Christmas (a week early)

My (first) mom and I had Christmas tonight (Thursday night). We had each sent the other a box of presents. We opened our respective gifts and then called each other.

I had gotten her a t-shirt from the school I teach at (their school mascot is a dragon, and she has been doing a lot of research on dragons in literature) and a dragon figure. (I don't want to over-do it with dragons, but both of these things were things I had been wanting to give her for a long time.) I also gave her a copy of the film Wall-E from Pixar, probably my favorite film of this year.

She gave me J. K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard and a digital picture frame. She loaded a memory card with pictures of our extended family. She also printed out a family tree that she had been constructing (inspired by questions I asked at the beginning of our reunion). I was blown away. I just sat there, looking at all this information and these pictures. I was on a family tree. I have dozens and dozens of blood relatives.

Then we talked on the phone for three hours (until our cell phones ran out of battery charge). It was so nice to talk and swap stories and reactions to gifts and everything else we could think of. There is something so healing about talking with her. It was good.

I mentioned my (adoptive) mom not being home for Christmas and wished I could be visiting her (my first mom). And part of me wanted to talk about it with her. But I stopped myself. I didn't want her to tell me that I should understand, as that would upset me. At the same time, I didn't want to upset her. I didn't want to tell her how negative I was feeling about my (adoptive) mom, and I especially did not want to dig up the past. If she didn't dismiss my feelings, then she might very well feel guilty for giving me up in the first place. Neither reaction would have made me feel better. So I thought I should keep it to myself at this point.

It was just a nice time. It did make me wish I could be there for Christmas, but I'm trying to stay positive about this trip. And I know I'll get to talk to her again soon.