wonderful writing from wonderful Daniel Anger and Resentment Bitterness is a hard pill to swallow down here below ground swallowed by the earth of closed adoption. When she left I let too, I just walked out the door of the delivery room, I was not delivered into life, no I hesitated on its doorway, unable to make my transition into the light. I needed her to hold my hand, to hold me against her breast, to reassure me that I was loved, that I was safe. I needed her to pull me through into this life, to ground me, to make feel that I was alright, that I was loved, that the world needed me, that the world wanted me, that she wanted me I was full of expectation, I was not ready to be on my own, I needed her more than life itself, my desire and love for her was unequaled, I was her, I had to have her at all costs and I knew that. She was the one for me, she had to accept me, she had to take me, it was the natural order of things, nothing else could happen. There were no alternatives, this was the way that life was, it was natural, it was nature, it was the ancient way in which the young like me are welcomed into this world. What other way could there be? I was to be in her arms, I was to suckle at her breast, she would take care of me and be with me as one. She would take care of my every need; I would feel loved and safe. She would welcome me into this world and comfort me with her familiar voice, smell and being. I had waited many months to meet her, in that time we had grown together, I longed to see her face, her eyes, her skin, I longed for the safety of her arms after my journey towards the light. I could not imagine a life without her, such a life would be unbearably cruel and lonely, I was full of expectation, she was the one for me, she was my everything, my universe, my Goddess, my life. She had the power of life and death, she had given rise to me and she would greet me and guide me through the gates of life. I did not expect this; this was not what was meant to happen. This is not what I wanted, this is not the way that it is meant to be, it was never meant to be this way, it was never meant to be so cruel. But cruel it was. Removal that is the only way to put it, I was removed from the gates of life, I was moved sideways, away from the light, my journey into life was halted, stopped, perverted, undone, cruelly taken away. I reached out for her, I was ready, I was ready to cry, I was ready to hold her, I was ready to suckle and then I was broken, all of a sudden my journey was broken and I was broken too. Silence.................Black silence, despair, indescribable rage, nothingness, emptiness, she is a long way away, the abyss, loneliness, bitterness, the soil of death raining down and all that love that I had to give turns into anger, turns into hate, turns into a void. This world is not what I want, turn way world, turn away from me, I want nothing to do with you, I cannot live here without her, I do not want to live without her, I want to slip back deep inside myself. I want to hide. I want to cry. I want to scream. I want her back. I am hurting. I hurt so much that my body contracts, my soul shrivels up and takes refuge deep inside me, I do not want to see this world, I cannot breathe properly, this, I do not want to see this. Alone, I am alone in a world that does not care for me, my brother had gone. She has gone, I am a dried, dead, crumbled leaf buried under an avalanche of grief. I was not born into life, I was born into death. I resent this life, I resent what has happened to me, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand this life, I do not want to live, I do not want to live, I do not want to let go of this, I do not want to accept this life, I cannot live without her, without her. I am unheard, nobody cares for me, I am alone on my cot, I am angry but nobody sees, I am furious, the natural order of the world, of what was meant to happen has been broken and I bitter, angry, disappointed, uncared for, not listened to, afraid, alone, so blood alone and angry. I want to kill, I want to kill everybody, I do not want to live, I want to kill, I want to hit, I want to hurt, I am hurting, I want to rip this pain out of my chest, I feel angry with how I feel, I feel overwhelmed, I feel like breaking, ripping and burning, I am broken. I do not know why this has happened but I must change it, this cannot be, I must find her, I must, I cannot live without her, I am lonely, lonelier than the loneliest sun, I am heart break, I am heartbroken and I am angry, so angry, I am angry, the world is angry, the world is anger, there is no love in this world, there is no love, there is only hate, there is only resentment, there is only cruelty, there is only anger, there is no care, no care for me, this world is unsafe, I trust no one. I want to get even, I want her back, I want this to end, I want this pain, this emotional pain to end but it never does, everything hurts, everything itches, the terrible silence, the terrible lonesomeness, the night never ends, I want to sleep, sleep always, there are no smiles. I am living in the grave, my cot is a grave, a grave in which I was buried the moment I was born, the blanket is the soil under which I hide. I do not want to live, I want to die. Yes I want to die, there is no way through the gates into this cruel, uncaring, not to be trusted disappointing life. I do not want it, it has broken me, broken my heart, something has broken me, I am broken, my body is here but my spirit has fled, you will never see me in this life. To this life I am dead. Overwhelming pain that is all there is, overwhelming