me in this time-space.

taking it all in.
love. hate. the range of emotions.
this dimension as a limited range of energetic frequencies.

i am more of who i am when i write.

vacation: unresolved process.

I just got back from vacation with my family.
I could have chosen to go pretty much anywhere.
I (subconsciously) chose a place in Florida that is literally 45 minutes from where my dad lives.
I recently called my dad and broke an 11 month time of no communication with him. We visited him last November; he was nice the first day of our week trip, then ignored us the rest of the time.  It was weird.  The week before I went there, I called and told him that I was so appreciate of him being my father and thanked him for everything he did for me and my sister.  He cried and said it was the best phone call he ever received.  I spoke with him one more time on Thanksgiving, and then he never called or communicated at all.  He told my sister we wrecked his house and were disrespectful and messy (my 2 year old threw popcorn on his tiled kitchen floor and his dogs ate it up).  Again, I felt totally abandoned in my life.  Totally surreal.  People living thir lives in an alternate reality and creating stories to support their fears, which don't have anything to do with the reality of the situation.  This last year has been tinged with the real color of how little connection I have with my father (this is my adoptive father), the only father I've ever known. We're only in communication now because I called him--we had a conversation where I told him I loved him and wasn't mad at him and he told me he didn't call me for that long because he thought I was mad at him--I felt like I was talking to a 10 year old.  I told him even if I was mad at him, that's not a reason to not talk to each other for almost a year.  He totally wrote me and my kids, his grandkids, off for a year because of ....?
I know he's very emotionally limited and immature.  He divorced my mother after 22 years of being married, had an affair (probably one of many), got married to that woman, got divorced, now is on his third marriage.  He never even told me and my sister he got married to the second wife, he only told me he got divorced. 

I didn't need to tell him we were down in Florida, but I felt bad, so I told him.  We saw him and third wife and her kid for half a day.  It was fine, uneventful.  They acted like everything was normal.  Weirdly normal.  That's what its like.  There's this major lapse, major underlying issues that affect everything, and we see him and he just talks about his neighbors and Florida real estate and his dogs.  And his wife asks me if I'm working and he cuts her off and says "no, she's going to school" and they ask about school and I give them a VERY brief synopsis, and its basically meaningless. 
We went to dinner and afterwards he asked if he could come to visit us the next day and sit on the beach with us and I looked at him and smiled and said "maybe" but I was thinking to myself "no way there is no way I am doing that".  I put in my 4 hours, 4 hours I feel he did not deserve but I gave of myself and my family in hopes of something, something, what is that something? Did that something get fulfilled? I dont know, but it wasn't going to happen with another day given up for a hope of something.  So the next morning I emailed him and told him we were planning on riding bikes and not going to the beach and it was good to see him. Totally impersonal.  And for a day I felt fucked up and totally guilty on one hand, and justified on the other.  Completely unresolved.  I know that resolution isn't everything. I'm trained by this culture to look for the resolution, though. 

I'm just breathing and trying to be okay with unresolved process. And an interest to see what happens next.

clues

I emailed my biological sister in a desperate attempt to connect and gain information.  She's open! Yeah! She responded quickly and told me she would try to answer any questions I have.  She began giving me little clues about her (my) family, its very exciting.  And powerful. 
She told me she's sorry that her and her brother and sister got to grow up with our mother, but I didn't.  She also told me she wasn't the best mother, and they have all distanced themselves from her a bit because of her egocentricity and her unhappiness with life and judgmental-ness.  I'm just sitting with all of this.  It feels profound.  I am so much her.

trying to find something

my mother. my mother. my first one. 
do i want her back? what do i want from her? i wrote her another email yesterday, after talking at length about her to my therapist. when i feel the strong feelings, when i feel the pull, its like i CAN'T stop, i just have to try to connect, despite the risk of again being blown off or not responded to.  i don't know what exactly i am looking for.  anything connecting.  any connection with her or anyone around her.  i try to empathize and imagine what it must be like for her to have me reaching out.  i don't understand her silence. 
her silence forces me to feel more independent and makes me see myself more as just me, i am of me.  but i know i am of her and a man who is now dead but who was once alive and has two other daughters somewhere in germany. 
i want to go to germany and try to find a connection.  i went there for just a few days many years ago and i felt a strong resonance, it felt right. i think there's something there i need to go and find.

blessing or curse?

