From the Fog

My dad died. 

So I haven't been writing.

Makes sense.

Not much else does.

It will be a month tomorrow. It was pretty horrific in the perspective of being his daughter. Plugs, cords, decisions, death rattle, last breath. In terms of being a human who knows I will some day die myself, it was a pretty good passing, and I hope to be afforded the same sheltered passage when it's my time.

What I'm left with is trying to figure out the day to day. What was a matter of routine is now a disproportionately challenging puzzle. I'm doing a bad job at work, I'm being distant from my friends, and am filled with anxiety on how to take care of all the things my dad used to manage along with all the usual things in my life.

Writing was the thing that brought me the most comfort during the short time that my dad was sick. It was a great distraction from the horror of the hospital - the alarming machine noises, the fellow families going in and out of the ICU, the detached doctors and noncommittal nurses - I was able to tune all that out when I was focused on my writing.

But now that my dad has died, that comfort has floated away and I'm left with nothing. Well, knitting, I have knitting. But writing has been next to impossible. I look at all the things I was involved and immersed in, and they seem like a past life rather than just the past month.

And here I am trying to write to get into the MFA program here at Portland State University where I work. It only makes sense, I want to write, it's a great program and I get to take classes nearly for free. Only, I don't know if I'll get in. My previous instructor in a graduate class here said my writing wasn't quite good enough to get in - but, maybe it could be, if I worked on it enough. So, I was working on it. But, now...

Oh well. It is what it is. I'll apply. Maybe I won't get in. I'll live. But, that's the hard part.

***

to view my birthmother's blog on the same topic, go to mothertone

***

Thoughts? Reflections? Opinions?

Please comment!

NaBloPoMo Day 11: Personal Opinions Regarding Adoption

Personal Opinions Regarding Adoption What is your opinion of adoption today? Are you in favor of or against adoption, and how do various circumstances affect your opinion? Has your opinion changed over time? If so, what caused you to rethink your former opinion? What do you think is the biggest need for change in the adoption industry or is the current model for adoption fine the way it is?

My opinion now is simple. It's the first and last thing on Deanna's post on Lost Daughter's today...

No secrets. 

That's it. That simple. There is only the truth - no matter how painful, dark or complicated the truth is, there should only be the truth. 

Brutal truth is better than beautiful lies. 

NaBloPoMo Day 10: Reactions to Searching

Reactions to Searching If you've searched for or are thinking of searching for your natural family, what would you say to those who think your desire to search means you are unhappy in your adoptive family or had a bad childhood? If you don't have a desire to search, what would you say to those who wonder why you have no interest in knowing where you come from?

I just finished writing the Superhero post. Many superheros that I know of are adopted. But, the big difference is that their original parents are dead. If the original parents are really dead, and the child is adopted because they are an orphan, I wonder if there's the same stigma to searching? 

The stigma, of course, is the inevitable question everyone asks, "How do your adoptive parents feel about it?" It's implied that their feelings should come first, and the desire to know your history is secondary to that.

I've been extremely lucky. I had supportive adoptive parents that were cool with the search and have even gotten to the point where my mom has said that she's happy I'm in reunion with my birthfamilies because when she and my dad are no longer around, I'll still have family. Yeah, they're pretty amazing. 

However, I do think they would hide their feelings from me if they did have doubts, reservations, anger, betrayal. They wouldn't want it to be about them, they just want to support me. But it would be good to know if they do have any issues with it. Or maybe I'm just doubtful that they really can be that comfortable with it, I don't know. 

At this point, 22 years into reunion, I don't much care if people judge me. Or, I care, I just don't seek out others' opinions. 

I like the picture here at the left, which is a "reaction" that is similar to a stone being thrown in a still pond. Yes, you create ripples, but they extend far beyond you at the center. Your story influences so many people because it reaches so far.

The best reaction that I had to reunion came from a young woman at my son's daycare, and I wrote it in a post awhile back, but I'll repeat it here because it's worth sharing.

