Here’s what I know:

• I’m happy.
• I’m in a functional relationship with a man.
• I’ve had a pretty good summer and don’t see the fall taking a turn for the worse.
• I have a large family that I spend a lot of fun time with.
• I have some wonderful friends.
• I’m a first Mom.
• I’m a first Mom in an open adoption.
• I haven’t seen my daughter since May.
• I miss my daughter.
• I smile more than I cry.
• I laugh daily.
• I don’t feel guilty for the good things that I’ve created in my life.

There was a time not that long ago where I couldn’t have added that last bullet point. Where everytime I was close to letting go and allowing myself happiness I would pull back and question it. I would wonder if that was okay. In my heart, I always felt that my happiness was something that should be allowed to thrive. I knew that my sadness, pain, anger, wouldn’t change the fact that I was a first Mom, or that I missed my daughter – and it certainly wouldn’t change anything that my infant, then toddler, and now – practically preschool! – daughter was feeling.

But I also know this:

• There are people that don’t think I deserve happiness.
• There are people that think I’m a monster for finding happiness.
• There are people that think I should never again enjoy my family because I denied Cupcake her role in that family.
• There are people that say that my happiness means that I don’t miss my daughter – that I don’t love my daughter.

And I can’t come to terms with some of these things.

There seems to be this fine line – invisible of course – that details how happy a first Mom should ever be allowed to be. Some measuring stick that makes sure we’ve been affected just enough by the placement of our child(ren).

I’ve written before about happiness, and how Cupcake’s placement has affected my happiness.

There has been an impact, that hasn’t changed. I suppose at some point I just feel like you have to make a choice. That doesn’t mean it’s a simple choice. That doesn’t mean it’s a choice that you make once and it’s done. It’s something that you need to work on, keep up, and sometimes that choice can feel like it’s slipping away from you and you’ve got to try your hardest to get it back.

I’ve chosen to allow myself happiness. I’ve chosen to not wallow in the sad, the angry, the grief - because it’s there, dear God, it’s there. There are days that I could easily lay in bed and think, This hurts too much, I’m not getting up today. So once in a while you indulge those feelings. You spend your child’s birthday in bed. You spend the day after a visit curled up on the couch not letting the “real” world in and just grieving what’s not there. But the next day, or the day after that, or the day when you’re ready, you make the choice to continue. Not, “move on” that phrase that’s been thrown at us over and over and over again – but you continue. Because in the long run the not getting up doesn’t help. So I do. And I go to work, and I go out to lunch, and I meet up with friends, and I seek out my happiness.

And here’s the thing that I don’t always talk about: the happiness is tainted with reality.

I’m sitting in a hot springs having an amazing time with Long Board and in the back of my mind I’m thinking, I wonder what Cupcake’s doing right now.

I’m playing with my nephew and marveling at all the things he can say, do, and think, and I can’t help but ask myself, Does Cupcake do these things? Can this little boy even hold a candle to how amazing Cupcake is?

I’m at happy hour with my friends, laughing and telling stories when my phone buzzes and I wonder, Should I check my email? It might be Dee…

I’m laying with my head on Long Board’s chest thinking that this is so close to perfect and I’m snapped back with, How in the world am I going to tell him about my daughter?

Cupcake is ALWAYS with me. She’s with me in the happy, in the sad, in the angry. Relinquishment didn’t change that – her physical presence in my everyday doesn’t change that.

I love my daughter.

And that’s something I know.

 

 

 

 

And I know there will be others that won’t believe that or understand that.

And I know that the next thing I have to work on is being okay with that.