Overcoming your doubt sounds difficult, but it's quite easy.

I haven't heard from Colette yet. I don't think I will. I'm getting tired of thinking about it, of wondering what her motives are, of being adopted. I just want to not have these things to worry about-to move on, and let it all go. It's easier said than done I'm learning. I  guess this is what they call a stage. The head shrinkers would agree, I assume. What I'm going through is a process. You've heard the term 'process of elimination' a thousand times, the terms, 'I'm processing', and 'it's a process'. I guess those are all ways of making yourself feel better without drugs and most likely in conjunction with making a lot of hard, and sometimes bad decisions. Maybe making bad decisions is part of the process. Maybe having made those decisions, and dealing with those issues which could be detrimental to your immediate or long term health are really just disguised as problems, but in reality, you are learning to cope and those preemptive strikes against your mind are your best coping mechanisms coming to focus. And what's more, maybe, just maybe, these 'underlying issues' that come nicely wrapped as problems are God's way of training us to deal with our immediate needs in a constructive manner.

I never equated problems with goodness until fairly recently, when I noticed that my gratitude was lacking. A healthy dose of feeling sorry for yourself can either bring one of two things out: 1. an ungrateful beast who worries too much about unimportant things, but because you are so self focused, the puny things become monstrous or 2.a slap in the face to wake up and be thankful for all the good problems you are faced with.

It's never too late to be grateful. It's never too early to be giving, and one thing's for certain, and I've learned this one the hard way, it's never wrong to express your true feelings. In fact, there are many people in the world who keep things bottled up. They tense up in situations that others think nothing about. They worry and they create their own little imaginative world that oozes of self deprecation and self doubt. I do this on occasion, and when I do it's no joke. I will second guess everything that I do as a  result. And it's not until I realize, or a good friend tells me bluntly and usually with a slight sting, that I'm working myself up over practically nothing. We all are guilty of this. I don't care how many ways you spin it. You are never flawless. You are not always confident, and if you are, then I applaud you for your amazing dose of denial. 

It's when I get to the point of true doubt, that I realize that I need to give more control to God, and trust that He will do what He has promised. He is the controller of my destiny, and although I play a small role in the whereabouts and minor details of what equals the life of Brookedom, the deciding factor is left up to God. If I would just quit questioning everything...If I could just let go of worry and know that what is right will be done when the time is right, I would be be better off. 

The difficulty and resistance in trusting God is something that most all of us have in common, Christians, Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, non religious affiliates combined. We do not believe what is set in front of us. We exude doubt and that's the devil's way of winning, and it's our way of throwing in the towel without even recognizing we're doing so. When you constantly doubt others' intentions you are risking a lot. I don't know if losing out on something that's potentially really good is worth the risk. It probably isn't. 

I'm going to be blunt forever. I'm going to release myself of doubt because I'm just going to come out and say what I have to say, and ask what I have to ask, so I will know. My problem lies in my delivery, as does most people who are forthright in their thoughts and actions. It's a double-edged sword. When you are outgoing, when you are not shy, you are most likely a victim of communication breakdown because even though you might have the balls to say what you are thinking, you might not have the couth to deliver it gracefully.  Nothing worth anything came easily to anyone, and that's the scary truth. 

I have officially written myself out of doubt for the time being because I let God take it's place. You should try it sometime

The birth father who never got the chance to decide

I emailed Colette again last Thursday. To sum it up, I basically told her that I want her to tell me who my birth father is, and with or without her help I will find out who he is. Knowing this, she might be worried about her reputation. After all, she is the spokesperson of some pretty big college in her neck of the woods, and one that I've heard is widely known in the eastern part of the state. To my knowledge, she never told him about her pregnancy. He very well might know absolutely nothing about my existence. Shoot, he might live in Charlotte even. It's the largest city in the state of North Carolina, which means it has the most opportunity for opening a dental practice. My birth father, 24 at the time, was in his second year of dental school when Colette got pregnant. It would behoove one to move to the largest populated city in the state in which one holds a license to practice dentistry, which I am told, is only good for the state in which you studied, unless of course you take the exam in another state. People do move after all. We are not bound to only live in one state thankfully.  There are so many dental practices in Charlotte, one in particular, which I have the strangest feeling about, one that my orthodontist had mentioned as well.

He was so puzzled by my strange request of him, but he seemed genuinely interested in my story when I told it to him last week, as I was sitting in his chair, picking out colors of my future retainer. I felt 13 again. I went with clear I think. At 36, the last thing you want people to notice about you is the strange looking colored metal piece in your mouth. I have a slight gap between my front teeth that bothers me enough to pay for a new retainer and to wear it in public. I say this now, but I'm imagining it will most likely be worn in my bed as I sleep, and definitely not as I'm doing other more playful things in my bed- you know those things that grown-ups like to do. My gap has bothered me here and there, but I have been pretty comfortable with it until recently, when Debi sent me a picture of all of the graduating class of UNC-Dental School of 1978, and low and behold, there was a picture of my past (and future) orthodontist, Dr. Webb. Wow. He might have gone to dental school with my father. That was good enough reason to have a more bothersome feeling about my unruly gap in my front teeth. After all, that gap could stand between me and a great job one day. I must have it looked at. It's imperative. Madonna made the gap cool. She can keep it. I'll go for the mod.

As I walked into his new building, which was more state of the art than ever, more ying to the yang than I recall his last office being, I couldn't help but think, "Brooke, don't forget to ask him about dental school. Don't forget you forgetful Nancy. You could screw up a wet dream. Don't screw this up. You don't want him thinking you just came in to pick his brain about dental school either." He was probably later scratching his head thinking just that after both Debi and I had bombarded him with emails that had attachments galore. He emailed back that day, which was surprising. Doctors of teeth rarely work, I assumed they rarely returned emails as well. Turns out, I was wrong. 

He told me that there were only 81 in his graduating class, and he would know all of them. He is the social type, very flittery, not in a gay way. If you saw his stature, you might understand. He is bite size, and his voice, very soft. He appeared to be genuinely happy to see me, although I was a bit surprised that he even remembered me. Unlike most of my friends, I only wore braces for about a year or so. I swear I think they keep you in braces longer than need be just so they can keep charging your parents because God knows insurance is a joke when it comes to orthodontics. That would be unethical, and it's probably pretty offensive that I even wrote that, but it's not unbelievable, and I'm sure it has happened a time or two, maybe not by Dr. Webb, but by some schmuck. 

If anyone would know someone, I would think it would be Dr. Webb. He just seems like the kind of guy that would know everyone. And judging by his response, I was right. He said he even knew the class that graduated before him, that they all shared lockers in the dental school. SCORE! My wicked plan worked. 

He gave me his email and the communication began. I am leary though now, and wished I had been a little more hesitant. He said he had a friend from Kinston, that's where the birth mother is from, and that he was going to call him to find out what he knew. OK. That's taking it a little too far. I don't know that I want her name smeared all around town. Kinston is very small I imagine, probably a town as big as Monroe. I don't know the coordinates or population, but my imagination is vivid, and I can just see what the downtown looks like- with its red brick two story Walgreen's on the southeastern facing corner and the Tru Value Hardware Store soaking up the opposite corner of Main Street.

He asked me to send him a copy of my birth certificate. Now that sounds strange to me. Why on earth would he want that? Does he not understand the logic behind my line of questioning? Does he think I know a name? If I had a name on the birth certificate would I not just Google him? I let him in on how things were done back then, that the original birth certificates for adopted babies went down an assembly line, where they were stamped with a big REJECTED and then ended in a giant fiery tomb that was filled with thousands of lost socks, only to be incinerated for good. The babies that were alive were then renamed and sent to live with weirdos who just wanted a paycheck from the state, until they were adopted by hopefully loving families, like mine. Obviously, that's not entirely how it works, but that's the feeling that I got based on my fruitless search to find my birth certificate at the vital records office that one day last summer. 

When I mentioned to Dr. Webb that my father was described as very athletic, and 6'2 with blonde hair and blue eyes, a look came over his face that made me feel uneasy. It was like he had seen a ghost, like he immediately knew who I was talking about, which leads me to believe that is why he wants a copy of the birth certificate. Maybe the person who he thinks it could be, he had contacted that afternoon. Maybe the "could be father" wanted proof, and he asked Dr. Webb for the birth certificate in disbelief. Dr. Webb said he was going on vacation this week. Shocker. A dentist going on vacation on July 4th? I might be a horrible communicator in person, and put my foot in my mouth all the time, saying inappropriate things at inopportune times, but if there's one thing I can do well- it's read people. I know people, maybe not everyone, maybe not the guy I'm currently dating, but damn it, I know most people. I have the knack for figuring people out. Call it intuition. Call it whatever you want to call it. But I saw something flicker in his eye when I described the possible birth father. It was like a light went on in his head. His eyes screamed it, and my radar picked up his signals. Whether or not anything will come of this, we won't know until we know. But I have a feeling that he might know more than I think. 

