10 Things

is a funny idea. Ten things nobody told me before adoption slammed into my life. I don’t think I’ve got ten just yet, but there is a huge

NUMBER ONE. Nobody told me it could have a negative impact on my child. Nobody told me that she might grow up to feel betrayed by the first person who should have loved and cared for her. Nobody told me her aparents might not treasure each and every little eccentricity of her physical, emotional and mental characteristics or that she would miss genetic mirroring and search for recognition outside her family. Nobody told me she might appreciate any small token or remembrance from me, that I could leave her a letter without damaging her. Nobody told me there was a possibility that her adoptive parents might speak ill of me or her father – her origins. Nobody told me her “extended adoptive family” could be anything less than totally inclusive and accepting, that adoptive parents aren’t anymore perfect than anybody else. Or that the only real thing that made them more qualified to raise her than me was they had a steady income.

Ok, here’s NUMBER TWO Nobody told me that I had wisdom and experience and insight into who my child was simply because she was made from me. Nobody told me that I could get help to tide me over for the first couple years or that my child could ever love or appreciate me. Nobody told me that the judgments and rejection could dissipate if I just went ahead and did my best to keep her. No one told me that I had value or worth as her mother. Nobody told me that I could overcome the obstacles to keeping her.

I’m on a roll now. NUMBER THREE Nobody told me she might be very angry when she came looking for me. Nobody told me she might have a world of hurt and rejection to work through. Nobody told me that when she found me again I would revert to the wounded self that gave her up in the first place. Nobody ever told me that the damage of giving up a child to adoption was lifelong for both parties, that the “damaged goods” category I was placed in meant much more than my reputation was damaged; the damage to my psyche would affect the rest of my life and be an obstacle distorting communication.

Nobody told me that no one knows what the future holds, but that everything changes.

Face to Face

Weird how much time I spend wondering about the next time I’ll see, or talk to Joy again.  I entertain a sense of  unfinished business, that I should do something for a greater feeling of peace between us.

Reviewing Joy’s and my first face to face still gives me goosebumps.

My grandpa died a couple weeks after our first phone call.  A memorial was planned for sometime in March, meaning I was going back to California and would be able to meet Joy in person!  In my memory she wanted to meet me too.  (Sometime this past year she corrected that misinterpretation.) We met  at a place of her choosing.

I worried about what to wear, desperate to look respectable, comparing myself to her description of her adoptive mother, petite and sharp.  When I was skinny dipping in college a friend “complimented” me on my fertility goddess appearance, which I was hoping to camouflage because Joy had mentioned the importance of a slim figure.

Atypically I wore lipstick and curled my hair for the memorial service and to meet Joy. I remember checking out my pink shorts and white sweater in my mom’s mirror after explaining that I wanted to borrow their car so I could go meet my daughter that had contacted me and lived nearby and  that yes I was sure I wanted to meet her.  Yes I am.  I don’t know when I’ll be back.  At a coffeshop near the freeway.  Thank you.

Looking back, my folks handled it ok.  It came out of left field for them. They didn’t know Joy and I were “in reunion”, or any idea of such a thing as reunion. They were in the midst of handling a death in the family, hosting their children, grandchildren, inlaws and visiting with guests from out state.

I left all that  behind and arrived at the coffeeshop.  I don’t remember if we met inside or in the parking lot.  I do remember looking across the table and being stunned to see her father’s eyes.  Ok, that should be normal.   I look like my father.  She says I talked a lot.  I probably did.  But the only things I remember saying are things she’s reminded me I said.  I’m sure I talked about her blue eyes.   My younger children’s father had looked for his blue eyes in his kids but they are hazel and brown like mine.

I also know I made a rude comment trying to cover my embarrassment at not having a gift for my baby grandson.  It was surreal. I remember (?) that.

