#MicroblogMondays: Garden Therapy

When summer hits, I spend a lot of time in the garden. And a lot of time taking pictures of my plants. I ordered a lot of plants online, because I'm not comfortable going to garden centers even though they're open. Maybe if I go right when they open for the day... They were doing curbside but then it got busy and they stopped (ugh), so I haven't been even though I desperately need mulch and I really want a few more plants. 

I get such happiness from gardening -- from weeding and seeing tangible progress from my sweat equity, from amending soil and clearing new spaces, from carefully planting new flowerbabies and watering them and topdressing them with compost... And then seeing them grow and bloom and return.

 

Yellow columbine with blue brunnera

Pretty pink columbine, like a rocket (covered in cottonwood fluff)

The moon garden, the night blooming phlox is out and the moonflower is covering the trellis, can't wait for that to bloom with its big white fragrant flowers... night blooming phlox smell like cookies. 

Brand new butterfly bush just starting to bloom

Freya bellflower starting to bloom, and plum smokey verbascum in the back (this is a new garden space that was covered in daffodils earlier)

Ooooh, first try with helenium... so pretty and sunny!

The corner garden, the lavender is REALLY happy there

Sea holly "blue glitter" with the purple salvia, so spiky and purple and interesting

"African Sunset" black eyed Susan vine getting started up the tuteur trellis, and you can see the yuccafolium globe thistle behind it like a piece of desert hanging out in NY

The corner garden, just taking off -- still to come are orange and yellow hummingbird mints, purple veronicastrum,  giant blue globe thistles, and echinacea -- most of the coreopsis is blooming but soon there will be magenta ones too. No foxgloves this year, hoping they come back next year.

It's a good reminder that some things will thrive no matter what, but they things you tend to will thrive better. That patience is important because my old gardens took over a decade to get where they were when I left them (sniff sniff) and these are only in Year Two, so any progress and filling is awesome. It takes time and care to rebuild life from scratch. And you have to keep checking back, because it changes and grows every single day. 

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy! 

Adoption, Discomfort, and Ethics

I've been thinking a lot this week about our experience in the adoption process and about ethics in adoption in general. Some of this mulling is because of Lori Lavender Luz's excellent post about the Paul Peterson case and an instagram video response from Ashley Mitchell, a birth mother and advocate. Watch the whole video, it is well worth the time. 

It is also uncomfortable. And uncomfortable is important, because it means that you are taking a hard look at things that exist in society that benefit you but that oppress others. It's a common theme in the antiracist books that I am reading and the work I'm doing with my district's Diversity & Equity Council and SEED project (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) -- that if something makes you uncomfortable, if it makes you feel "icky," then that's a sign that it's a practice you need to dive deeper into. The spidey sense is real. We know deep down when things strike an unethical chord, and to examine that can be painful, and uncomfortable, and bring up a lot of "but I don't/wouldn't..." moments, but I am sitting in this discomfort big time, for race and also for adoption. 

You see, this is a conversation Bryce and I have had more than once, and I don't always have it outwardly because I fear that it will sound like sour grapes. That adoption didn't work out for us, so I'm saying the system is flawed. I'm jealous of those who got to parent. I'm bitter because I didn't. 

But the truth is, we started feeling uncomfortable with adoption within a year of the process. And I think one reason it took a long time for us was because we had certain things that we were very uncomfortable with, highest on the list was placements due solely to financial hardship. It didn't seem right. It felt icky, that we could parent a baby because the biological parents couldn't afford it but we could. Seemed a little like there should be other supports in place if financial was the barrier to parenting. The ethics definitely seemed...off. 

Then, we were profiled in a situation where an expectant mom was due in March 2016, and she was in her late 30s and had no other children, and it was a situation (sorry, "opportunity" is how it is presented to hopeful adoptive parents) where the father wanted nothing to do with the baby. There was no financial aspect to the situation, that we were aware of, but it did ring some warning bells -- she was late 30s, no kids, a recent breakup, maybe a sense of panic...it seemed like this could get sticky. We "came in second" and weren't chosen to be matched prospective adoptive parents, which was sad because we knew it was a boy, and I could stand in my nursery and touch the blue and grey onesies I'd bought and dream a little more specifically. Later, in July, our homestudy social worker came to do the renewal, and asked how things were going and if we'd been profiled at all. When we mentioned the March baby (because we always thought about it in terms of the baby more than the expectant mother), she visibly blanched. 

