It's Not Easy Being Green

Image credit: muppet.wikia.com

Those of you who are familiar with Kermit the Frog singing "It's Not Easy Being Green" will know it's a song about Kermit complaining about the color of his "skin" and then realizing that it's not so bad and it's beautiful after all.  On its surface, that's what the song is about.  But if you look a little deeper, that song can be applied to so many things.

When faced with such a momentous decision as the decision all birthmoms make in placing their children for adoption, I argue that the decision contributes to our individual "greenness."  It's irrevocable and life changing.  We cannot be who we once were ever again.  It becomes an integral part of our day-to-day lives and most of our decision making processes.  Therefore it's as if we've changed our skin color.

At the beginning of the song, Kermit is describing how he's not other colors that make him more important or "tall" or more beautiful.  Some birthmoms get stuck in that grieving process Kermit describes.  We get stuck in regret.  We start thinking that we will never be worth anything to anyone because we "gave away" our child.  We worry constantly that we've made a horrible decision and think that "if only" we'd been given more options or "if only" our lives were a little different that we wouldn't have made the decision we did.  "If only" we were a different "color."

Yes, it's possible.  It's possible that if whatever circumstances led to your decision to place your child were slightly different that you could be raising your child now.  It's possible that you could've changed your circumstances for the better and would be able to support both of you.  When I placed my daughter with her parents, I didn't know what the future would bring.  I only knew then that I didn't feel emotionally or physically ready to parent my daughter and that her parents were ready for that challenge.

So, we can choose to regret the "color" we are.  We can choose to mope every day about a decision that we cannot change, or we can rock our "greenness."  We can find beauty in our situations whatever they may be despite the pain that we will never stop feeling on some level.  My heart hurts for those birthmoms in broken open adoptions.  My heart hurts for the regret I know they feel. Rocking our greenness does not mean that we have to go public about ourselves and our situations.  We can rock being green to no one but ourselves or those in our closest circles that know we are birthmoms.

I choose to rock being green.  I cannot go back on the decision I made now, even if I wanted to go back on it.  Kermit says at the end of the song that "when green is all there is to be, it can make you wonder why, but why wonder" and then he says "I am green.  It'll do fine.  It's beautiful, and I think it's what I want to be."  I want to be green.  It's beautiful.  I'm thankful that I'm who I am, including being a birthmom.  It's what I want to be.

 *I posted this originally on my own blog, Monika's Musings.  However, Coley read it and thought it was so good (thank you, Coley, for that wonderful positive vote!) that she wanted me to post it here as well.  My apologies to those of you who might follow my personal blog for the repeat.