Not a full on wallow, but days of normal with just flashes of internal emotional angst. Welcome to my November.

It’ so weird how it hits. And is always so different. You just never know what to expect really.

Like Max’s birthday itself..that was Tuesday.

Actually, Monday on my way to work I thought about how, 19 years earlier, I was, on that day going to the supermarket and picking out turtle brownies for dessert. Star Market..said with the heavy Boston accent..Staaaaaa Maaaaket. How I knew my water had broken, but kept it to myself as it was a slow leak with little contractions. So I came home later and wrote to Max..just a bit about his actual birth..all those birthday stories that he didn’t hear growing up as I held the secrets and I was unknown.

So I make it through Tuesday. My PMS had finished off thankfully, and I was OK..working again..one of my last tables…three guys come in, from Bard the want to be Ivy league college down the road a piece. And I swear, when I looked at them, my breath got caught in my throat. One of them looked so much like my Max, that I was speechless..and just freaked.

SLAM..go the emotions..and I just reacted like it WAS him. I am so primed now to finally see him again, and even though I looked..and it was not my son..and I knew this, my brain told me, I understood..my body..it just wanted to touch this boy. I wanted to be near this strange kid and just pretend that he was.

So here I am, at work and all I want to do is cry. Like again, had to hold it in..and give this kid his soup and Duck Quesadilla and not seem like some freaking chick. I don’t think it worked really..I kept on staring. I bet they thought I was nuts.

So then, I am walking back from the kids school..just this AM. In my head Max is two days old. Today is the day I leave the hospital. Today is the day I say good bye. Yup, that is what I did exactly 19 years ago today, in Newton Wesley Hospital..in Massachusetts..when I was 19. And I am going to the deli to get my coffee..saying hello to neighbors as we walk past each other..and tears are just streaming down my face. Weeping of their own accord, no control. Here we are…that day…in about an hour from now…

So I get home, and I am cleaning up around here..and I feel like I am having a panic atack. My chest is tight, I am having trouble breathing. Still weeping, fighting off a huge sob, talking to the dog, and thinking..WTF?

Last year was the magical 18…what I had waited for for so long..now this year..it’s half my life. I was 19, he is 19 and that is just such a statement to me right now. Now the scales are tipping and I will be a mother of loss for longer than I have not been. Can it begin to be even more a part of me? Not that I have any more time to devote to this really..6 hours of sleep a night is my minimum. Yet, today I feel so consumed by this adoption thing. That it has taken half my life..warped it, changed who I am, who I could have been, what I do, what my passions are..and I don’t like it still.

I was watching TV last night as I was falling asleep. I usually find something boring and factual on the History channel..mostly how the earth is blowing up, disasters and such..yeah, I know weird..I find them soothing. Anyway, it was something on the Eisingbergs ( ?spell) this couple form down south whose 5 month old daughter was or was not taken from their home as they slept and then how the authorities went after them..and they have on interviews. So the father is sitting their saying ( paraphased) “This is just the most thing really..something that ones brain just cannot get around..that your child is gone and then that you had something to do with it”..and I am like YEAH! Of course, there was all this sympathy for them, as their child was taken maybe..and mine was a “choice“, but he was right..it’s just the most awful thing and I still, to this day, do not understand how the heck I did that. I just do not want this to be my life, but it is. Yet, my very core rejects it.

In fact, just writing the reality of this..makes me feel dizzy. I swear my body does feel like it is reliving the past trauma. Being aware now of just the wrongness of it all, it is like I am reacting the way I should have then..screaming NO!, as if I hadn’t bought into the whole propaganda machine.

I mean, what if I had called my mother that morning and said, “Mom, I really need to bring this baby home”. What if I had cracked just once. What would she have said. When I called her that am to tell her I had given birth, she knew. She said she woke up early and knew. But there is no bond, right? Did she think for a minute, I want to see him, I want my grandson in our lives. I can’t even ask her that now. She’s gone too.

I want to go back and change my life. I want my baby back. I want my life back the way it should have been. I want what was mine. And I don’t know why I gave it all a way. Ah, fuck…tears have broken thought now. Now I crack, way too late.

Nineteen years too late. I need a tissue.