Since I have slightly given up hope on Colette ever reaching out to me, slowly tackling this rejection day by day, I decided that it might be a safer bet to find the birth father. Men, in general, are more direct, and once I find out who he is, and take the plunge, I will know pretty quickly his response. Women, I've noticed, like to think things out longer than men. I could expand on my theory of why that is, but I will spare you. You could say I am slightly prompted by Debi's constant, but gentle push to find him. She is the searcher who found my birth mother. And it was within a month that she found her. Granted, it might have been easier to find her, by no means was it easy, but being given the county of the birth mother's birth, it gave her a solid foundation to start from, and to ultimately arrive at. 

We know the birth father is/was 6'2, had blonde hair, a dark complexion, enjoyed bike riding, and was musically gifted. It was said in the papers (my flimsy adoption papers that the state of North Carolina has deemed appropriate enough to give most adoptees who were born in closed adoptions as far back as it has been legal, and probably still to this day) that the birth father did not know of the pregnancy. There is something so wrong with that scenario, something so intrinsically wrong, so backwards, so just...just...disgusting about that. I can't describe my feelings on that. Pregnancies that stem from rape, incest, molestation, any other sick methods I have not covered included, I can see as a good enough reason to hide a pregnancy, but when you are in college, you have two consenting adults who are of sound mind and body, and both mature adults, who think they are mature enough to make a decision like that, to hide a pregnancy- I just don't understand the mentality. I have wrapped my mind around it so many ways. What would motivate someone to do such a thing? What could be so bad that a woman would not tell a man- a young, intelligent, motivated man the truth- that he has super sperm, that he got her pregnant. My thoughts immediately go to the obvious. Maybe she cheated on him with some random frat boy at a mixer. Maybe they drank too many Milwaukee's Best can beers. Many college students' couldn't afford Fat Tire, and when you are underage or even legal age and drinking and in college, your soft pallet is not the driving factor with regard to alcoholic consumption. Anyone who drank in college most likely knows that is a sad truth. Maybe she hooked up with her boyfriend's best friend or roommate, not unheard of, pretty embarrassing for both parties, but nothing worthy of committing yourself to a lifetime of shame and hiding, pretending. Maybe she was raped. Maybe not. She claimed that the birth father was in dental school. To me, anyone who is intelligent enough to get into dental school, forget about the dedication, anyone who is bright enough for that, would be a good candidate for a father and husband. 

Maybe she is was so hung up on appearances that the thought of herself being unwed and pregnant, or worse, a single mother (gasp), was so horrifying that she could not even think about it. Maybe she didn't even think it out at all. Maybe she rushed into her decision. Who knows what motivated Colette to give me up for adoption without even asking my birth father's opinion. At this point, it doesn't matter. What's done is done. Although, I have to think that might be hindering her from meeting me, or at least making any sort of communication. She might be so ashamed of her actions as an inexperienced 21 year old, that she can't face it today. She can't face me- her own daughter. Now she has some maturity and some life experience behind her and maybe, just maybe, she might do things differently today. I know my decisions at age 21 would not be equivalent to the ones that I make now. But at age 21, I sure would have thought I was doing the right thing. At that age, you know everything, right? At least I did. And I was never wrong. God forbid accept responsibility for your actions. Never. I was always right, and you were always wrong. That's the way a small mind works, and at age 21, you are very small. That was her age when she was pregnant with me- 21.

I decided to go email the last time because email is direct and instantaneous so to speak, once you hit send, there is no doubt it gets to the recipient unless you get that return email of course from Mailer Daemon, whoever that is. Mailer Demon would be more fitting if you ask me. I told her that I was going to look now for my birth father, and if she would just give me his name then it would make things so much easier. Easier for who I'm imaging she was thinking. Well duh, easier for me. I think she's had enough say so in the matter as it stands. She made the decision that should have been shared between two minds. She has kept my existence a secret for long enough. It's time to come clean. My thoughts on this situation are rapidly getting more aggressive towards Colette as I'm typing this and in such a hurried fashion. I'm starting to feel resentment, rejection, and frankly, I'm starting to get pissed. 

I guess this evolution of events surrounding my birth, or summation of non-events as it currently stands, is turning out to be more of a hassle than anything else. I am using good brain power, soaking up many hours thinking and writing about this, and I must say, it's pretty lame. I feel like a hot mess, like I'm a dog chasing a firetruck, like a stranded passenger at an airport who just watched the gate close as she was running faster than hell down the corrider to sneak in just in the nick of time. I feel like that cup of coffee that got left in the microwave, not forgotten just once, but twice now. At any rate, hurt or healthy, I will survive all of this mess because I am survivor. Just like Lady Gaga, I was born that way. I will move on from this time in my life with a new perspective, and one day I will look back and say, I learned from that. Because learning from your experiences helps us to grow as souls and without reflecting on our past suffering we are not actualizing our losses which in essence create room for even bigger scores. Life is short. Hug yourself. 

fo sho....i guess you can never be too real....

Dear Colette,

I'm going to preface this letter with this: I intend on being completely honest right now. It doesn't happen daily and I don't think I'd be lying if I said that most people aren't honest routinely with the people they love the most. I don't obviously love you the most. I would like to know you enough to love you though.

I don't know if you have any idea what it has been like for me my whole life- the wondering where I came from, the being clueless to who I am because I never felt like I fit in, always feeling like a Viagra commercial-  you know it's coming, you just don't know when.  Genetics is no joke. 

I'm not going to bore you with the hum-drum normalness that you probably fully expected to hear from someone like me, someone like your daughter that you don't know and have rejected a few times now, so Ill try to keep this interesting.

I am trying to be positive and patient regarding you and what possibilities we might have together, but I want you to know that it's getting hard. I know that life is sometimes a blood sucker. People are blood suckers. And I often find myself stuck in evil webs people weave. I weave them sometimes. No one's perfect. Sometimes, I find myself wanting to linger in bed a little too long on Saturday morning when Sarah is crying to me that she can't reach the top shelf for the cereal that I should be serving her, while I'm more concentrated on getting that crack in the curtains covered because I stayed up too late the night before. My Mom has called me 3 times by noon, leaving messages that include words and phrases like, "worried" and "please call me when you can." She's got guilt inducing down to a science without any intention of it at all, I'm sure. I want to crawl under my desk at work on most days, and the days that I don't, I can't explain why I feel so good. Hormones are nothing to joke around about either. And from what I hear, they never go away, except when you wish they would stay longer. So, I'll say I get irritated just as easily and I run out of patience just as quick as the next girl. OK, I might have slightly more patience. I'll give myself that. But I am easily swayed. Probably very true.

I'm telling you these things about me, so that you will understand somewhat what I am like- how I am, how my brain operates, and hopefully, so that you might have some inkling of relation to any of it. Like I said before, genetics is no joke.

There are lots of things I would like to share with you about who I am, about what my life has been like growing up versus my adult life, my family life, my friends, my love life, my career, the evolution of who I am, who I identify myself as. These are things that I find it hard to understand that you wouldn't care about even 36 years later. I know that you have moved on. I know that it was unimaginably hard for you to move on with your life after my birth. I had a friend, who sadly died at a young age from an asthma attack, Danielle, who gave a child up for adoption at age 19. She didn't get over it. She died at 25 probably. And I have no doubt that her pain put her in an early grave. It did that to my father too, when my younger brother died at age 20. I was amazingly OK. I knew that God was with me, and my faith, even though I didn't go to church regularly, and didn't live my life the right way, was strong enough to carry me through the pain. I don't know if you ever lost anyone at a young age...maybe me, actually. OK, I imagine you are aware of the pain associated with loss.  Anyway...I'm not here to make you cry. I'd rather make you SMILE!

I want you to realize that people will forgive you. People love you. Despite their lack of understanding on a deeper level at times, or despite yours, people actually love you, and love entails forgiveness, and reminding them of their need for forgiveness is OK....even if it does play on their occasionally overlooked guilt. =) I'm not suggesting you guilt trip everyone- just your sons, and maybe brothers and sisters. That's a semi-joke.

