You Know When You're Sitting At Work

and come up with a really great post, start composing it in your head and then make yourself stop because, you know, work?

Yeah, that.

For the life of me I can't remember what I was thinking about this afternoon, but I can tell you I had the post half-written in my head. I considered writing it down, but had already spent quite enough time f-cking around during my second day.

Maybe it had something to do with all this family shit that's going down. Probably about how I am struggling so hard right now to recognize that it's them, not me who are blowing things up. Struggling to recognize that my mom screwed me up, I didn't get screwed up all by myself. Wondering if I'm the one who will always cause strife between S and his family after this. Wondering if these new friendships will fail like 2 have failed before. Wondering what's wrong with me that I can't just be a nice person that people like and say "Geochick? Yeah, she's really nice and so easy to get along with".

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I have to remember, and S constantly reminds me, he married me because I'm ME. Because I'm direct, because I let people know what I'm thinking, when I think it. Because I am just *this short* of not having a filter when I open my mouth. I have to remember that being me got me this far in my career, which is well on my way to commanding respect in an industry full of old white guys. I have to remember that being me is what makes me willing to get up in front of contractors and tell them that one of their construction applications did not go well on one of my projects.

Because, as someone who is direct, forthright, and doesn't hold anything back? If you feel like you have to walk on eggshells around me, then that's your problem. I have never been anything but truthful, biting my tongue when needed, and speaking up when I feel I need to.

So, there.

Holiday Blues and Joys and Blues and Joys

I don't know if it's getting older, infertility, adoption, family issues or what, but every year the holidays seem to become more difficult to endure. S and I decided not to go to the one Christmas party we were invited to because the ex-friend who pretends like I no longer exist was going. I was able to endure her a couple months ago at another party, but for some reason, in this season of forgiveness (ha), celebration and togetherness, I couldn't face yet another night of our careful dance around each other.

Barreling down a different path to parenthood punctured by immense grief and tough decisions has changed us. It's a path that was a true test of our willingness to work together, grow together and fight through the sh*t that was thrown our way. There has been an immense amount of sh*t. One of my friends who is facing her own difficulties with parenting a child outside of the norm stated that she feels like she shouldn't be so upset because other people face worse issues. I maintain that the worst thing you've ever been through is the worst thing you've ever been through. We have to give ourselves permission to feel bad, angry and sad over the worst things we've been through. Comparing ourselves to others who have it worse doesn't make us feel better. It makes us feel like we shouldn't be feeling what we're feeling.

Don't get me wrong, I love that I now have two kids to celebrate the holidays with. I love that this family building journey is almost over for us, and that we can start planning for vacations again instead of squirrling away our money to pay for the services associated with adoption. I love that I can take my kids to see San.ta, play in the snow and see X's super excited face on Chri.stmas morning. All of that is joy. Finally, there's joy where there once was indifference.

The joy is tempered by our experiences in getting here. It's also tempered by the reality of parenting two kids. This is my third week on maternity leave and all I feel is that I'm still behind. I thought this would be my holiday season to finally bake just for fun, calories be damned, yet I've barely managed to make sure I have sugar cookie ingredients for San.ta's cookies.

Yet, Chris.tmas is almost here whether I'm ready or not. Whether I've done all the preparations and activities I wanted to do or not. Whether my relationship with my parents is good or not. 

The focus now shifts to letting go of my expectations and just enjoying my family. 

MY. FAMILY.

I can do that.

Dysfunction

I'm an open and sharing person, sometimes too much, but it's the only way I know how to be.  My mom calls it wearing my heart on my sleeve.  I call it...my life.  So, I've shared some of what I'm dealing with in my family with a couple people I consider friends at work.  Not in gory detail, it's not like I camp in their cubes for hours on end regaling them with the tales of my mom's stupid comments (which I know now are designed to cut me down), but enough so that it's obvious my immediate family relationship kind of sucks.  One colleague, whom I consider a friend, invited us to go camping with him and his wife.  We jumped at the chance to get to know them better, and they had reserved the camp sites so, easy for us!  During the camping trip a short discussion about dysfunction came up.  His family sounds pretty dysfunctional and his wife's family definitely has some serious dysfunction.  During this conversation, my friend stated that he thinks all families are dysfunctional.  I didn't answer (curse of being an introvert, I have to think first), but I don't agree with that statement.  S's family is not what I'd call dysfunctional.  They have quirks for sure, and the quirks can be annoying at times, but they like each other.  They like to take vacations together. I do not like to go on vacation with my family - it's stressful and more often than not turns out not to be fun because I'm on guard the entire time.