I had taken the day off from work so Kate and I could write together, and she came with me when I went to pick up Reed at the end of the day. My favorite teacher there, Katie, was standing outside with the kids. She's only 22 (I had Reed bring her in a 22-ounce beer when she turned 21 and she laughed so hard to see the little three year old with the big bottle of beer), but she's bad-ass as anything - country girl, goes hunting, knows about animals, grew up on a farm.
When I introduced Kate as my birthmother, she just asked simply, "Did you say birthmother?"

"Yeah," I said. 

"That's so cool!" she replied, looked at Kate and said, "Right on."

My hope from that small interchange is that younger people aren't so uptight about what and how families should look like. There was no judgement in Katie's voice. Her reaction was genuine and non-sensational. Just, "cool." I felt similar reassurance when Dane asked our five-year-old son, Quinn, if his friend had a single mom and he replied, "dad-mom, mom-mom, dad-dad, single-mom, whatever." It really is no big deal for him.

NaBloPoMo Day 9: Becoming a Parent

I became a parent when I was already seventeen years into reunion with my birthmother and seven years in reunion with my birthfather. So my kids have 8 grandparents:

1. Nonna
2. Papa Jim (Dane's mom & stepdad2)
3. Grampa Joe (Dane stepdad1)
4. Nanna
5. Papa Pete (my mom & dad)
6. Kate / Grammy Kate (birthmother)
7. Uncle-Grandpa Steve (birth-step-father - kids gave him the "uncle-grandpa")
8. Grandpa John (birthfather)

For my kids, that's the way it is. It's not particularly strange or unusual. But, for me, it constantly amazes me.  

It's through my kids where the true integration of all sides of who I am comes through. They understand that the musical side come from my birthmother's side, that Reed's eyes are like my birthfather's side, Quinn's love of hockey from my adoptive dad, a bunch of their sayings come from my adoptive mom. They are all of it, without question. 

NaBloPoMo Day 8: Adoption in Fiction (or...Why Star Wars is the Ultimate Adoptee Story)

I really like the prayer they use in AA about accepting the things you cannot change, having the courage to change the things you can, and having the wisdom to know the difference. I quickly tire of people who complain just to complain, but aren't willing to try to actually change the situation. In my opinion, you don't have the right to complain unless you've first tried to change. If you made a concerted effort and things can't be changed, then you can complain. For a little while. Then, accept it and attack from a different direction.

I think a good example of stories that accept the "just what it is" of adoption are the stories where rather than relinquishing of the child, the parents died. The first that comes to mind is Spiderman. He's raised by his aunt and uncle. He knows they're not his parents but it doesn't mean they love him any less. Everyone recognizes his loss. Dead parents make it easier to see the adoptee in their true situation - the tragedy of losing your parents and being raised by others.

Then there's Superman. Sure, his parents relinquished him, but that was to save him from an  exploding planet. AND they provided a handy-dandy video with information about his roots that he could access when he was of age by going to his fortress of solitude, so that's probably the most like a real adoption / reunion story (okay, except maybe for the part about flying and seeing through things and wearing a cape... actually, i do wear a cape on occassion), except that those of us in closed-adoption system never got that much information! Sure, you can get all the information about your original family if you're from outer-space, but if you're in the U.S., forget about it.

My favorite, though, is Luke in Star Wars. He was relinquished to his aunt and uncle. They raise him as best they can.

Luke thinks his parents are dead, but there's something that just drives him to search out who he is.

It turns out his dad is alive and kicking (and weilding a light saber). Ooops! Guess I should have said "Spoiler Alert!" on that one.

He needs to face the 'dark side' of adoption and relinquishment and not just be the good kid anymore. He needs to battle until he can accept who he is as a whole.

Hey, there's even Biological Attraction thing with his sister (oh, yeah, another spoiler). 

