Words of weary memories that I can always see

No strikes...you're out?

2012-01-10T18:11:00.000-05:00

How do we, as adoptees, deal with rejection from our birth family members?

I’ve been fortunate in that only siblings have rejected me..not the dreaded mother or father. But it still hurts. A lot. And it’s really not surprising.

Most people don’t understand what it’s like to be despised on such a primal level. Sure, there are a lot of people who fight with their siblings, or who don’t get along with a brother or a sister. But those kinds of things happen in normal families because of conflict- actions or words.

My sister Nicole? She just hates me. Not really because of anything I’ve done to her, or vice versa. But because I exist- and frankly, it just pisses her off.

How do we, as people who have grown up outside of our families of origin, cope when we discover that in reunion, we aren’t as welcome as we would have liked?

I wish I had the answer. After nearly 10 years of conflict…I’ve learned to just live with it. I try to comfort myself with the fact that its not “ME” as a person, but me as an entity. Nicole couldn’t possibly hate me, she doesn’t know me! We were friends as young children, but puberty (and the notion that I wasn’t going away..as she’d hoped) promptly ruined all of that for us.

Now, at a very tender age, she is expecting her first baby. It’s a niece or nephew that I will never know, who will never call me “Auntie A”, who will be deprived of his only aunt just as me and my sister were deprived of each other.

How do we heal? How do we make amends? Apologies don’t work- what are we apologizing for?

“I’m very sorry I exist, Nicole. I’m sorry you aren’t really an only child. Sorry our father loves me too.”

With my particular case, talking doesn’t work. Neither do letters. She insists, as she always has, that she hates me and that she will never love me. She talks to other half- siblings of ours who HAVE done some pretty terrible things to her. Just not to me. I am her only full sister- the only sister with whom she shares a father. She hates me because she is jealous that I too have a connection with him.

Um…..my bad.

How do we move on, my adoptee friends? How do we just “accept” that sometimes our own families will probably never love us, simply because we exist? Luckily- the problem most commonly lies within the other person. Most people cannot imagine hating or being hated by someone they don’t even know. Let alone someone they don’t know who is also their brother, or sister, or daughter.

I find my only salvation is to wait. Maybe one day Nicole will change her mind, maybe one day she will understand. She is very young. We still have time.

Do I hold my breath? I do not. Do I wish her well? … I try to.

But mostly I just accept it for what it is. I add it to my list of unique situations that being relinquished for adoption puts me in. Another unfortunate thing that I have no control over, but that will affect me for the rest of my life.

How do you all deal? Did your families welcome you back into the fold? If not, what helps you?

Do adoptive parents make me nervous? No. But another group does.

2011-12-17T07:20:00.002-05:00

I read a post recently where various first mothers admitted that finding out that someone was an adoptive parent changed their opinion about said person. Some of them even went so far as to say that they no longer had any desire to talk to such a person, and that most adoptive parents made them very uncomfortable.

It's something, I suppose, that I find rather ridiculous. On one hand, it seems silly that a person could be nervous around an entire subgroup of people just because they happened to adopt a baby.

Then again, my opinion of a person definitely changes if I discover that they placed a child. I have many first mother friends thanks to this blog and various adoption forums, and it seems that if I know that someone is a firstmother/father before meeting them, it doesn't have an effect on me. If, however, someone in my real life places a child, my feelings of suspicion rise up.

I went to Elementary and middle school with a girl who placed a child in highschool. Let's call her Emily. Emily and I were good friends when we were young children ,but ended up going to different highschools. She knew I was adopted (as did most people) and when we reconnected and I discovered that she had placed her son in a semi-open adoption, I was immediately turned off by her. I can't see her now without thinking of her son, somewhere off in his adoptive family. She is the typical "happy" birthmother (as she calls herself). She is convinced that she has entered into a "win win win" situation, and is convinced that her son will have no issues growing up because she will be willing to answer his questions when he is an adult.

When she told me her story I remember thinking, "Wow, you have legitimately no excuse to have placed your child. How on earth can you be so "willy nilly" about the whole situation? How can you be so ignorant to think that it is a completely awesome situation without any drawbacks?

Oh right. You weren't adopted.

