Life can become weird and jumbled suddenly, sometimes, scaring the pee out of you. My daughter commented yesterday that life has never gone the way she thought it would, so she doesn’t plan for as much or as far into the future as she used to. I have to sympathize, for life hasn’t gone the way I thought it would, either.
At dinner Sunday evening, my friend was telling us about her elderly mother’s recovery from knee surgery, which hasn’t gone very well. Her mother is living in the rehabilitation section of a nursing home, and isn’t happy. This generated some conversation about what we would do if we were forced into a situation like that and had the choice of being miserable, like her mother, or making the best of a misery-inspiring situation. I’ve always thought I would just read more, or write more, or catch up on all the old movies I have on my to-watch list. It hadn’t even occurred to me that the medication they give you can make you dizzy, so that you can’t even read; or that old age might bring arthritis with it, and that I may not be able to type any more.
Worse, I may not be able to think. Can I assume that I won’t have dementia some day, or degenerate into a person who can’t even do a crossword puzzle any more? (OK, well I’ll admit here that I’m not good at crossword puzzles now, so am not likely to be good at them later, either.) And who wants to re-live their elementary school days, when we were herded into the cafeteria and given no choice but to eat the glob of mashed potatoes and the petrified chicken?
what we don’t plan for
And then, before I had even finished mulling over the possibilities that old age will most likely not go the way I’ve imagined all this time, something else happened to underscore my helplessness in the face of the 
Universe. This afternoon I was reading some of my usual blogs, and read about how Judy is faring, Judy who is battling Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) and whose mother recently had a stroke of moderate proportions (how is it moderate when you won’t be able to live on your own any more after having it?). I was thinking about how her mother has been a big emotional support to her, and now her mother is debilitated and fighting for her own recovery. How her mother hadn’t planned when she got up that day to have a stroke. And how, this time last year, the last thing on Judy’s mind was that she would be looking at tumors on a CT scan and planning for a mastectomy and survival. A year ago she may have been thinking about her 401(k) or how she needed a raise, or how she might figure out a way to quit working as much so she can spend more time with her son, or about where they would vacation this year.
But it’s mid-summer and Judy is still having some maintenance chemotherapy. She didn’t plan that part, or plan to change her hairstyle so radically, either.
blogophobic
While I was thinking about all this, I went to write something here on Third Eve, and found that my ability to 
post had been compromised. I was shut down, my writing arrested. A restraining order had been served me by WordPress due to questionable content.
As you can imagine, I had a mini freak out. What had I written that had gotten someone’s goat to such a point that they had turned me in to the word police? Was it because I wrote “fuck” in a post last week? I edited it out, for Pete’s sake! Was it because I titled an article, “Adoption As Legal Kidnapping,” or because one of my commentators had blasphemed against the state of New Jersey and Rosie O’Donnell?
I’ve written far worse for publication and made all kinds of incendiary speeches, and nobody ever burned my books or threw tomatoes at me from the audience.
But anyway, it turned out that I had linked to a domain that was being flagged, and when I went to visit my friend whose blog was from there, she had been utterly deleted. Gone in 60 seconds. Expired.
pot wars
This reminded me that we’re not as free as we once were. Things are happening that aren’t right, and what can we do? For instance, my son and I watched a poorly-done documentary about a guy who stopped smoking pot for 30 days, and then smoked it like mad for 30 days, as “research.” Kind of like Super Size Me, 
only stupider. But some things about the film stayed with me. For example, in California, the medicinal use of marijuana is legal. Dispensaries are licensed or certified, and people with physician’s prescriptions can buy their pot legally. The California people voted on this, and that’s what they believed was right and good, and it passed. This is entirely legal in California.
The problem is that it’s entirely illegal at the federal level, so the DEA keeps busting these dispensaries. Several such busts were videotaped in the documentary. We giggled as we watched the first one, because the pot patients were so mad but their protests so feeble. But after the second and third ones, we weren’t giggling any more. We began to feel outraged. A pot-related civil war is happening out there! The citizens of the state of California said, “GIVE THOSE POOR PEOPLE THE POT THEY NEED!” and Uncle Sam said, “DON’T DO IT, OR YOU’RE GOING TO JAIL, BUSTER!” Civil war, cop on cop crime.
