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 :-)

Switched At Birth: The Dating Your Father Complex (not really)

I'm a fan of ABC Family's Switched at Birth.  Although I wasn't "switched at birth", I do find some of the themes to be similar.  I watched last night's episode "Self-Portrait With a Bandaged Ear" and was again struck at how similar some of the themes are.  (Note: I'm about to talk about a few minor plot points).

Basically, you have two girls who are switched at birth, and figure it out when they are 16.  Major twist is that one of the girls is deaf.  So you basically have all these issues that the show gets to explore about not only being switched at birth but also the differences between the deaf and hearing worlds.  Back to the switch thing.  One girl ends up with this super rich family (the father was a major league baseball player) while the other girl ends up with a single mom in a bad area of town.  Eventually, the other father comes back and had the opportunity to get to know his biological daughter.

So you have Bay and Angelo getting to know one another.  Which is awkward.  So in this episode, Bay meets Angelo at a coffee shop where the two of them are going to get to know each other.  This is really their first time hanging out together just the two of them because all other "visits" have had a chaperon.  So it's strange.  And neither of them know what to say.  And he orders her a coffee not realizing that she's 16 and not really allowed to drink it.  Whoops!  And then Bay says the most amazing thing.  She tells him that it's so strange because it's like a cross between an interview and a date.  Only he's her father.

She hit the nail on the head.  Exactly what I felt like getting to know my first father.  There's a lot of qualities that are similar to dating.  Only it's not a date because he's your father.  So then it feels more like an interview.  But not really.  There really isn't any situation that's similar.  So weird and awkward.  And because it's weird and awkward, you know that something doesn't feel right.  Or at least I knew something didn't feel right.  And that just made it worse.  Don't get me wrong, it was amazing getting to know my first father.  But different and unexpected at the same time.  Twilight zone different.

Anyway, that small line stuck with me for the rest of the show.  Because it summed up so perfectly what I was feeling nearly a year ago when I met my first father for the first time.  And it really made me think about why that show is on television.  Because honestly?  It's like something that no other situation compares to.  There isn't anything else like it.  This feeling of getting to know someone you are biologically related to for the first time not as a child but as an adult (or teen in this case).  It's not normal and people are drawn to the story line.  Or at least that's what I think anyway.

I was talking to Rudy about things last night.  He compared what I was going through to a break up.  And in some cases, he's right.  But at the same time, when you break up with someone, there's a small glimmer of hope that maybe there's someone else out there.  You can meet another person eventually.  You might not think that right away, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  My first father can never be replaced.  There is only one person out there who contributed that part of my DNA.  I can't search again and find someone else.  That's it.  He's it.  So if things are really done, then that's it.  It's painful, but the truth.

And because it's January 18th, go check out Amanda's blog post STOP SOPA/PIPA!

Training Exercise

When I was in college, I became a RA (resident assistant) in order to help offset some of the cost of my education.  The cost of attendance of my university was close to $50,000 my junior year and over $50,000 my senior year.  Oh the joys of a private education.  Side note: Colleges don't warn you that tuition goes up.  And your scholarships don't.  My loans went up every year as did the interest rates.  Welcome to my life as a recent college grad with upwards of $80,000 of debt.

Moving on.  I became a RA because I was going to help offset some of the cost.  And because I had it in my head that maybe I could help someone.  I had a great RA my sophomore year and I wanted to be that RA.  If I knew then what I know now...

When I look back on the experience, I get caught up on this one training exercise senior year.  Various RAs were asked to come up with training exercises.  I was in a bad mood during RA training.  I had been sick for a month.  Try being sick every single minute of a month and then try to put on a happy face and get everyone else motivated.  It was hell.  With me being sent to the ER in a grand finale on move in day.  I had also just seen my non-identifying information.  My identity was rocked to the core.  I didn't know who I was anymore because it was so different than I thought it would be.  I had to question everything my parents had ever told me.  It was a horrible time and I went through it alone.

So that was the frame of mind I was in during this training session.  I say this because what happened turned into a major teaching moment and I didn't take it.  Anyway, a group of RAs decided that it would be a great idea to show everyone that we had a lot of diversity in the room.  I went to a prominently white school.  Our RA staff was mostly white, but we did have a large number of minority students.  Looking around the auditorium with about 75 people in it (all the RAs and supporting staff), the vast majority were white.  And the minority students were all at the front doing a diversity presentation.