If I can please confess something: I haven't told my mom that I wrote to you, now three times. I don't want her to feel threatened or upset for me, or worse, upset for herself- in fear that I may love her any less, or you more. I have told most everyone else. I understand your need for figuring things out, but when the time comes, I am ready to tell my mother that I will be meeting you, if that's your choice. (I hope it is, or you will receive a lot of hate mail from me. just kidding, kind of) She will understand because she loves me regardless of the stupid things I have done in my life, and regardless of the impending future of stupidity that might suffocate the good choices- just as your family will probably understand that you were scared and alone feeling, and although you might not have been, and never may actually have been alone except in your mind, they have probably felt the same way, and will most likely be understanding. And, this might sound bitchy, but if they are not understanding and loving of your situation, they might be assholes to begin with- negating any real reason for inhibition.

I hope you can understand that I have my own life already. I have a family. I have a daughter. I have a good job, with a company that loves me (We (me and Allie) called you one day and pretended we were donating money...I'm sorry. Allie wanted me to apologize to you about the $500.00 donation you never received. I had to hear your voice at least since I've never seen you in person. Forgive me for being so intrusive. If it was me, I would be flattered. You might be scared, but I'm not scary. I'm still your daughter. I can't be THAT weird. Well, I don't know you...=))

Nancy doesn't think I'm weird. Although she refuses to talk to me anymore. I'm guessing that's because you blew up at her. What was she to do? Put yourself in her shoes. Imagine you had the chance to reunite loved ones who never had the chance to know each other....you wouldn't do it? You wouldn't think twice, take a chance, do what you felt was right in your heart? You can't be angry at someone who did what you would have done given the chance.

I would be surprised if you wouldn't. That's your prerogative. It was hers. She felt like she was doing what was right at the time. And if you can get past that, past your hiding, past your pain, you can realize that nothing in this world is done maliciously without God having his beautiful hands on it fixing it just as quickly, and, me finding you was never set out with malicious intent- know that.

I hope that you can sit here and read this note with an open heart and likewise spirit. I want you to beable to get past your reservations and find strength to acknowledge that you made a very hard decision many years ago, that you knew it would always haunt you. I don't want to be a ghost. Please acknowledge me. I respect you. Please respect my feelings. I am hanging on the vine here. Please acknowledge that you got this. I love suspense novels, and am reading the widely acclaimed 50 Shades of Gray, but c'mon....I keep feeling left out in the cold...Please let me in....

Brooke

Shandies make everything better.

The first I've written in a few weeks, and I don't feel much. In fact, I think it would be safe to say I feel pretty numb right now. It could be the shandies. It could be the fact that it's 11:38pm and Ive officially declared myself weak. I'm not sure if numb is the right adjective or if it's the quickest descriptive word I could think of 2 seconds ago when my fingers were anxiously pounding away at this confounded keyboard again. Another night of spending time with a keyboard. Great! Is that what my life has silently amassed to? Or do I secretly covet time spent alone? Am I rushing to allow my fingers to do the walking, and no, this is not a yellow pages ad in 1987.

I had my girlfriends over tonight- two of my besties that I have made through my previous years working at the country club. They are amazing women, fully charged all the time, and both beautiful and strong. I don't tend to hang out with weaklings. Even the women that come to me intermittently,  for whatever reason in my life, however it is that they enter my life, are strong. I have never really been around anyone who is weak or wimpy.  Maybe it's that I never accepted weakness as an excuse. It could be that I have always had selective vision. That's kind of like selective hearing. You see what you want to see, and you hear what you want to hear- more formally known as denial, and we are not speaking of a river in Egypt.

Is denial a lower form of closed mindedness? Could it be higher? I wonder. It took me a few minutes to remember that chain of thought. I went to the bathroom, fixed another shandy, and then sat down to rethink that one for a second. It came right back. I wonder if every single thing in the world is not related somehow- whether it's completely moronic or highly intellectual. I won't expand on this right now, because it wouldn't be fair for me to not let you do it on your own.

The world can be BIG or small. It's important to remember that the likes of what you are surrounded by are most likely productions of your own existence, and you have much more control than you imagine.

Enjoy a moment now. Spend it reflecting.

I feel privileged to know that you read my writing, and take something from me that I couldn't give to you wrapped up in a pretty Carolina blue tweed purse with brown polka dots and a brown and white striped satin bow that came from Jo Malone and smelled equally as wonderful as her Orange Blossom parfum- only it's free. But it's never cheap.

Brooke

I emailed Colette Friday, and I regret it.

I am pushy by nature. In my haste, I occasionally find myself thinking back and regretting things I've done, because I wasn't thinking all the way through. It's a bad habit. I am impulsive and brash, even abrasive. But, just as soon as I get out the words that I later regret, I feel bad. I think there are a lot of people who wish they had bigger balls to say the things that they think, but they hold it in for fear of whatever- rejection comes to mind mainly. But I am the opposite, I wish my filter would work more. I wish for it to just kick in on autopilot, and take over control of my mouth sometimes. At any rate, I emailed my birth mother last Friday, in a short-lived (again regretful) fit of impatience. This is what I said:

I apologize for informally emailing, but the thought occurred to me that you might not have received the card I sent you. If you didn’t, I guess you will be wondering who this is.  It doesn’t have to be awkward though. Before you write me off, if that’s your intention, please call Karen G at the CHS in Greensboro. She is very insightful, and helped me to understand a lot and put things in  different perspectives for me. She has been a tremendous help to me. Fridays always pique my interest in you for some reason, and similarly, are the occasional days that I speak with Karen (or email). Being Friday, I thought of you. I have never forgotten you.

I added at the end, Karen's contact info, but for Karen's privacy, I deleted it here. I signed my name, Brooke. And that was that.

I also let Karen know by blind copying her that Colette might be making a voyage call. This was a series of our emails. They are pretty interesting if you ask someone who cares, like myself. Here's the trail:

Hi Brooke –

Just wanted to let you know that I got your blind cc of the email to Colette.  I’m happy to speak with her, if she should call, and I need to let you know that I can’t tell you if she does call me, unless she says it’s okay. 

Do you have any idea what area code she may call from, so that I have little head’s up if she does call?  I’m not in a real office now, and receive calls on a cell, so sometimes I’m out and about when I get a call. 

I understand. I just thought I would let you know. I would think 910. I’m sorry to throw you under the bus like that, but I thought you might add value to the situation and possibly calm her nerves if she is nervous or anxious. You can tell her anything about me.

Not under the bus at all!  Sometimes it helps to have a clearly defined place to lead someone to. 

I never heard anything back. I wonder if she never thought this day would come, that I would be her dirty little secret, that I would live in her shroud forever. I’m trying to stay positive, but email is email. It’s immediate. I know what you’re thinking- that I need to look at it from her perspective. But dang, it’s hard. I’ve been patient, but she’s had 36 years already to prepare. She had to have known. She’s got intuition. We all do. It’s the Holy Spirit.

I wish I had the magic words to make this all work out for both of you.  You’ve put the invitation out there, and done what you could to welcome her.  I just hate it when nobody RSVPs.

Again, we’ve had birth mothers respond two months, six months, a year, two years after being originally contacted.  Shame and guilt are such strong forces.

Keep the faith, Brooke, and not in a wish-upon-a-star way, but in the loving way that brings you both to peace – admittedly, loads harder to practice!  Perhaps you could set the intention to send out the same unconditional loving kindness you need from her.  Maybe making it an active practice – put post-it notes on your computer, set your phone alarm to make a moment, reflect at stop lights.  Sometimes this is hard to do with someone you have conflict with, so it can help to begin to practice with someone or something you feel more positive or neutral about – like a neighbor or a cat – as the focus, and then work toward the target person.  Just an idea, and something active to channel those questions and head-chatter towards.

Hope you have a good day,

Karen

Good ideas. When I really think about it, and not just FEEL about it, I feel deeply concerned for her. I’ve been trying to be led by logic and not emotions in my daily life. It’s hard to remember that all the time. But I think somehow I’m much better off than most when it comes to this particular situation. I have some idea of what she must be feeling- I’m guessing a myriad of emotions are surfacing. Hopefully, she can abandon her feelings of doubt and shame and guilt long enough to see that this can be a good thing, and if not, then I will have to come with grips because I can’t force myself on her.  I would just like to hear something. If even just a “leave me alone”. That way I can start processing the rejection and decide from what I will take from this experience.

Led by logic….led by logic….

You’re awesome still.

Thanks, Karen.

You know, it’s really a sign of grace when I can’t help someone with what they truly want, and that person is still grateful.  Thanks for that.

I feel like you can never get enough feel good stuff in your life. I live for it, and thrive off of it. I hope you do too. Sometimes I get discouraged though, like everyone else does. Hence...

