Archive for Roommates

Open Adoption Roundtable #11: It’s Beginning to FEEL a Lot Like Christmas

December 11, 2009 · Filed under Adoption, Friends, Holidays, Music, OA RoundTable, Roommates, family, sisters, venting

Heather, over at PNR has posted the next OAR writing prompt.

An open-ended prompt this round, because it’s always interesting to see where each of us takes it:

Write about open adoption and the holiday season.

Yes, I know the lyric is “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” but for me Christmas is about the feelings.  So far the Christmasy feel boils down to:

COLD: as in it’s been 8 degrees this week when I arrive at my internship in the mornings. So cold that it half my commute just for the car to warm up enough for the heat to be of any use.  So cold that I wear thigh high socks plus wool socks plus boots and my toes are still cold.

FESTIVE: DirtyRed went out and bought a tree and she and GeishaGirl decorated it. THey’ve been burning holiday candles for weeks and their stockings are hung above the fireplace.  For my part I had a peppermint martini at my favorite resaurant this week YUM!

MERRY: The only music being played in my car since the day after Thanksgiving has been Christmas music (well except for the ONE day I allowed Mohawk to pick the music)

So what does any of this have to do with adoption? The last feeling that lets me know the holidays are here is:

LONELY: as in I can try to imagine what Kidlet is up to this time of year.  But I won’t be there.  I wont experience it with him. 

I have a video his parents sent me a few years back, him playing with his dreidel and counting in Hebrew (TOO CUTE!)

I’ve been to the house so can imagine quite clearly the spot where their Christmas tree will sit.

I’ve seen him open birthday presents so I can change the wrapping in my minds eye and have a good idea of what his face will be like on Christmas morning…

But he will never walk hand in hand with me and experience the magic of Zoo Lights.

I won’t be able to teach him the simple joy of St. Nikolaus Tag.

He won’t gather with my family  and neighbors Christmas eve eating taquitos and laughing.

He won’t pile in my parents van and drive from neighborhood to neighborhood searching for extravegant light displays.

He won’t return to my parents house to open gifts.

He won’t sleep over and wake early to find that Santa has arrived.

He won’t be able to steal bits of food and sweets while I help momma cook Christmas dinner.

I’ve missed all these things since Christmas 2001, but its worse now watching my sister share all these things with my nieces. 

Yesterday I hit the holiday wall. I should have written this post sooner so as not to be a downer.  I’m going to bed now, wake me in January.

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I Used To Be Able To Sleep

November 2, 2009 · Filed under Adoption, Roommates

I used to be a heavy sleeper.  I slept through alarm clocks, through storms, through earthquakes. Momma took pride that when I was little she could vacuum under my bed while I slept and I wouldn’t even budge. 

But after I gave birth that changed.  I became a super light sleeper.  The day I got home from the hospital the slightest noise would wake me and I would think I had heard my baby cry.  Made even more ridiculous because I knew he was 3000 miles away. 

Its been over 8 years and still I am woken by the slightest noise.

I have roommates.  If I fall asleep at 11 and then roommate 1 comes home at 11:15 I am awake and alert at the sound of the front door opening even if she’s trying to be quiet.  If I manage to fall back asleep by 11:45 and roommate 2 uses the bathroom at midnight I am then awake and alert for at least another half hour.  If one of the boyfriends spent the night and leaves the house at 5am so he can get to work on time I too am up and awake at 5 am. 

I miss being able to sleep.

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My Roommates Understand…Or They Think They Do…

October 11, 2009 · Filed under Adoption, Friends, Roommates, venting

Today we had a “happy unemployment anniversary” get together for the group of us who got laid off together last fall. It involved drinking, I’m still not yet sober.

After all our friends had left the roomies started talking to me.  I’m sure you all know how alcohol brings out emotional conversations (and if you don’t I envy you).  Somehow we ened up talking about adoption and its effect on my mood.

Jenasia under the influence of whiskey began in a very understanding way.

