A Place To Meet?

Maybe a place similar to this?

I still don't know where I'll be meeting my first mother and father.  However, I did finally hear back from him and he's going to call me at the end of the week (I guess tomorrow or Friday... weird).  Deep breaths.  I haven't talked to him since the beginning of December.  Deep breaths.  I can do this.  Before I'd gotten an email back, I mentioned to Rudy that I hadn't heard from either one of them.  His response is exactly why I love him:

"If they don't show, I'm gonna drive down there and give them a piece of my mind!" (said with his cute angry face).

He's the best!  He's got my back in this even though I gave him the opportunity to back out.  I know it's not going to be fun for him.  I know it's probably going to be really awkward.  But even after I gave him an out, he still wants to come.  Though he did admit it's partially selfish.  He wants to meet them too because I come from them.  They are a part of my history, and should we have kids, their history as well.  He wants to meet them himself and see who these people that he's been hearing so much about are.  He's read some of the emails (and some of my responses), seen the pictures, and even seen a video but like me, he wants more.  It's actually really validating to me that I'm not the only one.

My first father said he doesn't think my first mother would "do well" in a coffee shop.  It sounded like he wanted to meet up at the reservation near my house.  As in my hometown.  I don't know if that's a good idea. It took a lot for me to invite him up to see my hometown on my birthday.  We'd met up twice before.  And the situation was a bit different.

My mom wants to meet my first mother.  She's told me so much, and asked if she could come with me way back when I first found my first mother.  I was vague, and pushed everything off because I don't want my adoptive mother there.  Too many emotions to deal with and it's way too much.  I am going to tell her that I'm meeting with my first mother because I made a promise that I would, but I have to be careful about when I do so because my mom's health is so-so.  She didn't care so much when it was my first father.  My first mother is a whole different story.  My adoptive mother cannot be there.  I can't handle it.  Even if I could, my mom's health wouldn't allow her to meet my first mother at this time.  Probably not ever.

I could justify my first father coming to my hometown.  I just can't justify my first mother.  She'd be too close.  It's too personal.  And lets not forget that I can't go there, to their hometown and where I was born.  It feels like a power imbalance.  And after things went south with my first father, I realized that I don't really feel comfortable with the idea of him knowing what my house looks like but I don't know what his looks like.  Or the fact that he's driven by my house (well I was driving but he got to see it) and I haven't had the same opportunity.

I emailed back and asked if we could meet at a different reservation that's about a half hour away from my house.  It's about 40 minutes or so from them, and it would be highly unlikely for us to run into anyone they know there, or that I know there.  There's a little loop around a pond that is less than a mile long, so we could just walk the loop for as long as we wanted.  They have picnic areas there too with places to sit and because it's still March, I don't think many people will be there on a random Monday.  We'll see how he responds to that.  The weather is supposed to be really nice on Monday, although we'll have to wait and see.  If the weather changes, we may not have a choice and might have to meet at a coffee shop.

I think it's time for me to start planning an outfit to wear...

Diving Back In

I've gotten away from my adoption related reading lately.  I ordered a bunch of books, got them, and then my reunion came crashing to a halt back in December.  I put the books away in the back of my closet, and put them out of my mind.  Lately I've found some spare time and things are going a lot better.  I think I'm ready to try another book.  I loved Lost and Found by Betty J. Lifton, so I decided to give Journey of an Adopted Self a shot.  So far I'm loving it!

I think that reading books about adoption while in the right frame of mind is a great exercise.  For me, reading Lost and Found was like a light bulb going off.  All of these complex things that I felt were right there in black and white text published in a book!  I saw my history written for me in a way that I could understand and now verbalize.  And there were things in that book that I didn't identify with either.  No two adoptees are the same though so that made a lot of sense to me too.

Reading that book helped me so much.  It was the right time for me to read it though.  I was going through my reunion and saw how things could end badly after my first mother pulled back.  The fantasy was gone and I was ready to accept the truth, rather than this idea I had built in my head about what adoption is.  I was ready to hear some of the cons.  I'd been working towards that for a while and this book was the final push to make my views more realistic.

When my reunion with my first father was going well, I read those books because it was important for me to understand what was happening in my life.  I'd read that it was nearly impossible to find a good councilor versed in adoption issues.  So it was a way to see from an outside some of the things that were going on in my head.  It helped me so much and it's hard to put into words what it felt like to realize that I was normal.  Well, normal for an adoptee ;-)

Once things fell apart, I couldn't deal with the adoption stuff anymore.  I was still posting here, but it was really hard.  I really struggled back in December.  I was depressed, started battling an eating disorder, and really struggled with the point of it all.  It was a dark time for me.  I had to put everything aside and try to move on with my life.  It wasn't easy.  In January, I made a vow to myself to get better and I started working hard at it.  I stood up for myself with my first father and decided that I was going to take control of my own life.

I made some key decisions and slowly started to pull myself out of the ditch I had found myself in.  It was one of the hardest things I've done in a while, but I got through it.  I finally feel like the bulk of that drama is behind me and I'm ready to move forward.  I'm so much happier these days and I love feeling this way.  I've gained nearly five pounds, which is huge for me.  Things aren't perfect, but they never will be.

Perhaps before I was a bit too obsessive over all this stuff.  Now, I'm at a place where my adoption stuff fits into my life as it should.  It's a major part of my life.  There's no getting away from that.  Just like being a woman is a huge part of my life, or being an engineer.  Adoption will always be a part of who I am.  I can't change that.  But I can embrace it.  That being said, I don't want it to be my whole life.  I think I'm starting to find a good balance for everything.  So I'm going to read this book and see what happens.  I'm liking it so far and I hope to have a review up soon.

One Week!

This is the last week of my life as it is.  This time next week I'll be sitting at a coffee shop (probably Starbucks or something) at some yet unknown town across from my first parents.  Both of them.  Gulp.

I have some unwelcome distractions in my life right now.  Perhaps the silver lining is that it's keeping me from seriously freaking out about next week.  I feel like I've been waiting for this moment for forever.  Having to wait a month to meet her after she agreed didn't exactly help the situation.  It's frustrating at times because she's only an hour away.  Just one hour.  I could drive there tomorrow and see her.  Heck I could go right now.  I would never do that, but still.  It adds another layer.

I'm working on being a more patient person.  I am.  I haven't emailed my first father and demanded that he email me back and figure all this stuff out right now.  I didn't push to get the date moved up even though I wanted to.  I'm stressing quietly on my own.