Learning that Joy had uncertain feelings about even meeting me makes sense as I recall our interaction.  I plowed ahead with unprepared enthusiasm despite self consciousness and doubt about my worthiness.  She was more hesitant and held back, perhaps more thoughtful.

What I most remember was being stunned by our differences. She was my daughter but we’d lived differently. She was also her father’s daughter and he was a stranger to me now.  She was her afamily’s daughter and their influence was so unfamiliar to me.  She was married– husband and child to boot.

She didn’t want to touch me. Although I was accustomed to my family of origin not touching; hugging and cuddling have been constant with my younger children. I wanted it, but didn’t push it on her.

I went back to my folks house and started wondering about when I would see her again.

Conditioning, expectations, misunderstandings and fears  interfered in our communication.  I am most rewarded when responding from my heart, because at least then I get it.

Repeating myself

(eta: I was re reading my past posts and realized they are somewhat repetitive.  I may think I’m writing something new, only to discover I’m simply rediscovering an old pattern.) I’m reminded of the (AA?) story about crazy being doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.  I am easily amused. I discover the same things over and over, spiralling around, hopefully getting a bit higher with each spin.

A dear departed friend used to answer the phone with “What’s new and different?”  I love that. I want to be new and different all the time.  I like to order something different each time I go out to dinner.

Sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other is all the new and different I can take. The core of my life is asking myself to step forward, into the Light one more time, to see everything new.

One thing I’ve experienced a lot in reunion was feeling hurt and reactive about failing to meet my daughter’s expectations.  She has a perfect right to be angry with me and has detailed her reasons.  I gave her to strangers. I have been very fallible from the get go, short sighted and selfish.  I let her down. I am her mother and not an ideal one.

Wish I could fix things up, but wishing doesn’t make it so. It seems that screwing up is more regular than fixing, which led to me being a bit of a sad sack character — not much use. Whatever I’m doing I seem to be getting the same results over and over…

So lately I’ve been working on watching my reactions more closely.  Observing the triggers and embracing my feelings instead of judging myself as unsatisfactory.  It’s kind of like “Wow, that’s a lot of energy flowing through my body all of a sudden.”  or “Here I go again! I wonder how many times  that remark will get a rise out of me?”

I also requested that we leave her being angry with me out of our relationship, because as the object of her anger, I haven’t been able to be a neutral observer. I wanted to be noble and helpful and assist her to work through the powerful sadness, to be her witness–but so far it hasn’t worked.

I’ve reacted rather than responded.

I heard from someone that my blog feels uncomfortable to her.  It feels pretty uncomfortable to me a lot of the time too, because I’m using it to pick apart the stuffed up emotions that have overrun me.  Which part is me? Which part is BS?

I just noticed last night that Suz has a further exploration of expectations which is important to me.  I hope to come back to that soon.

Juggling Mothers

I’m one of those “first moms” that thought it would be peachy if everyone could just get along. At reunion’s first blush, the enormous gratitude towards Joy’s parents for clothing and feeding her and enabling her to contact me inspired me to write them a thank you note!  She was alive and she knew my name and I was thrilled. Their awesome ability to “have” her when I could not, gave them a special glow.

Joy pointed out it would have been more meaningful if I actually knew how they had raised her, starting to reveal my naivete. That she had been given her original birth certificate, tempted me to anticipate more good and open things in reuniting.

Meeting her parents early in our long distance reunion was  a-w-k-w-a-r-d.  Apparently I had intimated that I wanted to meet them.  It was December. I remember wearing my cute red plaid Xmas jumper and thinking I looked wholesome.  Her amom and adad and I sat in their family room, forming a triangle; me in an upholstered chair, amom on a small sofa (?) and adad on a barstool.  Joy slipped through the sliding glass door (to smoke on the patio) where she could likely still here our conversation, mostly me talking.  Her amom was polite and showed me her recent craftwork and hugged me goodbye.  I don’t think her adad said a  word.

Wow.  If I knew then… Mmmm- I would have shut my mouth sooner.