pain and frustration and powerlessness, all I can do is opt out. I hate her for abandoning me, for leaving me here alone, completely alone, here, why did she leave, she abandoned me, here, with no love, just a hospital bed and a hospital song always waiting for her loved to return and sing me into life. But she never comes, never comes, never comes, I am in the company of strangers trying to survive, I do not want your bottles, I want your breast. Why the hell did you leave me, why did you not care for me, how the hell did you even think of such a thing. We were one now we are two and without you this world means nothing. I want to harm you, I want to kill you, I want to tear you apart limb from limb, I want you to know my pain, the indescribable pain of absolute lonesomeness, of not being cared for, of being in danger of dying, of being separated from every meaningful relationship on earth. I want you to know the glacial cold of the cot, of the forever waiting feeling of perpetual disappointment, of one/s needs never being met, of forever waiting for your breast. I want to pummel your chest with my fists, I want to cry, I want to scream, how could you leave me here, how could you leave me so lonely? There is no blue sky, there is only earth raining down upon me, the slow dull thud of despair, of asphyxiation, of not wanting to breathe, of holding it all down with anger because that is all I have, this is all that I have been left with. The love did not come, no love came, no loving arms, nothing, no one, they can sing me their songs, they can give me those bottles but I wanted you and you have not come, my love has been wrecked, my love has been transmuted into hate, anger, resentment, My hate, my anger, my resentment in the absence of your love is what keeps me alive. My love burrows in deep and is hidden from the light, my anger turns upon itself and because I am part of you and you have rejected me mother I am angry with myself, my-self, my love, my unlovable self that has led to your rejecting me as part of you rains down upon me, a concrete grave that ensures that my-self never enters the gates of life, that my-self never enters the light. No my-self is hidden through loathing, anger and resentment, my-self is to be punished for committing an as yet unnamed crime, I am anger, I am resentment, I am not love, there is no love here, there can be no love. Anger is the glue that binds me, out of anger I will build my life, out of anger I will hold down my-self, I will hide my-self, and anger not love is my foundation. Anger is my God, is my life, anger has become my life, resentment has become my way of being and knowing. I am resentful at what has happened, I resent my-self, I resent my life, I resent my mother, I resent everything, there is no love here, there is only the grave,. There is only darkness. It is my fault and I must be punished. Time keeps ticking here and then they arrive out of the blue, replacements for you mother, for you. I do not want this, I did not ask for this, I do not want to know them but they are here, they are here and all I can feel is anger, buried inside. They stare at the shell in the cot; they stare at the body of a baby. They come back and take me far from here, far from you but I remember, I have learnt, yes I have learnt to hide my-self because if I don’t it will happen again. I am sullen, I never smile, I am scared, I am withdrawn, my brother is back, he is the opposite, he hates openly. Not me, I have my hate and anger, I have turned in on myself, I have turned all of my anger onto myself, I am sacrificing myself on the altar of self blame. I hope that one day my sacrifice will be rewarded and that you mother will want me back again. I do not feel loved within my new home I must perform for love and as the years go by my anger and self hate becomes useful, I drive my-self to achieve, to perform, I use anger to drive away any trace of my-self. I am a cipher, a mirage, I do not exist in this world, I merely perform in it so that people will continue to show some care and love for me. My place in this world is not guaranteed, I am in limbo, I do not belong anyplace or anywhere, I am not connected to this earth by love or to the family with which I live with. My adopted father is angry all the time, he is threatening, he is fists, he is rage, and I am little, I can only express my anger and rage through hurting myself. My brother does not care, he rages, he screams, he is expelled into welfare. I rage and scream against myself. I am silence, all is silent, I have long since lost contact with myself, my life is a journey of anger used against myself in an endless quest to find love and acceptance from others, a volcanic rage, a hidden rage of powerlessness. I left home or what passed for home at the age of fifteen, rage, anger and resentment were some of the few lost possessions that I brought with me. Anger not love build my foundation, anger at my-self, anger at a world that had done this to me, anger at a State that had denied me my identity, that had lied to me, hat had taken my family, anger at the world, anger over what had happened to me. I never had a chance to fit, from the very beginning I was shoved into an alternate reality and in spite of all my attempts to be normal and lovable by being angry at myself all my attempts to fit in crashed and burned. When I had the breakdown at University I used anger at myself to complete my Masters and anger at my-self to suppress and bury my love in a bid to make the woman that I was with love me. But like my mother she was incapable of doing so. I had met my mother a couple