I don't talk to Emily anymore. I am friends with her on Facebook, and occasionally see her status'. But I can't help but feel that she is deficient in some way, that she has done something so distasteful that I no longer wish to have contact with her. I don't know EXACTLY the situation. I know her family pretty well, and she did tell me her version of the events in great detail, but I cannot pretend to know why she placed. Other than that she is against abortion but didn't want a baby.

She is a perfectly nice person, but I cannot fight my primal sense that something is now "wrong" with her. As if she has somehow lost a bit of her humanity. Isn't that harsh? It's just how I feel.

So, I cannot imagine being turned off by adoptive parents. Sure, I find some of them pretty despicable. But it's on a case to case basis. My own parents are adoptive parents, for Pete's sake! They pose no threat to me, as I have never been treated anything but well by the adoptive parents in my life.

But I do understand the sentiment of these firstmothers. I understand what its like to imagine that something is "off" about someone simply because they have adopted or placed for adoption. But I didn't want any adoptive parents out there to think its THEIR fault. People who are put off by nearly entire groups of people are the ones with the problem. Do I have a problem because finding out that someone I know placed a child disturbs me enough that I no longer want to look at them? Probably.

Is it out of my control? Yup.

Smoke and mirrors...a message for my sister.

2011-07-28T05:47:00.000-04:00

Well, it seems I’m an adoptee-masochist.

I always ask for trouble.

I had been feeling guilty, lately, for not trying harder with my sister Nicole. My kept sister, the apple of our father’s eyes. I know that in pains him that we absolutely hate each other. So, I sent her a nice email- telling her my feelings on the subject, imploring the both of us to be mature, to work out our problems. Because we are sisters. I am her only sister,and she is mine. Let’s fight adoption, I said. Lets love each other despite the odds, lets put aside our 10 years of differences and let’s try and make it work.

Masochism at it’s best!

Her answer? A long list of everything I did wrong in the past 10 years. Most of which, I don’t even remember. Probably because I was 12 when it happened. And she was 9. Which makes me wonder how she remembers.

But I could deal with all of that. I could have written “I’m sorry for all the ways I’ve hurt you. I didn’t mean to do it.”

But she wasn’t finished yet.

“You remind me too much of our mother. I know that I have a part of her inside me too..but I’ve learned to control it. You remind me of her, you are just like her. And I don’t want to know anyone who is like her.”

WHAT?!?!

Let’s review a few of the facts.

I am working on a masters, I live abroad and pay my own rent. I have good friends who love me, who I’ve kept for decades. I have a wonderful relationship with both of my parents, with all of my living grandparents, and with my extended family. I am the favorite aunt, the most fun cousin. I have never been in any sort of trouble with the law. Not once. I have never smoked anything stronger than a cigarette (though, unfortunately, I smoke a lot of them). I haven’t so much as a fucking parking ticket.

Our mother was a drug addict. She did crack, crank, every type of drug under the sun. She’s been in jail. She’s had her kids taken away from foster care. She is bipolar (which wouldn’t be an issue if she actually took her meds). She was an alcoholic, she was unstable 90% of the time. She kept promises she couldn’t keep, she emotionally abused every child who was left in her care.

Lets talk about Nicole. Spoiled, fucked up, cruel. Chases away every boyfriend or fiance she's ever had with her absurd acidity. She is abusive and jealous. She does drugs. She is a super Christian who hates her own sister. She refuses to forget, let alone forgive. She has told me she hates me, that I will never belong in her family, that they only talk to me because they feel obligated. She fights, she is rude, she gets pulled over for much more than a parking ticket. She likes to talk about our father using the word “my”. In capital letters. Like “MY father only talks to you because he feels guilty.” or “I’m not jealous with the relationship you have with MY dad”. She’s like my dog..peeing on things she wants to claim as her own.

I’m not perfect, people. In fact, I’d say that I’m pretty fucked up. I have issues, I have troubles. I see shards of our mother’s personality in myself...and it frightens me. But I see more of them in her. And thats even more troubling.