Why I think Star Wars and Superman (and maybe Spiderman) are the perfect adoption stories:

• No one was trying to pretend the child was their own by birth or hiding the fact they were adopted
• They accept that there is grief and loss for the child
• The adopted parents all accepted that their children were different from themselves and tried to raise them to their best ability by acknowledging the differences
• The adoptive parents tried to help them to adapt to the family and world they were being raised in, again acknowledging that it was not their native habitat but a different world entirely
• Eventually, (well, at the threshold of adulthood - during the "coming of age") the adoptee had to go off on his own to explore his origins to gain acceptance of the whole of who he is. (okay, maybe not so much with Spidey. He may have learned that with great power comes great responsibility, but he's still not really willing to look into his dark past. We get it. You're not there yet. Though, I don't know who Venom is - maybe he has something to do with a dark past).
• People don't think that the child is ungrateful or loves his adoptive parents any less just because he searches out his origins.
• The adoptive parents' love is more apparent in their acceptance of the search.

NaBloPoMo Day 7: Childhood Adoption Narratives...KathleenCathleen

I thought that it would be fun for Kate and I to co-blog on the prompts coming from the Lost Daughters on our Wednesday blogging date. Yes, we're late, it's no longer Wednesday, but that won't stop us...


Childhood Adoption Narratives: Cathleen (adoptee)
Describe the story your adoptive parents told you growing up. What age were you? What feelings and questions did you have about this “adoption narrative”? Was it a satisfying explanation for you? Explain. As an adult, whether or not you are in reunion, comment on how much of that story turned out to be true. Has your adoption narrative changed? What story, if any, do you share with friends, acquaintances? How to others react to your narrative? Are they curious, supportive, silencing?

From as young as I can remember, I knew I was adopted. I must have been five or six, but it seemed like it was even before I was in school. So maybe four? It was a cool spring day and my brother, Peter, and I were playing outside in the backyard—a long rectangle of grass with a metal swingset in the middle, surrounded by a four-foot chain-link fence with white slats.  

My mom called out the kitchen window for us to come in for a minute. We shuffled into the living room without taking off our coats. We stood by the front window that looked out to the small front yard and my mom and dad were standing across the living room by my mom’s armchair, but they didn’t sit down like they normally would. I figured there would be a lecture coming about something or other. But then my dad hesitated and started talking without saying a whole lot. I don’t remember what he was saying, but it wasn’t a lecture—his tone was soft, delicate. I was confused. If this wasn’t a lecture, why were we talking? 

Finally, my dad told us that we were adopted. I stood there a frozen moment. I was aware of my brother without looking at him and could feel the bubble of frozen time that surrounded him as much as me. We were both the same, but separate. When we didn’t say anything, my dad asked, “Do you understand what that means – adopted?” 

“Yes,” I said, “Now can we go back out and play?” 

My dad looked to my mom and not having a fair objection, they agreed that we could go. As we ran around the backyard a few minutes later, I had a new definition of myself, one I didn’t know what to do with.

Thinking back on it now, I suppose there must have been more to the conversation. I know they must have explained that they loved us and that our “biological” parents (they wouldn’t have called them “real” parents) couldn’t keep us. I know my mom must have said things about it too. I know that they must have explained that my brother and I weren’t “blood” siblings but had different biological parents.

This is how I pictured my adoption, that I was abandoned, and lucky to be taken in.

That was the start of it. Of knowing. On one hand, I think I might have felt that it was a bad thing, known that it was a bad thing. But I also know that I was brave and proud and would have decided that it was fine and it didn’t bother me. On the other hand, I don’t think I did feel that it was a bad thing. I knew what adoption meant and it didn’t seem like a big deal. I had parents, family, and they were standing there in front of me.

My fantasies about my birthmother vacillated between two extremes (usually the fantasy was about the birthmother. Sometimes I threw in the birthfather in the supporting role, but mostly it was the “mother”). Maybe she was someone famous, rich, talented and amazing who got pregnant too young and made the desperate decision to give the child up.  In the other extreme, I imagined someone poor, drug-addicted and desperate who gave me up without a second thought.