"Oh, you dodged a bullet on that one, that's a very sad situation." And then she told us that the birthmom had changed her mind and decided to parent a few days after the birth, that the baby was already with the adoptive parents and the parental rights surrender had been signed, and it went to court and was acrimonious and, DON'T WORRY, it's really hard for a birth mom to prove to a court that something substantial in her situation has changed once she's signed surrenders, so it's a really small chance that the baby could be returned, but in NY it's 30 days you get to contest, and it was well within that time. In the end though, the court found in favor of the adoptive parents. But now they have to have this open adoption relationship with this woman and it's going to be so difficult. 

You know what was interesting in that moment? In that moment, we immediately felt for the birthmother, and for the baby. That this woman realized too late that she DID want to parent this baby, and that she fought to reinstate her rights, and was denied. And that the adoptive parents were going to, at some point, when their son asked, "Why didn't my mom want me," have to say that his mom DID want to parent him but that they fought it. Of course I feel for the adoptive parents, that they had this baby in their home and were parents and I didn't know their story, but it all sounded so awful on so many levels. 

I would like to think that if that happened to us that we would not have fought it, as hard as that would be, because she wanted to parent her baby and I don't think I would want to parent a baby whose mom fought to keep him, because what would that say about me? What would be best? There were no drugs involved, no financial pieces that we were aware of. It seemed to be one of those "wrong time" situations where it would be hard to say someone wasn't "fit to parent." But I don't know what I would truly do in that situation, because it did not happen to me. But it definitely made an impact in our perspective. 

It made us think, hmmmmm, that's a really ugly situation and does it make us feel ethically awesome? NOPE. We felt like we dodged a bullet but we also felt like if we had reservations for any reason, we should probably honor that because there was likely some spidey sense thing going on. 

The second thing that chipped away at our sense that adoption was an amazing option for everyone was when we did our private path exploration training with the agency. And it was literally said, "put your advertisements in laundromats, check-cashing places, where they're likely to be seen by women in crisis." 

SAY WHAT? 

We left that training not feeling jazzed about new opportunities to find prospective birthparents but horrified that we were basically being trained in how to prey on and exploit someone's financial crisis. Nothankyou. Also, they said that doing the private path meant more opportunities, but not necessarily a higher success rate, and you'd be doing all the fielding of calls and speaking with someone in crisis and deciding what was ethical or not, and that just did not seem a viable option for us. Because, ethics. And needing to dedicate time to my career of helping kids in crisis and who need academic support, not doing the job of a social worker that I was wholly untrained for and also too vested in the outcome to do ethically. 

So it really irked me when people said "it's so worth the wait" and "you will make this happen if you want it enough." Because we were starting to feel like, DID we want it enough to prey on women in crisis? Did I want a baby enough to feel okay with practices that DEFINITELY felt exploitative? 

And that's where Ashley Mitchell's video hit home, because talks about the fine line between adoption and trafficking, and puts out five aspects of trafficking that can apply to unethical adoption: 

• Propaganda
• Grooming
• Trust-Building
• Disempowerment
• Exploitation of economic and social class

She says repeatedly that what is shown to hopeful adoptive parents is often very, very different than what is shown to birthparents. And I believe it. I felt like we were frequently being pushed to go outside our comfort zone for the sake of shortening our wait. That we were asked to consider exposures and family histories and situations that we knew from training (and my experience teaching special education) that we weren't comfortable with, because it would "open more opportunities" -- which to me felt like two things -- it would give me more opportunities to weigh ethical choices against my desire for a baby and more heartbreak in saying NO, and it would make it so we had more opportunities and so felt more "cared for" by the agency and more likely to say yes to an opportunity which would result in money. The money definitely felt like more of a central feature than we were hoping it would be. 

Especially when I had my autoimmune flare with my eye and the Prednisone doses made me mentally fragile in addition to the cumulative stress and grief of all our family building processes and losses, and I could not handle my own life let alone the prospect of weighing another life against our options, and Bryce called to say "put us on hold" and our caseworker basically said if we went on hold we'd miss out on valuable opportunities. It incensed Bryce, because WHAT COULD BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN MY MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH and did they not listen when he said I WAS IN CRISIS? Wouldn't it be unethical to try to place a baby with me in that state? WHAT THE HELL? It definitely felt like money and success rate statistics were taking a front seat in that conversation. 

