A Barrel of Nelsons

Someone on a forum recently said she bookmarked my blog and couldn’t wait to read it. So I figured that I should probably post or something like that, eh? (Also, welcome any new readers… and old readers, regular readers, infrequent readers, readers who know me in real life, and readers who Googled something and ended up here. Everyone is welcome! Well except nasty internet trolls. Go find another bridge to lurk under.)

Anyways, as it happened, the thread I was posting in was about adopted kids and whether or not they were “better off” adopted or if it was even right to say “better off.”

I think I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again.

I don’t believe that the Sweetling has a “better” life with S. & L. A different life, absolutely. But not inherently better or worse.

People talk about comparing “apples to oranges.” Some times I think with adoption we start putting up measuring sticks and comparing apples to oranges, strawberries to bananas, grapes to mangos… It’s a whole darn fruit salad!

Though sometimes we’re comparing apples to apples and we just don’t see it… Maybe your apple is Red and Mine is Yellow (Mmmmm… Golden Delicious are well delicious.) Red doesn’t make yours inherently better or worse, I just happen to prefer and hold an irrational love for Yellow *cough*Golden Delicious*cough* apples. Even comparing those though, we don’t have to say, “Mine is Better!”, “Yours is Worse!”

People will then bring up the rotten apples, the cases of abuse, the birthparents making bad life choices. The kids that were in orphanages.

Well, yes, if you show me one shiny bright apple and one with a gigantic worm coming out the side, then yes, the shiny apple is going to win. And I’m also likely to squeal like the girly person I am.

But I think occasionally we see worms where there really aren’t worms. Or sometimes we want to compare apple sizes when smaller portions might do as well as larger ones. Kids don’t always need the 20 newest toys. Of course, new toys aren’t going to necessarily hurt a child either. There’s alot of gray area. Size doesn’t always matter. (Oy, I was trying not to make that horrible punny statement.)

Alot of the time, I wonder why people need to feel that they’re doing better. Not to say that I’m not guilty of it. I am. But those measuring sticks sometimes reveal some deeper insecurities in ourselves that we might want to stop and address. Not saying that we will or have to. But think about it.

I got into some chaos theory (I think it’s chaos theory.) in the thread. And either there or elsewhere I saw someone mention “The Butterfly Effect.” A Butterfly flaps it’s wings and causes a hurricane or an earthquake halfway around the world.

I can play the “What If… ” game, and I have before. But “What If’s” can only go so far. Because changing one thing is going to affect something else. Take one road not taken will quite possibly lead to to a whole string of other forks. That doesn’t mean that we should go looking for monsters or treasures or strawberries (see I’m bringing that fruit salad theme back in here) down those other forks, but we should acknowledge that they exist.

There are thousands upon millions upon billions of possibilities. And we could drive ourselves bananas (see I did it again…) trying to figure out each one and it’s individual probabilities. We have to live in the here and now at some point. But that does not mean that our current realities are the end-all-be-all of how things could be. There could be a string of paths that if an emom chooses to parent she walks down and sets off a chain reaction that causes her to win the lottery (thus being financially secure) and meet Mr. Right-On-the-Awesomesauce (thus being part of a two parental figure family). It could happen. And someone could also genetically adapt swine to glide through the clouds on feathered appendages. Heck, Jeff could even move to Detroit. (Sorry, that’s an inside joke.)

Anyways, what I’m saying is that there needs to be care taken that we’re not making assumptions and ignoring things that might have worked out. “Better” is rather subjective. (See my apples example above.)

That being all said, I’ve now made myself hungry.

Oh readers, again I’ve had good intentions, and again I haven’t followed through. I have a half finished meme in my drafts that someone was kind enough to tag me for, but I just haven’t gotten to finishing it yet.

Unfortunately, I’m not coming here today to be up beat. I’m coming because I’m dealing with some inner turmoil.

I’m not sure how many of you are in the Mid-west area, or pay attention to Mid-west Indiana news…

The town I grew up in is flooding.

Not totally washed away, but pretty badly. The hospital down there flooded, was evacuated, has water and mud in it’s basement and first floor, and is closed “indefinitely.” The interstate exits off of I-65 are closed. There’s water over major intersections and roads, and they had to evacuate one of the High Schools they were using as a shelter because it’s built on a flood plain. Thousands are without power and there’s a boil water order.