Nicole- here’s a message for you. I’m done. I give up. I hope one day you change your mind ( as our father insists you will). Not because I want to be your friend. I do not. But only because then I can tell you to go fuck yourself as you have told me. You are not my sister. You are nothing. You don’t deserve to know me. I would love you, treat you well, give you everything of myself...if only you’d let me. I’ve waited for you for years. The waiting time is over. I have been passive, open, and have exposed my deepest feelings in the hopes that it would soften the hardness that you have within you.

But it’s only backfired. And now I’m done. I will never forgive you for what you have said. Our mother is many bad things, I’ll never deny it. But she is a compassionate soul. She is loving. She has her demons that she was unable to fight. But she LOVED. She had love in her heart.

The same cannot be said for you. You are no sister of mine.

Responsibility.

2011-06-17T14:17:00.000-04:00

I am a firm believer in the notion that everyone in the world of adoption is obliged to accept their responsibility. In these days, relinquishment and adoption do not happen magically- they involve at least two calculated decisions.

As an adoptee, I accept my obligation to be understanding, compassionate, and open. I foster relationships with members of my adoptive family, and I do the same for members of my natural family. I accept any sibling who wants to know me, I maintain and nourish the relationships I have with my natural mother and father. I make mother and father’s day cards, I make calls on all holidays. I send congratulations for new babies, weddings, and birthdays.

There are very few things that would cause me to cease contact with my natural parents. If they had no respect for my adoptive family, I would have to seriously reconsider our relationship. They don’t have to be friends- they don’t even have to talk to one another. And it goes both ways. I don’t expect my parents to be HAPPY about my relationship with my biological family. But I do expect them to be supportive of me, and I expect them to accept it gracefully (as they have).

One thing is for sure though- if my natural parents did not take responsibility for their actions, it would not be able to have a relationship with them. And the reasoning is simple- they made a life altering and objectively damaging decision on my behalf. Without my consent or knowledge or approval. All parents make decisions like that for their children. The only difference is that my parents actually made a decision to NOT be my parents.

They robbed me of my name, my heritage, and the security of growing up with my own clan. They chose to give me to another family- and in doing so stripped me if my most core identity, of my right to grow up within my own family. They destroyed the most important relationships in my young life- the one that I was supposed to have with them. They ensured that my siblings and I would grow up apart. They robbed my siblings of their sister, their parents of a grandchild.

They did all of these things for a few simple reasons. They did not feel they had sufficient money to raise me in the custom to which they had been raised. My paternal family hated my natural mother. And my father did not want to be a parent at that time. He was 27 and my mother was 25.

Over the course of our reunion, they have explained their reasoning to me. They have expressed regret. They have expressed sadness, and they have asked my forgiveness. But never, not once, did they tell me that it wasn’t their fault. They take full responsibility for the decision they made over 2 decades ago. And I’m glad they do.

Babies don’t give up themselves. In this day & age, when single parenting is on the rise, children out of wedlock are no longer seen as the scum of the earth, and parenting classes and aid are so readily available- I find it hard to understand that women are placing children. Capable, sane, normal, kind women are giving their babies up left and right. And I find it pretty sick. I’m sure they have their reasons- and I can only hope that they don’t sound hollow 20 years from now when their children want to know why they were given away.

I hear a lot of women who placed recently talking about familial pressures, societal stigmas, and unsupportive partners. Everyone is keen to blame the big bad adoption industry.... as if they were tricking every woman who experiences and unexpected pregnancy. But the reality is this : most women keep their babies. Poor, dumb, smart, white, black, rich, young , old - the adjectives don’t matter. The percentage of women who place is VERY small.

So, how can people continue to blame the adoptive parents or the adoption industry for THEIR decisions? If the industry permeated nearly as much as some natural parents claim, everyone would be giving up their babies. But that simply isn’t true. Are women who place less resilient, more impressional than their counterparts who keep their babies? Are they simply gullible, giving into the industry while their more sly sisters hold on to their offspring? I don’t think any of that is true. But that is what some natural parents are trying to make me believe. They are victims, they claim. And maybe that’s so. I believe that natural parents are the victims of the most insidious idea: that they are unworthy of raising their own children.

But I accept the victim role only until a certain point. Something like 98% of pregnant women keep their babies. Even very young woman. It’s what comes naturally to us, it’s what we are SUPPOSED to do. The fact that the small percentage of women who give up their babies then go on to say that somebody else made them do it just infuriates me. We are no longer in the BSE. Things have changed, and are changing. Keeping your baby is easier and more socially acceptable than ever.