Well that was our one and likely only meeting.

The thank you note was followed by a Christmas card our first  year.  I was  looking up to them as the ones that were graced with the responsibility of raising my daughter, the ones that had experience and knowledge and success in the world. They made no response to my cards.  I think they wished I would go away and acted as if I had.

Fantasizing that our common interest in Joy and her well being would lead naturally to an interest in each other — just so that we could be supportive of Joy and her family was my personal delusion, that we could share in doing our best for our daughter.  I was interested in everything about her and I thought they would be too. I thought that would include me since Joy was interested in me.

18 years later, I have finally become disabused of that notion.

Any discomfort Joy has with us individually is magnified with us in proximity to each other.  Our visit last spring illustrated that.  At first I felt hurt that Joy hadn’t told me her amom was coming the day after me– I should have been warned.   If I had known I probably would have excused myself and taken the pressure off.  Instead I got the pleasure and wonder of Joy juggling  way too much mothers. I got to witness some of the hurt that accompanied our convergence.

Unaware I was the opening act to her amom’s visit, I was baffled at Joy’s ambivalence about seeing me.  I thought we had planned it to accomodate her work and family schedule.  But, oops we did it again…

What a fiasco.

The adoptee situation of two mothers is more powerful than having a stepmother and a mother — or than having your mother die and getting a step mother– or even being raised by an overbearing grandmother with your mom in the background. An amom that is there for you (or not) through your growing and developing and then an original mom that mirrors your physical reality is a lot to integrate.

I wish the two moms could ease the way instead of putting more thorns in the passage.

How did things go so wrong?  Wrong? Idk. Maybe not.  Definitely provocative, provoking examination.

Is my value of openness real?  Am I really open with Joy? I don’t need to know why her aparents don’t want anything to do with me. I know insuring we don’t overlap puts a greater strain on Joy. Where is the source of that strain? What can I do to ease it?

Openness, willingness on the part of the parents, all the parents, to put loving their child first still seems like the appropriate approach. But I suppose what that looks like differs from each perspective.

I am learning about loving Joy in the midst of her dilemmas instead of trying to change them.  They are out of my control.  I don’t need to limit or define our relationship by them either.

Together we are building a new and unique experience, a tremendous blessing.

Thanks to God, not anyone else.

“adoption language”

What did I do?  Signing “termination of parental rights” papers is the legal term I learned decades later.

At the time I think I was “signing adoption papers”. It didn’t feel like terminating something.  It felt like I was relinquishing, so that she could start being cared for properly, by people more worthy of her.  Relinquishing is a fancy word for giving up.  Somehow “giving up” your child for adoption sounds to others that your child is a “gift”, as though the person is a possession, which is an unconscionable notion in our modern society. My personal experience of “giving up” was  losing, quitting, resigning, abandoning all hope for myself — without extending that hopelessness to my child.  I held hope that she would be loved, cherished and cared for the way I had been convinced I was incapable of.

The way I described it at first was that I “didn’t get to keep my baby”. She was “adopted”.  She went out into the big big world that I was not to be a part of, where capable, successful people lived.

I tried experimenting with terms like, “gave her up for adoption” sounds like I put her on an auction block. Too crude.  “Placed her for adoption” sounds like placing a book on a shelf as if it was a casual tidying up.  After I started blogging I tried “lost her to adoption”, which makes me the victim.

The word that fits for me right now is “sacrificed”.  I tried that word out years ago with Joy. When she responded that she was the one that was sacrificed, it felt quite brutal.  And yet that still feels like what happened.  She was the victim, sacrificed to the gods of opinion.  The flesh of my flesh, sacrificed.

It gets rationalized by the worthlessness of the mother.  I turned  away from the world that declared me lacking.  And now I’m coming back, because there’s really no other world.  We’re all in this together, where sacrificing one’s children to “superior beings” is a huge step above infanticide.  But it’s still inhumane!

