Reverberations

Right now I am teaching myself to knit and crochet. I'm learning how to make scarves, hats, afghans, and whatever else I can create... What I can create... What I bring into being that has never existed before. Triggers lurk everywhere. It's a minefield of emotions - and sadly, most of those emotions are negative ones. This is the gift that adoption has given to me. I've made several scarves. I'll see a pattern and think, "Oh, I bet I can make something different based on that!" and I make it. Each one is unique and represents the colors, the character, that I feel when I think of the person for whom I am making that item. Thought, creativity, and time goes into each one. Each one is a labor of love. And now, when I look at the completed items, I want to make a pile and light a match to them. I want to destroy these things I have created so that no one else can enjoy what I have worked so hard to create. I created them. Each one is a piece of me. And I feel resentment at the idea of giving them to someone else to enjoy. These recipients have not labored for hours to make them - they're products of ME of MY WORK... they are pieces of me. I've given away so much of me, I sometimes think that I'm just a shell. I make jewelry and always give it away. I bake and usually give it away. I cook and others eat it. I am knitting/crocheting and now others are going to find warmth in it. I created my own children from scratch! I made them. And my first born was taken from me. I labored. I ached. I created him from pieces of myself. And someone else took him away and found comfort, warmth and happiness with pieces of me. And when they did this, they did everything in their power to erase me. They took my creation and said "fuck you" to the creator. I don't want to give anyone anything else. I'm done. I feel this way all the time. I used to be generous. I use to give for the love of giving and no other reason. And now, I am closed. I shelter myself. I've built walls that are impenetrable. And all I see around me are people who want to take more. Everytime I see someone say "You've given someone a gift they can never give themselves. You're an angel." I want to SCREAM! I didn't make my children so that someone else could play house and make-believe. I didn't carry my son so that someone else could fabricate a family with my child. I didn't give birth to him to make someone else's dream come true. I put my life on the line and my health on the line so that my child could live... and I wanted him to live with me. I wanted to raise my own son. I wanted to hear him say "mama" and take his first steps in the world toward me before he took his steps into the world away from me. But no one ever asked me what I wanted. No one ever told me how inextricably linked to him I felt. No one ever cared about the best interest of MY family. And now so many years later, I sit here knitting, creating from scratch, bringing into existence something that didn't exist before. And I know in a few months, someone else is going to take home what I've created. Someone is going to receive the gifts I am forming. And those inanimate objects truly are gifts. My son was not a "gift." Triggers lurk in every corner and crevice of existence... and I just cannot escape.