Quite a few years ago, I gave up on NOT sleeping with the TV on all night.

I use to make a huge point of taking the “I-have-no-function-but-for-the-sleep-timer” controller, and using the sleep timer, since Rye HAD to have the TV on to sleep, but I hated to wake up at 3 am to an infomercial. Eventually, I lost both the battle, the clicker and lost the light sleeping that woke me up. Or perhaps I stopped caring?

I will admit that I have been fascinated by the Steambuggy at 4am. And I rented the carpet doctor based on the information drilled in my half asleepness.

But that’s not the point! Last night( or like last week because it has taken me forever to finish this post), we decided by mutual agreement that Terminator 3 was good, comforting “going to sleep” TVness.

There are definite criteria that is used to qualify something as sleep worthy. It can’t be too interesting, or else you might get hooked and stay up. Sitcoms don’t usually work unless you know of and both approve of the next several shows after that initial half hour. Hearing the Jefferson’s theme song WILL wake me up from a nice doze and I WILL located the clicker in the dark and I WILL change the channel. I can’t deal with loud, big fighting or suspense..unless it IS low enough on the volume end, but that’s usually not the case if Rye is watching. He can’t deal with lifetime or girlie crap and requests that the channel not become an infomercial by 4am. That’s a new one, I think, in response to my penchant for the History Channel or NatGeo (as they call it now). Funny how I find ancient dead folks, usually Egyptian, Bible stuff, and Huge Earth Ending Natural Disasters to be sleep inducing, but I do. I think he’s bored of it. Lately we have been digging on HBO for the “no infomercial” factor, though I can also get down with Sports Center as football totally hypnotises me…like a triple shot of Ambian, I am down for the count. Blues Clues has that effect om me too, but only Steve, not Joe. I miss Joe.

So back to last night, though Term3 is violent and full of suspense and explosions, once you have see a movie a million times..it’s comforting in a way. Granted, out of all the Terminators, I would say I know 2 the best, and all that time travel bit makes my head spin, but if you stop thinking that now he runs California, Arnie’s voice is kind of like a lullaby. So, we deam it sleep worthy, and I use my good arm to arrange my half good arm, get all cozy, and close my eyes. And right before I drifted off, I heard my new favorite quote:

“Anger is more useful than despair.”

I don’t know why Arnie said it. I don’t care. I was half asleep and made a point of telling myself to remember it. I almost forgot too and had to look it up right now, but wow..how very accurate.

Let’s say it again: “Anger is more useful than despair.”

Being separated from ones child through Adoption…I don’t care who you are or what experience you had, what “journey”, there are only so many reactions, or conflicting reactions that a woman can have.

Maybe that’s wrong of me. Maybe that makes me judgemental or close minded. Maybe I have become a stogy know it all beeotch. But you are gonna really have to pull my chain hard to convince me that you are really happy about your child’s adoption. That’s all there is.

I can get it that you think or thought it best. So did I.
I can get that you feel or felt it necessary. So did I.
I can dig that you believe or believed that it was a good thing. Me too.
I can understand how you feel or felt that it was your choosing, your decision. Here too.
I can recall an odd feeling of relief in just knowing there was a plan, that I had an out, a do-over, something to honorly exempt me. Ha.
I remember what it was like to want to please my “friends” at the agency. That I thought they cared. So I know that you did, or do, or so want to believe them.
I even know what it is to feel that there is no way out…other than through.
I know we are suppose to “look on the bright side”, “remember the joy that you gave (puke)” or “how happy they all are”, and NOT dwell on the negative.
Look, I heard the pep talk,
I dug the pep talk,
I repeated the pep talk and I have even rah rah’d it to my horror.

But…… No matter how much we think what we thought or even still think…you know you’re not happy.

Anything but happy really.

We can be Peaceful. Content. Pleased with the outcome. Experiencing Acceptance. Not Regretful.

Those are the more commonly accepted adjectives promoted by the adoption industry to describe the relinquishing experience. Makes it sound like surrendering a child is less painful than the average root canal.

But, still, no one really can admit that they are happy… coz then you would be instantly labeled as a cold hearted shrew, a cruel vile wrench and some repeat version of blame harnessing whore.

Lets face it..you give up your flesh and blood to complete strangers because you are too screwed up in some fashion to get it together enough to pull it off, you damn better not have the nerve to try to be happy.

And that’s NOT ME saying that…that’s a HUGE population of our society that really feels that way.

So if you are hurt to hear that harshness, well then you better toughen up, coz wearing this label is no cake walk…after over 20 years of living with this title, I know what John Q Public thinks about our great act of sacrifice.

Most people usually have some vision of the relinquishing mother as either deserving of her bad fate or happy to be relieved of the burden of her child…thankful and grateful to the agencies and adoptive parents who did our jobs for us. Again, not me saying that. So even the terminal clueless ones, they know we are obviously not happy.

