Weird; Like Normal

For a long time I wondered if something was wrong in our relationship. Was I trying too hard? That explanation seemed very unlikely. Perhaps I wasn't trying hard enough? Why didn't this seem to be going the way I had been told to expect?

I needed to stop measuring by other people's standards and recognizing the good thing in front of me. I had heard about and read so many people describing their relationships with adoptive families I lost focus. So often the description "like my sister" came up, shortly followed by tales of "countless texts back and forth" I started to think that might be "normal".

For a brief time I actually felt a little ashamed that my relationship with Ms Scarlet and Prof Plum didn't resemble those stories. I wanted our relationship to be like a beacon for how good everything can be in an adoption. I wanted to be the wildly successful anecdote people share, secretly hoping the same can happen to them, like when discussing film stars and rock gods. I looked at the markers for that quality relationship and found many of them lacking.

Instead, I found a real relationship. I found the kind of relationship that expresses, and more importantly respects, the strangeness of how our relationship came to be. Let's face it, adoption is a pretty strange way to kick off a friendship. "Hey, here's a kid, let's be friends!" It doesn't exactly fly in most social circles. So instead, I decided to let this relationship be exactly what it is; It's a little weird in that it's completely unique.

We don't get together and hang out at the park just because. We don't send each other endless text messages about our day at work, or the film we just saw. We don't gab like old friends who have known each other forever, because we haven't.

Instead, when we meet (about once every month) everyone is clearly aware of why we're together:

Our Son

Don't get me wrong. I really like Ms Scarlet and Prof Plum. They're great people, and I always enjoy the time we spend together. We have very little in common in terms of factual experience, but we have a great deal in common with regard to temperament. We tend to think and behave similarly, even though our contexts are quite different. But then that's the wonderful thing about this family we've built; we like and are alike, even though we differ.

Our relationship with each other is icing. The cake is everyone's relationship with Festus. That is what makes me feel that this is something to be truly proud of. Our adoption is truly and completely centered on him. Without him Athena and I probably wouldn't have a relationship with Prof Plum or Ms Scarlet. And that's fine. Our relationship is a little weird. It is awkward to explain, but is becoming very natural to those that are in it. We are not like family in the SitCom sense, nor the story book way. We are not like long lost siblings who gab and joke all day. Our relationship runs deep, and quiet. Our relationship is our shared son. We all know it, and we don't need it to be anything else.

The laughter and fun we share, when it happens, is icing. Our son is the cake.

A brief visit from Reality

Several times over the past couple of months I've had the chance to visit, talk, laugh, and play with my son.

Each of the visits has been significantly different from the others. One visit included Athena and her nuclear family (mom, dad, and brother). One was just Athena and me. The visit right before Christmas was a special one. It was just me, Prof Plum, Ms Scarlet, and little Festus. Athena was buried under school work at the time and couldn't shake free any time during the crunch of final's week.

I was disappointed she couldn't join me, but as soon as Festus waved "hello" as I entered the kitchen that disappeared. There was a lot of conversation, both between the adults and with Festus. He had just gotten a substantially bigger vocabulary and was all too happy to show it off. Though, at two and a half, it still takes some work to understand what he's saying. Doubly so when he zigs into Spanish and zags back into English mid-thought. All those years studying Latin are showing their worth.

But the real joy of that visit came near the end. We had already eaten and were winding down. I sat on the floor in the living room, knowing that Festus was soon to enjoy his bedtime stories. To my surprise he picked up a book, walked straight toward me, turned, and sat in my lap. He held up the book cuing me to take it from him. Ms Scarlet asked "do you want him to read you your bedtime story?" Again, to my surprise and delight he replied with a clearly audible "yes".

That was the first time my son clearly and demonstrably chose me to do something with him. I had butterflies. My heart leapt to my throat. The only time I can remember that kind of giddy feeling, the disbelief at the joy I encountered, was when I met Athena. In that moment, all doubt that my son knows and loves me disappeared.

That's something I don't talk about much, but it had been a lingering worry. Did my son actually recognize me? Was he starting to know who I am, or see me as someone important, or at least worthwhile? Silly questions to ask of a relationship with a toddler, perhaps, but they were asked nonetheless. And they were answered;

"yes".

Silence in the Absence of Conflict

I've been ignoring life in Blog-land for some time as other concerns have taken priority. Those concerns, not surprising to anyone, are my finances. This is bitter-sweet news because it points directly to something very important.

Life as a birth father has become normal life.

Or perhaps I should say this; life after the adoption of a child can feel just as normal as life before the adoption of a child.

