I am in awe. Completely, and unforgettably in awe. You see, we live in a time when there is something miraculous every day of the week, even faster. We have our heads filled with so many new things, new technology, new gizmos, new ideas that it becomes next to impossible to remember it all.
But somehow we do manage, because it becomes urgent at some point to keep up the pace, and accept the changes as philosophically as we can.
I wonder....what people would have thought a hundred years ago if even a minute portion of what we take for granted today was present then.
Jack the Ripper--foiled through forensic science;
The miracle of space flight in a time dominated by dirigibles and hot air ballooning;
Deep sea divers--more real than the stories of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne;
Instantaneous communication across the world, regardless of your original location;
Digital photography, quicker, easier and less bogged down with camera equipment;
Modern medicine--a doctor back then would have scoffed at heart transplants, operating rooms, sterile conditions;
Personal computers--whoa: that one will cause the "vapors" in anyone!
I have in my iGoogle page a gadget for looking at webcams around the world. Many of the images seem to emanate from Europe, and seeing as it's night here, it's only natural to remember that most of Europe is also dark for the same reason. And then a brightly lit-up image is sent from Italy--an image that appears to be of traffic. Marina di Torre Vado in Puglia--Torre Vado, Italy is certainly not dark!
And then it strikes me, as it has done so for quite a few years now, that the world is never far away anymore. How in times gone by, letters and packaging, and other very slow forms of communications could delay "news" for months and more. How even the most patient person could go stark raving mad without hearing from someone.
We have grown accustomed to the frenzy of lives in the beginning of the new millennia. We have, sometimes, become slaves to the newest technologies, but only until we have mastered them. And mastering them means having enough knowledge to understand their basic design, and implementing that knowledge. I'm old enough to remember the absolute fear that computers wrought in the middle of the 20th century: how people were going to lose their jobs to computers, how computers could and world replace people in every facet of their lives, and how non-personal life was going to get. But it didn't happen. People instead found the opposite true--with microchips, the computers didn't need to fill a whole room, or weigh a ton. Instead, computers became personal, and became assets for both work and home computing, and brought people from all over the world together in ways that still can cause jaws to drop and realize all over again that we live in an amazing world.
What will it be like a hundred years from now? Do we even dare to consider how far ahead we will be by then? Someone I knew once said that we are progressing exponentially in technology--every twenty-five years, our knowledge doubles, he said. And I have to give him that, because even though he's not with us here now, he would likely have just nodded and smiled.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
an open letter to adoptees and adoptive parents
I don't know where exactly to start. It's one of those topics which make people shift uncomfortably in their chairs, and while it's not illegal or immoral, it evokes very strong images and feelings in many people.
Let me therefore start with myself. I was adopted when I was a baby--the actual adoption happened when I was about a year and a half old, with me going to the adoptive parents when I was just nine days old. The biological mother, however, remained in my life, as she had given me to her brother--my uncle--and his wife to raise. So I knew my biological mother as my aunt throughout my life. Seeing that it was an open adoption, there were no secrets involved--at least not at the time it happened.
This is the hard part though--it wasn't until I was 18 before my mom tried to tell me about it. That was a stressful situation, and made even more stressful by the fact that I had known since I was 11 that I had been adopted. No one knew, though, that I was well aware of my status--I'd kept that from everyone for over 6 years. And as far as life changing event in one's life, this one is/was a doozy. Imagine having such a secret throughout the most tumultuous years of one's life, and it is easy to see how my life was significantly changed as a result.
Did I have my father's eyes, his smarts, her bad habits? Did I inherit the tendency for being overweight, for my love of animals, the streak of independence I possessed? My biological mother was an alcoholic, a smoker, a sex addict and had heart disease. I vowed as I went through my teen years that I would never be like her--the thought of doing so frightened me significantly. But while I never smoked, drank that much or even had much sex, I found there were some things I could not shake, as I inherited heart problems relatively young, even having a heart attack at the age of 43.
Well, now you've heard my story, and it's now time for me to address the reason for this post. If you are an adoptive parent, please do your children a big, big favor--tell your child the truth. Don't hide it from them, and certainly don't wait until they're almost an adult before owning up to the fact that there is a set of biological parents out there somewhere. Don't make them feel like they're second class citizens, either, for being adopted. And certainly, NEVER use their adopted heritage as any kind of punishment, even in the worst of arguments.