I’ve called my mom a couple times, and she insists they’re fine (other than facing mild annoyances - like the boil order). But I’m hardwired to worry. And I’m already worrying about other stuff. But I’m adding this on top of that.

I’m worried about my sister who was at one of the shelters for a while on Saturday night until a family friend walked her the few miles it was to her apartment. There’s a Grocery Store behind her complex and Mom was saying that it’s parking lot was already a lake.

I’m worried about my grandparents who live just outside city limits on a road that floods and cuts them off when it rains a lot normally. My grandpa just had surgery and my grandma (who just turned 80 on May 12) has a stress fracture in her pelvis, and I’m worried about my parents and uncle not being able to get out there and help them and make sure they’re okay and make sure that Grandma isn’t trying to do too much.

I’m worried about my other grandfather who’s in a nursing home, ’cause my parents have been staying with him (just in case help is needed) and I guess the water has been getting pretty close to the buildings.

I worry about my parents…

And (selfishly) I worry about the replacement car that my parents just helped me get. My dad called me Saturday morning to tell me that he’d moved it off the flooded side street just in time. (We had 2 previous cars that had been parked on that street several years back and it flooded and it was ugly.)

I’m worried readers. And I’m heartbroken to look at the pictures and recognize the places and feel helpless to do anything from this far away…

I’m cheating and posting from work right now. I know I shouldn’t but some things in my life are really shaky right now. And probably not how you think or what you think.

I can’t talk to much about it because of “The Vague.” It has a bit to do with “The Vague” but it’s in itself it’s own set of issues.

By the way, I want to make clear the reasons that “The Vague” is so, well, vague. There are certain things that have happened and I could talk about them here, but I’m choosing not to. The reason I’m not talking about them is because I’m giving someone else a chance to do some things and I’m not going to violate that person’s trust by breaking it all open here. That’s not to say that I don’t want to talk about what “The Vague” is, just that I’m not because I feel that there would be some nasty fallout if I did. Not even necessarily fallout on or for me. Just nasty fallout.

The problem is “The Vague” kind of blocks me from talking about a lot of other things. Including what’s got me so upset right now.

It’s more frustrating and isolating than you could imagine.

Man, I should learn to think before I blog. Because really, anything with “Stalker” in the title is probably something that might freak people out.

Sometimes I realize I sound like a gigantic twit.

And I spend time wondering why I don’t have friends?

So there haven’t been any updates here, mainly because I don’t have anything to tell you. That’s just how it is. I really promise that I’ll give you an update from the Mother’s Day Insanity as soon as I have something to give. Even if I have to be terribly vague and password protect or whatever.

I’m sure I’m confusing some people with the vagueness and the secrecy. There’s a story behind that, but I can’t share the story right now, and I promise that as soon as I feel that I can make some explanation I will. It quite possibly is not what you think, but truthfully it might be.

Anyways, now that I’ve been all good and vague… I’ll be a bit more vague.

Readers, I’m kinda blog-cheating on you. I have a second blog. (It’s not linked from here because of reasons that involve the afore mentioned vagueness.) Anyways, if you’re interested in reading more of my babblings, this time from a mainly gamer-girl angle, email me and I’ll send you a link. It’s starting out small, but it shall grow!

So I do keep try to track stats on this blog, I can see some of the information, and heck, we’ve all had a laugh about it before…

So I can tell you that there’s someone from Gurnee, IL who clicked on my blog off the link in my Facebook. Or someone from DC who ended up here via the other blog. And somebody in St. Louis meandered over here by searching for “Sarcasm Pill.” I can tell you a bit more about people, but that mainly involves commiserating over the horrible, horrible suckage that is Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.

Why I’m quoting all this… Why I’m going to mention that I know there are at least 10 other people in the universe who read my feed with Google Reader… Well, that’s because I’m really in a slump and was hoping I could encourage you to Talk To Me! Leave comments, please? Link me for memes? (I’ll try to remember to do them this time…) Anything?

