What Would Have Been

I had a long talk today with a good friend who recently made a pretty big career decision, and is having a bit of buyer’s remorse. It’s too soon to tell whether the choice he made will work out well. But for now he’s tormented with questions of what might have been.

Of course, we all do that sometimes. And when you are in that mode it’s hard to stop. He and I are both fairly logical people, and we like to solve problems by thinking through them. But you can’t think your way out of what might have been. It’s like driving on a mobius strip — you feel like you’re doing something but you just keep looping around. (Or maybe it’s like driving with me through a parking ramp!)

Christmas

Someone kindly told me they enjoyed my Thanksgiving post, and asked if I was going to write any Christmas reminiscences. I’ve been thinking about that, and for some reason it’s much more difficult. Because Christmas itself is kind of difficult.

The expectations for Christmas are so much higher, and the scope so much larger. Thanksgiving is one big dinner, followed by a long weekend. Christmas requires cards, presents, parties, decorations, and at least one big meal, and it is as often as not followed by going to work the next day. Add to that the timing — the last few days of the calendar year are a busy time in many workplaces — and you have a lot of pressure. I think if I had to pick a favorite day of the year, I would have to pick December 26.

On Pain, and Competition

The last few days I’ve been catching up on reading blogs more than on writing my own. Several of the blogs that I follow are related to adoption. I’ve learned over the years that my experiences as an adoptee were not so unusual as I had thought, and many adoptees have had it much worse.

But here is the thing that strikes me tonight about some of these stories.

Validation

A cool thing happened to me today.

One of the many things that defines my life, and that I will write more about here over time, is that I was adopted. My childhood was not, for the most part, a very happy one, although I don’t know that being adopted was, in itself, a big reason for that. But I did grow up feeling very different from my adopted family. My mother wasn’t the sort of person who could respect and validate other people’s differences. She was more the sort of person who made me think — in fact she outright told me on many occasions — that there was something wrong with me.