In recent months I've been focusing a lot of attention to getting my financial affairs in order, developing plans for some cottage industry style enterprises, strengthening my relationships with my family, and continuing to support Athena as she prepares to re-enter school in yet another step toward her eventual career goals. Athena and I have continued to visit Festus, Prof Plum, and Ms Scarlet. All of those relationships continue to grow. The funny part is that I haven't been thinking about those relationships as much recently as I had the year previous. That's actually very important as it indicates that I'm not working as hard to have those relationships feel successful. At this point they typically feel successful without much effort. It seems stress doesn't enter that sphere unless there are other complicating factors. There have, in fact, been complicating factors but they were handled with compassion, open communication, a bit of mutual confusion, and in the end worked out smoothly. It's really nice to feel like my friendships with Ms Scarlet and Prof Plum are a source of stress relief.

There have been several visits with them that I haven't related here. That has a lot to do with going nuts at work. More than that, however, is a loss of urgency in those visits, conversations, and connections. After more than a year it feels like the foundation for real relationships have been laid and we now get to enjoy some of that hard work. As life continues there also continue to be new complications. I've come to the conclusion that if one waits for life to "calm down" before considering it normal s/he will be waiting until death. That said, I think we've hit as close to "normal" as we're going to get. It feels good. It feels like we've found the light at the end of the tunnel and it wasn't a train after all. All four of us were putting a lot of faith in that faint glimmer. The days when I forget how hard it had been are the days I feel like I'm holding a winning lottery ticket.

It's tempting to say that I've found a good life after adoption but that isn't accurate at all. The growth I had to do getting into adoption in the first place is largely responsible for where I am now. I have found a good life in adoption.

Light at the end of the tunnel and the long, dark tea time of the soul

Klaxons going off in my brain told me something was terribly, terribly wrong. Was it my return to work after four months of leave? Was it my relationship with Athena? Perhaps my diet, exercise, or lack of meditation. I felt ill. Deeply ill like something in my soul had died and was rotting away what was left. An important piece of who I am was gone and I couldn't remember what it was anymore. My worst nightmare was being realized. I was losing myself bit by bit but was only cognizant enough to recognize the loss. I couldn't do anything to curb it.

For four days I felt this way. Every evening, when I grew tired and ready to sleep, I would begin to panic in the throws of this loss. For a week the feeling lingered just potent enough to be recognized. I fought the loss as hard as I could. I fought everything. The sadness, the isolation, wouldn't beat me. I would win. Eventually Athena asked me "why are you trying so hard? What are you fighting so hard?" It became clear I was fighting against my grief. I wasn't allowing my experience to happen. The next day I took several long, slow breaths before beginning my day of work. "I will let myself be sad today. Today can be miserable. I can be a wreck and still be okay. I can break down and have a shitty day today." The day proceeded normally. Melancholy coloured the morning but my sense of relief took over the rest of the day. I was sad, but I was okay.

Two days previous I visited my son. Athena and her family were there to celebrate Festus' birthday. It was a grand day, though there were several culinary SNAFU's. The planned meal was fajitas. Athena doesn't tolerate wheat very well so we planned to make some spelt tortillas to bring with us. Ms Scarlet requested that we make enough for everyone. That meant making a triple batch. Additionally a second side dish was requested. We racked our brains trying to figure out what we could make in addition to the tortillas that wouldn't kill us. We decided on a batch of polenta with a random black bean and tomato topping I faked my way through. It was necessary to make something in the slow cooker as tortillas are incredibly labor intensive. I figured it would take around three hours of cooking time to make the 30+ I'd made dough for. After the first three failed utterly I realized something had gone wrong and another plan needed to come together. Something in the dough wasn't right and none of the tortillas were cooking correctly. Off to Meijer (for those not in the Great Lakes region, Meijer is a local antecedent to Wal-Mart, but a little less evil) for corn tortillas. While there I picked up a two bottles of my current favorite cheap Rose. It's a nice Spanish Grenache dry Rose. Very tasty. Back in the car and *ZOOM* we're off to see Prof Plum and Ms Scarlet.

The visit was wonderful. All the angst I'd been feeling for days melted away watching Festus crawl and stand. Hooting and chirping, squeeking and grunting were delightfully fascinating. We played and he laughed. I flipped him upside down and ate his stomach. He squeeled and giggled. Dinner was delicious and I, once again, had a great conversation with Prof Plum by the grill doing "guy stuff." We often talk about how funny it is that we talk about and bond over classic machismo items like his gas grill. Does recognizing it as silly make it less effective? We didn't bother thinking too hard on it and instead moved on to talking about theatre, college life (his two elder sons are both in college now, and I relate a bit working at a college), and my recent wisdom tooth debacle. Dinner was lovely. The wine was good and the pie was out of this world!

Eventually we all said our goodnights and headed to our cars. I felt much better than I had in days. My emotional keel had been evened and the mental weather looked clear to the horizon. The following day was a different story. Two more days of significant turmoil left me feeling as though I'd been tied to the whipping pole and left as an example to others. My eventual realization and emotional honesty was what I had needed all along.




