week 18 - beginning 9th April 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! She's also found out that her birth mother isn't on the Adoption Contact Register.

wednesday
I've been listening to an album by Dido she's very popular in the UK at the moment. My favourite song is the first one on the album the main line of the chorus is 'I won't sleep and I can't breathe until you're resting here with me'. When I first heard it especially when I realised how much I liked it and how loudly I sang that particular line it hit me that I was singing about my mother. That's possibly how it felt. I can't breathe without you resting here with me, you whose heart beat I'm used to hearing, whose breathing in and out soothes me, whose smell assures me that all is well in my world, whose voice lulls me to sleep. It's well known that babies like sleeping on their resting mothers.

I notice with a lot of love songs that the singer could so easily be singing about loosing their mother or father. I remember one song I loved singing when I was a teenager, the main line in that chorus was 'I would give anything I own, give up my life, my heart, my home just to see you once again, just to touch you once again.' After many years of not hearing it I was playing a friend's compilation tape in my car and it suddenly came on - when the chorus started I burst into tears and finally understood why I had been so drawn it.

'I didn't hear you leave, and I wonder how am I still here' more from Dido. Makes me wonder how often mothers hand their babies over when they are asleep. Or does the adoption worker pick the baby up from the nursery cot.

saturday
Went to a co-counselling 'play day' today where the adults play with the children and they get to do anything they like (accept hurt each other). They get to be bigger and more powerful than us - like if they throw a cushion at us we fall over and laugh. I spent most of the time chasing a load of them being pulled along on a blanket (their boat, they were going to America) begging them to let me on, of course they wouldn't and kept pushing me off and laughing. Mostly it was great fun. It was amazing after 3 hours of being in charge of the games how much more powerful they were than when we started. The adults get to have some counselling time in the middle to talk about where it gets hard to be there for the children - like when we feel tired, bored, don't know what to do, want to take over etc. In my time what came up for me was noticing that the children all had their mothers with them and that their mothers really loved them. It made me cry deeply.

I realise that this must go on for me when I'm with my 2 young friends Lily and Molly and their mums. On some level (although it's pretty much unconscious) I'm constantly aware that they have their mothers with them and their love. Does this mean I'm constantly reminded that I was abandoned by mine?

sunday
John came to stay last night. He is going to have a relationship with Emma B. I feel a bit jealous but also fine about it because he wants to be with me as well and she's okay with that. I don't feel afraid anymore. I realise that I can deal with what comes up for me. Well that's how I feel now! We had quite a nice time together but something is different, I feel he is less caring with me. He is frightened to be with me, frightened of hurting Emma. Why isn't he frightened of hurting me? I feel like it might be better to see him as a lover rather than a boyfriend, not get too involved. Where have you heard that before?

And yes, in case you're wondering we did have sex! (Not that I'm planning to turn this diary into a sex confessional, although judging by last few years it wouldn't be much of a read!) I wasn't going to have sex that night, it was too late and I was tired. I noticed that I was good at sticking to my decision until he touched me. Once I'm touched then the decision goes out the window. I've been thinking about why (apart from the obvious!). So far I've come up with how much I must have missed my mum's touch. I remember once in a counselling session I could really feel my desperation for her to hold me. From that I surmise that I have a frozen need to be touched. I say frozen because it feels like it's been frozen in time, it was a need I had at a specific time in my life when I was a baby, yet it's still with me.

How it gets mixed up with sex is another matter. I guess sex makes me feel wanted. I probably have a frozen need to feel wanted as well! There wasn't much touching in our family after our adoptive mum died and I grew up not feeling wanted. Someone touching me (if I like them) in a sexual way makes me feel wanted. It looks to me then that if a frozen need thinks it's about to be met, then all rational thought, all thoughts about what I have decided for myself, like 'I'm tired, its late and I want to go to bed' go out of the window in a flick of my eyelid. And I have sex. Well I did last night anyway. I liked it a lot!

I remember once having a kiss with a close woman friend, it didn't turn me on and we didn't have sex but what I noticed afterwards was that I felt like she really loved me. What was funny was that I have always known that she has loved me as a friend and that she didn't love me any more or less than she did before we kissed but it was as if I really believed that she loved me for the first time because she was prepared to be that physically close to me.

I think I can safely conclude that my mother not being physically close to me all that time ago has had some quite long term and interesting ramifications.

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