I don’t think its easy to take responsibility for an unpopular decision. Because face it, after the adoption is finalized, natural mothers are no longer the “saints” they were before relinquishment. Most people cringe at the idea of giving away their child. Most people cannot imagine it, even in the most desperate of circumstances. It cant be easy to have done the unimaginable. It’s easy to blame other people, or other entities.

But one fact remains- had my parents not given me up, I would not have been adopted. Its really quite simple. For every choice there is a consequence. I pity the adoptees my age who have parents who simply will not take responsibility.

Adoption has taken so much from me. And I’ll be damned if the people who chose it for me aren’t going to admit it. I wonder how the children born in the 90’s think..and the children born in the 2000’s. I hope that all modern day parents have some damn good reasons. Otherwise they are going to have a difficult time explaining to their children why they were cast away. It's so unnatural to be given away. And if the reasons are hallow....it makes it much worse.

Married

2011-06-06T04:21:00.000-04:00

I found out I had a sister when I was 11 years old. My excitement to meet and know my natural parents flew out the window when I heard about her...I was so excited to be a BIG sister! We wrote letters to each other- colorful little notes designed with flowers and puppies and stars. We would profess our never-ending love for one another. We were Sisters- separated by circumstance, but reunited by destiny. We took trips to visit each other- visiting the highest floors of the tallest skyscrapers in NYC, riding horses in the golden fields of Texas.

And then one day, it stopped. She hit puberty, decided she didn't want anything to do with me, the little intruder into her family, and she convinced 99% of the family to exile me with her. Only our father and his wife, steadfast, continued to talk to me in secret. The last time I saw them was on one of my birthdays, 5 years ago.

Nicole is my full sibling. I loved her once. I am her only full sibling. She doesn't talk to any of our half siblings. I talk to all of them. And yet, knowing all of them is not enough for me. I want so desperately to be friends with Nicole. We have our issues, yes. I am jealous of her, yes. But I was always willing to put them ALL aside if it meant that we could build our relationship. She's never really been interested. We had a year or so of good, solid communication. She cut me off about a month ago when I started talking with our maternal family- a part of her family she doesn't like. She sees me as a threat.

I heard news today that Nicole is getting married. I saw the engagement announcement on facebook today. Her ring is beautiful. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I will not be invited. Her bridesmaids will be her friends and her step sister.

My natural father got married two years ago. I was not invited to that either. He wanted to invite me, he said, but he couldn't because it would create a stir within his family- mostly with his mother Thank you adoption, for making sure that I was not there to see my own fathers wedding. Thank you adoption for making damn sure that I will not be invited, let alone be a part of, my only full sisters wedding.

Nicole- I remember when you were small. I remember when we BOTH were small. Time passes- it is one thing that we can be sure of. I wish I could congratulate you, I wish I could see you. Your ring is beautiful, and I know you'll be beautiful too. I wish you, as I always have, all the happiness in the world.

Kept children just matter more.

2011-06-04T08:27:00.000-04:00

Ain't it the truth?

How many times have I heard from my natural family :

"We can't do that with you because it would hurt Nicole (my younger sister, born and kept 2 years later)."

My own maternal grandmother refuses to have anything to do with me. Why? Because she says her loyalties will always be to Nicole.

"Amanda has her own family. Nicole only has us. We need to be loyal to her, she needs to know that she is our only grandbaby".

"I'm sorry Amanda but we have to cancel our visit. I know you bought the tickets and have waited for weeks..but it's not a good idea. Nicole is mad and doesn't want you to visit. We can't rock the boat".

My grandparents and aunts keep all the letters I send them, but hide them when they know that Nicole will be visiting.

"We love you just as much as we love Nicole...it's just different".

Yeah. I gathered.

I don't really expect anything different. After all, she has a history with them that spans 20 years and I simply do not. I've only been around for the last 11 years....and only for a few weeks a year. I don't doubt my natural parents' love for me- I know it's there. They've told me and they've demonstrated it to me. But I do resent the constant proclamations of equal love for me and my sister. That is something they have said a million times...but I never expect to see the proof. Nicole is their baby. I was the baby that nobody wanted.