Years from now, when this issue goes to the Supreme Court, we’ll know what the outcome will be, and whatever happens will set off some trend nationwide. Either pot will begin to be decriminalized in certain situations, or it won’t; but until then, the citizens of California who need pot and whose doctors prescribe it ought to be outraged. It almost reminded me of the Boston Tea Party or something.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a pot smoker or user. I don’t see any way I can use pot morally or ethically when it’s against the law. But I think if California says it’s OK, and the constitution doesn’t prohibit marijuana (and it doesn’t, eh?), then the U.S. government has no business busting down the door of the dispensary. But they’re doing it anyway, because they can.
in one split second
All these things remind me of how scary life can become in one split second, the second between the walk across campus and the sounds of shots ringing out, the seconds between crossing the intersection and impact; the seconds before you felt the lump in your breast, and the second after; the seconds before I rounded the corner, and the second after, when the specialists huddled around her bed turned closed faces toward me, and I knew.
Everything can change in one split second; after some seconds, nothing will ever be the same again.
I’m not sure how to hold onto my life more loosely, so that I don’t lumber through life unconsciously rather than realizing that every moment I can breathe, think, and love is a miracle not to be taken for granted. I used to know that nothing was certain; I’ve known it many times. But later, I forget. I start to imagine that there is more than the here-and-now. Yet there is really nothing else.
This granddaughter, a baby only a year ago, is a little miss now, her hair up like Pebbles Flintstone and her lunch box in hand. She likes tampons and all kinds of food, small dogs, and her uncles. She has a broad, toothy grin and is every bit as full of vinegar as her mommy and daddy were (and are still).
frustrated, scared, ashamed, or misunderstood after writing passionately about something, I’ve found that reaching out to the people I offend can deliver rich blessings and expanded awareness, if only I will let it.
male usually hiding in the underbrush, among rocks or dunes, wherever he can hide his lazy self. The females spread out and identify the prey; when it’s time, the lion begins to roar, scaring the wits out of the prey, who run away from his roar and right into the jaws of the females, who have, in the meantime, surrounded the prey. Though the lion has done nothing but roar, he gets the first part of every kill, gorging himself until he’s full and then giving the remains to the lioness and cubs.
And there’s always the possibility that I was missing something. As 
As you can see, the words real and authentic are interchangeable. So its semantics. Adoptees define real/authentic mothering differently. For myself, I define it as one woman gave me life and another woman taught me to live it. I am not now nor ever been grateful for being alive. My blog is written from a sixties love child’s point of view. I was born in the baby scoop era.
blank slate theory on adoption. I can tell you personally that I was not born with a clean slate. My adoptive mother had a hell of time trying to calm me down as an infant/child when I heard sirens of any kind. I was inconsolable and screaming until the siren was finally gone.
offensive. I will use it in a legal sense. Not all mothers are perfect. When it comes to my natural mother friends, I call them mothers. I refuse to let these women be defined by one experience. I don’t even like natural, birth, biological, first or original mother. It still defines these mothers for one single event in their lives. These women are so much more. In my situation, many of them have been a mother to me when my own natural mother can’t bring herself to be a mother to me. If you have to define the separate mothers, use a word that these mothers prefer. It is natural mother or first mother.
I respect all adoptees’ feelings when it comes to search or not. Why did I start to search? My adoptive mother wanted it because she wanted both of us to be young enough to appreciate each other. My adoptive mother wasn’t one to let me walk in the “adoption fog.” Why do adoptees have to have a reason to research their heritage? Why does it even matter? That was part of why I got upset with your post. In the non adopted, researching and understanding one’s heritage helps one move forward. In the adopted sector, we are condemned and psycho analyzed over it. Your posts in your blog do it. Why is it important to understand why? If it is natural for the non adopted, should it be any less for the adopted?
separated my natural mother from me. These same values have her steeped in shame and humiliation. These same values have denied, as you put it, her chance of being an authentic parent to me.