It gave me hope.

It made me open up.

It made me share.

And then it reverted to the place every conversation about first mother grief always goes.

“you HAVE to realize that so many others would kill to be in your place”

“you HAVE to be thankful…”

“eventually you have to get over it”

Ok the last one was only implied but the first two were stated clear as day. In the same breath that she validated my feeling she invalidated them.  In the same breath that she told me she “got it” she demonstrated that she didn’t.

As i mentioned Im still a little intoxicated so I’m not sure exactly how the conversation began but it wound down to me trying to get the roomies to understand that i need them to not try to make me be social when I am feeling anti-social.  That I fake it most of the time and that I don’t have energy to fake it when I come home as well. 

That I can put on a smile and go about my day with a sunny disposition but that when I come home I need to be able to acknowledge my crappy mood.  That I need to be able to isolate and cry and mope.  That I can’t be that fake happy person at home all the time too.

And just when it seemed they got it, i realized they actually didn’t.  That even though they understand to a point, when they reach that point they regress to almost complete misunderstanding. 

As exhausting as it is I’m going to need to start faking it at home.  I’m going to need to not turn of the smile once I walk through the door.  Because as much as they say they get it. As much as they try to get it.  If I’m sad they will spend all their energy trying to cheer me up.  If I feel like isolating they will spend all their energy trying to get me to socialize. So instead of putting them through that I will just go through the motions.

I will be happy, smiley,  joyful, and social.

at least on the outside.

And in the mean time I will find another location when I can be me because apparently home isn’t it.

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Happy(?) Birthmothers Day

May 9, 2009 · Filed under Adoption, Friends, Roommates, family

Today, the day before mother’s day, is Birthmother’s Day.  Last year (I think) I wrote about the day, but I’m too lazy to find that post so I will summarize my feelings about it. 

I do not feel Birthmothers Day is a celebratory day.  Mothers Day is the day I celebrate my motherhood.  Birthmothers day is akin to Memorial Day. Its a day to remember what has been lost (as if any of us needed a specific day to do that). 

I hope that for me Birthmothers Day will be the day I mourn and cry if I need to so that I don’t pout and cry and ruin the mother’s day celebration for my mother and sister. Its a reflective day and for me its a personal and private day. 

So imagine my surprise this morning when I found a card on my bathroom shelf.  It was obviously from the roommates.  They’ve given my mothers day cards the last two years not only recognize my motherhood to my son but also noting how I “mother” them.  I thought it was a mother’s day card until I read the envelope.  It said “to be opened on Saturday”. 

I read that and didn’t even need to open it I knew.  I knew that somehow they now knew about birthmothers day.  I knew that I could say goodbye to the only mothers day card I receive each year.

I try to respond to peoples words and actions based on their intent so I shouldn’t be upset right now.  But I’m near tears as I write this and I’m so very glad the roomates aren’t home this weekend.  I’m not sure I can fake the kind of appreciation they’d expect and deserve.  I genuinely have been over joyed by the mother’s day cards they’ve given me the last two years but I can’t seem to get past meloncholy for this card.

I know they gave this out of love and it is with love that I should receive it.  I am touched they acknowledge me at all after all they don’t have to. I’m not their mother. 

So today I’ll cry and be meloncholy.  Tomorrow I’ll work then celebrate the motherhood of my sister and mother (and myself silently).  And when the roommates return home I will thank them and great them with the biggest smile I can muster. The thanks will be genuine the smile…well I’m working on that.

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Surrounded yet alone

April 11, 2009 · Filed under Friends, Pets, Roommates, venting

Some friends are camping this weekend and the roommates and I went to kick it around the campfire for a bit tonight.  Everything was going great until with the help of a little alcohol I brought up the way in which my cat became an outside cat very shortly after she became my cat. 