On some level, my grandmother is right. I DO have my own family- my adoptive family, extended and otherwise, adore me. I am the cherished granddaughter, the fun aunt, the loving daughter and sister who makes them proud.Why isn't that enough?

Nicole only has one family. But she has HER family. And I suppose that makes all the difference. She grew up in the knowledge that she was loved, that she was wanted. I grew up knowing that I was wanted by one family only because I was unwanted by another. For whatever difficulties Nicole has had in her life (and trust me, there are a lot of them) in the end, she has a base that I don't. I have had, arguably, I better life than she has. I have had an emotional stability that she has never known, I have college educated parents who paid my way through college, I have lived (and currently live) abroad. I have two mother languages (I have one American parent and one European parent). I have a good life, with a family who loves me.

But that isn't enough. All the college and Italian and love in the world will not make up for the loss of my family. No amount of pride or self esteem will ever relieve me of my original inadequacy.

I hate Nicole for being kept. I hate her even more for KNOWING it. For LOVING it. And for hypothetically marking her territory every time I came to visit. I am jealous that my father loves her, that he raised her as a single father while he forced my mother to give me away 2 years prior.

He loves me now, he wants me now. He tells everyone that he would take me back in a heartbeat, that I could live with him at any time... all I have to do is ask.

But Nicole never had to ask.

As the given away child, I am already acutely aware of the fact that my parents chose to give me away. Having a sibling, a fairly evil sibling, who was kept 2 years later just... makes it worse.

I understand that she is special to them in a way that I could never be. But wasn't that their own doing? had they kept me, I would have been loved, I would have been cherished. Nicole is proof of that. I lived a large portion of life being grateful for having been adopted, for having been given the chance to be loved. But I could have been loved, I could have been happy with my natural family.

Nicole is happy. She just matters more. She always has. When the going gets tough, my family will ALWAYS side with her. Her protection and sense of self worth and happiness will always trump mine. She must be made to feel special, even at my expense. And I guess that's what makes it hard for me to love her.

Who is the enemy?

2011-06-02T13:22:00.000-04:00

Me, at a few weeks old. Right after I was relinquished by my mother.

http://www.firstmotherforum.com/2011/05/is-scott-simon-angry-with-us.html#more

I read this link on the first mother forum...and I can’t fully agree. I agree that Scott Simon is a tad deluded. But I don’t think he’s evil, and I certainly think he is significantly more “aware” than most adoptive parents. The fact that he wrote a book and bothered to write a letter to the FMF is already a step in the right direction.... how many adoptive parents live blissfully unaware of the issues surrounding adoption, convinced that their adopted child will never turn out like we “nutballs” who write against it? Every single adoptive parent I know in real life. Including my own.

Which brings me to the point of my post. I am disgusted by the villinization of adoptive parents. I’m sick of it and I think its bullshit.

I do not think adopting a child is wrong.Wanting to raise a child is not a crime people. There is nothing morally wrong in having resources and wanting to raise a child. Adoptive parents don’t “have” babies like their non-adoptive counterparts. They raise children. And the desire to do so does not make them morally corrupt or evil.

The majority of the population, especially in the United States, believes that adoption is an altruistic and loving act. We, as an adoptive community, will never ever ever ever EVER be able to convince the WORLD that the adoption of a child is wrong.

But you know what I DO find wrong? Giving up a child for adoption. That, my dears, is a travesty. I’m talking about the year 2011. With modern day medical procedures, cultural acceptance of single parenting, various aid programs offered by the state and federal governments...what reason could POSSIBLY exist for a woman to give up her own child? How do we justify that? How can we say that it is a good thing?

Youth, the desire to finish school and join the work force, unsupportive partners and disapproval from family members are all good reasons NOT to have a baby. But none of them are good reasons to have a baby and give it away.

I’m not stupid. Adoption will always continue. There will always be women who think it is the right choice. And there will always be couples who are ready to adopt that baby.

