Being Interrogated...Round 1

It was so hard sitting there being interrogated. It wasn't that I didn't think these questions should be asked or that I wasn't willing to do this interview. It was that I had spent my life trying to make it the best I could even tho all these obstacles had come my way and now I wasn't sure how I was going to be judged on it. I was living a good life for the most part, at the time, even tho I had seen and done things most people couldn't imagine. I was being a productive person in society by keeping a job and paying taxes. I volunteered on Saturdays delivering meal to the sick and needy. I went to church on Sunday to pray for forgiveness and strength to be a better person. I tried to be a good wife, daughter, sister and friend. But deep down I was still that same little girl afraid of the big bad world that had hurt her so many times in the past. And now I had to explain this all to a complete stranger.

I explained to Violet that I spent years being mad at my mother for allowing us to live the way we did. I gave examples of how I had been mistreated by words and physical violence and even more traumatic was watching my mother and brother go thru the same hell. I told her I thought I had to be the parent in the relationship between my mother and I because my mother had drama surrounding her most of my life. I always felt I had to step up to take care of her or my brother when the stepfather tornado of terror would hit. I told her that day that altho I spent many years full of rage toward my mother that I had also found a place of compromise in it all in order to keep the peace in my family because my family really was where my heart was.

I told her of how when I was 18 I left the house and I ran the streets for a year or so after high school with a drug dealing, gang member boyfriend that ended up in prison for murder. I did all this just to prove to my mother and stepfather that I was free of them and that I could do what I wanted. I had been in drug raids and been jumped by girls he was cheating on me with. I lead a hard life and I carried all the rage from my childhood one needed to make it on the street.

I told Violet about my distrust for men because of all the "fathers" that had come thru my world and had abandon or abused me. We talked about my long line of failed relationships and how I had dated the guys I knew wouldn't stay. I told her about how I tested my relationship with my husband a million times by being unkind in the beginning and looking back on it I knew I was just trying to see if he was going to stay NO MATTER WHAT!

I finished off the conversation by telling her that altho I had been thru hell as a kid that I knew it was what gave me my strength and empathy for people as a whole. Once you have seen hell and lived there you start to look at people differently and wonder how many of them have been there as well and just aren't willing to let you in because they are afraid you might run away when you tell them the truth.

As the room went silent from me talking I looked into Violets eyes for the first time during my story telling. Her eyes seemed sad. And that is when the tears started falling from my own eyes. As I looked into her sad eyes I said....I know all this is a lot of damage to a soul but I wanted to be honest. And then I asked her a question I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer to, I said....will this keep us from being a approved to adopt a child?

I studied her face in hopes to see something positive but her eyes were still sad. She said you know what...this story makes me sad because you were so young and the adults in your life failed you. And here you sit trying to be a parent to a child that has adults failing in their life. She said...this story isn't going to keep you from being a parent...this story is going to make you a better parent because your breaking the cycle and you know how the children in the system feel and where these children are coming from. So your story makes me sad yes...but it isn't going to keep you from being approved.

I couldn't believe her words...I was so relieved that I leaned over and hugged her. Then she said...I think you and I are done today...and I can't wait to meet the man that loved you so much he put up with all the crap you just told me! We both laughed and I said...I know you will love him as much as I do!