During the years in which I was aware of the truth, but kept it a secret, I often viewed myself as the scum of the earth, a child so hated that someone "threw me away" rather than keep me and raise me. As an adult, I know that is ludicrous, but a child doesn't know and certainly doesn't understand. Imagine feeling so unwanted that you question your worth, and come up wanting. Imagine that you look in people's faces on the street, wondering if you look enough like some man that you think he might be your biological father? I grew up looking at my biological mother quite often, but after finding out the truth, I was repulsed by her hypocrisy.
It's a fair assumption that a lot of adoptees feel like this, but usually, they have the support of their family when nagging questions arise, and indeed, most adoptees never find out who their biological parents really are. As I had stumbled on the truth and felt I couldn't tell anyone, both options were out to me. I always thought I wasn't achieving a lot in high school because I was too lazy, but there is a part of me that says I was, in fact, traumatized. Okay, so now there are some who believe that I should have picked myself up and moved forward. That's fine; but how many out there were 11 years old when they found out something similar, and who could move on from there without any problems? You can't just go on. If you talk with someone about it, you might be able to recover faster, but when it happened to me, there was no one for me to talk with.
I sit here now, wishing I could go back in time to hug my younger self and say that it's okay, and things will work out in the end, and to give her hugs and kisses, and promise that they will have a better life. I can't obviously, and obviously, no one did. It has altered my life, though, and in some ways extremely negatively. I rarely dated, rarely trusted anyone enough to trust them with who I really was, and if fact, while I had many good friends, I rarely had any close friends. Even now, I don't carry a lot of trust for anyone I don't know very well.
Still I try to keep going. At my recent birthday, when I turned 53, I reviewed my life and realized how much I'd lost simply because I had no support group to help me move beyond the shattering things I lived with for so long.
To other adoptees, was it any better for you? Or am I part of a eclectic group who faced similar doubts and fears with their revelations? How did others cope with this kind of dilemma? It might not be too late for me to learn something and apply it to my life, just when I need to feel that life isn't as unkind as I believed it be so long ago.
Let me therefore start with myself. I was adopted when I was a baby--the actual adoption happened when I was about a year and a half old, with me going to the adoptive parents when I was just nine days old. The biological mother, however, remained in my life, as she had given me to her brother--my uncle--and his wife to raise. So I knew my biological mother as my aunt throughout my life. Seeing that it was an open adoption, there were no secrets involved--at least not at the time it happened.
This is the hard part though--it wasn't until I was 18 before my mom tried to tell me about it. That was a stressful situation, and made even more stressful by the fact that I had known since I was 11 that I had been adopted. No one knew, though, that I was well aware of my status--I'd kept that from everyone for over 6 years. And as far as life changing event in one's life, this one is/was a doozy. Imagine having such a secret throughout the most tumultuous years of one's life, and it is easy to see how my life was significantly changed as a result.
Did I have my father's eyes, his smarts, her bad habits? Did I inherit the tendency for being overweight, for my love of animals, the streak of independence I possessed? My biological mother was an alcoholic, a smoker, a sex addict and had heart disease. I vowed as I went through my teen years that I would never be like her--the thought of doing so frightened me significantly. But while I never smoked, drank that much or even had much sex, I found there were some things I could not shake, as I inherited heart problems relatively young, even having a heart attack at the age of 43.
Well, now you've heard my story, and it's now time for me to address the reason for this post. If you are an adoptive parent, please do your children a big, big favor--tell your child the truth. Don't hide it from them, and certainly don't wait until they're almost an adult before owning up to the fact that there is a set of biological parents out there somewhere. Don't make them feel like they're second class citizens, either, for being adopted. And certainly, NEVER use their adopted heritage as any kind of punishment, even in the worst of arguments.
During the years in which I was aware of the truth, but kept it a secret, I often viewed myself as the scum of the earth, a child so hated that someone "threw me away" rather than keep me and raise me. As an adult, I know that is ludicrous, but a child doesn't know and certainly doesn't understand. Imagine feeling so unwanted that you question your worth, and come up wanting. Imagine that you look in people's faces on the street, wondering if you look enough like some man that you think he might be your biological father? I grew up looking at my biological mother quite often, but after finding out the truth, I was repulsed by her hypocrisy.
It's a fair assumption that a lot of adoptees feel like this, but usually, they have the support of their family when nagging questions arise, and indeed, most adoptees never find out who their biological parents really are. As I had stumbled on the truth and felt I couldn't tell anyone, both options were out to me. I always thought I wasn't achieving a lot in high school because I was too lazy, but there is a part of me that says I was, in fact, traumatized. Okay, so now there are some who believe that I should have picked myself up and moved forward. That's fine; but how many out there were 11 years old when they found out something similar, and who could move on from there without any problems? You can't just go on. If you talk with someone about it, you might be able to recover faster, but when it happened to me, there was no one for me to talk with.
