Jealousy is nothing more than fear of abandonment.
-Unknown

Wow.

I wonder if, perhaps, that’s why we see so much jealousy, back and forth, between adoptive and birth parents. I know I’ve felt a twinge here and there over the years when D got to experience something with the Munchkin that, had I parented, I would have experienced myself. Those little thoughts that poke at my brain and push the “what if” button. Not proactive thoughts, mostly reactive. Having read this quote, I’d really like to explore the concept of whether those jealous thoughts were just based on abandonment issues as attached to relinquishment. Maybe. Possibly.

I’ve seen adoptive parents become jealous of birth parents, too. Are they simply afraid that their child will abandon them for their birth family? It’s an interesting concept. Is that why some adoptive parents are hesitant to help their child in the search process? My mind is swirling with any time I’ve ever felt jealous. I don’t think it’s a foolproof quote but I think there’s some truth to it.

Jealous of my high school into college boyfriend’s new friend that was a girl? Total fear that he would leave me for her. (Which he said he didn’t. But he married her. So… I’m just saying! Great guy though. Great girl, too!) Jealous of my brother? Felt totally usurped after being an only child for eight years and was afraid my parents loved him more. (They say they love us equally. I trust them. Now.) And those are just two examples. So, yes, I can see some truth to it.

I don’t know how it plays out when you factor in material things though. I don’t see how being jealous of someone’s house/car/clothes/job/culinary ability stems back to fear of abandonment. I mean, I’m totally jealous that Ivory can sew really, really awesome things. (Though I’m re-teaching myself, folks! Kind of.) I don’t think that means that I fear my husband will leave me if I screw up the hem on his pants. I wonder then if this quote applies only to jealousy between people and relationships and not physical(ish) things.

Whatever the case, I rarely (rarely) find myself feeling jealous as of late. The truth is that, yes, D gets to experience some great things with the Munchkin. But I also have my own relationship with her. Maybe it’s learning not to compare apples and oranges? Maybe. I do occasionally get jealous about this one lady’s awesomely toned body at the gym but, if anything, that only makes me work harder and sweat more. Mostly. Every now and then it makes me want to eat an entire pizza but that’s probably a separate issue. I also am jealous of a co-worker’s really awesome camera… until I realized that most of my money goes to caring for my really awesome children and then my priorities straighten themselves and all is well again.

I’m going to try and keep this quote in my mind the next time a jealous thought pops in my head and see if I can stem it back to something of this nature. It’s all just very interesting.

I’m just about to finish Kristin Chenoweth’s book, A Little Bit Wicked. I’m pages from the bright pink covered end. And while the book initially sent me to a place I didn’t particularly want to be, I have loved almost every page of the book. She appeals to the musical theater dork in me, the “too liberal” Christian in me and the short girl in me. (Though, to be fair, she’s shorter than me. And very blonde. Very.) I came across this quote just now and despite having only fourteen pages left to read, I had to put the book down and write. (That’s when you know it is a good book.)

She wrote:

Life requires peace. Peace requires balance. And balance requires a certain amount of get-over-yourself.

Can I get a big old Amen from someone? Anyone? Amen.

I don’t know what exactly changed within me or even when over the course of the past two years. I haven’t lost the urge to fight; I’m still as feisty as ever. Just as my loving, patient (very, very patient) Husband. I’ll fight when I know the time is right or the cause is particularly worthy. Perhaps my screening method for said causes has been beefed up. Or, perhaps, I just don’t have the same wealth of time.

And, really, I think that’s what it comes down to in the end. Parenting, itself, requires a certain amount of get-over-yourself. Earlier this week, my oldest son finally turned on me and said, “I don’t love you, mommy.” Fine. Whatever. I still love him. He was just ticked off because I took away his playroom privileges for the rest of the day. I know, right? Mother Dearest and all that jazz. Sue me, kid. I dare you. And, sure, it stung. (Though, to be fair, he said it a month and a half ago to his daddy first at which point in time I thought, “Oh, I’m so glad he didn’t say it to me, first!”) But I got over myself. Anger makes people say and do things they wouldn’t normally do, three and a half year old cheeky-faced boys included. I got over myself and he loves me today just fine even though I have declared it a no-TV Saturday. (I swear, I’m the meanest mother alive.)

