Sideshow Barb

stroll down the midway

stroll down the midway


  • 2min45sec

    Posted on 05/12/2012 by barb

    Like I mentioned in the previous post, I was so put out by Bethany’s “birthmother day video e-cards”.  So I decided to do my own.  I twittered something about “personalized video e-cards with snark” and got a handful of requests.  Over the past two days, I’ve been creating ridiculous videos to make my “birthmother” friends laugh.  And a couple of adoptive parents.

    Because they were “personalized”, everybody’s “video e-card” varied in length, topics covered, costume and soundtrack.  I wore weird teeth, hats, sunglasses, stickers. Only two people got my real voice (I think).  I dunno, it was fun.  Like focusing on doing something amusing to keep the sadness away.  I mean, when is a porcupine puppet NOT funny?

    It was like getting backhanded by Thor’s hammer.  Make it into something amusing instead of just being pissed about it & a sulky bitch?  I mean, that’s my MO right there.  It was a turning point.

    I feel like I’m entering a new stage in this crap, detached & resigned.  This is not how I feel about The Kid, but just how I feel about adoption in general & even the attitude toward my own situation.

    But it feels good. Maybe I can finally get some things done.  I’ve been waiting.

    *OHEMGEE, DID I FORGET YOU ON THE VIDEO LIST? TELL ME & I’LL RECTIFY THIS SITUATION IMMEDIATELY.

    This entry was posted in birth/first mother, Open Adoption, this is my life and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • The Dreaded Second Weekend in May Post

    Posted on 05/09/2012 by barb

    There has been some witty banter on my twitter feed the past few days regarding “Birthmother’s Day” (the very special day BEFORE mother’s day, because heaven knows we aren’t really mothers & need our own day for relishing our decision & “healing”).

    I don’t know where to start, I’m so full of hilarious disgust.

    Let’s start with Bethany Christian Services & their special “video e-cards”.  Clicky Clicky.  When you care enough to send the very best, don’t think about what adoption means to you when thinking about the woman who gave you her child.  Let Bethany’s kind & tuneful e-cards do the talking.  Bottom line: thank you for giving us your kid OR thank you for giving me to others.  The tagline I see on twitter is “tell them how much you care”.  Yes, tell them with a sappy 2 minutes of dreck.

    My FAVORITE find of the week was “The Vessel“.  A seriously pro-life & Christian site run by two birthmothers  claiming to “bring the story of the birthmother to the forefront to make the case for validity and benefits of adoption as an option for  unplanned pregnancy”.  Whew.  That’s a mighty big mission for a non profit dehumanizing women right off the bat  by calling them “vessels”.  In some banter, I told my friends I’d like to be a frigate if I was going to be a vessel.  Like seriously, sisters? Vessels?

    Now that I’ve given you some links to ponder in your free time, let me get down to my take on this coming weekend.  To me, there is not one damn thing “healing” about having a separate day to celebrate my “birthmotherhood”.  It’s just another thing that keeps me from feeling like a “real” mother.  And since most of the time I don’t consider myself a “real” mother, I hate Mother’s Day with a passion.  I just want to be left alone.

    I wish I still drank the Kool Aid.  I wish I could be happy & “stoked” as one Twitter-er wrote about “Birthmother’s Day”.  You know, where I’d cry a little, look through pictures that weren’t taken by or don’t include me, overload on carbs, write inspirational little notes to my other Birthmom friends.  When I would celebrate MY fabulous role in adoption. Part of me wishes I could still be like that, like the first few years.

    I don’t need either day.  I know who I am.  The Kid knows who I am.  Betty knows who I am.  And so do you.

    Edited to add: I’ll be creating my very special personalized Birthmother’s Day video e-cards. Let me know if you’d like one.  There is a 99% chance of snark involved.

    This entry was posted in birth/first mother, Open Adoption, things that make me want to tear my hair out, this is my life, women's issues and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • On Kindness

    Posted on 05/02/2012 by barb

    I’ve been thinking about kindness a lot lately, wondering if I give as much as I’m lucky to receive.  Hoping I do.

    I’m not the most pleasant person to be around at times. I’m short tempered, crabby, often frustrated in some way.  I put a real effort into being kind to others, despite these personality flaws.  Hold the door for me going into the WaWa? Hey, thanks.  Compliment something I’ve created? Hey, no way! Really? Throw up on your shoes even though it was your job to make me vomit? I’ll write you a thank you card.  And I have.

