Less Than 48 Hours

Sometimes I feel convinced that I've fallen down the rabbit hole of someone else's life. Things like this just don't happen to me. Please don't wake me if I am dreaming.

It's almost time to go. I could/should be packing tonight. I work tomorrow night and won't have time. I am thinking about what to take, but the bed is warm, Finn is next to me, and I am finding it hard to stir.

Joy and I spoke the other day, and she asked me what I was wearing for the big meeting. "I don't know," I said. I am not fashion forward, and I don't have Joy's panache. Although I like to frequent Anthropologie, and I buy some beautiful clothes sometimes, I have a uniform from which I rarely deviate: t-shirt, cashmere hoodie or sweater, down vest or Barbour polarquilt jacket, jeans, and Danskos, Converse, or Frye boots. That's pretty much it. The tees, hoodies, Converse, and Danskos come in a variety of colors. Joy advised me to stick to black but wear good lipstick. I think I can manage that.

What about the cold? I have a wool pea coat that I bought ages ago for a trip to New York City in February. It's now two sizes too big, since the surgery and complications made me maigre. Even if I layered the heck out of myself, I would drown in it. I will have to swathe in hoodies and scarves and do my best with down, I suppose. I don't think anyone cares but myself. I will be fine.

The other day, C and one of my cousins called to say they were going through piles of photographs to make copies for me. Given that I'd written a fairly morose post about wanting photographs nine months ago, I was almost immediately overwhelmed by joy (and tears, to be honest). I didn't ask for the photographs. They were just did collecting them for me. And when I said how grateful I was, C asked "Why? Why should you be grateful?"

She is helping me see ways in which I make myself vulnerable and insignificant in ways I don't have to. It's okay to want pictures of your family, and you don't have to be grateful. You deserve them; you can accept and be happy about it, without shadows or reservation.

I know that in some ways, Friday is a watershed. There will be my life before Friday, and my life after Friday. And no, Dr. Moreau and the Correcters (to borrow a great term coined by Joy), Friday isn't just like meeting a pen pal for coffee. "Golly gee, just be practical about it all!"  C and I are walking into it with our expectations based in our friendship; that suits us perfectly. And yet you just can't get around the mother/daughter thing, or that I look like her, or that I'll be staring at her and checking out her gestures. I am sure that goes both ways, and that the rest of the family will be checking me out, as well. I can't help but be an oddity, as well as a person.

I am ready to have fun with C, while knowing that it might be emotionally difficult. Joy said that I benefit from being older, having been around the adoptoland block; having the support of adoptee and first mother friends IRL, on the forum, and in other places; and being a self-actualized person. This is true, and I am hoping she's right that it will help smooth things. I truly do feel much more stable than I did a few months ago. The little girl inside me finally feels that she is seen and loved and matters to someone who matters to HER. My aparents couldn't help that little girl, and for various reasons, only a select few people ever have been able to reach her. She is quite particular.

I am fortunate to have so many friends who have been texting and calling and writing to send me love for my journey, but I am also blessed by a wonderful family who are opening their arms to me. It will be a life-changing experience, to be certain.

I promise an update sometime over the weekend, although it will likely be brief.