Since of course I was the one in the wrong I left and on the drive home I called my best friend.  I began to tell her the story and she completely missed the point and focused on why anyone in there right mind would be camping this weekend.  She then began a long monologue about why she does not camp.  (I totally agree with her its too cold to camping and why would you want to anyway but that was not the point)

This triggered a memory in me from last week.  I’d been genuinely upset by something admittedly trivial and GeishaGirl laughed at me.  Not a laughing with me kind of laugh but a deep full out laughing at me laugh.

And then a memory from earlier today when DirtyRed was skipping every song I enjoyed and blasting country and when I complained I was met with “I don’t care”…well at least she’s honest.

I have no desire to ever talk about anything of consequence to any of those three ever again.  I’m just done.

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Titles – Just who is a birth mom these days?

April 6, 2009 · Filed under Adoption, Grad School, Roommates, Think on it, venting

Birth mom.  First mom.  Natural mom.  Original mom.  Real mom.  Biological mom.  Tummy mom.  Each appeals to some while offending others.  I personally have come to identify as a birth mom.  Not because I’m blind/deaf and don’t see what people type and hear what they say.  I have encountered those who use the term in a derogotory way.  I have heard and seen the sterotypes.  But I have also heard the love in my son’s voice as he tells people I am his birth mom. 

I tend to use the conjoined birth/first or first/birth if I’m not sure of the preference of those who I am addressing or use whichever term is prefered by the person I’m speaking (typing) of or to.

I’m sure I’ve said all of this before so why am I rehashing it now? Because of a video.  Stay with me it may take a minute to explain the connection. 

This quarter I’m taking a course on Chemical Dependancy and in this week’s class we watched a video on FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, which includes Fetal Alcohol Syndrome).  The video began with a woman explaining her journey to getting her daughter diagnoised.  Under her face as she spoke was label explaining who she was.  It said “Birth Mom and FAS Advocate”.  I’m not 100% sure of the second part but the first part of the title definately said birth mom. 

I first began to wonder why her status as a birth mom mattered.  The topic she was speaking on was FAS did it matter that she’d relinquished parental rights?  Then I started to understand that she HADN’T relinquished her rights.  She was parenting her daughter and always had been. I became even more confused by her label of birth mom.  Perhaps she’d relinquished her parental rights to some other child but again why mention it on a video where she’s speaking about FAS and a child she obviously parented. 

Then I figure it out.  They were not used the term “birth mom” to mean someone who had relinquished their parental rights.  they were using it to apply to any of the moms who’d given birth to their children as opposed to the foster and adoptive moms. 

Technically this application of the label makes more sense if you just look at the words.  Birth mom, a mom who gave birth.  Yep makes sense. EXCEPT that the definition of birth mom isn’t a mom who gave birth.  Someone decided that a birth mom is a mom who relinquishes her parental rights and over time this is the definition that has been accepted (and sometimes despised).

So here’s my point.  If you’re going to give a group of people a label to segregate them (and thats what lables do) then you can’t apply that same label to a different group of people who do not share the defining characteristics.

And by the way this applies to all you people involved in foster care who refer to the parents of foster youth as birth parents.  They aren’t birth parents, they haven’t relinquished parental rights or had them terminated.

If one wanted to re-do the labels and apply logic to the situation here’s one way to do it.  Birth mom would become exactly what is sounds like.  A mom who gave birth regardless of parenting status.  Any woman who is a mom would be called a mom.  Simple right? First, Foster, Adoptive, Biological, and Step (and any other prefix you can think of) would ONLY be used when necessary to avoid confusion.

But I don’t have that power and obviously logic has no place in this life.  So I will continue to be a birth mom because no matter how un- politically correct it is.  Any time I hear or see that term now I am transported back to our day at the pool and hear Kidlet’s voice filled with love and pride as he tried to recruit his friends to help him splash me, his birth mom.

