How It All Ties In

I love how I get to make these posts every now and then.  Not really.  I know I've been blogging about adoptive family drama a lot lately.  And while it might be a bit annoying to some, I see it as adoption related.  Here's why.  Stories have been coming out about the Grinch lately.  I've been a lot more open about my reunion with the people in my life.  I'm working on being completely open.  This is something that I've kept bottled up for so long that it's not easy to open up about it.  It's taken a lot of courage to open myself up to criticism and negative reactions (of which I've received a few).  But at the same time, I can't expect SinginInTheRain or NeverTooLate to be open in their lives if I'm not open in mine.  I feel that's hypocritical.  So I'm working on it.  But that means that I'm having some interesting conversations.

So I start chatting with someone.  And somehow my reunion comes up.  I don't usually just bring it up, it comes up naturally.  Someone might ask me about my birthday and I'll mention that I spent part of the day with my first father.  Which leads to the abbreviated story.  And then the look.  And then the question: "And what does your father think about that?"  To which I respond: "Why do you ask it like that?" To which they respond: "Because of how protective he was of you and your sister!" Which is then followed with an explanation that usually ends with me trying to remain calm in the face of this well meaning person so they don't know that my blood is boiling.

When I was adopted, the Grinch told everyone that if my first parents showed up, he'd run away with me to Canada.  He was dead serious.  I was his daughter, and his alone.  Nobody else was going to take me from him.  My adoption wasn't what was best for me, it was all about him and his need to have children.  He loves me, don't get me wrong.  But he never once considered that if my first family showed up looking for me, it might be in my best interest to integrate them into my life.  When I was a baby, it was easy for him to pretend I was his.  He bought into the whole blank slate theory.  As I got older and learned how to talk, it became pretty clear that I'm nothing like him.  At all.  And no matter how hard he tried, I never would be.  I sort of look a bit like him (we have the same hair color and similar skin tones) but other than that, we have almost nothing in common.  So it was hard for him to deal with that.  I wasn't just his daughter.  If I was, I'd be more like him.

When my sister was adopted, my uncle flew out to Michigan to rent a car (I have a feeling the same was done for me).  My uncle (not sure which one, but one of the ones with a different last name than us) drove it back to Massachusetts to pick my sister up from the hospital/agency/where ever (I was three, I don't remember).  He didn't want the car to be traced back to us.  Keep in mind, my sister has a semi-open adoption.  My parents knew her first parents' names and addresses.  But he wanted to make sure that they couldn't trace the car back to him so they'd never know where we lived or our last name.

So a lot of his recent behavior makes some sense.  Things have gotten ten times worse for me ever since I mentioned the whole bed bug incident.  So the Grinch's possessive behavior and subsequent anger at me isn't completely unexpected as others tell me stories that help me to understand him better.

So my dear readers, it all ties in.  It's not pretty at all.  But such is adoption.  Joy.