counting bricks
counting bricks
__________________
I squealed as I ran to my room to grab my stuffed bear. I had been waiting for this day for what seemed like an eternity. It was the perfect day outside. I grabbed my shoes and plopped down on the kitchen floor. I had recently learned how to tie them so I focused hard as I tried to recall the exact sequence of steps between the first bunny ear and the final knot. Once I successfully pulled on the second pair of bunny ears securing my shoes, I bolted out the front door, down the steps and sidewalk to our car. I hurled myself in the back and excitedly buckled my seat belt, imagining the car was already screeching down the street at full speed.
I saw him look at me in his rear view mirror and he smiled. I smiled back, then turned to look out the window as I tried to count the trees that passed by. I couldn't believe we were on our way. Finally, I thought. I admired the houses on the street as we drove past and imagined what it would be like to stop at one and knock on the door. Would anyone be home? Would they have a dog to greet us? What would it smell like? I looked back at the road and watched the yellow dashed lines blur into one long strip. The small crack in the open window let in a cool breeze. I closed my eyes and turned my face towards the sun, watching shadows of buildings dance under my eyelids.
"I just have to make a quick stop," he interrupted. I opened my eyes and looked to the rear view mirror. "I can't take you with me, so I'm going to drop you off here on the corner. Just wait till I get back. I'll be quick, I promise," he said assuredly. Immediately my heart sank, but his promise of return helped to qualm the feeling of worry and concern. I grabbed my bear and hugged it tightly as the car slowed down. I reluctantly unbuckled my seat belt and slowly opened my car door. I gave him one more glance as if to ask, you really want me to get out of the car? He nodded at me with a smile as if to reply, I'm sorry, but yes. You need to get out of the car. I sighed and took a step onto the curb next to the stop sign and pushed the door closed.
"I'll be right back, I promise," he said again while turned around looking at me through the back seat window.
"Okay," I said quietly, and began kicking pebbles on the sidewalk with my bear's paw in hand as its body dragged on the pavement below.
It was still early in the morning and I worked out the hours in my head enough to understand that even with this unanticipated stop, we would still have plenty of day left for our adventure. With this tiny bit of consolation, I hopped onto a ledge near the stop sign and sat my bear next to me as I looked up at the sky, eager to see what animals and shapes were floating above me in the clouds. I squinted and held my hand over my eyes to block the sun as I scanned the sky. There was an elephant with a really big trunk, a dolphin jumping out of the ocean, and a giant cowboy hat. I smiled as I let my imagination run rampant. The elephant's trunk grew so long that it circled back on itself, creating a ring for the dolphin to jump through. And the cowboy hat, placed on the other side of the elephant's trunk, served as a giant stadium that held thousands of adoring fans applauding and cheering for the water show. I watched the dolphin jump through the ring over and over again until the clouds became stretched and spaced out, little pieces of blue sky breaking up the white, wispy fluff floating so high above me. The elephant's trunk transformed into an old rubber band, the kind you might find in the back corner of your junk drawer and the dolphin seemed to evaporate like the breath you might see when you exhale during a cold, wintry night. As for the cowboy hat, the middle had flattened to meet the rims, resembling a very large pancake. The show was over.
I began to feel impatient and worried. I sat up, hopped off the ledge and stretched my neck as far as I could to see down the street. After a few minutes with no such luck, I moseyed on back to my ledge. I traced the white lines between the bricks and followed it all the way down the block and back again. I took a few steps back and tried to guess how many bricks there were. If I guessed right, maybe I'd win a prize. As I was busy estimating the number of bricks, I saw our car turn onto the street a block ahead and my heart felt a jolt. I ran back to the corner and grabbed my bear off the ledge and walked straight to the stop sign.
He was on the other side of the road so he drove past me and turned around at the next block. As the car slowed down and pulled up to the curb, I reached out to grab the handle and open it, but the door was locked. Before I could say anything, he rolled down the back window and said, "I'm so sorry. I'm not done yet, but I just wanted to check on you. I still have something I need to do, but just keep waiting here, and I'll be back again." I felt another deep blow to my heart as I watched the car drive away once more. My excitement, once soaring high above my head seemed to plummet to the pit of my stomach which was now sour. He left me. Again. I stood there and watched the car drive off until it got smaller and smaller, eventually out of my sight, then I began watching and waiting for its return...again.
