Sometimes Going Quiet is Necessary

“When the caterpillar is full grown and stops eating, it becomes a pupa. The pupa of butterflies is also called a chrysalis. Depending on the species, the pupa may suspended under a branch, hidden in leaves or buried underground. The pupa of many moths is protected inside a cocoon of silk.  This stage can last from a few weeks, a month or even longer.  It may look like nothing is going on but big changes are happening inside. “

I have been feeling, for lack of a better word, “hidey”. I  just don’t feel like my usual self and it has been a struggle.  I haven’t even been able to really write about it; heck, I have barely managed to understand it all myself. I just keep spinning endless thoughts that feel like weird rationalizations, trying to find a decent excuse of what is causing this.

Ups and Downs of Life’s Emotions

Now I know, from my own personal history, that  it is quite normal for me to have up and down cycles of energy and productivity. I can be so full of ideas and be juggling 16 projects and creating tons of stuff for weeks, and then have a few days where, I just stop. I call it “re-charging”. And while I usually do feel like those “slow” days are wasted, I tell myself that they are needed and I DO need to rebuild my energy so I can come out full force again.  I also  have noticed that, again, normal for me, that after any “high energy” IRL event, I often have a matching “low energy” period afterwards.  So, I knew back in April that the incredible high of my visit with Max in March and the AAC conference would probably be met with am equally big low.  I  also had a feeling that the “adoption epiphany” I had  was also going to change me in some ways.

Now the one way I KNEW I would be really physically altered is that, in the middle of declaring my personal  victory over adoption, I needed to transform my hair.  Now this probably seems pretty  shallow, but my hair, the state of my hair, the colors of my hair,  has always somehow been a way of dating my life and also noting phases.

Stages of Hair, Stages of Life

When life is steady,  I tend to have a solid handle on my hair, both length and color.. mostly color. When I am in a transition in life, my hair tends to be in flux as well.

• I stared dying my hair when I was 16; the color was blue black. I was the gifted art student from the dysfunctional family trying desperately to get away from home and to NYC.
• When art school was a bust and my life in the city was unraveling, my hair was morphing- away from black, the first steps to red via attempted blues and melting and bad bleach fall outs.
• All during my pregnancy with Max my hair was also “recovering” from over processing and trying to get healthy. Seriously, I had been sent to a fancy hairdresser before the pregnancy was outed to “fix” my hair and get it all one tone.  I babied my hair the entire time I was away.
• When I returned, I attempted to perm my hair and it all fell off. Not at all joking- it fried off- dead.  So that first Christmas, just 6 weeks after relinquishment, I got hair extensions. Literally, I had someone else’s hair on my head for months as I tried to figure out who this post adoption Claud was and where she fit in the world. I was someone else, my hair was also someone else’s.
• After the extensions were done, I stated growing my hair back as I tried to grow my life back. It started moving to the red.
• It stayed long and red all through the final years of my life on Long Island and when I moved upstate.
• The next time I did anything different with it was when my first marriage was dying and, radically, went from waste length red to pixie cut black again.
• And as that marriage was dying slowly, my hair was all sorts of crazy too: purples, Blues.. and they washed out to blond.
• Blond Claud was David’s girlfriend. I was blond for pretty much the entire 3 1/2 years of that relationship. And when that relationship disappeared, so did the feeling of being comfortable blond.
• Another period of changes all through the time frame of later meeting Rye and having Scarlett including failed attempt at blond, another bit of black. By time I was pregnant with Tristan, I was back to red…mostly.
• Bleached blond returned for a final visit right before I met Max for the first time.

And then, it was just RED.. for pretty much the last decade and more… when I am stable and things are smooth, I am red.

The End of the Red Period

But since March now; I have been dying  to get rid of the red.  I haven’t seen my natural hair color in over 30 years and what I was seeing, at the roots, was pretty gray.  I had already been contemplating the idea of cutting it all off and checking out the level of gray, but the March adoption epiphany cemented it. If I could have chopped it all off that night, I would have, but I had to wait, really, for the roots to grow in a bit or else I would have basically been bald.

Now at first  I had thought that the red.. symbolizing fire and anger..  getting replaced by the silver gray.. was representing, gain, a change for me. That my personal anger had dissipated, but I was becoming more resolved. I was literally “steeling” myself, becoming more resolved, hardening; forged to silver. It sounded very glamorous and pretty in my head.