To be fair, there was a lot of talk about "Adoption is about finding a family for a baby, not finding a baby for a family." But it did feel like the talk and the actions didn't always match up. And it felt more business-transactiony than we really felt comfortable with. 

Deciding to end our adoption journey was incredibly painful. It felt like a failure. It felt like a horrible end. It felt like we were saying no to a possibility that COULD happen at any moment. It felt like no one would understand it (and many people didn't). 

But at the same time, it was a relief. It was a relief to resolve, for sure, but it also was a relief because we'd realized that maybe adoption wasn't our cup of tea. It was great that many of our friends were successful in building their families through adoption, and I don't know the intricate details of everyone's situation, but I do know an awful lot of stories that did not sound real ethical. Stories of "winning" against birth parents, stories of birth parents stating that they did not feel remotely supported by the agency, people who had finalizations complicated by fuzzy issues...Issues with dishonesty about birthparent exposures or health history... So many things that were ethically fuzzy. Including stuff outside of the agency, where well-meaning people suggested that we "pretend to go to a church" for the sake of our profile book if our non-religious status may have been a barrier. Because lying about who you are makes a GREAT foundation for a trusting relationship. 

It's easy for me now to say "I would never have," and I don't think I can say that. The desire to be a parent is incredibly strong. But the ethics can be so sticky when it comes to adoption and I can say that there were many, many things that made us very, very uncomfortable. And we were not willing to enter into situations where it felt ethically icky, which probably made our wait longer and then made it so that we no longer had the stamina to continue. We don't really look fondly back at our adoption experience. I don't think it was right for us, as much as I wanted it to be and wanted it to be like it is in movies and TV shows. That is not reality. 

I don't want the takeaway from these thoughts to be "Jess is anti-adoption and looks down on those who adopted." I'm not, and I don't. But I think it's okay to take, "Jess thinks adoption CAN be unethical but it can be done better, for kids, for birth parents, for adoptive parents." That's what Ashley Mitchell and Lori Lavender Luz think, too. Here are some resources from both of them: 

Ashley Mitchell: Big Tough Girl (including adoption education and profile book reviews):
 http://www.bigtoughgirl.com/

Lifetime Healing Foundation: https://lifetimehealingadoption.com/

Under construction, so here is Sit Knee to Knee: https://www.sitkneetoknee.com/

Family to Family Support Network: https://www.familytofamilysupport.org/

These are organizations and individuals who are working to make adoption better, more ethical, and to help unique families navigate delivery. These are organizations that work with hospitals, adoption agencies, birth/expectant mothers, prospective/adoptive parents, and adoptees. I'm sure there are more, please feel free to share in the comments. Thanks for sitting with me in the discomfort. 

What Are You Doing This Summer?

This is my first Monday of summer -- glorious, glorious summer. The end of the school year is always hard, there's a sort of cathartic body release where all the stress (well, most of it?) of the year is suddenly let go and I find myself utterly exhausted and needing naps, and also with migraines. The heat could have something to do with the migraines, too, but I've pretty much been battling them since Friday. 

Of course, last week also had two huge emotional punches to the gut -- I did my car driving parade for my class and we went up to my student in foster care's home that's 30 minutes away now, only to find that she wasn't there, and the other girls who were hanging out the window said "her CPS worker picked her up" which didn't fully compute for me until the next day when her guardian called me and let me know that she no longer lived there and was in a new placement. Again. So I drove up there to pick up the end-of-year swag we'd dropped off and today I got the info for her new foster parent so hopefully I can see her to wish her good luck and see you later (I am trying to set up a mentorship type relationship there). 

