahoo.com, but I am trying to put this information together cohesively, and so therefore will ask you the one question I would ask if you choose to answer, did the sealing of the birth certificate increase your sense of shame?
Of course I am putting the word "shame" in your mouth, forgive me if it is not apt, I have just heard it so often.
If this is too personal, also forgive and act like you never read it.
xoxoxoxoxo
Being Me's Daughter, Joy.
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