Friday, March 9, 2012

Misfit Adoptee

Square peg round hole, misfit lost soul.
Adrift, astray, and tossed away.
Banished and outcast, no history or past.
Hopeless, forlorn, on life's journey alone.
These wasted years and rivers of tears,
that flow each time I'm left behind.



I was thrilled a couple of weeks ago when my long lost adoptive cousin found me on Facebook.  We'd lost touch over the years I had divorced, remarried, and moved a few times.  I had searched for her but the information I had found seemed to be old and outdated.  She had found me through my adoptive sister's Facebook page.  We spent hours on the phone catching up and it was truly joyous.  I look forward to many more days and hours and maybe even a trip to see one another in the future.

We reminisced about the memories we had although we didn't see each other a lot because we lived so far away from one another growing up.  But, there were Holidays, and matching Christmas dresses, and Easters, and summer evenings eating dinner and fresh brewed ice tea on the breeze way at the kids table.  And the death of our grandfather when we were very young that left us all in shock.  These were some of the only "normal" family memories I had.

Unfortunately in life there is usually bad that comes along with the good.  It seems my cousins have been looking for me for quite some time.  For whatever reason (and I have my theories) my adoptive parents would not provide them with any of my contact information.  I had to inform her that I had only found out her father, my uncle, had passed away via the family Christmas letter.  I was not given anything or offered the opportunity to have any of the family heirlooms, antiques, or valuables when my grandmother and great aunt passed, or the grandmother on my mother's side either.  I actually found out my grandmother I was very close to passed away in a phone call I had made and in a very unemotional blase way.  I guess it's easier to not be in shock though when you've had six months time to deal with it.

I know there have been other people in life who have been disinherited.  It's not that unusual.  However, in adoption it seems rampant from the stories I've heard from other adoptees.  We are simply not blood "kin".  And let me make this perfectly clear it is NOT about money.  It is about how adoption alienates you from ever being, or feeling like a "real" child.  My biological parents want to keep the secret that is my very existence just that, hush hush in the closet.  Even my biological siblings don't know so I don't belong there either.

It's the silliest things I'd love to have.  The ceramic rooster and hen salt and paper shakers my grandmother made in her kiln we used as kids when we visited.  The hand tatted lace my grandmother had tried to teach me to make with my own spindle, or the ceramic dolls my cousin and I had picked out young we wanted when we grew up, or quilts, or even some photos would be treasured. 

I told my cousin about myself and who I was now and maybe she might find out she doesn't like me.  I am finally proud of myself and my life after ridding myself of the voices of my childhood that told me I was unworthy, and bad.  I told her I was afraid she would decide to not want to continue our relationship.  I told her how I feared being rejected again as I had been by my Adoptive parents.

She posted on my wall the next day "I will never reject you".  I wept when I saw it and even showed it to some of my friends.  And I still check almost every day to make sure she's still there.  I probably always will.