I can’t give full details (yes, the curtain of vagueness continues…) but I have to tell you that I’m hitting a really low patch. Even before I pile on adoption issues and the gnawing worry about the Mother’s Day letter, which started seconds after the end of the envelope disappeared into the mailbox. Heck the reason behind the vagueness has me all on edge, and it’s keeping me from telling at least one slightly adoption related story. I know I could password protect, but nobody reads my password protected posts really. Those posts have a different password than anything mentioned here. Really, if you ask, I’m unlikely to turn you down.

I guess it breaks my heart to be un-interesting. That’s the hard and fast truth of it. I know in the end I am. I’m terribly uninteresting, but between truth and my psyche there’s this little tunnel where I can pretend that I’m interesting and worthwhile and that people like me.

I guess it comes down to that, I want people to like me.

I joined a forum recently. I knew a few people who were already on it and I was able to figure out their forum names. I did my typical pseudo-stalker deal where I check their profiles at least once every day or two. Through a turn of events one of them actually friended me on the forums. You wouldn’t believe how much that meant to me. And then some one else that I hadn’t expected to friended me as well. I was literally squealing with delight. Which is horribly sad.

This, this is why I have a profile on social networking sites. Why I check Facebook with a fair amount of regularity. Why I’m probably going to update my MySpace profile (and friend a few people who’s Myspaces I just discovered) as soon as it gets done with it’s silly site maintenance. I want people to like me. I want to have friends. It means more to me than it probably should… And because I don’t want to look as desperate as I am, I hem and haw alot and rarely friend someone first.

I have a section of my IM messenger (I use Trillian) that is devoted to “People I Stalk.” I’m sure that sounds alot worse than it is. “Stalking” here means that I’ve acquired their screen name in someway other than they themselves directly giving it to me. It might mean they’ve posted it somewhere (like a MySpace or Facebook profile) or I know somebody else who knows them who’s given it to me. “Stalking” simply means that (like anyone else on my messenger list), I check their status occasionally, laugh at their away messages (people come up with some great ones!), etc. The only thing I don’t do is talk to them. Because I’m not really sure they’d know who I was if I said something (even if I said, “Hey, this is Ang.”) or want to talk to me if I said something.

Now that I have all that out there it looks even more desperate than it does in my head. FYI there are only 2 “People I Stalk” currently and neither of them have anything to do with adoption. (Just in case anyone cared.)

I guess it’s just a consequence of being shy and technologically savvy at the same time. I also Google my friends names on occasion.

So today is that day. Mother’s Day.

I just sent e-cards to my mom and Sara. Mom got a Maxine-based one since Maxine is her “thing.” And she got a cute cat one from the “Grandkitties.” Sara got a kitchen based one.

I’m going to call my grandma later, because not only is today Mother’s Day, tomorrow she turns 80.

I’m not going to church today. It just wouldn’t do me any good.

Baby I, V’s baby and A&A’s baby, is getting baptized today. I’ve gotten to see him a couple times in the past few weeks. Once when one of his mom’s had to come in and do something at the church, she left him in my office so she could move some stuff and I just watched him sleep while I folded some papers. Then last week A&A came in for the pre-baptism appointment and I saw him again. He’s growing so fast.

I’ve already said a little silent prayer for V this morning. I don’t know how she’s feeling about this all, but I wish her strength and some measure of peace today. Even if it’s just a single moment, everyone needs a little peace in their turmoil. I thought about sending her a card, anonymously, but I didn’t want to intrude and I’ve really never met her, nor do I know her specifics. But I thought about it, and I feel a bit crummy that I didn’t.

—

So I’m about to do something crazy for Mother’s Day. I’m sucking it up and writing S. See below to see how bad I sound. It’s getting printed and sent asap though, before I lose my nerve. Say a prayer that it doesn’t make me sound like a total dweeb, okay?

—

Dear S -

Happy Belated Mother’s Day. I say belated because I’m writing this the morning of Mother’s Day and as I’m planning to print it out and send it “snail mail,” and it’s Sunday, it probably won’t get to you for a few days.