I sit here now, wishing I could go back in time to hug my younger self and say that it's okay, and things will work out in the end, and to give her hugs and kisses, and promise that they will have a better life. I can't obviously, and obviously, no one did. It has altered my life, though, and in some ways extremely negatively. I rarely dated, rarely trusted anyone enough to trust them with who I really was, and if fact, while I had many good friends, I rarely had any close friends. Even now, I don't carry a lot of trust for anyone I don't know very well.
Still I try to keep going. At my recent birthday, when I turned 53, I reviewed my life and realized how much I'd lost simply because I had no support group to help me move beyond the shattering things I lived with for so long.
To other adoptees, was it any better for you? Or am I part of a eclectic group who faced similar doubts and fears with their revelations? How did others cope with this kind of dilemma? It might not be too late for me to learn something and apply it to my life, just when I need to feel that life isn't as unkind as I believed it be so long ago.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Jean-Luc: February 1994-February 2009
I lost Jean-Luc a little over two weeks ago. My big hearted and vocal fur-child died just hours after I brought him to the vet. I kind of knew it would happen--I knew as I held his body and patted his head, and wondered just why his health deteriorated so quickly from my "bubba" to an emaciated and unresponsive creature within the space of a week.
JL loved for me to rub his fuzzy tummy, and he would put his front paw over his ear while I did so. He was never one to let me hold him, but he loved me without a doubt.
oliver had developed an upper respiratory infection which healed with no trouble, and then JL had it. But no one, especially myself, could predict the outcome with him: perhaps a condition brewed just under the radar with him--the combination was just too much for him to handle. And so I lost Jean-Luc, with nothing left in me this time to console me.
Garibaldi in June, Jean-Luc just seven months later. I am finding it too much to handle, with my fur-kids, like dominoes falling, one at a time, with me hopelessly watching as they leave me. And now there are two. The little one, Delenn, last of those I brought home with me, now 14, and Oliver, at about 6--there is just such resignation in me to be on the verge of giving up, just so I don't need to see any more of them die before me. The pain and grief are terrible, and I just want to not feel this aching anymore.
One of the problems I have is that I love too much, too deeply, and can't just let go, even though I should. I also fear the reality that my mom is as close to death as well, and know I face the reality that she, too, will leave me soon.
I haven't got the religious faith to see me through, and there is a bleakness in front of me that watches as everyone I love and care for topples and dies. I've cried myself out, and I look at a tomorrow rife with sadness and lack of love--where do I go if there is nothing in front of me?
Too much death, too much abandonment, too much fear and sadness. I can only move forward a day at a time. Make no plans for the uncertain days ahead--there is no sense in long-term goals or dreams. I'm reminded every day of my own--and others'--mortality.
I get so tired of life, so very tired. And yet I move on, eyes glazed over, stunned at the devastation and looking for a way around it. But it does no good--we live and we die, and it becomes a race to see if we can outlive it all. I take no joy or consolation in reaching the finish line, because everyone I love is gone before the end of the line.
I have memories of course, but memories can't be physically held, or loved, or cared for, and in that end, there is nothing quite so tenuous to hold fast as a memory, half forgotten and half lost in time.
If there is any justice, my own world will close before I see any more death, feel regret, or know unending pain again.
JL loved for me to rub his fuzzy tummy, and he would put his front paw over his ear while I did so. He was never one to let me hold him, but he loved me without a doubt.
oliver had developed an upper respiratory infection which healed with no trouble, and then JL had it. But no one, especially myself, could predict the outcome with him: perhaps a condition brewed just under the radar with him--the combination was just too much for him to handle. And so I lost Jean-Luc, with nothing left in me this time to console me.
Garibaldi in June, Jean-Luc just seven months later. I am finding it too much to handle, with my fur-kids, like dominoes falling, one at a time, with me hopelessly watching as they leave me. And now there are two. The little one, Delenn, last of those I brought home with me, now 14, and Oliver, at about 6--there is just such resignation in me to be on the verge of giving up, just so I don't need to see any more of them die before me. The pain and grief are terrible, and I just want to not feel this aching anymore.
One of the problems I have is that I love too much, too deeply, and can't just let go, even though I should. I also fear the reality that my mom is as close to death as well, and know I face the reality that she, too, will leave me soon.