The intent was the show that even though most of us were of the same race, there were other things that made us diverse.  So ethnicity came up.  And guess who was the first student that had to stand up and declare their ethnicity to the entire room of 75 people because she foolishly chose a seat in the front of the room so she might learn something?

Faceplam moment.  Here I was, questioning everything, and I have to declare to a whole room that I didn't have a single clue about something that the majority of the room knew their whole life.  I didn't trust the paperwork.  I didn't trust my adoptive parents.  I honestly didn't know.  Everything was a guess on my part.  I failed in that moment.  I said I was white and sat back down.  I had no time to prepare.  I don't think well on my feet.  The exercise was re-clarified because they assumed I thought race and ethnicity was the same thing and it moved on.  How embarrassing.

As far as I know, out of the 75 of us, there were only two adoptees in the auditorium.  The other adoptee was in the back and had more time to think about it.  He stated passionately that he was American rather than list another ethnicity.  However, he was a political science major who is very into politics, so nobody thought any differently about it.

I've replayed that moment over and over in my head.  In my head, I stand up, take a breath, and state "Unknown due to adoption".  A few people would scratch their heads, but I can guarantee that everyone would have thought about it at some point or another.  And the organizers of the exercise would have taken a minute to realize that in their attempt to promote sensitivity for minorities, they were insensitive to another group.

I'm not saying that it was a flawed exercise.  And at some point, any activity is going to have an "ouch" moment for one group of people.  But it's something that will stick with me.  The assumptions that were made about my intelligence (because I didn't "know" the different between race and ethnicity), and the condescending attitudes I had to endure for the remainder of the week for "ruining" their exercise stuck with me.  The fact that nobody took the time at the beginning to give people an out in case they didn't know.  There are plenty of people who may not know their ethnicity.

It's now over two years later, and I'm still thinking about that exercise.  I learned a lot that day and the days that followed.  I'm not the same person anymore.  I would say "Unknown due to adoption" now.  Progress.  That's something right?

My Pine Cone

I'm very proud of my pine cone
picture

I've been trying to figure out why I value pictures so much.  I can't figure out if it's an adoptee thing, or a "Jenn" thing.  It's driving me crazy, especially seeing as I've gotten into photography lately.  Not seriously, but I'm starting a new hobby.  It's fun and I'm working at it.  I read somewhere the best way to get better is to take pictures everyday.  I've been giving it an honest go.  Blogging started as a hobby, something I was skeptical about, but now a year later I still post once a day.  I have my lapses (cough July) but it's been working out so far really well.  So if blogging worked out, maybe photography will too.  I've only had my camera for two weeks and already I feel lost if I'm not holding it in my hands.  I see things differently these days; it's like I'm always looking for a good shot and I see them everywhere, even if I don't have my camera in my hands.  It's been driving me crazy trying to figure out why that is (I'm a need to know kind of person).

Part of it is that I'm a creative person.  You probably wouldn't know it looking at my blog but I used to be really into art.  I always took art classes in high school (and college too) and I actually know how to draw.  Maybe not people, but give me a pencil and I can make a mean sketch of that fruit over there.  I haven't been doing a lot of that lately.  Ever since I stopped taking classes, I've found that I don't take time to foster my creative side.  Even with dance.  I used to live for it, but now I barely have time.  My creativity has suffered, and I feel like I'm stuck in a rut.  So I'm trying to pull myself out by learning a new skill.  One that would be very helpful.  And great when it comes time to give gifts.  Can you say picture frames anyone?