of years beforehand and it was as if her heart was locked behind bullet proof glass, I could not reach her, she could not heal the wound that she had left, I was on own stumbling and trying to deal with all the anger that I had at my-self, trying to deal with the fact living off anger was not enough. Yes I needed love but I had chosen the worst woman possible to give me love, she had none to give, like me she only had anger and resentment. As I walked through the ruins and slowly tried to come to terms with what had happened I did what came naturally I branded myself an unlovable failure, that is why I had to be perfect, that is why my mother did not love me and that is why I deserved to die. But just like in my cot I did not die, I lived and kept living as I raged against God, how could a so called loving God do something like this to me, why had I been abandoned to this bitter fate? I raged against the society that created closed adoption, against capitalism, and against all the people who refused to listen. And here I was years later married but still angry raging against my wife because she had happened to raise the subject of adoption while we talked with her girlfriend in Melbourne who also happened to be adopted. Her friend claimed that adoption for her was not a problem, before long I was triggered and my wife was defending her. I walked out into the night incandescent with rage feeling that my life was falling apart beneath the stars above, I was speechless, the pain was back in my chest, I felt alone, so bloody alone and betrayed. I was ready to walk away to the airport to fly out and never come back. I was black; I was back in the cot again. Somehow I dragged myself to the restaurant and had dinner with her friends but I was speechless, the hurt that had been triggered was so deep. The day after still I could hardly speak, I stood at the balcony of the luxury apartment that my wife had booked, I felt so helpless in this black abyss, I felt like jumping off. Slowly, oh so slowly I dragged my-self back from the ledge and came back to the present. And we managed to work our way through it. We were married in front of all our friends and community, over one hundred and fifty people attended what I called “our handmade wedding” in which all our friends contributed through creating things, cooking and greeting people. I invited my biological mother, her long suffering partner, one of my adopted cousins and my adopted uncle and auntie who in essence had become my parents. I respected my uncle and auntie, they had welcomed me into their home and their lives and they cared for me. My cousins nephew and niece who had become very close to me played key parts in the wedding, he as the ring bearer and she as a flower girl. In spite of all the love that can surround you it is a real journey to love yourself especially when life keeps throwing you curve balls From the moment that I was born I was up against it and felt that life/God whatever you would like to call it did not love me, or worse still is out to get me. It was as if I was being forced to answer major life questions even when I did not want to and on top of that I felt that I had no choice, given my adoption, but to deal with them. This was my worst challenged yet. My wife and tried for children, we were getting on, close to our forties; the window of opportunity would only be fleeting. Multiple miscarriages later I turned to my wife and said “how long do you want to keep doing this, I don’t feel that I can take much more”. When we lost our first child the phone call came while I was sitting with my students in the theater, one of my workmates drove me out to the hospital, afterwards I stood with him and my wife stunned”. All my workmates came over with flowers, I just wanted to curl up in a corner and weep. I thought that it would not get much worse than this; it did, multiple miscarriages later we gave up. All our children are named and are buried under a rosebush at our home in New Zealand. I felt furious, done over and beside my-self, this was too big, I could not talk about it because it hurt too much, my wife knew that adoption; surrogacy and in-vitro fertilization were for me not an option. Because of my life experience I was determined not to treat having a child as a right, as a commodity, as a rite of passage. This was insanely difficult for my wife and for me it meant that healing some of my adoption wounds through having a child was not possible. Once again I met a society that was obsessed with secrecy, with burying hurt, with not talking about miscarriages or stillbirths. We live in a society that cannot openly deal with birth or grief and a society that seems hell bent on punishing and controlling mothers who give rise to life. But it is worse than that, people talk about their kids all the time, they won’t talk about the kids that did not make, no there is only a polite silence and for a long time our society did not even treat the children who died as a result of miscarriages or still births as children. This attitude made it very hard for my wife to grieve, And so the losses keep piling up under the soil of the grave upon which the white rose bush grows and I am in shock, what is this about, this life, my anger, my never having a child of my own to hold, what is this, how can I understand this. The only thing I can understand is the touch of my wife’s warm hand as I walk down the road hand in hand or as we hold each other in bed. Little by little love heals
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 09:18:49 +0000
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