It may not even happen.  She could still back out.  It's happened before.  I'm going to email her a pre-visit email this week.  I'm going to ask her if there's anything she would like me to bring with me.  I'm going to keep it super friendly and upbeat.  And I'm going to thank her again for agreeing to meet with me.  If that scares her off, then she wouldn't have showed up anyway.  My worst fear is that I'm going to get there and he'll be the only person there.  I know my first father wouldn't stand me up for anything.  He knows that if neither one of them showed up, I'd go find them and we all know they don't want that.  But I'm prepared to show up and hear him tell me excuses.  It could happen.  I'm only writing about it because I want to get it out there.  I want to purge my worries and set them aside.  And so that when I read back someday, I'll remember where my head was at.  You'd be amazed at how much I got wrong the last time.  I know I am anyway when I look back at the posts right before I met my first father (though to be fair, I had just started blogging and I've learned a lot since then).

What's more likely to happen is that I'll get there and she'll be there.  We'll smile, hug each other, and have a nice conversation.  I don't know what we'll talk about.  It doesn't even matter.  I'll hear more about how they don't want to tell my siblings.  I'll smile and nod, and Rudy will take over the conversation for a while while I regain my footing.  Then we'll hug each other goodbye and I won't want to leave.  Rudy and I will drive away with me not saying anything.  I'll either cry or not be able to stop smiling.  I'll get an email from my first father shortly thereafter and probably nothing from her.  And then I'll start to readjust.

Maybe there's a chance that things will change in the future.  Perhaps.  Life is a river, and I can't see up around this next bend.  We'll have to wait and see.  I have the highest hopes.

As for now, I'm going to enjoy this week.  Right now my first mother isn't a real person.  I can hold on to what's left of the fantasy (most of it's been destroyed already but some parts remain).  I'm going to say goodbye to who I am today and prepare to meet the new me in a week.  I know it's coming and I'll be prepared for that.  Thanks for reading!

Luck o' the Irish

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  If you're Irish, have a wonderful day celebrating your pride!  If you're not Irish but adopted into an Irish family (like me), have a great day celebrating your family's pride!  If you're not Irish, then have a fantastic day wishing you were Irish ;-)

I'm hoping that my proximity to real live Irish decedents will cause me to have good luck.  My mom is over 50% Irish and my dad is exactly 50% Irish.  If I was their biological kid, I'd be over 50% Irish.  And lets not forget that my sister is part Irish as well.  I'm surrounded by them.  And I might be English... Hehe!

Some luck might be nice.  I do have some major life events coming up and it's going to take a little bit of luck for them to go swimmingly.  So I need some of the luck of the Irish...  There are plenty of things that could go wrong when I meet my first mother in a little over a week, but so much that could go right too.  I'm going to focus on those things today!

Meeting my first mother could be the best thing that's ever happened.  I might see her and just know she's my mother.  I might feel connected to her in a way I've never felt before, something that non-adopted people take for granted.  Or I might not.  But with some luck, I'll at least feel something towards her.  I could see her and see all these  similarities between us.  Or maybe not.  I am a lot like my first father.  But still, he said there are some decent similarities between us, strong ones even, so perhaps that will be clear to me.  It might be really cool to see my two parents together.  I'm going to ask for a picture.  It might be the only chance I'll get.  Something could go wrong (like that time I forgot to ask for a picture when I was with my first father).  But with some luck Rudy will be able to take a nice picture.  So that could go really really well.  But most of all, I'm really hoping that my first mother and I get to connect as people.  There's something missing from the emails we shared over the past two years, even when things were good, and I'm hoping to find that at our face to face meeting.

With some luck we'll have good weather.  Nice weather as in the we can go for a walk outside somewhere kind of weather.  I don't do well sitting still.  At all.  It seems my first father doesn't do so great with that either. Actually, Rudy doesn't either.  So at least three of the four of us would feel better if we were moving as far as I can tell.  So nice weather would be appreciated.  Also, I can get a bit nervous sometimes, so it would be nice if I was able to control my nerves.  I'm working hard now to prepare.  I'm running, working on being relaxed, and preparing with Rudy.  All of these things are seriously helping my anxiety and I feel ten times better than I did before I met my first father.  I'm hoping to keep these things up.  The last thing I want to do is go to meet her with huge black circles under my eyes, tired and wound-up, and lose my ability to stay present in the moment.  So with a little luck I'll be well rested, calm with an appropriate level of excitement (enough for a healthy glow, not enough to scare her off), and the mental awareness to actually enjoy what's going on and remember it.

I'm not sure if my first mother will want anything to do with me after she meets me.  According to her, it's not me.  So it doesn't matter what I do, she's not going to want anything to do with me.  She's meeting me because she feels like I deserve at least that much.  She's not a bad person at all.  But she's coming because I asked her to.  And once we met, that could very well be it.  It'd be nice if it wasn't, but I have to respect her desire to not have anything to do with me after we meet.  So if that's what she wants, that's what she'll get.  She can control our relationship in the sense that it takes two to be in a relationship of any sort.  She can't control my other relationships though.  Those are mine and mine alone.

With a little luck, next week will go well and things will fall into place.  I hope and wish and pray that it does.  Maybe I'll just borrow some of the luck from my Irish family to get through it :-)

The "Look"

I come from a different tree

My adoptive family is huge.  And nearly everyone looks alike.  Most have the same face shape, similar hair, and the same laugh.  Even I have a hard time telling my mom and her sisters apart from their laughs and I've been with the family for twenty-four years.  They are just that similar.  Most of my cousins look alike too, which means that when we get together, you'd be able to tell we're a family (with the exception of a handful of us, mainly me).

I have a group of cousins who look very much like my mom.  They have the same facial shape, use the same expressions, have the same hair, and their eyes are like carbon copies of my mom's.  It's interesting to see how genetics come into play, especially when they have a father who clearly isn't genetically related to my mom.  It's different.  Anyway, we've been spending a lot of time together lately and when that happens, things come up.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone comment on the [insert last name here] look.  It's the "look" that clues everyone in that we're a family.  Well, that they're a family anyway.  I have to wait to be introduced and then it's assumed that I take after my father.  I do, just not the father they're thinking of.

Oddly enough, it hasn't happened as often over the past few years.  I think it probably has something to do with the fact that we're growing up and don't spend as much time together as we used to.  We don't have the same amount of family fun time that we used to, plus I've been living in another state for five years.  I haven't even been home a year, but I'm reintegrating with my family and getting back into the swing of things.

Back to the family fun time that we've been having lately.  We've been together a lot in public places and meeting new people.  And new people love to comment.  And thus the "look" was brought up again.  Only this time, it didn't bother me so much.  I didn't feel like there was a knife sticking out of my back and being twisted. It didn't hurt as badly as before.  Before it had been a reminder that I was different, that I wasn't "one of them" and that I didn't have people that I looked like.  Now, I see it as a celebration of those differences and I know that had my first family been there, those people would be saying the same things about us.  What a difference it makes knowing where my own "look" comes from.

