Seeking God Knows What

You can always tell when I’m bored cause I’m a prolific poster to my blog

And this has absolutely nothing to do with my previous post.

I keep getting these phone calls to do “market research”.  The first one was to preview an issue of Oprah’s magazine O on a specific day, then they called me the next day and asked me about the various ads in the magazine.  I was a pretty poor choice on that one because I didn’t really pay much attention to them.  And you are asked to fill out a “prize” sheet where you select which is your favorite product from a group of products.  You do one before and one after.  Um, I don’t think my favorite choice is going to change because of an ad.

The most recent one was to watch this video tape of a never seen “pilot” of a sitcom.  Apparently the tape erases while you watch it, so you are not supposed to rewind it.  It was a pretty stupid sitcom with a premise of a divorced dad, his two dad friends and their pre-school/kindergarten age children.  It was definitely taped about 10 years ago based on the hair, clothing, etc.  I suspect I shall be asked about the commercials again along with the little survey about what I thought of the show.  I have to say it sucked and I hope they aren’t contemplating whether to air something like it.

I should probably go to bed, not that I’m tired.  I have to make sure I get out the door in the morning as I have my appointment with #5 before I go to work.  Speaking of therapy, one of my sisters commented that she was considering going to see someone.  I find that very interesting as while she’s always been a great proponent of me going, she has always kind of hinted she would never go.  I suggested a group for her to check out that I talked to recently before T agreed to come with me for a couple of sessions.  I don’t know whether she’ll follow through but I have been told not to mention it to our mother. Heh heh.  Hmm, I wonder why she wouldn’t want Mom to know

On a good note, T did get Thursday and Friday off, so we will have 5 days off in a row together with the holiday on Monday.  Of course, we couldn’t make any plans because we didn’t know until today if he was actually going to be able to have vacation.  Maybe we can figure out a day trip to do something different than sitting at home or aimlessly shopping at Target or the mall in order to get out of the house.

Alright, I must quit rambling here and attempt to go to bed.  Perhaps I’ll have something quite profound to say tomorrow

Nope this is not a post about adoption #2. I’ve come to a very solid conclusion that adoption #2 is on hold for a while, perhaps even a LONG while. In all honesty, adding another child now or any time in the near future would not be a good idea for me, for Widget, for T, for our finances and a heck of a lot of other reasons. Sigh. I don’t like saying that because I have “baby fever” but I know too much needs to be worked on and stabilized before it is time to even contemplate it. (okay that was a little longer than I intended about adoption #2).

Anyway, I’ve spent lots of time, probably too much time, reading blogs, many of which have some sort of adoption focus, along with perusing the adoption forums I visit, although I rarely post on any of them. And I have been thinking about some of the recent “controversies” over wording in posts or comments.

I think we get too caught up in words and what they mean, what they can mean, what the poster intended them to mean. Along with that is our mood when we are reading the posts, our experiences that shape our interpretations of what is written. Biggest problem with blogs, with forums, with e-mail is that we don’t get the writer’s facial expressions/intonations/emotions behind the words he/she says. So sometimes we misinterpret what is written because truthfully, we don’t know all there is to know about anyone in the blogging/forum/internet world.

I put a lot out here but not a single person reading knows everything there is to know about me or my life experiences. Some know more than others and probably have a better grasp when it comes to some of the things I write about. But even they don’t know it all. I know and God knows, that’s it.

Or take Jenna- who “outed” herself as a birthmother/firstmother in a recent post on her family blog. I read both of her blogs, her mostly adoption-related blog and her family blog. In her post telling those readers about her daughter, she made this very statement. I think it was an important step for her to be able to acknowledge this huge part of her life. Although we still don’t know all there is to know about who Jenna is.

Anyway, my point here is that I think people need to remember this as they are reading. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attempt to educate someone about the subject. But as N put it, RESPECT is the key.

And I wish we could just eliminate all the labels: adoptive, birth/first, adopted and just be parents, sons and daughters. Labels make people assume something (not necessarily bad, not necessarily good) about the other right away.

And denying that there is loss and grief in adoption is ridiculous. But even though loss and grief are inherent in adoption, that doesn’t mean there will always be negative effects. Many adoptees grow up to be well-adjusted people but they still had a loss in not being raised within their biological families. There are birthmothers/firstmothers who do not regret their decision to place but they still have a loss in not raising their child. Adoptive parents gain the joy of parenting a child but with that comes the knowledge that they are parenting because of someone else’s loss and those with infertility also have a loss in not raising a biological child. Open adoption and the knowing about each other that goes along with it does not negate those losses.

I could say more but I have to get my walk in before it gets dark (I dislike that it is starting to get dark at 7:30 PM).

I talked to M today.  She said the place he is traveling to is a town that has not ever had an American presence in it.  They have no idea if the people there will be receptive to their arrival or if their arrival will be like setting off a powder keg.

Pray.  That’s all any of us can do.

I started watching Days of Our Lives one summer about 14 years ago when my parents went to Europe for work my dad was doing on a international trade agreement for tropical woods and I was stuck home watching my youngest sister and couldn’t drive yet.

Obviously during the school year I could never watch it except on vacations but when I went to college, my roommate and I had an arrangement with the girls across the hall where they would tape it-their tv had better picture quality via “rabbit ears”- and we would watch it together after our classes. We were so obsessed with it that we bought soap opera fan magazines and created a “Days” wall by plastering cut out pictures to our dorm room wall. I still have pictures of the wall and nearly every square inch was covered with the pictures.

I’ve watched it on and off over the years, depending on work schedules and so on. I hadn’t watched it in ages until a couple of weeks ago when Widget was still sleeping at 1 PM and I flipped it on. I had to laugh because one of the story lines is exactly the same as it was when I first started watching it with Austin, Carrie, Sami and Lucas - each secretly wanting one person but “stuck” with another. Some things never change!

I will not be going to the grocery store with Widget EVER AGAIN (by myself that is)

And I HATE Meijer (our Michigan/Indiana version of SuperWalmart/SuperTarget). I do not think it saved me any money. I should have just gone to the damn grocery store instead.