Tomorrow is Mother's Day.

I'm a birthmom. Because I was young, alone, and didn't want to raise a child by myself on welfare, I placed my son for adoption after he was born. He turns 16 at the end of the month.

It was a closed adoption, so any contact had to be done through the agency and we weren't allowed any identifying information. Somehow, however, in mid-March or so his mom tracked me down. She and I have corresponded a bit, and she sent me a beautiful through-the-years photo album so I could see how he's grown. It's all been wonderful.

It took me years and years to get cool with Mother's Day, but I finally achieved it. Until today.

I wrote a story about my adoption experiences for my paper about a year and a half ago, and someone from the liturgy committee at my church emailed me and said she would make sure birthmoms got included in the Mother's Day liturgy, which they hadn't previously. So I appreciated that, and once 22,000 people knew my story, there was no point in hiding anymore, so I went up for the blessing at the end of Mass.

Today, everybody I ran into wished me happy Mother's Day. I managed to make it to my car before I lost it, but I sat in the parking lot for 10 minutes and sobbed. Apparently it looked pretty bad, because some old man I don't know came up and banged on my window to see if I was OK.

Anyway, now that I've bored you with all this, what I want to know is: When does cutting stop being the first thing you think of when you're overwhelmed? Has anybody here managed that yet? Because I'm really struggling right now, despite having tried healthier coping options, and I hate that it's still the first thing that comes to mind as relief.

Candy

<i>There used to be a real me, but I had it surgically removed. -- Peter Sellers</i>