Decisions

March 30
Decisions
Let's face it, decisions are a gamble. No matter how much data or facts you agonize over before you make a decision, the fact is you never can really know how a decision you've made is going to end up.
Acting on a decision sets off life's domino set. One move you make causes another domino to fall which falls onto another domino which falls...
Depending on how well those domino's are set up, you can either end up with a jumbled mess at the end or a beautifully sculpted design.
A little more then ten years ago I began dating a man who was busy raising his little sister through the terrible teens. *click* first domino is set into play.
We moved in together and worked hard at creating a family atmosphere for her so she could have some sort of idea what a "normal" family setting was like. *click of another domino piece*
A few years later she got pregnant. Still a young teen, she wasn't ready to raise a baby. We made the decision to adopt the baby.*click*
I remember wandering the baby aisles of Fred Meyers alone. Staring at all the newborn stuff and being confused as to what I needed to buy. Feeling terribly alone thinking...this is it. I should be excited right now. Tomorrow I am going to be a Mommy. I was excited, but I don't think I've ever felt more alone. I knew I would never get to experience the laughter and joy of my friends and family members that follows your words of, " hey guess what? I'm pregnant." I would never carry a baby, feel it grow inside me, watch it grow up and see my features on his or her face. *click*
My sons birth mom was living in Oklahoma at the time she gave birth. I was on the phone with her while she was in labor and then when she was holding the baby boy. Many phone calls later and frantic scraping of money to fly her and the baby to us the next day...she stepped off the plane and layed the baby boy in my arms. God, I've never witnessed such an act of bravery as that. And I'll never forget the feeling of humbleness of being given someones child to raise as my own. *click*
We scraped together all our financial resources to cover the adoption. Our lawyer said it would be beneficial to us if we were married to help us be accepted by the adoption judge as future parents to the baby boy. We paid 50 dollars and stood before a Judge and said our wedding vows. I don't remember what he said, I was distracted by his mad scientist eyebrows. Jesus...they were the biggest, wildest eyebrows I have ever seen! We went home and ate a piece of cake I had baked. Then my new husband packed his work bag and headed to work to cover the graveyard shift at his job. I spent my wedding night laying on a mattress on the floor of my new baby's room and listened to him breath chanting over and over in my head...omg I'm a Mom...I'm a Mom...I'm a Mom.*click*
In August we stood before a judge and listened to him tell my husband and I that we were now and forever the parents of Dakota. I slid my hand into my husbands as he stood silently beside me. His hand lay limp in mine...but I held on because I figured we just became parents and that meant we were a family now and I figured we should at least be holding hands at that momentous moment. *click*
Fast forward through the first couple of years of working full time and raising a baby together. Good times blended with frustrating times. Normal times. Our son turned 2. He began screaming whenever I took him in public places. Horrible screams. I knew something was wrong. Much more then just the "terrible two's." I started asking for help. No one listened. I was just a new mom, he was just going through toddler years. My husband and I became robotic roommates to each other. We no longer even attempted to fake intimacy. I became more and more isolated. *click*
We bought a house. Maybe now we would become a family. It became a larger place to hide. He on one side of the house and I on another...and our child wandering alone in between...lost in his own private world that I would eventually find out was Autism. *click*
I got a gut feeling one day that I was about to lose my father. I flew down to Mexico where he and my mom had retired to. I walked into their house and it suddenly dawned on me that I was living their life. All my life they had separate bedrooms, lived separate lives from each other while living in the same house. They raised 4 adopted children...It was a slam to my soul. To see I had become them. These horribly unhappy people. 3 months later my Dad suddenly died. I spent the next year spiralling into a depression that I was terrified I'd never be able to crawl out of. *click*
Christmas Eve, shortly before my son would turn 4...I suddenly woke up from my depressed fog, looked around me and realized how bad things had become. The house was dark, there was no christmas tree, no presents. Tomorrow was Christmas and I hadn't gotten my son anything. Who was this person I had become? Where was the girl who laughed and filled the house with zany decorations. Who filled its walls with the scent of freshly baked goodies and the sounds of christmas music? I asked my husband to go get a tree. He found a charley brown looking one that had been left at the christmas tree lot. We threw decorations on it and went out and put some presents under the tree. The next morning we went through the motions of christmas for our son, but I was dead inside. I had absolutely no feelings. I was moving like a robot. I knew it was the end. That things had to change. *click*
We agreed to call it quits. I found an apartment to move into asI didn't want my son's home completely uprooted. I knew I could make a home for him anywhere I lived and it was best to leave the completed house with my husband so he and my son could have some normal home life when they were together. We settled into a routine of becoming two separate families. It wasn't too hard as we had spent years separate...we just now had separate dwelling places. I began to date. He began to date...laughter started entering our lives again. We all began to crawl out of the dead place and live. *click*
Did I make all the right decisions? I don't know. Only when the domino's stop falling will I be able to look back and see what pattern they made. I do know that the decision to adopt my son was right. I know that before he came into my life I didn't have any concept what "I love you" really meant. I cannot imagine my life without him in it. As for the other decisions...I really don't know. Last night I sat in my living room and stared at the walls around me. My son was at his Dad's...I was alone. Last night the aloneness was very loud. It bounced around me mocking me...telling me somewhere along the way I had not made very good decisions. I'm so damned tired of feeling alone. *click*

HaphazardKat
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