Victory
Final score: Teacher--68 Students--56
Despite not making a basket, I played some pretty mean defense. I even sacrificed my body for the love of the game--I dove on top of the ball and skinned up my knees. I was ferouche.
We have a hockey game tonight, and then we have to get up at 4 in order to be in San ANtonio by 10 tomorrow. There is an adoption seminar we are required to go at the agency. It will go one of two ways. Either it will feel amazing to talk to people who are going through the same things we are, or it will rip open any healing we have accomplished. I am hoping for the former.
I'm trying not to dwell. We just enjoyed a lovely 7 mile hike around the lake on a stunningly beautiful January day. I got to play b-ball with my students. I get to go see men hit each other with sticks. That's a lot. Why isn't that enough?

Let It Snow
Um, well, let it ice in any case. No school because the metro goes nuts with the thought of,gasp,frozen precitipation! As much as I'm going to enjoy hanging around in my robe sipping java, I really actually wanted to work today. Now we'll lose the snow day in April which is honestly when we really need it.
Oh well, I'm not going to mope. I'm just going to pour an extra cup and tackle the crossword puzzle.
In the category of "Oh, no she didn't!" Eric actually caught Clementine peeing in the wet bar sink. I am so disturbed, and have invested a lot of bleach in remedying the situation. Shudder.

What in the Wide World of Sports?!
The past two days I've become drawn into the world of alterna sports--like those that would be seen on The Ocho. I've seen some amazing feats. Yesterday while working out I watched championship dog diving and extreme snow boarding. The dog diving has inspired me to get Toby working. The leading dog jumped 30 feet 10 inches. I could at least enjoy throwing him in the pool. Then last night I actually watched an hour of the Latin Ballroom Dancing Championships on PBS. I am in awe of those people. I made Eric try to wisk me around the living room, but we were embarrassed by our lack of rhythm and sequins. Sniff.
Today I spent my time at the gym watching professional bowling. Yes, you read that correctly. I found myself throwing the victory fist in the air when Mallot got his last strike.Woot. Welcome to bizarro world.

Last night we went to a great party for a friend's birthday and I got my taste for fun back. It was good for the soul. Perhaps less good for the diet and liver, but good for the soul.

I Am Trying to Start Your Heart
Yes, friends, I am a lifesaver. I spent my morning getting recertified in first aid, CPR and emergency management. For some reason I get really into my responsibilities as a workplace safety officer. Yes, I am that big a loser. I should have been a hall monitor! Perhaps it is because I am a planner--I like to be one step ahead. I actually formulated numerous exacuation roues and plans from our house. My obsession with knowing the score is most likely one of the many reasons this adoption process (and grad school applications) are so hard for me.
Perhaps in the mean time I should use my dorky love of public safety to do something to better the community. I am determined to do more to serve.

Not Okay. . . Okay
I have always been a "fake it till you make it" sort of person. I've been trying to be ok, especially at work. The result of my acting is that people keep treating me more and more like I am normal and continue to pile work and pressure on me. The worst is that I give myself completely to my students. Even when I am at my best, teaching is tremendously difficult and life sucking, when I am trying to give something I don't have, however, the situation becomes truly untenable.
All day every day I have people calling my name, asking for my attention, looking for my love. I keep giving and giving and giving. The more I give, the more they expect and demand from me. I don't have anything more to give.
I had two quasi meltdowns today. As I am in charge of student council, I had to give up my planning period to take the students to the church to help them practice reading for the big masses this weekend. There is somthing about being in the church that breaks down my veneer and my defenses. As soon as the kids left, I practically crawled over to the side altar and sobbed. Of course I only had a few minutes to le tmy guard done before I had to get back to teaching. After school as I was walking from the carpool line and a mother came up and asked me how the baby was doing. I held it together and explained it to her, and of course she was horrified and she started crying. I rushed to the bathroom for a 30 second cry before I had to run down to supervise play practice where I was of course needed and had to give more of myself to the kids. Bless their hearts, none of this is their fault--they are just kids who need me. It breaks my heart that I can't give them everything they need and that it pains me to love them.
However, I think that the only way I am going to be ok is if I give myself the permission to be off, to phone it in for awhile until I can give when it is not painful. I don't have to be ok right now. It's ok to hurt and to want to hide. For a perfectionist like myself, that is really hard lesson to learn.

To pick myself up I headed to a weight lifting class where I did not phone it in. The sweet hurt is my solace. Now I'm going to walk my dog, breathe and be ok with not being ok.

I will kill the next person who asks me how I am doing, though.