By this point the sun was high in the sky and I could feel its harsh light beating down on my skin, my shadow barely stretching past my feet. I walked back to the ledge and slung my bear on top once more. I looked above me, but there were no clouds in the sky anymore. The elephant, the dolphin, the cowboy hat...they were all long gone with no sign of return. The sky was bare and the sun was oppressive. My skin felt hot and was starting to burn. I gritted my teeth and began pulling blades of grass in the patch next to me. How could he do this to me? How could he leave me, again? When is he going to come back?
I decided to count the bricks, exactly as they were. No estimations or room for error. One, two, three, four...I began, starting with the bottom row and walking all the way to the end of the block. I glanced up at the street, but still saw nothing, so I continued back to the stop sign counting my bricks. With each new row, I'd glance up still hoping to see the car. I walked back-and-forth six times total and counted four hundred and twenty-two bricks before I saw our car again. Like before, I ran back to the stop sign and grabbed bear's paw to pull him off the ledge. I waited by the stop sign, toes tapping inside of my shoes, ready to leap into the car. I was tired of counting bricks. I was hot and sleepy and hungry. I was mad and upset and hurt. I wanted to go home. I wanted to scream and yell. I wanted to cry. The car turned around at the block and I waited impatiently.
As it neared the stop sign, I took a small step forward to reach for the door handle again, but the car was not slowing down as much as I expected it to. It kept moving, slowly. I looked up through the passenger window and saw him look straight at me. The car wasn't stopping, but this moment lasted forever. I locked eyes with him and saw sadness and guilt returning my concerned gaze. The front of the car passed by me. He shook his head apologetically, then slowly looked back to the road. I watched the back seat where I sat just hours before, also pass me by. My seat. My place. My car. It was all passing me by. I was still standing on the curb. I was supposed to be in the car. I was supposed to be safe and on my way home. My feet, so eager to move and jump before were now planted deep into the sidewalk's cement, incapable of moving. I had dropped my bear to the ground without my noticing, its arm now dangling off the curb and in a puddle. I watched as water slowly began soaking into its paw. I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry and scorched, my tongue numb. My eyes stung, but no tears came. I watched as the car drove off. Again. The only difference this time was that I knew...it was never coming back. I had been left and I was all alone.
I left my bear in the puddle and walked back to the brick wall. With my back turned against the wall, I slid down and clutched my arms around my knees, holding them as close to my empty chest as tightly as I could.
A million thoughts began to flood my mind, but I obsessed over only one: what had I done wrong?
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It wasn't until I was twenty-eight that I learned just how much of a role abandonment had in my life. I once shared this narrative (albeit a shorter version) with someone because it was the only way I could effectively communicate to him the pain and fear of what I was feeling. Coming out of a horrendously painful divorce and catapulting myself into an unstable relationship was the shining example of, "out of the frying pan and into the fire." My fear of being alone led me to chase after security, belonging, and safety, but in the end, I found myself spiraling to the lowest of lows, having panic attacks every other day convinced I was literally dying of a heart attack or asphyxiation, and getting sick after every single meal and sometimes losing my ability to walk on the really bad days. I missed a lot of work. I ate slices of bread and bone broth for meals. I lost weight. I felt empty, miserable, and hopeless. My inner child was drowning and no one could help. Not even I could tell she had been desperately flailing in the deep end.
