Hello Blogworld!

I'm a bio-mom who gave up my son 31 years ago for adoption. For a long time I put all the emotions related to that event on a neat little shelf that allowed me to go on with my life and function like a "normal" person.  I never hid that I had a son.  Anyone close to me knew about him. On the outside I appeared to be dealing with it all quite well. I became an expert at hiding the pain, remorse and shame.  I hid it from everyone, even myself.

Sure there were clues that all was not well.  Every year on his birthday I was an emotional, blubbering mess.  Once or twice a year I'd drink a little too much and become openly despondent over the loss.  Somehow I always seemed to rally and put it all back on that safe little shelf that allowed me to march on with my life.

That is, until the day I found out who my son was and saw a picture of him for the first time.  I wasn't as surprised by the all the emotion, I expected that finding concrete information on my son would be emotional.  It was the depth of the emotion that shocked me.  The layers of crap that I thought I had dealt with came flowing back and has spun me topsy turvy.  I guess on some level I had dealt with these issues.  I dealt with the superficial parts and buried the deep parts.  I never really analyzed all the "why's."  I'm hoping that writing this blog will help me find some answers. 

I think I'm also hoping that writing this blog will help me forgive, myself first, and others who were players in this tragedy experience.  I cross out the word tragedy because even though it has been tragic for me to not be able to love my son in person everyday for the last 31 years, and even though it is tragic that we were not allowed to be with each other, I hope that his life has been anything but tragic.  I hope that he has experienced love and joy.  I hope that he has learned how much inner strength is his by nature, to deal with life when things are not so good.  I hope he feels that his life has been blessed.  Of course, I also hope (maybe selfishly) that he will see me coming into his life at this time as a blessing.  I hope that he wants to take the time to get to know me and let me have the gift of getting to know him, let me say how sorry I am that I couldn't do what so many other young women do and keep their children.  I hope that he shares my view that having a lot of people love you is a gift, not a burden.  I hope that he will treat his younger half sister (I just hate that phrase!, she's his sister, dammit) with care and take the time to get to know her and find joy in sharing his life experiences with her.  Most of all, I hope I have the strength to deal with all that comes to me on this journey.  There will be positive and negative.  I 've got my fingers crossed that positive wins.