    One of the small businesses that hired me for social media consulting celebrated a birthday yesterday.  I was speaking with the owner about the massive amount of birthday wishes on the wall.  ”What should we do? Just write a general ‘thank you’ post?”, she asked me.

    “I wouldn’t”. And then I explained.  For me personally, Barbara Sobel, any time a person writes something or posts something on my wall or tweets at me, I’m honored.  Somebody took 30 seconds out of their day to share something with me.  I appreciate that.  So I spent an hour and a half this morning responding to each good wish for this business.   And our friends “like” it.

    We’re all here to connect with others; we need a dialogue of sort.  Whether it starts out as a simple “thanks! i had a wonderful day” in response to a “happy birthday” post or a RT of something that makes you feel something on Twitter.  Maybe that  Twitterfolk has other interesting things to say.  Go find out.

    Maybe I’d feel different if I had 10K followers or 3K friends on FB.  As in “meh. whatever wacko. i’ll only respond to those in my close circle”.  Should the heavens split open & 9500 Twitter followers fall into my lap(top), and I act like that, threaten to take away my coffee.  Clearly it would had gone to my head.

    Kindness is the greatest, easiest gift to give someone.  To change an attitude.  To help someone.  To help yourself.  Kindness matters.

    This entry was posted in this is my life, Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Open Adoption Roundtable #37: After a Visit

    Posted on 04/26/2012 by barb

    Well, it’s been over 5 years since a visit.  So I’m digging deep.  Well, it’s really not that deep.

    How do I feel after a visit?

    Exhausted. Sad. Angry. Weird. Confused. Amazed. Numb. Contemplative. Grumpy. Listless. Misunderstood. Nonessential. Overstimulated.  A whole bunch of “oh shit“.

    Many times I wanted to be left alone to think about things, to process.  To process the things that I was too afraid to say or show against the activities of the day.  Because I never knew if it was right to tell The Kid that I love him.  I never knew if it was right to hug him.  I never knew if he liked me or even wanted to be there (in the last few).  I never knew whether it was right to say “hey, I do that too!” or “I was good at that too!”.

    And these moments that cannot be reclaimed.

    This entry was posted in birth/first mother, Open Adoption and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • Fryolater

    Posted on 03/27/2012 by barb

    Sweet jesus.  With all of this hooha by men over women’s reproductive rights, I have to come forward with the following post.  And by hooha, I mean the trans-vaginal ultrasound prior to an abortion, or how the GOP belittles women’s rights AND funding, or seeking to change the wording of “victim” to “accuser” in rape cases.  I do not pretend this will garner me new friends & perhaps will even cause me to lose a few.  But it is all part & parcel to me as a person and me as a woman.  And we all know there’s a difference between the two.

    I was raped when I was 12.

    At 12, I was assaulted by a stranger, with a weapon pointed in my direction.

    At 12, I told no one of my rape.  Not my parents, friends, pastor, teacher.  It stayed a secret until I was about 17.  But when I DID tell, I found myself in the doctor’s office quicker than you can say “torn hymen”.  I was not an “accuser”, I was a victim, whether I told anyone at the time or not.

    As a rape survivor, I cannot even fathom having such a tragic, life altering event ground down to such terms.  Rape & sexual assault are so incredibly under reported & a bill like this will make it even more difficult for women to come forward in the most crucial time: immediately after the rape.  Many women who experience such a horrible crime don’t report for a number of reasons, one being that they think nobody will believe them.  Or it will be perceived that they were “asking for it”.

    Fortunately, I’ve been able to heal from this.  I know that it was simply a case of being in the “wrong place at the wrong time” (which was several blocks from my home in a sleepy town).  I was a 12 year old child.  I was not asking for it.  I was a victim.

    _______________________________________________________________________________

    I had an abortion when I was 31.

    At 31, I became pregnant while in a relationship & came to a decision (with input from my partner) that an abortion was the only realistic option at the time.  Because I sure as hell wasn’t going to go the “birthmother” route again.  And we were not in any position to parent.  At all.  Not even close. And it wasn’t simply about money.

    At 31, making a clear headed decision over my body & what goes on with it was not easy, especially in the light of my son’s adoption 6 years prior.  At the women’s clinic, they did perform an ultrasound of the abdominal variety.  This made perfect sense to me, so the doc could tell how many weeks pregnant.  What I didn’t expect, however, was the information that there were two sacs.  The doctor explained that he had to tell me, in the order of full disclosure.  While shocking & even more sad, it did not change my mind, and I continued with the procedure, staring at the meant-to-be-amusing poster on the ceiling & holding the nurse’s hand.