Answering Rejection

Joy asked me some questions repeatedly, questions I didn’t have answers for.  When “I don’t know” didn’t get me off the hook I started taking a stab at something else.  I can make stuff up, but I don’t like to.  I like to take what I have and see how it works, noodle around with it. Exploring.

Why is a question I felt very unqualified to answer.  Why didn’t I know better?  Why is she the one that has to deal with being an adoptee, being abandoned by her mother, feeling rejected?

I heard that as, why her and not someone else?  Why her and not me? I don’t know, because that’s the way it is?  Not a satisfactory answer.  I felt pressured to come up with an answer that would satisfy her questioning (yearning?), that would make a difference, that would be useful to her.  All I came up with was a “logical deduction”, based on my premise that we are all here to learn and grow.  If her lot in life is to experience rejection then it’s so she can learn about it. WRONG ANSWER!!!

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP=STOP=BACK UP  Where is the reset button?

What nonsense!?!

She was telling me she already knew rejection.

What good is rejection?  Anybody got an answer on that one?

Everybody deals with rejection on one level or another.  What’s it good for?  How can we use it?

I was feeling rejected myself when she asked me. Feeling sorry for myself or defending myself have been familiar responses when I feel rejected.  Generally it’s a feeling of powerlessness, because I’m basing my value on someone else’s perception or critique of me.

I don’t need to learn about rejection. I need to learn to trust myself.

I’m not saying my experiences of rejection equals Joy’s.  We haven’t had the same experiences. I doubt I have any business trying to answer her questions myself because I don’t have her experience.

But as human beings we’ve got the same operating equipment: bodies, emotions, minds, personalities to deal with each other.  Looking at the essence of all our issues they seem to come down to abandonment and control, two sides of the same coin.  We try to control ourselves, our environment, other people so that we won’t be abandoned.

Currently, my revised answer is, the purpose of rejection is to teach us to trust our True selves.  Trusting, knowing and behaving as my True self is the most valuable experience I know.

And being the darkest place I’ve known is also the safest.  When I go to nothing left to lose, when there’s just breathing left, it’s just me. It’s peaceful. That’s acceptance.

I know I’ve got it easy.  I’m healthy. I live in the land of milk and honey.  Why do I have such a great life? I don’t know.

I am grateful for all that I have.

Rejection teaches me to let go of my ego demands, my entrenched positions of personality, my opinions and points of view, to give up everything.  Giving up all that gives me a glimpse of the  awareness that I am loved by Spirit and by God. That is where my safety lies.

Help

Today’s horoscope by Jacqueline Bigar says, “A red flag pops, and you know to back off.  Use your sixth sense when dealing with partners. Reach out for those at a distance, an look to the bigger picture. Ask for help. Ask for advice.”

I’m asking for help and advice.  I don’t know how good I am at taking it.  I just know I’m not doing much good on my own.

Public Display of Reunion

I’ve read other bloggers testify about the wonderfulness and goodness of their real life before.  I feel like echoing that.  My life is good.  I love my life and generally enjoy it.  I’ve used my blog, among other techniques, to exorcise the parts of my life that have held me down.  In the past I held hurts and judgments on my own behavior against myself and that cut off my openness and friendliness with people in my life.  As I trust myself, I open up more and more I find my relationships expanding — for the most part. I don’t want to leave this incomplete or unfinished.  I want to be fair to myself and to Joy.

No one else can give the validity and accuracy of my own experience. Memories can be like dreams– interpreted, written down and reviewed. Is it to my benefit to look at Joy’s concept of me and see if it is accurate or is it her conditioned eyes focusing on my (many splendored)  imperfections? Seeing a lack of loving in things I do and don’t do, doesn’t make it  so.

