A NOTE TO THE READER: This is one post in a series of posts that will share the story of how I came to know and grew to love my daughters who were adopted at fourteen years old, mere days before they aged out of the adoption system. It does not reflect my feelings now. If you are joining me in the midst of the series, you can access the whole story by clicking on The Silent Months on the top menu bar of my blog. I choose to share my story to address a topic that is taboo in the adoption community. I share it to normalize the feelings that so many feel and yet are too ashamed to share. I share it to provide support to those who feel alone because there’s a big white elephant in the room, and no one can talk about it. I share it in support of adoption, in support of every single precious child waiting for a family, every one of which deserves to be loved and is lovable, every single one. Why can’t we talk about it? The feelings are real. The process of attachment can be easy and it can be painful, and the more we support parents who experience the painful side of adoption, the more we help the children. There are far too many disruptions, especially of older children, and if we as a community can come to see the feelings and the process as normal, perhaps we can provide support to those families and in doing so, help the children. Adoption is rooted in pain and loss, and often the process is painful. AND it’s okay. Before you offer your criticism, please read, Eliza Today, A Preface, and God’s Heart and Workers for His Harvest Field .
I suppose it started the day I met her, that long awaited, momentous day when the clouds would part, and I’d first lay eyes on the precious child for whom I’d prayed for over a year.
We’d even written letters to each other. They were love letters from a child who’d never known a mother to the woman she’d dreamed of all of her life; they were love letters, too, from me, a mother who was aching for her daughter.
I had been warned to keep my expectations low, even to not have any at all. And having worked in psychology for the ten years before I met my husband, I knew those were wise words. I felt I had no expectations, other than a desire to love a child who had never known a mother’s love. I had nine biological children. I didn’t need this child to fulfill anything for me. I was fulfilled. My family life was full and wonderful and overflowing with love, and we had something to share.
But then I saw her, sitting on that famous black and white couch of the civil affairs office.
She sat there, her head enshrouded in short, raven black hair, it hung low on her shoulders in a way that struck me as different, remarkably low. She peaked up at us from beneath her deeply bowed head with a shy, sweet smile. She sat beside the director of the orphanage who had brought her. We walked over to her and sat down on the couch next to her, each of us on one side of her, and Victoria next Mark. Evangeline sat beside me and moved back and forth from the couch to the ottomon next to me.
I felt a fear in my stomach. There was something about her that scared me. Was it her mannerisms, the way she hung her head so low, the way it seemed small for her tiny shoulders? Was it the gray, boy’s backpack that sat beside her, the one I thought should have been a girl’s?
How small of me. I thought. She was probably given that. She had nothing of her own, but had she chosen it?.
I wanted to hug her. I reached out for her and her body stiffened, perhaps in fear, or perhaps because she felt uncomfortable with this strange new mother she didn’t know. We spoke kind gentle words to her, words of love. Words she couldn’t understand. We gave her gifts we had brought her, candy, some colored pencils and a notebook. She took them and shook her head, never lifting it from it’s hanging position. We asked her to show us the things in her backpack.
She shyly reached for it, and I noticed her tiny hand, as tiny as an eight year old’s. Her finger nails were bitten low, to the quicks. They looked sore to me, and I thought of how she must have worried about this day as much as she had longed for it. She slowly unzipppered her backpack, the dark gray boyish back pack that bothered me, and she took out a bracelet she had made for me. She held it in her tiny hand. Tenuously, and slowly, fearfully, she reached out to me, to this woman who was now her mother, this strange amazon of a woman with big hands and feet so unlike her own. I took the bracelet from her, and smiled.
“Oh, it’s beautiful. You made that for me? Thank you.” I said in a language she didn’t understand.
She just sat there, head hung low, and smiled. The awkward silence seemed to slowly encompass us, like a haze. I thought of Carl Sandburg’s famous words, “the fog comes in on little cat feet.”
It felt like that, the silence between us. It had insidiously enveloped us. I didn’t want it to feel so awkward. I wanted to put her at ease, to stop my racing heart that beat within me with a vigor that nearly choked me.
The director spoke, “do you have any questions?”
Questions? I thought. Oh yes, I have so many, but where were they? They’d dissapeared like a sprite in the night. Words failed me.
“What time does she eat?” I asked with a stupidity that checked me. This was a teenager. “And her bedtime?” I asked, still in that stunned, doltish mode.