This is just another example of how reunion has allowed me to start to heal and to live a happier life.  It's certainly one with fewer questions and more awareness of self.  Yay! :-)

Two Week Countdown

Two weeks from now I'm going to meet my first mother.  It's a pretty amazing feeling.  I've been waiting for this moment my entire life.  I've dreamed of it for endless hours, both awake and asleep.  I've pictured meeting her in so many different ways.  I've seen her in my mind for so long and wondered what it would be like to meet her.  In two weeks, I'll find out.

When I was younger, she didn't have a face.  She had long brown hair like me, only her's was stick straight.  Her features were blurred, but I knew she had brown eyes just like me.  She was young because in my mind, she was trapped at the age at which she surrendered me.  She would forever be the twenty-one year old that put me up for adoption because she was young and poor.

Later, once I'd gotten in touch with her at 22, I'd see pictures and be amazed that I did get some things right.  She was beautiful.  She is beautiful.  She has brown hair like me and it's straight, but it wasn't as dark or as long as I'd pictured.  Her eyes are in fact brown like mine, nothing like the blue eyes of my adoptive mother or hazel of my adoptive father (though his sometimes look brown in the right light).  She wasn't the skinny free spirit I had always imagined, but instead your average body type conservative Catholic.

The biggest shock to seeing her picture was that she's not the twenty-one year old I had always pictured her to be.  She is still young compared to the parents who raised me don't get me wrong.  And she's aged very well in that I wouldn't think she was as old as she is unless you told me.  And to a certain extent, she does look like me.  I'm a pretty good mix of my first father and my first mother, but I think if you saw the three of us together (which is actually happening in two weeks!) you'd probably say that I take after him.  Then again I've never met her so maybe I take more after her.  My first father was amazed at how similar I am to my first mother and sisters.  He said he couldn't get over that I did some of the same things that she does without ever meeting her.  Apparently my first mother and I act the same way when we're nervous.  And we hold ourselves the same way.  So it's going to be interesting to see, and I'm sure it's going to be a sight to watch.  I can't wait to see what Rudy thinks.

It's funny, but I always pictured that I'd meet her in a coffee shop.  I don't drink coffee.  She doesn't either.  I drink tea, but she doesn't.  I've been thinking of all the different places we could meet realistically.  We could meet at a park or something.  This might work out very well because usually there aren't a lot of people around and we could walk which is perfect for me because I have to be moving when I'm nervous.  I'm sure we could find a decent park somewhere and meet up there.  The only downside is that we're meeting in March.  And I'm always cold.  So if the weather isn't great, then so much for that thought.  I think that's going to be my first plan and the backup will be a coffee shop maybe.  It would just have to be the right kind of place at the right time.  Because we're meeting during the week, as long as we meet in between breakfast and lunch, it shouldn't be too crowded and somewhat private.  So it might be a good setting.  We'll see.  We'll have Rudy and my first father with us so it's almost like a double date.  Weird.

Rudy suggested Starbucks and though I'm a Dunkin Donuts girl through and through, it might work out well there.  Some Starbucks have great places to sit.  Plus if I could find one near a park it would be perfect because if the weather was nice we could go for a walk outside or something.

If anyone has any suggestions feel free to sound off in the comments!

One Year Reunion Anniversary!

One year ago today I met my first father for the first time.  He was the first relative that I ever met who was biologically related to me.  It was the first time I'd ever seen someone I looked like.  I saw my features in his face and noticed my own mannerisms reflected back at me.  I saw bits and pieces of my personality in his stories.  I finally knew what people had been talking about all those years about the apple not falling far from the tree when describing family relationships.  Nobody had ever said that about me.  Clearly I was his daughter through and through.

I'll never forget that feeling.  I will never forget how overwhelming yet wonderful everything was.  I'll never forget the time that we spent together, getting to know one another, and the time that we spent laughing together.  Once I got over the initial shock (and it was a soul shaking shock), I had the best time of my life.

In the days, weeks, and then months that followed, I let the visit sink in and started to recover.  That's really the only way I can describe it.  It felt like a dream at the time, and I had to unravel everything that had happened.  I wasn't the same person I used to be anymore, and I had to get to know the new me.  I had made some huge realizations that shook me to my core.  After all of those years not knowing where my personality and quirks came from, I finally had a much better idea and it rocked me.  I was no longer ashamed of what I had considered flaws.  It took seeing those same things in another person and realizing they weren't flaws, more like quirks, to realize that maybe it was OK to like myself.  Maybe I could cut myself some slack.  For the first time ever, I started to like myself for me.  I saw who I was in the mirror, not the slightly out of reach version of myself that I thought I had to be.  I was just me.  Flaws and all.  Quirks and all.  And it felt so good.

As more time went by, things settled down.  I learned to live with this new idea of who I am and this new sense of identity.  It became a part of who I am, something that I learned over time to accept.  I'm not there 100%, but I'm getting there.  It's a journey.

We've met twice since after that first meeting a year ago today.  I even saw my first father on my birthday, a wonderful gift!  He's seen my hometown and we've laughed in the mall (which looking back was a really bad place to meet up seeing as neither one of us really likes shopping).  I will always have those memories, no matter how things are going forward.  Things may not have turned out the way I wanted them too, but that's just life for you.

As I prepare to meet my first mother, I can't help but think of all the unexpected ways my life changed after meeting my first father.  I'm more excited I think than nervous.  If this past year has been any indication, I know that the journey will be one worth taking, obstacles and all.

What a year!

I Have A Date!

My first father finally got back to me.  He did apologize for not emailing sooner.  So that was good.  He gave me two options for dates and I emailed him back asking for the first one.  He said they could meet me anywhere and that the earlier in the day the better.  Fine by me!

I took a big step for me, though I don't think he's going to get it.  I told him that it might be easier to figure things out over the phone.  I asked him to call me about a week beforehand.  Or I told him if email was easier for him he could do that as well.

No big deal right?  Well here's the thing.  The last time I spoke to my first father on the phone, he threw me under the bus and told me that he couldn't talk to me anymore and destroyed the trust that we'd been building up for just over a year.  Just like that, everything was changed.  My faith in our relationship was gone and I will possibly never fully forgive him for it.  The thought of talking to him on the phone causes ripples of anxiety down my spine and I actually tense up.  Even typing it out is hard.  But I'm going to have to face him in a few weeks.  I'm going to have to find a way to move past it.  Joy.  I'm just so happy that I will have Rudy next to me when I do it.  That's the only way I'm going to be able to face this situation....

