I have learned so much from being a parent.
I have learned so much from being thrust into the reality of adoption. I have learned so much form my journey online. I have learned so much from the pain of life.My head has been spinning lately and my heart feels heavy. I haven't been writing because I have been thinking too fast. Life keeps coming and I can't find the time to regroup. Writing is regrouping. I feel like I have been too close to the painful emotions of my life lately.
I had to revisit the pregnancy, birth and loss of Max for the documentary filming. Yes, I went into it willingly, because I had to make it real, yet it takes a bit of time to have all that emotional upheaval settle down again.
My mother's birthday and three days after, the anniversary of her death.
She is heavy in my mind and no matter how many years it has been, parts of me long to just be able to call her and go home. As patronizing as it might sound, I have often thought that perhaps, even as a birthmother and from the other perspective, I can more than just empathize with the feelings of an adoptee. Granted, I was raised by both my biological parents and know from where I come from, yet my mother died young and with her, I lost allot of information about myself. It's like I know where I come from, but I don't know where I am going. When will I expect all my hair to be gray? What is menopause like for the women in our family? And then, because there were things that screamed of high dysfunction in my childhood, I, too, would often like answers. Why did you let me get away with that? What were you thinking? What was the real story about that time when I was 9?
In the same vein, I do not consider that I, any longer, have a father. Oh, he is out there someplace, last rumored in Las Vegas, but I have not seen him for almost 25 years. In fact, the last time I spoke to him was when my mother died, in 1995, to tell her that she was gone. It wasn't much of a conversation. So while I know it is his nose planted on my face, I can understand that un-understandable rejection when the very person who created you, who is supposed to love you and be there for you no matter what, somehow finds it in their soul to just walk away. I was rejected by him as a child and it has never made sense to me. Jealously, resentment, or just pure screwy in the head; he was emotionally absent when not sleeping or working or mowing the lawn until he was just absent.
And meanwhile, my mother narcissistic and unsatisfied by life, made sure I was a player in their bad marriage and only could make unconditional love work when my behavior fit within the pages of her rule book.
Yes, there is that hurt. And yes, there is the fact that I fully know that the duel dysfunction started me down the path that lead to a life as a birthmother. Still, I know, at least in terms of my own mother, that she did try her best. Her intentions were not cruel, she just had her own wounds from life. Sometimes, I mourn that I have will never get the chance to provide acknowledgement to her. I get it, Mom, I get you.
I didn't always understand my mother.
Not how she failed me. Not how she approached Max's adoption. Not how she carried anger. Not how she could make everything be about her just so she could complain. I probably spent more time in adoption counseling speaking about my relationship with her, rather than the fact that I was about to be a mother myself. God, I was so angry with her then. Not only did she fail to see that I was more than just fat ( for 6 months!) and then locked me away so I was happy to get to the safe agency in Boston., but because I was punished when I left and she never once called me. Was she angry, or did she worry that if she spoke to me she would want me to return? I 'll never know. In fact, only writing this now has the other possibility just entered my brain.When I came back after giving birth and relinquishing Max, I tried SO HARD to be everything that I had failed at. I went back to school. I went to work. I was happy and chipper when in public and even tried, for a short period of time, to not only look normal, but be normal. Trying to shake the shame. Trying to maintain that feeling I had, that I was strong and selfless and wise.. not a crazy, fucked up whore. It still felt to me that my mother disapproved of everything I did. I couldn't shake the glare of her eyes on the back of my neck. It wasn't good enough.. and it seemed that any joy or happiness or even fun that I tried to have was paid from by a pound of her flesh. It became very frustrating that I would never shake off the evilness in her eyes.
I had this awful boyfriend then. I probably shouldn't say awful, but he was in hindsight. What do I do immediately after becoming a birthmother? I date an adoptee! Nope, adoption didn't affect that at all right? It was he who sanctified me. Approved of what I had done. Told me how happy he was to have his adopted life. Made me feel secure in my decision and accepted me as a birthmother.
He also, prodded me to stand up to my mother and not keep slinking around waiting for her to stop being so harsh on me. His advice was also that next time she started berating me for waiting to go out with friends or to a concert, I should just punch her.
It took allot of prodding, but one day she got me just at the right time and place. I remember I was on the staircase a few steps above her standing in the foyer. Bitching and nagging and making me just feel awful for wanting to be a normal 19 year old. I was working to pay for all my own classes at the local community college. My job sucked, I took the bus for an hour to campus every day. I had a great GPA and would help around the house and all. For some reason, even though I had tried to preserve the life of a normal 19 year old, she wanted me to stay home and act like I had a newborn in the house. Not that she said that, but hadn't my adoption sacrifice earned me the right to have this life as promised?