woman’s heart that goes beyond any kind of pain. She is told through out her life to forget about it. To pretend that it never happened. To deny her motherhood. To deny her the right to be an authentic parent (your words). I can not fully understand that kind of pain. I know that I could never go through it. So I do however fullyempathize.
considers me a blessing. I look at it differently. I frigging lucked out with my adoptive mother. I see adoption being controlled by money, coercion, and corruption. I realize that you write from an adoptive parent’s point of view in open adoption. You might now see it this way. I know in your other posts that you are venturing into this type of research. I will warn you right now. What you will find will sicken you. Mr. Archuleta is the tip of the iceberg. I know of ten other fathers at the minimum just like him. They are still fighting. I know of five mothers still fighting right now. This is all public knowledge. I hear stories but have no names to go with the stories. My natural father tried to fight this battle himself. My natural father was married when he met my natural mother. He went back to his wife and told her the truth. They both decided to adopt but the adoption agency did not “do” that type of adoption. I don’t think any adoption agency did at that time.
wife. It’s different. I’m trying really hard, and I’m reading all these books about loving your replacement wife, but, honey, it’s just really, really difficult to love you.” How would you feel?
Let’s pretend that you’re at the movie theatre, and in the scene you’re watching, a helpless infant lies in a crib, red-faced and screaming. Nearby stands his mother, her arms folded over her chest, watching him scream. The sober, detached look on her face says it all, but just in case it doesn’t, we (being movie goers) can hear her thoughts. She is thinking, “I just don’t feel the least bit attached to you. Your crying doesn’t move me. In fact, I feel like your babysitter. I just want a break!” How sympathetic do you feel toward that new mother? How good a mother do you think she is at this moment? And what prediction would you make about that baby’s future with his mother? Would you want to have that kind of a mother? Would you feel good about leaving your baby in the care of a woman with a heart like that?
had written an article about love that dumbfounded me because it so blatantly illustrated the occasional tunnel vision one runs into among parents that is so deeply disturbing in its lack of empathy for the child. What this mother wrote was antithetical to what I know to be true about loving one’s children, regardless of how they enter the family.
mother. I know for sure that what I feel is the same. I know I’m not alone in that; I know other mothers through birth and adoption for whom adoption was not a second-best choice, and they laughed when I called and asked them, “tell me how you feel about your adopted children as compared with your biological children.” My friends laughed and said, “The same, of course! You know that. Why do you ask?”
if we are all, equally and individually, human beings is normal and right. The ones acting like freaks are those who do not love their children equally, who seem to want to stop there and shrug their shoulders and say, “This is the way it is, oh well,” and then write flowery posts about it and pretend that there is something noble about being honest about maintaining such a small heart.
around and high fived the author for her brutal honesty. Such comments, (and I quote them verbatim) included one from an adoptive mother who wrote of her adopted baby, “I would watch him scream, [. . .] but still felt somehow detached from it,” and another who wrote, “I did not feel the least bit attached or bonded to him,” and, “I felt like I was babysitting and really just wanted a break.” These adoptive mothers, all of whom waited a long time to become mothers and no doubt earnestly prayed to heaven to receive a child, finally received the human answers to their prayers and discovered that God had given them lemons.
you know people will judge you (that’s what needs to change about the adoption community).”
removed from this little child? Why are you choosing to be such a small person, such a pale shadow of the loving human being you could be, if only you dared? Why don’t you do something Buddhist and think and look deeply into your little boy, and ponder what his life was like from the moment he was conceived in his mother’s womb to the moment he was placed in your arms.
Listen! There is such a mother as a real mother, a good mother, and a real, good mother. And the real good mother doesn’t rely on genetics or biology or sentiment for her substance. She relies on real love. That’s where real parenting begins.
Real love is about having a caring, empathetic, reality-based relationship to a specific human being, your child. Whether you birthed that child or adopted that child, or simply care for that child like a mother does not matter. What matters is where is your heart in relation to that child? Is that child’s pain something you detach from, or do you enter into his pain so you can help heal it? Is he a mere specimen to you, someone to stand away from when she cries, or will you not be moved to tears, as well? Do you need to have him or find him so that you can feel whole? That is your self-love talking; you have yet to really love your child.