So, maybe it’s the time and energy spent parenting that have helped me get over myself. Or the time spent throwing myself into the work that I do. Or perhaps it was finding something for myself, finding my way back to the stage. Or perhaps it was finding a group of friends with which to spend some time once a week. Or perhaps it was a combination of everything.

Or perhaps it is the fact that I am no longer just a birth mother. For the longest time, I let that title, that role, define who I was in life. I would have fought to the death against anyone who tried to strip me of that title or insinuated in some way or another that I am not important to my daughter (or her family). I don’t find that need anymore; I simply pass on arguments of such nature. (Mainly, I don’t have time to indulge stupidity.) But, really, in my core, I know who I am. I know who I am to her. I know who I am to my parented sons. I know who I am to my husband, to my parents and to my friends. I’m learning again who I might be on the stage. I think I’ve learned, exceptionally well and (too often) the hard way, that getting over myself makes all of the stuff in life far more enjoyable.

Someday*, though I don’t look forward to it, the Munchkin will tell me, as my oldest son just has, that she doesn’t love me. Or that I’m not important. Or that she doesn’t want me in her life. I know, at this point in my life with everything I have been through and learned from those experiences, I will be able to handle it. It won’t feel particularly lovely, of course. I won’t wish for her to say it to me repeatedly, though she might. But I have enough peace and balance and experience getting over myself to know that she will just be processing some emotion of her own. It will be less about me and more about her finding that peace and balance and get-over-myself-ed-ness on her end. And if she wants time and space, I’ll offer it with the knowledge that she does love me and I do matter.

I don’t know how I got here or what exact number of experiences lead me to this point. (Though, I’d assume that my therapist should be thanked. Thank you.) But I’m glad to be here. I write about it not really for the general public but so that the next time I feel my peace shaken to its core, I can come back here and remind myself to get over myself.

Because there will always be a next time.

[* = like in the previously mentioned teen years. No? Yes.]

Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They’re what make the instrument stretch-what make you go beyond the norm.

I needed to read that particular quote, especially with reference to the word instrument, as I’m dealing with a new issue. As you may know, I have a large part in my chorale’s Spring Show. The challenge isn’t even just the singing of an emotionally and musically challenging song. No, I have now been informed that my director wants me to sing the part with as little vibrato as possible. He told me that he understands this will be difficult for a trained voice but that it is what he wants. And, as such, I need to deliver.

This is my first solo with this chorale. I haven’t even put in a full season yet and I’ve somehow been given one small solo, one large solo and a duet. I’m sure some people are thinking, “She hasn’t even proven herself on stage yet! What is he thinking?” In fact, with this new change to how I must manage my voice, that’s a little bit of what I’m thinking as well. Still, I press on.

My initial reaction was, “I can’t do this.” That seems to be my initial reaction to most anything that is outside the norm of what I think I can handle or how I think something should be done. Examples include becoming pregnant when I was single and the individual challenges that have sprung up over the years with regard to our open adoption. While I have better learned how to manage an appropriate response when something new springs up, my initial thought is, “I can’t do this! AH!”

And, so, I whined and moaned at my husband when I got home from practice that evening. The next day, I attempted the song in the car with a brighter, less “warm” tone and… pulled it off… but it sure as heck wasn’t easy. Almost a week into practicing with a different tone and I’m finding it to be a struggle. But a possibility in the end.

And that brings me back to the quote.

I worked for years to get my voice to find that vibrato. To achieve it, you can’t even really be thinking about it while you’re singing. You have to relax into it, let your vocal chords do the work that they are meant to do. Training your voice not to think about being trained is a difficult process, one that took me nearly eleven years. Now I’m learning through this new challenge that my voice can do other tricks. Do I like this sound as much as my natural, hard-achieved sound? No. Do I wish I could belt this one out as I feel most comfortable? Yes. Am I figuring that I am leaning something through this process? Don’t I always?

It’s similar to how I have been pushed beyond my norm with regard to our open adoption relationship challenges over the years. Some things have not been what I would have chosen or expected. Some things I have balked out upon first word. Some things have been hard to get used to, to train my brain and heart to accept. Some things have been difficult to wrap my brain around, to figure a new way to make sense of it all. But, in the end, it works because I (and we) keep pushing ourselves beyond that norm. We have accepted and met challenges. Yes, we have all balked at times. Yes, we have made mistakes. Just like I’m sure that I’ll make a mistake at practice this week. But we keep on keeping on. Just like I continue to push the ability of my voice, we continue to push ourselves in our relationships because we know that, in the end, it is worth it.