Drop Everything
Read these books--
Shattered Dreams--Irene Spencer
Love in the Time of Cholera--Gabriel Garcia Marquez
March--Gwendolyn Brooks
When You Are Engulfed in Flames--David Sedaris

I've needed distraction lately, and these have provided blissful escape. A caveat: do not read Sedaris while on the elliptical trainer. I began laughing so hard that I almost fell off, and my friend Arturo the gym desk manager looked at me light I was some sort of strange serial killer, giggling and running.

Quick List
Someone reminded me today of the importance of gratitude. Therefore a quick list of things that went well today:
1. I had delicious fresh blueberries with my Kashi this morning.
2. We had staff development rather than teaching today which made for a relaxing, productive day.
3. Monday=easy crossword puzzle day!
4. Toby and I went on a lovely walk this afternoon because I got out early.
5. The lake sparkled sapphire today.
6. The blue of the sky looks even more miraculous when seen through the branches of barren trees.
7. Eric is not being sent to Israel as we had feared.
8. I broke in my new shoes today and look forward to super cuteness.
9. Re-read the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" which is an amazing feminist account of depression and madness.
10. Today was kick boxing day. . . need I say more?

Shedding My Skin
I refer to shedding both literally and figuratively.
On Saturday my wonderful sister took me to get a luxurious facial. My heavenly tech Ken asked if I had ever had one before, and I replied that I had not. As I was leaving I told him that he was what I had been missing in my life all of these years. To have the chance to relax completely and to have someone completed devoted to my happiness if only for 50 minutes was amazing.
Figuratively I have been thinking a lot about change. I am somewhat desperate for it. This weekend I've been tearing apart the house in effort to bring a sense of the new. This morning we rearranged the bedroom just for a new perspective. Then I tore through the house gathering items for Goodwill and Half-Price. I have this unpractical desire to get rid of everything and start anew. I also have been working on getting the office together so I can turn it into a relaxing and happy place to work, a necessity once I return to school next fall (no, I have not yet heard anything, I'm working on wishful thinking). Between hauling boxes, taking apart furniture and the obligatory gym run this morning, I am sore from tippy toes to forehead. Still, it's progress.
I understand that I am transferring my lack of control over the adoption process into a need to rearrange the parts of my life I can control. I also don't want the house to resemble what it was when I was a different person. In the before. Steinbeck's The Pearl has stuck with me for some 20 years--Juanna and Kino say that time will be forever divided into before finding the pearl and all that came after. It is rather like some sort of file divider has been stuck into my life irrevocably separating point A from point B. This is not a good vs. bad sort of a situation, I don't mean to imply that. I actually feel I have gained from the experience. I feel more accepting and less selfish. I have a greater understanding of the process. I have grown closer to my loved ones. Most importantly, however, I have clarified what's important and what's not. Truth be told, what I've realized is that I get to decide what's important, and it can change from day to day. This is rather liberating. I get to choose what I will feel strongly about, what I should care about, what can and cannot hurt me--not someone else.
Right now change matters. Can I change my life? Taking a cue from our soon to be president, I will confidently say YES I CAN.

With Apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The past couple of days I've had a lot on my mind regarding adoption ethics. I've been reading a heated discussion on a blog between adoptees, addoptive moms and birthmothers. The question that started it was from a rather caustic woman who asked why anyone would ever get involved with adoption when it caused to much pain for all involved. It devolved essentially into several diatribes against infertile women who think they are entitled to children just because they want them and can pay to adopt them in a sometimes unethical industry. The anger against these infertile woman was potent.
After my initial defensiveness and anger, I decided that I really wanted to figure out how I felt about the issues that they were proposing. Some of the more vitrolic were accusing these evil infertile women of wanting to steal babies, and one even proposed that adoption and relinquishment were so harmful to a person that abortion was actually a much better solution to unwanted pregnancy. Wow. Others were discussing the issue of demand--if there were no infertile women clamoring for children at any cost, there were not be children put up for adoption. There was talk that a lot of the demand for children came from the fact that society tells women that they are not worthy unless they conform to standard roles of wife and mother. I guess I'll start there.
I actually have never bought into those ideas of womanhood. I truly do not feel any pressure to have children. In fact many people in my life would probably prefer that I do not have them. The reason I want a child is because I feel a calling so deep within myself--Eric and I have so much love that we sometimes feel that we will be consumed by it.
I do not, however, have any desire to "steal" a child or to take a child that would be better off somewhere else. Having had this desire for a child for so many years, I would never deny a mother her child. In fact, while I hate the circumstance and I hate that I got so hurt by it, I cannot be angry at the mother who decided to parent. She did it because she thought it was best. I can only hope that she will take good care of the child. I do not feel that I am somehow better than a mother who is deciding for whatever reason to relinquish her child. I do feel that I am well qualified to help. I also feel well qualified to be a parent even if I am not going to have a biological child. I refuse to feel that I am doing something wrong by taking in a child who cannot be parented by his or her biological parent. I also, howver, do not consider myself any sort of saint for doing it. What E and I are doing is trying our best to find the child of our hearts, and once we do we will do everything in our power to give the most love and the most support that we possibly can. That's the best and the only thing we can do.
I understand that there are emotional consequences to adoption. These cannot be overlooked or sugarcoated, and I want to be open with my child and help him deal with any and all conflicts that may arise. There are some we can predict and others we cannot. I also know that there are emotional consequences to being born in any situation. I work with enough adolescents to know that it is not an easy time. THere is not such thing as an ideal family. Everyone experiences joy, and everyone hurts. Every situation is sticky, and every situation has the possibility of bliss. We all have to do the best we can with what we are given, with the light we have.
I was feeling pretty glum about the entire situation, but then I finally finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. I cannot understand how I had lived the first 31 years 1 month and 16 days without reading it. The ending of the book is one of the most perfect in literature. Sometimes despite impossible obstacles (escaped parrots, failed poetic competitions, the destruction of the manatee's habitat, suicide pacts) love does find a way. Sometimes, as Florentino realizes late in his life, the powers of life are more potent than the seductive calls of death and darkness. Sometimes people must take control of their destinies by doing one the only acts of freewill any of us has, by opening ourselves to love.
I am not one of those naive people who claim that love will cure all troubles and overcome all obstacles, but I do believe that I was put on this earth to love, and I know that Eric and I will do whatever is in our power to surround this child with love. I refuse to feel bad about that.

