I. Never. Write. Here.
And don't worry. I don't write anywhere. Soon I will need a place to write. I know I will. Things will happen and I will need a place to put them.
But maybe it can't be here.
Sometimes, I think the things I will say will be things that nobody - NOBODY - who knows me can know or hear. Not that I "know" anyone here, but there are people who know me, who would recognize my face. And maybe my thoughts need to be disconnected from my face.
I don't know about that yet.
Like, the Incredible Crazy Thing that Jon and I are planning to do.
Nobody knows we're doing it except us and one other person.
Nobody.
Not my sister. Not my kids. Not facebook. Not my parents.
Not my blog, or a diary, or even a four legged creature.
No one yet knows about the Incredible Crazy Thing.
In truth, it's probably not so crazy. I mean, dear God, saying it this way makes it sound like I'm going to set my house on fire, collect the insurance money, and move to an island in the middle of Lake Michigan.
(I'm not.)
The Incredible Crazy Thing is more of a test, I suppose. A test of just how awesome I really am.
(Okay, that sounded way more conceited than I meant it to.)
I guess it's a put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is kind of moment. Carpe Diem perhaps? Staring fate in the eye and daring it to fuck you up? Maybe?
Who knows.
But I didn't come here to talk about the Incredible Crazy Thing.
I came to talk about my kids.
My two kids. Chelsea and Joshua.
It has been discussed and mulled over; this idea of feeling differently about children and how maybe that's not okay, especially when one of them is adopted. Because somewhere, in the non-existent rule book that Parents live by, that's how it's supposed to be.
Feeling differently is equated to somehow feeling lesser about one or the other.
But different does not equal lesser. Different equals...different.
In less than two weeks, I will put Chelsea in Kindergarten.
I will cry. It will not be for the reasons that scores of other mothers will cry. It will not be because my "baby girl is going to Kindergarten" or anything like that. No. These five years have not gone quickly. Sometimes I think I have felt every second of them; that every day has etched another wrinkle or a grey hair into my head. I feel as though I have swallowed gallons of aspirin pills to survive it.
No.
I will cry because I am scared for her.
I will cry because I can no longer carefully control and manipulate her environment to give her the best possible chances at success; to minimize her outbursts and manage her anxieties.
I have to let her go, and deep down I know she is not ready to go. But she has to try. I cannot keep her with me. So she will go to Kindergarten, because she is smart enough to go and she is old enough to go. She is brilliant, actually. Her IQ is higher than mine. It's probably higher than yours, and most people you know. I have no idea how this happened, but it did.
Chelsea and I, over the years, have to come an understanding. A truce, of sorts. I accept that she has forever fucked up my life and she accepts that I am not the mom who will play playdoh at every opportunity or read to her endlessly.
She knows that when something is really bad wrong - REALLY bad wrong - she can come to me and I will fight until I cannot fight another minute to make sure she is okay. I know she knows this; even at five, she senses it.
I accept that she is not the daughter that I thought I would have - indeed I was never sure I even wanted a daughter - and she accepts that I am a tough mother who may not be perfect, but who is probably perfect for her. And deep down, I accept that she is probably the perfect daughter for me. A child who relishes playing with her Ipad and doesn't need limitless affection. She was born to ultimately play to my strengths.
How funny is that.
When I look at Chelsea, I see a small reflection of myself in her eyes. I see her Daddy's hair color and my smile. My blood courses through her veins. She is just a tiny sliver of who her brothers might have been. I noticed tonight the lamp that sits, tucked away on the top of her dresser. It is the nursery lamp that was meant to grace a room designed for twin boys. It sits, rarely used and unassuming. It is just there; a quiet presence. Unpretentious.
But she is all her own. She is ours, in name and in DNA. She is our daughter. I will always have her back. Even if her father is the one she wants to hug and kiss and rough house with, she knows where to go when she needs something. It is me. I will defend her, I will advocate for her, and I will care about her in ways that are probably difficult to describe. It is an unusual kind of love; it is love, but it is not the soft, squishy love that mothers everywhere seemed to talk about. It is not the smell of her sheets in the morning or the nilla wafers she casually chews on. I have never sat and watched her sleep unless she was sick, and sometimes not even then. It's not like that between she and I. I would happily slash the parent's tires of a child who tormented her. I would stare down school administrators fearless even if I was frightened. DON'T FUCK WITH MY DAUGHTER.
Chelsea is our daughter because she was born to us. Because she was born to us, she is completely unique and connected to me in a way that I cannot adequately express. .
Joshua is a gift. Joshua is like a present that you never thought you'd receive, but once you did, you realized just how amazing it was. He is the sweetest child with the most devilish streak. He knows how to lie when Chelsea doesn't. His smile is infectious. There isn't a single feature of his that I contributed to. He did not grow up "in Mommy's belly".
He was plucked from a terrible place and Jon and I did that. WE did that. We willingly went into Pleven and brought this boy out. He wasn't ours. He was a stranger. In the 21 months since he's been home, he has been perfectly knit into our family until sometimes it's strange to remember a time when he wasn't here.
I don't view Chelsea as a miracle. I know she is, but that isn't how I cast her in my mind. Joshua is the miracle. Joshua is an overcomer, a survivor. We chose him...I am his mother because I choose to be, not because of who was plucked from my stomach during a c-section...after a round of IVF that I privately and passionately prayed would fail and somehow didn't.
But it is wrong to believe I love or care for one more or less than the other. When I look at Chelsea, I smile. She is such a part of me. I would go to great lengths to protect her and help her. When I look at Joshua, I smile. I smile because he's a miracle and I am his mother. I would go to great lengths to protect him and help him.
I was not the most elegant parent, nor have I done the most elegant parenting. I know that.
But I have done okay.
Chelsea is going to Kindergarten, and Joshua is in a new preschool for children with language challenges. Both children have everything they need and some of what they want. Both of them are doing pretty well. I love them differently but I love them both with equal intensity.
Soon there will be another child...an 11 year old daughter.
And there's the Incredible Crazy Thing too.
And my second year of graduate school.
Life is moving forward again.
Loading comments...