Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Followed by lots of X's and O's, then... her name. I've been having some difficulty lately in managing the non-existent yet lingering relationship with my birth mother. You see, we don't talk. When we do, it's via text. Usually these texts come in on holidays, are initiated by her and most certainly won't come again until the next major holiday. So, now that all the major holidays have passed I can next expect to hear from her on my birthday in March and then later on Mother's Day. Just a year ago, she visited Ohio to visit her uncle and made available a short time for me during her stay. Prior to that, I hadn't seen her except in passing at a Greyhound Station. All this to say, we don't talk much. Sometimes it hurts me. We've attempted more frequent communication in the past but many of those talks ended with her crying and me feeling angry. So, I continue to live with the texts although sometimes they make me angry. I often ignore them, or respond with an empty repeat of the words. I’ve considered changing my number but the permanence of that is something I don’t think I’m prepared to accept. So I respond, but never add x's or o's. Like a child throwing a tantrum, I deny her any sense of warmth or love much like I feel she denies me. I attempted to analyze my feelings on this over the last 24 hours. I mean, how harmful is "Happy New Year" followed by the symbols for hugs and kisses? On some days, it feels especially harmful and painful. I still yearn for a relationship with her. The yearning is particularly keen during the Christmas season. Perhaps it is because we met for the first time after my birth during this season, or maybe it's because sometimes I just want my mommy. I want the nourishing mother that goes shopping with me, buys me Christmas presents, makes sure and asks if I'm ok, actually listens and instinctively knows when I'm lying. All of this brings me to a bigger truth. As an adoptee, I've often found myself feeling like an outsider within my family dynamics. My adoptive mother and I had a decent relationship until my adulthood. However, searching for my biological family seemed to create a distance I did not anticipate. I prided myself on being open with my family when I made the decision to find and meet them. It was truly about finding my own identity. For them it seemed alien, so my search and finding my birth family (just like my being adopted), became something we just didn’t discuss. It has come to the point where weeks/months can go by without speaking to my mom unless I call her. That too has become a cycle. I look back and wonder if it's always been that way and think perhaps I just missed it. I was really close to my stepdad. He made sure that I was included and lacked nothing. His passing seemed to create a void in our entire family. Holidays just haven't been the same or family-centric since his death. I'm really grateful that I have managed to build my own version of a family over the years. I have a supportive husband and an awesome son who I love to the moon and back and friends who have become like sisters. My son will grow tired of me bugging him long after he moves out and on with his own family. But we are so close, that he will likely always come around for family time. That alone makes everything better. With them I feel loved. But sometimes... Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child who is still searching long after she has found. So, with every New Year’s Eve, I hope that the next year brings about a different mother/daughter relationship- a relationship that does not depend upon my phone dialing out or its ability to receive a text. Happy New Year indeed.