We'll see if he calls.  He gets out of work when I'm leaving for work at this point so we'll see how that goes.  In a way it works out well because I'll have to go in to work and can't get stuck on the phone.  I've had a few tense phone conversations in the morning and I've gotten really good and brushing it off when I walk through the door at work.  So we'll see...  He may not even call.  He might just email.

It's real.  It's happening.  And ironically it's not the biggest source of stress in my life right now.  I've been deleting blog posts like crazy because I'm steaming mad about something that happened this past weekend with an issue outside of adoption.  Someone tried to inject themselves into my relationship and force my hand about where I'm going to live.  Um, not ok.  So I'm stressed to the max now about that.  This other stuff?  Just icing on the proverbial cake.  Yum.

Getting Frustrated

So over the cycle

My first mother agreed to meet me the day that I asked her.  She emailed me back within a few hours and told me that she was going to discuss it with my first father.  I emailed her back a few days later and told her I was thrilled, and that I would like to bring my boyfriend if that was OK.  I framed it as a question.  My first father emailed me a few days later, and I emailed him back right away with some specifics.  I emailed him back my normal email a few days later.  I haven't heard back from either one of them at this point.

Sigh.  I wish I could say I was surprised.  I keep going over the situation in my mind, turning it around, wondering if I did something wrong or wasn't clear enough.  Each time, I come to the same conclusion.  I ended my last email to my first mother with a question.  It was clear that it was up to her to email me back.  My first father was clear; he'd let me know.  And I can hear the crickets.

The only thing I can think of is that I told my first parents that Rudy wasn't able to come up for a visit until the end of March.  So maybe they just figure they have a lot of time to get back to me.  Who knows?  I just wish I had a date.  I have to put in for a day off.  If I had known a few days ago, it would have been easier for Rudy to get the day off.  Now, he's going to have to call in sick.  Not good.  I'm getting a new boss in one week.  I sort of need to know the date.  Ugh.

I'm going to have to email to ask.  Which makes me look pushy I know.  I didn't want to have to push.  I was hoping that we'd be able to work this thing out without all the drama.  Whoops!  I should have known...  Chances are, I'm going to get an email from one or both of them saying that they've talked about it and it just isn't a good idea.  It's happened before.  My first mother with the phone call and my first father with telling my sisters about me.  Both times they strung me along and I had to ask them about it.  Neither one of them had the courage to come out and tell me outright, I had to ask them for that information.

I'm frustrated.  I asked a question, told her to take her time thinking it over, and she responded right away.  He followed up.  Now nothing.  I feel like I want to bang my head against the wall over and over and over.  I've been patient.  I've been understanding.  I've been forgiving.  I've bent over backwards to make things work for them.  But after all that, I still don't get an answer.  I'm still left hanging, wondering what's going on.  And I'm still left in the dark, the position they put me in all those years ago.

This isn't necessarily a reunion issue.  It's a people issue.  If a friend asked me to meet up for lunch, I emailed back saying yes, and they emailed me and asked for a date, then it would only be polite for me to email them back with the answer within a reasonable amount of time.  Internet etiquette states you have three business days.  While I get there's a gray area, it's been over two weeks.  At this point, it's rude.  Adoption/reunion aside, it's common curtsy not to leave someone hanging for two weeks.  If they couldn't figure out a date, one of them should have emailed me and let me know they were having trouble.  Bah.

Though I will say this about this situation: a year ago, I'd be completely obsessing over this.  It would be the main focus of my life.  But right now, I'm not.  I think about it when I check my email and realize there's nothing new at the beginning of the day (when I'd probably get an email from my first father with his new schedule) and I wonder about it when I blog (because that's sort of the status right now), but otherwise I'm able to set it aside for the most part. It's not ruling my life the way that my reunion used to.  I'd call that progress.

Reality's Sinking In

What a week.  There's no other way to define it.  So many things are changing.  I can feel the earth shifting under my feet and I'm waiting for things to settle down so I can return to solid ground.

My upcoming face-to-face really rattled me.  I was convinced that my first mother would say no.  I thought, "Never in a million years will she agree to this."  I was so set on protecting myself that I never allowed myself to dream of a world where she would say yes.  You see, my mother is a wonderful person.  She's kind, beautiful, compassionate, and good.  I know these things because that's what she was like when we started communicating two years ago.  She was generous.  She was excited to be talking to me.  She was never perfect.  She avoided hard situations.  At times she was melodramatic (her word not mine).  She wasn't honest about me, and that hurt.  But overall, she did the best she could.  And I appreciated her for that.  I respected her.  I love her, and I always will.  She's my mother.  The other stuff?  All water under the bridge.  Then I asked for too much.  And she started to protect herself more.  I was hurt by that.  We had come to far, hadn't we?  It seemed like the secret was becoming too much for her to bear.  She withdrew, something that's normal for reunion relationships.  We had a miscommunication which then lead to her withdrawing completely.  Gone was the woman I loved who told me funny stories about her past and made me smile.  In her place was someone else, someone who didn't email me back, said hurtful things, and said goodbye with a line that could have come out of a D.isney movie.

I wrote that email asking her to meet me not expecting a reply, or at least not expecting a positive one.  I wrote it more for me, so that I could feel like I gave it every effort.  So that I could know that I'd done everything I could.  And I got a response back that I'd never imagined.  It's funny, but I shared that note with my mentor, one of four people I shared my news with outside the online community.  She's been a major supporter of me and it was important for me to get her opinion on the email.  She was surprised because "she sounds like a good person!"  After everything I had told her about the actions of my first mother, she never believed me when I would tell her that NeverTooLate is actually a wonderful person when it comes to anything other than me.  I wouldn't have communicated like that for nearly a year with a woman who wasn't wonderful.

My first father emailed me and told me that his schedule was changing.  He and NeverTooLate were going to talk about everything that day.  He'd get back to me once things settled down.  I responded right back and told him about the Rudy situation.  I haven't heard back yet.  I'm not going to lie and say I'm not nervous.  This happened before you see.  NeverTooLate did say yes to a phone call initially.  She backed down two months later when I questioned her about it.  I'm nervous that it's going to happen again.  This time, my first father is involved.  I'm hoping that he'll help the situation.  I also took the time to explain why I wanted to meet her.  I didn't do that as well with the phone call email.  I'm hoping that makes a difference.  I'll just feel better once I have a date.  If I haven't heard by next week, I'm going to email them both (I've never done that before) and ask for an update.  Fingers crossed!

