An epiphany on a bad day.

I know this will seem odd to some, but it has taken me 60 years to figure out that I have abandonment issues. 

My husband pulled one of those bonehead moves yesterday that tips me over the edge and I really never knew why. He went to church, okay, that part is fine and usually he is home by 1:00 p.m. but he didn't get home till 2:00 p.m. I waited on lunch until my tummy rumbled louder than the ATVs flying down our road and gave in to eating lunch alone. When he finally showed up I was, upset to say the least. Well he stopped to see someone and then casually mentioned at least he didn't stop to see another friend doing some physical rehab in our local hospital. "Oh lucky me", I thought, "he came home even though he could have been out visiting." But wait! He knew he was going to visit at least one of these people and he couldn't have given me a heads up? Like a note on the fridge or a call from church before he headed out? Nope. This has been an issue in all of the time we have been married. " Please", I have asked of my husband and my children, "call me if you are going to be late." It happened sometimes but not all the time.

As I hung about the house being snarky and sulky the rest of the day, it dawned on me that time wasn't the issue here. It was him (or them) not coming back. I ran through my storehouse of memories and realized that I had spent a great deal of my life doing what I asked them not to do. 

I left behind friends and boyfriends before they could leave me. I have spent almost my entire life in a self-imposed solitude. Now don't get me wrong. I actually like my company and when younger would not have enjoyed spending time with women who thought of hair, makeup and clothing as main topics of conversation. Now that I am older, I have reached slightly out of my comfort zone trying to interact with people on a social level, but still have no idea at times how to hold a conversation.

My memories are not of a door closing or someone saying goodbye. They are visceral, a part of me that is buried deep within my psyche. My father left, my mother left, my brother was gone, my aunts, uncles, everyone that I knew in the first 3 years of my life. Yes, I had my adoptive parents, my adoptive family of aunts, uncles and cousins but it was all different. There was something I lost but had no conscious thought of the loss. It was what made me do some of the things that I did so I wouldn't be hurt again because how does a 3 year old express that kind of pain? In my case extreme shyness, holding back on attachments to people but becoming overly attached to "home", our house, the only place I knew that was safe. My parents suggested we move at some point in my pre-teen years and the nuclear meltdown on my part caused them to rethink that idea.

My parents once remarked that they had been told I didn't like to be hugged so therefore (in the logic of the 1950's) they were told not to try to hug me. It's still an issue. Hugging, I can't even describe how that infringes upon my space although I have become accustom to hugging my family (you have to if you marry into a big Italian family) but it took years.

I was also told by my adoptive mother that they had wanted 'the boy' (my brother) but he was taken so they took me instead.  Excuse me, are we talking about getting a pet here?  

My adoptive parents and I had issues, beyond the usual stuff, but not the kind of stuff that lead me to killing off anyone or pulling wings off of flies. Just things that now I realize were not just the everyday growing up stuff.

I suppose I will always have to deal with the whole idea of being abandoned for the rest of my life, but in a way this epiphany has opened a door and let me see why I have done and still do some of the things in my life. 

I relate this story not for sympathy but because I need to see it in print. I need to feel the keys under my fingers as I release this little demon. It will always control me in some way, but now that I know the root cause maybe I won't be so anxious when the husband is late, or the kids don't call or people leave, but don't expect me move anytime soon, I am no going down that road ever again.

I thought that whatever happened to make my 'real' parents give me up, had to have been because I did something wrong, but it wasn't my fault, for years I thought it was my fault. I became passive, because scars like that never heal. I have realized in the past few years with the reconnection with 2 siblings and learning about and connecting with  2 others (mom was a busy girl), that there was a story there of people who made bad decisions and whose life choices ended up changing more than just their life. That is the way of the world. We make decisions and sometimes we forget how one decision can ripple outwards and change so many things.

Now don't get me wrong. I have seen my share of shrinks and therapists, after awhile you learn to say what they want to hear. I loved my adoptive parents and they loved me, we just didn't always get along and they didn't know the whole story about those short years in which I was someone else's daughter. Maybe if they did, we would have hugged or moved to another house, but those things can't be changed. I don't have regrets cause they were good people and to regret my life with them wouldn't honor the love they gave me. That is the special thing about adoption, okay so they want the boy but they still took me. They didn't have to. They could have said no and walked out the door but they didn't and that made them great parents.

I could go on and on about all the issues, conflicts and assorted baggage that I have, well frankly we all have baggage. I guess it comes down to how we decided to carry it. Do we load ourselves down with it and carry it through life blaming it for whatever evil befalls us or do we zip it up in a small carry-on realizing that occasionally we will have to look at it? Whatever is in that baggage will always be a part of us but it doesn't have to control us. We just need to know it's there and get on with our lives.

Winter's full moon.

The moon's light creeps around the edges of my curtains in my dark room causing me to get out of bed and pad silently down the stairs so I can stare out on the snow covered gardens, lawn and woods to admire the beauty of the midnight hour.
The moonlight pouring through the downstairs windows of our house is  like muted sunlight. Shadows lay across the snow cast by the barren trees. Wicked shadows, shadows which hide the coyote as it hunts. Shadows only disturbed by the silent wings of an owl searching for prey.
It is not a fat, warm summer moon which calls out fireflies and moths to flit among the night flowers and grasses at the edge of our woods. It is a cold, hard moon, high in a winter sky. It brings out a beauty of a night world in sharp relief. No warm air to caress my face as I step out of the door to look at it. It entices with it's hard beauty and cold light. It draws you out into the bitter night air to look up at the sky and see the stars laid out in a black sky.
There is no sweet scent of a summer night, instead there is a dryness to the air, a sharpness. The only smell on a cold night as this is the smoke rising from the chimney. The mingling of maple, cherry and birch wood as it burns to heat our home.
Inside again, in the warmth of our home I hear the creaks and groans that are the house settling down on it's foundation. It makes me think that the moonlight itself is gently trying to work it's way inside and if it does, we will float up into the sky, and become the moonlight.We will be forgotten by those who knew us. Nothing will be left of the house or it's foundation. There will just be the gardens which will go wild, and the woods which will close in on the lawn.
It will all be  a dream that happened one cold winter's night when there was a full moon.