Part of it is that I want to document things.  I want to document what I see, what I feel, and what is going on around me.  For too much of my life, I don't have that documentation.  My first two months are in the shadows.  The first baby picture I have is one they sent my parents to show what I looked like at two months old.  I'm not even looking at the camera.  It's a horrible picture, and I hate it.  I can't go back and recreate those pictures.  I'll never know what I looked like at a week, or a month, or two.  I'll never have a picture of my first Christmas.  There are no pictures that exist of me and my first mother because she refused to even look at me.  Wonderful huh?  But I can make sure that I have pictures from the rest of my life.  I can make sure that I can look back years from now and say, "See?  I was a person.  I existed.  And I lived."  I want my family to look back and see how many nice memories we made.  My latest group of pictures on Facebook came out really nice from the family wedding this weekend.  I know they appreciated it (they said so) and a few Christmas card pictures could potentially be used.  So that was pretty cool that I had documented that.

I took about twenty pictures of a pine cone last week.  Go figure.  But it finally came out the way I wanted it to.  It took patience.  It took practice.  And I couldn't give up on it.  And the best shot?  It was somewhere in the middle.  I had to go through each and every shot a few times to find it.  And it's not perfect.  I'm sure that if anyone reading is a serious photographer, they can see the flaws in the picture.  But that's ok.  It's a start.  I'm learning a lot, and not just about taking pictures.  I'm learning about life, and the best way to live it, aware of my surroundings and looking for the beauty in all things.

Triggering Questions

I'm starting my new job next week.  I know I'm going to be asked all those questions as people try to get to know you.  The triggering ones.  The kinds that make adoptees cringe.  I wouldn't have cringed two years ago, but since entering reunion those questions are getting harder to answer.

So you live with your parents?
Um, yes?  No?  Which ones?

How many siblings do you have?
Well, I have three.  But legally I only have one.  And biologically I have two.  Did I mention that the biological ones don't know about me?  Can you count siblings you've never met?

What does your dad do for a living?
Which one?  One works for a utility company.  He's also an electrician.  Yes, I know how to wire basic stuff because I've watched him do it my whole life.  And I used to be his "helper".  My other dad is a postal worker.  I know how the mail system works in theory.  I call him when I want to find out when a package is going to get to my house because he knows turn around time and how much mail needs to be sorted before it gets to my town.  They are not the same guy.

Where are your parents from?
Again, which ones?  One set is from Boston.  That's why I talk with an accent sometimes.  My other set is from another city from southern Massachusetts.  That's where I was born.  I've never been back.  I have a ton of family there I've never met.

In actuality, I'll probably answer: yes, one, electrician, and Boston.  It's how I used to answer.  Only now I feel like I'm not answering correctly.  I don't feel the need to get into my personal life with my coworkers, but these questions are going to make me uncomfortable.  It stinks because non-adopted people don't really have to deal with these triggering questions (though I'm sure first mothers and adoptive parents have their own sets of triggering questions).

New Orleans

The semester came to a close and I went home for winter break. I figured that going home would give me perspective. It didn’t. Instead, I got more confused because I felt like having these feelings and thoughts was a bad thing. I felt like I was betraying my family, and that I should be more grateful to them.

After the holidays I packed my bags and went back to school early to travel to New Orleans to help rebuild. I had gone the year before but this was going to be a different because different people had planned it. It was freezing; we gutted a house, and had a lot of time for reflection. January 7th, the day my parents brought me home, rolled around, and this year it meant more to me. I was really upset to be so far away from my family on the day that I needed them most.

On this trip we would play “Rose, Thorn, and Bud” which is where you tell one good thing that happened to you, one thing you didn’t like that had happened to you that day, and something you were looking forward to. My thorn was that I was away from my family, but that I was getting to have this amazing experience with all of the people I was with. Everyone was really supportive, and they showed me that it was ok. It was an ok thing to talk about. And they also showed me that I wouldn’t be judged. I came back from that trip a new person. It put things into perspective. I knew that I couldn’t run away from my issues anymore and the best way to deal with things was to do something about my life. I knew that I couldn’t really move forward until I understood the past.

It took me another month to figure things out, but I finally paid the $15 thinking it would give me a starting point.  I should also mention here that I did a lot of research about adoption and reunion.  I read a few books.  I scoured the blogs.  I started a journal.  And I finally took that leap.  How many people were named NeverTooLate who were born on her birthday could there be? I also knew that she was born in Massachusetts, so that was another clue. I ended those three pieces of information into the search and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I had the report.

Longest Vacation EVER!