But in my day-to-day life, I would sometimes wonder if my mother was just one of the nameless people I passed on the street on any given day. When I was performing in a school play or when I was an altar-girl at church and sitting perfectly still and erect in my seat, I would imagine my birthmother out in the church unseen, anonymous, and proud of what a great girl I turned out to be. I wanted her to be impressed, and maybe a little sad that she wasn’t my mom. 

 to view my birthmother's blog on the same topic, go to: http://mothertone.wordpress.com/

Childhood Adoption Narratives: Kathleen (birthmom)
Describe the story you told people when you were pregnant. What age were you? What feelings and questions did you have about this “narrative”? Was it a satisfying explanation for you? Has any of the story turned out to be true. Has your narrative changed? What story, if any, do you share with friends, acquaintances? How to others react to your narrative? Are they curious, supportive, silencing?

***

to view my birthmother's blog on the same topic, go to mothertone

***

Thoughts? Reflections? Opinions?

Please comment!

NaBloPoMo Day 6: Taking a Break...No NoBloPoMo

Dad's in the hospital, flew to Florida last night after work. No NoBloPoMo for now.

 ........

It's my fourth day in Florida now. ICU sucks. I know my mom likes to stay next to my dad, but I can't handle it. It's just too awful in there and I don't like seeing my dad like that. At first I felt like I was being selfish, but then I realized that if it were the other way around, I would just want people to leave me alone and let me heal on my own - not watch me in the process.

It reminded me of when I was in my third day of labor with my first son. My labor was a bitch - kept turning on and off. Someone would be quick to say that it's "false labor," but, believe me, kneeling by the side of the bed every ten minutes during the night became the pain is so intense ... there's nothing "false" about that. But, since it was ten minutes apart and then the labor would stop for an hour or two, my midwife decided to just let it ride. 

Anyway, my parents were staying with me by that time, they wanted to be there for the birth, of course. But, it was so hard having my mom looming around nervously when I would have a contraction. There was nothing to be done but to go through the pain, so rather than making it better by having my mom there, it was worse because she was fretting over me. I wished I could just agonize in peace, without an audience.

I think my dad would be the same way.

November 6th's topic was "Taking a Break." I had contributed to it on the Lost Daughter's Blog. Then day 7, was my Taking a Break from NaBloPoMo to deal with dealing with my dad, so I'm just going to pick it up from there.

NaBloPoMo Day 5: Around the Blogosphere

I've only started reading adoption blogs this past year. I wanted to see what was out there. And there was much, much more than I expected. I'm not a computer junkie - someone who always has to be plugged in, checked in, "liked." Searching out adoption blogs was one of first times I surfed the blogophere, in the true concept of surfing  - I started searching, found some sites, read some more, caught on to some that I really like, they led me to ones that I actively follow and poooom - I caught the wave to where the blogophere led me to a place where I truly feel community and shared experience, nationally, internationally, in all aspects of the triad. And I know there are tons more that I haven't yet discovered. 


Although I mostly follow adoptee-in-reunion blogs, I was delighted when I was paired with a birthmom for the Adoption Bloggers Interview project for Open Adoption Bloggers. Sure, I have Kate, and I really do feel I can ask her almost anything, but what feels amazing about this is that it is a birthmother who has just relinquished her child only two years ago.
The reason we started the book is that we wanted to tell a reunion story from the beginning (the initial reunion) to the end (the blended family / integrated adoptee), since all that we could find out in the world were stories where the reunion was where the story ended. 

Kate's side of the story (which I still haven't yet read) is about the experience of the birthmom throughout the relinquishment and reunion. Although I haven't read Kate's side, I have a good idea of what the experience was like for her. 

What fascinates me is that this birth mom I'm partnered with is in an open adoption, so her experience of being a birth mom is going to be live on the blogosphere for the world to witness in real time. Most of the birthmom blogs I've read have been too bitter for me to take in. It's like they haven't made peace with it all. And that's cool - they can be angry and bitter, and I'm sure there are others in the same place who can relate and feel peace from reading through their angst. But, I've been through the angry / confused / hurt stage and I get it, but what's interesting for me to blog about, and read about, is the peace that comes after the storm and navigating the strange world of true reunion. 