To top it all off, I'm still dealing with so much from last weekend.  It's finally starting to sink in, the gravity of the situation.  Not that I didn't know it was so serious before.  It's just that I'm starting to think about the long term consequences and I'm scared about what's going to happen.  There are certain areas of my life that are going to be changed forever, because of the actions of one person.  His decision to attempt to take his life has set off a domino reaction that's going to continue for a while.  Things will never go back to the way they were before.  All we can hope for is a better and stronger future after we put in the work to clean up this giant and complicated mess.

Talk about a roller coaster!

Bringing Rudy With Me

I'm excited to bring Rudy with me when I meet my first parents.  For starters, I love hanging out with him anyway and always jump at the chance to see him during the week if we can make it work.  Long distance is hard, so it's those unexpected moments (though this is planned) that are so sweet.  The more relevant reason though is that I want him to meet my first parents too.

I've let Rudy read some of my first mother's emails, especially the ones that I needed a second opinion on.  Sometimes I'm too far into something to see it clearly, and so he's been great about offering a second opinion from an "outsider" perspective.  He's had some interesting perspectives that really helped me a lot through my reunion with her.  He had a great way of being on my side, yet guiding me back to calmer waters when I needed calming.  Rudy's also read a few of my first father's emails for the same reason.  He accidentally saw a video my first father sent me once too.  The video was on my i.Pad and he was playing around on it one day while visiting and stumbled upon it in my pictures.  It's not that I had a problem with him seeing it, it's just probably not something that I would have shared with him right at that moment.  And I think it worked out better where he just found it because he was surprised and watched without having time to think about what he was going to see.  It was pretty amazing actually.  He so clearly saw me in my first father that I could see the light bulb go off in his head.  For the first time, I think he started to really understand why it was so important to me and why I wanted to get to know this man.  So Rudy knows a little bit about both of them already.  While he's never met my first father, he does know what he looks like and sounds like.  He's seen the pictures of my first mother and first father.  And he knows the story already, even the stuff I don't share here.  He knows the history.

This is both a good and bad thing.  Rudy was very upset when SinginInTheRain ended contact back in December.  For starters, he was angry that I was hurt.  Also, he was mad because he didn't understand why my first father made the choices that he did.  He couldn't understand why someone would treat another person that way, let alone someone who had done the things that I had done to make things easier for him.  Here comes the interesting part.  I've been trying to get better about venting.  While it might make me feel better for a little while, it could affect the person I've vent to, in this situation Rudy.  Rudy wasn't involved in my relationship with SinginInTheRain.  He heard about it from my point of view.  He never talked to SinginInTheRain to find out his side of things.  So Rudy already has an established perspective on SinginInTheRain, and it's slightly negative right now.  I don't blame him one bit for this.  He'll get to form his own opinion when we all meet up.

Oh the plus side, Rudy knows how I feel about everything.  He knows me better than anyone.  He knows my cues.  He knows when I'm overwhelmed.  He knows when I need a minute.  He knows how I shut down, and he knows what that looks like.  When I met SinginInTheRain alone, it was hard because I didn't have anyone to provide a distraction.  I was so thrown when I realized just how alike me and SinginInTheRain are.  Who knows what will happen when I meet my first mother.  It will be really nice to have someone else there who knows when I need a break and can jump into the conversation.

Rudy and I have already started talking about expectations.  Rudy isn't a mind reader, though he does know me really well.  He's also a naturally shy person, but he's able to be outgoing and friendly when he needs to be. He's another person thrown into the mix, so I need to keep that in mind.  I'm just really happy that he's agreed to come with me.  I know it's going to be really awkward for him.  And I know that it's going to be strange for my first parents, who are there to see me, and not my boyfriend.  Oh well.  I'm sure it will all work itself out.  Besides, it's probably time for him to be a more active participant.

Preparation

I drink lots of tea

I'm starting to get into preparation mode for my upcoming face to face.  I slightly remember this from a year ago.  In a way, I'm glad that I had that face-to-face to sort of prepare me for this one.  I know not to expect anything because it's so unpredictable.

I know that my first mother won't be concerned really with how I look.  It doesn't matter what I wear, or how I do my hair because that's not what she's meeting me for.  That being said, because first impressions are the most lasting, I want to look nice when I meet her.  I know that I can't prepare for the emotional stuff, but if I can feel good about myself, maybe it will help a little bit, especially with my own self-esteem.

I'm going to get a new outfit.  I did that when I met my first father, and it made me happy.  I don't want to dress up too much, because that's a pain and it's not a job interview.  I don't want to show up in a sweatshirt either.  When I met SinginInTheRain, I wore nice jeans and a sweatery thing (I'm so fashion forward I know what to call everything...).  I wore my ballet flats because I knew he wasn't much taller than me and I didn't want to wear my four inch heals.  I wasn't too concerned about it because in general, guys don't judge women's clothing the way that women tend to (and I knew my first father was that type of guy... he wears white socks with black sneakers).  Knowing me, I'll probably get a nice new top, wear my nice jeans (I have a new pair of nice jeans now), and a nice pair of shoes.  I have a ton of shoes to pick from, so I'm sure I'll find something to wear.

I'm debating on getting a haircut.  I'm trying to grow out my hair and its in that annoying in-between stage.  It's not short, but it's not long either.  Also, because my hair is so curly I have to straighten it or it turns into a triangle shape that looks awful.  I could get it cut so that it looks really nice for when I meet her, but lose a few months worth of work (and I consider growing my hair out lots of work), or I can leave it the way that it is and pray that I have a good hair day.  I'm leaning towards praying for a good day.  I just really hope it doesn't rain...

I'm also finishing up a pack of Crest white strips.  It's about that time of year to use them again anyway so it's not a big deal.  I drink tea which isn't as bad as coffee, but white teeth make me happy so I'm going to finish up the pack before I meet her.  At least I'll have white teeth!

I'm taking the day off of work for when I meet her. If I meet her in the afternoon and I try to work in the morning, I'll be stressed and watching the clock the whole time to make sure I don't miss it.  I won't get anything done and I'd feel badly for my coworkers for having to deal with me.  I'm not going to want to go back to work afterward either.  I have a feeling I'll be way too worked up.  Last time I saw my first father I planned a massage afterward.  It was great because I knew I had something to look forward to after he left.  I just may do something similar this time around.

In the morning, I'll go and get my car washed.  I'm going to clean out my car on the inside this weekend anyway (it badly needs to be done) so I'll just have a nice outer shine to match the inner shine!  Anything to make me feel more prepared for the un-preparable.

Thank goodness for my running.  It's not that I needed to run to lose weight.  Running for me is more to tone up and gain some muscle weight.  However, running's been my key to sleeping lately.  I'm so tired by the time I hit my pillow I'm out like a light.  I haven't been plagued with my normal insomnia for a while now (since I started running actually) so that's been a good thing.  It's also keeping me less stressed so I'm better able to handle all these things.

