The Heaviness (pt.3)

(This is part three, which follows part 1 and part 2.)

Looking back, those first months after we met L’s family were the honeymoon phase.  I can’t speak for her other parents, but I know it was an exciting and amazing time on my end.  I was doing the best I could to invite them in.

I threw the doors open as wide as I could. Our adoption was going to be OPEN, come hell or high water!  OPEN OPEN OPEN.

I was using an instant messaging system and chatting with L’s baba every other week or so.  We had phone calls with a translator.  We figured out how to do a video chat so they could see L.  I set up a website so they could see pictures of L whenever they wanted.  They sent pictures to me of their home town.  We filled in lots of gaps in L’s story.

We were getting to know each other, even though it was laborious and confusing at times to use online translating tools and other go-betweens.  We were making this work, dammit!

And then it happened:

The Awkward Thing™

I wish I could talk more about The Awkward Thing™, because it is a classic example of cultural miscommunication, but I can’t.  I will only say that each of us were operating in a completely culturally acceptable way in our own cultures, but NOT at all acceptable in the other side’s culture.

When these corresponding giant cultural gaffs became undeniably obvious, we then headed to entirely more risky cultural ground:  Losing Face.  In trying to untangle this mess, L’s family was going to lose face and we were going to lose face too.   I don’t know if you know much about Face in Chinese culture, but it is a really big fucking deal.

This was bad.  Really bad.  It could have been worse, though, if we weren’t using the world’s most amazing translator.  She intervened and managed to salvage the situation in a way that allowed both of us to save as much face as possible.

That was when the burden of this situation really started to hit home for me.  It was entirely possible that we could screw this up for L.  We (Mr. A and I—and let’s be honest, mostly it is me) are pretty much entirely responsible for creating and maintaining a relationship with L’s family for the next ten billion years, or until she is an adult and is willing to take over.  There is also a certain amount of responsibility will be on the shoulders of L’s family too, but they are in China where open adoption is completely unknown and they are completely isolated in the experience of being birth parents in an open adoption as we imagine it. We have their kid, we have the power here, the burden is on us.

What if we screw up?

This concern in the looming specter of The Awkward Thing™ seemed more likely than not.

I found myself both consciously and unconsciously beginning to avoid thinking about and interacting with L’s family.  I wished we had started with less contact…MUCH less contact.  Why didn’t I just aim for a short letter every couple months or once a YEAR for that matter? Why did I have to start out with so much contact which is going to be very difficult to maintain?

I felt weird after The Awkward Thing™. I felt emotionally wrung out and exhausted by the whole mess.

I wanted my old life back.

(to be continued here…only one more, I promise!)