(I say "true reunion" because to me it's the difference between a wedding and a marriage. The initial reunion is the wedding with all the hoopla, and the marriage - the thing that takes commitment, building trust, and dedication, through good times and bad - is long-term reunion...and that doesn't have a name yet). 

Here, in this other birth mother's blog she seems at peace with relinquishment from the beginning, and what I'm wondering is whether it will stay peaceful or whether it will have some drastic swells and crashes as time goes on. Mine is not a sadistic voyeurism - I don't want her to crash at all. In fact, I think she's fabulous - I want her to continue to be this bright beautiful beacon for what open adoption can be. I just don't know if it will. And, I guess that's what makes her blog exciting - I will be wondering what happens next. 

If you want to check out what I'm talking about, her blog is The Great Wide Open. 


Hmm, I wonder if that makes Kate and my blog boring? You know that we end up in a family-type relationship together from the beginning. Then again, I went to see Argo this weekend and was so impressed that it could have so much suspense even though everyone knows the ending. So, let's hope we're more Argo. 

NaBloPoMo Day 4: The Natural Father

Growing up, it was always curious to me that searching out the birthmother was what would be talked about (when it was talked about), but not searching out the birthfather. I wanted to be equal opportunity, so when I put in to search, I said I was looking for my natural parents (not just mother), but all I found was my mother, who had very little information about my father.

It was actually exactly ten years after I met my birthmother, Kate, that I found my birthfather, John, and it's been thirteen years since then. That, in itself, is a long strange story. 

What's interesting to me is the experience of being in reunion with my birthfather and trying to figure out what it means. The birthmother relationship is certainly more complicated - they hold the burden of the choice, at least that's true in my case.

I saw John this past summer. We typically only get to see each other once or twice a year. He lives over 500 miles away. But, when I had a business trip down in California, he rented a car and drove four hours so he can see me for a few hours. We had a wonderful dinner together, and he told me he like me. I smirked. He explained that he genuinely likes me, likes who I am, enjoys spending time with me. It was actually a really cool compliment.

I like him too. We've said, "I love you" a couple times - not many. It still feels awkward, but saying that he liked me was better in a way. And, when I'm with him, I feel like a little girl with her dad. It has that feeling and that's hard to explain. How is it that you can not know someone your whole life and still feel that connection? At least with the birthmom, you have those first nine months together, but with the birthdad it's just genes. 

Sometimes I'll look at Kate and John and try to figure out how I was the result of the two of them together. It doesn't quite add up. And I realize that's because there's as much of my adoptive parents that are part of me too. My adoptive parents are my parents, I've never had question of that. But it was a different realization to discover that they were part of me, part of who I am, even without the genes. 

My dad, my adoptive dad, is in the hospital tonight. He went in yesterday. He's 80. They don't know exactly what's wrong beyond that he has a lung infection, which he's gotten pretty frequently over the last five or so years. I'm scared. I know someday I'll lose my parents and then I'll be stuck being the adult. But, what's more is that I lose who I was as a little girl with her dad. I'm not explaining that well. He's my daddy, I'm his little girl, and I want him around forever. Even though I know that's not possible, the alternative is just as impossible.

Ancestors - ReunionEyes...Kathleen~Cathleen

(Since I'm continuing with the Kathleen~Cathleen blogs and also doing NaBloPoMo, I'm tagging the title on which one it's for...)

Years ago, a close friend of mine (and fellow adoptee), Tracy, invited me to a witches' Halloween party. They were celebrating Samhain - the night when the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest.  We could call upon our ancestors, they said, so bring something of the ancestor we wanted to connect with. I brought a book, a Norton Anthology, that had a piece of writing by someone who is supposed to be a long-ago relative of mine through my birthmother's mother's side - Sarah Orne Jewett. She was a writer - an important one - and I'd hoped to be a writer someday, so it seemed like someone I should call on. I participated in the rituals, feeling a mix of east-coast skepticism and West-Coast "why not?" and waited for something to happen. 