Mark was better. He was smiling and sitting relaxed on the couch. He looked through Eliza’s photo album while I wracked my brain for questions to ask the director.
Then, suddenly, the director said, She’s quiet now, but she’s one of the hyper ones in the orphanage.”
Neurological isssues, I thought, and my anxiety grew. My mind was suddenly filled with pictures I had seen of her on other people’s blogs, photos that families who’d already traveled before us had taken. She was always off somewhere, throwing a ball, sitting with children much younger than herself, jumping, not involved with the other teens who were being adopted and whose body language and stance in the pictures showed a web of relatedness, a connectedness. And then there was the picture that I’d seen only days before we travelled. It was a side view, and she had just had her hair cut short. Her head looked so small, remarkably small. I knew what that meant, but we were about to travel and this was the child God had called us to adopt. I ignored what I saw, and pressed on in faith to go and get this precious child who needed us.
Yet here I was, with this child sitting beside me. The awkwardness was painful, the anxiety rippled through my body as the pieces came together in my mind that this child was different. She was different than we were told she was, and I felt a distance, a separateness, a fear that gripped me.
I can’t do this. I thought.
And yet, there was that ever present consciousness that this was the child God had chosen for me. I was called to be her mother. He would make a way. So I ignored my feelings and went and signed the papers. She came in with us, and sat on my lap.
Where were the motherly feelings? I was numb and stunned and afraid.
“Are you happy with your child?” The man asked.
“Yes.” We answered.
You promise to love her and teach her and give her all that you have given your other children?”
“Yes.” The word tumbled out robotically with this teenager sitting stiffly on my lap, and the warm feelings that I’d expected so vividly evading me.
“Yes.” We said over and over again. I’m saying yes to God, I thought, void of the feelings I’d thought I’d feel.
Soon the signing of the papers was over, and it was time to go. I didn’t know how to be her mother. I felt it was too soon to take her with me. A deep fear enveloped me, yet I knew God had called us to Eliza. I held her hand and walked out of the civil affairs office, wishing with all of my heart the feelings of dread and estrangement would end.
We rode in the van, and she seemed excited. The fear lifted a little as she seemed so eager to go with us and to have a family. We took her back to the hotel, and she unpacked her things, wanted to know where she was sleeping, and then pointed to the clock. It was 12:00 pm. She was hungry, and it was time for lunch. She had always had lunch at noon, and today would be no different.
We began to get ready to go and the anxiety increased for Eliza. We were late, and she was completely out of her comfort zone. I knew we had to hurry. She couldn’t wait much longer.
She hung her head low, her lips pressed together in a deep pout, and a sadness enveloped her that was so fathomless it pained me. She picked at her fingers. I reached for her hands and tenderly held them in my own. I lifted them to my mouth and kissed her tiny fingers. “We’ll go soon.” Again I spoke in words she didn’t understand.
Finally, we were ready and we walked a few blocks to an Italian restaurant. She sat awkwardly on the chair, her head bowed low, refusing to look at the menu. I tried to show her the pictures and used the translator to describe the food. She couldn’t decide on anything, so I chose for her.
Mark is a joker. He was making funny faces. Victoria and Evangeline were laughing and connected using hand motions in conversation. Yet Eliza sat beside me, disengaged, sulking, sad. She lifted her legs and put her feet on the seat of her chair and buried her head between her knees, Clearly, she had no idea how to act in a restaurant. The sadness I understood. The social awkwardness wreaked of autism to me.
Had she never been to a restaurant? Had they never taken her out? Or was she not able to pick up social cues? Her mood hung like a heavy rain cloud over the meal. I looked at Mark, and his eyes met mine. “There’s something wrong,” he said in a quiet voice. The sick feeling burned inside of me like the sting of a jelly fish. This wasn’t what we had expected. This wasn’t what I wanted.
And yet there she was, sitting beside me, and I was her mother, and all I could feel was an overwhelming estrangement from my daughter. I had no idea how to talk to her, how to reach her.
We finished our meal, all of us that is except Eliza, who had eaten nothing. We stood up and pushed in our chairs. Eliza sat there, not moving, her head tucked between her knees. I pulled her chair out and took her hand. She quickly pulled her hand from mine, but she stood up and followed us.
