It’s almost 2am and I have a 6am flight out of Newark. I hate early morning flights, but I search and priced tickets for 6 months and I did a round trip on Southwest for.. Under 240? So 6am it is. Once agin, the start of my Adoptee Rights Protest adventure starts with being up all night! I do miss travel ing companions though. Newark airport at 2am is a cold and lonely place. Don’t worry..I have my pepper spray!

So I took the last bus out of Kingston at 10:30. The bus went into NYC’sPort Authority where I got off and then took another bus to Newark. It actually wasn’t too bad, but I hated that I went from New York into New Jersey, then back into New York to go back to New Jersey! I think it was my shortest time ever in my life to be in New York City.. I was there for all of 20 minutes today!

However my greatest disappointment so far on the actual trip is that the seats here are NOT cozy and comfy like I had imagined! I was going to take a nice nap in loo of a real nights sleep, but this very hard metal seat is not feeling at all like my bed at home. On top of that, my suitcase isn’t too comfy either since I have the bullhorn shoved in there. Yep, traveling with my bullhorn!

I hadn’t planned on bringing a bull horn since I didn’t own a bullhorn. But I came home like three weeks ago from work and Rye announced that he had ordered bullhorn. I was annoyed with him for half a second since really?…like he really needs a freakin’ bullhorn? But then I figured, heck..I’ll bring it for the Adoptee Rights Demonstration!

So I wonder if we should guess how much sleep I will actually get this year? I’m already on missing sleep! And I had planned on getting home from work and grabbing a bit of a nap, but let’s just say that did not work out as I had intended. I’m already thinking about the nice hotel bed in San Antonio. I love love love hotel beds. In fact I already have the feel of travel dust and am thinking about a shower too. But I still have this night ahead and then flying into Dallas and then over to SAT ( that’s the airport code..been staring at that for months!)

Not that I will be there long, but I am flying into Love Field in Dallas. Our friend BB joked that I should wear my Jackie-o Halloween suit there, but somehow I think the faux blood on the faux pink Chanel suit might be a bit much. Besides its too damn hot for pantyhose. I am wearing my cowboy boots though!

I’m feeling a bit vulnerable traveling completely by myself this late. I used to do this much more often when I was younger, but now I’m used to having my entourage..Rye and the kids or work related Dragons or Bastards! Maybe we just get more cautious as we get older, but did I mention that I know exactly where my pepper spray is? Plus I am not huge fan of flying. I haven’t flown in years…I’m pretty sure the last time I was in a plane was when I went to kitchen cabinet designer school and Tristan was not walking yet. Probably was pretty stupid of me to have watched that show on plane crashes last week, but at least I know that if we must ditch over water to NOT inflate the life jackets until one gets free of the plane. Little facts like that can save your life.

Plus there is the normal anxiety of….just knowing that the next five days will be VERY emotionally charged. It’s unavoidable. It’s adoption. It’s lots of adoption damaged people getting together and talking about adoption. There will be tears. There always is.so there is that feeling of..exposure..a venerability. Like suddenly someone is just gonna rip that vandals off and I’ll be raw and my wound swill be seen. Of course, it’s an almost silly anxiety, because if you are going to expose your adoption issues, then where better than with other adoption folks! So it safe, but still…damn I hate really FEELING adoption.

Most of the time, I can keep it in its safe place. Wrapped in a box, tied with string, deep in a closet. I know it’s there, but I have control and take it out on my terms. I think in the years before I really knew anything about the realities of adoption, I became really skilled at controlling when I would allow myself to really truly feel all the hurt and pain and grief. Of course then, I kept it all to myself, but now…even with adoption being completely exposed and everyone in my world knowing my role in it…I don’t find that I talk about it as much as I did just a few years ago. It’s not that I don’t think about it, but I don’t feel like I have much more to say.. Or I said it already..it just IS. It’s not this bright shiny new horror, or this gaping oozing sore.. It is just there.

Stupid crappy adoption..just a constant thing in my life that I can’t get rid of, can’t alter, can’t undo, go back, change my mind or do over. I am so damn tired of just being a birthmother. I am sick of explaining. I am sick that almost 25 years later….I’m still paying for a damn defective contraceptive sponge!

Ok rant over. But it is true to an extent. Sometimes I do just want a new normal. Though I am relatively pleased with most things, so I don’t really want a new normal..just a non adoption one. Ah, adoption the “gift” that keeps on giving.

So it think almost because I am just not talking about adoption all the time anymore and I spend my days online, but not as “myself” I’m a bit rusty. Talking about it make me feel exposed again. Like we went to the screening last week, two week ago, of “Related by Birth” in NYC. and THAT felt really nakid like! Of course wit was pretty new for me. I have never sat in movie theater and watched myself on the big screen. I actually didn’t hate myself as much as I thought I would, but I noticed that it stopped feeling like me. I got that clinical displacement feeling..like I was watching some other woman talking about her horrible experience, but I had no idea what it really felt like because she wasn’t me..only she was! But I didn’t feel it..what was scariest was that there were all these other people..And a bunch I did not know and they got to see me all open and exposed..

And you know what, I think being a birthmother, it feels like people judge even if they really don’t. Is it paranoia? I don’t know. Maybe the mud has been slung just one to many times, but even if people are nice, sometimes I wonder …do they really think that or are they just being nice? Yet, I assume that everyone still thinks I am a whore. There. I said it. Or maybe it is that if I’m not a whore, then I am some horrible person for giving away my baby. Or maybe it is that *I* think I AM pretty horrible for relinquishing Max.

Yup, that’s it. Writing that..made the tears come..made the stomach jump up in my throat….

So how’s that? I project my own internal damnation on others so I can fear their judgement. And I’m about to go and be seriously outnumbered by adoptees who are, as they should be, quite outspoken about the pain that relinquishment and adoption caused them.

Wow and I call this my vacation? Lol

Seriously, I know I will have a great, even if emotional, time….just wish I was there already as these seats SUCK and it’s only 3 am now.