[Continued from HERE.]

Here is a definition for you:

Obsession n. Compulsive preoccupation with a fixed idea or an unwanted feeling or emotion; often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety.

I know that when I become obsessed with something, my brain turns into a gaming room. It goes to great lengths to keep pulling the slot machine handle its got in there in an attempt to look at the endless permutations of angles on the topic spinning around on the drums. The game then usually changes from the machines to a life-size checkered board, launching into a quick run-through of ‘if this, then that’ type chess moves until that seething gray matter decides what exactly should take place. Once their seems to be a ‘winner’ whereby I can draw some conclusions, make a plan, SOMETHING … then, the whole process starts all over again. Whew!

There is no more consuming an activity than obsessing over something.

There is usually no worse a predictor of events than expectations rising from obsession.

There is also usually no more tormenting a disappointment that obsession-manufactured expectations not being met.

In the blogs I researched, those people that were clearly obsessed with the topics that most adoptees just think about sometimes also had very clear ideas of how everything should work out. Expectations were/are very high, and as is often the case with one-sided expectations, reality could not measure up.

Which brings us to the last hopping stone across the issue stream: the inability to let go and move on. High, much obsessed-over, expectations seem to be pulled to the ground with a more intense gravitational force than anything else, causing a crater in the soul imbedded with eternally niggling shards from the shatter. The crater itself might never disappear … or it might. It might eventually be filled with a dream or expectation met or an unimagined, unsought something that magically fits the spot before we can do anything to sabotage it.

The shards, though … those are dangerous. They are, perhaps, the determining factor as to whether or not the crater can be filled. If those shards are kept sharp and in place, they can easily shred and destroy anything that tries to fill the hole. If, however, as many of them as possible are removed, ground to small, blunt pieces and disposed of in a safe place, a strong possibility is created that something good can take root and grow there.

Granted, sometimes there are very good reasons why it is incredibly difficult to get rid of the shards, but it is never impossible… and always necessary. It would be brilliant if with every drama, every disappointment, every injustice, ever failed or unsatisfactory relationship, we could get complete closure in the perfect way, with resolution of all conflicts and profuse apologies by the offender.

But down here in reality that isn’t what happens most of the time.

The only person that is hurt, consumed because of these topics-turned-problems is the person themselves, not the people they believe caused their pain nor the people they believe should have helped them fix the problem. Just they themselves. How can we expect anyone else to be careful not to hurt us, to let us down, if we are so determined to do these things to ourselves?

So here we are, sitting in the middle of our issues, our problems, still obsessed, unwilling to let them go … but the decision to cling to these problems is not because we are adopted, but because we are human, and that’s what humans do quite often.

[Continued. Next blog: Coming full circle to conclusion.]