    If you factor in a mandatory trans-vaginal ultrasound, which is mildly uncomfortable under the kindest of circumstances, the emotional wreckage may have been more severe.  No woman wants to have an abortion.  I grieved those two possibilities for quite some time.  So before you ask “What’s one more instrument in your vagina?”, let me just stop you with this: anything that goes into my vagina without my consent is invasive.  Talk about illegal search! (That’s the Fourth Amendment).  Hey, it also relegates the doctor performing the abortion to an agent of the state.

    _____________________________________________________________________________

    These are our bodies & our lives.  I’m somebody’s daughter, sister, friend, niece, granddaughter.  I could be any woman you meet on the street, or follow on Twitter, or someone who sat behind you in biology class 20 years ago.  Please don’t let the Powers-That-Wanna-Be take control of what’s ours.

    _____________________________________________________________________________

    Do you need help or resources? Band Back Together has an amazing resource section for all kinds of issues.  USE IT.

    *note: i’m open to having a proper discussion about these topics.  however, any “babykiller” comments won’t make it through, i can promise you that.

     

    This entry was posted in feminism, my body my self, things that make me want to tear my hair out, this is my life, women's issues and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • You CAN Go Home Again, It Just Might Be Annoying

    Posted on 02/29/2012 by barb

    A few summers ago, Mr. Fabulous messaged me on Facebo*k, saying he had something for me.  Mr. Fabulous was a teacher of mine Jr & Sr year of high school.  We’ve maintained contact over the years, and he’s been a good friend to me.  When he arrived, he handed me a plastic bag with a large manilla envelope inside.

    “Watch her”, he said to Chris.

    I pulled the envelope from the bag, recognizing my own handwriting on the addressed package.

    “Oh NO!”, says I.

    “Hahahahahha, oh YES!”, says he.

    At the end of our year in Humanities, he gave us all envelopes & told us to put “whatever” in them and that in 10 years, he’d send them back to us.  Well, I had forgotten all about it, and it was considerably longer than 10 years.  But with shuffling offices, blah blah blah, my class’ envelopes was shoved in the back of a closet.  And here he was, with the Humanities Class of 1990′s “stuff”.

    I squinted, opening the long sealed end, wondering if spiders or trolls or my 17 year old former self  would come screaming out into the light of 2009.  I found all three, eventually.

    Mr. Fabulous left me to my younger shadow & I sat in my chair, skimming through, reading bits out loud to Chris (because we did go to school together), making observations of the “I just want to slap the shit out of this girl” variety.

    I found a few unpleasant family stories that I found it necessary to document, ones I’d long since forgotten.  Like Stephen King likes to say,  ”the skeletons boogied out of the closet”.  I laughed, I cried, I was more than anything annoyed.  How I remember things are not necessarily what’s written.  Is one of us fibbing?  Or is it just that memories indeed do get a fuzzy glow after time?  Still, I wanted to shake her and say “You want something to cry about? JUST YOU WAIT, SISTER.  An extremely self conscious paean to pretending nothing matters is but a blip on your map, my darlin’.”

    When actually faced with what’s the closest I’ll get to seeing myself at that age, I find myself a mite unforgiving.

    But she won, in the end.  The last lines of the notebook read:

    “You DID get out of Cape May, didn’t you? If you didn’t, I’ll NEVER forgive you.”

    I cried.  It was the last of the questions I had written to myself, mostly of the melodramatic sort.  I’d been sobbing through the whole thing, and really twisted the waterworks full force with the last bit.

    All I ever wanted when I was in school was to get the hell out of here.  I knew there was a world out there, with cities & night life & people & buildings & noise.  My friends & I would ride around in cars, listening to REM’s “Don’t Go Back to Rockville” ad nauseum during the deserted winters.

    And I’ve lived around the country a bit and here I am.  And I’ve been here for 10 years.  Cape May is always a very safe place to return to & regroup.  Life in the real world beating you down? Just go back to Cape May for a few years & get your shit together.  Then you’ll be fit to go back into the world again.  But maybe you don’t leave this time. Two years turns to five turns to nine.  Now I’m knocking on 40′s door & I forget there’s a world out there.  I have gone A YEAR without leaving the county.  A YEAR.

    Oh, 17 year old me, you smug little bitch, I’ve let you down.

    Also in the envelope: a notebook paper that says “Carpe Diem” scribbled in pencil. a notebook paper that has “Zeitgeist” also scribbled in paper.  And a ripped cover of A Clockwork Orange.  I don’t know what that means, don’t ask me.

