This has nothing to do with Peace Corps

Hey, I've basically given up on this whole Peace Corps blog thing. Sorry guys, it's just not my jam. Maybe I'll type up my journal sometime and you can read that. After some careful edits. ;) Anyway, I've had a bit of free time recently and I've found myself using it to think, a lot. One of the things that's been on my mind is my adoption. So, in honor of my 26th adoption day, I prepared the following. As always, your comments and questions are more than welcome.

The way I look at it, I've been remarkably fortunate since before I was even born.

1. I WAS born.

My biological mother was a teenager who found herself pregnant and she decided to carry me to term. She went through the cravings, the constant need to pee, the swollen ankles and back-aches. I don't know what she had to give up in those nine months. Did she continue to go to school? Did she have to drop out; put her education on hold? Were her friends and family supportive? What cruel comments and judgments did she have to endure? I just don't know. But I am eternally grateful that she went through it all and brought me into the world.

2. I was given a chance.

Many teen-moms decide to keep their kids; sometimes that's great, sometimes it's not. There are a lot of factors that go into something like that. My biological mother decided not to keep me. I choose to believe that she thought I would have a better chance, more opportunities, with another family.

I don't know her; I don't KNOW what her reasoning was. Maybe she didn't want a kid yet, maybe she knew that a teenager raising an infant has to make a lot of tough sacrifices and she wasn't into that. Maybe she knew that an infant requires constant care and she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to care for me as well as she should. Maybe she thought that she wouldn't be able to follow her dreams and provide for me. Whatever her reasons, she decided to put me up for adoption.

3. I had a great foster family.

My foster parents were amazing, they cared for their kids and they brought order to the chaotic situations of many children. I know a lot of kids that go into the system end up in pretty bad places. They turn into little more than pay-checks from the government and spend some of the most formative years of their lives being, at best, ignored. I was cared for, I was loved. I had foster siblings that were cared for and loved. It was a good place to be.

4. I was adopted by an amazing couple.

I could spend hours praising my parents; I could also spend hours complaining about them. I think that's how a daughter's supposed to feel. Maybe sometime I'll write all of that down but for now, what you need to know is that my parents handled my adoption amazingly. They never lied to me. Never pretended I wasn't adopted. I can't emphasize how important this is to me. My adoption is a celebration. Every year, on the 19th of February, I have a second birthday. It was the day I officially came into my parent's life. We spend time together as a family, go out to dinner and a movie, maybe look through old baby pictures and play cards. I don't know if my parents realize, even now, how much that shaped me. I'll discuss some of the challenges adoptees face in a bit but knowing from the start and having it be a positive thing has been so important.

4b. My extended family welcomed me with open arms.

My grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, all of them. I am so much theirs that many of my younger cousins don't believe my older cousins and me when we talk about my adoption. They forget that I am adopted. It doesn't matter. I am theirs.

5. "I'm adoptable."

One of my favorite tongue-in-cheek phrases. Over the years, I've made amazing friends and I've been fortunate enough to be adopted into many of their families. I have a dozen sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers. People I love as family, regardless of blood. I know this isn't necessarily an uncommon occurrence, many people have friends that are as family to them. I can't even say that this is unique to adoptees. But I am grateful for it, regardless. Knowing that there are so many people out there who love me, worry about me, would drop things at a moments notice if I needed them, it helps fill that hole that I think all adoptees have.

Because, while I have been remarkably fortunate, I have also suffered. I think all adoptees suffer, in one way or another, because of our situations. I've tried, time and again, to put that suffering into words but I haven't been able to find the right ones. Ours is a situation that a non-adoptee simply can't understand. Not truly. There can be theoretical understanding but that feeling, that aching void at the center of who you are is something that you KNOW or you don't.

That void is where non-adoptees keep their template. Their foundations. It's filled with every little thing your family gave you before you were born. Things that you've discovered as you've aged. It's filled with moments like the time you realized that you have your grandmother's eyes or that your father does the same little nose-twitch when he laughs that you do. It's that moment in school when you had to do a genealogy chart and realized that you're distantly related to George Washington. It's watching your parents age and seeing a glimpse of your future. It's going to a doctor and being able to tell them if there's a history of heart problems in your family. It's celebrating Cinco de Mayo and remembering that your ancestor fought in the Battle of Puebla. It's every little thing that connects you to your family through the generations. It's knowing what's in your blood.

I don't have that. I have borrowed traditions. I am a tree without roots. I am a leaf desperately trying to connect to a branch that I have been severed from. I can see it, I know what it's supposed to be like, what it should look like. But I don't have it. I can't. It was taken from me before I had a chance to know it. Part of me wishes I could make you feel what I feel in those moments when the vast weight of the unknown threatens to crush me. A larger part of me is glad that you'll never have to feel it.

But even in this, I am fortunate. I don't think I would be as obsessed with knowledge as I am now, were it not for the knowledge that has been withheld from me. If I knew about myself what everyone else knows about themselves, would I search so hard for answers to every esoteric question under the sun? Would I obsessively seek to know everything I can, to experience this life to its fullest?

I have led a remarkably fortunate life. I am grateful for all that I have because I know what could have been. I began this life lucky. This is how I choose to view my adoption, my circumstances. That doesn't mean I'm blind to other possible interpretations. I was abandoned; dropped like an out of season pair of shoes. Thrown into a flawed system with little concern for my future. I was a mistake. I wasn't wanted. My own parents didn't have my back, why should I expect anyone else to? I don't count. I'm not REALLY family. I'm the extra, the addendum, there's an asterisk by my name. Caution: damaged goods. I know some adoptees feel that way. I know some people probably look at me that way. But that is not what I choose. I am unbound; I am not tied down by your expectations. I don't have a legacy to live up to or destroy. I am the sum of my decisions and my actions and nothing else. I don't have to answer for my predecessors because I don't have them. I am not bound by ancestral grudges, historical feuds. I am free and I am fortunate.