Second punch -- I'd been trying to get in touch with another student to give him his end-of-year swag, as well as his locker materials, gym locker materials, pick up the district laptop, and give him his book that I inscribed for him... and it just kept getting pushed back via text until finally, on Friday he said "you can come by around 6." Well, that was an education on the completely demoralizing low-income-housing complex he lives in -- I'd been there before (it's literally set up like pods, it's DOWN IN A VALLEY so you literally "look down" at it, and all my students who've lived there absolutely hate it) but I did not realize they had living spaces that were so devoid of light and humanity. I ended up leaving the stuff outside the door as no one answered but I could hear someone through the peephole, and I did text if he wanted to come down so I could see him, but he asked for me to drop the stuff at the door and to have a great summer and I cried the entire way home at the injustice of it all. 

But, new week, first week of summer, and everyone I talk to says, "So what are you doing this summer?" 

And I really want to say, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Can I just do absolutely nothing? Can I lie in a puddle with a book and my cat and reconstitute myself from this year? Do I have to be ambitious right out the gate? 

But then, to be fair, I do have a lot of stuff that has piled onto my plate in just the last few days: 

- two tutoring clients, to do online

- facilitating at the Leadership Retreat for administrators on topics of race, equity, and privilege

- possible curriculum writing

- A reading list to help me better understand how to be antiracist and understand the state of systemic racism in the United States

     - White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Race by Robin Diangelo

     - Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad

     - Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD

     - Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi

     - How to Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

     - So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo 

     - The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

Plus other reading, gardening, GETTING BACK TO REGULAR BLOGGING, and writing. And planning for next year, whatever that looks like. 

    

So, uh, right now my answer to "What are you doing this summer?" is nothing, but I guess that's not strictly true. Seeing it all out in a list like that makes me feel a little overwhelmed, but the important thing is that most of the things on this list are a) on my own time, b) of my own choosing, c) things that I will enjoy, even the work related stuff. 

What are you doing this summer? 

Want to read some #Microblog Mondays that are actually micro? Go here and enjoy! 

Microblog Mondays: The End Is Near

Although I could mean that figuratively, that we are in end times, because it sure feels like that most days, I mean it literally. This is the last full week of school, HALLELUJAH.

I am days away from being able to collapse into a pile of goo. 

I remember back in March when all this started and thinking, "well, I'll have extra time to blog and do stuff!" Umm, no. 

I feel like I'm the final stretch of a marathon I didn't train for (also I don't know what thinking a marathon feels like but I would imagine it's unpleasant by those final miles). 

There are positives, for sure -- I've been able to reach students far more personally and it's created an amazing bond. I have learned new ways of interacting with and instructing and engaging my students in online platforms. Family communication has been frequent, supportive, and better than it's ever been. 

But I. Am. EXHAUSTED. 

Emotionally, physically, intellectually. It's worth it, but I am going to need a good 3 weeks of jack nothing to recover. 

And then plan for another year, that could totally look not so different from this one. 

Except for the luxury of time to plan and reflect. 

Want to read more #Microbiology Mondays? Go here and enjoy! 

My Heart, It Hurts

In all this fervor of distance learning and 1:1 Google Meets with students, sometimes all a student wants to do is talk. Which is arguably an incredibly good use of our time.

I have students who will spend half their time talking about a new LEGO project, or the Nintendo Switch they're hoping to get so they can play Animal Crossing outside. I have students who will tell me about a feral cat they're feeding, or frustration that they have become a primary caregiver for a younger sibling and aren't really allowed to be 13-14 right now. One student said that she keeps seeing other students on their SnapChat stories, having sleepovers and getting together and taking selfies and THEY'RE NOT WEARING MASKS. She said, "These are the people who are going to make the second wave come and keep us from going back to school." There was loneliness under her justified self-righteousness.

But yesterday, yesterday was something else entirely. I am still recovering, as it has thrown me back into a very, very sad place. 

My student in foster care is in a new placement (fun fact: the week we had our last day of in-school, she had her permanency hearing court date, and the SAME DAY her previous foster guardian put in for her to be removed and placed in a new home, so the day after that she had to pack up all her stuff and go from visitation to her new home, and adjust for two days before our worlds changed. Ugh.), and that new placement is still in the county but not remotely close. With distance learning, she can still attend our classes and meets and be a part of the school community she'd adapted to. 

But yesterday, she did not want to do any work. She was in a funk, and she said, "you can try all you want, but we're not doing any work today," and then she was silent. Which is unusual. 

