Checking Things Off The List

I have a pretty extensive To-Do list that I've been avoiding for the past few weeks.  It happens.  I've been so wrapped up on surviving that I put things off.  After a wonderful talk with Rudy, I decided that it's time to start living my life and putting the rest of it into prospective.  And so I jumped on  my To-Do list with a vengeance, and even managed to tackle a major goal on my bucket list.

I had a minor freak out this past weekend.  It was to be expected.  I had a lot of things on my plate that weekend.  I didn't communicate that well at all.  I told Rudy that I was struggling, but I never took the time to explain why.  I just figured he'd get it and give me some breathing room to figure it out.  Naturally that didn't happen because he had a completely different take on what was going on.  So he pushed thinking that I was just being weird about coming to visit him.  And I pushed back because that's what I do.  And he pushed some more.  And I snapped.  I don't think he's had an "Oh Shit" moment like that in a long time.  It wasn't his fault at all, nor was it my fault.  If I had communicated better, he would have backed way off and provided support a long time ago.  Slap me on the wrist.  It's a live and learn kind of thing.

Because I'm an adoptee, I didn't trust that Rudy really wasn't mad at me.  Seriously, I thought he was just covering up that he was mad because he didn't want me to start sobbing hysterically again.  It happens.  So last night we talked about it.  And boy do I feel a lot better.  He told me that yes, he was mad at first.  He didn't get why I wasn't coming to visit him and why I wasn't doing him a favor that he thought was a small one.  He didn't realize I was as stressed out as I am.  I show my stress in different ways, but he isn't here with me to see those signs.  He only has our phone conversations and I'm not always great at telling him about stuff that stresses me out.  So he didn't see the signs.  He didn't realize I was that close to the edge.  Once he realized that, he took a step back and realized that it wasn't worth it.  He wasn't mad when he realized that I had a really good reason for not wanting to drive to Connecticut for the weekend.  And I was willing to meet him halfway on Sunday for dinner.  So I still got to see him, I was less stressed out, and I will deal with the stresses in Connecticut at a later date when I don't have so much on my plate.  And Rudy also agreed to read Lost and Found by BJ Lifton.  How amazing is that?

I booked our hotel and flight to Chicago for the Adoptee Rights Protest.  I can't wait!  It will cross on my goal to visit one place that I've never been this year.  I can't wait to see Chicago and I'm always up for a weekend away with my amazing boyfriend.  Plus I'll get to meet a lot of the bloggers and adoptees that I've met online who have seriously helped me the past year.  I've been meaning to get on booking the flights and hotel, but I just hadn't gotten around to it.  A part of me was scared.  I decided today that I was done being scared and booked it.  I'll be there with bells and whistles on.

I was sort of ridding off that high when something came up on Groupon.  I'm now self-banned from that site.  I'm going to learn how to fly a plane.  It's on my bucket list.  I've always wanted to learn and there was a deal that I just couldn't pass up.  It's a once in a lifetime opportunity and I can do it!  I'm tired of living life scared.  I'm going to do something that I've always wanted to do.  I'm going to go up in a plane with a FAA-certified instructor and learn the basics.  I can't wait!

I was in the middle of putting together all my emails with my first mother so I could send away for a printed book (like I did with my first father) when my reunion with him ended very quickly.  I put it all away for the time being because it was too painful to deal with.  Now that I'm meeting her, I feel like I ended things in a good place via email.  I finished putting together the first two years of emails from the two of us (February 2010 through February 2012) and I've ordered the book.  I can check that off my list too.  Score!

No matter what happens with my reunion on Monday, I've got plenty in my life to look forward to.  I'll be learning how to fly and fulfilling my life long dream of flying a plane (even if there's a guy next to me who's really in control and it's for ten minutes...).  I'll be going on an amazing vacation to Disney with my boyfriend and we're going to ride all the scary rides together and have a blast.  I'll be headed to Chicago, a city I've always wanted to visit, to meet up with some amazing people to fight for an amazing cause!  And you know what?  I can't wait!

