Family

Connections.

When I was young, I couldn’t wait to have babies. But in my daydreams, it was me, but it wasn’t, ya know? Let’s start at the beginning, so that sentence will make more sense.

*Deep Breaths*

Time to dig into the past, and let the world in.

I am adopted, but I wasn’t a squishy baby when I was placed, I was almost 3, a toddler, already deep in my formative years. I don’t remember much of those days before, some hazy memories of family friends who had a pet raccoon or watching Poltergeist and being deathly afraid. Nothing concrete, no faces and no real strong connections. I don’t feel like I’m missing pieces though, without those memories, maybe because I really don’t know the difference.

I was in the foster system, for a short time comparatively, before my foster family officially adopted me. I had my birth certificate redone and was given a new last name.

So, in the span of my first 5 years, I had been born, lost my biological father, was bumped around with several siblings and young, completely unfit mother, landed in the system, and was now a new kid reborn, so to speak. That right there, is A LOT. But onward we move.

After that, I lived, what I can only speculate, is a normal childhood/adolescence. Aside from a very difficult time attaching to, or feeling connected to people, I was a pretty normal kid.

But that difficulty with attachment, well, that will plague me, for YEARS. It will do a lot of damage, to myself and those around me. It’s incredibly hard to form a strong bond with a person like I was. I loved, but I didn’t know how to connect, to feel bonded and to be completely open. Maybe that stems from not having strong parental bonds as a young child, who knows, I didn’t get a psych degree so I’ll leave that to the experts (who would probably have a field day with me!)

Despite being relatively detached from most of my family, they knew I loved them but I always felt off, I couldn’t wait to have kids of my own. I longed for the blood bond I never had. Seems silly when I type it out, but not having that connection, and being old enough to have had a life before adoption made creating that bond for me, paramount. I couldn’t wait, but I never thought I would.

And one day, in my 25th year… I did. And it was the most connected I’ve felt to anyone in my whole life. I had someone who was a literal part of me, and I was part of them. I’ll never be able to explain the extraordinary way the wounds healed when she was born. It’s more than I could describe on here, there are no words to do it justice. So I’ll stop writing them, trusting that you understand my vagueness.

*Another deep breath*

The gifts of single parenthood.

Want to know what I loved most about the 6 years I spent as a single mother? The power I learned I had, the courage I never knew existed, and the faith I gained in myself and my heart.

I walked away from a life of lies and fear, and into a world of laughter and love.

I stepped out of the darkness of abuse, into the light of freedom.

I no longer took shallow breaths, afraid to take up air, I learned to breath deep and take up space.

I didn’t have to navigate stormy seas, I adjusted my sails and sailed for calm waters.

I stopped being meek, and stepped into my power… and my biggest accomplishment was:

I showed two amazing children how to, too.

Love after disaster?

There is something about love after living with abuse, after fighting to survive, after finding courage to stand alone. It’s so much deeper for me now. To love, and allow myself to be loved, carries so much more meaning because I have learned to keep up my guard and be on the defense. The truth is, for a while there, I didn’t believe I’d give my heart away again. I was ok with just me, I didn’t need someone, I was whole, but life had other plans. I was gifted another chance to get it right. My children were gifted a strong man, my little family was gifted a new member and all of this is my reward after fighting through hell.

The language of Love.

His love language is touch and affection. Mine is acts of service. We couldn’t be farther apart on that spectrum. We are learning to be transparent and ask for what we need, working on speaking each other’s language, instead of trying to communicate love to the other thru our own.

I am not an affectionate person, hugs with non immediate family members make me uncomfortable, and cuddles with my family are hugs and short sessions, it’s just who I am. I show my love by making sure you have everything you need, you are fed, laundry cleaned and do not want for anything. He wants physical closeness, but doesn’t see doing things for his family as a way to convey how he feels.

Neither of us are wrong, we both show we love and love deeply.

There is no black and white when it come to loving someone. There isn’t a wrong way, or a right way. How you love, will never be the same as how someone else does. It’s like an emotional finger print, no two are the same.

Marriage, relationships, friendships all need and for both people to work on identifying the other’s love language, and Rosetta Stone-ing the heck out of it until you’re fluent. Learn to see how your loved ones need to be loved, and show them how you need to be loved. You need to be transparent, or else you’ll just be see through.

Puppy Parade

Hi, me again. Don’t faint or anything. I just wanted to share with you more pictures of our weekend adventures. Today we were in a parade for a local festival, walking dogs that are up for adoption through a local rescue. We all got an adorable doggie escort and the kids did great until about 3/4 of the way through when I ended up with 4 dogs to walk. Totally worth it.

I didn’t get pictures of the actual parade, because I was holding one of the fur babies who refused to walk, but needless to say seeing 30+ people all coming out to show off some pretty awesome dogs was inspiring.

Now my dogs are barkin (pun intended) and its time for me to soak them and watch some bad tv. Hope you all had a fun Saturday!

Guess who’s back…

Hi. Several things, first of all if you feel abandoned, you should… I’m awful at commitment. Second you see that the blog as gotten a new look, its a “less is more” approach… or a “I got bored with the old look” approach, ill let you judge. Third, the blog hit its first birthday! I may not post often, but I hit 52 posts in 52 weeks, so that has to count for something!! Fourth and last, its October in Florida, so its just now getting cool enough to do anything outside, so we are doing it up hard this weekend. This is the first in a 3 part series of this weekend of madness. The Things and I took in a high school football game with some friends tonight. It was the bees knees. Thing One didn’t even notice there was a game going on because she was too busy chatting up all the kids and learning the cheers, and Thing Two has found his sport (which scares the you know what out of me) I tried to sway him by talking up the marching band, but he wasn’t buying it. So 3 hours, tons of popcorn and 1 sore ass (mine) later…we are home, they are crashed and we are ready for the next adventure.

Stay Classy Blogosphere…

P.S. aint isn’t recognized by my spell check, so as an alternative its asking me to use “Taint” … and being the sicko I am my mind goes directly to the dirty meaning, and I am both shocked and confused that my computer would suggest such a nasty thing. It gets me, it really does.