Subjugation

I’ve been reading Judith Herman’s book Trauma and Recovery, taking it in small morsels.

That book is an education, in trauma, yes, but also in sexism and feminism. But not, as I originally expected, in terms of relinquishment as a trauma or how to heal. And as such, it’s causing me to reframe some of my thinking, including about infant adoption on a large scale.

This, in turn, is helping me place the struggle of natural moms into a big-picture context. And all of a sudden, I’m seeing the dehumanization of natural moms in sharper relief.

Maybe that sounds funny, considering I’ve railed often enough about how we are human beings and not objects, about how the industry on a large scale treats us a wombs rather than women, and so on. It’s not like the topic of dehumanization has been absent in my writings.

Somehow though, lately, I see it more clearly. I see more evidence of our objectification, too. Suddenly the words “discrimination” and “rights” and “sexism” seem more relevant and come to mind more often.

So tonight, I was reading online and came across a plea from a potential adoptive parent. In short, her plea went like this (loosely paraphrasing):

I’m just beginning to understand how difficult it must be for women to give their children up. Now I feel horrible for wanting to adopt. Can you please offer me alternative ways of viewing the situation so I don’t feel like I’m an awful person splitting up families?

So I read this and thought, “subjugation.”

At first glance, and I am sure to many readers, this post appears not just benign but compassionate. After all, this woman took the time to read in the admittedly-scary-to-adoptive-parents natural mom forums. And not only that, but she was allowing it to sink in that it actually hurts us to lose our children. Her post exhibits an inkling that we are, indeed, human beings with actual emotions. The post appears to have some sense of humanity in it.

…But does it?

How humane is it to read of the heartbreak of another person and then say, “I plan to participate in the system that hurt you; can you please reassure me that it’s okay for me to do so?”

Haven’t we simply become, yet again, just a means to an end? First we’re the means of providing a couple with a baby; now we’re the means for emotional reassurance. To read of women’s heartbreak and then respond with, “Please make me feel better…”?

Honestly I read this and wanted to scream, “We are not play things! We do not perform on demand, we do not exist to serve you!”

What’s difficult about it all, of course, is that I know this woman can’t see it. And I know, furthermore, that if I were the childless woman unable to get pregnant and desperately wanting to be, I’d be the same–seeking reassurance, maybe indeed from the very women who would be most hurt by such a request.

So I’m backing up and trying to see a big picture, even larger than one of natural mothers being subjugated for adoptive parents’ needs, even larger than one of adoptive parents being played on for agencies’ needs.

And after backing up and looking at the picture from a bird’s eye view, what I come away with is this: sexism.

Sexism and the subjugation of all women.

We are still so tied up in this society in regards to the sexuality and fertility of women.

It makes me sad, really, that what’s happened is that we turn on each other. The infant adoption industry could be a study in how to keep women in bondage, how to keep us in our “place.” This industry has succesfully pitted us against each other. The male powers-that-be only have to sit back and watch as we tear each other apart and stomp each other into place. Which is the worse crime, if you are a woman–to be unable to bear a child, or to bear them outside of the society-sanctioned structures (nuclear families, one man and one woman, married)?

I don’t think the poster even had an inkling that she was treating us, as natural moms, as a means to an end…. but she did. But why? Because she’s a malicious person?

Or is there something bigger going on?

Or am I just overly cynical tonight?

Is it dehumanizing to ask natural moms to reassure adoptive parents that infant adoption is a-okay? If so, is it strictly a personal issue–a case of an individual blinded by her own desire and pain–or is it larger? Does all of this–or some of this–result from hundreds of years of messaging about women’s roles in society?

Who is the enemy in infant adoption, anyway? Adoptive parents? Social workers? Agency executives? The NCFA? Bush and his faith-based initiatives lining the pockets of corrupt agencies?

Are any individuals really to blame? Or does this all go back much farther, much deeper?

What do you all think?

Observations from the visit

A disjointed attempt at jotting down some observations after the visit.

Sunshine visibly took more interest in Moonbeam, and her relationship with her, at this visit than in the past. (At first I wrote that she was more interested in Moonbeam than in Rain–Moonbeam’s adoptive sister–at this visit, but I don’t know if that’s true. It could be that she had just as many moments playing with Rain as with Moonbeam and I just didn’t witness as many of those. I don’t think so–but it’s possible.) What is clear is that she understands more and more that her connection is to Moonbeam.