    “Don’t go back to Rockville, and waste another year….”

    This entry was posted in this is my life, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • Yeah, I Didn’t Intend to Write This Post Either

    Posted on 02/17/2012 by barb

    14 years ago I was in labor.  No, actually, I was giving my midwife pitiful puppy dog eyes to appeal to her sense of “let’s induce you”.  It worked.

    So tomorrow is my son’s birthday.  14.  Where does time go?

    Where does time go? Well, it’s obvious here. He’s growing up outside of my sphere.  It’s something I’ve finally been able to accept.  14 years.  I’ve moved beyond the growing up milestones, the firsts that are cherished.  The fact that I was not present for any of his “firsts” isn’t a tragedy to me now.  There’s always new & interesting & awkward layers around the corner.

    I used to play this terrible game where I’d wonder what my life would be like if he were there.  Like instead of me writing this stupid blog, I was gathering soccer gear or out buying poster board for some such last minute forgotten project.  These daydreams could get quite elaborate.

    “I can’t imagine where my life would be if I didn’t have Pretentious Baby”, a frenemy once remarked. I can’t imagine, today, what life would be like if I had parented.  It would sure as hell be different.  But I honestly can’t say what kind of mother I would have been either. I’m not selling myself short here, but more of an assessment from a bit of distance.  14?

    In the past, I’ve been a teary mess during these few days.  I don’t have any tears.  Maybe I’ve graduated to “resignation”.  Shit, I hope this was all worth it.

    This entry was posted in birth/first mother, Open Adoption, this is my life and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • 923 Saturday Morning

    Posted on 01/29/2012 by barb

    Yesterday morning, I went out to do some errands.  You know, Saturday morning stuff.  The last stop on my list was the WaWa (which is a convenience store to those not from the area)(and I’m the mayor of this particular WaWa on 4Square…because I’m BOSS like that).

    I got out of my car & found myself a few paces behind a pair of younger men.  As we approached the door, one of them flicked their cigarette at a trajectory that missed my face by “this much”.

    “Whoa!” I said.

    He turned around and said “Ugly bitch”.

    My normally quick wit failed me & I went about my business, obtaining breakfast foods & treating myself to a “milk product iced coffee”.  I didn’t run into those two men in the market again.

    When I got to my car, I tweeted it, as the sheer meanness of it all confused me.  Maybe I’m simply naive.  Maybe I’m ultra sensitive.  I’ve been called both.  I’ve been called “ugly” AND a “bitch”.  Maybe I’ve lived too long in this safe little bubble of seaside calmness.

    When I got home, I cried.  Not because of the name calling, I spent a decent part of my school years being called one mean name or another, but because of the randomness of this man’s unkindness.  WHY would you call someone that out of the blue?  What prompts a person to retort with those words?  Sure, he could have called me a lot worse, but I don’t know that it would have been more offensive.  I don’t know that it would have hurt my teeny tiny little feelings more.

    I let it wreck my morning.  I couldn’t stop thinking about they “why” of the matter.  And maybe there is no reason.  Maybe that’s just the way that guy is.  Maybe that’s how they treat women in his family. Maybe he was showing off for his friend.  In any case, I took a nap & woke up feeling much better.

    Oh yeah, and my wit returned, just 23 hours too late.

    “You kiss your mother with that mouth, Prince Charming?”

    This entry was posted in things that make me want to tear my hair out, this is my life and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • This Is Not the Post I Intended to Write

    Posted on 01/18/2012 by barb

    but it just kinda rolled off my fingers.

    What would have happened, really, if I had kept The Kid:

    My parents, individually, would fallen in love with him.  That would have been that.

    While I might have struggled in the first few months, arrangements would have been made for me to move into a friend’s house.  A friend who would become my first husband.  Having a baby would have just hastened the process.  Insta-family.

    Who knows, we could have even been happy.

    Were my parents going to banish me if I chose to parent? Would there have been weirdness amongst my friends & peers because I was a single mom? Was I ever in danger (alone or with the possibility of a newborn) of becoming homeless, jobless, in any kind of danger, going hungry?

    No.

    I had friends I could rely on, and a family that would have come around fairly quickly.  Nobody was going to let anything bad happen to me or my pint-sized progeny.  I didn’t realize until a few years ago (and I’ve been ruminating on it lately)  how unnecessary open adoption was for me.