It's Tuesday afternoon. I haven't heard anything yet. I didn't really expect to, which makes me wonder why I even did it. What was I thinking? Did I think i could rush her into a response? I could bully her into responding? I could scare her into submission? Whatever my motivation, whatever it was at 12:01 on Friday 5/18/12 while I was sitting in my cube in the sky, whatever it was that was making my skin crawl when I thought about Colette, caused me again, to feel remorse. 

Time is man-made.  I know it. You know it. And, the amount of time that it takes one person to get over something might be entirely different from the time it takes another to get over the exact same thing. I am thankful for that aspect of time, for the way that God decided it would be a good idea to make us all different as well. It probably helps a lot.

Karen is wonderful. I can't say enough good things about her, and at the end of all the emails that we exchange, mostly when I know it's a last one for a while, I always end by telling her how great she is. Everyone needs to be reminded of their value. Whether it's self-inflicted or otherwise.

 

Telling People Won't be Easy for Colette

I know I said I was going to retire the blog. Yes, this one- the one that I find so reeling when I re-read. I'm almost left speechless at myself when I go back and read it- not because of the content, but of the personal struggle that I've overcome. I use that word loosely here because I wouldn't say I've overcome anything just yet- hence I'm back to writing.

It's been over a month since I dropped the card in the mail. I have yet to hear anything from Colette. Naturally, I have been thinking about all the different ways that she might be feeling right now. I'm thinking in terms of angles. I'm thinking about all the reasons she has to avoid the net. (I'm the net in this instance.) She's swimming against the current at this point, but she's swimming with it at the same time. It's like she's in one of those Endless Pools where you stay in one place but you get the feeling like you are moving at record speeds or practically drowning.

One major obstacle she could be facing includes telling her sons, her brother, whom I was told she hid her pregnancy from for whatever convoluted reason, which makes me think I'm not so sure I would even care to meet someone that scary, her friends, her co-workers, whomever. about me. Telling people is a huge deal. Oh, by the way, I had a baby 36 years ago that I hid from the world and tried to forget about instantaneously. I'm going to meet her for the first time. Gawk. How in the heck does someone respond to that? Oh that's great! Let me know how that turns out for you?!?... I can see that awkwardness forming in the face of a furrowed brow and widened eyes, and lips pursing like they just sucked a lemon. And the red cheeks. You can't forget the red cheeks. Head cocked to the side, with a neck that's as stiff as an arrow is pointed. That look is unmistakable. It's the look of shocking surprise.

The fact of the matter lies here. People don't know how to respond to matters of the heart and their reactions often reflect their lack of awareness. It takes a special person to know how to react and respond in a caring and understanding manner to hearing news that possibly involves pain and suffering of a friend or loved one. That's why we all aren't in caring fields. Many of us just don't know how to react to the pain that others suffer from. We are so used to cowarding to pain, to suppressing it, to running to the bathroom, or crying in our cars that when it's straight in our faces, we don't know how to deal with our onslaught of immediate emotions.We can barely heal ourselves, hardly understand our own anxiety or depressions, and most likely reflecting on pain is not something we are good at in our own lives- much less in the lives of others.

So, in thinking of how amazingly hard it will be for Colette to take the first step in admitting that I am alive and well to herself and to others, I am now realizing that this is a process that will be started in stages and with baby steps- kind of like the house remodel I just went through. OMG. It took me going through that to realize that what Colette will go through will be similar to that. It was pure Hell.

But, we all know that the very first baby step is HUGE. It's monumental. And her first step will be also. I have no doubt in my mind that she has been preparing herself for all the different reactions she will be faced with. Telling people you have a child that they've never known about is not easy. It's just like you see on Maury. I'm sure jaws drop and mouths get covered by nervous hands, eyes bulge, and there are many questions to follow.

This is a process. It's not something quick. It's not a drive through. It's the Morton's of all love. It's the beginning of a highway. And what in the world was I thinking trying to put a halt to this blog?  This is only just the beginning. I'd say I've only gone 25% at this point. And it took this long to get this far...

More to come.

Exercising your Democratic Demons- VOTE TODAY

I know, voting has little to nothing to do with my adoption, but exercising your right to vote has everything to do with being American. I encourage everyone to vote today AGAINST Amendment One. You might be thinking, "and you claim to be Christian?" You might be thinking, "that is against the sanctity of marriage". WRONG. It's for LOVE.  It's FOR the freedom of choice God gave us when he made us. It's FOR keeping insurance for children of gay parents and for men and women living together who aren't gay, also referred to as common law marriage. Let me explain this further for those of you who have not read up on the issue- many of us haven't until recently, myself included.

Say I lived with Sarah's father still. Thank God I had the guts to get away from his pathetic excuse for a human being self when I did. (Sarah was one, when I finally grew a set. I was encouraged by many friends, but Boyce was with me when we took his things to his parents house and finally said, "SIANARA SUCKA". Thank you Boyce.)We were never married. But we lived together for 3 horrible, long years. Do I sound jaded? I'm not really. I can tolerate him now. Anywho, if I had gotten in a serious car accident, and there was a decision to be made on my health, God forbid, if there was a decision to be made on my life vs pulling a plug, Paul would not have been able to make that decision even though we lived together if this amendment would have been passed. He would also not have been able to have the insurance that he did through my company. When he cut his hand really badly at work he wouldn't have been able to afford health care so he probably wouldn't have gone to the hospital for treatment. If this amendment passes there is a very good possibility that many people who have insurance- including MANY children, under current domestic partnership acknowledgements, could and very most likely will lose their insurance. This is a very real threat to many Americans. The reason that this could happen is like this:

Example: Ameriprise Financial acknowledges domestic partnerships currently. There are many AMPF employees who receive benefits through this acknowledgement. Shareholder #34 doesn't agree with this. He doesn't think it's fair that he is paying for insurance for a couple that is "not married". He decides to sue AMPF for going against the NC Constitution by allowing non-married couples insurance. Therefore, AMPF, nationally will cut all insurance for all domestic partnerships cutting thousands upon thousands of families their benefits. Imagine if that was you and your child has spinibifida. You and your child lose insurance. Now what? She goes to Medicaid? What kind of insurance is that? Is that top of the line care? I doubt it. Don't you want the best for your child? Yes. The answer is always yes if you are normal.

The amount of lawsuits that will spring up from this amendment will be devastating and cause a trickle down effect. This will back up the courts. This will cause loss of productivity. This will cause longer wait times on hold with your insurance company (an insignificant value, but an effect nonetheless). This will cause inflation because so many people will not be able to afford quality health care, and will be looking to Medicaid for support. This will cause taxes to increase. This is devastating to the country. I didn't touch on many other reasons.

This amendment is also discriminatory. It screams, "We don't care about you. You are not worth as much as we are." It's demoralizing, and downright wrong.

There are so many reasons I'm voting against the amendment.

But...one of the main reasons I'm voting against this Amendment is this: I don't believe that GOD himself would vote for this Amendment. I think it's not something that he's pouring over. He is not worried about who loves who. He's probably more concerned about who doesn't love who- and that's what this amendment is about. It's about division. It's judgemental. It's not understanding of others. It's not loving. It's not fair. It's also not fair for the government to decide what marriage should be. I don't want Uncle Sam telling me which church to go to or what Bible to read. I certainly don't want them deciding who should be allowed to be married and who shouldn't.

I love the Lord, and I am voting AGAINST AMENDMENT ONE.

Even if you don't agree with me- you should at least put your two cents in by voting. Stand up for your right to vote.

I anticipate this will have a higher voter turn out than the presidential primaries did. Gay people make up a VERY LARGE portion of society. Don't leave them in the cold. Unmarried couples living together with children make up an even larger portion of society. You most likely know at least one in each category. Do you not care about their rights? Are they not as good as you? Don't be a judge when we both know there is only one real judge.

My FINAL post...a happy ending

It dawned on me that my birth mother might find this blog now that she has my name. It would not be hard for her to find this since for some probably incredibly self-absorbed reason I have tweeted a post here and there. I can't explain why I feel compelled to share such a personal struggle with an often cold, heartless world, and even if I could, you most likely would not understand it unless you are adopted. In fact, I came to the realization that most people do not understand the dynamic of adoption- including the adoptees. I've noticed that many adoptees don't see the goodness in it, because they are sometimes too self-absorbed and reeling from the unknowns that they themselves do not find the truth in the matter- that adoption more often than not, stemmed from love in the purest form. It stemmed from a place in the heart that has boundless love and grace.

People don't realize that when we give something up, we are making room for something new and something better. That's how God describes brokenness. He says that he must break us to rebuild us. And how can I go my entire life thinking about why this woman gave me up without first realizing that had she not have, I would not know the people that I do, had the family that I have, or led the life that I've lived? How could I not have the  perspective that shows me that what I have been devoid of, was nothing that really made a difference in of itself to begin with? I would have never thought that I would come to this realization while sitting at my computer at work on a Monday morning.