Part of the reason I think she might have been more interested in Moonbeam than in Rain is because of some comments, facial expressions, and gestures from Rain. I also think this may have created some… processing moments, for lack of a better encompassing term… for Rain.
Example #1: When we were in the van on the way to the playground Sunday morning, Rain said clearly and loudly “I have two birth sisters.” (Moonbeam, by the way, then said “No you don’t!” and their mom jumped in and said “Actually yes she does.” And then Rain wanted to know their names and their mom said they’d look when they got home but that she doesn’t think they were given the sisters’ names.)

Example #2: At the playground the girls decided to play in the sand. Sunshine played with Moonbeam longer than with Rain. At one point Moonbeam made up a game in which she and Rain would draw sand pictures and Sunshine would judge which was the best. Both girls drew hearts. Sunshine picked Moonbeam’s heart as the best. Rain clearly got sad and ran off, back to the play equipment. (At which point Moonbeam said to Sunshine in a loud whisper, “Wait go tell her you like hers best, go tell her, it’s okay, I don’t care.” And so then Sunshine ran after Rain and told her she changed her mind, “Actually yours is best,” and tried to reach for Rain’s hand but Rain wouldn’t accept and just kept going.)

Example #3: Back at the house, Moonbeam and Sunshine spent a good deal of time obsessing over the rocks they’d collected at the playground. (Moonbeam is eight and so after all everything must be perfectly fair and even, so they had to dump all the rocks in a pile and take turns picking from the pile. The large pile. Of small rocks.) At some point Rain wandered onto the porch, in the midst of this rock-distributing, and sat down on a chair and just sort of…watched… and then stared out the window. And that’s all I can give you in written words.

The thing is, Rain seemed to have a lot more… quiet… moments than she’s had on past visits. And by quiet I mean, well–she struck me as sad in some of those moments. And Rain is not a sad little girl, from what I know of her.

I know I’m writing a lot about Rain here, rather than Moonbeam, but the thing is what stands out most for me from this past weekend IS Rain. So there’s something here that I can’t quite pinpoint but am going to try to write out….

Watching Rain and perceiving her as sad made me sad. It was sad when her mom said she’s not sure of her sisters’ names. It was sad to see the expression on her face in the moments where I think–and maybe this is all wrong, maybe it’s projecting, but–I think she felt excluded.

It also threw into sharp relief a really weird dynamic for me. It would be pretty easy to just love on Rain all through a visit, to in fact shower attention on her while practically ignoring Moonbeam. And that’s for multiple reasons–first, Rain isn’t my daughter and so if she rejects me, it’s not nearly as hurtful. Second, Rain’s naturally a people-person and instantly loves everyone. She’s the kind of kid who’ll crawl in a complete stranger’s lap, beam at them with a huge smile, and engage them in detailed conversation.

And the fact is that sometimes in the past I have talked more with Rain than with Moonbeam. So on this visit, I went into it vowing not to perpetuate that dynamic. I’d love to tell you that therefore, I split my time and conversations exactly equally between the girls… but the truth is I think I just clammed up more around Rain, rather than opening up more with Moonbeam.

I’m actually laughing as I type this because it’s so absurd. In an attempt to not make my daughter feel that her first mom loves her adoptive sister better, rather than talking more with Moonbeam, I just get colder to her sister. Right. God if that’s not absurd humor, nothing is.

Okay, back to the train of thought…

Other observations:

I did ask Moonbeam questions about herself and learned that her favorite topic of study this past year in school was rocks and minerals. She can spew off a list of them. And she seems to like dogs and puppies right now. And she already has a hundred points for her summer reading program already and “it’s only July 4th.” And she apparently likes Sweet Valley Kids books just now.

She wrote a story as my birthday present. It’s called “The Broken Doll.” The main characters are girls–one is deaf, and the builders who construct her upside-down dream house know sign language. The story starts all kinds of interesting threads that go nowhere. It’s involved and detailed. It has a beginning, middle, and end.

She also included a poem she wrote about spring, and a birthday card. The birthday card struck me as pretty matter-of-fact and–well, I will just say that the birthday card had less emotion in it than the card she sent last Mother’s Day.

Moonbeam and I really have almost no relationship–truly. And it struck me driving home from this visit that I don’t know what I think about that. Is it okay? Is it okay to just be treading water, just showing up, just attempting to keep the door open so that if she wants one the possibility is there–we won’t be starting from scratch? Or, as an open adoption first mom, am I supposed to be actively trying to develop a relationship now? Is one better for her than the other? I’d love to hear from any adoptees reading on this point in particular, because while emotionally I’m okay with treading water–if this is not okay for her, well… yeah. Then it’s really not okay and not working.