I asked her if she wanted a break, if she wanted to have this time free and come back to work later, if it was all getting to be too much. That we all can need a break sometimes. And she said yes, but then stayed on. So then I said, "Do you just want to talk? We can stay on and just talk, too." 

And this is what happened: 

Student, after a silence: "You know how you said you and Mr. T couldn't have kids? Why didn't you do foster? Why couldn't you take in foster kids?" 

Me, after a deep breath: "Oh, oh boy. (Tearing up) So, normally at this point in the year you guys have more chances to ask me questions, and I'm happy to answer you but it's hard, it's so hard. We did five and half years of medical trying to have a baby -- I had to take so many injections, and have surgeries, and so much went wrong. Like, seriously wrong. I had a couple things that could have killed me, and I lost two babies. It was so hard. And then we tried to adopt, and we didn't know, we didn't know how hard it was going to be. Medical stuff was hard physically and hard emotionally, but adoption was really, REALLY hard emotionally. We kept not getting chosen. We had a long time where we didn't even have the opportunity to be up for choosing. It felt horrible. One time, we got a call and I was at school and had to keep the kids out of my room and there was a baby born in Buffalo that if we wanted to be considered we'd be reviewed that evening and then if we were chosen we'd have to go the next morning... It was so exciting to think we might be parents overnight, and then we weren't picked and I got that call at school and I had to go talk to the school psychologist because I was too sad to teach and she sent me home. It was awful, and then I got sick and I had to decide to stop. And I had to make a new life where we didn't have children, and have that be okay. 

Because foster, you know, you don't always get to raise that child for keeps -- and the thought of that temporary-ness, of all that possibility of loss after so much loss, I can't handle it. So we moved forward." 

It was a little unfair, because she had her icon up, and I was on the video, and I had zero visual cues for how she was taking this information. but then...

Student: "Well, what about me? If I go to foster adopt, you could adopt me, and my mom would be okay with it and she'd love you and I could be your kid."

THIS IS WHERE MY HEART BREAKS IN A MILLION PIECES BECAUSE WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT? Well, first I welled up with tears that just wouldn't stay in my eyeballs and leaked down my face. 

Me: Oh, honey. Oh, wow. I would be SO PROUD to have you as a daughter, that would be so amazing, but I can't be anyone's mom right now. I am not even qualified anymore. --" 

Student: "--You just have to take some parenting classes, and then you can be a foster parent and adopt me."

Me (pretty much failing at hiding any tears or sadness at this point): "Oh, yes, I know -- we had to take parenting classes before, and a social worker came and made sure our house was okay and we were okay, but for foster it's a totally different process and I am just not in a place to do that. I needed to leave that behind to be healthy. All those things that happened, they took something from me. But I would have loved to have you for a daughter, and I can be your friend -- I can be like a crazy aunt when you're not my student anymore and stay in contact and have another _____ Day like we did over Christmas Break, when it's safe. I would love that, I just can't be your mom." 

Student: "Another ____ Day would be amazing, and if you're my aunt I could come sleep over your house..." 

Me: "Um, probably not, but we can do a lot of fun things and I would love to stay in touch way past this year." 

Student: "okay, that sounds good." 

And then the conversation went to other topics and I got off the call and went to my next one, and my next one, and then I had a lunch break and fell spectacularly apart over my avocado toast. 

Raw, heaving sobs that came from a place deep inside that was newly exposed in a way it hasn't been in years. This wasn't a small tear, this was a motherfucking rupture, a hemorrhage. 

First of all, it was immensely difficult to recount my struggles, to summarize over 8 years of hideous pain that has changed me, that left me feeling cored. 

But then, to spend SO LONG not getting chosen, to be passed over time and time and time again, and then to have this beautiful child choose me, oh god that hurts so much. 

Emotionally I want to scoop her up and bring her home, for a hot minute, but then the logical and sane part takes over and I know that this is a beautiful child who is an incredibly hurting child, who has a trauma history that is sooo significant, who has needs I'm not prepared for, and our life is just not set up to upend it and go down that road again. 

I also had the chance to say that our house would be lonely, that she always said she wanted a family with lots of kids because she has so many siblings and she misses them, and my neighborhood doesn't even have a lot of kids, so she'd be so, so bored. That the idea of living with me is very different than the reality of living with me. We love our life but it's not very exciting. And I also said that all that mothering energy I have, all that love I have to give, it all goes to my students, and into school, and so she gets that...just differently than she asked. 