I finally came full circle.

I realize now that whatever it was that I felt I needed so badly in my life, my birth mother, my blood relatives, my history, never really mattered in the first place. I never needed what I didn't have, and I think that's what God was trying to tell me all this time I have been writing this blog and doing this search, acting as if it was a rescue. I never needed to be saved, and neither did Colette. We were separated for a reason that God had planned. We needed to be taught some of the most valuable of all lessons. I can't speak for her, but I can speak for myself. I think he was trying to generate some gratitude from me- gratitude that I have always had what I needed when I needed it, and for as long as I needed it. That's my gift in all of this. I am finally beginning to understand the lesson at hand- the lifelong lesson, and they are always lifelong in my opinion. We can never have too much knowledge, too much understanding, too much grace. I have received it, and I thank God for giving me this gift that never ceases to fill hearts- the gift of gratitude, of gratefulness, of thankfulness, of grace. And boy do I need all I can get of grace. But in order for me to be able to receive God's gifts in my life, I needed to be thankful for what I have already been given- which is a life of wonderful blessings. I have a wonderful family, a beautiful daughter. I have a great job. I have a house, a car, and I attend a wonderful church that I feel so happy to be a part of. But the things that matter most...matters of the heart, those are the true blessings- the intangibles- happiness, love, gratitude, peace, joy, generosity, kindness, understanding of others, cheer, consideration of others.

So as of right now this second, I have finally realized that I do not need to know the reasons for my lifelong separation from the woman who gave birth to me. It doesn't matter. It was a loving plan that God had made for me. It was His way of saying, "I love you, my child," as he continually does for all of us. It's unfortunate that we don't pay enough attention to His whispers. I am so glad that I finally heard Him say, "You are MY child, Brooke."

I think I can probably retire this blog now. So it's with great pleasure and peace in my heart that I can bid you au revoir...

Unless I hear from Colette of course, and I will fill you in then...

Day 6- no response, but it's fine.

So, I haven't posted anything since the day I dropped the card on April 11. My boss, Lynn, went with me to do it. She is incredibly freaking awesome, and has been nothing but encouraging to me and supportive. I am blessed to have a boss that actually cares about me on a personal level. (It's all personal in my opinion- everything is.)

There really hasn't been a good reason for my lack of posting, except that I haven't had a lot of time, and I haven't had much to say about it. Everyone keeps asking me if I've heard anything, to which I have replied a monotone, and today a somewhat saddened, "No". It's kind of like when you are not pregnant and someone asks you if you are. You either feel one of two things: you're really pissed at the person for insinuating you are plumper than you thought you were, OR, you are upset because you want to be pregnant, but for some reason, maybe God has another loving plan for your life, you are not. Either way, I am focused on staying positive and trying not to think of it too much, and praying for Colette, when I remember to. I forget to pray too much. It's one of the things I'm working on.

I know it will end up the way God intended it to end up, so knowing that makes it easier. It took me since last August to gain the courage to make the first move, to give up the upper hand, which relinquished me from having all the power in this dynamic situation. Sometimes, that's all God wants from us- for us to set aside our pride, to let go of the upper hand, and let Him do His job. That's not easy for someone like me, and probably most people. But it's something we all must do, so that He can give us our best. So for today, and hopefully for the rest of my life, I will relinquish the control to Him, and let Him be the decider of my fate, and trust Him that it will be what is right and good.

I know I preach a lot, and it might bother a few of you who read my blog, and I'm sorry if you are one of those people, not because I'm possibly offending you, but because I'm sorry you aren't strong enough to let go of your foolish pride that holds you back from believing in our beautiful Author and Creator, the one who beckons at you every day, in many many ways, and wants you back.

The Card

Tomorrow is the day that we've all been waiting for

For my birthday, which is Thursday, and I'm not telling you how old I am, but with a little digging in my blog you could very easily find out if you cared enough, I am going to mail a card to my birth mother. It's not going to be something long and drawn out. It won't be a tear jerker like my previous letters. Nope. Instead,  it will be something short and sweet and to the point. It will more resemble an invitation than anything else. It's time.

You should have seen me at Harris Teeter last night trying to find an appropriate card. It was like watching nursing home residents in their wheelchairs argue about who jumped who in line at 4:30 when the white clothed people ring the cowbell. Some of them hit with their canes, others with their stuffed animals. Either way, it's pretty freaking funny. As you can imagine, there wasn't much to choose from. Had it been cheese that I was looking for, I would have had a much rougher time deciding. There's this nifty, but not thrifty, gift shop here in Charlotte, that has an incredible array of paper products and fun gift ideas that would have sufficiently done the job (thanks Paper Skyscraper for not being in Mint Hill), but as it were, I was there, in Mint Hill, where I loathingly reside, and as I tell people routinely, Mint Hill just doesn't have much to choose from (in anything, men included). There were two cards that I had to choose from. Both were tinging on the side of cheesy and both were altogether pretty lame. One of them made mention of faith, courage, and strength- three of my favorite attributes in people and aliens. The other, had the words inside, "you are thought of more often than you think." I was leaning towards that one, but it had a picture of a cheesy telephone drawn on it, and it looked like something you could pick up at the stab-n-grab on the way to the beach. I decided against it. I got the semi-cheesy one that mentioned courage. I liked what it said. And I had no choice. I would probably go to Paper Skyscraper this afternoon had I not taken the bus today. Taking the bus is economical, but not practical when you are a single mom. Oh well. I refuse to let my lack of a proper card hold me back from finally sending the card. In fact, I think I will just go straight to Walgreens when I get to my car and buy a new card there since they might have a better selection. I'm going to look really silly and really chintzy returning a Hallmark card to Harris Teeter. Who cares? I'm sure I've looked much worse. Just ask anyone I know. I've toppled the charts on looking stupid. I am a hall of famer.

So this is what my note will say verbatim:

For my birthday this year, I wanted to give something precious away, and since I already lost my virginity, I thought I would invite you to join in my life. I think we've been separated long enough. Don't you? I am ready now. I hope you are too. But if you are not, I will hunt you down and kill your family.

OK, no. That's not what it will say verbatim. But it sounded pretty damn funny. Instead I think I will say this:

For my birthday this year, I decided I would send out the best invitation ever to only one person. We have been separated long enough. I'm ready to invite you into my life. I hope you are ready to join. It will only cost you $500/Mo. with no down payment payable in equal installments by the 5th of the month.

OK, no again. But that would be so funny. It will be short and you get the gist. I don't plan on letting her off the hook so easily by telling her that I forgive her for letting me go, even though I'm not mad or hurt. She doesn't need to know everything yet. I also don't plan on telling her about Sarah, but I will include a picture of us together. I think a picture says a thousand words and a few cuss words in the mix in braille if you throw up a bird, which I don't intend on doing. But that would be kinda funny too. I'm beginning to see a pattern here. White couch here I come.

Lastly, and on a more sincere note, I would like to say that I welcome a relationship with my birth mother, and despite having made a mockery of my life and of adoption in general, by writing a blog for my peers and the world to see and gawk at, I truly do care about the outcome. I did this for one main reason- to document my search for other adoptees who are in limbo and in search themselves and feel isolated in that they don't have many peers who can relate to their situation, nor understand, and it has ultimately become a creative outlet for me to express my feelings without cussing someone out, which is never good.

I will post a video of myself dropping the letter in the mailbox at work tomorrow, provided I can get someone to video it. My timing might be off by one day because I don't know how long it will take for the letter to get from Crown Town to J-Vegas, but we shall see. It's been almost 36 years, she can wait one more day. Crap, I ended up telling you anyway. I can't keep a secret to save my life.

Garbage in Garbage out

Dedicated to my dear, very old (lol) friend, Chris.

As I realize that there is so much more to life than what meets the eye, I can't help but notice one of the most important of all characteristics of life lessons- one that is often learned late, and more often unfortunately, when it's too late: the ability to let things go. Most of what I know about, what I write about later, comes from life lessons. I fear to say that life lessons aren't learned from a book because anyone who writes most likely reads and anyone who reads knows that you can become quite enlightened from reading the feelings of those who write about them. So it's with delicate measures that I make the verbal assumption that learning's playground is hands on and the curve is ever changing. (I'll expand more later on this.)

Since my house has been torn up, my pysche has been in conjunction, crumbling as well, as has Sarah's I've determined. At least that's the only thing I can blame for her awful behavior recently. Maybe it's the fact that I have made spoiling children look like a work of art. Either way, I've noticed that there are lots of times in my life that I have not let the right things go, and slipped on the heels of the unscrupulous all too many times.

