about getting from point A to point B in the most interesting ways possible

If you're a large woman in America, your whole life is an opportunity to feel self-conscious, embarrassed, resentful and way too big. You can hide in the corner or on the couch, you can go to therapy, or you can put on your lycra bike shorts and get out there and move.
—Jayne Williams, Slow Fat Triathlete

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February 7, 2005

realizations and cleaning up permalink

From this point forward until the 22nd or so, I don't know how frequently I'll be updating. I'm coming into the crush of getting things done for work, and getting the house clean for the cat sitter, and getting ready for the trip. Getting ready for trips is always, always pretty emotionally fraught. Don't know why.

It was an interesting weekend. And by interesting, I mean good, though rather profound in someways.

My therapist recommended I look into information on the effects of adoption on adoptees a couple of months ago. I grabbed a bunch of library books, and that night I started reading one and spent the evening crying. The next morning, I decided I would not become adoption-poster-girl, if for other reason that I didn't want to mourn these things. I've been known to be suggestable, and I just didn't want to go there.

So on Saturday, I was looking at my huge pile of library books, and decided to weed them out. And there were the adoption books. So I started glancing through one of them, and there was "rejection". It's pretty simple—as adoptees, we were rejected by our birthmother. Never mind that there was a good reason, etc., etc., it's still there.

Which made me think of my reoccurring dream of losing my sweetie, and how I react to my mom when she quits speaking to me on a semi-annual basis. On the former, I'm in a good relationship, and I don't think he's going to leave me. And with my mom, I wonder how much I test her, how much I might unconsciously provoke her to reject me.

So. Realizations, and getting stuff ready to get out of the house. Cool!

The next morning, I worked on work stuff. And got more done in a couple hours than I've gotten done in the last week and a half at work.

Nita was supposed to come over to adopt some yarn and talk cats, and my lack of organization is so profound that I no longer have a central yarn cache, so I went looking for it. I found a bag of clothes, that I obviously put together for charity at least a couple years ago. I had mostly clothes that I had grown out of—which is now a little big on me. Two miniskirts, and a pair of pants. Wow!

I then started going through my yarn. I've been trying to weed it out for a couple months now, and I found myself holding things back—because I had an unfinished project, because I really liked the yarn, etc. Almost too late, I realized that gifting this to Nita would really be a gift to me—because I knew she'd really appreciate it, certainly more than I was appreciating it by having it in a plastic bag at the bottom of a pile. It would also let me let go of old projects which I really no longer want to finish.

She came by and took two full shopping bags. She took some of my favorite yarns—and while I had a pang of, gosh, that's the gorgeous spacedyed blue wool—it really felt like a relief. A weight being lifted off me.

Posted at February 7, 2005

Comments

Sounds like some heavy counseling. I'm not sure how you could provoke someone into rejecting you, unless you throw insults and food at them.

And I do love the feeling when I get rid of a huge pile of stuff. I have the same pangs of wanting to keep it because its "good stuff", but later I feel so much better to have it out of the house. Its hard being a pack rat.

Posted by: Jon in Michigan at February 7, 2005 1:19 PM

Thank you, Jon--good point. The books tend to talk about adoptive kids as kids either being super-super good (that was me) or really acting out (course, I bet if you asked my mom, she'd say I was the latter). I know almost all people love their parents, but I have a really almost desperate drive to keep my mother happy. I don't succeed, at least not for long, but there it is.

Thank you again!

Posted by: vj at February 7, 2005 2:35 PM

Hmm, my younger sister was adopted as an older child by my family, and I can really understand how complicated and fraught the dynamic is between a child and her adoptive mother. My sister certainly fell into the "acting out" category and while their relationship is much, much better, she has a lot of ongoing distrust and just general confusion when it comes to our mom. I think the relationship improved when they both finally gave up -- painfully, sadly -- on hoping and wishing for the other to be the daughter or mother of their imagination.

My sister's relationship with our dad, interestingly enough, is much different. Not necessarily better, but the validation or emotional connection she sought/seeks from him is different.

Hoping for blue skies for your Texas visit!

Posted by: Megan at February 8, 2005 6:35 AM