I haven't got the religious faith to see me through, and there is a bleakness in front of me that watches as everyone I love and care for topples and dies. I've cried myself out, and I look at a tomorrow rife with sadness and lack of love--where do I go if there is nothing in front of me?
Too much death, too much abandonment, too much fear and sadness. I can only move forward a day at a time. Make no plans for the uncertain days ahead--there is no sense in long-term goals or dreams. I'm reminded every day of my own--and others'--mortality.
I get so tired of life, so very tired. And yet I move on, eyes glazed over, stunned at the devastation and looking for a way around it. But it does no good--we live and we die, and it becomes a race to see if we can outlive it all. I take no joy or consolation in reaching the finish line, because everyone I love is gone before the end of the line.
I have memories of course, but memories can't be physically held, or loved, or cared for, and in that end, there is nothing quite so tenuous to hold fast as a memory, half forgotten and half lost in time.
If there is any justice, my own world will close before I see any more death, feel regret, or know unending pain again.
My mom
taught me a lot of what I know, and I will give you some highlights about growing up with her.
1. Authority figures, but mostly police: Don't trust them--in fact, call them swear words when they're not looking. This is true--my mom doesn't have a lot of patience wirh police.
2. Unmarried adults: "Shack up with them for a couple of years to see what living with them is like, and go from there."
3. Get a lot of experience in different skills, so you will always have something to fall back on. And if the company has three shifts, choose graveyard because you don't have as many distractions.
4. Be your own person. Don't count on others if you can handle something, go it alone. Then there is no one but yourself to blame, regardless of the outcome.
5. Don't take the first job you are offered. You might look at it as good luck, but the truth is, they're low-balling you right out of the gate. Unless you are starving, such offers could stand some negotiation.
6. Get fees for some services or under the table pay upfront if possible. Never be afraid to say something if you feel uneasy with a current situation.
7. Ask for an estimate for repairs or such and make them stick to their estimates.
8. The wife or mother has full control in all domestic scenarios. Husbands or fathers will only blow the wad if they had it.
9. Go out on Friday nights, It doesn't matter where, just that you break up the monotony at home.
10. Travel. It's great to go someplace new, and if you plan it right, you will have a lot of fun. Why stay at a huge hotel, when it's more fun to stay at a B&B or a pension instead--and cheaper, usually. You won't meet locals if you're bound for that expensive hotel with too many gauche Americans--if you can, grab a room near the bathroom at least!
11. Live without hesitation, but pick your future with caution. Live without interfering with others snd their agenda, just as you hope they will do the same for you.
12. Love--if you have an abundance of it, give some to everyone; if you don't have a lot, give others what you do have. You'll get it back, threefold. And just as important, receive love as well. Everyone can love and be loved, but you need to know when the time comes to share it.
That should do it. :)
1. Authority figures, but mostly police: Don't trust them--in fact, call them swear words when they're not looking. This is true--my mom doesn't have a lot of patience wirh police.
2. Unmarried adults: "Shack up with them for a couple of years to see what living with them is like, and go from there."
3. Get a lot of experience in different skills, so you will always have something to fall back on. And if the company has three shifts, choose graveyard because you don't have as many distractions.
4. Be your own person. Don't count on others if you can handle something, go it alone. Then there is no one but yourself to blame, regardless of the outcome.
5. Don't take the first job you are offered. You might look at it as good luck, but the truth is, they're low-balling you right out of the gate. Unless you are starving, such offers could stand some negotiation.
6. Get fees for some services or under the table pay upfront if possible. Never be afraid to say something if you feel uneasy with a current situation.
7. Ask for an estimate for repairs or such and make them stick to their estimates.
8. The wife or mother has full control in all domestic scenarios. Husbands or fathers will only blow the wad if they had it.
9. Go out on Friday nights, It doesn't matter where, just that you break up the monotony at home.
10. Travel. It's great to go someplace new, and if you plan it right, you will have a lot of fun. Why stay at a huge hotel, when it's more fun to stay at a B&B or a pension instead--and cheaper, usually. You won't meet locals if you're bound for that expensive hotel with too many gauche Americans--if you can, grab a room near the bathroom at least!
11. Live without hesitation, but pick your future with caution. Live without interfering with others snd their agenda, just as you hope they will do the same for you.
12. Love--if you have an abundance of it, give some to everyone; if you don't have a lot, give others what you do have. You'll get it back, threefold. And just as important, receive love as well. Everyone can love and be loved, but you need to know when the time comes to share it.
That should do it. :)
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