That night, I went to bed and dreamed of my ancestors. But, rather than the blood-relative I'd summoned, the spirits who came to my dream were my aunt and uncle that I grew up with - my a-mom's sister and brother-in-law who were the closest family to me outside of our mom and dad. They had died a a few years before, and I was frankly surprised to have them show up in my dream. t was almost as if I was saying, "Huh, what are you doing here?" and having a feeling back from them of, "Um, you were the one who called us here...?"When an adoptee calls on his/her ancestors, who is s/he calling upon? Her blood relatives or her adoptive relatives? 

  I won't go into the details of the dream. Although I can't help but want to believe that it was truly a spirit visitation, I know that a simpler explanation would be that the suggestion of a spirit visitation made it a reality in my dreams. Besides, I can't remember much more from the dream than a vague sense of questions I asked to my relatives and having them answered in a way that was even more vague...so it's no matter. What's interesting to me about this is both why I chose to call on a blood relative that I had no real connection with, and why I would have my adoptive ancestors come.

It made me wonder, would my ancestors still have a connection to me, even if I was put outside of the family, would they still know I was their kin? And then what of my adoptive family, would it mean that if I had a connection to the birth-ancestors, I couldn't also have a connection to them?

Believe it or not, it's addressed on the web regarding the Samhain ritual. A wiccan website says:

...many people are adopted. If you are one them, you are fortunate enough to be able to choose whether you wish to honor your adoptive family, your biological family, or a combination of the two. If you don't know the names of your birth parents or their ancestry, there's nothing wrong with saying, "Daughter of a family unknown." It's entirely up to you. The spirits of your ancestors know who you are, even if you don't know them yet.

  So, maybe the adoptee does get to have both? Kind of the way when you meet a "soul-mate" or "sout-sister," someone you connect with spiritually, even if you can't make logical sense of why there's such a strong connection, you know in your heart (or in your soul?) that they have a strong connection to who you are.

***

to view my birthmother's blog on the same topic, go to mothertone

***

Thoughts? Reflections? Opinions?

Please comment!

NaBloPoMo Day 3: Blogging Adoption and Everyday Life

Blogging has been a bit of a strange thing for me to get used to. I have been an avid at keeping a journal for most of my life, so when the time to blog came up, I didn't quite get it. It was somewhere in between writing in a journal and writing a letter - but the letter is going out to no one in particular. 

Then I got laid off. "This is interesting!" I thought, "I'll blog about this." 

How To Be a Housewife had the tag line 
LAID OFF AND LOOKING FOR THE MEANING OF LIFE, A CAREER-WORKING-MOM TURNS HOUSEWIFE WHILE FIGURING OUT WHAT SHE WANTS TO BE WHEN SHE GROWS UP.

I only did about fifteen posts because it turns out being laid off is pretty boring. Wasn't like I was sitting around thinking deep thoughts. And I really hated being a housewife, getting back to work was a breath of fresh air. I wish I had continued blogging on it - I feel like I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, or in ten years anyway (because ten years seemed the right amount of time to be able to get any schooling, training and experience for what I wanted to do "for real"), and it would be good to track it along as I go. Maybe I will get back to it.

Then I started this blog with Kate after we spent a lot of my layoff working on the memoir about our reunion (that we're still working on - what? it's only been eight years...). A blog seemed a perfect counterpart to continue a present-day dialog about the birthmother vs. adoptee experience, and I feel that that has gotten its footing and we're in a good rhythm with it now and it's something I look forward to doing each week. 

While blogging here, I started writing about trying to transition to being carless - and that became it's own blog that I still try to keep up with (but it's been awhile). 

So, for me, I am just getting into the feel of blogging about what I feel what might be interesting in general. What sticks out for me is that the blogs I most like reading are the other adult adoptee blogs and the blogs on open adoption. I just find it such a rich, wide, expansive experience and while everyone's experience is different, everyone's experience also resonates with me in some way. And, every time I feel like I'm "done" with being in reunion, I discover other aspects that tell me there's still a long way to go. 

NaBloPoMo Day2 - on Lost Daughters

I did today's post on the Lost Daughter's page...