So, I gathered up my nerve, desperate for something else form her, and punched her in life the shoulder of something. I can safely say, I suck at punching and I doubt I did more than shock her. She, on the other hand, wacked me right back and basically tusseled me good. I was shocked more than anything else at the way it backfires. After tumbling over to the living room, the emotions were just flying!
It was, mind you, my mother who always said,;" Sometimes thing need to come to a head and become a crisis point before anything different can happen". She was right.
Crying, yelling, fighting screaming, I know she was into the standard litany about how I was such a bad daughter. How I had wronged her. About all she did for me. About all the pain I caused her.. and THAT was when I lost it. I remember yelling at her, hysterically, desperately, begging and demanding at the same time..
No, you have to admit that YOU did things too that HURT ME!
I'm sure it was longer than that. I am sure I had snot running down my face. I am sure more was said, but I do not remember. What I remember was that she stopped. And she did, for the first time ever, admit that yes, she was not perfect and there were things that she did wrong and that she was sorry for hurting me.
It was a complete turning point in our relationship and my mother became my friend and equal and my mother. That's the mother I miss.
***
I have thought about that moment allot lately. I told the story to Garin the other night. My poor second son; so close to grown at 18, but still trapped by 5 months of high school and learning the realities of life. Making some dumb n=mistakes as we all do at that age, though I cannot allow him the complete freedom of going hog wild. Oh, yes, as far as parenting goes Tough Love is easy. Break the rule and get out of the house. Wipe ones hands and say, you are 18, I cannot control you and you will only do what you want anyway. You'll have to learn from your own choices and those consequences. I can't do that. I just cannot.
All I know is that it was exactly what happened to me at 18; I graduated, I had expectations and demands that were not realistic and I was allowed to do what I please because I was really had to manage and my mother was worn out by life a bad divorce. No one bother to see where the path that I was on could lead to, no one foresaw adoption, no one tried to lead me to a better place. I did abandon one child at birth, I cannot abandon another at adulthood.
I see in my son a great goodness. He is a kind soul. He has a level head. He is smart and a very talented musician. I do more than love him, I like him as a person and a human being. And even when he makes mistakes, even when I find myself repeating the same boring lines of parenting or hearing a pretty pathetic excuse for not doing what he should; I have faith that he has the heart and tools to make his way in the world. I see in him more than the stupid things that teenagers do, and while I harp about his grades and graduation, I can, at this point only be there for support and encouragement and to believe in his goodness.
I know that sounds very lovely, but I know I am not a perfect parent and he did not have a perfect life. After my disastrous first marriage died it's long drawn out death, I was a single mother for the next 6 years including the 3 1/2 years with the lets-get-married-oh-woops-i'm-gay-boyfriend that had no experience with kids and wanted G to be seen and not heard. Then, when Rye and the kids came to be, it worried me that Garin would feel like the odd one out. Here it was the perfect family unit and Garin with budding impedance and me with two little babies, often foster that independence for my own sanity. Times were stressful, money was tight and his father was often absent for long stretches of time even though he lived just a few towns away and I would rather be online to be completely honest.
The last few years have been hard. Parenting a teen is NOT easy and then add in an ex husband, an adoption reunion, work, other kids, and a conflicting step-father-kid relationship. There was allot of anger there that we all tried to control and often it got out of hand. Limits were set and broken, lectures given , privileges taken away, and walls were punched. I just wanted it all to be nice and begged for logic and tried to give in because I knew that at his age, I was going to do whatever I wanted anyway. At least my son was usually telling me about when he did something dumb . Rye felt that he needed his father to step in and really be strict; I was too lenient. I was being manipulated. The kid was now bigger than me and if he wanted to leave the house he would. I could no longer demand his phone nor take it from his hands. Unlike my mother, I would lose the tussle. Rye could not be the one to block him. He was not his father and the danger of a real fight became a sick worry of reality. G refused to accept any parenting authority from Rye. I would get calls at work when they fought.
Eventually, though I felt like I knew my son and that a lighter kinder hand and accepting nature would bring us closer to the peace we all sought, I became worn down. I would beg him to do the right thing just because it was easier. Explain how giving in to control gave him more trust and freedom, beg to stop giving the world ammunition to bring him down, fly under the radar. Just wait, hang in there, life is coming.
