Loss: The Opposite of Abandonment

I've been reading a few adoptee blogs which talk about an innate feeling of abandonment and how they feel that no matter what kind of relationship they're in, they will be abandoned - by their lovers, friends, children.

I have what I consider the opposite problem - I feel like I am going to lose every one I love, that no matter what I do, they are still going to leave because life somewhere else is better than life with me as a part of it. Maybe it's semantics, but to me there is a difference between being left (abandoned) and feeling loss.

Ever since having my daughter, I am acutely aware that someday soon she will not want to come home after school because there are fun things to do with fun people, then she won't want to be home on the weekends, then she won't want to be home at all. I recognize what I described is part of growing up and, after all, I want to raise an independent, self assured woman. I have to accept that no one in life is a permanent physical part of our daily existence.

When the movie Forrest Gump came out years ago, I saw it in the theatre and sobbed. For me, the overwhelming message was that Forrest excelled at so many things and could have anything he wanted in the world - a ping pong championship, a successful shrimp company - but what he wanted and loved most - special people - kept eluding him. He lost his best friend, he lost his mother, he lost Jenny. That's how I felt about the adoption. I could go on to do all the things I was supposed to do - get my degree, get a good job, be "successful" etc. - and I did. But like Forrest, I found no satisfaction, no fulfillment because no achievement allowed me to be with the person I loved and missed so dearly. Nothing I did was going to give me the right to go and scoop my son up in a huge hug and be his mom. The loss is permanent.