I know we all grow up, look at our parents through new lenses and think "Whoa, really?"  But do we all grow up and think that we must be/parent/act differently than those who raised us?  While S would like to parent differently from his parents, it isn't to the same degree as my having to parent in a completely different manner.  I have to look in the mirror and recognize my own narcissistic traits, work on moving past those and not passing them onto my kids.  I struggle to not immediately yell at X when he's being obstinate asserting his independence, and instead try to meet his frustration with empathy.  Especially when X is seriously acting out.  Some days devolve into "JUST GET DRESSED" wrestling his clothes onto him as he's kicking and screaming about my choosing the wrong shirt or shorts.  I get really mad, yell at him, he starts crying and part of me is so frustrated that I just want to put him in the carseat, drive to daycare and not talk to him.  That's something my mom would do.  Instead, I stop myself, explain that I'm frustrated, that's why I'm yelling, then comfort him.  That's something my mother NEVER did.  It doesn't come naturally to me to show empathy when I'm so pissed off that he's being unreasonable (as all toddlers are).  In contrast, S has no problem remaining empathetic when dealing with temper tantrums.  He'll immediately tell X that he (S) is frustrated by his behavior without losing temper.  Don't get me wrong, S is visibly annoyed/upset/frustrated, and admits it, but hardly ever loses his sh*t over X acting out.  So, I'd say, in the empathy department, his parents did a much better job parenting than mine ever did.   And, in that case, I'd say that S does not come from a dysfunctional family.

What do you think "dysfunctional" really means?  Do we throw that term around too much as adults?

The Hardest Part About Therapy

is learning that I can't fix a family relationship.  A close family member at that.  Now, it's all about limited and appropriate contact and what that means to preserve myself in order to improve what's there now.

It's really sad.

It was inevitable.

It sucks.

It was made worse by my infertility and adoption journey.  What that brought out in the relationship was the stark contrast of personalities.  One fiercely independent, the other codependent.  One willing to get down and dirty in the muck of shitty feelings in order to healthfully move through the shit, another who has swept everything under the rug for years.  One willing to attempt to share the journey and personal feelings about infertility and adoption, and another who can't handle the pain.  One who endured being treated like a child because the other just. can't. handle. it.

It's broken and it will never be fixed.  I hurt so bad.

Ten Year Wedding Anniversary

When we got married ten years ago during the raging of the Haym.an Fire, little did we know our state would be in the midst of another horrific fire season.  I wonder what our 20-year anniversary will bring?  I'm hoping lots of rain.

We had a traditional Orthodox Christian ceremony. 

Our reception site

Continuing to Tiptoe...

We met with C and her caseworker yesterday at a very busy Star.bucks.  It felt a little weird, because we were an odd looking group, but that's probably just me, and everyone around us was probably more concerned with coffee.  C was super excited to see and hold X.  She's still shy around us, which can make conversation difficult especially since neither S nor I are fantastic conversationalists unless the other person is more extroverted.  Her caseworker is really good at keeping the conversation going and prompting C with subjects they've already discussed, or asking us questions that she knows C wants to know the answers to.  When her caseworker left the table I found myself casting around for anything to keep the conversation going so that we didn't just sit there in silence.  I'm sure it'll get easier with time, as any relationship does.

C is meeting regularly with her caseworker and I think we'll have another visit coming up in a couple of months.

Tiptoing through Our Match

I've been remiss...  First and foremost, thank you so much for the kind comments about our placement!  I had no idea so many people pay attention to my blog, and it gave me the warm fuzzies to read every comment.  It's awesome to have so much support from the ALI community.

I haven't talked much about our match, mostly because it's so new and I've been trying to figure out what to say/not to say.  When our caseworker called me on the Thursday before we found out we were chosen everything she told us about Baby X's mother, C, and her situation made my heart jump.  This is adoption after all, it's never a good situation, however, it's the type of situation that I immediately thought, we have a really good chance at opening up without any reservations.  C wants to have regular visits every few months.  I hope that these visits evolve over time, and I would love for C to become part of our extended family.

Now, as far as our families go, I don't think they really  believe that we are as open to opening up the adoption as we say we are.  When we first told them that we weren't going to tell them anything about C and her situation, S's dad asked why we were being so "secretive" about her.  S retorted with the statement that Baby X should not hear the details of his mom's situation from anyone except us and her.  And then, S asked his dad if he had read the very short, very concise adoption book we gave to him.  Guess what his answer was?  Sometimes the things his dad says out of ignorance really drive me insane.  My parents just kind of go "huh" when I mention visits with C.  That drives me crazy too, but it's easier to ignore.

My friends have also asked some odd questions when I told them of the regular visits.  The most common question revolves around whether I'm ok with it.  I think that's odd, because I present the visits in a positive light.  Not to mention that we wouldn't be matched with C if we weren't open to seeing her.  And of course, our friends immediately ask what C's story is.  And of course I have to shoot them down too.  We aren't revealing anything about her, whether she's younger or older, her name, her family life, how Baby X came to be, nothing.  I figure that once you tell people about one detail, it's a slippery slope and the next thing you know you could give up the goods.  Besides, her story doesn't matter to anyone except Baby X.

I guess it all comes down to adoption being an extension of infertility.  Unless you've been through it, unless you've had to confront these tough questions, and make hard decisions, you have no fucking idea what it entails.  I didn't until we got into it.  I just get really annoyed that I'm trying to educate family and friends and I feel like anything I say tends to fall on deaf ears.