In my last therapy session while living in Nashville, my therapist had me trace my own stream of consciousness. She explained to me that our brains have ways of telling stories to help us cope with trauma. When we can't logically make sense of something or when we don't have all the pieces, our brain attempts to fill in the gaps. It's a defense mechanism that can backfire on us depending on the narrative and sometimes our cognitive wires get twisted and stuck which can make us feel helpless, lost in a continuous loop. If we're telling a story to ourselves over and over again, one that's extremely painful and ultimately fictitious yet we believe it to be true, it can be incredibly destructive and insidious. This, she explained, was what was happening to me. She had me trace my narrative by following my stream of consciousness, my succession of thoughts and beliefs about self until I sat face-to-face with my own devastating, life-shattering statement. I followed the white rabbit all the way to the bottom of the barrel and this is what I found: "I don't exist. I am worthless. I am nothing." It's hard to believe I once uttered these words out loud to another human being. It's also difficult wondering how long I must have unknowingly carried them deep inside of me, imprisoned behind locked lips, how long I waded in the water hoping for someone to throw me a lifeline. How many decisions had I made based on these beliefs? My therapist practiced EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy with me to help untangle the cognitive wires that were fused and stuck in the wrong positions.
Abandonment is nothing new to our society. It comes in many shapes and sizes. For adoptees, this abandonment runs deep in our veins because it's what Nancy Verrier coined, "The Primal Wound". It is a severe loss, a feeling of rejection from the first person we are biologically wired to rely on and trust, often times before we can even verbally communicate. There is so much research and evidence to support that even in the womb, babies have a strong connection to their mother. They can recognize her smell and her voice. And to quite literally depend on another human being for survival only to then have that person disappear must be a terrifying thing to experience as an infant. Adoptees, like me, are often placed in orphanages and then placed in a foster home. I was placed in a foster home with a mother, father, and two of their children who were older than I was. I learned to trust and rely on others again. I learned to love and depend on others. I developed relationships and close bonds. It is written on my medical exams that I could recognize my foster family and I would smile at them. But at some point, they disappeared from my life too...all before I could even talk and before I even had the ability to cognitively understand why they had left me, why they were gone, why I was alone...again.
I remember being a little girl and my mom would tuck me in at night. She would be sitting on my bed with me and I'd look up and ask her, "Was I a good girl today?" And she would say, "Yes, baby. You were a very good girl today." When I think about this sweet, simple exchange, it breaks my heart. As a thirty-two-year-old woman, I now understand that what that little girl was really asking was, "Was I a good girl today? Or are you going to give me away tomorrow because I did something bad? Will you leave me like the others have? Am I worth keeping? Am I worth your love?"
And that's the difference with being adopted. The fear of being abandoned is so strong because it's already happened once, sometimes twice. Love and safety are temporary. Relationships are fleeting. Commitment is optional. Family is interchangeable. And the story we often tell ourselves subconsciously is that it's our fault. We did something wrong or something was wrong with us. We are flawed and unwanted. We are worthless yet we were purchased. At some point somebody who was supposed to love us unconditionally made a decision to give us away, to relinquish us. And if we can't rely on the person who was meant to love us unconditionally...who, then, can we possibly rely on?
I've spent most of my life playing peacemaker, avoiding conflicts, and putting others' needs first. It's been disastrous at times. In having conversations with other adoptees, I've found that this is a common set of attributes within this community of people. It wasn't until I followed that white rabbit that I began to understand just how deeply this was a part of me and my history. I feel very uncomfortable breaking rules because beneath it all, I secretly wonder what will happen to me as a result. For most people, if they break a rule the worst they may have to consider is, "what if I get in trouble? Will I be punished?" But for adoptees, we wonder, "what if I get in trouble? Will I lose the people I love? Will I be left completely alone?" I don't like upsetting others. I rarely speak up for myself if it will hurt someone else. I've spent my life counting bricks, waiting for long-awaited returns, counting bricks wondering if all of my good deeds will outweigh the rest, counting bricks wondering if I am good enough to deserve love.
I had the best childhood with a family I wouldn't trade for the world, and I never doubted their love for me or my love for them. But even that wasn't enough to stifle these fears of abandonment. This is the sort of thing people don't talk about when it comes to adoption. And I wish they did and had. How many other children are out there counting bricks, flailing in the deep end? How many of them wonder if they will lose the people they love? How many of them question their worth?
It is a heavy thing to think about and consider.
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