This letter is even more belated than those Mother’s Day wishes. I’ve been trying to write something like this for close to 18 or more months and we can both see how well I’ve done with that. I should probably put some disclaimers on here, most of them going back to the fact that I’m a stubborn twerp occasionally and I have a tendency to stick my foot in my mouth alot. I’ve also spent too much time in the company of (at least one of) your brothers and while I don’t have their dry wit down, I top off alot of my words with a heaping dollop of sarcasm. It’s not always appropriate, and sometimes my common sense filters don’t catch it. I’m also taking a gamble and not having my usual proofreader go over this ahead of time. Please pardon any horrible spelling and/or grammar snafus or snarls.

I suppose I should begin by saying that attached to this, (unless I’m really dumb and forget to attach it) there is a medical history that is as belated as everything else. I don’t know how completely current it is for anyone other than myself, but if you ever have any sort of an emergency question, my mom knows lots more than I do. You can reach her at *My Mom’s Email Address*, if you feel comfortable doing so, or you can ask me to get ahold of her.

I guess this is the point for startlingly blunt admissions. Or at least blunt ones.

I’m jealous of you. There now I’ve said something that you’ve probably been able to guess for a long while. Yes, I’m jealous not just because you’re raising the daughter I gave birth to, but because you seem to have it all together while you’re doing that and raising your other kids too. Emmers has told me that you read (or did read) my blog, and I’m sure that you’ve seen my personal green-eyed monsters dancing out there on the screen.

I want you to know that it’s not personal. Really. Now, I know that I hate when people say, “It’s not personal,” because alot of the time it still feels personal. So I know that me saying that may mean squat. And I want to apologize for that, because I don’t want to make you feel bad about me feeling bad.

Past that, I want to tell you that the anger you may read on here isn’t directed at you. I rail against alot of stuff, but yet again, it’s not personal. I don’t want you to think that I hate you because you adopted The Sweetling. I hate me because I gave her up. I hate how some people around me were able to make me feel like I should give her up. I hate me because I didn’t say “No, I don’t want to give her up.” And I hate some very specific people from the hospital who treated me like junk. But I don’t hate you. Though I am jealous.

Wow, I’m reading what I wrote and I’m really hope I don’t sound like a total jerk.

I owe you a specific apology too. I posted pictures and names of your kids on my blog and that was wrong. Super wrong. I know that it won’t make complete amends but I wanted to let you know that I went back and put passwords on all the picture posts I could find, and I changed the all the names I could find. It took longer to change the names because I stopped to figure out nicknames to change them to. But it took me a long time to get over some stupid indignation about it and just do it too, and I’m sorry for that. I didn’t think. I wanted so badly to show off this beautiful little girl that had once been a part of me that I completely threw logic and my brain out the proverbial window. I’m sorry.

Now after I’ve said that, I’m going to stick my foot in my mouth and ask you for something. I’d really appreciate it if just every once and awhile, you sent pictures our way. I’ll understand if you don’t. I mean there’s a whole last paragraph of reasons you shouldn’t. But I want to tell you that out of everything, that’s one of the things that hurts most. There are occasional “fixes” when someone else shows us a picture or something, but having to get stuff third party like that… well, to tell you honestly it makes me feel forgotten and discarded. Which I mean, there isn’t much of a reason for you too remember me, but … yeah… This is the foot in mouth part.

The other foot in mouth part… Well actually if I start counting foot in mouth parts of this letter I’ll probably end up looking like some sort of mutant cow. But anyways,… another one of those foot in mouth requesty type parts…

My grandma, my dad’s mom, turns 80 years old tomorrow. She’s this wonderful tiny woman, who I love so very much… and well, I can’t really think of a good way to say this, but … I was wondering if maybe you might consider sending her a card… possibly with a picture of the Sweetling. Yet again, I’ll absolutely understand if you don’t and I mean this is someone you’ve never met, but I just thought I would ask. I’m her oldest grandchild and my cousins and sister are no where near having families, so The Sweetling is (biologically) her only great-grandchild. Yeah, I’m sorry if I sound like a dweeb asking this, and I hope I don’t offend you. My family is having a birthday celebration for her on the 22nd of June so if you could just drop a card in the mail between now and then it would be fine, and if you don’t it’s okay too. Her name and address are:

I hope things are going well for everybody there. I know you must have your hands full with … well with all of them.

