Dirty Laundry

When I was getting ready to go to the airport to get R this afternoon I was watching "The Talk."  Daytime TV isn't my thing, but I don't mind watching that show once in a blue moon.  They were discussing a picture that posted to an English tabloid today talking about Sharon Osbourne having arm wobble.  Sharon is very funny and said you bet I do!  Well of course she does...she is 59 years old, had 3 children and survived cancer.  I think there are a lot of things you could say about her far more interesting and flattering than that she has arm wobble.  Who cares?  Why is this news worthy...or for that matter even tabloid news worthy?  Is it really going to draw ratings to pan the woman's age appropriate arms?  The whole notion that people have to look absolutely perfect all their lives is ridiculous, even if they are famous.  It's so damaging to all of us.

You can't go anywhere or get online without both news and tabloid news hitting you in the face.  I don't really think that many people care about that stuff.  I know I don't.  Sure sometimes we read a headline in the grocery store check out line...but it's forgotten exactly 3 nanoseconds after it's read.

But this got me to thinking.  In my last post I talked about when people take their personal differences and post it publicly online.  Maybe to a degree it's not so much the fault of the individual, but a product of society as a whole that we have started thinking this is an ok thing to do.  Afterall we have Facebook and Twitter for the sole purpose of posting what we are doing at any given moment.  Social networking has become like our own personal news feeds.  In the news they post everything and anything, whether it's true or not...the more scandalous or attention grabbing the better, so somewhere along the line we have started thinking that we should do this as well.

I have fallen victim to it too.  I post this little thing or that on Facebook...if I am going on an outing or having dinner somewhere.  My snakes in the garden issues.  What my latest tally is on my diet...25 pounds by the way!  Sorry I am feeling proud over that and want to shout from the rooftops.  Plus a whole host of other little mundane things.  But like the tabloids I suspect that when people read this stuff they remember it for all of about the same 3 nanoseconds as they would a tabloid headline, and move on.  I don't expect anyone to hang on my every word, but I almost feel obligated to post something to Facebook at least once a day when I don't have a new piece to show off.  

I don't suppose there is anything wrong with that, it's fun to keep up with what our friends are doing.  But when it turns malicious or gossipy, is it a way for people to get ratings much like the tabloids try to do?  To be honest I do think that plays a part in it for some, even though they don't consciously realize that's what they are doing.

All I can say I guess is the next time you read about a person, famous or otherwise, who has a few too many pounds here or there, has done or said something stupid they wish they hadn't, or had a fight with someone...instead of reading further, get out of your chair...walk to the powder room and have a good long look in the mirror.  If you have 0% body fat, never done anything stupid you regretted, or had a fight with someone...then by all means go back and read what it says...you've earned it!  But if you aren't in that category and are a mere mortal like the rest of us.  Think for a moment before you continue, how would you feel if someone was reading your dirty laundry!

130,000 Children

This afternoon as I putting up more decorations I turned on the TV. I knew that I wouldn't be able to focus totally on a program so I started watching "The Talk." Part of their discussion today was on adoption. They said there are 130,000 children in the system that need homes.

13 years ago I was told I would never be able to have children through the conventional method. R and I decided to try in-vitro. I never had the procedure. I took the Clomid, which makes you crazy. Also at the same time I was house hunting. Three months worth...which also makes you crazy. When you do in-vitro you have to get your period by a certain date each month based on your schedule. If you don't they have to move you back to the next month. That's extremely stressful, combined with the Clomid and the house hunting, I didn't get a period nearly the entire time thanks to the stress. I finally couldn't take it anymore and we decided to look into adoption instead.

On the show they said that these children need good homes. Yes they do, but it's not that easy. When R and I went to adopt we couldn't afford a private adoption through a lawyer at that time. We had just bought the house and it was very expensive to adopt that way so we looked into other ways. Not to mention that in Colorado it's all for the birth mother and she has the right to reclaim the child at any point.

We went to Lutheran Family Services. We were told we would never be given a child because we were over qualified. Yes really. We had been married ten years and had a good marriage. R had a decent and steady job, and I was a stay at home artist. We had never had any problems with the law or psychological issues. So we were basically too good to be true and no one would ever believe it. We met with this kind of resistance everywhere we went.

It was also suggested that we be foster parents, but I could not bring a child into this house, get attached to him or her and have to let them go. That to me would be more heart breaking than never having children at all.

As the years have gone by I have come to terms with it. We had our hopes raised many times only to have them dashed. I had to come to terms with it or be heartbroken every few months to a year. But it doesn't mean that I don't feel sad and still wish I had children. I do. In fact it's the greatest heart break of my life. I don't know if I would have been a great parent, but I certainly would have given it my very best. I know R would have been wonderful at it. He is that type of person.

It's very hard to watch shows like I did today and to hear them say that there are so SO many children in the system that need homes, to know we have a home and love to share and can't do it because of something so ridiculous as the suspicious nature of people who think we were over qualified to be parents. That we must be hiding some deep dark evil secret. I try not to let it bother me, I try to believe we simply weren't meant to have children...but every once in a while it's just so hard.