I Have Options

I've been thinking a lot about options.  I'm starting to realize that I now have a lot more options than I used to.  It's just funny because my reunion has been completely stale for the last three months.  Things weren't changing and they didn't look promising for a while.  Actually, it was getting really hard to blog because I wasn't sure what to write about.  There are only so many posts you can do on general adoption every day before you start to run out of ideas.  My style is to write about my own experiences with adoption but with almost no new experiences, it was getting a little rough.  So now I've got plenty!  Hehe!

The obvious change is that I will be meeting my first mother.  This is huge.  I have always hoped that someday it would happen, and I'm thrilled that it's happening now.  I feel better than I've felt for a very long time and for the first time in a long time, I feel secure with my life in a way I haven't before.  I have a plan, I know where it is that I want to go, and I'm making steps toward that future.  Meeting my mother was one of my goals for the year.  In fact, it was the biggest goal for the year.  I just feel like this is the right time for me and who knows what could happen from here?  This could open up doors or close them.  Either way, loose ends are going to be tied up and we'll both be able to move on finally.

For the first time, I have the ability to be found.  I have several first family members on Ancestry.com.  They have the ability to find me if I make my tree public.  I currently have the tree set to private.  I was going to change the setting, but now I'm waiting to see how my meeting goes.  I'm going to make it public eventually, I just don't want to overwhelm myself.  I don't want to meet my first mother and then be found immediately afterward and thrown into another reunion without fulling processing the big one (or to be found before I meet her and to have her change her mind... that would be very bad).  I want to give myself some time to sort through anything that meeting my first mother will stir up.  If I assume that nothing is going to come out of it, then that's just naive on my part.  So while it's an option, one that I had in my back pocket if my first mother said no, I'll probably not exercise my right to make my tree public for a little while longer.  I don't want to overwhelm myself, and I know it doesn't take much to do that.

KungFuPanda also turns eighteen within the next few weeks.  Before, my hands were tied as she was a minor.  I couldn't contact her or hope to be found.  That was very hard for me.  My sister will soon be a legal adult, and therefore I have nothing holding me back from contacting her.  I still think that it's best coming from my first parents.  I'm hoping to figure some things out with them when I meet them (pinch me!).  We'll see what happens.  I'm really hoping that after meeting me, my first mother will be able to set some of her fears aside and realize that it doesn't have to be a bad thing.  This is another area where I have to be really careful not to overwhelm myself.  I have to carefully balance everything and not jump into something when I'm not prepared to deal with it.  Before I was thinking that I'd contact her this summer.  Now I'm thinking I'm going to put that plan to rest until the dust settles from meeting my first mother.  I have to do what's best for me and I'm struggling with what that might be.

I have options.  I can make changes if I want.  My hands aren't as tied as they used to be.  It's just funny to me that all of these options opened up at the same time.  I think that if things hadn't worked out with the whole meeting my first mother thing, than I'd be seriously looking into other options.  As it is, I'm going to sit back and see where this ride takes me for now.

I'm Really Going To Meet Her...

It's been a week and I'm still processing that I'm going to meet my first mother.  I always knew that someday I'd meet her, even if it meant that I'd have to show up on her doorstep.  However, this isn't a theory anymore.  This is actually happening.  Like we're going to see each other face to face for the first time.  Ever.  Because she didn't see me when I was a baby.  Wow.  Deep breath.

She wants to bring my first father.  I have mixed feelings for several reasons.  For starters, I've always kept my relationship with her and my relationship with him as separate as I could.  They are two individuals and so I've done my best to treat them that way.  NeverTooLate has come up in conversations with SinginInTheRain, and he's been mentioned in the emails that I sometimes exchange with her.  It's sort of an awkward position to be in but then again the whole situation is awkward so that's nothing new.  Meeting her with him there... well that's going to merge the two.  All three of us are going to share the same experience.  Before the other was merely mentioned, the third did not participate.  This is uncharted territory for all three of us.

My next concern is that I'm still angry with my first father from last December.  I haven't spoken to him since then, though we have emailed a bunch of times since then.  I'll admit to listening to an old voice mail from time to time when I have a hard day.  I'm working so hard on forgiving him, but I know that I'll never really be able to trust him again.  It's so hard for me at times because he really did hurt me, more than I think he realizes.  It's going to be hard for me to see him.  It's going to be hard to put a smile on my face and pretend that I'm happy he's there.  However, I'm scared of what happens if I can't pull it off.  I don't want to give my first parents any reason not to tell my sisters about me.  I'm really hoping that this is going to help speed things up a bit in that regard and I don't want them to think that I hate him.  I don't hate him.  I'm hugely disappointed and hurt.  That makes me angry.  However, I still don't hate him, though I could see people being confused by that.  I'm starting to wonder if I should talk to him on the phone beforehand...  We'll see.

Finally, I'm nervous about the two of them being there to my one person.  As my first father told me several times, if it comes down to me or her, he picks her.  Which I understand.  She's his wife and partner in life.  He's known her forever.  I've dealt with this with my adoptive parents too.  If it was between me and my adoptive mother, my adoptive father would pick my adoptive mother every time.  It's not always the nicest feeling, but it's the truth and I've learned to accept it.  I know that meeting my first mother is going to be emotional for me.  I had a hard time meeting my first father, so I'm expecting it to be a million times harder.  We have so much more history between us and we haven't spoken on the phone.  It will be the first time I will hear her voice since the day I was born.  It's going to be hard and overwhelming.  There's no getting around that.  I have no idea how I'm going to react.  I'm sure this is going to be very hard for her as well.  Only she's going to have him there with her.  She's going to have her life's partner there to hold her hand.  I can't go alone into that situation.

I've asked Rudy to come with me.  For starters, he's been with me through this whole process.  He read my first letter before I sent it.  He held me when I cried when she told me she didn't want to talk to me anymore.  He smiled and laughed with me when I told him that my first father wanted to meet me.  He's spent hours on the phone with me listening to the latest news.  He got angry for me when my first father threw me under the bus.  He was angrier than I was at the time and he helped me to see that the decision my first father made had nothing to do with me, but everything to do with him.  Rudy is my life's partner and my support.  If that isn't enough of a reason, he isn't connected to my adoption the same way that my adoptive family is and therefore won't bring those emotions into the meeting.  His concern with this meeting is because it's so important to me, his girlfriend of five and a half years.  Plus, with him there, I have someone who can distract them if I need a minute to collect myself, and I have someone there who can take a picture!

