RUNNING

I’d wait for you outside the courtroom, and taunt you when all your appeals were declined.

I put my headphones in. Select “The Carter III” by Lil Wayne. Stretch my legs. And start down the street. I find my rhythm and just keep going. 3 or 4 blocks later I start to burn in my chest. I want to stop, but can’t allow it until I have made it all the way around the park. That means I still have another mile and a half. This is my morning regimen. I wake up at around 6:00 AM and go for a run.

Lately I have been thinking about how my decision making is a lot like running. But rather than the first thought that probably popped into your head. Of running away from. It is more like running at. Which at times can be equally as damaging. On the morning of December 1^st the mother of my child called me. She said that she knew now that we could not wed; that things between us would not work. She told me that we would be placing our child for adoption.

I spoke to the mother in a very matter of fact sort of tone. I told her that I would support her decision about us. And I would respect her wishes about what she wanted for our child. I also told her that She needed to respect mine. I told her that I was not sure if placing is the right decision for both of us. I told her I would activate my rights. I told her that while she may feel like she isn’t ready to be a mother. That doesn’t mean that I’m not ready to be a father. That was the start of our fighting.

From there on out the mother fought me on everything it seemed. She stopped answering phone calls. She wouldn’t respond to texts. I had even gone as far as to contact her parents (whom she lives with) directly to get her to respond to me. For me it was a VERY frustrating experience. To have a person who had more leverage than myself think that she was making adult decisions and yet not act as an adult should. I felt like I was having my child taken from me, and that the person doing so was not able to even put together a coherent sentence.

(I’m going to rant for a minute here)

This is to birthmothers. If you are considering placement, I truly hope that you know that I think that it is a wonderful thing. That your love for your child can literally be measured. And that I hope that your decision stays with you well. If the birthfather is involved. LET HIM SPEAK HIS MIND!!!

Understand that most states have ways for him to take that baby from you. Understand that if he wanted, he could take away all your hopes and dreams to have an open adoption and be able to know your child. He could steal that baby from you, and you may never get the chance to see your child again. Yes that is a very dramatic and not likely outcome; but just know what he can do.

That is precisely what I wanted to do to my child’s mother when she started acting that way. When she started shutting me out. It took a lot of self control on my part to not go to court. It took a lot to not have her served papers. And it took a lot for me to not take her baby away and NEVER let her see or hear about them again.

This is why my decision making is like running. While I was so very angry at the mother for being the way she was. All I could think about was making her as miserable as she was making me. So I made that decision and started at it. Now here is the problem with my decision making. Just like running. It is hard to cope with things as they come your way. You have so much momentum built going in one direction that it is hard to stop, change direction, or deal with other things being thrown at you.

Imagine you are a soldier at war. You are on the battle field and you see one of your platoon members go down ahead of you. You start running to aid them, But in doing so you are not able to avoid gun fire as easily. You don’t have as much time to react to things happening around you.

Well just like running, the more you run, the more tired you get. When that happens your feet start lifting lower from the ground. When this happened for me, I started stumbling over the cracks. The more and more is stumbled, the slower I went. The slower I went, the more and more I thought about what I was doing.

I tripped so many times, that I had to stop. I stopped and looked around. I looked at where I had gone. I was no longer in the beautiful park with trees and grass and playgrounds. I was in the industrial park just a few hundred feet from a notorious gang member’s house. I had been so blinded by the thought of “I gotta get there, and I gotta get there yesterday!”. That I didn’t ever really think about where the journey went through.

The good thing for me is that I know that while the path that leads to placement is full of thorny bushes and poison grasses. It is also surrounded by something beautiful. That is LOVE. In this instance it will be the beauty of nature. While running down the road to destroy my child’s mother’s dreams. I was unaware of the changing of my scenery until I was nearly to far away from what my real goal was. So while I will still run in the direction of placement. (old habits die hard) On this path the dangers are more prevalent, and are therefore easier to avoid. I know that some of these stickers and thorns will still get me while I’m on my way. But at least on this road my heart is staying in the right place, and I won’t lose my way completely.

Please listen to the WHOLE song for today’s post. If you don’t you will not get the message that is meant to be taken from it.