When I was 49 my body couldn’t take it anymore. It broke. I broke. I had been swallowed whole by an abyss of excruciating pain and paralyzing sadness.
Before the break, I had spent my life merely surviving in whatever way showed up. I was a robot, doing what I needed to do to get life done without asking for a lick of help.
I didn’t have time for frivolous things like dreams or goals. I was living in a constant state of fight or flight. I, of course, had no idea that was what I was doing. It occurs to me that when someone is living in this state of being, there is no way to connect to anyone or anything because you are always running, trying to save your life. It’s some crazy shit when you think about it. A person is trying to make sure they are not killed by life while trying to live life. That’s not even possible. You can’t be in a constant state of panic searching for the looming threat that’s sure to tear you into tiny pieces at any moment and be present in the life you’re trying to save. What’s even more interesting to me is that life has already obliterated me — so why am I so fucking afraid?
I suspect I started my life in a complete panic. I was pushed out of the warm womb of my birth mother and ripped away from her by some crazy ass nurse. My birth mom wasn’t even allowed to look at me, let alone touch me or hold me.
Some thirty years later, when I was reunited with my birth mother, she told me that after she delivered me, she was suffering from shock but managed to crawl out of her hospital bed and stumble to the nursery. She peered through the window, looked at me and then collapsed. The next thing she can remember is waking up back in her hospital bed. All she had to hang onto was a fleeting glimpse of me through a window. I’m sure, after that, the nurses kept a closer eye on her so she didn’t try those shenanigans again.
When I was eight days old, I was placed in the arms of my new mom, a woman who had just given birth to a stillborn baby on November 8th. I was born on November 28th. My adoptive parents had just lost their baby girl. My new mom had to endure two days of labor and finally, after all that pain, her daughter was born lifeless. It is breaking my heart just to write these words.
I can feel that I am, just now, as I write this, facing unprocessed grief for my birth mother, my mom and dad and for me. This feels like one of those gut punches I was referring to earlier. My breath is rapid and shallow. My body is beginning to shake and I’ve started rocking while the tears stream down my face. I need to blow my nose but I am compulsively writing. I just feel so bad that we all had to go through such tragedy. I can’t help but wonder who contacted the adoption agency after they lost their baby. I’m wondering about this because it was so soon. It couldn’t have been my mom. Was it my dad? Did he do it because he couldn’t stand seeing my mom in such anguish, catatonic with grief? I’ve never asked about it because I know how painful the topic is for my mom.
Imagine her having to come home from the hospital with an empty cradle. Pulling into the garage, my dad having to take it out of the car and carry it in the house. Did he then have to place it on the floor of the beautiful nursery they had excitedly decorated together? I’m sure there was a brand new crib, a changing table and dresser drawers full of the adorable newborn clothes they received as baby shower gifts. It’s incredibly sad. I’ve been living with these thoughts my entire existence.
When the adoption agency gave me to my parents, there is no way they weren’t still in shock. They were not given any time to process their grief over the loss of their baby. What was that like for them? For me? How could I possibly save them from their pain? I was a newborn baby with a freshly snipped umbilical cord that was just attached to my birth mother. I mean, seriously, what the fuck?
The way I am hysterically sobbing and shaking at this moment is telling me I have never faced the grief I have surrounding my adoption. My eyes are so blurred with tears, I can barely see the screen and, ridiculously, I’m still typing and placing commas where I think they should be. Now I’m simultaneously laughing and crying at the absurdity of it all. I mean, who is worried about comma placement in the midst of their body releasing a 56 year old wound that has been silently festering?
I’m still not able to take a deep breath. I’m trying to picture what a wound left open and oozing for 56 years would look like. I’m envisioning the zombies from the tv show The Walking Dead. I’m starting to calm down a little bit. Was it the image of a flesh eating zombie that’s causing my nervous system to relax? Apparently. Go figure.
I’m still rocking but I am able to take deeper breaths now. I can’t believe I’m documenting this. How weird.
Also, why do I have my Pearl Jam playlist blaring over the speakers? Their grunge rock is the complete opposite of the the soft, relaxing piano music I always listen to when I sit down to write. But this time I can hear my body telling me, “Not today, Sunshine. You’re going to need Pearl Jam to get through this.”
My limbs are now feeling ice cold and I’m starting to shiver. Why am I still typing? Why am I documenting this? Is it because I’m used to processing this level of grief with my therapist, but documenting what I’m experiencing while the shit is hitting the fan is somehow helping me?
I’m feeling better now. I’m just repeating out loud over and over, “You’re okay”. I just asked myself, “What do you need?” The answer was, “A hot cup of your favorite tea.”(It’s Yogi Egyptian Licorice in case you were wondering. I doubt you were, but just in case.) My body is slowly but surely steadying itself.
I know where my poem came from now. My poor body couldn’t hold onto all of this pain and grief anymore. Now that I have finally started writing about my beginning on this planet, maybe I can stop seeing myself as still beginning at the age of 56. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to change the thought “I’m still beginning” to “I have begun”.