Exhaustion and Adoption
In so many ways being adopted is like getting hit by the same mallet day after day and being surprised each time, even after three hundred and sixty-five days times 56 years. Plus the added days of leap years.
Every morning I’m hit by the mallet of this is not like me when I wake up feeling heavy, wrong, dull, sad. Tired, but so deeply tired more sleep won’t begin to address the desire to do nothing. Not catastrophically sad, but sad in the way that I think I need something to help me feel better. Iced coffee and then espresso kept me going for decades. Okay, okay, I’ll get up now. Soon I’ll be high and too speedy to feel bad. Before that it was generally the alarm clock saying GET UP! TIME FOR SCHOOL!
Feeling bad when there is nothing bad about your day is such a drag. It’s like Miss America crying because no one has ever told her she was pretty. Uh, dude-ette, you won the pretty contest. You are so pretty, you have a sash that tells you that you are the Miss of America.
Wake up, Pretty!
I was recently doing an online class with Liz Koch, author of The Psoas Book, and she had us in a resting pose on the floor, and I could feel how strung out my system was from the espresso I’d just had. My body was exhausted from being high. My body wanted to rest. My guts wanted a break from being told to accelerate every morning. My corporeal body was worn out from trying to keep up with my energetic body that was about six feet in front of me after slamming a double.
I started having yerba matte, a much gentler form of caffeine (but still caffeine!), in the morning instead of coffee. I got to see what it felt like to be fairly normal and not strung out. I got to experience a mid-morning where I crashed less hard. I got to sleep through the afternoons. I was so tired! My muscles were so used to being like a bow drawn back to shoot an arrow that as they began to relax and soften, I felt sick and really, really, really wanted to lie down and close my eyes.
And so I did. Day after day. The weird thing was that my world didn’t fall apart. For some incomprehensible reason, I could get away without doing hours of busywork in the afternoons. This was deeply confusing to me. What was all that running around: doing errands, weeding, watering, cutting back plants, writing, etc. etc. getting me? Why did those things feel so important and yet when I didn’t go them with the same manic intensity, I didn’t get fired from being myself? I felt oddly numb—like maybe I was supposed to be in pain from not running around, but I didn’t feel it.
Relaxing is hard when it doesn’t necessarily feel all that great! I thought softening and letting go would feel like a full-body massage, but instead it feels like…it feels like…like I want to go get an espresso and get all wired again so I can feel normal.
Living in the between place of uptight and relaxed feels like walking around with a wedgie. You just want some relief. And yet this is the place I have to stay if I want to get to relaxed!
What a pain in the ass.
I had some espresso today. I got wired. I went to the confused place and stayed there all morning. It was like I was on vacation. I got to go away.
The sadness doesn’t go anywhere. It just gets blurry when I spin.
I’m not spinning anymore right now. I’m eating carbs to keep the ship sailing. However, tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow I’ll do better. Tomorrow I’ll feel stronger and focused on health. Today I needed a boost because I was pushing myself to do things I didn’t have enough gas in the tank to do easily. I needed a helping hand to shove me in the direction of you can do this. You want to do this. You have to do this.
I feel rushed and out of my body. I don’t like it. I’m not scared of being sad any more. I am scared of not being productive. Of disappearing.
What I’m learning is that my life is so much better when I admit to myself and others just how tired I am, and how much time I need to rest. I need to wake up slowly—I need time to meditate and to set my intentions for the day. I grew up thinking a good person was up and at ‘em every morning. Rise and shine, Buttercup.
What if part of being an adopted person is dealing with grief the way a traveler deals with their suitcases as they go from place to place. Luggage is just a weight they have to carry or push or drag because it is part of their journey.
What if the weight of sadness/grief/confusion isn’t something for us to escape or run from? What if it’s not our fault we feel this way? What if we are carrying the weight of society’s agreement that it is okay to separate a mother and her child? What if this is our job?
What then?
