When you grow up not knowing from whom you came from, this being my case since I was adopted, you feel like you are living in someone else’s life. It is easy to feel weird or awkward. I felt this way throughout my younger years. Here I was living in a house with a dad, mom, older sister, and younger brother. I was the middle child, the only one that had been adopted.
I always felt that I was different, that there was something in this mix of family that did not represent the “whole” me. I say “whole”, because I never felt whole, after finding out I had been adopted. I really did feel awkward.
I always wanted to know things like, “Do I look like them, talk like them, eat the same foods as them, and so on”. Them, being my birth family. Sometimes I would see resemblances in my adopted family and me. I would catch people talking to one another and claiming that I had the same features as one or the other adopted parent. I am not sure if everyone my family knew, knew I was adopted. I do know however that my church family knew. It was talked about in whispers amongst them and they did not think I could hear what they had said. Sadly, I did. Adults can be insensitive to a child’s feelings and they often time think the child cannot hear them, or understand what they say. I say to never underestimate the knowledge of a child and the grasp of understanding they have.
See, “awkward” almost seems like an in appropriate adjective to describe myself back then. Although awkward was definitely how I felt at times , especially in a public place. I never really felt like I belonged in my adopted family and I am not really sure if they thought I did or not. I do know that once my younger brother said I was his cousin and that I did not belong in his family. I really felt those words he said that day. I think they forever will haunt my mind.
If there was a time that I felt complete or where I belonged, I cannot recollect. I really think the place I am today, with my kids, grandkids and husband, is the closest thing I will ever know to be my place of belonging. That place is where I do not feel awkward, I do not feel weird and I know that I was meant to be where I am.
I remember being in second grade and standing on my seat to my desk telling the class something very special. It was during a party for someone’s birthday. What I was telling my classmates was that I was adopted. I remember this kid asking me what that meant.
Now this was a big topic for second graders, because no one had even really heard the term adopted. I explained it kind of this way, “My mom and dad got to choose me”, and I continued explaining that instead of being born into the family I now live in, I was chosen from a bunch of other kids and wanted so very much by my “now” parents that I am special.
“Special“, hmm, at least that is how it was told to me, when my mother explained it. I wish I could remember what had brought it up in conversation, but I have never figured that out. The point I was trying desperately to make in my class, during that birthday party was one that I believe for my own self as a child. I believed I was special.
Too bad that thought lost it’s momentum as I aged. I did not look at my adoption like that ever again. To this day I still don’t. Special has nothing to do with why I was adopted, as I later found out, and that word was far from what my adoption really was.
I know I sound bitter or maybe even a little sarcastic, but let me tell you, being adopted for me was a very different experience than the ones you hear about in the movies or in books. I was adopted because my birth father had been killed. Yes, killed. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I was too much burden for my mother since my older sister was around too. My birth mother could not handle two kids and I was the one who required the most attention, so I was the one who was gave up for adoption.
Now to be fair, my adopted parents were my birth Aunt and Uncle. My father was my adopted mother’s brother, so it was not like I was in the system. I was still with family. This is where things got complicated. My birth mother and my adopted mother was not friends. There was some sort of conflict way before I came around. So the stories that would be told when I would ask about one or the other, was so confusing to understand. Each story varied and each person had their own versions of what actually happened back in the time of my father’s death and my being adopted out.
That makes for a lot of animosity and conflict. So I never saw my birth mom till many years later, when a boyfriend I had went on a mission to find her for me. For which he did and he also took me to see her.
Talk about a story for another day! So see adoption for me, was most difficult and not being allowed to be around the family I was born into made things sometimes so hard to handle.
It goes to show you that not everyone has a perfect life and there are many differences you may not even notice when looking at another individual. We all are different and yet so much the same. If a person could walk in another’s shows, oh what they would feel and see!
I hope you are reading some of my poems. I think once you do you can relate to them.
I write things that come off the top of my mind and never do I practice writing. It just comes really easy for me, I use my writings as a form of therapy , if you will, and it helps me a lot.
I was adopted when I was a baby. I think that part of my writings reflect the feelings and emotions of that experience, a lot.
I try to use simple forms of expression when I write so that others can better relate.
I hope you will check out my poems and see for yourself.