So I guess this is where I should end it … I’ve probably taken more than enough of your time and I hope I haven’t been as annoying as I think I might have. Like I said at the beginning, health history as I know it is attached. If I get any changes I’ll let you know. Also, if for some reason you’d ever like some pictures of me when I was younger (I saw a picture of The Sweetling from Christmas and I want to say that I had that same hairstyle 20 or so years ago.) or anything like that… let me know. Or ignore me if you’d never want anything like that, because like I said before, dumb things come out of my mouth.

Well, that’s it I guess.

Oh, what with the Insight / Comcast mess, my new email is: , in case you need anything.

Happy Mother’s Day again.

-Ang

I’ve got nothing much to say.

They called this morning and my car is totaled. Everybody says, it’s great that I wasn’t hurt and then proceed to lecture me on what I was doing wrong. As if I’m not hard enough on myself already. As if I don’t know what kind of tragedy this is, and I’m talking about flowers and puppy dogs.

But you know, maybe I’m just in a funk.

Maybe I was sub-consciously looking for a way out of spending Mother’s Day with my family. Because while that seemed like a good idea a few weeks ago, as the days ticked away it started to look stupider.

So we’re not going to Columbus so much.

Not that this will change too much.

Last year I had two people acknowledge my motherhood. Two. Sara and Jeff.

I don’t know what the count will be this year.

I’ve forgotten to send the cards I wanted to send, and I don’t have addresses to send some of them, so I’ll be browsing e-cards here soon.

But not right now. Right now, I’m sitting here and just being grouchy. Because there’s just nothing much going on that requires me to feel differently.

I have a wicked bruise just above the elbow on the inside of my right arm. It hurts. I believe everyone was saying it looks like it’s from hitting the steering wheel.

I want my car to get fixed, but the tow truck guy was not optimistic. In fact he was down right pessimistic. (Forgive me if I spell something wrong tonight.)

I’ve been chewed on by my dad, and I’ve been feeling like crap anyways. I’ve got a serious case of self-hate going on. That and a good bit of physical soreness are making my existence less that pleasant.

Can somebody just take back all of today.

Hi Internet-

I’m not at work like I’m supposed to be right now. Don’t worry. I didn’t get fired. In fact they approved the motion to add five hours a week to my schedule.

No… I’m not at work because maybe an hour and a half ago, I was heading to the gas station on the end of my lunch break, looked away for a moment and ran my car into a light pole.

My poor little car. I’d had her for less than 2 months!

Yeah…

So what’s new with you all?

-Ang

I think I should start with some sort of apology for the punch-drunk-babbling-whackiness that was my last post. If it didn’t make sense, don’t worry, I’m not sure it was supposed too.

I’m up at 6:30 a.m. when I didn’t want to wake up until 7:00 a.m. and haven’t been sleeping well, so the thought (and the title) that this will make more sense is a gamble and a shot in the dark.

When last time I said that I wanted to write a fan-fic with an anti-adoption story line, that was a misstatement. What I meant was an anti-relinquishment story line. There’s a difference, and in truth, any mention of adoption in the story in my head is a front. It’s a lie for purposes that are rather sinister.

The basic description of the story bouncing off the walls of my brain goes like this: “Pregnant gal on the run from the Alliance, hitches a ride with Serenity and company. Set Post-Big D*mn Movie.”

That’s how it’s supposed to go at least.

I’m up at 6:30 and I’m angry and I’m just trying not to explode with that emotion. Things are not necessarily going bad. They’re actually better than they were a few days ago (well on some fronts, some other fronts are decidedly un-changed). Today, the congregation votes on whether or not to increase my hours, and I’m rather nervous about that, even though I’ve been told not to worry. I’ve got a vacation planned in a week and a half or so and I really can’t wait to spend some days away.

I’m really trying not to fall down into this roiling pit of anger that’s brewing in my stomach. I’m really failing at that though.

I think this Mother’s Day is going to be pretty bad. I know that 18 months hit me harder than 1 year, and I’m still reeling from that a little bit. I’m going down to see my family day of. (My dad’s mom turns 80 the day after Mother’s Day so that’s a good reason to go.)