Battle Crys

One thing that is still very intimidating about declaring the official "I'm back!" is that my email boxes splillth over. I had attempted to combine them all to an outlook account since I am well programed in using outlook from work, but sadly my Yahoo accounts ( 3 personal ones) won't take to Outlook as Yahoo is stinky and wants one to uppgrade to get access to POP. To that I say POOP.. and I am just going to have to rely on Google only. That means, that indeed yes, my FixAdoption@gmail.com will soon be my only personal slash adoption email to reach me. I'll be closing my others..or at least not using them.. my imeclaud2003 has so much info in it.. it's like a filing cabinet! Not that I have replied to ANYONE in ANY MAIL BOX for months. ( apologies to all ) but if you have an Yahoo address for me, trash it please. And forgive me when I send out the repetative notice of the changes. Anyway, as part of my internet agoraphobia recovery, I have the goal of responding to at least one email a day, more if I feel the need, but at least one. So today, I went to the most recent email I had that was not some Twitter alert or something and found a nice heads up to an article. Unfortunatley, I am embrassed tro say that the woman who sent it to me.. I cannot recall who she is!! I mean maybe I don't know her.. or maybe I only know her though her online name..or maybe she is just someone promoting this article as I do that sort of thing for my clients as well. But, it really is spot on. I know it is too early for me to begin my battle cries and call to arms, but I do believe that the article hold much truth.

Mothers have often been driving forces for change.

And in a nut shell, even with naps, we can and have to do this. It's our war. Plus really, there are only so many episodes of Law and Order that one can watch.

Back From Touring Egypt

Hey all..if there is anyone even checking in anymore to read this... I think that I am ready to return, not that I actually ever really left. I mean, that's the one thing that we should know now about this thing that is named ADOPTION...no matter how hard one might try, you can't really get away. I tried. I honestly really tried. But it's like a cancer; you get this malignant growth into your system and you can try the drugs, you can try to cut it out, you can ignore all your symptoms, you can try to drown out the pain, but inside, no matter what you do.. you have still been affected by this malignancy. It is still there eating away. Lurking every day deep within. So what happened? Quite a few things in this last 6 months: For one, I have never "not" been online. You just couldn't tell "who" I was. I'm on the computer all day long at my job (going very well thank you!), but I am not online as me: FauxClaud- Claudia the mother who lost her son to adoption, adoption activist, etc.. I have been online as Corporate Blog writer and consultant, Internet business promoter and social media guru and multiple Twitter account holder. Who would have though that all this is a payable skill, but apparently all the hours sat in front of my laptop were self induced training for a career? What stunk, though, is that a job being online made being online not as enjoyable. It all felt like work. Coupled with that: Oh, my laptop has been such a pile of crap. So I get home, busting with all thee great ideas to use my new Internet savvy skills for Adoption purposes, and I can't get the damn machine to open up more than one window without freezing. It just made it all the more just like work...frustrating, ungratifing work at that. Then there was "the Birth mother" series. I started writing a huge series of blog posts for here and OMG, it was so hard. Harder than normal because it was about OUR GRIEF..And I had to GO THERE. The problem as well all know about going there is that it sucks big time. And normally, I can do this. I can write about how I feel, how we feel, what it is like ..I can talk about it, speak about it.. but I felt broken this time. A big factor for sure has been the ongoing situation of dealing with my oldest parented son, Garin. And I will go into that more, but I think that goes into it's own post. Needles to say, he went to stay with his father all summer..and THAT was probably the single most triggering act since Max was relinquished 21 years ago. Talk about laying in the middle of the kitchen floor losing it big time as a puddle of.... just hurt, pain, fear, panic. It was bad. I was bad. And then he returned..and honestly I felt much better. Of course, now he's back there again and I won't hesitate to say that I am scared. It's like the relinquishment personified.. all my fears an doubts about motherhood, abandonment, ugg, Maybe because I really am broken, maybe it was being physically broken as well ( yeah the arm is still busted) that made it all the more real, but I just didn't want to do it...Adoption just had to go.... and even though I continued to feel compelled.. it was too much. And with out really deciding, I walked away. It happened gradually. At first it was just pushing off doing some thing until "tomorrow" as it felt like obligation. I found myself too tired or uninterested to deal and I would not hesitate to say, probably some low lying depression. I had anxiety over my email accounts.. and just did not open them. Felt so out of touch that I made myself even more out of touch and stopped even looking. And really really tried to think to myself that maybe I had given it all I had? And of course, I could rationalize this to remove the guilt, because believe you me OH... I HAD SUCH GUILT!! But I told myself that others had walked away as well. Some had returned and some never have, but no matter what the final outcome for myself, I guess it was my turn. After all I HAD spent countless hours giving so much of myself to this cause. Seven years, mostly online like 200% , so burnout was inevitable, yes? And then, there was this idea that, despite adoption destruction, my life WAS good. That these are some of the best years of my life and here I was spending all my time in front of the computer. Rye had actually put that bug in my head a while ago, but I began to ask myself how much was a willing to let ADOPTION take FROM me? It took my baby, I gave it my motherhood, was I willing to give it the time that I should be BEING a mother to my other kids. So, I had to say the answer was NO! So I had to step back. Live in the present instead of trying to repair what never can be taken back. While we have often spoken about how realizing the truth about adoption is like choosing between taking the red, or is it blue, pill in the Matrix, it is very true. You can never go back to being the mother, person, child that you, he, she might have been should adoption not entered the picture, but just as true one can never go back into thinking it was and is all OK after they realize what a true mind fuck adoption is. Avoidance is much less effective as a coping mechanism when one is fully aware that they are truly, indeed, employing a transparent manner of dealing, or not dealing as it may be. So I was hiding. I could *almost* and I do mean*almost* not think about adoption. Some of the time. Like it would be normal for my son to *NOT* live at home when he reached the age of 21. It could almost feel normal if I pretended to not think about it that way. But for that to work, then I couldn't be immersed in being angry about it , and adoption almost always annoys the crap out of me, so I sure as heck couldn't keep up with what was going on in adoptionland. Even if EVERYTHING caused me to think about it in regard to adoption on some level! It also completely backfired on a subconscious level. But * not* working constructively regarding changes in adoption, and trying so hard *not* to deal with it, it came out at night in my dreams. It became very tedious to keep waking up in that choked panic night after night, sobbing and crying. A hard disturbing dream really can knock the wind out of your sales the next day. And then of course, we can have the self afflicted panic that comes form seeing that this weird change has come over you and all the worries and concerns over *why*?

• Am I losing my mind?
• Mid life crisis?
• Self defeating expectations?
• Inability to succeed?
• Depression?
• What if this was it? What of I never go back again?

And I, the preacher of "everything comes in cycles, and sometimes we all need to recharge" found it so very hard to live by my own counsel. So while I hoped, that indeed, some down time would do me well and I would find myself recharged again, it was mere hope. I didn't always believe it.

It turns out that I am still usually right..lol.

Thank you to all who waited patiently and gently gave me pokes and pats on the back. You know, it feels really good to know that people noticed when you voice is silent. I'm coming out of a long hibernation and have to find the balanced way to realign myself again with life, and work and this work we do.

But it is just as still as important to me as ever. I just need a little nap.