This was so, so, so hard. I still feel hollowed out by it. I feel so lucky to have the trust of this young lady that she felt she could ask. I feel lucky that she would want that. But I feel such a sense of stars misaligned, and guilt, and that push-pull of what's logically possible and what's driven by emotions. 

I called the school psychologist to tell her what happened, so if it comes up in a session it's not a surprise, and also because I wanted to make sure I handled it okay and nothing was inappropriate. 

She was so sad for me, but also said that I did it absolutely the best I could have (and Bryce said the same -- he said "you made it all about how great she is and what she would want, and how you can still have a relationship with her"), and then she said, "You know, no one has a relationship with her the way you do. No one. You can be really, really proud of the relationship and trust you've built with a student who needs that so very badly. And absolutely, you can have that relationship moving forward." 

Well, that's a relief. I'm still crying though. And feeling so sad about a world where kids like her get stuck with shitty family situations, and people like us don't get to be parents. 

Those stars just never quite aligned. 

If We Couldn't Adopt

I have a love/hate relationship with People Magazine. I love it for the fluff and the recommendations for what to read and watch, for the red carpet specials and the famous people's homes stuff, but I also hate anything having to do with the Bachelor (and will not even read those articles), with the Kardashians, and the obsession with celebrity babies and miracle pregnancies.

Seriously, there is never a story about infertility that does not end with a miracle child somehow, either a surprise pregnancy, an improbable pregnancy at 50, or a magic adoption that happened quickly or because the husband was an EMT or the wife was a labor/delivery nurse.

But the last issue I read featured an article about the couple from HGTV's Home Town, and that one took a different turn:

"We knew that if children weren't in the plan biologically, we would adopt. If we couldn't adopt for some reason, having each other would be enough." 

Whoa. It made me go find Bryce and read it out loud to him. Because it is ALMOST NEVER that anyone shares the actual reality that you can enter into the adoption process, you can spend years trying to adopt, and you can leave without those stars aligning. That it's possible to WANT to adopt, but to have it not work out.

Of course, they had a miracle pregnancy that she discovered on MOTHER'S DAY, so a little barf in my mouth there (but good for them), but still -- just that little nugget to place in people's brains that it is actually possible to go into adoption and leave without a baby, and that you can have a relationship that is absolutely enough if the quest for a baby doesn't work out.

This is the piece of our story that is most frequently misunderstood and even bewildering to people -- how can you GO INTO adoption and not COME OUT a parent? There's a thought that it's a heck of a lot easier than it is in reality. There's a thought that you must be somehow deficient or not patient enough. There's this very strange adoption folklore that people who have never known anyone to go through it have that imagines you going to a hospital and picking out your baby like so many perfect almost-ripe avocados at the store.

The concept of running out of the emotional capacity to withstand the process is incredibly foreign. The idea that if one kind of adoption didn't work for you, that you could just jump into another kind (domestic infant didn't work? Get your dossier set up for international! Not that most people who think you can sub methods easily know what an adoption dossier is). The complete obliviousness to the fact that waiting in the adoption process is a full time job, and your stores run out a lot faster if you are also trying to be a fully functioning human in all spheres at the same time. (Of course you can't admit that you are not quite a functioning human, because then it could jeopardize your home study.)

Long story short, THANK YOU to the Home Town couple for sharing that it's possible to not succeed at adoption and it's okay to evaluate your life and know that you have the kind of relationship that could withstand that loss and building a new life, and then take that exit off the family building heartbreak highway towards that new existence.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!

Soothing the Mother's Day Ache

Early May used to be a one-two punch -- first, my birthday, then Mother's Day.

This year I realized that a gift of resolution is reclaiming my birthday as a celebration of the life I have, and not what is lacking. My age is now separated completely from what I want in life. From 33 to 41 my age was a constant reminder that the clock was ticking, that the deadline was looming, that my eggs weren't getting any younger, that my tired and scarred uterus wasn't getting any younger, that my ability to bounce back was waning, that my attractiveness to prospective expectant/birth parents was slipping each time I blew out candles.