And now ends a post that I have written mainly to assure myself that I will be able to achieve this on stage in just over two months.

If you’re doing ANYthing at all that feels like *hard work* you’re doing the wrong thing.

-Roger Hamilton

I get the idea behind the quote. I do. But the generalities proposed by this quote make me laugh. Here’s the facts: life is hard work. Sure, it’s fun. Sure, it should also be full of love and laughter. But if you’re not putting in some hard work in various parts of your life, well, my guess is that you’re not amounting to a whole lot.

Parenting is hard work. It’s also very (super!) rewarding work. It’s not all hard and it’s not all easy. But it’s also not the easiest job on the planet as everyone knows. Building a career in any field, even the one that you were “destined” for is hard work. What makes me the most confused is that the quote came from the twitter of a fellow Christian. Here’s a newsflash: the Bible doesn’t promise Christians an easy life. In fact, we’re told that we will face persecution. Nothing about persecution seems like easy work to me.

And this, of course, is the attitude behind so many failed open adoptions (and other things that fail). People assume that everything should come easily. People assume that the moment thing seem tough, something is wrong and you should just throw up your hands and stop.

Wrong answer.

When stuff seems hard, it’s just because life is life. Communication problems crop up. Misunderstandings happen. Feelings are hurt. And sometimes it is hard to deal with grief, loss, emotions and sadness all at once. But you keep on. If every parent (birth, adoptive, biological, foster, step, etc) gave up every time they had a communication problem with their own child, well, you can see where that would lead us. I have communication problems with my almost-three-year-old. In fact, I made the sign for bath when I meant to make the sign for more the other day, and my ten month old got mad when we didn’t immediately get in the bath tub. Misunderstandings happen.

I don’t know where this idea of life should be easy came from but I can tell you that my mostly happy, very rewarding and semi-successful life has been full of hard work. Hard work, itself, is not a bad thing. Hard work is the result of an attitude that says the impossible IS possible and that no mountain is too high. I’m a determined individual and obstacles aren’t going to stop me. So don’t tell me that I’m on the wrong path just because something takes more than one try or tests my patience or generally is hard.

I would still be pregnant with my firstborn if I didn’t do anything that was hard because, boy howdy, childbirth is hard work. If everyone had that attitude, the human population would die off. (And don’t jump up and say, “C-SECTION! WOO!” Ask a mother who has endured the recovery of one and let her tell you if that was hard work or not.) I also would not have taken any of the advanced classes in high school or pushed myself to take a new fitness class. There are so many things that I would miss out on if I adopted this attitude.

And so I’ll just keep putting in hard work, okay?

Of note: I have always read my magazines back cover to front cover. I don’t know why. I just do.

So one of the first pages I turned to was the end of the “Mom” section that each Redbook features. On a sidebar was a quote from Marcia Gay Harden. She’s a Mom to a ten year old and four year old twins (!) (and a spokesperson for a really great site that I’ll talk about on the other blog next week). Her quote made me dog-ear the page, nod my head and get kind of weepy all at once.

(Being a Mom made me…) Fiercely protective, like a lion. My top priority is keeping my kids safe. Mothering is a beautiful word and it doesn’t only mean making cupcakes.

Now I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Harden didn’t mean to include me in her quote. But she did. The conception and subsequent birth of the Munchkin made me a Mother in every sense but the making of cupcakes. I did become fiercely protective. Her well-being was always my utmost concern, even as my own health was at risk during that tumultuous pregnancy.

Of course, that has also made me somewhat overprotective of my parented sons but I’m coming to realize that while I shouldn’t smother my kids, being protective isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Finding that balance, of course, is difficult but I’m learning. (I mean, I’m letting my oldest go to preschool in the fall even though it gives me heart palpitations! AH!)

What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been this way, fiercely protective, since I knew the Munchkin would be joining the world. All during the time in which I planned on parenting, I felt like I was guarding her from the evil of this world. Once I became ill and began making an adoption plan, the mothering feeling didn’t magically dissipate. And it didn’t just go away the moment that she left my body. In fact, I felt it in a much stronger way. While I don’t drive her to dance class or watch her like a hawk as she plays on the playground now, I still feel it in my soul. I’d give my life if it meant saving hers, just like I would do for both of my boys.

All this said, I make a mean cupcake. Just ask my oldest.