**This was originally wittier but when I went to post it I found out the hard way my roommate had disabled the wireless and it was gone by the time I fixed that. (TG can I get that ninja up here please?)**

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Displaying Photos revisited

March 26, 2009 · Filed under Adoption, Friends, Roommates

I’ve always had pictures of my son around.  While I lived with my parents they were in my room and everyonce in awhile I’d put them around the rest of the house.  Eventually my parents got used to it and now they have their first grandchild on display just as proudly as their other grandchild.

When I got my own place the pictures became more prominant. I have a sequence of pictures of us baking his 5th birthday cake together than hung in my kitchen.  I have an ever changing array of pictures on my desk.  And after our last visit I framed a picture he drew and that also sits on my desk.

Now I live with roommates.  When we moved in I put my cake baking pictures in our new kitchen.  I put the ever changing array of photos and the hand drawn picture on my desk in the computer room.  But now, I’m thinking of taking them all down and moving them to my bedroom.

I have never wanted to keep my birth mom status a secret, but I also don’t want it to be the first or only think people know about me.  When I lived alone this wasn’t an issue.  Only people I was comfortable with came to my apartment.  They already knew me.  If they didn’t already know about my son I knew that I was comfortable with them perhaps asking questions and knew I’d be able to answer them honestly without discomfort.

Now I have no control over who enters my home.  I enter the room and find out that strangers already know I’m a birth mom.  They’ve already associated their own preconcieved notions about birth mothers with me before they’ve even met me.  Because they don’t know me they decide to not ask me any questions.  They wait.  Then when I leave the room or when they next see my roommate with me they ask her.  And so my story, my business is being told and re-told and I don’t even know whats being said. 

I’m very protective of my story.  I don’t want it told wrong.  Maybe it’s because its all I have.  At first it didn’t really bother me I figured my roommate could tell it properly but due to recent events I’m not so sure she can. 

But then right as I’m on the verge of bringing all my photos to my room I feel ashamed.  I feel like I’m hiding and thats something I never want to do. 

I don’t know what I’ll end up doing but I do know that I can’t wait until I live alone again.  I can’t wait to once again control who comes in my space.

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Yet another adoption scar

March 9, 2009 · Filed under Adoption, Friends, Grad School, Pets, Roommates, Unemployment, family

I like to think I have a pretty firm handle on my adoption grief.  But sometimes it rears its head in unexpected ways.

I got my first pet in December.  Yes at the age of 25 I had never before had a pet.  When my friends and I moved into a our current house there was a stray cat on the cul-de-sac.  A neighbor began feeding her and put out a cat bed and heated blanket.  We later found out that the neighbor could not take her in because of severe allergies and so she was looking for someone take this stray.

In December we had our first rediculous snow store of the season and my roommates brought the cat inside.  Each of them already has a cat and I suggested the new cat be taken to the vet so as not to pass any illness to their cats.  Well after a few days I was talked into becoming the owner of this cat.

I didn’t particularly want a cat.  I wanted a dog, or an exotic bird.  But I started to fall for this cat. My roommates had taken to calling her Oreo because she’s black and white I re-named her Cookie because I find the term Oreo offensive. I took her to the vet and bought all sorts of cat supplies.  I let her sleep in my bed.

And then about 2 weeks into my new pet ownership I got a text while I was at the movies. Apparently Cookie had used the carpet instead of the litter box and my roommate had put her outside.  I was beside myself through the whole movie.  Worried about cookie, angry that I hadn’t even been consulted, and confused by my very strong reaction.

Turns out two of my adoption fears were triggered in that episode.  1- I had failed as a mother and now I was failing as a pet owner 2-I had no control over the situation.

The control piece came into play recently as well.  I’ve been in a funk for a few weeks now, feeling stuck in my life.  Its not that my life is awful.  I just felt stuck.  I think I’ve figure out that while I’m glad I’m in grad school it means that I need to stay put until June 2010.  I dont like not having the option of moving.  Even more so since my very part time job isn’t even enough to support myself I can’t go away for a weekend or even go out at night with my friends.  I feel powerless in my life.