We walked out of the restaurant in a group, but as soon as we were on the side walk, she walked as far away as she could from us. If you’ve ever been to China, you’ll understand how concerning this was for us on the over crowded streets. We insisted that she hold our hand.
She hated that, and continued to pull away.
I didn’t want her. Every ounce of feeling that pervaded my being was that I could not be her mother. But how could I not be her mother? She would turn fourteen in two days. God had moved Heaven and earth to get us there on time to adopt her before she aged out of the adoption program and could no longer be adopted. If I couldn’t be her mother, then she would never have one. We were her only chance at ever having a family. How could I judge this child in the first moments I’d met her? God had so clearly moved every mountain and provided every penny we needed to bring her home. I knew, deep within me, I was called to mother this precious child who felt so foreign to me.
And she was lovely, beautiful, strikingly so, yet somehow she repelled me. It didn’t make sense. I, who had never met a child I couldn’t love, felt nothing for our clearly lovely new daughter.
That was when the guilt began to invade the peace I’d known before we travelled. And who could I tell? I was so ashamed of my feelings. I don’t think I even admitted them to myself.
Finally we made it back to the hotel room. Evangeline asked if she could watch TV, and as much as we were horrified by the program options on the television, we needed a break.
Evangeline ran to turn on the television, and I went in the bedroom with Mark. Tears streamed down my face. “I can’t do it. Her needs are so big. How can I meet them? How will I ever teach her all that she needs to know?”
He took me into his arms and held me. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get though it.” He said with a calm confidence I lacked.
Then the phone rang. It was my mother. I spoke through the sobs. “Mom. I can’t do this.” I said again.
But my mother, half way around the world, who had been concerned about us adopting initially, said matter of factly, “Yes, you can, and you will.”
And dear reader, I do love her.
I’ll write more soon.
Blessings!
I am not sure how your openess will be received within the adoption community. We often like to believe that we will love our children the moment we meet because we have loved their photos and the dream of them for so long. Then we meet them and tiny or big, they come with histories, personalities and experiences that are not of our making. Now we not only have our longed for child but also a mystery to unravel, holes to mend, faith and love to teach; it is huge. The cloud of adoptee attachment, developmental trauma (PTSD) is not freely discussed (nope, don’t do that on our blog). We often are surrounded by those who would rather believe that love alone will heal all than step back and face realities head on. With this rarely being discussed the fact that parents need time to bond as well is discussed even less.
I applaude your courage in presenting your story. You are braver than many of us who have gone before you or are yet to embark on this journey. Please keep this in mind if you recieve any negative responses to your posts regardless of the forum.
I have felt your fears and the shame. I was amazed at how my mind and body shut down. I was forcing myself to put one foot on front of the other for days. Reading your post takes me back there. It is an awful place.
It took me 3 months to feel the love kick in, but it is there. It really is.
I am so glad you are sharing. This a dark reality, but God never leaves you or forsakes you. These children mean so much to him. They mean so much to me. I am thankful I was called and I listened. I am glad you listened too. You will be blessed even more than you already are.
Thank you for your courage. Life isn’t full of happily ever afters. We need to be real with each other and the world. There is no victory without struggle. Bravo, Diane!
I have the blogs I have written, and the blogs I wish I could have written. Thank you for being the voice that needs to be heard. I am still in the valley many days. I have searched for answers, but have come up short. Much is written about child attachment. I have found nothing that addresses the parent’s side. We were in China the same time you were. My story is very much the same. I will be reading your story with a very open heart and mind. As Heather said, expect a reaction in the adoption community. That is why I never put it out there myself.
Dear Diane,
You are such a brave woman. Brave for travelling to the other end of the world to embrace two aging out daughters in your arms. Brave to commit to love them. Brave to persist and pursue. Brave to introduce your harmonious family to the unknown. Brave to be patient, teach them and love them. Brave to spend weeks in hospital, go through confronting exams and diagnosis. And now brave to write down your true deepest feelings! I recognise a lot. The doubt, the fear, the unexpected…the shame… Yes you will probably get a reaction from the adoption world. Some of the people who react will be people who would have cancelled the adoption because they thought they could never handle a child like Eliza. Disruption… Some of them will be people who got an adoptive child that did not have the traumatic orphanage history that your girls had and fell in love with their new child instantly. These people will never be able to picture themselves in your position. And then some reactions from the adoption community are like the ones above and like mine. We understand.