We're still working out details.  My first parents are on the same page with this and I've already gotten an email from my first father going over a few things.  I didn't think she'd let me know so fast so I assumed that by the time she figured it out we'd be past Rudy's busy season.  He's busy until the end of March and I really need him there with me.  I know I met SinginInTheRain alone, and that was the best choice at the time.  This time is different and I simply need someone else there.  I'm going to make this work.  And I'm not driving.  I'm making Rudy drive.  I'm not letting my nightmare come true!  So right now, I'm waiting for my first parents to give me a date (after Rudy's busy season) and hopefully I'll know within the next few days!  Wish me luck!

Good News!

It's taken me a while to write this post because I've sort of been waiting for the dust to settle.  I'm realizing that's going to take some more time but I really wanted to update my readers who have been so supportive.  Last Friday morning I worked up the courage to send my email to my first mother asking her to meet me.  I figured I'd have to wait the weekend to hear back, but to my shock, she answered me by Friday afternoon.

My first mother has agreed to meet me.  Not only that, but she sounded excited at the idea!  We're still working out details.  She wants to bring my first father with her which I understand completely.  I however do not want to be "outnumbered" so I've asked Rudy to come with me.  His work schedule is a little crazy right now but should ease up at the end of next month.  I didn't think she'd respond back so soon so I didn't think that would be an issue!

I'm thrilled, nervous, excited, scared, you name it, I feel it.  I've waited my entire life for this.  I've wanted to meet her since I was three years old and we adopted my little sister.  That's when it finally became real to me that I had another mother out there somewhere.  I loved my mommy with everything I had, and I still do, but I wanted to meet this woman who gave birth to me.  She was my mother too.

My first mother never saw me at the hospital.  This is the first time we'll be "face-to-face" ever.  I'm on cloud nine and I can't wait until we hammer out the details!  I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say on the subject as time move forward and we figure more stuff out!

Thanks for reading and for being so supportive!

Email Sent...

This time I hit the right button

I did it.  I sent the email to my first mother.  I asked her to meet with me within the next year.  I put myself out there.  And you know what?  I feel good about it!  I realized (with the help of some amazing people) that it was something that I should do for myself.  So that I'll stop wondering if I didn't do everything I could.  I gave it one more go.  I gave it one last effort.  One final chance.  It was more about me than her.  I want to meet her.  And I will.  If I need to show up eventually, then I will.  I'm not saying that's going to happen tomorrow.  It may never happen.  But it's an option and I have it in my back pocket for when I'm ready.

My first parents have made it very clear to me that when it comes to our relationship(s), it's about them.  It's about their other daughters.  It's about their family unit.  I can have scraps when they are willing to give them to me.  I can hear stories about my sisters and my other relatives.  They'll answer the questions they feel like and ignore the other ones.  They'll email when they feel like it.  And they will do what they think is best for them.  I guess I can't really blame them.  They bought into the adoption myth that once they signed the paperwork I would go away forever, never to been seen or heard from again.  They bought into the myth that they would be able to move on with their lives as if I never happened, as if I don't exist.  But you see, that's the problem with the myth.  I was born.  I do exist.  And as a person, I'm not willing to lay down and play the good adoptee.  I have feelings and wants and needs as well, and as an adult, I have a say in how I conduct my life.  Which includes my biological family.  Not just my first parents, but the rest of them as well.

For a long time, I played their games.  I played by their rules.  I did what they expected of me.  I was the good adoptee.  I emailed when I should have.  I answered their questions about my life.  I let my first father get to know me as a daughter.  He's seen me.  He knows that I share similar quirks with my sisters.  He knows that I look like my first mother.  That we share mannerisms.  And he's even seen my hometown (if I could go back, I'd probably rethink that one).  I gave myself freely in this who experience because that's just the kind of person that I am.  I thought that eventually things would change.  Eventually things would turn around.  Eventually.  I'm tired of waiting for eventually.  So I'm going to push a little and see what happens.

If my first mother won't meet me, the world won't end.  I won't lose anything.  She doesn't email me anymore anyway.  She has almost no contact.  And my first father... well that relationship is reduced to a short email every other week.  When he feels like it.  That's it.  I used to love him.  He was a second dad to me.  He didn't raise me, but he was giving what felt like a great effort to get to know me.  I thought he cared about me.  Maybe he does.  He just cares about his life right now more.  So I have nothing to lose.  I'm moving on.  I'm healing.  And I'd rather get this over with.  So my email is sent.  Now I just have to wait and see what happens.

Patience

I just need to hit Send

I'm not the world's most patient person.  It's something that I have to work on in myself.  When I set a goal, I want to complete it yesterday.  I love the thrill of tackling something and getting it done.  But I can be a little bit lazy and not want to put in the work, or the time.  I like it when people get right back to me.  That's probably why I have a hard time waiting around for responses from people.  Like I said, I need to work on that.

I've been pretty proud of myself.  I set a goal to run a 5K in the spring.  Now, I still have a long way to go.  I started a 10 week training program which is going to take me longer than ten weeks.  However, I'm now done with Week 3 and I'm doing pretty well with the whole thing.  I'll admit to feeling like I was never going to make it this far.  I'm determined to finish this program out, even if it's a week longer right now because I couldn't handle the jump this week.  But I just need to keep reminding myself that this is about me and nobody else.  If I need to slow it down a bit, it's only going to affect me.  Running nearly a mile (not counting walking breaks) is pretty amazing.  I'll get there eventually.  And I'm sticking with it.  I'm learning to be patient.  You see, I want to run a 5K tomorrow.  I want to be in shape, yesterday.  I want to be able to throw on a pair of running shoes and get out there on the road and not feel like my lungs are going to burst.  Because I'm pretty sure that's what it would feel like if I did that today.  So I have to keep reminding myself that I need to get my lungs into shape and pump up my legs a bit before I can just go for a run without so much structure.  I'll get there.  I'm making huge strides.  My dance teacher noticed this week and commented about how I was a lot stronger than even last week.  I have more energy and I overall feel better.  I feel so much better on days when I run.  But I tend to forget that at times because it doesn't always feel like I'm progressing when I struggle to run for more than two minutes at a time.

I'm similarly impatient with myself lately.  I wrote that email to my first mother.  And then I hit "Save" rather than "Send".  It's been sitting in my draft folder for a while now.  I've even gone back to rewrite a few bits and pieces of it.  I want to have the courage to send it now and get it over with.  I'm not an indecisive person.  However, with this, I just can't seem to hit the send button and it has be wondering.  Maybe it's that I know I'll be waiting around to hear from her.  I know that it's silly, but sometimes I have to wait a week and other times a month before she gets back to me.  And that really can test my patience.  I also don't know how the whole thing is going to work with my first father.  He's been a bit MIA lately, but I don't know if he'll be even more MIA if I upset my first mother, which this email has the potential to do.  He's made it very clear to me that when it comes down to picking sides, he'll pick her's every time.  That's hard to hear, but completely true and understandable.  I haven't asked him to pick sides yet.  I've pushed at times for sure, but I've always backed down.  I don't think there's ever been a real situation where he's had to figure out how to deal with my first mother and I on a serious level, like me asking her to meet would do.  I don't want him involved at all, but I know that he's going to be.

