Unraveling my Yellow Tape: Adoptive parents are clear indicators of human gra...

Unraveling my Yellow Tape: Adoptive parents are clear indicators of human gra...: I'm compelled to disclose some more of this story since I have kinda just left things hanging for the past year or so and let me tell y...

Paperwork Schmaperwerk

It has been months I've made any brazen attempts at knowing this strange woman who quite possibly begrudgingly carried me in her warm womb, then in a matter of six short, but painful hours, squeezed me through her birth canal and then left my life forever. The paperwork I have on my birth which is completely compiled in one tight paragraph, did not detail the nuances of childbirth and pregnancy the way most loving mothers would recall having their first born child- splashed with descriptive actions like 'felt your little kicks" and, "rubbing my belly," and the word glisten was perfectly absent. There is a simple, almost polite, completely sterile, three sentence paragraph with not a single comma. Bland and nondescript- as if baby birthing in 1976 was equal to a one-liner joke told by a Rodney Dangerfield impersonator in a seedy off off Broadway flat in NY's finest shitty neighborhood. I don't get it. Not one iota of detail surrounding the birth of a human being except a scientific description of my twisted right foot, and a suggested path to correction. Wow. That is one great book to read- about as informative and interesting as reading a printer manual in Mandarin.

I guess this disgusting lack of description is particularly deflating to someone like me for selfish reasons. I like to describe things. Nothing makes me more happy than to accurately and intricately outline a story. I like to know the juice, drink the juice, be the juice. The nitty gritty intrigues my mind, and I get off on being understood and explaining things to the point of undeniability. And when it is finished, you'll know because you will want more- like now. Like exactly now.

Truth be told, all of this driving desire to reunite with these perfect strangers is a combo of selfish determination and self-unawareness- self being the key descriptor. It's just not right to want to invade someones privacy for senseless reasons that only pertain to myself. Devilishly transparent, even putrid you might be thinking. Either way, I will get to the bottom of this if I have to think this thing into the ground and later excavate it. I hate to say this will be the death of me because I am hoping and praying that breath will be spoken into this relationship, but I have somewhat prepared for a slam in the face heart-wrenching NO, which is really what I've already been dealing with I suppose. The fact that these long lost people of mine, well formerly mine, in utero only, have not responded to my oddball requests and multiple letters to my birth mother, each more forceful than its predecessor, the fact that they have not responded in any form or fashion reminds me of Dumb and Dumber when Lloyd was told that there was one in a million chances that he would have a chance with the girl, and he jumped up, clicking his heels, and said, "You mean there is a chance!" Actually, in the movie I don't recall any leprechaun heel clicking moves in that scene, but there could have been. My memory isn't as good as yours probably.

I have turned into Lloyd. Great. Despite the very real truth that I love Dumb and Dumber with all my heart and even have a VHS copy of it in case the DVD accidentally cracks, I do not insist on insulting my intelligence like that, but I prefer to see the humor in most things uncomfortable.

Lucky for me (and Lloyd) there is hope- that small sliver of detail that people often forget about when the going gets rough. I plan to rely on that and faith for the rest of my life, and until either of those run out, I know in my heart that I will be fine. Period.

I will continue the elusive chase I imagine, until I feel satisfied with one answer, or until I am completely pushed off the face of the earth- whichever comes first.

I like to keep the stalking fresh and switch it up every now and then. Occasionally, banging through the keyboard by means of a random message sent on Facebook, not surprising at all if you think about it, considering 100,000,000,000 (too many zeros) people are finely in-tune with it's feed and consider posting to it a daily ritual, myself included.  I have not picked up the phone to call my birth aunt though lately; Melody is her name- to announce to her family on what sounded like a 1987 Radio Shack answering machine that I have been looking for them for quite some time, and that I believe that we are related. No return call. Twice I called, twice left messages, the second more direct than the first and probably more insistent on a return call, which was not honored nor probably appreciated, based on the response I got- which was zip, zilch, and zero all combined into a whopping bag of nothing.

I have also written the birth mother one snail mail letter, and two separate emails. None returned, so that is a clear indicator that Mr.M Daemon did not get a hold of them. I also have bombarded her friend, and my former friend who has assimilated to the non-responsiveness that the rest of the family is taking up. She unknowingly released the privied information to the search angel, Debi, who ultimately found my birth mother for me, in a very closed, and very sealed adoption dating back to the seventies. I just aged myself, but for the sake of the storyline, which is really my life story unfolding as you see it here, I will take it like a champ. The friend who outed my birth mother, probably got a tongue lashing and a cold shoulder after that, which might assign some truth into the character of my birth mother and her unassuming family. Well I honestly don't believe she told any one in her family other than her sister, and parents who visited her while she was in the maternity home which was and still is located in Charlotte.

One day soon, I might have a visit to the Florence Crittenton Home for unwed mothers. I might just have a visit this weekend. I'll take my camera and upload some pics of the joint since no one thought it was appropriate back then when I was born. I guess instead of creating memories, the birth mothers wanted to shove the memory of birthing a baby and giving it away to complete strangers to raise is something that was not especially camera worthy, and not exactly fond, and probably something that kept resurfacing at odd times throughout the years creating much pain and undue suffering.

But I guess back then, the idea was to keep the privacy of the adoptive parents at the forefront, and the rights of the birth parents practically abolished like the detailed descriptions were of the births and what led up to the births. That would include any real life situations that could have been addressed without having to give up a child.  Maybe that is the truth. Maybe if those thoughts were revisited for too long, ideas would form that would lead to different outcomes and different lives, affecting the world in a much easier, digestible light. Maybe, just maybe I would not be sitting here right now, typing this.

I am very thankful for my family. Do not get it twisted. I am truly blessed, but with that blessing came a very real interest, inherited if you will, and born deep into my soul in finding my people. I think anyone who takes that for granted has no idea what it is like to be the one who doesn't.

If it happens that we meet, that we exchange some open communication, some rhetoric is dialed up, maybe even some real life interaction, I don't know what I should expect because I have already formed in my mind what it will look like when it happens. That is a probably one of the only private things about this story of mine that I have remained sealed about. That too, will be revealed, as more is revealed, an unveiling of a mystery. That mystery holds the key to me. And by God, I am determined to get to the bottom of it- even if the outcome is devastatingly unfavorable. I can assume closure, and this chapter will be no longer an anomaly in this life.

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