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...

Adoptive parents are clear indicators of human grace

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 you why. I went to my high school reunion last night- 20th to be exact, and I saw an old, and I mean old friend, Shannon. HAHA on old. We are clearly the same rotten age, and holding on tightly to our thirties as if dangling from a cliff overlooking the ocean on a James Bond flick from 1978. Actually, if I remember correctly, she is one year older than me, so she is clearly hanging on much tighter than me.

Anyway, she told me she read my entire blog, and I was shocked. I have no idea who reads this, unless you tell me, like she did. Moreover, I don't write this for the readership, although it's always nice to be complimented. It makes it seem more worthwhile, escaping the obvious reality that writing allows me to process all of this unfolding of truth (and lies).

I feel honored that anyone reads this, and my hopes are to write a book entailing the quest. I want somehow to incorporate the Godly perspective in all of this. Not sure how that will happen, but faithful that God will lead the way, if I just begin the typing.

A lot of the time, I don't really know where it all comes from when I write. I don't speak eloquently. I'm not over the top intelligent, probably just average Jill based on my life choices. That's to be held for the second book. How NOT to Live Your Life by Buga Fairley. So I'll maintain that God uses me for this. I'm sure that someone is getting something out of it.

Back to the quest. I am not even sure where I left off, so I'll just tell you what's happened recently. Approximately six weeks ago I felt brave one day. But let me preface this with it started with me lying on the green couch wailing out to God that I didn't understand why this woman wouldn't talk to me. I laid there alone, sun beaming in directly at me through the naked window, cradling the phone and scolding it's power at the same time.

I had effectively, on a whim, decided that I would call my birth uncle (by marriage), who is a complete stranger to me.

The uncle has a name. It's Wayne. He is married to my birth mother's older sister, who is 8 years older. He was easily located because he owns a business and let's face it, Google makes everything easier. What did we ever do without it? Bing doesn't hold a candle, but that's beside the point.

It apparently was his cell phone, because the voice mail didn't mention the company name. I left a message.

Hello Wayne. My name is Brooke Fairley and I'm calling on a personal note. Please call me back when you have some time. I almost hung up without giving him my number. Choke it up to nervous jitters.

I hung up and decided that he would probably not call me back.

I laid on the green couch and cried. What had I just done? All the rules of adoptee to birth mother engagement say that this is the absolute wrong approach. They tell us that this sort of thing only pisses people off. Because of the shame brought onto the mothers and the high degree of privacy they maintain to achieve throughout the years, this abrupt calling of near relatives before ever speaking to the birth mother is a big no-no. The crippling fear of being found out has these mothers in knots. They go on for their whole lives, some of them, thinking that one day they will be found. Paralyzed by the very thought.

 I did it anyway.

You see, these women, went to undeniable lengths to hide their pregnancies. They couldn't face the harsh public eye. If subjected to it, they would be shunned and could lose everything.

That was the mentality.

The devil is a liar. He is out to steal, kill, and destroy. He stole the baby from the mothers. He killed any chance at happiness after having a baby for these mothers. And that asshole destroyed any chance of a relationship. I believe that the cruelty of the times was a direct result of his terrible doings. He instilled the fear, produced the anxiety, and discouraged mothers from keeping their babies by fueling the fires in the public eye.

God's answer was adoption. He gave the parents who could not have children the opportunity to be parents. Who knows if maybe God had previously decided to not allow those parents to have children. And through his loving grace gave them a second chance, answered their prayers, gave them children to love. It's my opinion that parents who adopt are the most loving of all. They take in a child that didn't come from their own womb, and love that child as if she were their own blood. They make an agreement with God (and with an agency likely) to take care of the child for the rest of their lives. That means unconditional love.

The Bible tells us that we are all adopted by God. Ephesians 1:5 says, God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

I believe that adoption is the ultimate gift and lesson at the same time. Parents make a commitment to God and adoptees know what it feels like to be loved by people who weren't forced by law to love them. To be taken care of by these selfless people is the greatest gift. It is the ultimate gift of grace and it's human grace, which is something we don't see enough of.

So I waited on the couch, crying out to God in another moment of misunderstanding. I was letting the better part of me sink, and the questioning part of me rise and demand answers. So in my temporary insanity, I thought it would be OK to make that call that I knew in my heart was the wrong thing to do. And I had to live with myself.

You see, love doesn't make demands. And I was demanding that this woman confront me from all angles. I had now sunken to new lows by attempting to allow someone who may or may not have known about my birth, in on our little secret.

That was dangerous. But what did I have to lose? I guess, my integrity. The devil doesn't want us to have it. And I let him win that battle. Regretably so.

As the light was beaming on my face and I was holding the phone still against my chest, it rang. It was Wayne. The call went like this.

