In this blog I spill all the deep, dark secrets of how I came to be a mother of adoption loss. I spill my guts here. In real life I have never spilled it all to anyone. Not even my husband ~ which is fairly easy because he doesn't ask about any of it, he avoids most adoption talk because he avoids the role that adoption plays in his own life. I've only just begun in the last year or so to talk to my best friends about how deeply losing Christopher to adoption has effected my life.
My daughter told me that she had found my blog and that she had read it all. At first I felt sick to know that she knew my deepest-darkest thoughts and feelings. But her reaction to my writing was so positive, I soon felt relief that she had found my writings and realized that maybe my world wouldn't end if more people in my real life ever found me here.
Last week I got a new comment on my post about deciding to go or not go to Chicago. At first I was leery seeing the comment was from "anonymous" ~ usually it's negative replies left that way. As I read the first words "Seriously Mom?" I was thoroughly confused for a second. Why would someone write a comment on here and call me mom? Then it dawned on me that it was probably my daughter ~ and it was. Her full comment had me laughing.
Seriously Mom? Go. Just go. What is the worst that might happen? You might cry or something? You might find yourself a little bit closer to healing? Terrible!!! Go. Go for yourself and for all those young mothers out there that don't have amazing supportive parents like I have. It will be good for you. Plus you can stay at Donna's for free and verify that her husband is a real life person and not a cat!
(To explain the last sentence ~ one of my best friends lives near Chicago, we had never met her husband over the years ~ making us jokingly wonder if he really existed)
After getting used to the fact that my blog had been found, I've started considering telling some of my friends about it. But I just couldn't get further than a fleeting thought of "maybe one day...".
How many people really spill their guts on their deepest-darkest feelings? That's what I felt that my blog was ~ my diary where I spill it all. The stories behind the loss of my son (and the feelings behind those stories) have been hidden in the dark for over 30 years.
I do tell people of my firstborn son lost to adoption now. I think that most people in my day-to-day life know of him and his place in my life.
But the deeply personal stuff? The stuff of diaries? Written here, but not really spoken of...
I have been starting to let my adoption world mingle with my real-life on FaceBook. I wasn't really prepared for the first time my blog might become a part of my real-life FB page, although I should have been I suppose... I have to admit that I panicked, didn't approve the tag request linking to my blog. I wrote a quick email to my daughter telling her what happened and that I wasn't sure how to feel/react/not react. Here is her reply:
I do want to say, while you have come an amazing far way, maybe this is the universe pushing you to the next step in your journey. I know your feelings and opinions about adoption are personal to you and you keep them separate from your private life, but I hope that's a genuine choice and not one driven by fear. Fear of others with differing opinions disagreeing and therefore judging you, fear of letting people in real life know you (gasp) stand firm on a big issue.
I started to reply to her that it wasn't my opinions on adoption that I was fearful of, it was fear of everyone reading my deeply personal feelings and thoughts. In replying that, it dawned on me. Was what I wrote really too terribly personal, too terribly private and deep? Or was it that I just felt as though it was too deeply personal? Did it only seem to be so horribly "deep" because of the decades spent being silent on anything related to the loss of my son to adoption?
So I spent the next couple of nights going back and reading my old posts. Yes, some of my writing in the beginning was the personal details of how I came to be a mother of adoption loss. But the majority of what I write here is far from personal. It's mostly my thoughts and opinions on adoption that I am more than comfortable speaking out about now.
I spent so many years, three decades actually, hiding my truth from everyone in my life that speaking out at all about adoption felt so deeply personal.
In reality it isn't.
I'm still not too sure about letting people in my real life know about my blog.
But the idea is a little less frightening now.
Although... a soundtrack plays in the back of my head ~
I'm hearing these words from one of my favorite songs:
"2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to.
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud"
Although... a soundtrack plays in the back of my head ~
I'm hearing these words from one of my favorite songs:
"2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to.
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud"
My kids know I blog cause our computer is in the living room and they know my topic but as far as I know they are not reading it. I think the more ppl in your real life know about your blog the more it makes you aware of their feelings if maybe they are part of something that you feel you need to blog about. I let a couple women from a retreat for special needs moms and there has been time I just want to write and it might be taken the wrong way.
ReplyDeleteIt was very odd for me when I found out my family was reading my blog. They know how I detest adoption, but still...like you said, it's a diary of sorts. I was afraid the rawness would scare them. It didn't, much to my surprise.
ReplyDelete