Waiting for Someone to Love

I'm adopted. It's not a subject that comes up a whole lot--how often does a person get asked about the circumstances of their birth, anyway?--but it's not a subject I really try to avoid. It stops conversation, that's for sure.

(Something else that stops conversation off-campus? My field of study. Try saying the word "biophysics" in a bar--it's fun!)

People don't know what to say when I tell them the reason my dad's 6'4", my mom's somewhere around 5'8", and my brother's six five and still growing and I'm five foot two is that I'm not their child. They get the look, the "ooh, you must have issues so I'll just sit back and let you talk" look, or the "your family is so messed up I don't know what to say" look.

It's always fun to hear people who don't know try to rationalize. My hair is wavy/curly, I must take after my dad. People who only know Dad say I look like Mom, and vice versa. I stand on one foot in front of the stove or the counter when I cook, just like Mom.

The thing is, my family isn't messed up. Granted, I went through the junior high and high school years with the usual teenage angst--but it wasn't because I was adopted. It was because I didn't know how to handle my intelligence, and I was an obnoxious, insecure, arrogant little brat.

People always want to know: how did it happen? My parents had some fertility problems and began looking into alternative family planning. My mother (not my mom) was 21 and in college at the time. My father (not my dad) split when she was about four months pregnant. I was delivered 5 August in a county hospital about twenty minutes from my house. Two days later, I was at home with my parents. I have two letters from my mother, written to me while she was pregnant. I have read them about three or four times. Her handwriting is tiny and regular, just like mine. As of the delivery, she hadn't told her parents she was pregnant. Her initials are DNA, which I think is hilarious--her first name is Diane. I also have a list of attributes, physical and otherwise, provided by my mother to the social worker who mediated the adoption.

I'm small and pale, like her. I have my father's eyes--she, like everyone else, had blue eyes. My biceps and stupid muscular legs that don't fit into pants are from him. I have no idea where the boobs came from. They were both from "large, close" Catholic families, but how close can you be if your parents don't know or notice you're pregnant?

There's one other thing on this list that has always intrigued me. Like me, my mother liked to be involved and was musical. But she listed as one of her personality attributes "obedient." Obedient? What does it mean when a person describes themselves as obedient?

Was she secretly submissive? Maybe a submissive? (Scandal!) Did she just lack initiative; like being told what to do? Was her family too strong-willed for her to really develop her personality by 21? Did going against authority make her too uncomfortable? Obedient? She's a freaking American! We base our identity on questioning EVERYONE--we're a country because we revolted and ran away like an unruly teenager, but we never came back home. I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand because I really haven't grown out of being obnoxious and arrogant, (and growing out of insecurity has only made me more obnoxious and arrogant) and it's very difficult for me to understand that my way is not always the best way. That not everyone goes through life treating everyone like an intellectual equal, merited or not.
But seriously? Obedient? It's such a random, random adjective to fixate on, to choose to describe yourself to your child and the people who will be raising her. How true could it possibly be? As far as I know, she never told her parents she was pregnant, which means I probably have two sets of grandparents out there who don't know they have a (another?) grandchild. She's probably married. Her husband may not know. Her children, her brothers, her sisters (if she had any) probably don't know. And my father? Who knows.

I gave a lot of thought to this situation when I turned eighteen. My mother said she'd always leave her end of the files open, if I ever wanted to find her. But at eighteen, I didn't need to. I decided to put it off, maybe until I'm married and expecting a child of my own. Now, I don't know. In light of the "probably no one knows" situation, I'm inclined to say I'll probably never see her.

(I don't give a shit about my father. He split. If it'd been his body, I have a sneaking suspicion I wouldn't be here.)

But what if. What if the things she wrote weren't the product of emotional female pregnancy hormones, that she thinks of me, maybe she's wondering why I never contacted her. Maybe she's all too aware of the years that have passed. Maybe she thinks I hate her. I don't.

As much as I don't want to ruin her life, I don't want her to ruin mine. I have a mother. She's one of my best friends. I don't need another one. I don't need more complications in my life, and I can't see a situation in which inviting the woman who gave birth to me into my family doesn't complicate things. My birth certificate has my parents on it. My brother is my brother. My cousins are my cousins, and they say their baby pictures look like me. We all forget.

I am so grateful that my mother cared enough about me not to flush me. That she cared enough about me to ensure that I got the best life possible. It was a really great move on her part. But it doesn't entitle her to follow me through my life, and it doesn't obligate me to include her. I owe her life, and nothing more. Not my life. Just life.