Every day I get the mail expecting to find several items that will forever go unexamined. Obama is our hero. Wait...no, Obama is evil. Wait...Romney is evil. I mean our hero. Need a new credit card? Well look no further than your mailbox. Every. Single. Day. You get the idea (and live it at your address, I'm sure).
So while these items are certainly keeping the recycling industry alive and well, the mail these days doesn't usually do much for me personally. Every so often I'm taken by surprise, though. There's something important amidst the waste and I can't get back to my house fast enough to examine its contents. It comes from an address I now know by heart, and without fail, when I see that sticker in the top left corner my heart falls into my stomach and my mind races.
I'm always left a little confused, unsure how to feel. I'm usually surprised by what I find, usually pleasantly so, but sometimes I find myself uneasy in a way I can't quite put my finger on. I felt this way when it was a card addressed to my daughter, from Mommy, yet it wasn't from me. I felt this way when the words, "when can I see her?" were written. I feel this way now, looking at a book.
It's just a book.
But attached to the book is a cd.
And on the cd is a recording.
It's the voice of her birth mother.
Just reading the book.
It's very sweet. Honest.
Yet here I sit feeling uneasy, trying to figure out exactly why. I emailed a fellow adoptive mom about it and she said she wished she would get something from her son's birth mom because she hasn't gotten a thing. The grass is always greener, right?
Bryan reminded me yesterday that this is what we signed on for - murkiness. Murky it is, but luckily it's the kind of murkiness that you can ignore right along with the junk mail until the next envelope with E's name on it shows up. Then everything is a bit puzzling for a day or two and the cycle resumes.
So for now, I'm going to store the book with the rest of the items sent from E and try to be thankful that we have them to give to C one day. I'm going to imagine that E sent this purely out of love or for her own benign reasons that do not signify a lack of acceptance, understanding or respect for my role as Cecilia's mother.
Time to move on and idly wait for the next envelope...
So while these items are certainly keeping the recycling industry alive and well, the mail these days doesn't usually do much for me personally. Every so often I'm taken by surprise, though. There's something important amidst the waste and I can't get back to my house fast enough to examine its contents. It comes from an address I now know by heart, and without fail, when I see that sticker in the top left corner my heart falls into my stomach and my mind races.
I'm always left a little confused, unsure how to feel. I'm usually surprised by what I find, usually pleasantly so, but sometimes I find myself uneasy in a way I can't quite put my finger on. I felt this way when it was a card addressed to my daughter, from Mommy, yet it wasn't from me. I felt this way when the words, "when can I see her?" were written. I feel this way now, looking at a book.
It's just a book.
But attached to the book is a cd.
And on the cd is a recording.
It's the voice of her birth mother.
Just reading the book.
It's very sweet. Honest.
Yet here I sit feeling uneasy, trying to figure out exactly why. I emailed a fellow adoptive mom about it and she said she wished she would get something from her son's birth mom because she hasn't gotten a thing. The grass is always greener, right?
Bryan reminded me yesterday that this is what we signed on for - murkiness. Murky it is, but luckily it's the kind of murkiness that you can ignore right along with the junk mail until the next envelope with E's name on it shows up. Then everything is a bit puzzling for a day or two and the cycle resumes.
So for now, I'm going to store the book with the rest of the items sent from E and try to be thankful that we have them to give to C one day. I'm going to imagine that E sent this purely out of love or for her own benign reasons that do not signify a lack of acceptance, understanding or respect for my role as Cecilia's mother.
Time to move on and idly wait for the next envelope...
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