Sunshine misses her sister. Plain and simple, Sunshine misses her. I don’t build this up or talk it up at home. If anything, the past few months I’ve avoided much Moonbeam-talk because she’d been wanting a visit and yes, I’m a bit in denial mode these days.

Oh, and that’s exactly what Sunshine says about it all, too. She says, “I miss my sister.” Not “I miss Moonbeam” but rather “my sister,” sometimes with Moonbeam’s name attached.

All in all… from my vantage point, it felt to me like a lot was simmering beneath the surface during this visit. There was no drama. We all seemed to have fun. My overwhelming feelings were ones of resignation and quiet acceptance and almost detachment. She feels like a stranger to me on one level and yet not at all on another. But without any indication contrary from her, I tend to operate and interact with her on the “stranger” level. I remember what it was like to be a kid and have grown-ups that, from my perspective, I didn’t really know that well fawn over me, and it wasn’t fun. It felt invasive. So I keep my distance with her.

What’s hard about it all is that could be the exact wrong thing to do.

So mostly I’m feeling confused. And a little lost. And a little detached, in a way that I suspect is not entirely honest but is awfully functional–

–except for when I explode at my husband over sauteed zucchini.

That came out of nowhere

Two hours ago I was stirring sauteed veggies on the stove. Matt wandered in and we started a conversation about Michael Jackson. A long conversation. A deep conversation.

Forty five minutes after the start of that conversation I was yelling and shaking.

And this, oh blog readers, is what is meant by “triggered.” This is what is meant by “living the relinquishment decision.” This is what is meant when it’s said that it’s not a one-time done-deal in-the-past event. This is what is meant by “torched by adoption.”

This is what being a natural mother means. It means that a simple observation about the media coverage of a pop star’s death can lead to an out-of-body experience where you feel like you’re a caged tiger being poked at with flaming torches, snarling and clawing for your survival. It means that as you sautee your zucchini on summer’s night in your own home with your own family, you’re not safe, you still might very well end up trapped in your younger-you’s mind, trapped in all the insecurity and hurt and pain. It means that when you go home to unwind after a long day at work you never can really unwind, because it’s entirely possible that a television commercial, a song lyric, or a seemingly innocuous conversation with your husband could send you reeling back into a world of shame and gut-wrenching loss and the amputation of family.

Which does not excuse me from the fact that I screamed at my husband in front of my daughter, scaring her to pieces and wounding both of them. Despite the fact that the damn thing can’t ever be entirely in the past, I have to try to put it there, because otherwise I hurt people. And that is not okay, regardless of what triggers arise.

So I ask any natural moms who are reading: what do you do? How do you keep this from taking over you? How do you keep yourself from scarring your other children with your issues, your hurt?

I am so confused. We had a visit this past weekend, and I am sure, absolutely certain, that this explosion was waiting to burst forth because of it. I have limited visits, reduced them. Because that is all I know to do. But I’ve never been convinced that’s a peaceful answer, either… because is that sacrificing one daughter for another?

So I am begging, pleading, how do others of you do this? How do you maintain contact with your children–either in open adoptions or in reunions–and handle the upswell of emotion or the retraumatization that brings–without scarring your other children?

Visit forthcoming

Moonbeam and family are coming for the Fourth of July.

Thinking about therapy

I’m trying on the idea of going to therapy again.

Just trying it on at this point. But… I think something is needed: either therapy; pills; or reliable, trusting, deep friendships. Of those three options, my preference would be to try the friendship thing first; therapy comes in second; and pills are dead last. The thing is that I think the therapy might be necessary, or at least expediting, in helping me get to the point where the friendships can happen.

So I’m weighing the options and gathering some info, but I’m leaning more and more towards the therapy route.

Today’s the first time I’m verbalizing this, so it’s probably not imminent (I weigh things a long, long time before acting in most cases, and especially when it comes to mental health treatment). And yet just verbalizing it is pretty huge, as this has been churning in my mind for months now.

If I go, I’m not sure where. The obvious starting place would be the one and only therapist I ever “stuck it out with,” the man I’d been seeing four years ago after the hospitalization, the one who helped so much with Moonbeam’s loss and the delayed trauma reaction. The only reason I stopped seeing him was that we lost our insurance. And that’s rare for me–usually I give someone two, maybe three sessions, and then I flee. With him there was no fleeing, we stuck it out for many months and he helped. Tremendously.