1/13/09 Take Two
Today was supposed to be the day.
I'm ok, but. . .

It is what it is.

Jab, Cross, Identity Crisis
I might be getting to the anger stage of the grief process because I suprised myself tonight at kickboxing. I punched and kicked with a furor I did not know I possessed. As I was jabbing and roundhousing I was not really picturing a person, but I was imagining it was possible to beat the crap out of the entire situation. I will be feeling those uppercuts for a few days I am sure. It felt liberating to be angry. As I leaped across the room I felt strong and in control for the first time in many weeks.
This control came at an important time because I am suffering a bit of an identity crisis. I don't really know who I am or what I want anymore. When I was going to be a mom I changed in some hard to define ways. I rearranged priorities, and I determined a plan that would carry me for the next few years. I said goodbye to an entire era of my life--career, social, emotional. I was sad to leave it behind, but ready nonetheless. Now since the adoption fell through I'm shoved back into a life that I really thought I had left behind. Everything continues as I left it, but I have changed irrevocably. I am not the same person. Half of the time I am able to fake it pretty well, but the other half of the time I am really at a loss, especially in social situation. I am unrure how to get my happy back and be satisfied with the life I am living now. THere is nothing wrong with my life as it is, it's just not the one I had prepared myself to begin. Where do we go from here?

I guess in the short term I go kickboxing more. That's a start.

Bored
The problem with getting up really early is that by mid-afternoon I have alreay accomplished most of what I set out to do for the day, and it's still too early to start evening plans. Eric has settled in for a winter's nap, but I haven't been much for naps for years. I have begun pacing around the house to get my step count up and over 10,000.
Last night we had a nice night in--taking advantage of the warm weather, we grilled outside, listened to music and played too many hands of Egyptian Ratscrew, then we watched Pineapple Express which was fun but definitively not Oscar caliber.
Tonight I celebrate my lovely friend E who is a pretty rockin' 30.
I'm going on a walk to clear my mind.

Rollercoaster
The mind of the 6th grader is often precious and always a mystery. I got the most bizarre and yet sweetest card today. It was obvious that this little boy had picked it out himself yet he was not quite sure about the right thing to say. It's one of those hallmark music cards, and it has a pic of a rollercoaster on it. The card says, "There are lots of loops and curbes in life, so just throw your hands up high, laugh at the sky and enjoy the ride." When you open it up, it plays "Free Ride." It's so inappropriate, yet look at it makes me giggle. It came from such a place of love and innocence. Plus, he's right. This whole process has been a complete roller coaster, and perhaps all we can really do is give up control and try to have a little fun.
Besides, isn't every loss better with a 70's soundtrack?

Hard Day
Today was difficult. No one knew what to say, so mostly they didn't talk to me. To my credit, however, I only cried 3 times.
There were two highlights, though. The first was the following note from a student:

"I am so sorry about not getting the little baby boy. You said he was cute. I am glad to get my favorite teacher back, though. I am sure there is another baby just waiting out there for you and your husband. Are you ok? HOw are you doing? Everyone misses you. The sub seems nice. I will hopefully see you soon. I am so sorry!"

Broke my heart with its purity and sweetness.

When I got home tonight, I saw that some of my teachers had sent flowers.

We will get beyond this dark place not through our strength but through that of those we love.