Guilt tells us that we have done something wrong, but shame tells us that we are something wrong.

-Sheila Walsh, The Heartache No One Sees

Emphasis hers. But it would be mine as well.

I have had the guilt/shame argument with those who simply refused to grasp anything outside of their experience. They’re different feelings. They exist for different reasons. They may be tied to the same core concepts but there are differences through and through.

I have guilt, like any mother, over the decisions I have made for the Munchkin and my parented boys. The book Mommy Guilt didn’t touch my adoption-related-mothering guilt. Not with a ten foot pole. I feel guilty that I wasn’t more knowledgeable about laws, ethics and adoptee issues prior to placement. I feel guilty that I have made some mistakes in my relationship with her and with her parents. I feel guilty that… wait for it… I feel guilty. That’s right. Oh, sweet cycle of guilt! But, honestly, sometimes my guilt has made it impossible for me to move forward with something that I knew needed to be done. And, hence, the guilt about the guilt.

But shame is a different level.

I don’t feel guilty about my role of birth mother. I feel shame. The words of others, some said with ignorance and some said with malice, have made me doubt my self-worth and the worth I have to my daughter’s life. When I am asked how many children I have and I respond, “Two,” shame is what keeps me from telling the truth. Because the general public seems unable to separate the action of placing (the “done”) and the person doing the placing (the “are”). As no one wants to slip on my shoes for even the briefest of occasions, they can’t seem to grasp how someone could place a child for adoption and, as such, I am immediately labeled along the lines of heartless, careless and generally distasteful. Their disapproving glances are not seen, by me, as a judgment of the action but a judgment of my person.

It’s probably not en vogue to admit that you have shame. But, alas, I do. I’m working on it. If only the general public would either step to the plate and work on compassionate responses or shut their mouths all together. Then maybe I could make some progress.

I trudge on.

I wish she’d been smart enough, or loving enough, to realize everybody has burdens that crush them, only they don’t give up their children.

Ouch, right? Yes, I felt the sting. In fact, I had to set the book down, get a glass of water and retreat to my back yard thinking spot. I think I cried a little. Words like that only sting when they’re true or have some semblance of truth… or when you know that, like the teeanged girl in the book, your own daughter could view her own adoption in the very same manner. While it may not be true in action on your part, the realization that you could hear those words from a girl that you love so very much is … daunting.

I have a post going up on Monday at the birth/first parent blog (I wrote IT first instead of having to stop a mid-stream thought over here to go write over there). However, I’m curious as to how this quote affects other birth parents, adoptees or adoptive parents. What does it make you feel? What does it make you think? How does it hit at your core? Have you had this conversation with your placed child already? How did it go? How did they respond to your answer? How did you phrase your answer? If you haven’t yet had this kind of conversation, are you mentally preparing for it? Or mentally avoiding it? Reasons as to why? Adoptees: have you felt like this? Why? How did feeling like this affect your feelings towards your birth mother/father? How did you deal with those feelings? Adoptive parents: have you had to field a question like this from your child about his/her biological parents? How did that go? How did it leave you feeling? If you haven’t, are you preparing for something like this?

I’d like to do a follow up post (as mine is mostly personal) on the bp/fp blog with words from all three sides of the triad. You can comment here or write something in your own blog and I’ll link you while quoting.

The sentence really moved me. (As did a few others that I’ll be talking about over time.) The book itself is not even about adoption in the way we understand it (and! wow! did I learn a LOT about bees!) but so many of the themes (anger, grief, loss) resonate to the very core of adoption (and many other life issues, really). I was just flabbergasted by the way certain words, sentences and paragraphs would hit me. I need to buy this book for my own shelf.

Anyway, please, if that sentence piqued your interest, can you blog about it or comment here? Or e-mail me personally? I’d really like to know how others feel and then force my readers to digest it. Oh, bless my readers. Heh.

That was the absolute way of things. Loss takes up inside of everything sooner or later and eats right through it.

I have a blog already written and set to publish over at the Birth/First Parent blog on the subject. I’m referring to how overwhelming adoption loss can be at times for birth parents. I know others have felt that loss, however it is present in your life, eating away at your life and soul from time to time. I’m feeling some loss issues right now and, frankly, I just need to know that I’m not alone. So, hit me with your stories. Blog it yourself. Do something.

I’ve got another quote coming from the book as well. I’m not even out of the first sixty pages and this book is giving me material to write on left and write. Good book!