But we are focusing on the wrong targets. Why villinize adoptive parents ? In order for them to adopt a baby, someone has to give one up. If there are fewer babies available for adoption, fewer people will be able to adopt. It’s simple math. To achieve change, we need to go to the heart of the matter.... the mothers who are thinking of placing. We can give them a truth that their agencies will never tell them. We can tell them our stories, give them the wisdom of our experiences, warn them against something we do not feel is right. If THEY listen, then we have won another battle. But fighting with adoptive parents who have already adopted or are considering it? Please. WAKE UP PEOPLE! There will always be couples that, for whatever reason, will want to adopt and raise a child. If we tell them they are wrong, they will laugh at us. And they will adopt anyway.

The person who is MOST concerned with the welfare of the child who might be placed for adoption is their mother. If we can convince her that adoption is not a good idea, that it hurts all involved, that her child might NOT thank her for her “selflessness”. I love my natural parents... I do. But I will never thank them for what they have done. I just don’t see a reason. They did what was best for them at the time. They had all the resources to keep a child.. in fact, they DID keep the next baby born 23 months later.

I love my natural parents, but I do not respect them for their decision to place me. I don’t think giving up a child is any sort of act of altruism or love. It may seem like it sometimes, but at the end of the day the fact is this: there is a reason that something like 1-2% of mothers choose adoption for their infants. It goes against everything that we, as human beings, were made for. It destroys the very fabric of the most important structure in our culture- that of family.

Telling adoptive parents that they are selfish, deluded baby stealers is one of the most absurd things I’ve ever heard. And I think that those who do it are directing anger in a place where it doesn’t belong, and I think they are fighting a battle that they will never win.

Stop mothers from giving away their babies. THAT’S the answer.

Making other people feel better-- Adoptee Job Description.

2011-06-01T08:34:00.001-04:00

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately in adoption-blog-land....and I’m a little sickened today. I haven’t had a strong visceral reaction to a post in a long time. And when I do, its usually when I jump to the defense of a fellow adoptee, or a friend. But this time, I found myself doing the criticizing. I found myself getting defensive over something that, frankly, isn’t any of my damn business.

I hate hate hate hate hate seeing the difference between kept children and placed children. Perhaps its a soft spot for me, considering I am the infamous “placed child”, whose little sister was born just 2 years after me. Under the same circumstances.

So yeah, I’m a little bitter. My sister has spent all 11 years of our reunion making sure I understand how special she is, how loved, how wanted. Yeah bitch, I get it. Mom and Dad kept you and gave me away. I know I know I know. You were, and will always be, loved and treasured in a way that I can only dream of. Thanks for the reminder.

So perhaps that is why I got all upset today when I read a blog today where the writer addresses her kept son, telling him how loved and special he is and how he should never worry because he won’t be given away. As much as I personally enjoy this blogger and her personal story, I was so taken aback. So..angry. I was so angry for her son, the first one, who gets to live the rest of his life in an open adoption where he can see firsthand his mother’s love for her second, kept child. And then maybe he will read what she is written... and see his mother promise her younger, kept child, how he will never be left, how he will always be their beloved child.

I understand that a big reason why my parents did not want to place my sister was because of their relinquishment experience with me. My birthfather has told me on more than one occasion that when I was born, he chose his own freedom over me. But when my sister was born, he decided his freedom wasn’t worth losing another child.

And perhaps thats what the author of that post feels. She regrets placing her firstborn, and maybe it was with that regret in mind that the birth of her second child was such a miracle, such a joy. And there is nothing wrong with that. But I hurt for the placed child- I hurt for him.

I admit that I resent my sister for being kept when I wasn’t. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my sister is a spoiled little monster. Or maybe it’s just the adoptee in me that gets tired of being reminded how special she is. How wanted she was. How her place in OUR family is forever- how she will never have to stay awake at night overanalyzing every word that they say. Because she is one of them. She belongs. There is no question, there is no doubt. She is the daughter, niece, grandchild, and cousin. Loved and beloved, accepted into the family fold without question or difficulty. And I guess on some level, I hate for for that.

It’s not her fault. If our birthdays had been swapped, I’D be the one in the family, and she would have been adopted out. But she doesn’t see it that way. Our parents never thought about giving her away. And she never forgets to remind me.