When we got home, my sister and I waited until my parents left to run errands and we broke out the paperwork. For the first time in my life, I had some more information about my natural parents. As odd as this may sound I had never given my natural father a second thought. I figured that if he was a good guy I wouldn’t have been put up for adoption. As I’ve come to find out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. The information I was given included their names, NeverTooLate and SinginInTheRain*, and their birthdays, and some basic family information. I knew that NeverTooLate had a brother, her mother was born on St. Michael, and her father was an engineer. AN ENGINEER! I was so happy when I found that out. SinginInTheRain was in the Army reserves and had a huge family that didn’t know about me when the paperwork was filled out. He was also a year younger than my natural mother, which put him at 19 when I was conceived.

I started to form a picture, but wasn’t sure what to do about it. I didn’t have last names, I didn’t know how to continue, and I wasn’t sure what to do next. I copied down the information and left to start my senior year without a clear idea of what was going to happen next. I should have talked to my parents about it, but I didn’t want to rat my sister out for snooping and I didn’t think they would believe that I would have done it on my own. I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly because I should have just asked them for the information and I’m sure they would have given it to me gladly.

I kept thinking about what I should do. I did a couple of late night Google searches and found nothing that was really useful, except for a website that allows you to search for a person by their first name and birthday, the two pieces of information I had. The catch was that it would cost me $15. This was something I wasn’t ready to do and I figured I’d give myself a bit more time to find them without paying for it.
I’d be lying if I said that I knew what I wanted to do and that it was an easy semester for me. I really struggled with everything. I had always had my family to lean on but I was afraid to tell them what I was going through. My friends didn’t know either because I didn’t know what I was feeling, and I felt like I needed to figure that out before I talked to anyone. I was afraid that someone would be able to talk me into or out of finding my natural parents and I wanted the decision to come from me. I normally would have called my mom to tell her, but in this situation I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Added to that was the fact that my mom came down for a visit.

Right before she came down, I had a friend tell me that adopted people don’t count in a discussion about family.  Needless to say I was livid.  I was so hurt I didn’t stand up for myself, which made me even more upset afterward.  I told my mom about my frustrations.  We had a talk and she told me that if I ever wanted to find my natural parents she would help me. I was presented with a perfect opportunity to tell her everything, but I didn’t take it. I wish I had and then I wouldn’t have been struggling through everything alone, but I wasn’t expecting us to have that conversation and I wasn’t ready to talk about it. It was a very confusing time for me and I’m glad that I managed to get through it.

*Names have been changed

Summertime Surprise!

The summer of my senior year was a nice one. I had a great job that I loved, I moved home feeling better about myself than I had in a long time. I was a RA my junior year and had been “promoted” to SRA for my senior year. I was really excited and couldn’t wait to start my senior year. I was in a great place in my life. And August hit and my health took yet another downturn. So I spent the month of August miserable and got dragged on a family vacation. Not really where I wanted to be, but I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. It was time for my grandmother’s annual birthday bash at our summer home, and my dad’s side of the family all showed up for the weekend. My cousin was going to stay in the room my sister and I shared on an air mattress so the three of us stayed up until the wee hours of the morning having girl talk.

Somehow the conversation somehow turned to the fact that my sister and I were both adopted. Here I am like a fool telling my cousin that I felt totally comfortable talking about it and ask me anything and my sister starts to get really quiet. Finally, I notice and ask her about it. She was never as comfortable as I was, so I figured that maybe she didn’t like where the conversation was going. Finally, she admitted that there was something she should probably tell me. Turns out she had gone through my parent’s stuff when she was 16 and found her adoption paperwork, and mine as well. Surprise! What I had been too afraid to ask for she had found and read. She knew more about my background than I did! She promised to show me when we got home. My poor cousin saw the soap opera that was unfolding and I don’t know what she must have been thinking.

Hello and Introduction

Hello everyone and welcome to my Blog! I figured that this would be a good way to document my Lifetime-movie-type-of-life and keep everyone updated on my progress. If I was a really good blogger, I would have decided to do this sooner and I would have been blogging for almost the past year now. So please forgive me if I start from the beginning and it takes a little while for me to get up to speed. I have a feeling it’s going to take me a while to get up to present day, but the way I see it, I have all the time in the world and if you’re reading this, you probably have some free time as well. Ok, enough of a disclaimer, time to tell you all more about me.

