I couldn’t sleep last night.

We had spent the whole day in the mountains of the Shawangunks Mountains, hiking with the kids, and then they elected to stay over Grandma’s so Rye and I had a sudden night free. So we meandered back through town, stopping along the way; over the High Falls Cafe where I was thrilled to see my former apartment dweller neighbor Becky, then through town where we ate some tasty treats sitting at the bars at a few uptown Kingston eateries. I should have been tired. A few drinks in me after a busy day; yet at 1am I found myself awake and then sleep did not come.

In the still of the night, with an empty house and only Rye snoring besides me, I can’t help but have my thoughts turn back in time. Yes, it is November 13th and on this night 23 years ago, I am in labor with Max. I am giving birth to my first born child who will be placed for adoption.

Now, I always think of being in labor before any of the kid’s birthdays. Heck, we were just talking the other day about Tristan’s labor and how we stayed home watching football for most of it and how Pine and Murry got to the hospital even before we did. I think of the Pizza that I was eating when my water broke with Scarlett. I remember the extreme heat wave that started the day Garin was born. I always find it interesting how some memories are so burned into our brains that we can relive them as clear as if they were yesterday, and then I forget what I did last week or when the next PTA meeting is. I have heard of studies done on PTSD and apparently the are discovering that the release of adrenaline during the formation of a memory can attribute to the “staying power” it has in one’s mind. Makes sense.. after all. labor is pretty intense with hormones. Anyway, I lay there, watching yet another Law and Order rerun in the dark of the night, my mind flashing back to being in Newton Wesley Hospital so many years ago with only the tandem snores of Rye and the dog interrupting those thoughts.

This time, however, I don’t feel the need to relive all the emotions, but rather, I keep on thinking of the 19 year old me facing this. I want to take her, and whisper kind words to her. I want to go back into time and hold my hand. I want to go back and make myself hear how I DO understand what she thinks, what she believes, what she fears, and say those magic words that we all long to hear.. “shush.. it will be alright,.. don’t worry.. I’ll take care of it all.” But rather than being told those words by the agency who had their own agenda, or even by those close to me who just didn’t have a clue.. I would mean it and I could steer myself along a different path, along a path that did not end with adoption.

Eventually, past 4am, sleep takes me again. I sleep past the 8am time when Max finally gave in to the birth. I sleep past the time that I gave in and called my mother. I sleep on all morning; I don’t think I really want to face today, but eventually I get up and face the day.

Was it ironic that while drinking my coffee and deleting a million Facebook notices from my email box that my eyes see a name I have been looking for? Wait a minute? Who uploaded a picture to Facebook? Who commented? Yes, indeed it was an old NYC connection of that brief time when I lived in NYC. A picture added by Mohawk Chris, who was the one who brought over loaves of bread and beef stew from his home to feed us in the horrible apartment.. and.. to my delight.. commented on by Pammy, another dear friend from that time, who I lost touch with completely after I left NY to go be pregnant in Boston. Pammy who I think of as I walk the upper East side of NYC now. Pammy who I have looked for on Facebook and never found, suddenly is there dating the image. And the picture, one of myself that I have never ever seen before, captured from a moment in time.

Thank goodness for the collective hive mind of Facebook memories. I don’t think I would even have seen myself in this image, much less remembered who and what and where, but there we are in the Fall of 1986. Even the NYC subways don’t look like that anymore. I am 18. Pammy’s comment says that is the night we went to the Feast of San Gennaro. Google quickly tells me that in 1986 the feast ran from September 17 to 21st. The 21st is a Sunday, so I am guessing that this is probably the Friday or Saturday night, so 9/20/86? Is the night that I ironed Chris’s Mohawk on the ironing board table in the kitchen of the apartment? He remembers us looking for “blue drinks”? I know if it was the night of San Gennaro then we ended the night eating a whole Carvel ice cream cake out of the box with plastic spoons that kept on breaking! And then, sitting next to me are “Joe and Maryanne”, the replacement roommates form the apartment form hell. Maryanne, into whose trunk my neon green tights were locked, and what caused the final catalyst that caused my exodus out of NYC. Joe, who I know walked off with my amazing belt made of black leather, conchos and chains as well as half my stuff, all my high school pictures, and god knows what else. Yes, suddenly, I can flash back in time and remember a time lost so long ago.

Earlier this week, I caught an interesting hashtag on Twitter: !! #tweetyoursixteenyearoldself. That immediately inspired me to Tweet to my 19 year old self: “DON’T even THINK about ADOPTION! It will be WORTH it to be a mom at 19!! I promise” and now, I am confronted with looking into the very eyes of that younger self and knowing exactly where I was in that moment in time and what stands before me.

In just a few months, everything I think about life in this image will change. But now, this is September, school is still fresh, I am still hopeful, my apartment is new, I am on an adventure. Oh, I don’t know how I think that it will all work out ok, we were such train wrecks, it was bound to fail, but youthful optimism took over. So, I look at myself and I stare into my eyes, and I think.. what would I tell myself if I could go back to that time, to that day.

I want to yell STOP to her. Just STOP, Claud, you need to stop. What you think is important is not and what you can’t imagine ever will be more important than you can ever imagine. Stop wasting your time, I want to yell, on pretending this is all so fun. Be honest with yourself, you know it’s not that great and half the time all of you are pretending so hard to part of something, to belong to something that you’re not. I am not an upper east side cool punk kid. I am a lost middle class girl from the suburbs. I am looking for love and acceptance and that part won’t come easy and it won’t be here. No, I want to yell, NO you cannot run about NYC half the night and pretend that you are all grown up. No, nothing good will come from this. Stop, go home, get back to school, finish your projects, get out of NY, I want to say. NY is going to chew you up and spit you out. You can’t live there,. You ARE too young! You don’t know what you are doing. You are playing with fire, and soon it will all burn to bright, you will get burned and you will wear those scars the rest of your life.

But I can’t. And as sure as the subways doors close and the train leaves the station, the moment is gone forever, and my life took the journey it did.

I am younger here than two of my children are now. As my second son prepares to go to school in NYC and follow his dreams of music, I have to remind myself that my story is not his story and my endings are not him. And then, another part of me has to remind myself that even if I could turn back time, and change the past, then would I have days like yesterday, hiking in the mountains with my husband, with my two youngest kids? I don’t know? Would I have the peacfulness of a day like to today and could I have loved the sun lighting up on mychildren the same way, if I had not been the girl in the picture above?