Much love, Claudia x
Buckle up. You are not brave—you daughter is though. Some day she will read this. So will your other children. What will they think? What would you think if you husband had blogged about the first time he met you and lets say not as attractive or interesting as he had hoped? Or that after years of marriage he no longer found you attractive or interesting but had taken the vow of marriage so he would not leave you although he no longer loved you? These thoughts now out in the open for everyone to read….would we talk about how brave and amazing he was for being so honest and honoring his commitment?? Doubt it.
I am sure you have been told “some things are better off left unsaid” if there was ever a situation when this rule she be applied it was when you began this blog post.
As an adoptive parent myself, I agree with the previous poster–I strongly urge you to stop blogging now, unless you are planning that this child never learn to read. Seriously–take this down. She is your most important responsibility, your most important potential reader, and this post is irresponsible in the extreme.
And some comments will be from adoptees.
I once worked in post permanence. And while I applaud your honesty and do wish more adoptive parents knew it was not all roses, I am deeply concerned that many adoptive parents use religious “saving” language as a reason for adopting.
Yet, there is no conversation here about having done the work of learning about your daughters language and culture, connections to a local Chinese community, or taking courses to understand trauma before adopting. You already had vast numbers of biological children, and while large families are sometimes more comfortable for children from orphanages, I cannot image how you have energy or space or time for the children you have brought in.
I also see no understanding of the fact that the large majority of adoptees are not orphans. That word can not, should not, ever be used to describe an adoptee. They have been abandoned, maybe sold, but few are actually without biological parents in the world.
The religious community needs to truly understand that we adoptees (& I am a domestic adoptee) are human beings with biological families. Adoption fills a need, yes, but it isn’t the one they are selling. Trauma changes brains. It can be fixed, but only through hard work and deep personal connection. Adding to your “quiver” is your need, not your adopted children’s.
Please read about trauma and brain development. Please read the primal wound. Please stop “saving” children. Donate that money to the communities the children come from in ways that support families being able to stay together. And if you still need to save children, work with foster children in your own community. After you get some training.
I appreciate your comments from the view of an adoptee. They are so important. One thing i feel like I need to address though is that I keep reading from people that it would be better to donate money so families can stay together. While that is most definitely optimal and would be great it is naive. I could give all the money i have and it would not change the politcal and social system in China that produces the vast number of children needing families. In some countries that is possible but in china it is by and large not.These girls would have aged out and one would likely have died and the other would have been either permantley institutionlized or fallen victim to trafficking or suicide.
Yours is a story of HOPE and redemption. Thank you for sharing openly and honestly. I can relate with so many of the things you are sharing, and I do believe this openness is very much needed within the adoption (especially the older adoption) community.
Before Diane started writing these blog posts, I warned her that there would be people who had no idea who she was, who knew nothing about our family or what any of us have experienced during this journey, but would have absolutely no reservations about criticizing her, attacking her, and insisting that THEIR opinion was the only one that really mattered. I was right. One thing that I would like to say is that these comments of support and criticism are OPINIONS; those of you who are assuming that you know what conversations have or have not taken place within our home with ALL of our children are flat out wrong. You do not know how the girls and the rest of the family have addressed all of these “life” issues. Of course they are learning to read, of course we encourage them to share their feelings and frustrations. Don’t you think they have the ability and wherewithal to figure out this has been a difficult, but very worthwhile, process? I want to say how dare you, Meg, Lori and Erica, presume to know exactly how everyone in our family feels or have the audacity to lecture us on what we should or should not be doing with our family. That is your opinion, and please don’t assume to know, Erica, that we have not read books, or taken classes, or spoken to and exposed our children to others in the Chinese community here in the U.S, because we have. However, just because I studied international relations in college does not make me qualified to negotiate peace treaties. In case you haven’t noticed, life doesn’t always play out they way we think it will, or the way they say it will in the books. If those of you who are so offended and outraged, DON’T READ THE BLOG. You have no idea how the story will ultimately play out, and to presume that you have the answers and are the arbiters of what we, people you do not know, should or should not do, is very offensive to me. I was going to stay out of this, because I knew there would be ignorant comments from people who “know it all,” but I’m just so worn out by people who know exactly how everyone else should live their lives. And in closing, Meg, I never saw anywhere that Diane claimed that she was brave or a hero. You do what you deem best for your family, and we’ll do what we deem best for ours. Spend more time concerning yourself with how you are living your life, and let us inferior people muddle through life as best as we can. A child over 5 years old has less than a 5% chance of ever being adopted. We adopted two 14 year old girls with significant special needs, and they are now thriving and know that they are very loved by their entire family. Such difficulties are very common in older child adoption, but no one is allowed to admit that or do anything other than paint the picture of it as being anything other than sunshine and puppies. Well, let me tell you, it isn’t. This story is not yet complete, and, again, if you don’t like it, do yourself a favor and refrain from reading it.