This year, I was like, "Huh, 44. Well, that's a pretty cool number, and while I can't wrap my head around the fact that now I'm as old as my parents were when I got married the first time, I'm okay with it. I'm grateful for 44 years. I hope I get at least 44 more. I'm pretty happy with where I've landed at 44. Yay life!"

It's a pretty amazing thing, to have the sting removed from a day that felt so foreboding for so long.

Which brings me to Mother's Day. That day has NOT lost its sting. Or maybe it's more of an ache, not quite as acute as it once was.

But still, Mother's Day weekend is hard, hard, hard. For a brief moment I slip into a melancholy state of feeling sorry for myself. Of feeling left out of a holiday that will never, never be about celebrating me.

Some of the things that trigger the Mother's Day blues aren't there -- I don't have cable and so I don't see a whole lot of Mother's Day ads, I can't go out shopping in public and see sales and heartstrings-pulling ads in person. I did have a few meetings this week where people said HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL YOU MOMS OUT THERE! and various comments about how special moms are and how much they deserve the celebration. Which I agree, I'm all for celebrating your mom, but it's always a tiny bit stabby to hear that and then be like, "oh yeah, not for me, never for me."

I can avoid social media (sort of), but now that's one way to connect with people (or at least feel somewhat connected) now that we are all isolated and hunkered down. I will NOT be going up there tomorrow though, I can tell you that. Nope nopitty nope. Already it's full of people putting up memes and posts about the beauty of motherhood, and people who are receiving drive-by Mother's Day gifts from their "mom friends." Which is cool, but then brings me to that womp-womp moment of "no one's ever going to do that for me."

Then again, I did have a few people drive by to drop off birthday prizes and say hello, so that was something, to be celebrated in that way during this weird pandemic.

And today, I had a moment that took this Woe-Is-Me funk I'd been feeling and turned it into absolute gratitude and amazement.

One of my students, a girl who had been pretty challenging during the school year and who struggled mightily with social distraction and being the center of drama while also struggling academically, had her mom drive her to my house to drop off a bag of goodies. Normally this might be a touch creepy since it would mean googling me or something, but I had sent cards of encouragement to all my students and personalized them, and she was always a "save the turtles" VSCO girl earlier in the year so I made hers a pretty sea turtle card. So, my return address was on the envelope. And she loved it -- I got a text from her (yup, weird again that everyone has my number but such is COVID Life) that said it really meant a lot and she loved it. This is a girl that I've connected with 1:1 through the Google Meets, but still have to track her down and call her mom when she blows me off, and then she shows up regularly. I wanted her to know that her attendance mattered to me, that I wanted to help her be successful in this weird new educational world, and I was going to hold her accountable. And her mom totally backed me up. This is a girl who can be very difficult, but who also can be downright generous and caring and seemed to start turning a corner right before the buildings closed down. I was so upset, because we were on a really great trajectory and then BAM, closed. But I kept trying.

I guess all that made an impression, because a car came down the driveway this afternoon and I was like, "who is that?" and then I saw it was my student, with a gift bag. I grabbed my mask and went downstairs and did the 10 foot thing (6 feet is too close!), and waved at her mom and chatted for a moment. I went inside in a bit of a daze and opened up the bag.

A few things I can't eat/drink in here, but it's the thought that overwhelmingly counts
(and Bryce will pick up the slack, ha ha)

As I pulled each item from the bag, starting with the wine and the orange Bud Light, I laughed. And then I started sobbing. Deep, heaving sobs.

I cried because there was so much love and appreciation in each of those items. I cried because it was the most amazing moment, to have a student and a parent show up and bring a gift like that for me. Because I would NEVER EVER have guessed in October that this would be a young lady who'd do this kind of thing for me.

They were happy tears, and bittersweet tears. I may not have a Mother's Day that's meant for me, but how can I not see this for the beautiful thing that it is? I do not have children, despite desperately wanting them. But I absolutely get to love children and have an impact on their lives, and it's a gift. They have an impact on me, too. They are not my children, but they do take up a space in my heart that used to be a gaping baby-shaped hole.

As much as Mother's Day is still hard, it's moments like these that make it sting a lot less. And, for those of you still in the throes of the horrible Mother's Day blues, know that it gets better -- whether you end up a mom or not. The pain is still there, but the ability to see around it just grows and grows and grows.