My birth mother is ignoring me.  I know its a process, and we are on one point of the continuum.  The process is excruciating, though.  I emailed her and asked her about my birth father's last name (I still don't know it).  I asked her about family health history.  She didn't respond.  I emailed her and suggested we talk by phone with a translator.  No response.  I began to feel desperate (I hate that feeling.  Its one that I only feel with her and one other person in the world) and I emailed her back again and asked if she got my emails....?   She responded and said she's really stressed out and she would call me in a week.  I immediately felt angry and resentful.  I waited a day, and then wrote back and nicely said I do not want to add to her stress, and why doesn't she let me know when she's ready to talk and I'll arrange for a translator. 
Its hard to feel the feelings underneath my reaction of stoic-ness.  When I get a glimpse, I know its the feeling of deep sadness connected to abandonment and rejection.  I want her to want me.  I want her to get past whatever she's dealing with and break through and make the connection.  I know that I am lucky that I actually found her; I have met many who are still searching.  But sometimes it feels like a curse.

my place in nature

Last night I was watching one part of the video series Planet Earth with my kids.  We watched a starving wolf kill a caribou baby.  We watched an arctic fox scavenge for goose eggs.  Once the eggs hatched, she took a gosling and fed it to her pups.  We watched a pride of lions and a group of elephants quenching their thirst at an African watering hole.  The two groups watched each other suspiciously.  The elephants are so incredibly huge, the lions are no match for them.  But the lions were hungry, and eyed each elephant.  When a medium-sized lone elephant showed up at the watering hole, not connected to the rest of the elephant group, the lions intuitively attacked and killed it.  Nature seems so brutal, so emotion-less.  And its the real world.  I wonder what the parallels are in my life.  I go food shopping at my upscale health food store and consciously realize my privilege and the fact that being in my marriage feeds my kids. That's an emotion-less veiw of it, but one that holds truth.

what is fantasy? what is reality? (edit)

Do other adoptees live in a fantasy life as much as I do?
I have a husband who loves me and beautiful children and a sustaining life, but its not enough. 
There's something major that's missing.  I don't know if I could ever find the thing/person/? that would make me complete.

I'm wondering about the capacity of adoptees to be capable of commitment. 
It seems the relinquishment hard-wires something into the brain that makes that more than difficult, seemingly impossible. 
Through my years of relationships with men, I always had people in the background to turn to when my primary relationships didn't fill me up.  This doesn't seem to work in a culture where monogamy is held as the objective. 
I'm confused about figuring out who I am and what healthy goals are vs. who I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to hold as healthy goals in terms of relationships. 

what i'm getting out of running

At my gym when I run on the treadmill, the tv blocks me seeing my face in the mirror.  I can see my body but not my head.
When I run I watch my faceless body and I keep on going.
When I run and I move to the side to catch a glimpse of my face, I slow down and start to get more into my mental level. I move back to the center and see no face in the mirror and get out of my mind and just watch my body run, and I can keep on going.
When I run, I think of my frustration levels when I feel overwhelmed by my kids.  I realize I am kid-free in the gym and it gives me the strength to get my frustration out through the run and I like it :)
When I run I can let go for a little while. 
I want to keep on going...I'm looking forward to it.

