I read blogs everyday, (well I try to anyway somedays I am just too busy with kids, work and school ya know?) I love reading Robins blog, and Kimkim too, and Suz, and, and, and. I have been busy with school and other things (new man in my life, it is good) Any way on to the point of this post, Robin had this quote on her blog so I ganked it. It strikes a cord in me and makes me think.
"Neither society nor the (adopter) who holds the child in Her arms wants to confront the agony of the mother From whose arms that same child was taken." (Margaret McDonald Lawrence)
Why does it strike a cord? Because it is so very, very true. No one, not one person wants to think of the mother. In all this mess I think perhaps this the part that makes me the most angry. They unmother us, they change our childrens names, (even when they know what we named them) they change everything about their history, their nationality, they change how their world would have been had they been raised by those of us who bore them, and have loved them through all the long years. Their entire history gone with a signature on a page, and so many lives change irrevocably with that signature. I reflect now and realize that while I may have believed I was doing the right thing at the time, it was not the right thing, for myself, for my child, and not the right thing for her father. Twenty one years I lived with the pain and horror by shoving it so far down in my brain that I barely remembered that it was pain. But I cried, oh how much I cried and have cried since that day. You shut yourself off from yourself, you divorce yourself from your own feelings in way. You rememeber the oddest things too. The things you want to remember though, they just seem to vanish, until one day you wake up and the pain is back, the anger is on it's way, and the grief which you never allowed yourself to feel comes home to roost with a vengeance. I know now what I wish I had known then, Adoption is nothing but a legalized lie, that many, many people make money on. Billions of dollars a year are made. Yes, you read that right, BILLIONS. I wonder now how I could have been so completely under the spell that got me to where I am now. Back in therapy ( a very good thing, PTSD is not so very good) working hard on learning to live with myself and what I did. (not really of my own free will, but I did do it didn't I?) Somedays are of course easier than others. My relationship with my daugthter continues to grow and change. I think we both finally know that neither of us is ever going away again. I still need to hear that sometimes as I am sure she needs to hear it, but I do know in my gut that another seperation will never happen. I have been through alot in the last three years. I lost my father, a man I respected as much as I loved him. I lost Max, whom I loved with all my heart and probably always will love in some ways. I have finally realized that he is not what I need in my life. (That was in Ocotber and is a very long story, suffice it to say I figured him out and in doing so I figured out what I wanted and needed for me and he was not it) I met another man, who makes me happy, who listens without judging, who lets me cry on his shoulder when I need or tells me to stop being an idiot if I need that too. My daughter found in between all that stuff (after Dad and Max but before Matt) and the struggles and challenges we have faced have I think made both of us better people. I talk to her at least once a week, more often than not we talk several times a week. We have set time aside for it, to make sure it happens and that way even if we are busy we still connect. My other children have finally figured out that I needed some time to be obsessed with their sister and our growing relationship and they love her to distraction. I have learned to deal with the fact that her other family will never understand all the whys of my past or the whys of our present. But hey I can live with that. Which brings me back to my quote. I so get that, I understand how a mother could be a threat to those who have parented our children and done what we should have done. They don't want to know about our pain, all they want it their joy, and to pretend we don't exsist so their safe world stays safe. Took me awhile to get there didn't it? A far cry from the first weeks and months of reunion when I wanted to talk to her other mother and tell her so many things. I know now that I wouldn't say half of what I thought I might say, I won't thank anyone for doing their job as a parent, I won't thank them for spending the money on her upbringing, because that is what parents do. I know that I have three other kids. We all just do for our children the best that we can. I will continue to do the best I can for all my children. From Sweet Pea, to Seanie, to Joshabosha to Missie. They deserve no less, I can do no less. I am a mother, no matter what a piece of paper says to the contrary. IF anyone wants to disagree with that go ahead, no skin off my nose. Your problems with this issue are just that, your problem! I am responsible for my feelings and mine alone. I am not resposnible for anyone elses. Although when it comes to my children, I empathize, sympathize and try to help them resolve their problems. I don't have to, nor am I am obligated to help the world and the rest of the people on this planet deal with their stuff.
Wow, took me a lot longer to get that last part out than I thought it would. I will try to post more often now that my class schedule has eased up, although I can't promise to post everyday. Now off I toddle, to sleep the sleep of the totally dead. Work has been a bear this week, and I expect it to be so tomorrow too. More snow on the way and the playoff game between the Bears and the Aint's. I am a Packer fan, but if it has to be anyone but us going to the Superbowl I would like it to be the team from the state my daughter and I were both born in. SO wanna chant for me a bit? DA Bears, da bears, da bears! As Bingle Kringle would say if her daddy asked her, Bears win bowl dad! In her soft little voice.. See you all soon..