He would not conform and with everyone saying that perhaps his father's influence was needed and my acceptance that no matter how I pleaded, I could not change this by force of shear will alone, I surrendered.
I only gave in because our home life was so affected; the younger's ones displayed fear of their older brother. You protect the younger especially when the option is that his father's house is waiting. I gave in.
It was the single most adoption related trigger I have experienced.
The early summer afternoon when Pat and I had the phone call where I officially said, "yes, he will stay with you" will not easily be forgotten. I was not expecting it at all. I was not concerned that Rye went off to get a haircut and went missing for hours. I had planned to speak to him that day, but not for what happened next.
When I got off the phone, I was overtaken by such raw emotion all I could do was wail, "Garin is Gone!". I called Rye on the cell and that's the only sentence I could convey to him. He's gone, he's gone, my baby is gone, he's not here, I lost him, he's gone.
He knew what I was talking about but not able to see the origin of the well that this ran forth form. By the time he returned that night, I had barely managed through the rest of the day, got the kids to bed, and gave into the pure panic and grief that encompassed me. I was balled up on the couch in the dark,clutching worn tissues, sniveling, puffy eyed, shivering, mess. I stop doing any adoption work for the rest of the summer, for the Fall, until December.
***
But it wasn't about me. So I forced myself to deal on the outside, even if I walked away from my passion for my internal survival. I was hoping that it would be better for my son. You would think I would have known better by now. Not because it couldn't have been a good thing, just because the words are so parallel to adoption mythology.
I hurt. He hurt. We ignored each other. I stripped and redecorated his room. He ignored me on my birthday and mother's day. Eventually, he called me out on not calling him enough and we began to build back up. That was out tussle moment.
But trust was broken here, and while he was much better with me; he still was rough with any other authority. He lived with his dad and hated it. Would complain to me that he has no home knowing that I felt bad, but was compelled to hold the line as long as grades were bad, walls were punch and rules ignores.
They have struggled, too. It's getting late and this is long, and I don't think that is my story to tell. So I will just say that it's been hard. I have spent more time talking with my ex since we first met. I have come to believe that those struggles are based on some old hurts, some sore wounds and heightened by personalities both same and different. They need that tussle.
I'm not advising throwing the punch like Paul said, but the situation needs to come to a head. For four days I keep explaining the same thing:
No you are not the worst dad in the world because you set a limit and refused to give him $20. I did back you up and say that he was a jerk and should have just accepted that you were not giving him money because he was already on a very short leash. My last advice to him was to get his nose to the grindstone and act like an alter boy. He was wrong for not just giving in, but that's not the point I am trying to make.
It's not just $20. It's when you say no, especially against his logic that he needs $$ to eat, he DOES hear that you don't care because underlying all the drama is a hurt little boy that still is angry that daddy wasn't there. Every time you try to lay down a rule now, it reminds him about the time you didn't and it brings up that hurt. And he can't explain it, he can just feel it. And the drama ensues. His inner child is acting out.
I tell him that they must sit down and talk to each other. I tell him that he must lead by example if he wants G to take responsibility for his actions. I tell him that he has to acknowledge the hurt he caused his son and validate his feelings. I want him to be able to say that he is sorry.
He doesn't want to and keeps telling me that I am wrong, but I know I am right.
And this time, no surrender.
***
I probably shouldn't post all this. Too many IRL people read here now because of Facebook and someone might get upset, but I can't not. If I can't be 100% honest then it is not real. I refuse to edit my life.
Sometimes, that feels selfish, but I do write for me. I write to get it out. I write to think. I process while I write. It does not feel like I am doing a service; yet I am so deeply honored when someone lets me know they have received validation and acknowledgment here when I ramble. The feeling that comes knowing that, however small, even helping out one person, and being here for them when they need it, makes me feel humble inside. And in a small way, I know my life has meaning beyond what I can see, what I can touch. I am so thankful for that.
I feel exposed to publish this, but then I think what of someone might need to read this someday. What if this is helpful too? If I cannot admit to being flawed, then how can others? How can anyone get better if we don't show other's the way?
So I'm posting. That's what feels right.
In the end, it is about what is real and what is personal truth. Feelings must be given value and understood so that they do not control all. We cannot ignore any of the yucky stuff that life brings becasue we find it easy to stay on the surface where it feels good. All we can do is strive for understanding and acceptance. I have learned that validation, acknowledgement, apologies are key to healing, beginning again and truly living a better life and defiantly cannot be undervalued when parenting.
And now, I can go to bed.
