I wouldn’t say that my birth dad and I have a close relationship. Perhaps respectful and distant are better adjectives. We don’t talk for months, even more than a year at times. Every year on my birthday, I receive a bouquet of flowers. We’ve had some great interactions, I’ve met much of my paternal family, but we both seem to be comfortable with keeping each other at arm’s length.

I’ve recently had a new reason to reach out, to re-establish contact. That reason is the little monkey rapidly coming to full gestation in my tummy. How do you tell someone that is barely a parent that he’s going to be a grandparent? Apparently with an email and sonogram pictures…. He took it well, maintained contact, sounded happy even. Will this be a new start to this somewhat tenuous bond? I guess time will tell. And I know a little more effort could be put forth on my part. Maybe this time I’ll follow through.

So, it’s been two months. I’m really bad at this. And wanted to acknowledge it here, in public (sorta). But life! Life has been all sorts of exciting and new and crazy and tiring. And I often have a lot of trouble balancing life! and anything else. Sorry about that. I’ll try harder.

I feel as though so much of what I have written here has been very high drama. Which is funny, considering I try very hard to live my life with as little drama involved as possible. Maybe I’ve just been fooling myself all of this time. And while I wouldn’t say my story is ‘normal’, it hasn’t all been a soap opera, either. I don’t know, maybe I just like telling the parts that lend themselves to great dramatic effect. But I want to start sharing parts that are a little less so…..
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When I was a little girl, I had this wonderful storybook. I don’t remember the name, but can still envision the front cover as though it was right here in front of me. The story was about a family of rabbits who become stuck in their house after a big snowstorm. They decide to travel out and explore, and in preparing to do so, strap snowshoes onto their feet. I don’t remember much else, just the snowshoes. And from that point on, I was fascinated by the things. I already had a deep love of all things winter, but the idea that you could walk on top of the snow just blew my mind. Every winter from there on out, I would try to make my own, usually by strapping badminton rackets to my snow boots. These ventures very rarely worked. And my brother would get annoyed that I broke yet another pair of the rackets….

I told myself repeatedly over the years that I would go snowshoeing. That I would finally get out there and do this thing that I had been dreaming of for years. Well, this afternoon, I actually did. My good friend Bethany agreed to come on this adventure with me, and after driving in circles for almost two hours, we had acquired the shoes, were parked at a state park, and were ready to go. And it was lovely! I can’t claim to have been the most graceful, but the idea of walking through the woods, up hills and then down, on snow that only animals had trekked over, created a completely joyous calm deep inside of me.

I hope to get out there some more, to explore the snowy wilderness. To float on the snow. To be that bunny rabbit, leaving home after the storm.

Tomorrow is your birthday. And I was thinking maybe, just maybe, I would have the bestest gift in all the world to give you. Or maybe I was deluding myself into thinking it could even be a remote possibility. But I was having symptoms. Actual symptoms! So, of course, I broke down and tested, again. And I failed, again. And then, because I had stated not three weeks ago even that I was going to stop thinking about it, stop obsessing, just learn to accept and be calm, I hid my failure under used tissues in the trash can. I want to be calm and accepting, but I also wanted to surprise you, to give you (us) something you would never forget, to give you this fairy-tale ending (or beginning, really). Maybe next year….
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One thing I am still coming to terms with here is how much to share. I tend to be a fairly guarded person. Letting the wall down is hard, and here I am, spilling. In fairly generic yet transparent terms. You said you didn’t mind. You had no problem with me sharing, with people knowing. But the failure isn’t on your head or in your heart, it’s on me. And that’s hard.

It’s also hard to know that 90% of the readers are people we know. The anonymity of the interwebs is a beautiful thing, and it helps me get stuff off my chest and out of my brain. Writing here has been a nice outlet. But what happens when someone reads, and feigns sympathy to my face, but behind closed doors is judgmental? And ok, I’m not giving our friends very much credit (sorry everyone), but I also feel like not too many of our friends are in similar places or have a similar mindset about all of this. But maybe that’s just my insecurity coming out…

Sorry to be so dramatic. I’m going to go ahead and blame that on the clinical depression. Everything escalates to super drama in my mind, and then I get to type it out and share, for better or for worse. So, happy birthday. Sorry I’m lame.

I’m not 100% sure about this, but I don’t think I played Scrabble until a few years ago. We didn’t have the game as a kid, and I don’t recall being introduced to it with friends. But a few years ago, I was given the game as a gift, and was very excited. See, I like words. A lot. In a maybe unhealthy way. LOVE them, can not get enough. So I thought this would be the game for me.

