Stories

I've been doing a lot of thinking about why I love hearing stories about my first parents these days.  I was so excited to hear about their first date this week, and it sort of struck me.  I mean, I never asked my adoptive parents about their first date, so why did it matter where my first father took my first mother?  It got me thinking about the difference between the two.

In some way, my adoptive parents' first date was sort of important to me.  They raised me and it's a part of my history because if they hadn't met and gotten married, I wouldn't have been raised the way I was.  But at the same time, if they didn't raise me, someone else would have.  I'd either be Jewish, or with that other Catholic family that was somehow deemed unworthy by my first parents.  I love my parents, don't get me wrong, but if not them, someone else would have been my parents.  I would be another version of myself, and I'd have another story to tell.  That's the thing about being an adoptee.  It's not just one other person who you might have been, such as if you stayed with your first family, but there are a whole bunch of other people you might have been if you had been raised by a different family.  In another life I would have a different name, grew up in a different town, attended different schools, and who knows where I'd be today.  I'd still be talking with my hands, love telling a good story, and I'd still have curly hair that in weather like this I hate.  But that's another post for another day.

My first parents' first date is really important.  If they hadn't eventually gotten together (you know what I mean) I wouldn't have been born.  I wouldn't be here on this planet.  There is no other set of first parents that would have had me.  They're it for me.  Each of us only has one biological father and one biological mother.  We only share DNA from two people and if those two people don't come together, well, we don't exist.  Their first date, the way he asked her out, what made them stay together even after he was caught with another girl, that's ALL a part of my story.  It's a part of my individual history.

If my life was a book, the first chapter wouldn't be when I was born.  It would start the day my parent's met.  It would detail how I came to be.  That's very important because it shows how I, this particular person, came to be.  There is only one me.  I unique and there is nobody else out there with my DNA.  Sure, my experiences are all a part of who I am as a person now.  But without my DNA, I am nothing.

I'm hoping to hear more stories about my first parents when they were younger.  I enjoy them, and I'm learning just how important they are to me.  Until I entered this roller-coaster called reunion, I had no idea just how much I didn't know.  At least you learn something new everyday.