The one year anniversary of an adoption can be a very difficult one. Strangely I'd imagined that Athena would have a difficult experience and I'd be the one supporting her. That fits my typical self image. I am the one who supports people. I don't ask for help because others need that help more. I was very surprised when Athena seemed unmoved by the gravity of the anniversary yet I was tossed like a skiff in a typhoon. I had been trying so hard to be okay. The hurt was so opaque to me that I couldn't see it was there. All my effort went into closing my eyes to reality. I suffered needlessly a great deal because of it. It was a very humbling experience. I don't have all the answers and even the little lessons that have been pounded into me again and again still get screwed up.




I have held onto many regrets in my life. I like to think I'm doing a good job of letting those go. When I was younger I often thought of my life as nothing more than a litany of regrets. If I could have gone back and lived differently I'd have changed everything. I wanted a different life. I wanted a different me. Countless hours and thousands of dollars in therapy have helped me work out the difference between things that have hurt me and myself. It sounds strange now to say that I confused the two. I can recognize the difference now. More importantly I know the difference between acknowledging pain and submitting to regret. When I look at Athena or Festus I no longer think of what I wish I could change. Instead I think of what I will do tomorrow. I have regretted many things. I have even regretted my decision to place Festus for adoption. But I have no regret for meeting and knowing my son. I don't regret the changes I went through nor the growth I had to push forward in making his adoption plan. I love my son very much. He is my best teacher. He tells me to keep looking to tomorrow when today sucks. He lets me love today even if yesterday was horrible. I can have a great morning and a terrible afternoon and that's okay. My son loves me. I love him. I don't want a different past. I want today.

A Great Visit

When first making the adoption plan for Festus with Ms Scarlet and Prof. Plum the question of how often to visit came up. Pretty quickly we settled on getting together once a month and an incidental contact that may happen in between was a bonus. Athena and I figured that we would want to see Ms Scarlet and Prof. Plum that often just to get a chance to have some kind of relationship with them before the actual placement. We never scheduled a regular time in the month for us to get together. We're all busy people and Prof. Plum has to travel a fair amount for his job. Similarly, in the regular school year, I have to work weekends sporadically so establishing the third Friday of every month just wasn't practical. It's worked out quite well. I don't think we've missed a month yet and the visits have continued to become more and more casual. Then came our visit at the beginning of June.

The wine, in truth, wasn't entirely to my taste. It was a little more acidic than I'm used to, which is strange for a lover of Chilean wines to say. That's the only negative thing I can say. It was a wonderful evening. Athena and I had the chance to see Festus crawl for the first time! He had been crawling for a while, we simply hadn't seen him do it before. He was very happy to show off this new accomplishment for us. Festus was quite the little showman that afternoon playing his musical instruments and grunting excitedly. For the first time in a couple months he seemed happy to spend some time interacting directly with Athena. The previous two visits he wasn't too happy about sitting with anyone who wasn't mom or dad. His coy glances made while chewing safely on Ms Scarlet's shoulder were very cute, but not as satisfying as the toothy (all four of them) grins we got this time.

But the best part was talking with Prof Plum and Ms Scarlet. There was, naturally, a fair amount of chatting about Festus and his latest fascinations. Some of the best conversation that evening, however, was about life in general. It felt less like an agreed upon child visitation and more like two couples getting together for dinner. I can report happily that we, all four of us, enjoy each others' company. Are we to the point where we call each other to make spurt of the moment plans to catch dinner? No. Do I think it's possible to get there? Yes.

It feels like the "hard work" of spending time with each other is really paying off. The awkwardness of the first getting-to-know-you conversations is melting away leaving friendship in its stead. Little by little, brick by brick, minute by minute, we're building a friendship of peers. We're building a family.

Reflection: A happy evening

"I'm going to miss this," I said. The air was humid while Athena and I lay close. I didn't mind the extra warmth on an already hot evening. All my attention was in my hand and the thumping beneath it. "The Visitor" was very energetic in his exercises. I imagined him like a tiny taiko drummer playing the inside of a watermelon. I removed my hand. Athena said "he's stopped." I put my hand on another part of her round belly. Heartbeats later my hand was being kicked again in a rhythmless avalanche of excitement.

In that moment we gave him all he needed. In that moment the love and safety of cuddling on the bed was sufficient. I was in enraptured by the tiny life growing in my partner. The life that was half me, half her, and wholly its own. We could give him everything he needed then. Love and food. We had plenty of the former, and were managing to keep up on the latter. For a few evenings that spring it felt like everything was well in hand. Everything would be fine as we marinated in contentment. In those warm sunsets love was enough for everything.

For a few evenings I was the perfect father.

***Athena's Response***