NaBloPoMo Day 1: Stereotypes in Adoption

What I learned quickly as I was growing up was that it was shameful to be adopted, and because it's shameful, you're supposed to keep it a secret. 

In fourth grade, I remember sitting in the front row of our classroom. The teacher was out of the room and I had my head down, reading the section she assigned us. One of the boys, I'll call him Mark, got out of his seat and walked over to the boy sitting next to me, Tim. 

“Tim,” he said, “I just heard that Jeremy in your sister’s class is adopted!”

I looked up and saw Mark looking smug. He said it the same way he would have gossiped that someone had been sent to detention—it was bad and it was secret. 

“So?” I said, looking at Mark, “I’m adopted.” I kept my eyes on Mark and suddenly noticed the quiet around me. I was reminded of being on the stage in the auditorium during the Christmas song recital. I was forcing myself to keep facing toward Mark while fighting the urge to turn around and see the audience. 

Mark paused, stared at me a moment and then grimaced, “You’re not supposed to admit to that.”

“Why not?” I asked to his back as he was already scurrying back to his seat. I knew I wouldn’t get an answer but wished I would. It was normal for me, normal for my family, but not okay out in the world.

I suddenly felt different from all the other students around me. I was different, and I would be judged by it. I didn't know it was supposed to be a secret.

Over the years, I've gone through different phases about my openness with people about my story. But it wasn't because of shame, it was because it was always so interesting to everyone else. And not interesting in a good way - it was interesting in a way that felt sensationalized. So I learned that unless I trusted the person, it was better not to bring it up.

What's finally evolved is a place where I talk about my reunion and my life as it is with the all the complicated parts in place, and try to shrug off reactions. This is my reality, and I'm good with it. I'm not saying that it's all easy, but I can see what it is and accept it. 

Besides, and the more we can expose all the various types of families that are out there, the more people will see the complexity and start seeing that stereotypes just don't fit.

Adoption writing every day: NaBloPoMo and NAAM

What do you know about  NaBloPoMo? 

What about NAAM? 

What happens when you smoosh them together? NaamNaBloPoMo? No! 

A month of blogging about adoption. 

NaBloPoMo was inspired by NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month - where writers everywhere tip-type away to write 50,000 words during the month of November and, voila!, at month's end, the've written a novel (though usually a not very good one - but that's okay, they can still say, "why, yes, I've written a novel"). 

Well, out in the blogosphere, they thought there should be a blogging counterpart, so NaBloPoMo was born. A blog a day, every day, for the month of November. Cool, right? 

But, wait, there's more! The Lost Daughters (a collaborative blogging group authored by adult women adoptees that covers the wide expanse of the experience of being adopted) realized it was also National Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM) so they put together writing prompts to inspire writers who focus on adoption-related issues to post blogs on shared topics. Yes, not unlike what Kate and I do with Mothertone and ReunionEyes for Kathleen~Cathleen.


I will continue my Wednesday posts with Kate where we cover the same topic from the birthmother and adoptee perspective. In addition, I'm going to do The Lost Daughters challenge and write every day on the prompts from the list.  They'll be a bunch of us doing it, so it should be pretty interesting to see all the perspectives on the same topics. And, it'll just be a great experience to be compelled to write every day - maybe it will help me make it a habit!

Birthmother Birthday

I was going to send Kate a birthmother birthday card, just to be kinda funny...this was the closest one I found to half-way decent...
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/birth-mom-birthday-cards/to-my-birth-mom-203472

But since Kate hates the term, "birth-mother," I decided to skip it.

I called Kate and left a guilty voicemail today. I hadn't gotten her anything. It's impossible for me to get things out in the mail, I don't know why. I think about it, I just don't do it. But, thankfully, Kate understands. She says it's a Power-family trait, they're (we're?) just not good at birthdays and such. Kate said I was the first to wish her Happy Birthday, so I was ahead of the game. But when it comes to my adoptive family, they don't get why I can't get the responsible woman-thing down when it comes to things like birthdays and thank-you cards and so on. So I'm happy that calling can be enough for Kate, even if it still feels lame from my point of view.