I need to figure out if I want to send that email.  I can't have it chilling in my drafts folder, glaring at me every time I check my email.  I need to work on my patience, but I don't want to push it too much.  OK, I'm going to stop rambling right now and go stretch out for a bit.  If I can't make progress on one part of my life, at least I have other goals and things to work towards!

Emails Come and Go

I've started to notice a pattern in my "weekly" emails.  Sometimes they come, and sometimes they don't.  I'm sort of over it at this point.  I mean, I can send mine, but I can't make him write back.  And I have to keep reminding myself that it's not me.  I forget sometimes that I'm used to sending emails.  I type faster than I hand write things out.  It's what I do all day long.  The faster I can type, the faster I can get my work done and get home.  So for me, typing quickly is second nature.  My first father writes his emails to me on his cell phone most of the time.  That's even harder to type on.  And he's not the same as me, growing up typing school reports and playing computer games.

I guess I just thought that after we stopped our weekly phone calls that we'd at least keep up with the weekly emails.  So it's hard when the week comes and goes and I don't get my email.  And I wonder if I should send my weekly email.  I'm starting to think that I'm going to stop emailing without fail each week.  It hasn't mattered in the past if he's responded, but maybe now I need to.  I'll admit that there's a part of me that wants him to see how it feels to not here from me for over a week and to wonder what's going on.  And I'm trying so hard not to let it get to me.

It may not seem like it, but I am making progress.  For starters, I used to obsess over the email thing all week.  I'd think about it every day and wonder.  Now, I only wonder the day that I normally get my email and the day I normally send him a response.  And I don't expect it other days either.  I can usually put it out of my head.  It's such a weird situation.

I want to be able to move on from this.  I'm doing a lot better than I used to.  And I really do feel like I'm healing.  I just wish I was completely healed at this point.  In my head I know that's not something that's going to happen overnight.  I need to give myself more time.  This is a person that I had close contact with for over a year.  It's the first biological family member I've ever met and who ever acted like they actually cared.  For all I know, him signing his name with "Love" might be the only thing that I ever really get from any of my biological family members.

Deep breath.  Positive thinking.  I'm not a fan of going through this every week.  I don't like feeling like I'm not good enough to email back once a week.  It's not a matter of him not knowing what to say.  I ask questions every week and give him something to write about.  And he does have a whole week to figure it out.

It's this time of year.  I contacted my first mother February 1st two years ago.  And I met my first father in the beginning of March last year.  I guess I've just been thinking about that a lot lately.  I should be getting an email today.  I didn't get one last week.  I didn't send my normal email this week.  I am proud of myself in some small way for not sending my email.  I was really tempted but I didn't.  We'll see what happens.

I'm "That" Adoptee - The "Hairdresser" Conversation

My Attempt at a Hairdresser Picture

Once you've been around adoption blog land for a bit, or you participate in adoption forums, or you have any conversations with anyone about adoption, you usually hear a pretty similar story.  It comes from all over.  Sometimes it comes from a person without a major adoption connection.  Other times it comes from an adoptive parent or a first parent.  It's what I like to call the "hairdresser" conversation.  You know, the one where the other person says "Well my hairdresser's cousin's friend adopted a little girl and she's happy as can be!  There's nothing wrong with adoption; you must have just had a bad experience."  Yes, people actually say things like that to adoptees.  Because one adoptee is happy, then that means that adoption is always a good thing and all adoptees should feel that way.  Or that the ones who aren't happy just came from bad situations.

But the thing is, not all adoptees like to talk about that painful part of their lives.  I don't.  I don't like to bring it up around my adoptive family if I can help it.  I have several reasons.  For starters, members of my adoptive family with the exception of my sister and I are biologically related to each other.  They know what it's like to be raised by people who they look like, act like, and share history through blood.  My mother's heritage is their heritage too.  Same with my dad's side.  They know they look like Aunt Jane on this side or that their nose comes from Uncle Fred.  To them, that's what family is.  I may not look like them, but I was raised that way.  So to them, they know how I was raised and what kind of family I have because it's their family too.  But they don't get that huge difference between us.  They don't get that I'm not Irish and Italian.  They don't get how I felt excluded when they'd talk about how they all look the same or laugh the same (they all have the exact same laugh).  I'm so happy they don't feel that way.  I wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone, let alone people I love.  So they can be supportive (and they are so supportive), but they are never going to understand.  They don't get what I went through growing up in that family.  And the biggest part is that I don't want to hurt them.  I don't want them to think that they aren't good enough for me.  I don't want them to think that they did anything wrong because they haven't.  They didn't pick this for me either (as in my extended adoptive family) but they have done everything they could to welcome me as if "born to".  They have loved me from the beginning and been there for me.  They are a great family, and they're my family.  But I have another family too, and I wanted to find out about them.  I don't want my family to have to deal with the issues and pain that I do have from this whole situation.  So I don't bring it up.

If you were to ask a family member of mine, chances are they would tell you that I'm happy with being adopted.  I have a large family and not everyone knows that I've searched and found.  So there are relatives of mine that would say that I never felt inclined to search.  They'd be wrong.  They could say the same about my adoptive sister, but they might be wrong again there too.  My parent's friends don't all know.  My parents did not broadcast it, and really, my search and reunion doesn't come up very often with them.  So if one of them told their hairdresser about me, they'd say something like "Oh, my friends adopted a little girl and she's very happy to be adopted.  She's never searched and she's an engineer now and doing very well!"  Sigh.  They don't know my inner brain, and they don't know what's going on in my personal life.  And that's OK.  But I'd be upset if I found out that I was being used in a conversation like that and completely misrepresented.

There are adoptees out there who are happy about their adoptions.  I've met a few.  And I firmly believe that it's up to them to feel however they feel about it.  But that being said, its not everyone.  And honestly?  I'd rather those people speak for themselves in a safe environment.  Being adopted is deeply personal.  It's like talking about your sex life with a random person in a very public place.  Most people don't do it.  They talk about stuff like that with people who they are very close with and in a private place.  And then there are those who blog about it.  I blog publicly but I keep things private as much as I can.

So yes, the girl who blogs about her issues and challenges and pain publicly is the same adoptee that these hairdressers are probably talking about.  You never know someone's story until you talk to that person.