Future Worth Fighting For

It's taken me a few days to write about it, but this weekend was really really hard.  A person that I'm very close to decided that life wasn't worth living anymore.  I saw him mere hours before he tried to end it all.  He's still alive thanks to some quick thinking by a relative and a responsive paramedic team.  We have to wait and see how this all plays out over the next few days.  If you're a praying type of person, his family could really use the prayers.

I'm struggling to comprehend how it got to that point.  I knew things weren't going so well for him, but lately it seemed like things were going a lot better.  I saw him that day.  I can't get it out of my head.  I knew that something was wrong.  I knew it wasn't right, and I left.  I didn't want to embarrass him and I knew that his wife and children were home.

I've been trying to accept that there was nothing that I could have done.  I gave him a hug.  I told him I loved him.  And I left.  There was no way to know what he was going to do.  And he wasn't alone.  It was in no way my fault, but I still replay those moments over and over again.  I wasn't paying attention the way that I normally do.  I realized later that it wouldn't have made a difference even if I had.

It's made me realize how lucky I am.  Life isn't always easy, but I have hope for the future.  I can think of about ten things that he has to look forward to, but clearly he couldn't in that moment.  That's a sad thing.  I'm hoping that in time he comes to see how much he does have to look forward to, and that he fights for it.  I'm so thankful to have a future worth fighting for.

Here's a list as a reminder to myself of all the things that I have to look forward to:

1. Meeting my first family: With each new person I meet, there's so many new possibilities.  I'm sure that I won't get along with some, some relationships just won't pan out, and it's all going to be hard.  However, there's a good chance that some of those new relationships might work out.  And with each new connection, I learn more about myself and the person that I want to be.
2. Maintaining good friendship: I have a lot of friends out there.  I think of all the fun times that we've had, and I think about all the things we're going to do in the future.  I can't wait to share more nights that we'll never forever.
3. Restoring rights to adoptees: We're getting there.  With each state that opens records, we're getting closer.  No matter how small, I'm doing my part, including traveling to Chicago this summer.  I tell myself that blogging my story helps too, in the sense that maybe it's helping dismiss some of the stereotypes.  Maybe it does.  Anyway, this is something that I can continue to fight for and a legacy to leave behind for other adoptees.
4. All those question marks:  I don't know where my life is going to take me.  Who knows?  I'd like to end up in a nice house with a few kids, and live out my dreams.  I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm excited to have the future wide open ahead of me.  I can't wait to find out!

I'm going to try to live my life the way that it should be lived.  I'm going to fight for all my new beginnings and wonderful stories.  I believe in angels and I know that I have a few watching over me.  I don't want to give them a bad show...

Things To Look Forward To

While 2011 was an interesting year, 2012 is right around the corner and I'm so looking forward to it!  2012 is going to be a fantastic year for me, I can just tell!

For starters, I have some amazing concerts coming up.  I'm going to see Blake Shelton with my sister and cousins in a few months.  I have a mini-crush (ok, maybe not so mini) and I can't wait to see him in person.  I love his music and I can't wait to see him sing "Honeybee" in person.  In the spring, I'm going with one of my best friends to see Lady Antebellum (for the third time!) and Darius Rucker (who is my second favorite singer these days).  We're going to celebrate my friend's birthday and her graduation.  We both love country music and those artists, so I can't wait to enjoy a fun concert with her!

My two closest friends will be returning to the US after living in Africa.  Both ladies will be home around the summertime.  I can't wait to have them home!  I hate hearing stories about civil unrest and running to the computer to see how far away it is from both of them.  And one friend in particular has gotten sick over there a few times and that's a really scary thing.  So I can't wait until they both come home!  I'm so happy that they are having a great time and learning great things, but coming home is fun too.

It's time for me to get my own place.  I'm going to start looking for an apartment in the spring.  I'll have been home for a year and paid off a good portion of my loans.  So I think it's time for me to think about moving out on my own to start my own life.  I love my parents.  They are awesome.  Sure, the Grinch has been a major pain in my ass the last few months, but he's my dad so I'll always love him.  He means well most of the time.  And my mom is amazing.  She's a saint.  And my sister and I are starting to get along better.  But never the less, I need to start my own life and learn to take care of myself.  So I'll be moving on, while staying close enough to home that I can still visit whenever I want.

