Hawaii!!!

Mr. Incredible and I are leaving for Hawaii in 3 1/2 days!!!  We managed to get tickets at ridiculously awesome prices ($411 per person!) and we will be visiting his sister and two nieces, plus two friends of mine.  It is going to be awesome!  We are going scuba diving, hiking around the island, and get some beach time in :)

No point to the post really.  Just felt like bragging a little ;)

Easter 2011

I love Easter :)  Yes, it is the awesome day celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but really my favorite part is getting together at our friend's house for fantastic food and incredible amounts of fellowship.  We always have a full house of people.  There are the two core families and then a random hodge podge of invited friends.  This year I invited my boyfriend, Mr. Incredible (might change the nickname, just using this for now ;) open to suggestions!), a new friend from college (K) and her adorable kiddo (Z), and, of course, Scoot, Beezer and Cory.  Including the friends our friends invited, there were 18 people in the house for dinner.

Seeing Cory, Scoot and Beezer was completely fine with me.  I have been doing considerably well with adoption-related topics lately and was actually looking forward to seeing them.  Emotionally I was stable leading up to today (at least I think I was) and it was all good.  In fact, it was all good for the majority of the day as well.  Cory sat at the table with all the "kids" (a.k.a. grown adults not married yet) and did pretty well eating with us even though his mom was in the other room.  After dinner, Dad took Mr. Incredible outside and they hid Easter eggs for Cory and Z to find while Mom and I laid out jelly bean trails for them to follow that led to a special prize for each of them.  Beezer gave me a bag with some of Cory's school projects to keep.  Cory and Z played and played and played until they were exhausted.  When it was time to say goodbyes I asked Cory for a hug.  He refused.  I figured it was okay because he normally needs some coaxing when giving anyone a hug, including his parents.  Scoot and Beezer both told him to give me a hug and kiss goodbye but he just wouldn't do it.  Finally he came up close to me.  I waved a little goodbye and he returned the wave, pursed his lips and ran away.  Ouch.  My heart was bruised.  I stood up, said a quick goodbye and walked out the door with Mr. Incredible. 

This is not the first time he has snubbed me and not giving me a hug willingly.  As I said earlier, he does this to a lot of people.  Normally it does not hurt because I know it is not personal.  Today it stung something horrible.  It was like my heart forgot reality, or maybe its walls just need to be repaired.  Honestly, I have no idea what to do with his feeling.  Talking about it doesn't help.  Reading blogs or discussion posts does not help.  Crying has not helped.  My heart aches.

On top of this, our dear friend Mary has been gone for over a year and Easter was always a fun time with her.  We are still gathering at their house.  Sometimes being there is comforting and other times it brings up the grief so fast that it is like being hit with a tons of bricks without warning.  I have been missing her a lot lately.  Yesterday I was wanting to talk to her so badly, hear her laugh, see her smile and watch her play with her grandbaby she never met.  We had fun today but she leaves a gaping hole. 

Maybe the depression I'm feeling is simply a new wave of grief.  It is to be expected with Mother's Day coming up and the somewhat recent anniversary of losing Mary.  Today I just needed a hug from Cory and I didn't realize how bad until I was denied.  I guess I will have to live with that for now.

Depressed?

I'm sitting here at the dining room table desperately needing to complete homework assignments that are due tomorrow.  I haven't been able to concentrate for days.  Most of the time I feel fine and happy except for this lack of ability to concentrate on anything that requires brain power.  Work is torturous, homework is impossible, any kind of emotional discussion ends in tears, and I got irritated with the way my boyfriend drives me car when it has never bothered me before :p  So maybe that last one has nothing to do with anything but it annoyed me more than it should have at the time.  It is almost as if I am dealing with some underlying depression or something or other.  It is just weird.  I don't know whether to go back into my little, comfortable hole of denial or if I should continue on whatever path I'm on until I figure out what the true issue is and deal with it now.  Denial.  At least until I'm out of school. 

Easter 2011 post coming up.  It is part of what triggered this post.

Open Adoption Roundtable #25

I know I have been gone for a while.  Sorry about that!  I'm going to attempt to get back into blogging at least a little bit.  To start off I'm going to participate in this month's Open Adoption Roundtable.

Has open adoption ever felt like too much? Have you ever wanted to walk away?

Umm . . . YES.  There have been a few times that I have felt like open adoption is too much to handle and wanted to walk away.  I blogged a little about wanting the relationship to be more closed back in 2007 and currently I am in a position of temporarily wanting less contact.  Managing the relationship can be very tiring emotionally and physically.  There are times I am simply not up for putting in the effort, either because I do not want to or I cannot do it.

Remember when I blogged about babysitting and Cory crying out for his mama?  It is moments like those that best illustrate what makes open adoption so hard.  You get to see your child, but in the arms of another woman.  You can try to console him/her, but they are crying for someone else.  You notice the little personality quirks that you gave him/her, but you are not comfortable pointing it out and openly taking pride in being part of such a beautiful creation.  Moments like those make me want to walk away to take the route of self-preservation.

No matter how much I have wanted to walk away at times I know I cannot.  I stay for Cory and for myself.  Without our open relationship I would know nothing about the person he is becoming.  There is so much I would miss out on.  The questions I would have about who he is would literally drive me crazy.  Open adoption has allowed me to know the color of his eyes, watch him grow, see his first tooth, first smile, play games with him and discover his blossoming skills and talents.  Knowing that I will be around for him when/if he has questions about the beginning of his story gives me peace.  He may never need me in his life but I am here if he does.

Update

Cory's family and mine got together briefly shortly after my last post.  It went well.  We met at a little dessert shop near our house and talked for a couple hours.  I was distant most of the time for self-preservation reasons even though I was trying hard not to be for the sake of Scoot, Beezer and Cory.  My parents and sisters enjoyed seeing them and I looked for a quick exit when I needed it.

That is pretty much all there is to say about it.    I love and care for them, but they will be fine without me as involved as I have been in the past.  Cory isn't old enough to understand anything and I don't have the emotional capacity to work at the relationship with Scoot and Beezer.  Things are fine the way they are for now.

Current Status

I have never gone this long without seeing Cory.  The last time I saw him was on Mother's Day and I wasn't excited about seeing him and his parents even then.  It has been so hard to admit to myself, let alone other people, that I do not want to see Cory, Scoot and Beezer at this time.  I just can't handle it.

Did I blog about babysitting Cory by myself a while back?  I think it was in April or so.  Cory was sick and I was babysitting by myself so I had to do a lot of motherly type things like wiping his nose, taking his temperature, giving him medicine, basically being "mommy" for a bit.  It sucked.  I can't handle playing mommy and experiencing the exact thing I ignorantly signed away over three years ago.  It has totally put me off visits, emails, phone calls, any kind of contact with the family.  Beezer has sent me text messages saying they miss me and we should get together.  It is nice and I always respond but never commit to a time.  It helps that we have both been busy so it isn't hard to avoid getting together and lengthy explanations of my struggles.

There really isn't a purpose to this post.  I guess I feel like it needs to be out there for some reason.  One day/week/month/year I'm gung ho about seeing them and praising the benefits of our open adoption relationship.  The next I'm wishing I could close the door on that part of my life . . . at least for now.  The ebb and flow is exhausting and I try my best to not drag anyone along with me. (That sentence could be an entire post by itself.)  So yeah, guess that is it for now.