    But when I was uncertain, afraid, full of self doubt — I didn’t see this.  I saw where my family was pushing me, I saw a complete lack of interest from my ex, I saw a huge black hole with too many blinking question marks.  I started to detach after the first appointment with the agency.

    I was referred to enough as a birthmother prior to birth that it was just another word.  I knew what I was.  I knew when I filled out the birth certificate information that it didn’t matter what I wrote down, because it would be replaced.  But I filled it out just the same, naming him what I (we) had planned before we parted company for good.

    I was afraid to spend time with The Kid.  When my friends came to ooooh & aaaaah over my beautiful creature, I held him like he was an expensive & fragile artifact.  I did not comfort him when he cried, I passed him on to someone else.  Then it was gone and I’ll never get those 48 hours back again.

    Women who parent never ask themselves seriously, “Hmmmm….what would my life have been like if I had chosen adoption for this precious, beautiful, smart angel?”  No, that doesn’t happen.

    But women like me spend an abundance of useless time wondering the opposite question.  Tearing ourselves up one side & down the other, wracked with guilt & hurt, no matter how “good” the adoption situation.  I know, I know, there ARE women who have the complete opposite viewpoint and, as birthmothers, think adoption is pretty nifty.  May the Force be with them.  Which is why I said “women like me”.

    I wonder periodically what my life would be parenting an almost-14 year old boy.  How our lives we be.  Our lives.  Really, I can’t even fathom it.  I try not to stay in that place too long.  Fantasy parenting scenarios are ridiculously seductive for me.

    The more time passes & the more conscious I am about my role in this open adoption thing makes me want to be a better person. A friend recently congratulated me on my “Emerging”.  Really, my own bit in adoption is something I’ll never really be able to understand.  But I can see the forest for the trees now, some missing pieces are fitting themselves together when I’m not looking & I’m smacked with some “Tiny Universal Truth for Barb That Tilts the World On Its Axis”.

    Maybe I’ll write the post tomorrow that I was going to originally write today.  It was pretty charming.

    This entry was posted in birth/first mother, Marriage, Open Adoption, this is my life and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • Skin I’m In

    Posted on 01/16/2012 by barb

    If there are any gentlemen in the house, if you don’t want to know more about me in any other way than you already do, you’d be advised to close your browser window & go look at the kitties!  KITTIES!

    I can’t remember any more what my body used to feel like.  When I was in my early 20s or so.  When I was thin.  At 5′ 11″, I weighed about 135-140lbs.  I always found something that fit me wonderfully.  I can’t remember what it was like to have a really nice set of legs, and the confidence to show them off.  I can’t remember feeling that free about my body.

    After The Kid was born, I was just fat.  I had this unrecognizable body with nothing to wear.  When were my breasts going to go back to normal size?  Where did these thighs come from? I tried valiantly to wear some of my former clothing, which always ended with me in tears; a sad, sad shadow of a person gone.  Gone in physical size & emotional well being.  Stuffed into a body shaper that didn’t quite do it’s job.

    You’d think after 14ish years that I’d be used to this form.  I’m round in places, stretchmarked, my skin sometimes does weird things.  There’s a heaviness to my thighs that does not thrill me.  I’m still waiting for my breasts to return to normal size.  My weight seems to fluctuate in 20 pound directions, depending on the season & what’s going on in my head.

    I spent several years struggling with femininity because I felt almost gender neutral.  Jeans, sweatshirts, baggy everything.  Hiding (poorly) the skin I was in.  I was embarrassed.  Ashamed that I only lost about 1/2 the weight I gained during pregnancy, and it was years later.

    I’m not saying I’m much better with it right now.  I have a partner who loves me no matter if I’m particularly svelte or maybe I’ve been hitting the Cocoa Puffs a little hard.  I don’t often see what I like in the mirror, so I suppose it’s a good thing we don’t have a full length one.  But I recognize the good days.  When I show off those bodacious ta-tas that still have NOT gone away in my With The Band t-shirt.  Or that I look almost-charming when it looks like a third grader dressed me in hippie/bohemian clothing.

    Let’s not even whisper that I’m fortunate to not have to “dress” for work.  Okay, maybe just a whisper.

    So as my hair shows more gray & I swear that my paunch was 1 inch higher yesterday (damn you, gravity!), I’m not going gracefully.  Finding my style that fits my body is a struggle.  It’s so much easier to just toss on that ridiculously huge Phillies hoodie, or perform some amazing sweater stretching.  It’s something that needs attention.  I promise, body, I’ll let you see some sunlight.

    This entry was posted in my body my self, this is my life, women's issues and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.



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