Hello, this is Wayne. I am returning your call. 
Yes. Hello Wayne. Thank you for calling me back. Um... (long pause). This is a little awkward for me, and it probably will be for you. Are you available to talk for a little bit?
Yes. Sure. (sounding curious though puzzled)
Your sister in law, Colette, is my birth mother. In 1976 she had a baby, and gave her up for adoption. That's me. I'm the baby.

to be continued....

My Sobriety and Her Secrets Revealed

My birthday came and went like most birthdays normally do. Part of me was secretly wishing to find a letter in my mailbox from Colette. The other parts of me were toying with many other ideas, one in particular- that I would mail her another card for my birthday, and as I think about it more and more, I still feel like I should, yet I'm positively hesitant.

As I have told my story to the people in my life who care enough to ask or read this blog, I have always been left with new outlooks after our conversations. It's true you never know what another person is going through until you have walked a mile in one's shoes. The truth is, we will never be anyone else, never walk in another's shoes, unless we leave ours on the roof of the car and drive off forgetting they were there, and never fully grasp what another is thinking or feeling. In my stuckness, in my Brookeness, I will never truly know what Colette is going through when she thinks of me, and how I would play a role in her life if we were to meet today.

I equate what she might be feeling with my ceasing to drink alcohol. I have never been fully aware of what it's like to be sober on my own accord for my entire adult life, except during pregnancy. I have gone a month here and a month there, maybe a few months at a time, but I never intended to be sober forever like I plan to now. My whole way of life will be altered, changed forever, for the good I am certain. My friends will probably drop like flies, my outlook will modify, my activities for sure will change, not being consummed with where the next drink will take place or when. Everything will change, again I am certain for the better. I will not be the same Brooke anymore. I will evolve, just as Colette has evolved from that scared 21 year old college student who accidentally got pregnant by her boyfriend. She is not the same person anymore, no longer a kid full with dreams and excitement mixed with nervousness. She has gone through a lot since I was born- had more children, been married and divorced, lost both parents, made a career and name for herself. She has evolved.

I too shall evolve.

I was planning to parallel the changes that could take place in both of our lives based on uncertainties that could arise from a first meeting that hasn't taken place yet, and maybe never will, but realized as I thought through it more today on the green couch, while sipping my overly stout coffee, that there are more locked boxes that need to be pryed open. Way more.

There are so many things to be accounted for.

She doesn't know what our lives will be like if entangled with one another just as I don't know what living sober will be like. It's likely I will become withdrawn over the course, pouring into my writing, into Sarah, and certainly be engulfed in self-discovery when I have for so long tried to mask myself of who I was- a drunk- powerless and often misunderstood. I will emerge a butterfly through my change, with sparkling colors and a wing span that screams immense. My upward mobility will not be squandered in thoughtless acts, in a drunken disguise. I will finally be myself again, what God wishes for my life, what I have wished for, for so long.

It will be a choice and not a consequence.

Colette will be able to put her shame behind her, her fear of the unknown, her disguise. She would be able to  say to someone that she couldn't talk to before, "Yes, I had a baby. Yes, I did it in secret, and now I am not afraid to tell the world that I did those things because  I am not that child anymore. I can be myself. I can let go of my anxiety, my overwhelmed feelings, my hurtful past that was squashed over and over for all the wrong reasons." She can let go of it all just by meeting me. She can see that she did the right thing by giving me up. There is nothing more appropriate than a meeting with me to release her of those feelings forever. So I think. One meeting could be the closure that she needed- one time seeing my face and wrapping her arms around me, and feeling my heart when she speaks to me, when we speak to eachother, and knowing my soul is good.  That would be all it would take.

That sounds like a fairy tale probably because I believe in fairy tales. Of the many things I struggle with, helping to set her free is one of them, and if not meeting me ever, never looking into my eyes is what will ultimately heal her, I guess that will be that. It will make me sad to know that she will never invite me to see her, but at least I will know that I conquered a major setback in my own life while trying to help someone else with theirs. I will be sober, and I will notice the little things, become acquainted with beauty and understand that relationships aren't driven by disguises. I will be able to account for everything in my life, and without shame.

Shame is another senseless depressor that ties us together in this tangled web. I will be released from mine, and she will also. Simultaneously, we could  lose it forever- the shame, the paralyzing guilt. We can bounce good energy off one another, share in our successes, leave the quiet desperation behind forever.

If I were to dive deeper into this whole thing called life, I would also notice that my unemployment has pushed me into things that I needed to settle. I needed this break of the schedule. I needed to work some things out, and push myself in ways that people don't normally gravitate towards, but instead are usually pushed into. I can't complain about my life. It's pretty amazing right now. I have a lot to be thankful for, and I have a mother who loves me unconditionally, who takes great pride in loving me that way, and to her death always will. She is amazing, and more and more I realize that she is the only mother that I will ever need. Thank God for my real mom- Lynne. I am truly blessed, always have been.

All in all, I will be fine, and so will Colette if we meet or not.

Lord, keep me thankful, keep me sober, and please Lord just keep me.

The Card

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.