The sheer stress of making difficult decisions alone has just about put me in an early grave. But what I've noticed is, that it's not the decisions that are tough to make, it's recognizing and associating the value of the accompanying factors that lead up to the decision making time that distract us from making right choices. For example, your mind remembers numbers in one basic way. It's called chunking. It trains itself to break up numbers into small recognizable numbers which enables it to remember longer numbers easier than if you were to try to remember one long number. Telephone numbers are a perfect example of chunking. If you look at your daily decision making routines in that way, you can account for all the contributing factors that divide and conquer your mind, which ultimately influence your decision.

My outlook is ever changing, and it's only when I have moments of clarity and distinction that I can realize that it's not the actual problem that stems the unwanted results, it's my way of chunking out the underlying issues. I have always been a believer in fate, in destination, which would only allow me to believe that things will ultimately be OK. One would think that would negate any feelings of uncertainty, any unruly feelings altogether, which brings me to the final point in thought.

We live in a constant emotional state as we allow ourselves to. There is not a feeling in the world that will supply us with a correct answer- because there are no right and wrong answers. What is right to you might be wrong to me, and vice versa. There is and there is not, and it is all according to you. That is life. In math, your equations will either end up right or wrong, but there are lots of equations that even the latest and greatest could never solve. Everything is contradictory, and we are all human. That is one of the hardest lessons to learn.

If I can keep my mind in this state, I will be fine. Who knows what I will feel in five minutes. hahahahahahahaha. Point proven.

Letter # I don't remember at this point.

Dear Collette,

I hope you are sitting down because this is going to be a shock to you. Well I guess that remains to be seen. You may have been waiting a long time for this moment. Quick! Get out your camera. It’s in the junk drawer. C’mon, I know you have one. Everyone does.

 I was born on April 12, 1976 in Charlotte, I recently learned. I did not know my birthplace until last August when I found out that you were my birth mother. Since I found out, as you can probably imagine, I have been mulling over how to approach this situation.

Let me start by saying this: I have longed to know you all of my life, to know your people, who were originally my people too. I've longed to know my birth father and his people, too- not as much as you though if that's any consolation.  I learned in my search that you did not tell my birth father about me. I would still like to know who he is. I sincerely hope you can remember who he is. You are getting old after all. (Sad attempt to make light of this. Humor has always been my friend.)

I understand that request may be very hard for you to digest if you really never told him about me. I'm sorry that it might be very painful for you to even think about me, and even reliving that time in your life altogether might be excruciating. I can only imagine. I have a daughter, so I can somewhat relate. That means you are a grandmother. Sorry to inform you, if you were living life thinking you were still in your prime. I heard that you have a full head of gray hair which I guess is something I have to look forward too as well. That stinks, but it’s forgivable.

I want you to know that I don't blame you for what you did. I have an idea of what it was like for you being in college at the time of your pregnancy, and having two older siblings who both graduated college. One would derive that there might be some lofty expectations of you being the youngest to come out on top like the others. But I also recall in my notes from the adoption agency that your parents wanted you to marry the birth father and keep me. Either way, I imagine it was no easy feat for you to give me up, and to go all these years wondering what happened to me. I know who I am, and so I imagine you can't be that different. I feel things pretty deeply, as I imagine you do as well.

 I would like to know more about my heritage, my lineage, my health information, but most importantly- ABOUT YOU. I have gone my whole life wondering who I am, where I came from, what it would be like to know other people who look like me, who act like me, who are like me. Two words: missing link. Don't get me wrong. I have had a great family, a great upbringing- maybe it was rocky at times, but who goes through life without strife? Show me that person, so I can hug her- maybe she's Irish.

I am writing you today to see if you would be interested in meeting me. I don't want anything from you. I know you have a life already. I do too! But I thought you might be curious to know about me. After all it's been almost 36 years. I'm holding onto 30 though. Shhhh. I live in Charlotte, which is only a few hours’ drive from Jacksonville.

I know I have relatives out there. I sent a facebook message to your sister. So I imagine you might know that I was looking for you. She never responded. I assume she looked at my birthday and something might have clicked. Who knows? Assuming is bad. I do it too much. But when you have as little to go on as I have had all these years, your imagination becomes quite vivid and relentless on occasion.

I'd like to leave you wanting to know more about me. So, I don't want to tell you too much. It's like sleeping with a guy on the first date. He got what he wanted and he might not come back. I've never done that btw. I'm a good girl. Well that might be a fib, but I am a good girl anyhow. Now you're thinking, wow, this girl is crazy and a whore. You'll never want to meet me now. Maybe I should rethink this letter. Nah. This is me. I am who I am, and you are who you are, and I owe it all to GOD.

He's my real mom and dad. Knowing that has made it easier for me. And in all honesty, I have grown up very happy, very stable (that could be debated) I was a debater in high school. Nothing screams dork more than that. I was also a dancer for 15 years, until I quit because I thought drinking beer was more fun. Boy was I stupid. I might not have this beer belly now, had I thought that one through. I might have your genes to thank for that too. Eh. That’s what Weight Watchers is for.

I am going to record myself dropping this letter in the mail. I truly hope that you want to meet me too. You might realize that you have needed me all these years, and it's never too late to start over. I do it every day.

Please call me or write me back. You can find my number in most bathroom stalls in Charlotte bars on Central Avenue. Joking of course.

Love,
Brooke

Change your Lens dude.

How I wish there was a Starbucks in my neighborhood. No, actually, let's make it in my house, and on my nightstand right this second. Don't you wish you could just think something up, and it would happen? Some people say that you can. They call it the the law of reciprocity, which in essence, really means, that what you exert comes back to you. I don't know if I believe all that crap, but one thing is for certain. The people that you surround yourself with will undoubtedly change your outcomes if you let them. We will obviously have many outcomes in our lives because nothing stays the same, nothing is permanent, and life is a constant motion.

I learned this lesson the hard way in many cases, especially recently. I happen to be very trusting person, thus probably naive to the world and its many inhabitants. There are those who want to bring process improvement, who are driven by matters of the heart, who are not hesitant to help, and not thinking in terms of dollar signs, but genuinely want to help one another. And you have those who want to save the world, but who want and expect to get rich doing so, and instead of climbing the mountain with a walking stick, they climb over people instead, squashing them like ants on a sidewalk. And there are those who don't care period. They don't genuinely care about themselves, others, or anything for that matter. In their twisted mind they are "helping, " but the truth of the matter is, they are doing just the opposite. They are making matters worse. I wouldn't say that there are 3 types of people in the world because I'm not a fan of stereotyping. But I would say that people are often mislead. We are guilty of doing it, and we are victims of it.

I believe that setbacks are just lessons learned. Some happen to be more biting than others, but they are all the same whether we want to believe it or not. We should all try to constantly clean our lenses, and if you want to think in terms of the bigger picture, one could say that we all need to be viewing our setbacks as welcomed times for us to grow and learn and morph. It's all in your outlook. No problem is too big. None is worse than another. It's all relevant, and it's real, and you are always capable of fixing whatever it is that plagues you just by cleaning your lens. And while you might not be able to change the actual outcome or actually put the broken pieces back together because maybe some are missing, maybe some are cracked, you are able and capable of changing the way you let the brokeness affect you as a whole. You can choose to be aware of your surroundings or  be self aware.


Now I know you are thinking, "Brooke, that's bullshit. A 4 year old daughter who has Spinibifida is not comparable to your pipes in your house being shaken up a little. A terminally ill mother of 6 young children is nowhere near the likes of a car breaking down or a missed school bus, or a computer virus that shuts down your website." And while you might be thinking that they are not related, not in the same category of pain, same lines of stress, or in comparison by any means, they are all relative, and all manageable.

How we deal with stressors in our lives that have potential to rip away layers of our very beings is most important. The way we react can often lead to our outcomes, and the people we involve ourselves with can interfere with healthy reactions regularly. This is a very sensitive topic for many people in the world today. Whiners and nay sayers will tell you over and over again that it can't be done, that there is no way, that you are naive in your thinking. And you will start believing their lies. So before you get entangled with people who don't think positively, and don't clean their lenses often, politely remove yourself from their realm. It's OK to withdraw. Your services have been rendered long enough. And some people you can never change. But you can always, always change yourself.

I have peace in my heart because I know that God is working on me and for me. You can always know that God is working in your behalf even when you don't see it. Often times you won't. And often times you will not understand your adversity. But if you embrace your adversity, you will grow in ways that you would have never thought possible especially,  "in that situation." But always know that He is working on your behalf- the silent partner. I owe it to God. Without him, nothing is possible.