Above is a picture from when I was first in Portland. Like, brand-spanking-new in Portland. That first winter, I guess. I had my mom sent out my warm Jersey winter coats, only to find I didn't actually need them in Portland. I was 22, so Kate would have been 41 there - my age now. Weird, weird, weird. I would have been out here for her birthday that year - I arrived on the 4th of July, so her Birthday was just a few months later. I have no recollection of what we might have done for her birthday, or how I might have felt about it.

This picture was taken (by whom???? Mary?) when I was first here - that first summer. We went to a Ceili, which is an Irish line-dance sort of thing, at the time I had no idea what it was. I thought it was kinda strange and yet caught my interest - and that really sums up reunion for me - strange and yet fascinating, because somehow, in the core, these foreign things resonate. The far left is Abby, my sister through Kate, so half-sister, 9 years younger, so she was around 13 there? 

Here's a picture of Kate when she was pregnant with me...

So, I was in Kate's belly during that picture. And then, here's when I met her, 18 years later. 

I guess our profile picture on the Kathleen-Cathleen facebook page is the closest we have to current. 

https://www.facebook.com/KathleenCathleen

So that's Kate throughout the years since I've known her - or a few snapshots anyway.

to view my birthmother's blog on the same topic, go to: http://mothertone.wordpress.com/

Anxiety

In the process of writing about my adoption/reunion experience, I've been reading a lot more about adoption and reunion.

I've joined, and have been following, the Lost Daughter's blog, which I LOVE. It has successfully created what I had originally hoped to create in this blog but never got off the ground- a forum for adult adoptees to discuss their shared experiences.

One of the themes that seems to come up time and again, is anxiety. It reminded me of how unwieldy anxiety was in the early years of reunion, and it made me wonder where anxiety sits in a reunion that has been going on as long as ours has (in 2013, it will be 24 years since we met).

I don't feel anxiety that I will lose Kate, or that there's much that can damage our relationship at this point. Maybe part of that for me is that Kate was the "pursuer" in our relationship. Maybe not at first...after all,  we each individually threw our hats in the ring when we both called the adoption agency the same day on my eighteenth birthday and said we were interested in finding each other. But, after we met, when I understood that she wanted to have some kind of a relationship ... well that was something I had never considered and that threw off my sense of balance. What would having a relationship with my birthmother mean? And what would it mean to my parents? If I had a relationship with my birthmother, or with my birthfamily for that matter (yes, the birthdad always gets off easy ; ), would my parents think that I didn't think their parenting was enough, that "our" relationship, "our" family, wasn't enough?

For me, where the anxiety sits, and where it has always been, is in the worry that my relationship with Kate will upset my parents. I should know by now that they are okay with it. They've told me as much, like when my mom said that she was glad that I had Kate in my life so that even when she and my dad were gone, I would still have family in my life. And they've shown me as much, like when we all had dinner at Kate's house on Christmas day. But, they are old-fashioned, Irish-Catholic, and talking openly about how we feel about things is not exactly a family trait. 

Now, almost 24 years later, I feel like there's no question that Kate and I have a solid relationship. We see each other every couple months, talk every few weeks on the phone, and email/text regularly. I might not have words for what I would call our relationship (not quite mother/daughter but more than "friends with baggage") but I am secure in what it is, whatever it is. 

And, at the same time, I don't feel like my relationship with Kate has any effect on the total devotion I feel towards my parents. Although, when I screw up, and I do that plenty -  I might not remember to call and sometimes I forget important birthdays or don't follow through on what I said I was going to do - I worry that maybe they might question the way I feel towards them. So, although I should know better, and not worry about things, and trust my parents know how I feel, I don't. Maybe I should tell them.

So, for me, where the anxiety sits is not IN my relationship with Kate, but BY having a good relationship with Kate. And, for that, I should count my blessings.

to view my birthmother's blog on the same topic, go to: http://mothertone.wordpress.com/