We can be Peaceful. Content. Pleased with the outcome. Experiencing Acceptance. Not Regretful.

I think we can, often, very, very successfully really believe that we are Peaceful, Content, Pleased with the Outcome, Experiencing Acceptance or Not Regretful.

I think that we can really, really think it so to some degree, but in some odd way…it’s a denial. And I hate saying that. I really, really do, but that’s just not all you can feel. Not all. Because if you had all THAT: Peace, Contentment, Pleasenessm acceptance, and dare we say.. satisfied. And you had none of the bad stuff, well, then, …you would be happy.

But no one, I believe, can really come through this adoption crap unscathed.

You got to throw in some description of a 2am drunken crying jag. Or, damn I hate my burnt out memory coz I can’t recall who wrote this description..and it was like Suz or Barb or Jenna….., you got to throw in the “twenty minute deep soul sobbing on the kitchen floor”.
You got to give equal weight to the endless wonderment about a whole lifetime lost or just those moments when you stare at the moon and think:

“Maybe he is seeing that same moon now, over the same dark sky, and thinking about me?”

You just can’t ever convince me that anyone who really, really thinks this whole surrender a child thing is a picnic on the grass. Not once you actually begin to live through it. Not if you really, really look and allow yourself to feel what is not in your life.
I don’t care.
Even if you tell me that it was the best thing EVA and you would not change a thing, you can’t convince me that it still didn’t SUCK bigtime!
And you can try and tell me that your cousins-sisters-bestfriends-coworkers-daughters-sisters-mothers-boss’s adopted babies birth mother was totally ok with the whole thing ad you know coz you saw her and you really talked with her, and you might think she tells you everything.

But I betcha she don’t tell you about the 20 minutes on the cold kitchen floor.

No matter who your cousin might be. We keep those kitchen floor moments for ourselves. It’s personal..you know? But we all got those moments. I know we all do. Maybe some Mommas can’t or don’t admit it yet. Maybe they cannot. Maybe they are, just like so many of us, just trying to survive and breathe though another day, but even if we keep our pain cloistered to the most private moments of our existence, I know those times are there.

So I figure, mixed in with all that conflicting Peace, Contentment, and Acceptance, there would be a dose of Bitterness, and Regret.

I know we touch raw grief, sadness, with varying degrees of melancholy. There is survival induced denial and hyped phobia with anxiety. There is despair. And there is anger. We have no one to guide us, but each other. To understand where we have come from, to know where we are going next, to tell us what is expected, to remind each other that what we feel is normal, that we are not alone. And it’s hard, it’s real hard.

It really sucks to have to be the one to try to kindly inform a newer mom that,”Noooo, sorry, but, it’s never really over..”

I really do hate using the word denial..there is something very insulting to me about it, but there is a truth there too. I have lived it and seen it too many times. We all seem to describe the experience in similar terms…waking up, thawing out, unfrozen, coming into the light, knowing the truth, finding, the Matrix, the blue pill…in all cases, there is some sort of reference as to changing, becoming more aware..and that does ease nicely into denial theory.

Plus, at this moment, it serves as a nice catch all for this false sense of happy. So that’s my disclaimer for liberal usage of denial, but whatever you choose to call it, I think you know it when you get OUT of whatever it is that we are in. And it’s there.

And again, at the risk of coming across as a terrible judgemental ass, I have to admit it that I really do believe that if you give a mom enough time to live with her loss and the opportunity o really explore the truth of it…she’s going to eventually admit that it sucks. I know that might be terribly unpopular for some, but I have to be honest..I believe eventually we will all (98% to be exact)eventually declare that relinquishment sucks donkeybuttocks.

Now once you get to that wonderful point where all that Peaceful, Content, somewhat Pleased, Accepted, Not all that Regretful stuff gets clouded with these conflicting feelings of pain, anger, despair, betrayal, grief, loss, etc, etc, etc.

Often the new icky feelings are much stronger, much scarier, and tons more powerful than the mild manner bland crap that got you through the night…you are pretty much screwed.

I hate to be blunt like that, but there you are. You’re screwed.

Coz chances are that the mild manner bland crap bounced around in your little mind for years, wasting your time, and that baby of yours is long gone. Granted it would have been way more useful to have this great surge of emotion when you could have actually done something to change your lot in life, but now that’s just crying over split milk. Can’t do nothing to change the past and all…

So nowhere you are. Years too late, separated from your child, feeling misunderstood by most of the world, screwed by situations, taken advantage of by a rotten industry and just plain pissed off. There’s lots of anger there for sure.. as their should be. And lots of hurt there too. And the despair..as there is nothing you can do to change it.

Or is there? As Arnie said, the Anger is more useful. The anger becomes fuel. The anger you can use. And it can be harnessed. Used.

I just love that quote.