I’m tired of the plight of the kept child. How everyone has to be extra careful to say just the right things, lest they think that they too will be given away. Oh please. If they were going to give you away, they would have done it when you were born. Exactly like they did to us. The parents’ constant need to assure their kept children of their love and value and importance is a direct slap into the face of the adoptee. And in my case, it created a monster- a little girl who was convinced of her own inflated self worth and specialness- who became a teenager who is convinced of the same things, who became an adult who is convinced that her innate value was what saved her from the world of adoption. And it was my lack of value that condemned me to it.

I hope that child never sees his siblings’ story. I hope he can look past his parents’ gushing love for his kept brother and see their love for him. But I suspect, just as in my case, that he will see something else: that he was a result of an undesired pregnancy and that his brother was the result of something very different. That his parents never thought about giving away their second son. The same parents who not only THOUGHT of giving him to another family..they actually did it.

I don’t think that couples who place children for adoption should remain childless. That’s absurd. Everyone on this earth has a right to happiness. But the overwhelming and special love for one child should NEVER be highlighted by the exile of the other.

“We love you so much, you are ours forever and ever. We will always be your mom and dad. We will never do to you what we have done to your sister.”

how about :

“We love you so much. You are ours forever and ever. We miss and love your brother too, forever and ever. We are a family, all of us. We want to teach you that love can encompass distance and legalities.”

But then again.... that’s just my opinion. If the fact that I was placed and my sister wasn’t can make her feel better about herself... I guess that’s the price I’ve got to pay. I’ve been the sacrificial lamb for familial harmony before. It’s all good.

Open Adoption, a not objective view

2011-05-25T09:51:00.002-04:00

I have never felt 100% comfortable with the idea of an open adoption. Even though I have a few very speicalMy own adoption was semi-closed.. in that my natural parents received yearly photos of me up until my 5th birthday, when my parents simply forgot and stopped sending them. A few years later, my natural father called them- politely requesting that my parents recommence sending the photos that were promised to him. Of course, my parents did so- up until my reunion when I was 12 years old.

My parents will tell you that my adoption was open. Born during world war II- both of them have a very traditional idea of adoption and what it should entail. The fact that they sent photos of me, even though they “didn’t have to” constitutes, for them, an open adoption.

But this is not the concept of open adoption that I would like to explore. I’m more focused on the modern concept of “openness”- where natural and adoptive parents have a communicative relationship for the sake of the child. Said child, in theory, will grow up with less confusion, a lessoned or eliminated sense of abandonment, and valuable information about their biological relatives and genetic history.

It sounds great, doesn’t it? But I’m not so sure. From what I have read (and I’ve read a lot)- open adoption was originally proposed as a more palatable alternative to traditional adoption practices. The theory was that if they were promised ongoing contact, photos, and a relationship with their child- mothers would be more willing to relinquish. It sounds like offering a dog a tasty treat before tossing them off the bridge, rather than pushing them outright. It sounds to me like a ploy. And I don’t like it.

I am of the idea that adoptions should be rare. Super rare. So rare that is absolutely a last resort for all involved. Convincing capable, healthy, modern women to give up their children with the promise that they can see them is, in my opinion, very, very sad. I don’t think that open adoption will harm a child. I don’t think that extra love can ever be a bad thing. I do think that it is more than likely that the child will have to face different difficulties than those of us from the more closed eras have had to face. All in all, it sounds like it could be a GOOD thing for the child. But its a good thing that is attempting to bandage a bad thing.

I am against open adoption for one reason and one reason only: it was designed to encourage more women to relinquish. And its worked, hasn’t it? The vast majority of women who are placing nowadays are insisting upon open adoptions. And that is what irritates me. These children, these children who became adoptees, were conceived, born, relinquished and adopted just like the rest of us. The general public is FINALLY accepting the fact that much of adoptee pain is caused by secrecy and lies and shame. But these adoptees in open adoptions? They, in theory, don’t have that secrecy. They were openly relinquished... made to consistently see, every time their natural parents visit, what they are missing out on. They will see their siblings be born and kept. If the siblings are happy, they will say: wouldn’t I have been happy too?” When they see the joy that the new baby brings their natural family, they will say “why weren’t they happy like that for me?”