Unfortunately, I had married into a family of Scrabble savants. Tim kicks ass at the game, and his mom can rack up a ridiculously high score. So much so that Tim has never beaten her at the game. And apparently, her father was even better. But I felt up to the challenge. Silly me.

I played countless games with Tim (won’t even think about playing his mom), and they always end the same – with him kicking my ass. Some games give him a run for his money, and for a short moment, I have a glimmer of hope. Some games I become totally frustrated and throw accusatory remarks his way. (I am such a sore loser when it comes to Scrabble…) Last week, I won my very first game. I actually beat him. It was a great feeling, albeit short-lived – we started another game the next day, in which he squarely trounced me… sigh.

Well, we recently discovered the ability to play Scrabble online. And, for whatever reason, I completely and totally kick ass at it. I don’t know what it is about this difference in format (because truly, I’m a bit of a luddite and like the traditional board and tiles), but for some reason, I am dominating this new way of playing. With each play, as I rack up some huge score to his single digit attempts, I get all warm and fuzzy feeling and can’t help but giggle to myself. Current game – me: 311, him: 199.

But I know it’s just a game, and to not get ahead of myself. I suspect that once he reads this, he’ll just ask if I want to play real Scrabble, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

To me, it’s always felt like my mum was the glue that kept our family together. She was solid and stable and kept everything running smoothly. She kept the calendar up-to-date on our fridge, knew which kid had to go where on a given night, planned meals, grocery shopped, cleaned, and worked full-time. (This isn’t to say that my dad didn’t do anything; he was equally involved, and our house would have fallen apart without him, but to me, Mum ruled.) She was always well-dressed, attentive to everyone around her, gentle, caring, loving yet stern when needed, she was my everything in a lot of ways.

My sophomore year of high school, though, that rock-solid stability started to falter. She started forgetting things, missing details, losing thoughts. She started napping a lot and crying more than I was comfortable with. Reoccurring nightmares made it such that she would walk our halls at night, afraid to try to sleep.

I remember the day they told me so distinctly. It was a dark February day, a Friday. I had come home from school and she was already there, on the couch, wrapped in blankets. She had been missing work a good deal by then. I sat down with her and we talked for a bit. She explained things to me as much as she could before the talking and thinking had exhausted her too much. My dad was at the kitchen table, and as I searched his eyes for an answer, I quickly came to understand that he didn’t have one. He was lost, drifting, trying not to explode, pleading with me through his eyes to not make a scene.

“She has to go,” he said, matter-of-factly. “She has to go away, she has to get help. This is one of the better programs, this Vet Hospital treats PTSD, and we’ll be able to visit. It’s only a few hours away.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know, two to three months. It’ll just be you and me for a while.”

I don’t know how, but this is one of the few times I held my shit together for them. (About an hour later, though, when Tim picked me up to go to a movie, I lost it, absolutely lost it. I cried throughout the whole movie – the first time I ever cried at a movie – and something in me broke that day; I now cry at almost any movie, as though my body has decided that this will be my release.)
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About five years later, after continued treatment and therapy, options to treat her PTSD were still being explored. She was much better, but still not entirely functional. It was hard, really hard, on the family. I can’t imagine how hard it was on her.

My dad has this thing about always being treated by the best. No matter what it took, if someone had a health issue, he felt the best doctors in the country should be sought out. So, my mum was being treated at Johns Hopkins for geriatric medicine. She wasn’t that old, but her symptoms were pointing to Alzheimer’s, and Hopkins was one of the best. She had multiple CAT scans, and my dad sent the films to be read not only by her doctors there, but also by brain specialists across the continent. It was acknowledged that her brain was altered, that her grey matter did in fact look similar to a brain of someone with advanced early-onset Alzheimer’s. But, thankfully, it was just her PTSD. This ‘disorder’ was so severe it had physically changed the make-up of her brain. It was scary, but also a relief.
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An article in the New York Times this week reports that the Pentagon has decided that PTSD does not qualify someone for the Purple Heart. Because “it is not a physical wound”. This makes me sick. It makes me want to jump up and down and scream. My mother’s brain has been physically altered. She was in war over 40 years ago and is still suffering the consequences, but wouldn’t be eligible because her scars are on the inside. Now, I understand some of the Pentagon’s reasoning – I’m sure a lot of people do try to fake PTSD to avoid further service, and I understand it is hard to diagnose. But maybe, instead of disregarding it yet again, they should look into further studying this disease, so that there are better standards by which to diagnose and treat PTSD.

