Frozen (adoption-style)

I wrote this post sometime this past spring, and I didn't post it until now because I've been... well, frozen.

I've been frozen for too long. Frozen because any movement is risky. Frozen because most everything I see and hear and read and feel in Adoptoland makes sense enough until I move in any direction. The slightest shift springs a crack that splits into 2, then 4, then 8, which spread like a spider army marching, marching, marching in all directions at once, until everything cracks and nothing bears weight and I'm drowning once again. I'm bone weary of talking about adoption.

I stay out of the adoption cybersphere for months, and then on a brisk, sunny day in early spring I'm pulled back in by Claudia's piece about Gaslighting. I love reading Claudia's thoughts. And I'm jealous. Jealous because the whole world gets to know what Claudia thinks and feels, and I don't get to know squat about my kids' first moms. Oh sure, I know demographic details, I know superficial things about them and their families, but I don't know anything that matters. I don't know how they feel when they look at the pictures we send. I don't know what blogs they read. I don't know if they're planting a garden, taking a class, resenting me...  I know more what strangers think and feel than I do my own kids' first moms. That's messed up. Frozen.