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So very well said, Mark! One thing I have learnt in this journey of life is that we cannot judge other people unless we have walked a mile in their shoes and each journey is so personal to each and every human being….so people out there in Blogland practice kindness and love to each other…support each other and stop tearing each other down….
Amen to Marks comment. I am grateful you and Diane are sharing. Your faith through the storms of life are inspiring!!!
As an adoptive mom to three special needs kids and bio mom to one I will tell you that everyone has lots of opinions about adoption and special needs and what is “best” and everyone feels the need to share them, not always kindly! So, just keep doing what is working for your family and blessings on your growing love for your “new” daughters. We have been struggling for sometime to bond with our newest daughter who has been home over a year now… so I appreciate when people don’t act like its all sunshine and rainbows 🙂
Mark, your wife is blogging for the public to read. Commenters have voiced their valid concerns about exposing your daughter’s personal business, her private moments and traumas, in public. This blog uses her real photo. It uses her name. Hurtful things about her were written in the blog for all to see. She will know that she “repelled” you, and she will know that everyone who googles her name will be able to discover that very awful and personal thing. If you want to write a story about your adoption journey, either use aliases for your entire family or wait until your children are old enough to give informed consent. And yes, I say this as an adoptee — and btw, your distain for adoptees experiences is not a healthy thing for your daughter.Take a breath, reread the comments, and then take another breath. Also, I will say this, Eliza is very, very brave and very strong to thus far survive all the trauma that has been inflicted on her, including being 14 and brought to a place where she understands no one and they don’t understand her. (unless that has happened to you, unless you have gone to live among strangers not being able to speak to them or understand them, I think you cannot possibly know how very, very difficult that is.) And you have no idea what an adopted person goes through; it is hard. Very, very hard even in the best of circumstances – and this was not the best of circumstances. Also, perhaps you are unaware of this, but no one wants to feel their parents adopted them in order to rescue them. Seriously.I think you and your wife need to have some long talks with transnational, transraciall adult adoptees. I think that will help you all a lot and be a good thing to do for your adopted daughters.
Thank you for being real. Shame on your criticizers. Keep following God!
We arrived in China to adopt a 6 year old who we were told several times was “on target developmentally”. We also viewed video where it looked like she was as they said doing things appropriately for her age. I found a child who was very mentally disabled. I knew that I was in her life for a reason and our family tried for a long time to be the family she deserved. I tried to be honest on my blog about our struggles and eventually went private because of all the nasty anonymous comments I received. We finally realized that we were the vessel to find her the family who could help her more than we would ever be able to. She is legally their daughter now and even though we miss her we know we were never meant to be her forever family. We have a child we adopted from a dissolution…again she was not in the right forever family at first. Sometimes things happen for a reason, that reason is not always easily seen at first. I know that you have not and are not considering dissolution but just want you to know that it happens. In our case, both ways, it has been a blessing to the child. I know many more families that have chosen the same path and their children have been blessed to finally arrive in the right family for them. Shame on the negative commenters as they have probably never walked a mile in our shoes.
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Keep going, Diane! I am praying for your (and Mark’s) hearts as you proceed. What you are doing in sharing the hardest parts of adoption will undoubtedly help MANY parents to hold on and continue to work at it until they can arrive at a true love relationship with their children. My adopted daughters know (because like you we openly share our feelings and thoughts) that adoption is hard for BOTH the child and the parents. It’s okay for them to know/embrace how we feel/felt, just as it is okay for us to embrace how they feel/felt. It’s truth, and we do not need to fear it. There is only shame when we pretend differently. And unless identified and healed, that shame can cause parents to change permanently in ways that may damage the child’s emotions even more than the traumas they have already endured have done. There is eventual healing for those who desire to keep going. You are helping people to let go of their shame and despair and climb out of the valley with God’s help. You will never know how grateful parents like me are for your courage. You will undoubtedly help potential parents to go ahead and take the risk and adopt because you are offering realistic hope in the struggle. You may also help prevent some disruptions through your openness. God bless you mightily!
