Caution: Brain spinning in circles, see below for details.

Jumping of my marriage rant of the last post, Suz got it all down in her comment:

how do i choose between what is my calling, what i am supposed to do and the person I am supposed to be and my husband who would prefer I fit into a neat little package?
i want him by my side, proud of me, helping me and he would rather i do the laundry.

Personally, I think my Rye wants me to do both. He wants nice fresh smelling laundry AND me to do great things. He likes the great things part, but gets annoyed when it prevents him from having clean T-shirts. Unfortunalty, I still have to sleep, so sometimes, something has got to give. It’s usually the socks.

But, I have to give him this…he is acting proud. He has made a point to saying to me in front of other people..”No, tell them about what you really do”..meaning this adoption work. He has made a point of asking about who I have heard back from regarding getting published ( answer: no one..ouch..this sucks) And I think he does know that this is something I need to do, but just not with sacrificing anything else. And that’s pretty much OK..I like a good balancing act…keeps life challenging.

Ummmm..but not the point at all.

It’s the whole “calling” thing that I want to go off on.

Yeah, sometimes it makes me feel a bit insane and loopy. I had a therapist once who said I suffered from Visions of Grandeur. Personally, I kinda liked the way it sounded. I mean, if you are gonna suffer from something…Grandeur isn’t too bad. Much better than visions of hell, of voices in your head, or whatever. It’s not like I believe I am Jackie-O. So it’s not really too suffering, per say. I like to say I dream big..and after all isn’t that what life and goals are about? I mean, we are never done, until we are dead, we keep achieving more and then wanting more, and people are just not easily satisfied. When it is called progress, it is a good thing. When it is motivation and goal orientation, then it is healthy. Personally, I think this guy was just trying to pigeon-hole me, as I had no false assumptions a that time that I was anything else but a woman with a young child going though a divorce where I expected more than my husband was wiling to give. Mainly, love. I still do not think that wanting an healthy loving marriage was asking for too much, though it was asking too much from Husband number 1, hence the divorce. But for me, not suffering, just healthy.

Now, yeah..I have visions.

I see a world where adoption has changed for the better. Whether we still call it adoption, or we have a new name…records are open nationwide, reunions an searches are joyful and supported by all. Agencies are regulated and forced to tell considering parents of the risks and long term ramifications. Moms who want to parent have support provided. Parenting is given creedance and the mother child bind is honored. And society has a much better view, more balanced , of the realities of adoption for all involved..adoptees, and relinquishing parents as well as adoptive parents. I see a national change for infant adoption reform. And I do see many of us as on the forefront, making this happen..because we care to, because we have to, because if we don’t, then who will?

Yeah, sometimes I think..OMG who the hell are we that think we can take on this machine, but I know that in history, this is what is done. This is how change happens..big change, little change, whatever, advancement, new ideas, someone decides that it is time..and they make it so. They make it their business to make it so. And I have dreams..sometimes I indulge. I think of a cover of Time magazine..with the heading “The woman who changed the face of adoption in America” and then some goofy assed picture of a handful of moms. Yeah, I think about national press coverage. I think about a mothering pregnant and scared getting the help she needs to be a great mom and being spared this confusion, this life. All those fantasies that keep the nose to the grindstone, that keep my fingers typing, that let me brush off the rejection letters, and keep moving forward. Yeah, some are pure ego feed and feels nice..just fun to dream, but some others….not just a dream, but it feels like a responsibility, if not us then who? It feels like a…..calling?

Now, I am not a very religious person. I see the world “calling” and I think of nuns. No, God is not talking to me. Man, that would freak me out. But..I have a feeling like I have never had before in my life..and yes, I feel like this is what I need to do. This is who I am. This is my life work. This is something that matters.I am driven, I am passionate. I am motivated. And heck, I dream big.

But would I care this much if I wasn’t directly effected by the adoption machine? I know the answer to this is NO. So there lies the rub.

When I was at the St. Barts’ conference in NYC in January, one of the things that bothered me was that so many of the moms there were almost justifying and finding the silver lining in losing their children by saying that “It gave them their voice”. Like, at least, with this loss..they have met all these other great people, they have written books, they have found a place in life. And it obviously has touched something or I would not be still thinking of this 9 months later. Because I know that this is what I am meant to be doing, but that also means that I had to lose Max to get here. And that doesn’t work in my brain.

See..conflict.

Like I don’t buy into it when people say “You are a vessel” or when someone says “I was meant to be this child’s parent”. Like I get the feeling involved, and that’s all very nice that folks can’t imagine having another kid than the one they have, but I see too much randomness in the adoption process to give real weight to the whole destiny thing. Like if I was suppose to lose Max and he was suppose to go to his folks, then really, I AM suppose to be this reform nut and the real purpose of all this was not so that they could have my son but because I am suppose to really rock this damn boat. But I reject the first batch of “suppose to’s” so then how can I accept the second part? No can do.

The whole “everything happens for a reason”…the reason I lost Max was so that I could be the person I am? Oh yuck!!! But, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t lose him. So accepting this calling idea, means I have to accept that losing him had a purpose which is to make me so. Nope. And though I would love to say that I would be very close to the person I am now, and that part I believe, I might be fighting for something, but I doubt that something would be adoption reform and education. It might be some other cause, it might be another political view, or social reform as I see that my mother instilled a great sense of righteousness and justice in me. I know she gave me a legacy of fighting for what was wrong, and going the distance for what you beleive in. But, I just doubt it would be adoption if I hadn’t been touched/torched.

And the only way I know how to reconcile this conflict is to throw in free choice. Not destiny, not a higher purpose, but will.

Max was not the divine immaculate conception, I made a choice to have sex…perhaps I had visions of grandeur then..a lovely future or perhaps my frontal lobe was still growing and I fell for seduction without thinking too far into the furture…of course a child never entered my mind. The birth control failed…chalk that up to luck or lack of. My lack of decision via denial of the pregnancy was a decision to do nothing to rectify the condition and choose to be pregnant. And instead of accepting what was reality, I choose to attempt to cheat life and entered adoption. Whether or not I had a true informed “choice” then is neither here nor there, but my child was lost to me. And with a very random selection, again, no hand of God, he went to be with his new family. Now years later, I re-enter this adoption arena, and I did choose to stick around and learn what I could. And it is now, at this point, that I get all lost..because throwing in all the feelings of destiny now just don’t compute.

So I will say this: I am choosing to be this person. I am choosing to take on this responsibility. I am choosing this mantle. I am choosing, now, who I will be.

And I will just chalk these weird “calling” thingy as suffering from visions of grandeur. I just can’t accept it all being the “way it is suppose to happen”…even if it means that I am just some loon with big ideas.

I guess I am just gonna be that loon. Woohoo! Who’s with me?