Final Thought

A couple days ago a co-worker of mine, who I consider to be a real friend, because we meet at the mind quite frequently, and our hearts seem to be in sync also, told me something that resonated in me. She said that God can't fix your heart if you don't give him all the pieces. I think that says it all for now. I love our "smoke breaks" (Neither of us smoke. Smoking is yucky.)

Just because you avoid the net, it doesn't mean you swim better

I wish I could help you.
But I can't.
You are not what you were.
And I miss you.
There are times that I think about how things used to be.
Do you?
I tried believing your lies.
It was never your fault.
It never was your fault.

You hide your true self.
The drugs don't do the trick.
I can't tell if you're honest.
Nothing makes sense. I ran out of patience. I didn't mean to.

You're not who you were.
I miss you. You were great.
You can be that again.

But you can't be who you are right now.
You have to cut her off, snuff her out, let her go.
Let everything go.
The important things will survive.

You will survive,  find love, and be restored. Never forgotten.

Best of all...

You will forget this one day, and then realize that it was something... that you had control over the whole time.

I'm a sucker, but it could be worse.

It's official. I am a grade A #1 sucker.
I have been dealing with this ongoing water damage claim with my insurance, with three questionable construction men of sorts, all of which I thought I could trust, all of which thought they could trust me as well, and we all secretly didn't trust each other was what it really boiled down to. It's not uncommon for humans to act on feelings. People often comment that women are more susceptible to acting out on feelings, which leaves men therefore less inclined to act on feelings, and even further less inclined to show emotion. So they say. I have found that to be totally false, unwarranted, lacking of merit, and undeniably misdiagnosed. And I owe it all to a few pipes that wanted to rebel against the unruly and unforgivable raw sewage that forces its path through them. I don't know, but if I was a pipe, I would probably do the same thing. Who wants to have urine running all over them, much less #2? There are people in this messed up world we live in who do, but thankfully and somewhat surprisingly, I do not know them.

To make a long, very boring, and confusing story, digestible (pun intended- get it? pipes, digest, you are laughing inside. I just know you are.)

My house had either a clog in the main line, or a root growing through the pipe or it was demon possessed. I'm fine with entering a plea of a combination of all three. The truth is, I don't know what the heck the problem is with the plumbing in my house. Whatever the issue, it is still unfortunately unknown to me, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was unknown by all interested parties, and I use the word interested very loosely here. What makes an object of desire intriguing to one person is entirely different to another. Essentially, I'm saying that my best interest was not at hand, although I was told repeatedly by all parties involved, the insurers, the fixer uppers, and the friends of the fixer uppers, that I was being carefully looked after. I even told myself that I was being diligent in hiring the right people. After all, all people who were hired were friends of someone I knew. That is scary in itself. It's scary that all three of the people that I hired knew someone I knew, and all three were clowns, untrustworthy, grimy fuckheads. I say that with only the purest of disdain and bitterness. You'll have to excuse my French, but if you were me, and lucky for you you are safely you, you would probably have thrown a chair through your 15th story high rise window while you were still seated on top of it. I have maintained composure somehow. God helps. A lot. I will probably have to sit an extra 32 hours on the white couch, which will match my new white hair when it's all said and done.

In all of this nightmare that has both snuffed out too many of my semi-precious cell phone minutes, and raped me of three hours of my morning routine work day, which accumulate to about a weeks worth of real work, I have learned that people, not all people, but people in general are assholes. People will lie to your face, they will tell you what you want to hear, and they will do it without the bat of an eyelash. People run on emotions and act on feelings. It's probably why we live in such a litigious society, and why we make threats that we don't intend on ever following up on. We want to protect ourselves from the likes of ourselves. It's scary. I hate this world sometimes. By the time I die, I will be either very bitter or truly enlightened, maybe both, but either way, I will hopefully be wise enough to know when someone is telling me the truth. And if I know by instinct, then I will act on intuition, and go with my gut feeling.

Final Thoughts

We don't trust our gut feelings enough, which I believe is really the Holy Spirit. If we listened more without asking the whys and hows and just know that He is in control of all things, we would all be better off, and have less worry, less anxiety, and less need for control. I, for one need to believe God to do the things that he says he will do more often and quit trying to figure out why He does what He does, and just be fine with knowing that He's in control, and everything will be fine. It will all be over soon enough, and these worries of drywall and laminate vs hardwood will be nothing more than a fart in the wind to put it eloquently. And thank God. I can't take much more of this.

Letter #6...The Real Deal, Unrepressed

This has been a particularly rough month for me. I have had a lot going on in my life, at home, at work, sometimes they seem to be in unison because, I guess, because  I am human, and it is sometimes hard for me to separate the two. When I walk out of work, I try to leave my work-related stress in that little squishy red ball sitting on my desk,  and I don't want to talk about work at all during my time off.

But there are times in your life that your home life will spill into your work life and vice versa. It's unavoidable. If something in your personal life is eating away at your very soul, you can count on being preoccupied at work. No amount of coffee, sleep or working out can counteract ongoing stress. It's not called the silent killer for nothing. But I realized that the times that I feel most stressed out are the times that I feel the need to be in control. And the clincher here is this. It's when I relinquish my control to God, and trust in Him, when I feel most relieved.

People are always saying, "Don't take it personally. It's business." While, true, it might be business related, we are not robots. I don't care how many ways you try to convince yourself that you are someone different while at work. You simply are not.  You are who you are when it's 8-5 and when it's 5-8.  And just because I was born with a vagina and not a penis (if I had one, it would be bigger than average, I hope), I do not think with my heart in all instances. But if you do something that tells me one thing while your lips tell me something totally different, I am going to notice. I was not born last night. You know how I know? I just learned back in August 2011 what time I was born- thanks to Debi. I don't remember right now though. I'm guessing it was morning though- somewhere around the witching hour, since I am admittedly feisty and witchlike (on Mondays and Wednesdays only).

Recently, I had an organizational switch in my role at work, which I had absolutely no control of. No planned out line of questioning or prodding for truths would prove anything nor confirm or deny anything that I didn't already know the answer to, but for some reason I needed affirmation that I was still worth it. Worth what? Worthy of being wanted I guess, of being needed, of being employed. I needed to know that my efforts to please my bosses were noticed, that my role was not in vain, that my place in the company was not faltering. So I asked. I cried when I did, which is most unprofessional. But you know what?  I am human. I am real. When I want to know something, I'm gonna ask it. And when I don't feel appreciated, I will move on. Maybe that's a vain approach to life. Maybe I put too much emphasis on something as fleeting as feelings. Maybe most people don't place enough value on others' feelings, and that's what really bothers me about the business world. People want robots these days. It's clear when you look at formerly booming industries such as manufacturing and agriculture. When they say they want computerized, standardized methods they mean it in more than one way.

I enjoy cutting up at work. Practical jokes and boisterous laughter are often emitting like UV rays from my cube.What's the point in being so serious all the time? Who says work should be dull?  Being humorous at work is very unfortunately frowned on in a lot of companies though. I think that's bullshit. I can remember working for my Dad, and reading to him a cover letter than I once wrote, and his reaction that irked me, prompting me to never ask his opinion again on that topic.  He said it wasn't professional, not serious enough. Since when did the world get so uptight. It wasn't just my Dad. It's corporate America.

Sure, the letter was a bit daring, could have been a bit forthright, maybe flirting with conceit, maybe quirky, and probably somewhat humorous. It was too honest, too obvious.  But here's the deal. It was me. Do we really want to start something out on a lie? Why in interviews do we have to make shit up? We have Q and A books that we pour over while we are prepping for interviews. Should I make something up that blatantly is not what I am- a perfectionist, consummately on-task, on-time, on point?  On a role is more like it. Lies, all lies. Now, I'm a multi-tasker who often takes on too much responsibility? That's complete bullshit. If I was like that I would be the CEO. I wouldn't be sitting here answering your lame questions about my so-called work habits that may or may not be true depending on how gullible you are.

Good habits are a result of happiness- in your personal life and in cube living. It's evident. Wouldn't you rather know if I'm a good person or not? Would I lie about task completion? Would I cover up a mistake? Would I narc out a co-worker who was doing something he's not supposed to be doing? The answer to that is easy- no. Honestly, I don't think that employers want to hire someone who would say yes to that question. Employers don't want to see your true colors obviously because they ask such unimportant, irrelevant questions quite frequently in interviews.

