week 15 - beginning 12th March 2001

to see previous entries first click here

Update - Emma's fallen in love with her best friend who might be embarking on a relationship with someone else, also called Emma!

wednesday
Feel pretty good all in all, enjoying loving John, he's in Spain now on holiday, in a way it's a relief. I can just feel my feelings! I posted my Adoption Contact Register form on the way to college. Stayed late and did some more work on my flash banner, half way through the evening I suddenly felt devastated. Realise John's never going to draw a boundary with Emma, that he will always be open to her if she wants to be lovers with him (he might change on that but who knows). So I sit with that knowledge, see how it suits me, let it grow in my awareness. Devastation follows, the devastation of loosing him because I don't feel safe enough to enter an intimate relationship with him while he doesn't have a boundary with other women. I'm not even thinking about it, I'm not in my head about it, I just sit with the knowledge of the situation and the devastation follows. It's like intuitive devastation. Somehow that seems significant. It's like I have to let go.

Even more significant is I feel okay in my devastation. The grief flows and I feel so sad, loving myself and him. I understand if he doesn't want to be limited in how he relates to other people. I rang one of my counsellors when I got home and cried for 15 minutes in between talking excitedly about what I was realising. At one point she said perhaps you deserve better - that made me cry really hard. When I fell in love with Michael a few years ago I realised that I would need commitment to survive well the depths of feeling that could potentially come up for me. Do you know what I mean? To have a good life at the same time as letting the feelings come up? Not just to be in love and completely miserable with it. Slipped off to watch TV now I've lost my thread……and so to bed.

thursday
I've been thinking about the difference between grief and fear. The grief I was in yesterday felt comfortable - I could contain it, hold it, be with it. I kind of enjoyed it even! It makes me feel soft and vulnerable, open to the world. I loose my protective shell and feel more human. So the fear, why is that harder? Well I think it's because it involves panic- if what's coming up for me now is how I felt when I was tiny then no wonder the terror feels so strong. It feels like my life is actually in danger that I will not be able to cope with something that's about to happen. That must have been how I felt then, when I was separated from my mum. The grief is also an old feeling being triggered. It just so happens that I'm more comfortable with one than the other. One involves moving into something where I might get abandoned and so brings up terror while the other involves me letting go, I'm making the decision, I'm not being abandoned. I still have loss to grieve, the loss of something that might have been but I'm avoiding the possibility of being abandoned. So I'm safe. No wonder it feels more comfotable!

friday
Somehow I got it today. There's no need for me to avoid the terror. Of course I'm afraid that it will come up too quick and too strong. But the feeling of fear doesn't put me in danger.You can't predict anything anyway, when it comes down to it. The good thing is this is the first time I've really understood all this, got a picture of how terrified I was being wrenched from my mother like that.

saturday
I've been thinking about the opposite of separation. What must it be like to know that you belong? Have you come accross a book called the Continuim Concept? It's about a tribal people who carry their children all the time until they are ready to get down. They are always in somebodies arms or on their back in a sling, even when they are sleeping. This I think is how it's meant to be. These children are confident, sure of themselves and the love of people around them.

Isn't it odd that humans in westernised societies are the only mammals that let their offspring sleep away from the mother. This is despite the fact that humans produce the most helpless and underdeveloped babies.

To be continued next week.......