Restless

Cabin fever can set in during the middle of July. It's way too hot to go for a jog around the neighborhood; all I could manage this morning was a slow saunter around the block before a blaze of sun rose to 9 o'clock in the sky. I work over the weekends right now, so Monday is my Saturday and there chores to be done; a multitude of groceries to buy for feeding pre, post and adolescent male beings. There is a perfectly stacked pyramid of unscraped dirty dishes obscuring every inch of countertop. Most teenagers are primarily night feeders I have discovered. And of course my howling creature in the mud room from which I daily run and hide...the laundry monster.

So, I am avoiding my chores for the moment to work out some of this edgy energy I am feeling. Reading and writing sometimes does it for me. Thoughts about adoption run through my head constantly. I spend a lot of in- my -head time trying to put words to my experience of having lost my child to adoption. I think I am beginning to find some of the words. Reading the words of other mothers of adoption loss helps. The other mothers I have found since the beginning of my reunion five years ago have been my life line. I also cannot find the words to describe how much they have helped me. The dates, locations and details of our experiences differ, but the core of our experience is the same.

An old childhood friend called me up last week. We were best of friends in grade school and junior high and throughout our young adulthood. Away from our separate "social groups" in high school we shopped, never stopped talking; and I could just relax and simply be myself when we were together. I didn't have to put all that energy out there with her in trying to be something other than, or so much more than, what I was.

She was in town last week and called to say hello. A mother of two; one born to her and one adopted, she told me that is considering adopting again. I said very little in response to her. I cannot jump up and down with joy when I hear of a pending adoption. I cannot do it anymore.

After an embarrassing long moment of my own silence, I began to speak honestly to her and explained, that for me, adoption is not a joyous event. She then spoke to me a little bit of her adoption related experiences.

I also have missed my friend over the past years. I know that I have pulled away from our relationship because of my pain around loss of my son. I have missed her and sometimes I wish I could go back to the time in our relationship before either of us had any children. She was one of my very best girlhood friends. You know, we spent lazy summer days, much like this July day, riding our bikes to the pond for picnic lunches and hours reading and talking and then riding back to our homes just in time for supper.

I am glad to have my friend back, again. Adoption may very well be a topic about which she and I will have to agree to disagree. I believe I will be able to talk to her more about my adoption experience sometime. I will need to, I think, in order to bring a more honest foundation to our renewed friendship. Though, I have to understand as we renew our friendship, that she may not ever see adoption from my perspective. Another "dance step" of adoption I will have to learn. I am just happy to have my friend back. I have missed her.

So words keep swishing around in my head; thoughts agitating like my washing machine should be right now. I will get to those dirty towels in just a few minutes.

The words I presently have which express my most intelligible, coherent thoughts around adoption are these:

Please, Lord, please. No more mothers and children; no more fathers and children unnecessarily separated from one another; especially by adoption.