Joy’s and my experience of each other may be closer to our experiences of  loss from the past  than the reality of what is.  As Kristen wrote, we may be slapping each other’s sunburns. I haven’t always explored my inner warning voice, my hesitations — where they come from or what the information is based on.  I am seeking to discern what the warning is about, going with the cliché that “she  wins who endures to the end”. My loving has been conditional at times.  I’ve fallen down.  I’ve screwed up.  But here I am again.  So now for a public display of reunioning.

Commenting on the previous post, Joy wrote -

“You gave me a copy of the painting, not that I am complaining, I am quite happy with a copy. To say you gave it to me is inaccurate though. You have never been that generous with me.”

The original painting was damaged. I sent a restored copy. Maybe Joy isn’t complaining, but it sounds like dissing my lack of generosity. Maybe I’m oversenstive.  Maybe my karma is to feel or perceive rejection.  Our relationship was founded with me expressing and experiencing unworthiness.  It is something I still trip over and endeavor to transcend. It has truly been a fault of mine that punishes me and therefore everyone around me. Here is an opportunity to lift myself up and look at the reminder that I could be more generous as a reflection of Joy’s pain, rather than as a dig at me.

“You said you didn’t want to give it to me because Ezzy might someday want it, even though it is a painting of an ancestor that does not resemble her or you, but me.”

It’s true that the portrait looks more like Joy than like Ezzy. In our many “discussions” about my motivations I did say that Ezzy had expressed a desire to have the portrait. Ezzy has childhood memories of and an emotional attachment to her great grandmother.

There was another motivation I didn’t reveal at that time. I didn’t trust Joy. It’s true I hadn’t ever given her much.  I hadn’t much to give.  The best picture (of very few) I had from her infancy was sent to her asap. I thought she should have it.  She set it on fire.  That was symbolic of our disconnects. What I did give was not welcome evidenced by her scorn in the few occasions I did send something.

“You were given so much by our family, nothing did you want to share.

It is quite odd for me to read these posts about how into me you were, when you were not nice to me. You were very rejecting, dismissive and cold. I am not understanding the disconnect.”

That stings.  It goes both ways.   I really don’t know what to say.  I know I have been cold and dismissive at times.  I also know that is not my usual expression.  There have definitely been times I’ve reacted with impatience and hurt.  But I have  also held a lot of loving and patience and compassion for both of us throughout our reunion. Calling me cold and dismissive goes against the love Joy has expressed for me. By rejecting me, she rejects her love for me. She hurts herself by rejecting her own loving. It takes time to get over the judgments against love. Being attached to “what should be,” to “I should have” or “they ought to” can produce suffering.

“When Tomtom was a baby, and we were so poor and you were inheiriting so much money and you never sent so much as a care package…later I asked why you never helped and you thought that was outrageous on my part, how dare I?

Then you went on and on about how you deserved things, and it was my karma that I was rejected.”

We have learned previously that Joy may remember an event quite differently than I or her nfather does. One  problem with secrecy or withholding is confounding the memory. My behavior was based on my understanding, on the information I had and the way I interpreted it. I intend to continue to expand and grow in loving in our relationship, no matter what.

Deserve is a word I don’t use because it presumes judgment.  I don’t necessarily object to others using it.  If it works for others that’s their business. I’ve foolishly tried to accommodate it’s usage, to no good.  Outrageous is another term that doesn’t serve me.

“I don’t get how that connects to posts like these.

How can you say it was inconceivable for me to feel unwanted when you told me yourself I deserved it to learn about how it feels to be rejected?

BTW I did learn.”

It was inconceivable because I was so caught in my own perception of  my offspring’s beauty and value. Much later, I  acknowledged that she has experienced a lot of rejection. To me the value of experience lies in what I learn from it.

Joy asked me many, many times “WHY” as in why has my (her) life been the way it’s been.  I don’t know.   Answering that it could be “her karma” was a mistake I regret. We don’t have a common understanding of that idea. I certainly don’t know what her karma is.

I am sorry I was unaware of her feelings of not being wanted. I’m sorry I inflicted my pain on her.