I want to start by saying that I grew up in a great family. My parents are both from large extended families and we all stayed in the same place. Nobody with the exception of a cousin or two has moved more than two hours away from home and we all get together randomly.  For the most part, we’re a pretty “normal” family. We don’t always agree, but in the end, we’re family and that’s all that really matters. I start with this because I think it’s important to understanding this story. Without my family, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. On a similar note, I have a wonderful group of friends. My friends have become a part of my family in a way and without them, this past year would have been unbearable. It wasn’t always an easy ride, but I truly feel blessed to have these wonderful people in my life and I wouldn’t change any of that for the world.

My immediate family consists of me, my mom, my dad, and my little sister. My mom is from an Irish family, big, loud, and pretty much what you think of when you think of Irish people. My dad is from an Italian family (with a little bit of Irish mixed in) and I grew up eating Italian desserts and hearing stories about my great-grandmother who used to swear in Italian when she was upset. It makes for interesting get-together’s. Oh, and did I mention that my grandparents are best friends? This means that both families intermingle with each other and it’s more like one huge giant family. It might sound slightly weird, but a fun environment to grow up in.

What makes this story slightly more interesting is that I am adopted. My parents tried to have kids for ten years and finally went to an adoption agency. They were approved and were told that that they would have to wait for a few months or up to two years to get a baby. They only had to wait a few months before they got the call about me. My parents were skiing for the New Year with a few of my aunts and uncles and when they got home, they got a phone call about me. They only had a few days to get everything ready for me. Most people have nine months to prepare. My parents had less than a week. My aunt ended up getting a baby shower together in less than two days. Again, this is where this big supportive family is really important. I came home January 7^th and I’ve been a part of the family ever since. After a few years, my parents decided that they wanted me to have a sibling. We moved into a bigger house in the suburbs with a good school system and my sister was adopted a few months later. Where I was two months old when I came home, my sister was only two days old. My parents had met with her natural mother before she was born and they had a little bit more time to get ready. As a three year old, I guess I understood my adoption better seeing how things worked with my sister.

Before my sister was born, my mom put together a baby book for me. It was my adoption story all laid out like a children’s picture book with pictures of me and my parents. It explained about how I was adopted and how my parents waited a long time to have me and about how I had natural parents who wanted what was best for me and that included giving me up. My parents would read it to me like a bed time story and answer my questions. They were adamant that even though I didn’t grow in my mommy’s belly like other kids did, that didn’t make them love me any less and it just meant that I had four people who loved me very much and wanted what was best for me when most kids only had two. I was extra special in their eyes. Growing up and hearing this every day that’s what I thought was normal. It was how I was raised. I include that in this blog because that’s what I get asked about all the time. I don’t remember how old I was, it’s just always been a part of my life. I don’t mind talking about it, as witnessed in this blog.

As I got older, my adoption didn’t come up as much. It’s not that it became a bad subject, but it was just rarely mentioned. My mom didn’t always like talking about it because she didn’t want me to get hurt. I think it’s easier to talk about adoption with children and a whole other story when those children become teenagers. By the time I went to college, things got a bit more interesting. The only thing I grew up knowing was that I was born in a southern city in Massachusetts and that my natural mother’s name was Nicole* and that she was 21 when she had me. That was pretty much it.

Coming from the city I was born and based on my brown hair and brown eyes, chances were that I was at least a little Portuguese, and my mom told me that the paperwork she had listed me as French, and Irish, and a bunch of other things she couldn’t remember (she lied). I ended up moving in with a girl in college whose father had emigrated from Portugal. She couldn’t understand how I could be Portuguese and not have any connection to my heritage. I spent a lot of time in college trying to figure out who I was. I came to the conclusion that I knew who I was as a person, but I only had this vague sense of where I came from. I think that’s something that most people take for granted. They don’t think about what it feels like to be mistaken for a friend rather than a sister, or to have people stare at you and state that you look nothing like the rest of your family. I really started to feel like knowing my past was something worth figuring out someday. And that’s where this story really starts.

*Names have been changed