The first wrinkle in that plan is a boundary issue. And that’s all I feel comfortable saying. It’s not a big deal, just a boundary issue I’m trying to determine whether I’m comfy with.

The other wrinkle is that one of the things I want to use as a starting point in therapy is my religious childhood experiences. And he identifies as evangelical Christian. His personal faith standpoint did not interfere with his professional skills when I saw him before, but… I’m still, I think appropriately, wary. I’ve got my reasons, and they’re not solely based just on his self-identification. So if I went to him, it’s something I’d want to put on the table immediately, ask him: Can you be objective? Can we discuss this? Here’s what I need from you… can you provide it?

The other possibility I’m weighing would be to go to someone completely different, but someone who is also trained in EMDR and trauma therapies. The therapist mentioned above, possibility #1, had recommended EMDR in one of our last sessions, just prior to my insurance going *poof!* So if I don’t go back to the person I already have a relationship with, it seems like at least picking up where we left off in terms of therapy techniques might make sense.

And that’s where my thought process is right now. Weighing, pondering every angle.

Maybe I should just jump in… it’ll probably take three months to get in with anyone fabulous, anyway.

Two different kinds of blogs

There is a small gold mine in the comments section of my No Fight Inside post. Really, gold.

This isn’t surprising given the commentors. The women who responded (with such compassion, too) are some of the best in the blogosphere for insight on adoption. But it did make me realize something: while I don’t regret shutting down the old blog, I do miss some of those incredible insights that would emerge in the comments section.

Living doesn’t get that kind of roundtable discussion much. And that’s okay–I knew that, in choosing to disappear and then return to a very different blog, the dynamics would change. I am comfortable with the trade-off: less sensational writing, more privacy, more balance, a slower pace, less drama, fewer sparkling commentaries.

Overall this works for me right now. Kitten photos mixed with professional growing pains mixed with adoption trauma mixed with cute-Sunshine-sayings-only-a-mom-could-care-about. Truly, this blog is more reflective of my life. A lot of the mundane happens here.

The one thing I really miss though is the level of (for lack of a better word) thought. Intellect. Something…

I used to learn from my last blog. “Learn” in a book-ish, critical thinking skills kind of way. Not so much here. Here the learning’s different, slower, less cerebral. The last blog was about revolution, in a way. This blog is about… well, I think it’s about sitting. Learning to just sit down and shut up and be in the moment. This blog is the meditation blog: accepting the mundane, learning to “be,” observing my own reactions at least as much as the adoption industry.

And there’s some definite healing value in that. It took THIS blog, the “sitting” blog, for me to notice that when I want to lash out against adoptive parents, it’s really because my unconscious is trying to work something out and I just haven’t pinpointed what it is yet. As a result, a whole lot of the desire to get involved in internet debates has abated. When I noticed this week that all of a sudden the “birthmother” terminology on a forum was driving me ape-shit again, I knew this time that what I was really pissed about must have something to do with Moonbeam’s birthday and the potential for a summer visit. And you know what, it’s been remarkably easy to not jump on threads proclaiming the beauty of adoption and dripping with “our birthmother” references. Not just easy–I’ve not even wanted to.

That makes me happy. It makes me happy that I could recognize the misplaced nature of the anger and that recognizing it has indeed dissolved it.

Still though, I miss those sparkling yet warm-and-comfy discussions in the old blog’s comments section. I’m willing to sacrifice them for the perk of less snark, less drama, and fewer mean-spirited debates.

But I do miss the good-intentioned debates, the sharpening and exchange of ideas, and the many eye-opening comments (often from adult adoptees). I read a few select other blogs semi-regularly and get some of that there… but being the hostess of that kind of exchange, once in a while, is always cool.

For now though: my reflective, meditative blog is the right fit. 250,000 hits wasn’t that worthwhile afterall, when so many of the hits were hit-and-runs, when so often they were a cause for fueled anger rather than dissipated anger.

Besides… the best of the best still obviously stop by. Maybe once in a while I’ll commit to really facing the inner adoption beast here… sacrifice a little privacy… just in the hopes of getting to read their insights again.

Happy birthday, Moonbeam

She turned 8 years old on Sunday.

Eight years ago at this time we were in the hospital together.

Eight years ago the morning after you were born, I named you.

Eight years ago I was holding you and marvelling at your soft cheeks and red-brown hair.