Just hugs to you both. I followed your journey both before and during your travel. You were confronted with so much.
I walked similar footsteps with our son. I still wonder to this day if we should have just left him behind, sure it would have been so much easier. But God had clearly made sure we knew he was ours before we ever traveled. Until someone walks this frightening road – one in which you fear the basic constitution of your ability to parent, as well as your family make up they just will never know.
We have come a long way, the journey has changed me. I can’t imagine our life without our son. I commend you for writing this – it needs to be said.
I haven’t read one comment. I’m not going to. I just want to say Thank you. As an adoptive parent, with other bio children at home as well, I have always believed that is a disservice to the adoptive parent and child to pretend that everything always goes smoothly. That it is just like a fairy tale from the very beginning that “love ” is all you need to get through it all. It’s not all lollipops and rainbows. It’s hard. It’s really hard. Not talking about it just isolates those who have not had the easiest journey. It makes them feel very alone and as if there is something wrong with them. There isn’t……we just need more openness and honesty without the judging. Never, ever judge another parent in the midst of their journey…grace is what’s needed. Grace for goodness sake. Thank you for being brave enough to know that not everyone was going to be kind to you when you posted this and going ahead and doing it anyway. Grace and peace……
It seems there are a lot of assumptions being made here by commenters with specific agendas. Diane did not adopt out of a “need”, as she made clear. And as Stacey said, the system which was already in place in China had pretty much doomed her girls through no fault of their own, long before adoption even crossed Diane’s mind.
I can tell you from personal observation that I have sat and talked with Diane for a number of hours while her “vast numbers of children” came in and out of the room and were tended to by her. Every one of them was responded to with patience, kindness, and love. She most certainly demonstrated that she had energy, space and time for all of them, whether bio or adopted.
She also has an honest and loving heart, and in writing this has stressed that her feelings were her own failure, not a failure on the part of her daughters. She’s chosen to “out” herself with great courage, in the hope of helping other families.
No matter what the politics surrounding adoption, there are children living without hope, whose families of origin are lost to them forever, and who have no future in a culture that does not value them. Yes, that is a tragedy. But the tragedy is all the greater if they lose the chance to have a second shot at family life because of adoption politics. I applaud those who speak out about adoption ethics. I’d like to adopt an older child because of the great need for families to step forward for those who don’t have a chance at a family, and I take these concerns about ethical adoption very seriously. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. There ARE children who need families. Diane adopted two of them. Because of her humility and honesty about her story, people who follow this difficult road will be better equipped to see it through.
My mother always told me “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”. It always amazes me when someone feels they have the right to judge others and their lives and what they do. It’s fine to think it, just don’t say it. We adopted a 14 year old boy two years ago, and no, it’s not easy…period. I’ve blogged about some of our struggles, but not all because we live in a small community and don’t want everyone knowing ours or our son’s business. But Diane, I do admire you for speaking out, because if it can prepare even one family better for what they might find with their child and still commit to that child, then it’s worth it.
I just wanted to say thank you… from one mom to another. It’s good to not be alone in the hard stuff.
I have felt many of those same feelings. Thank you for sharing what many adoptive moms (and even some bio moms) struggle with. God bless you and your family.
Your initial feelings and trepidations are valid and understandable, and I do wish this topic was better addressed so that adoptive parents are better prepared and ready to respond to such challenges. Perhaps we could prevent heartbreak and disruptions that occur after some adoptions.
However, this would be better written in a format where you could disguise identifying information about your daughter. Your daughter has not had any control over her life. She has not had a parent to protect her from harm, to respect her privacy, to place priority on her needs. Yes, there is a very real need for the adoptive community to discuss this very real topic, but why can’t we do that without exposing this child’s challenges- and her new mother’s rejection- to public view? To her OWN view?
While you have grown to love your daughter, there seems to still be a disconnect here. You seem to be a thoughtful and reflective person and I hope you consider this feedback.