How many people need to suffer this for the military to start to take it a little more seriously?! Are the reports of vets who turn violent, vets who are unable to be reintroduced into society, who shut down and can no longer deal not enough? Instead of throwing our resources at wars with no end, maybe we should be thinking a little more about what happens when thousands of men and women come home with long-term PTSD. What happens to the spouses and children of those vets who then live with this suffering, who start experiencing their own suffering, who breakdown along-side their loved one? Screw you, Pentagon.

So, I started this here blog six months ago. And I thought it would be so insightful and witty and wonderful, and with such good material and topics, how could I ever want for posts….? Obviously, my approach was faulty. Cause, well, six months later, with a total of 12 posts…. um, yeah. So, it being that time of year that everyone likes to go all introspective, I too am taking a look at things and have decided to open it up a little. I initially set parameters of talking about adoption, identity, and depression. I still plan on addressing those things… they are pretty integral to who I am and my life, so how could I not? But, I am also going to try to write more and censor less. I tend to get so caught up in my head with making things perfect that I fail to start, to just begin doing something (anything!), for fear of the epic failure anything I do will surely come to. Silly, I know, but so am I. So, this is me, telling all four of you (five, on a good day), my new intentions, putting it out there, taking a risk. Trying to stop censoring.

Consequently, you’ll end up reading more crap about my life. Run now, before my witty banter sucks you in too deep….

One of the things about my particular flavor of crazy is how I react to the unexpected. I am normally a functioning, logical human being. But once in a while, there is a hiccup in “the plan” that will completely throw me. Something doesn’t go according to how it had played out in my mind, and I shut down. Any sense of logic or rational thought become foreign concepts and my brain races through any number of worst-case scenarios, settling on the one that creates the most panic deep down, welling up and out in all sorts of unhealthy and spastic ways.

Recently, my life has been dealing with the unexpected. I research and plan, take all necessary precautions and actions to ensure the outcome I desire. But it’s not enough, and I stand here feeling helpless, my need (and ability) to control ripped from me. The worst-case scenario has been established. My situation is so far from becoming my worst-case scenario, and I know that. I recognize that my ‘big deal’ is so minor, so insignificant to what countless thousands have gone through, to even put myself in a parallel category is laughable. And I’ve been handling it – trying to stay positive and not over-react – but I am still caught off guard now and then, finding rage and tears uncomfortably close to the surface.

Life’s little ironies spitting in my face, having a good chuckle on me.

But maybe it’s for the best. Maybe this time I can be a better person. Maybe I can learn to (finally) let go a little, loosen the grip, take things one day at a time. I’ve been working on that. And once in a while, I’m caught off guard by the calm I feel. Not often, mind you, but here and there, I am able to sit and smile and be ok with where I am.

Birthdays have always been bittersweet for me. Specifically, my birthday. Now don’t get me wrong, I love presents and cake. But being adopted, this day, the whole reason behind it, the whole reason for me, left me feeling a little sad. I didn’t know my birth story, didn’t know the woman who carried me for 9 months, didn’t know the circumstances. There were just a lot of unanswered questions. A piece of me (a very important piece) was missing, and each year on that day I was reminded of it’s absence.

Also, I hate attention. I don’t deal well with people complimenting me or focusing on me for very long, so the day felt slightly torturous in that regard.

But, having met my birthmom, I now know my birth story. I know the woman who made this huge decision with my best interest in mind. And I am so grateful for that. It’s helped me deal with birthdays with a little more grace.

And yesterday I discovered that holding themed parties helps! Mustache Madness was a blast, and my friends were willing to come over, don facial hair, and have a great time (without really focusing on the fact that it was my birthday… although that may be because a lot of them still don’t know.).

Then

Now

I know, it’s been two months since my last post.  Because I suck.  But, no one really reads this, so I don’t feel so bad.  And everyone that does have already heckled me in person about not posting sooner.  Here.  This is for you.

Anyway. I found this through some other blog weeks ago, and was just completely blown away.  I think this is beautiful and amazing, and, well, lovely.  Take a watch.  

If you visit the whoisamy site, you can learn more about it all, which I did. And then you can sign up to be an Ambassador of Lovely (which, by the way, is the best title ever!) which, of course, I also did! Hooray for loveliness. And awesome titles.