I was never a controling person.  I’ve always been a laid back go with the flow type of girl.  But apparently not anymore.  Of course I can’t prove it’s adoption related.  It could just be me changing as I age.  But the more I think about it the more I keep coming back to adoption.

Oh and btw my roommate and I are on speaking terms again.  Cookie doesn’t really like to be inside but I make her stay in when the weather is bad but I have to keep her in line of sight at all times to make sure she doesn’t pee on the carpet.

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A job and a date all in they same day…

February 11, 2009 · Filed under Friends, Roommates, Unemployment, Work, dating

I GOT A JOB!!!  Ok so its only part time and not even consistant part time but its a job!  I”m so excited.  I won’t know the salary details until later in the week but I’m already trying to schedule a visit in my head.

So after class last night I went out with some of the girls to celebrate my newly employed status.  I happened to have a gift card to a local pizza place so we went there.  Our drinks hadn’t even arrived when a man come up to our table and offered to buy us a round if we’d let him join us. This is typical for a night out with Roommate 2 she’s gorgeous and the guys flock to her.  However,  as the conversation progressed I started to realize he was talking to me .

To be honest it through me for a loop.  Don’t get me wrong I’m a cute girl but I was surrounded by cuter, skinnier, definatly nicer girls.  And whats wierd is I had no problem talking to this guy UNTIL i realized he was interested in actually talking to me.  Then it got wierd.   So at the end of the night he had my number and I had a date.  Which I’m leaving for in just a few minutes.

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Roommate Adventures

January 10, 2009 · Filed under Friends, Roommates

My roommates and I have pretty interesting times out around town. Over the last 2 + years we’ve accumulated some stories and while last night may be almost tame by our standards it was still fun and worth re-telling.

We started out at a bar down the street that has a dance floor.  I’m always in the mood to dance and the roommates will dance with me if I get them drunk.  Since this bar hadn’t updated their calendar for the new year we weren’t sure what type of band was playing but decided to check it out with the understanding that if it wasn’t good we’d go downtown. So we get there and I ask the bouncer about the cover and the band. He give me just enough attitude to be endearing and then begins flirting with Roommate 2.

Now some girls may be annoyed by this behavior.  Not me.  I enjoy when roommate 2 gets hit on. It started as a spectators sport but now its a game.  See roommate 1 and I have began making predictions about how long until the first guy hits on her, how many guys will hit on her, etc.  Plus its always fun to watch her shoot them down and tell them she has a boyfriend (which she does no matter how drunk she is now thats love).  So even though after 2 years we still under estimate the quantity of guys willing to come up to her we learned long ago that it will never be more than 2 minutes after entering that it begins.

So we end up not having to pay the cover I love having a hottie for a roommate its so helpful. But thats about where the good times end.  Had I paid cover I’d have been angry.  The band, while not awful, defniately not danceable.  Until last night I swore I could and would dance to anything.  Turns out I was wrong.

There were 2 redeeming things (aside from no cover) 1- strong drinks and 2- so much to make fun of.

From the woman who chose to wear a lingerie top.  That wouldn’t have been so bad except she then had the black straps hanging down her legs garter belt style  just flappin around as she tried to dance.  To the poor guy trying to look hard while leaned against a wall drinking a malt beverage who then got almost dry hummed by some girl who was behaving like she was on E. Or the guy who was celebrating his birthday with his mom and his gf took a shot from between his legs while his mother stood there looking oh so proud.

But even will all that fodder nothing will ever (or at least for a few days) top this.  I saw a woman who appeared to be OLDER than my mother in the middle of the almost deserted dance floor in her high waisted mom jeans doin the Soulja Boy.  Seriously.  I wish I’d been able to video tape that.  It was priceless.

As we were driving away roommate 1 found a day old cheeseburger had been left in her car by the friend who’d driven it the night before.  And even though we told her not to, and even though she’d just finished renuing her food bourne illness certifcation, she ate it.

Ahhh fun times.

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