“Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home, mmm . . .”
I can’t go home. I can’t go home: emotions, not logical thoughts–but nonetheless real. Of course, I can go HOME. I have a home in Brookings with a bunch of kids, a couple of dogs, and a husband. And, I have a home at my parent’s house, a home in my extended family’s presence . . . But I can’t go HOME. I can’t go to my birthmother’s a) because she won’t let me/doesn’t want to see me, and b) even if I did, it wouldn’t be home. We’re genetic strangers. Genetically related strangers. How do you like that? There are people in Champaign, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and beyond who I look like, act like, talk like, move like, am genetically related to, and yet we are strangers. How is that fair??? I’m not one to play the “that’s not fair” card. Perhaps I mean to say, How is that right??
So it’s Christmas, and so many are focused on going HOME. But I can’t. I also can’t get HOME because my HOME is no longer in Decatur—as it was my whole life. My parents moved to Nashville, TN once I got married. Their home is not HOME to me. I can’t even find the light switches that I need in their house. And they aren’t coming here for Christmas, which makes this the second Christmas in my whole life that I’ve ever been apart from them. I don’t like it. And, sadly as a result of my search, even when I AM with them, things are different. I feel less related to them somehow. Just less related. That sucks. All of these family members who I’ve known all my life . . . who are my family–now it’s like I feel as if they “just” gave me a family to be with, since I couldn’t be with my own. Ick. That really hurts. I imagine Naika feels that way too. We aren’t really her family. We’re just the family that she is with because her “real” family can’t (in my case—won’t) keep her/know her. Then somehow the family that you know all your life, seems lessened—like second best.
And, I suppose I seem like second best to my parents too . . . not the original for which they had hoped. I’m NOT the biological combination of the two of them that they had been hoping for. I am made by two other people’s parts. Just as I would like my own biological parents, they would like their own biological child. Ick Ick Ick. What am I supposed to do with all of this??
“May be surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
I just wanna go home
Oh, I miss you, you know . . .”
This is me/Naika surrounded by family, but still feeling like we’re not–really. I mean all of my cousins . . . family . . . we have inside jokes for sure. We were raised together. But, if I let myself think about it, I was just dropped in there . . . they aren’t MINE and I’m not THEIRS, but we are family. My “real” family is celebrating their holidays/birthdays, etc. WITHOUT me!!!
“And I’ve been keeping all the letters
That I wrote to you
Each one a line or two
I’m fine baby. How about you?”
I save every thing about my birthfamily. Every scrap paper, every note, ever pic, every website reference, every possible address. I would love to know how my birthfamily members ARE! I wish they wanted to know how I AM too . . . “I’m fine baby. How about you?” I treasure their scraps.
The only thing I didn’t save was a very nasty letter that my birthdad sent me which I received on New Year’s Eve of 2008. It was awful. I didn’t even keep it in my house. I flipped it over, wrote a few words back to him, and sent it back. It made me sick to my stomach . . . .
He told me to stop interjecting myself into his family. Odd, don’t you think? Seeing as how he ejaculated me into his family!
He threatened me that if I contacted anyone even remotely related to him, . . . still, I followed through with my original plans to deliver flowers to my paternal grandparents only a few weeks later. He threatened, and yet I continue to break no legal boundaries in my desire to meet/see/know flesh and blood.
He told me I had used fictitious means to find information and people. Fictitious means? How about hiding a pregnancy from one’s entire family–the generation before you, the generation after you, and all those family members in between? How about keeping me a secret for 37 years plus, as if I never happened? Is that fictitious??
Christmas time of 2008 (about one year ago), I sent each sibling and my paternal aunt a small small gift. On December 26th, I got my maternal sister’s gift back with a disconnecting letter. The bracelet I sent her was shabbily packaged in a plain envelope with a little bit of a hole in it. And, her note was practically scribbled on a plain piece of notebook paper—my name misspelled in one place. Nice. What happened? The last thing she said to me was, “I don’t know how my mother will respond, but I choose to have a sister.”
“Well, I would send them but I know
That it’s just not enough
My words were cold and flat
You deserve more than that . . . .”
I DESERVE MORE THAN THAT!!!!
Adoption Triad Dance 
Leave a Reply