Eight years ago I was envisioning the line of women you come from, my great-grandmothers and grandmothers and mother and me and then you, and wondering if any part of your heart could feel that lineage or sense that same scope of time and connectedness.

Eight years ago I was whispering to you that it would all be okay, that no matter what I’d make sure you were okay.

Eight years ago you had no teeth–now you have grown-up teeth.

Eight years ago you had no freckles–now they spatter across your nose like little sun kisses.

Eight years ago you had a lovely, gracous spirit–you still do.

I love you sweetie. Happy birthday.

The universe sent me a birthday present…

…or maybe it was just some idiot who abandoned a litter of kittens. Who knows. Either way… we’ve got a third cat.

She showed up on our porch yesterday morning caked with mud and ran right into our arms. So far she does not seem to belong to anyone, but another neighbor found what is apparently our kitty’s sibling.

If no one claims her, we’re keeping her. And damn I hope no one claims her, because Sunshine is in love.

How many cute kitten pictures can you stand?

We had a cookout tonight to celebrate my birthday, my mother-in-law’s birthday, and Father’s Day. Kitty joined us for cake.

She’s soooo cute!

Anyone have name suggestions? Sunshine will probably get final say but we’re looking for something we can all live with. (Right now she wants to name it “Odette” after Barbie in Swan Lake. Ahem.)

No fight inside (just now)

A first mom friend called tonight and we talked about the Adoptee Rights Demonstration. She’s been doing actual work for the protest. I have not.

A few months ago I mentioned on this blog that it’s beginning to feel adoption reform is not my fight. It still feels that way. At least for now… I’ve just got very little desire to do a damn thing about the state of the adoption industry.

Joy said recently that as she was thinking about what she still wants to achieve in life, she found that nothing adoption-related was on her list. (Paraphrasing.) That hit home for me. Sure I’d like to see the money taken out of adoption, I’d like to see religious idealogy wiped from it, and dammit yes adoptees deserve their orginal birth certificates.

But the truth is I’m not currently willing to do anything to make those things happen.

I was angry when I wrote my last blog, really angry. I’m not now. Now when I think of adoption, my overwhelming emotions are simply exhaustion and tenderness. I feel tender.

Everything I once believed about adoption has turned out to be a lie:

-I’ve never stopped feeling like her mother
-I wasn’t able to continue my educational path
-It’s entirely unclear whether her life is really better
-My marriage and all family relationships suffered
-Openness hasn’t mitigated any of the loss for me (jury’s still out on whether it will for her)

The bottom line, really, is that I was traumatized. And I don’t use that word lightly–anyone who read me previously knows that, knows the effort it took to even admit type the word “trauma” for the first time in relation to adoption. But there it is–it’s trauma.

So here’s the deal with trauma–in general, it’s best to avoid retraumatization. And I’m not sure I’m at a place where I can participate in much activism without retraumatization. Once upon a time, the anger allowed me to do it. These days? Without that anger, I’m just feeling tender. That’s it, tender and vulnerable.

I fully expect that at some point, that will change. It has to, right? Other women who’ve been through worse are able to run Origins, give workshops, get their masters degrees in counseling and work with expectant mothers. Other women are able to write their legislators and organize protests and seek out reporters. These women can’t all be retraumatizing themselves. So clearly, it can be done…

But I am just not there right now.

Right now, when someone mentions adoption, I want to crawl in bed and go to sleep. And right now, when someone suggests writing a congressperson, I think “God not now, we just did this for work.”

What’s pitiful is that the longer I’m in my current job, the more skills I acquire that could be valuable to the adoption reform community. But the longer I’m in this job, the less I want to use those skills for adoption reform. My (ongoing) journey with mental health hasn’t been easy–but you know, in a very real sense, it’s been a cakewalk compared to the adoption journey. I can say outloud without flinching that I’ve been in the hospital and was diagnosed and was told it’d likely get worse and have attempted suicide–but whenever, and I do mean whenever, I say something out loud about Moonbeam’s adoption… my eyes seek the floor of their own accord, my voice gets smaller, my heart rate increases.

There is something physical that happened as a result of relinquishing my first daughter. And I still exhibit involuntary physical reactions to it.

So when I think about picketing an agency or going on a letter-writing campaign or even delving into my own current thoughts about adoption in a blog post, I just recoil.