I have faith that we will continue to learn to handle our feelings of rejection. I want to bypass rejection and go for acceptance.

My IRL friends and family don’t read this blog.  They could if they were interested.  But they prefer to call or visit me for a direct exchange. We use electronics for logistics and production, not personal relations. So they just get one side of the story. This is a strange format of distance that provides anonymity and publicity.  I am really curious what others see in this?  I would love to hear other perspectives that might help me have a clearer understanding of Joy’s and my reunioning.

Gift of Sight

O wad some Power the giftie give us        To see ourselves as others see us!    It wad frae monie a blunder free us,      An’ foolish notion                    To a Louse ……By Robert Burns

Truly,  to be able to see through another’s eyes is a gift that heals.  The funny bit is that so much of what hurts is worrying about what others think of us or how they see us instead of really looking at what they see.

For much of my reunion with Joy I struggled with my image of myself.  I was so stuck on conditioned images I simply could not accept the way Joy saw me. I was locked in illusions of the teenage mother forced relinquishment.

It was incomprehensible to me that she saw herself as unwanted.  My lust was so that I couldn’t see her position at all.  All I saw was her power to leave me again.  She exercised control over her life out of self preservation as she confronted me; her real physical genetic and mysterious mother. I was no longer just some abstract incompetent.

I was a real, tangible, confusing incompetent.  People asked me what she wanted, why did she contact me? I hadn’t stopped to question why she contacted me.  She told me she wanted medical information which seemed like a nice clean answer. Who wondered what I wanted from contact with her?  She was the first to ask me what I wanted, many years into reunion.

Initially I just wanted her in my life.  I was desperate to keep in contact with her even though it was fraught with pain and misunderstanding.  One of the constants was fear that she would walk out of my life, that I truly wasn’t worthy of her.

That all came to a head about 5 years ago(?).  As executor and trustee, I was in possession of a family heirloom with instructions to pass it on to my uncle, the “rightful owner”.  But it was something that I wanted for myself and I’d procrastinated returning it to him, thinking I’d wait until he asked for it.

One night Joy called up and asked me to give it to her.  I was surprised and threatened.  She stated that she had never asked me for a thing before this. It felt like an ultimatum, as though our relationship rested on whether I turned this item over to her.  Essentially all our relationship was for the follwing year was quarrelling while I rested on a two pronged pitchfork. She demanded that I do this one thing for her, or else.  There was nothing more to talk about. I felt guilty for hanging onto something that wasn’t mine to begin with. I felt manipulated by her position that the heirloom  was more important than our relationship.

I held a position that no material item could resolve the ongoing conflict between us.  She claimed it would make her happy. I didn’t trust that it would.  Eventually I capitulated.

I didn’t tell her.  I just decided to put an end to this particular quarrel and see what happened.  It took at least three weeks to get it packaged and posted. I actually  expected her to end up angrier than ever.

I waited another three weeks to hear from her.  I didn’t know she was going abroad about that time.  So I had three weeks to worry and imagine and wonder what she thought.  And wonder why she didn’t  respond.  When she finally got home and did call me it was almost anticlimactic.

Except she seemed really happy.  Grateful even.

I had been ready to cash it all in, give up on our relationship for good, because I didn’t think this family memorabilia could really make an improvement in our lives.  It symbolized her control over me and I had enough.  I was going to send it to her and walk away, quit trying.

But she was happy.  I started to see ME trying to control her, trying to force her to love me the way I wanted her to love me, instead of listening to her.

She invited me to come up for her birthday that spring. I saw the treasure displayed proudly in her living room and it was beautiful. It was a symbol of a new beginning.

It was a start for me to see her for herself, instead of as my long lost baby.

What’s next?

Out beyond ideas of right doing and wrong doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.~ Rumi

This blog is  for me to talk about me mostly.  It’s very self centered.  Once in a while I feel challenged to explain something. Today I feel like I’ve been called out.  Whoo hoo am I going to need a shower after this post!