The Adoptee Rights Convention is going to be in Chicago in 2012.  I'm determined to be in attendance!  Unfortunately San Antonio didn't work out.  But Chicago is much more manageable and because I know about it a long time in advance, I've already starting putting money aside for it.  I can't wait to meet some of the wonderful people I've met online in person and to move from just being an e-activist to working towards equal rights for adoptees in person.

There's got to be a lot of stuff that I'm missing, but these are the big things that jump out at me.  You never know what the year will bring!  So here's to a fantastic and hopeful 2012!

At What Age Is Grown-up?

This is a question I've been thinking about for a while now.  It started at the beginning of my first reunion when I started emailing my first mother.  At 22, I felt this odd, child-like sensation as I would tell her about my childhood and my favorite memories.  It's such a hard feeling to describe, feeling like a small child again looking for Mother's approval.  As time went on, that feeling faded, only to reemerge when I started talking to my first father, though not as bad the second time around.  Listening to other adult adoptees, it turns out that it's not completely unheard of, the regression I was feeling.

Being back at home with my parents has brought this question up again.  My mother does my laundry (her one household chore).  My parents refuse to accept rent from me (when I offered I was laughed at).  A lot of the same rules are in place for me now as when I was in high school, though in some areas I have a bit more freedom.  It's challenging to step back into that role and still maintain that I'm an adult (which I am).  But my parents don't see me that way, so it gets pretty complicated around our house sometimes.

I can own my own car like an adult, work like an adult, get paid like an adult, be treated like an adult when not with my family, but in the eyes of the state and in the eyes of my adoptive family, I'm still a child.  The state sees me as a child in that they won't give me my birth documentation.  Everyone else has theirs, I just can't get mine because they don't trust me as an adult to make what they see as the "right" decision.  My adoptive family (extended now) also sees me as a child, as witnessed this past weekend.

My uncle adopted two daughters later in life.  Their father died when they were young and he helped to raise them.  He was always their "dad" but nothing was official until both girls were in their 30's.  At that point, it was a step-parent adoption because he married their mother the day before they started the paperwork.  So my grandparents have eight grandchildren and four of us are adopted.

My older cousins do not act like cousins, or at least not in the way that I'm used to.  My family is very close.  We all get together on a regular basis (not just the holidays), call each other, support each other, and are there for each other.  My cousins don't call.  They bail on family parties.  They haven't called my mother once to see how she's doing.  They don't call my grandmother.  They don't act like her grandchildren.  So it's a sore spot in our family.  My uncle is insistent that they be treated like everyone else, but they don't treat the rest of us the way everyone else does.  If that makes sense.

My uncle threw a Christmas party last weekend.  A "family" party.  Which was a big deal because even though he lives less than an hour away, nobody's ever been to his house before.  So like an idiot, I called him to get the details.  I do all the planning in our house and I wanted to know what time so we could plan our weekend around it.  Well.  I was told that I wasn't invited.  I could go to a separate party with my cousins on another day.  It was a party for just his brothers and their wives.  Hm.  Ok.  Fast forward to the actual party.  My younger cousins never got the memo they weren't invited.  So they showed up.  I'm so glad that they did!  But here's the kicker.  My uncle's kids were there.  With their kids.  Who are teenagers.  So basically, my uncle threw a party for his brothers, their wives, and his family, and just excluded his nieces and nephews.  But because my cousins showed up, my entire family was there except for my sister and I.

So at 24, my uncle does not see me as an adult.  It was an "adult" Christmas party, yet at 24, and my cousin at 22, were not invited.  So at what age is grown up?  Eighteen?  Well, that included all the cousins with the exception of one.  Twenty-one?  Still includes my cousin and I.  Twenty-five?  Ok, that would make sense, but how do you come up with that number?  What can't I do at twenty-four that I can't do at twenty-five other than rent a car?

Adoptee triggers galore these days.  Seriously.  Not cool.