Something New to Be Thankful For
Starbucks Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate.
Salty sweet goodness.
Yum.

Day By Day
One of the many things I did not realize about this process is that it is not linear. There is no straight line progression to ok. I had a few pretty good days. Over the weekend I decided that I needed to socialize again. On Saturday night I saw a few friends from work at my favorite hang out spot. Sunday's highlights included a lovely walk in the Arboretum and tea with a friend and then a great dinner at my sister's cooked by our husbands. I was so proud of my culinary challenged hubby who picked a recipe, went to the store himself and cooked everything. He made a delicious veggie grill.
Just when I thought that I was on the upward swing, Monday came. Yesterday I was hit with a crippling sadness. Probably this had much to do with the nasty weather--freezing rain and snot colored clouds would dampen the spirits of even the most happy go lucky. I spent the day with my mother who was pulling out all of the stops to make me feel better but to no avail.
Today I am determined to pick myself back up again. It helps, I suppose, that the sun has come back. Ironically when this first happened I remember cursing the sun rise. I could not understand how the sun could continue to shine when I hurt so badly. Now I take it as a sign of comfort. For a pale Scandanavian I have always been a heliophile. Anyway, I hit gym early this morning, pulled on my new booty enhancing jeans, and I will make this last day at home a day of healing. I'm also trying to get in to my salon for a haircut. I tend to do this at times of change and trauma--I like to literally cut it out of my hair. I'm thinking a shag bob sort of thing. Pics will be posted later. Also in the celebration of fabulosity, my mom took me to buy a new winter coat. Here's a shot:

Note to Self
Self--you are a pasty Scandanavian girl whose last impressive move was the running man in the early 90s. Because you neither have junk nor trunk and are severely rythym deficient, you should not take Hip Hop Dance at the gym. It's just embarrassing.

Going Coastal

Like Emily Said
After great pain, a formal feeling comes --
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round --
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought --
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone --

This is the Hour of Lead --
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow --
First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go --


This is where we find ourselves.
Our trip to Padre was full of things lost and things found. The losses are obvious, and we spent many hours in tears or silently holding hands. My most pathetic moment was crying through the entire dolphin show at the Corpus Aquarium because the whole place was filled with happy families. Still, as much as we felt the losses, it was a time of great healing as well.
We spent between 4 and 6 hours each day just walking at the National Sea Shore which is nothing but dunes and waves and virtually abandoned in late December/early January. Listening to the crashing of the waves soothed our souls which sounds cliche but is true nevertheless. We talked some, but mostly it was a time of meditation. Here are a few things I learned:
1. There was a stretch of beach that was still covered with strange rubble and debris from Hurricane Ike. We found computer monitors, stairs, docks, televisions, refrigerators and other household items. I realized that while my life is emotionally in shambles, there are so many people who lost everything. I have a house to come home to and family and friends that are loving and supportive. I am not really comparing the two losses, but it helped to realize more of what I have.
2. I spent hours picking up seashells and glass creating quite a collection of found treasures. I've always been a collector, much to the chagrin of my mother who laundered countless rocks, acorns, shells, and sticks. This time my treasures serve as a reminder that despite bleakness and sorrow there is tremendous beauty in the world if we stop to look around at it. I never want to get to caught up in life's drama that I forget to look.
3. Following my brother-in-law Robert's advice, I ran screaming and naked into the Gulf. As the cold water covered me I experienced a moment of catharsis, of transcendence. It was only fleeting, but in that sort of Twanda moment, I realized that I was going to be ok. Probably not really soon, but eventually I am going to be ok because I am stronger than this situation.
4. I made the conscious decision that I cannot afford to slip into depression. I've been there before, and there aren't even cute tee shirts or commemorative mugs. I am not going there again. I am embracing the sadness right now, but then I have to let it go. I might have to fake it for awhile, but eventually I will get the hang of being happy and living a normal life.

We just got off the phone with our caseworker who feels almost as bad as we do. Apparently perhaps it's the time of year but all of their late December and January birthmothers backed out. She's spent the last two weeks delivering crushingly sad news. Eric and I have tried to come up with a thousand ways of guarding our hearts to make the next time safer or easier, and we came up with a few things like not being shown to any birthmothers who have outstanding legal issues to clear up. In the end, however, there is no way to guarantee a happy ending and we will always be at someone else's mercy. We can either accept that risk or give up. I've had more than a few moments when I wanted to give up because I didn't think I could handle this amount of pain again, but in the end what I want is to be a mom. No one ever said it would be easy. Of course no one ever said it would be this hard either.

The final realization I have come to about all of this is that while this hurts so badly, I do not regret loving that child. The mother refuses to answer any calls, so I will probably not ever even know his name, but our love might be the best and purest he will ever have. I am just sorry we could not give him more.