And it’s not like adoption is constantly weighing on me and consuming every thought and emotion. In fact, dare I say it, there have been days at a time where I’ve not had a single adoption-related thought. And there have been days where, when a thought did occur, it was a thought like “Shit, maybe, in a way, it’s true that this is working out. Maybe we really are all right where we’re supposed to be.” I feel that a lot lately, a sense of being “where I’m supposed to be”–and I know I wouldn’t be in this “place” without having relinquished a daughter.

(And that is very confusing, by the way, because I still don’t believe for damn minute that at the time abandoning my daughter was the right thing to do, nor do I believe that I was treated appropriately in the process.)

Oh, I’m rambling. Anyway, the point is, considering I’ve currently got a pretty fuckin’ rosy perspective on my adoption journey, it’s telling that I still feel all this tenderness and vulnerability and that I’m still having these physical reactions to talking about the story.

It’s trauma, it’s trauma.

So for now… my sincere respect goes out to everyone organizing, fighting, doing.

But right now? Not me. Not me.

Existential mumblings on the cusp of turning 30

Tomorrow is my thirtieth birthday.

Lately I can feel the ground shifting beneath my feet. The world looks insubstantial, illusory, and sometimes when I close my eyes I see a vision of the earth as flowing sand.

________

I’ve written before about reality, and how it is sometimes hard to trust my own judgment and perspective when they are often cloaked in intense emotions. Last week at our work conference, on the last day, my colleagues and I were packing up. We stood outside in the hot sun, loading our vehicles with boxes and flipcharts. A few of us planned to have lunch together in the hotel restaurant afterwards.

In the midst of our packing, a coworker said to me, “You’re so nice” with a smile and shake of his head.

This shocked me. All I had done to warrant his comment was to say, “I can’t leave my boss’s stuff yet, she’s bringing her car around, but you can go to lunch and I’ll catch up.”

So nice? Nice enough to warrant commentary? Really?

I have beat myself up for many years about my own selfishness. The commentary jarred with my own perception of myself. Are there parts of me that are still nice? Am I still nice, still a nice person, down deep? Is some of my selfishness something else–bipolar rage? Trauma-induced self-protection?

If the selfishness is bipolar or trauma related it still does not excuse it. But it does make me look at things differently. It does make me feel that somewhere deep down, the sensitive girl who couldn’t stand to see a snail squashed, the six-year-old who’d sacrifice anything for her cat, the teenager who’d go out of her way to befriend the new shy kid at school… it makes me think maybe, just maybe, she’s still here.

__________

I’m scared and I feel like crying right now, as I type this. And there are reasons to be scared and tearful: I still don’t know whether there’s funding for my job, the dynamics in our office are changing, I have lost three grandparents in five months and just witnessed the death of another man last week. But I don’t think those are the reasons for this soft, tender spot in my heart, for the fear. I’ve been out of a job enough to know it can be survived; I’ve learned enough about group dynamics to know that a period of unrest is normal and can even result in a stronger, healthier structure; and death has become just one part of a very large picture these past few months.

No, the reason I’m scared and tearful is because something is going on inside me. It’s because for ten years I’ve shut people out and refused to make a real friend, someone to fully trust and fully be with, and it’s scary as shit to find myself starting to let go of that distance. I’m petrified of a simple two hour talk and the hug afterwards last week, of the voice mails on my cell phone this past weekend, and of the simple “thank you” and openness this morning.

In the same way other women who’ve been burned sometimes resist romantic love, I’ve resisted friendship. And I’ve done it nearly my entire adult life. And beginning to care, now, about two people in an entirely platonic way… and beginning to feel some reciprocated regard… it terrifies me.

__________

My boss kept popping into my office today, checking in. She offered days off multiple times. She offered therapy paid for by the company if I wanted it. Maybe that gentleman’s death has affected me more than I realize, but for now–what would I say in therapy? A man died and we couldn’t bring him back? And the entire experience was sad and tragic but also beautiful and a part of life?

And then what?

________________

Moonbeam turns eight years old this weekend. And again, I feel.. what? Nothing? Anything?

I am feeling emotions and wanting to cry but none of them seem related to the events that should be shaking me up. Moonbeam’s birthday, grandparents’ deaths, the death at the conference, the job uncertainty… but what’s making me want to cry are a couple of budding friendships?

Or is it all related and I’m just too close to it all to see it?

____________

I’m tired. So I’m done writing now… the existential musings, or experiences, or whatever they are can all wait. There’s lasagna to be baked and episodes of Weeds to finish watching, and Sunshine will surely want to play dolls or color after school.