pushing myself through

I am proud of myself.  Again, I am breaking through my physical barriers and it feels really good.
For the last while I've been trying to teach my body to jog/run, I've usually just gotten to 2 or 3 minutes at a time and my breath feels like its about to run out, like there is no more left.  Then I slow to a walk for a few minutes, then go back to a higher speed for a few cycles.  It was okay, but for a while I wasn't getting past the no breath thing.  I got up to 5 minutes at some point but it seemed random and it didn't last.
A few days ago I made it to 6 minutes.
Today I got to 13. It feels so good.
I felt the no breath thing and went through it and i watched it subside, it ended up being irrelevent.  I'm passed it, I don't feel bound to that limitation anymore. So interesting.   At the point of pushing through, I thought about being in labor and it felt similar--the feeling of knowing I NEEDED to keep on going and letting my thoughts of anything else go.  The circumstance demanded that.  Its different with this because this is totally voluntary but it makes it easier setting a goal.  I made a distance goal and I stuck with it until I made it. Yeah!

the dreaded holiday party awaits

i'm going to the company party tonight, the annual company holiday party that i dread every year.  i guess i have learned how to toughen up and tolerate it.  i hate dancing at public parties and there's a band and no one i know except my husband's family. everyone drinks and gets loose and dances and i sit in my seat and walk around and go to the bathroom (alot!) and call my sister from the bathroom ,and this has become my yearly ritual.  its SO hard! i know there are alot tougher things, in a way its laughable.  i try to make the best of it.  i bought a sexy dress and i will wear it and that will be my fun.  but i don't want to dance.
the party brings up the height of my insecurities...what is my relationship to this family, do i matter, what is my position, what is my connection...i feel SO unconnected.  but its the economic basis of my life now more than ever...its very confusing.  i don't expect it will clear up, i expect it to become evermore confusing.  a weird place to be in.  i want to write more to explore this at another time.

again.

Last night I brought my boys to a neighbor's impromptu birthday party for her son.  I didn't know anyone there but her and her kids.  An Israeli guy came in holding his baby daughter.  The baby reached out for me, so I asked if I could hold her and the dad obliged.  So I'm holding her and he asks me who my kids are and I tell him, and there's a pause for a while, more party talk, whatever.  Then a few minutes later he goes, "so, how did your kids end up with hebrew names? How did that come to be?" And I looked at him and probably turned red because I was embarrased because once again I knew he was looking at me and thinking "she's obviously not jewish" and it was a totally awkward moment.  I said "Because they come from a jewish family." It was the most appropriate response I could come up with.
Ugh.  I feel like who I am does not jive with people's expectations of what's supposed to be.
Fuck what's supposed to be.

deep breath

ahhh, i can take a deep breath. i can write. or, at least i can give it a try and see what i create.
i felt the need to change up and create this because my previous project was becoming too personal and my name was attached. i know i tend to get confessional, and it just was not working with certain people checking in (namely, my therapists, possibly my son (?)). Not cool.

I need to write, I need to express myself, and I feel that the anonymity provided here will afford me the room to possibly go into places i wasn't going before.

so...

a quote: "Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought?" --Joan Didion
I read this today and was struck by it. I have the same question. I naturally move towards writing to understand myself and try to understand others and the world. I dream intensely, and notice that reflecting outwardly through speaking of them or writing of them almost always gives me insights i don't have if i keep my thoughts in my head.

i need to get my thoughts out of my head. thank you, reader, whoever you are, for reading them. knowing that someone out there will be reading this makes my thoughts feel more real.

i feel hopeful to have this new space. yeah!
any comments are appreciated and will be gratefully received.

precious

I saw Precious the other day.
I can't get the images out of my head.
I knew I needed to see it, even though I'm so sensitive I usually keep myself away from really disturbing media.

The fictionalizing of a story is so powerful because it lets you get up close and personal in a way that can't really happen if the people being portrayed are real. I feel like that about this blog--since my name is attached there's only so much I can say. I'm hyper aware of the limitations here.

I say what I can say.
I am thinking of the movie. Appreciating my life. Wondering how it is possible for my life and lifestyle to exist when so many people are suffering so hard. Its hard to swallow.