I haven’t been dying my hair at all. It’s been growing out.. in transition.. and the rest of me has felt like I have been in transition too. Unlike my usual self, I haven’t been feeling determined or anything positive or stronger or harder or more determined or more resistant. In truth, I kind of feel a bit discouraged.  I haven’t bee able to get any thoughts out of my head. I can’t write. ( That I got this down is a freaking miracle) Like seriously, what is wrong with me?

Transitional Cranky Time

Now some of that is, sadly, just hormonal hell as I am pre-menopausal  fluctuating hormone level mess  half the month. And as most of you ladies know; it’s sometimes SO hard to realize that  you don’t really “feel” a certain way you think you feel when you are stuck in an moody place due to a PMS reason.  So I try to keep aware of that; but it’s just that much harder when you can’t really track a “cranky” week to understand it. My cranky, like my headaches that are also hormonal related, are just coming whenever they want. I leave out any other gory details citing TMI. Just let me state this getting older stuff kind of stinks.

Another part of my deal right now I am pretty sure is I am just tired of all this struggle. I am just disgusted that the fight to bring Camden home is on its second year.  This is the case that I HAVE worked most closely on and been so intimately involved and  it is taking its toll on me.  I feel horrible just saying that; but it’s true and Carri and I have already talked about it. We never envisioned that we’d still be fighting this long. Then add another mother and more drama.. and then more drama. I’m not “burnt out” but I am tired. I just need something to go right;  I need a victory!

Collecting all the voices of other moms for the NYSCCC conference presentation; yeah, that hit my hard this year too.  It was just so damn sad to see the same feelings over and over again through the decades. It’s just sometimes such a very heavy weight to carry. I feel loaded down by all the pain of others. Driving home from speaking, it occurred to me that this conference was how I spent my “birthmother’s day” this year and it made me so sad and angry at the same time that I cried.  I know I have to go back to finishing off that project; do a final edit on the presentation and, as planned, use it as promised, but I tell you.. it had such an effect on me; I’m a little bit scared to revisit all those slides, all those words, all that hurt. I am avoiding it.

Then, truth be told, the whole disaster that was the NY Adoptee Rights bill was also a complete kick in the gut.  It was particularly  hard as I was so damn hopeful this year, so the disappointment was just that much worse as well. And on top of that,  was the knowledge that despite the MANY years that I WANTED to work TOGETHER; I had been cast in a role NOT of my choosing and in the end; I did live out that role.  I was seen as a threat and so I became a threat. The fact that I was forced to go into a role that was NOT my choosing; I don’t like it and it eats away terribly at my natural disgust at hypocrisy.

I could add more little things that have annoyed me and stuff, but I don’t want this to be a “Claud is butt hurt” post or worse have others worry about being part of the problem ( just assume you are not— except my kids;  asking you guys 6 times a day all summer to clean up after yourselves and then having you act like *I* am the nag IS depressing!)

What it all boils down to is I have been having a bit of a struggle of late. I’m feeling a bit down.  My usual coping mechanisms are failing; I have gardened, I have repainted my foyer and upstairs hall way, I have walked away and taken a break, but still..

The Perfect Funky Storm

It’s a like a perfect storm is raging though my head and I am being tossed around violently without any way to get a grip.  I keep trying to tell myself it’s OK. And sometimes I even get others to tell me it’s Ok and give me permission to  just be- (Thank you, Joanie!)   I just need a longer recharge than usual, but  I then wrestle with feeling like I am letting folks down. Then I feel guilty on top of tired, irritable, and still haven’t found my mojo again.

So,  yeah.. I have been in a bad funk while I have been waiting for my hair to grow out so I can cut it off.

At least waiting for ONE of the two has come to an end.

I cut off all my hair.

Not sure if this a transitional color. Not sure if this is still part of the transitional stage. Not sure if I am ready to come out of my chrysalis quite yet, but trying to jump start this processes at least.

So if you have been wondering what’s going on and why I have been so quiet really as of late, now you know. I’m in my papu. You don’t have to respect that. You don’t have to tip toe around me. Please don’t put on kid gloves. Just carry on as usual and know I am trying to join you all as soon as I can.

Just got to finish shaking this shit off.