Best Friends with Bio Mom

Hermano’s foster mom called me yesterday to tell me that it was his last day with her. He was headed back to town as we spoke to live with a different foster family where he will no longer have his own room and he will be one of 6 (the family has 5 adopted kids). He had been waffling back and forth on Facebook and Instagram about this move, but ultimately the pull to his bio mom was too strong and he chose to be closer to her rather than think about what was better for his future. At least that’s my take on the whole scenario. I suspect he will be running away from this new foster family to somewhere else in the city, since he knows a lot of people and still talks to the old crowd. He credited his bio mom for helping to make this decision, but I don’t know that she offered the best advice. Hermano has not really spoken much to me or to Primero and he certainly hasn’t let us in on what is going on. Which is fine, I guess. I mean, if he’s moved on then that’s his prerogative. It is hard not to feel a little used, but ultimately things will work out how they’re supposed to work out, I suppose. It’s just hard to stop caring. It’s hard to watch someone you care about consistently make poor decisions for their lives. Both Primero and I had dreams last night in which Hermano just showed up in our home and tried to conceal himself from us. I don’t know if that means anything other than that he was on our minds. I don’t want to interject myself where I am not wanted, but I do want this young man to know he has an ally and somewhere he can go if he ever needs a place to stay. How do I extract myself from this situation? I don’t suppose I can, not and still be ok with myself. Unlike Hermano and even Primero to a certain extent, when I offer my love and support I don’t do it lightly and I don’t take it back if it becomes inconvenient. I promised to love and care for Hermano and I will do that without ceasing. I’m obnoxious and tenacious that way. Just look at Flaco – even after he left and treated me so poorly, I still loved that bastard until the perpetual weight of all his mistreatment finally broke me, broke my heart. Unfortunately for him, I can despise him just as passionately as I loved him. But, I digress…….

I have been feeling lately like I won’t ever find love again. I guess with the third year anniversary of Flaco leaving, which coincides with a holiday made up for romantic love (Valentine’s Day) I’m feeling the woe-is-me blues about being single. I’ve tried dating, even with the kids, but I just can’t bring back that loving feeling. I love the kids, I love my family, I love my friends but I just can’t dig deep enough to love a man. I find the men I’ve met and dated a few times to be tedious and rather annoying. I guess no one fits the mold I have in my head of the type of man I would want to be with. Yet, I feel lonely. I miss the warmth of a hug, the tingle of a kiss, the excitement of making love then falling asleep together. I almost feel like it was a different woman who was married, who had those passionate nights in bed. Hell, I don’t even know if I remember how to have sex! I guess my sister getting engaged and my mom being over-the-moon excited about her wedding has me feeling this way. Yet, I question myself if I even want to be married again. It’s not easy and now there is the added baggage of my previous relationship and the complication of the children. I want to feel excited to spend time with the man I’m seeing, not feel like it’s just one more chore, one more obligation on my schedule – which is how I’ve felt about all the men I’ve gone out with. I suppose it’s because I’m meeting them on online dating groups like Match.com and OkCupid. But, how else is a working foster mom of three supposed to meet men? Ugh, life is just too complicated!

A few nights ago Primero and I were talking and he said he hoped he would have a big house when he’s older so he can move me and his bio mom in and we could sit in front of the TV with his bio mom watching Murray and me yelling at her to get that crap off the TV. I don’t know where he got this cockamamie idea, but I suppose it’s nice to dream. I didn’t rain all over his parade, telling him I highly doubt his bio mom and I will be such good friends in our old age, but it made me pause and think. He still wants us to be friends, me and his bio mom. He wants us to have a relationship with one another, yet I don’t know that either of us are comfortable with that. I think I’m a little too straight-laced for his mom and I know she’s a little to ghetto for me. Other than him, I don’t think we have much in common. I suppose I should try to reach out to her and take the first step to a relationship, but how?

Today we were both commenting on a post he put on Facebook about an argument at school regarding if people are born gay. The conversation/argument apparently started due to Primero reading aloud a story he had written. It’s a horror story in which one of the characters was gay and dating another young man (he based this on his friends from the CFA). We both commented that he did the right thing in standing up for his story and his beliefs. In the course of the conversation I posted “Love you” with a kissy face. His bio mom immediately posted “Love you buddy.” I find it awkward. She hasn’t made any attempts to see him (not since seeing him without the county’s permission in December), does not really communicate with him on a regular basis, yet interjects herself into this Facebook conversation. How do I manage all of this? She is his past, yet she will always be present in some capacity into the future. I’m his present, trying to be his future, but I feel like my position is always tenuous. It’s hard to not see her as selfish, as wanting to keep possession of that which is hers by birth. As far as I can tell, this has been her M.O. his whole life. She plops him somewhere (like when he lived with his uncle and aunt for the first three years of his life) and then pops back up to claim him when it’s convenient. She is poison to him, as evidenced by his reaction to her release from jail the beginning of December and his doubts regarding adoption after seeing her at Christmas. I know she is and always will be his bio mom, therefore she will always have a place in his life. I just wish it were a more positive place, more supportive of the life he is trying to live right now, which is vastly different than the life he lived with her in the past. When there is distance between them, he can see it and understand, but when she’s muddling in things he gets confused and unsure. So how do I become friends with her? I don’t dislike her but I don’t understand her. She’s lived a life very different from my own. I’m no saint and I’ve done things I wish I hadn’t, but I’ve never lost total control of my life. I drank a little too much my senior year in college and when I was in the Peace Corps, but I’ve never experimented with drugs (not even pot). I’m no virgin and I’ve had more than one partner, but not nine in one week. I know this sounds judgmental, but I have moral standards that make some things “not right.” I won’t apologize for that. Sleeping with nine men in one week is wrong. Using drugs in front of your children or getting drunk in front of your children is wrong. Calling your children derogatory names, drunk or sober, is wrong. I just don’t know how to do this open adoption thing. Sometimes I just wish she would go away, but that’s being petty. I know it is important to Primero that we all get along and so I will keep trying to make that happen. But, I also have to keep adjusting my expectations because how I thought my life would be going at this point is vastly different from how things truly are in reality. I thought by 33 I’d be talking about baby number 2 or 3, living in a nice house with my husband both of us working to improve our situation, yet happy with our little family. Whew! Was that wrong! Instead, I’m a struggling single woman with three foster kids, one I’m about to adopt and I have to learn how to share him and incorporate a biological family into the mix as well. Sometimes it just seems so crushingly and overwhelmingly difficult! I guess I just have to keep putting Primero at the center of it all. What is best for him has to be best for us all. He wants to have a relationship with his bio mom and so I must find a way to do that as well. Dear God give me strength!