IN her blog my daughter wrote,“’I have no obligation to those people who have treated me like shit, no obligation to expose myself to them again’ …My mother never blogs about that, she has blogged about me being “manipulative and needy” although omits that I have been to her house maybe 3 or 4 times in my entire life. Despite the fact that she doesn’t live that far from me. It is kind of awkward as her husband will lock himself in his room and not even say hello, I guess due to my “neediness” ha! I was there having breakfast once with Tomtom, he was little, and well that is how we were treated. No more”.

(There is much more to her post than the part about me).

I guess she thinks it appropriate for me to blog on the above subject, the horrible treatment she has received from “those people”/my people.

In my first ever blog post I said my husband saw her as “manipulative and needy”.  She has held that against me as a cruel thing to have revealed into the blogosphere.   I am also manipulative and needy sometimes.  So is my husband.  It can be a problem. People who think they are above manipulative and needy behavior can be annoying too.

Regretting that I did not have the wisdom and maturity to see through her adolescent posturing when she first called me doesn’t change it.  Shame and guilt dominated my behavior.
I have to accept and work with these things, now.

So, as for her visits to my home — Joy visited my parents home once.  It was quite stressful for all.  She said she planned to visit her grandmother before she died but Grandma died sooner than Joy expected I guess.  Or maybe she changed her mind. IDK.

She’s visited me, in my home twice, maybe three times.  Two times, quite close together.  One time we were expecting her for dinner.  I was trying to be as relaxed as I could and pretend it was a normal occurrence.  Hum te tum tum

She didn’t show up until the next morning, so I planned a quick breakfast.  Now, eight years later, she expresses once again that she was affronted when my husband chose to follow his regular routine that morning instead of joining us for breakfast. We didn’t really know when she was coming and he doesn’t like breakfast anyway.

We live a little bit differently than most I believe.  He treasures his alone time.   Weekend mornings were especially precious to him.  When Buster and Ezzy were little, he and I used to take turns giving each other time alone.  They had issues with it as teens.

That weekend morning I spent with Joy and Tomtom, happy to have them to myself and for him to have his time to himself.  I didn’t realize Joy’s tension was wrapped up with his absence.

To me, he wasn’t locked away.  He was doing his usual thing.

So that’s that.

I hadn’t got the rhythm of Joytime yet– something to not plan on.

I have invited her to come again.  She doesn’t want to. A couple years ago she said she wanted to see me when she came through. I invited her for dinner. She declined, saying she didn’t know what time they would arrive. I said I’d make spaghetti, something that could be held till they arrived.  Uh, no we don’t know when we’ll get there.  But whenever you get here you’ll be hungry.  Oh, no I don’t want you to go to the trouble. So I waited for her to call me from her hotel.  Then I came a running to meet her at the restaurant where she was having her dinner.

My  tendency to drop whatever I am doing to meet Joy has confounded and offended my family and friends.   But it’s not really her fault.  She never says, “I will be there.”  She avoids making commitments.  When I try to pin her down, she kind of agrees to a time.  But she doesn’t mean it.

She has more to deal with than fits neatly into her life. I don’t fit neatly into her life. Last time we saw each other I thought I had anticipated her concerns. I asked which of the three days I was going to be in town would work best for her.  I double checked that.  I made all my other plans around her. It didn’t work out very well.  We got quite worked up before she let me know her amom was scheduled to arrive the next day!

Oh. my.

OK.  Excuse me.  I’m sorry.  I didn’t know.  Joy didn’t grow up with me. She doesn’t get the idiosyncratic way we do things.  Her siblings and my husband don’t get her idiosyncrasies either.

Joy’s sensitivity is such that she is hurt because my husband doesn’t behave the way she wants. His sensitivity is such that he will continue to take care of himself, even if it flies in the face of her sense of right and wrong.

So right now I’m wondering, what’s next?  We’ll see.