Changes

that's a pretty boring title

So here’s a cool cloud from last night. It looks like a benevolent alien ship.

But if the image appears to you menacing, After the Gold Rush is the perfect soundtrack.

Change one: I have a new job! This is lonnnnnng overdue. I’ve been complaining about my job for a while. I love my coworkers, and my students, and so much of my work, but dysfunctional aspects have been wearing me down. Besides, it’s just time for growth. I started my current job when my kids were not even school aged. There will be new and different dysfunction, but I’ll take that right now and welcome the expansion and challenges and all that.

There’s no change two. There are Thoughts, though.

If you are here because of donor conception history or other DNA surprises, you may be interested in my self-assessment as I close in on two years since discovery. With a data set of one (n=1, if I’m remembering how to notate data sets), I conclude that two years from revelation is approximately when a person starts to feel more normal. When a person only thinks about this a few times a day.

There’s not yet been a day when I don’t think about this, but it’s not constant.

I had the sweetest dream last week: I was having lunch in someone’s relaxed dining room with my dad and the donor. Or “both my dads” as I recount it when I’m feeling greedy or abundant. Both my dads! It was congenial. They were, as I imagine is actually the case, similar in demeanor and aspect. Gentle and quiet and smiling. Not anxious or aggressive.

Afterward—alone with my dad (the dad who raised me), I asked him—”Well, what did you think?”

I wanted his feedback on the donor. Not just “did the doctor make a good choice?”, but “did you like the dude?” I really wanted to know what he thought.

Maybe it’s just me and my desire for people to approve of…whatever it is. But it just felt really, really sweet.

Not-change three:

I am thinking about doing some sort of closure thing with donor and bro-dude. Not at the same time, or in any way connected. I just want to stop holding on. Not holding on to the hope that we connect in person—I’ve been trying to remove that from my wishes for a while. But holding onto whatever cards I keep that will make them adore me or find me important or interesting enough.

Of course, not holding on doesn’t mean just letting go of. It means giving them the actual things. That act of desperation or maybe just devotion. An ex gave me a book with a story in it he knew I’d love, and it included an inscription by the author. He had already said—was still saying—goodbye to me, but there was always something else to leave.

It kept me hanging on, even though I did move on, in action if not heart.

Giving these last, special things to donor and brother is not holding onto them—but letting go with intention and desperate hope (I admit it.)

One is a short story I wrote twenty-something years ago that takes place very near the town where they both grew up and still live. It’s steeped in the smells and sounds and sights of this landscape that I never inhabited. I think it means I knew something, that I know them. And if they are aware of that, they will know I am family.

I’ve already shared tons of songs with bro, after connecting, in what seemed a wild coincidence, about a mutual adoration of a not-very-well-known musician. I made a playlist with other things I thought he would like. (The horrifying parallel to mix tapes and dating isn’t lost on me. And if I’ve already written about this—sorry.)

There’s a novel I think donor dad would like, based on a few things he told me. There were emails where he shared things about himself and told me he was quiet, a listener and observer. What he said that stuck with me is that in these emails he talked to me in ways he hadn’t talked before. Oh, yeah, I held onto that.

I don’t feel sorry for myself nor do I think I’ll really actually let go of any of this.

But I have a new job. And a new writing project that I’ll share next time.

I’ll continue to update here—stay tuned while I stupidly wait for responses to the gifts that weren’t requested and won’t be welcomed —they are also my last lassoes, my best and most precious arrows.