If I answer your questions the way some 1976 Harvard PhD grad who is now working as a business consultant for companies like Google and AT&T tells me to answer them, I am not only lying to you, but I am also unoriginal. I am not what you are probably looking for. I have my own mind, and I am actually intelligent despite the fact that I don't have a degree from an accredited university. I make up my own decisions on the fly because I like to think. It pleases me to please you Mr. Bossman Interviewer. I don't usually follow suite, which might make you uncomfortable because,  well I guess, because, I might take your job one day. No,  I don't fit your mold. I like to make my own mold. I think they call that thinking outside of the box. But really, it's thinking inside the box. When you are thinking inside the box you are using your own uniqueness, your own creativity, and utilizing your gifts. You are being yourself- what you were put here for.

What got me riled up tonight is the thought of interviewing. It's the thought that I have to pretend that I am not who I really am to get a job. I can't stand to be a fake. It drives me batty. Please don't ask me to lie; it will eat me up. I'm not saying I don't ever lie. I'm human. I lie. In fact, I lied to a friend about something totally ridiculous recently, that ended a twenty year friendship. It was coming anyway. We had grown apart. It was actually very innocent, and I lied because I took someone else's bad advice. But that's beside the point.

The point here is this: Be yourself. But care for others as you are doing it. The letter that I wrote below is an honest depiction of how I feel about Colette on occasion, when I am thinking only about myself. Nevertheless, it is not something that I would ever convey in that manner to her because I am not that mean. But if people were as clear as day as we sometimes feel, we would all hate each other.

Jesus said in John 10: 18, "I have power to die, and I have power to live again." Sometimes we must mask, sometimes smother our true feelings so that we can get past pain. We do it because we know it's right. We lie sometimes to prevent heartbreak.

I feel like I need to be honest right now. And because honesty takes a toll sometimes, I wanted to give you fair warning that what you are about to read below is gritty, and not withholding. One would never know happiness if before, he didn't experience sadness. Most people never let this kind of truth out, but I don't mind, because I know that everyone hurts sometimes, and everyone hides it. You might hide in a bathroom at work when you cry. You might scream in your car when you are angry. You might punch a hole in your bedroom wall (an expensive method of expression I wouldn't recommend for some obvious reasons). However you express yourself behind closed doors is your choice. I choose to write. You choose to read it.

Dear Colette,

I am your birth daughter. You gave me away to total strangers when I was born. You kept me a secret as if I was never born. You stripped me of knowing where I came from all of my life. And I don't know if you have any remorse for it, because you have never tried to contact me to even let me know.
They say that I should be writing you nice words. I don't really give a shit right now what they say. They aren't me. They didn't grow up feeling like a missing link. They didn't have a million questions rolling around in their coconut that most normal people have definite answers to immediately when they are asked. They also didn't selfishly give away a baby like you did.
One might say it is a selfless thing to do. I might agree one day. One day I might vehemently disagree. At any rate, I'm not gonna sugar coat this. I'm pissed at you right now. I have made a few connections with you, and you again, have made no attempt at knowing me. Denied once again. How many times will you do this to me? Does it bother you that I'm hurt by your lack of care for me? Are you so far stuck up your own ass that you can't even look at me? Are you human? Do people love you? I wonder what it's like for you to live your life knowing that you had a perfectly good child and you gave her away. Because, why again?
I don't know you and frankly, right now, I could care less about you. I think very low of you right now, almost to the point that you did, when you signed the papers, when you didn't visit me in the hospital, when you didn't tell my birth father about me. You're dead to me. Just like I was to you 35 years ago, only I was an innocent baby, a sweet, healthy, pretty baby. You are old, probably haggard, and most likely unhappy. I don't want to write you any more sweet letters. This is it. I'm done writing your pathetic, weak ass. I don't care anymore. I don't know if I ever truly did.
This note will probably mean nothing to you. Just like I meant nothing to you when you gave me away. You bitch. You don't deserve to have children.
Why am I so pissed? I don't know. But I'm blaming it all on you right now. I've planted the seed that I wanted to meet you. You must be aware. You have to be aware. You should be ashamed of yourself. I hope you are. I hope you get some help because what you did to me is despicable. Anyone who has unprotected sex and gets pregnant should take responsibility for their own actions. Abortion is wrong. And giving your child away is a cop out. Grow a sack. Explain to me why you did that to me. Why you separated me from others who are like me, why you left me. I deserve to know. You owe me at least that much since you took everything else away from me that should have been my fucking birthright. I can't even imagine what it would be like to live your life knowing that you gave your own child away. I don't care how many "circumstances" surrounded you, I am a fucking person- a living, breathing, capable, wonderful person. I deserve to know why you did what you did.
I know who my Father is. So that makes it easier for me to forgive you, BUT, I still don't like you. This will be no different for you seeing as how you never knew me from the beginning, and you don't have to try now to make up for all those years. You can just curl this piece of paper up in your little fist and throw it away, just like you did to me when I was born that day- just toss this out like an old magazine. Have a nice life you cold hearted bitch.

No one,  who's a someone

The Voices that Brought me to 13

While lying under the soft, thick covers of the twin bed I was very uncomfortably and against my will, but insisted upon sharing with my daughter, Sarah, on Valentine's Day during a sleep over at my aunt and uncle's house, I had a great and wonderful feeling come over me from something that most people would find small and insignificant. I was lying there, straight as an arrow, blindly looking straight up at a seemingly never ending ceiling. Without vision correction, I am legally blind, I just recently learned at an optometrist visit. I laid there stiff as a board as if I was a corpse in a coffin six feet under with saddened family members stomping on the ground above me. There was no room for elbows or bent knees because of the impending little arms and legs that curled up beside me, leaving me practically dangling from the edge. As I laid there, thinking about the day that had ended and mentally preparing for the future 6:30am alarm, I was lucky enough to have a feeling come across me that many people probably wish they had more often.

I felt like I was again at home, not my current home I share with Sarah, but my parent's home that I grew up in- that home that they sold in 1999. That was the home that we grew up in. This feeling that was spreading throughout my body and mind was almost overwhelming. And what it stemmed from, was something routine and ordinary, but to me, was out of the ordinary, and felt extraordinary.

You know how sometimes when you are lying in bed and your eyes are open, but the room is pitch black, and you are somehow mentally transported to your childhood bedroom by just the way the light is hitting a wall? You lay there imagining your closet door hanging open with its built in blinds that as a child you always envisioned was concealing some form of monster or ghost. And you can picture your chest sitting there against the wall right beside your bed draped with your trinkets and childhood jewelry box or mementos that your grandfather who died when you were 13 had given you, but somehow during your lifetime you managed to regrettably lose. Perhaps they were stolen by a friend or worse, your brother's friend. Perhaps  misplaced in a move and unknowingly left in a dusty moving box in the attic, and had you known they were there, they might be currently sitting proudly atop your new dresser that you bought yourself with your first real paycheck from your first real salaried job. Whatever the scenario might be for you, you know that you will never forget your childhood bedroom no matter how many times you might paint it a disastrous orange or adorn it with unsightly hair band posters which rivaled a neighboring Kirk Cameron in a blue blazer and white t-shirt poster, all stuck to the walls with some yellow, greasy silly putty knock off that never really did the trick, so you resorted back to the old stand by- scotch tape. It worked every time.

As I was frozen, mentally trans juxtaposed in my alternate reality that now mostly provides me with fond memories, there was nothing I could do to get myself out of this state of mind. There was nothing I wanted to do. I enjoyed it. It was like I was 13 again, only I was happy.

My early teen years were particularly painful because of mean girls at school mostly, accompanied by the obvious hormonal changes that alter even the sweetest of little girls' demeanour, and there were days I felt like committing suicide. I would never do that, but the thought of being dead meant not having to deal with mean three-way calls and sitting down at the lunch table and having every single person at the table get up and walk away. I will never forget how painful that was. Those people who stood up with their brown lunch trays probably don't even remember doing it, maybe they don't even remember my name.

What brought me back to that awkward time of my life, minus the awkward, was something so trivial. I could hear from downstairs the voices of my Aunt Linda, my Mom, and my Uncle Neil. They were talking and the TV was almost drowning out their conversation. That's all it was- the sound of men and women talking that was traveling up the stairs to my room above. It's been almost fifteen years since I have been in an upstairs room and heard adults talking below me. The house that my parents bought after we moved from that house didn't have an upstairs room that I slept in. I mostly slept in the basement apartment or on the same level as they did.

Who would have thought that something so small, so insignificant, would have invoked such feeling. I would love to have that feeling everyday. But as it is, I don't think I will. It felt good to reminisce though. I love moments like that. You can't replicate the feeling of family. You can, however, appreciate what you have when you have it. It's in those moments that I feel most alive, most grateful.