And when these adoptees feel these griefs...who will listen to them? Maybe the adoptive parents, even though it will hurt them to hear it. Maybe the natural parents, if they are capable of seeing that their supposedly “fool proof” relinquishment plan wasn’t all that perfect. But in the world outside of adoption- who will care about these kids? They will say “You’ve got a good family, you got every advantage. You even get to know and have a relationship with your biological family. You’ve got everything..what do you want???”

The world of open adoption is an enticing one. But I see it is a bandaid- a flimsy adhesive made to fix that which has been broken beyond repair. The gooey icing you smear on the cake to hide its bitter taste. These children, the ones being born and placed right now, are adoptees like the rest of us. They have been exiled, like the rest of us. The cast away children- they will be given a rare opportunity to see first hand what all adoptees can imagine- exactly how their natural family has gone on without them.

The peculiar status of the adoptee...

2011-05-23T13:02:00.000-04:00

I've read a few posts recently- most of them discussing the fact that natural mothers and adoptees are equal, and that pain is pain..nomatter where it lands. Those who harp upon their own pain are told, in some of these posts, that adoption is not the worst thing that can happen.

I think that's a pretty fair statement. One must only look in the newspaper- any newspaper- to find stories of those who are worse off than us. It's not hard. Human suffering, sadly, is alive and well in our world. You can read about rape, murder, accidents, and tragedies. It puts being placed for adoption in perspective, doesn't it?

I don't think that adoption pain is more painful than other types of sadness. I don't think its the worst thing that can happen to an infant. I do, however, think that adoptee pain is unique. I think it is unique in many ways..one of them being that we don't have a reference point. We can never say "things were better before the accident" or, " our life was so much more full beforehand." Being adopted is our LIVES. It is our complete existence. I don't agree that adoptee pain is more valid than that of natural parents. But I do believe it's different.. I do believe that it is not comparable. I do believe that we are the major players in adoption.

We are the adoptees. We were relinquished, stripped of our original identities and robbed of the most natural of human knowledge. We were placed into adoptive families..some good, some bad. Everyone else in our stories had a hand to play. Adoptive parents who adopted us, and natural families who relinquished us. Nomatter what anyone says..I will never accept that the nature of choice is the same. That nobody had a say in any of it. As adoptees, we are the ONLY ones who were COMPLETELY and utterly at the whims of the adults in our lives. Mothers from the BSE had no choice, I acknowledge that. But their parents probably had a role in the placements of their grandchildren. Someone had to want it. Adoptees never got to want anything.

So yes.. I suppose that makes me a little biased. I suppose that makes me "unfair" or "insensitive." But I am an adoptee, and I advocate for adoptees. I do believe that we are the most important members of the triad. Not sentimentally- I don't think our FEELINGS matter more. But I think that the other members of the adoption community (adoptive and natural parents) play secondary roles. Because the point remains this: both natural and adotive parents played a ROLE in our adoption- but we are the ONLY ONES who were relinquished and adopted. We are the ones with no reference point, with no idea how the rest of the world functions within their families of origin. We just don't know how it feels to be a part of the family you were born into. And we will never know.. no reunion can fix that.

I am not a selfish person. It's not in my nature. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that I am an inherently altruistic person. I have never treated my natural family with anything but the utmost respect, love, and compassion. Never. Not once. Even though, frankly, some of them deserve to be smacked. I don't think that I'm the all mighty powerful adoptee, who can wreak havoc on my natural family's lives without consequence or regret. I don't think that. But I do think that I was the one who was placed, and I was the one who was adopted. I don't think its my job to make either set of parents feel good about what they have or haven't done. I am an adoptee...part of a small and often unrecognized minority group. We are the children of parents who gave us to others to raise. And I resent that ANYONE tells us that our positions within the adoption community are all equal. They are not. They have never been. Out of the three parts- only ONE of us has been placed for adoption and has had to live with that.

How has losing my mother affected me?

2011-05-14T12:28:00.001-04:00

How has losing my mother affected me?

I had an interesting discussion with my adoptive mother recently, regarding the book "The Primal Wound". I never bought into it... but my mother does! Which surprised me, to say the least.

I've lost my natural mother various times. When I was born, when I was a pre-teen, and two years ago. She has always loved me, though I've gone through some periods in my life in which I seriously doubted it. How can she have loved me? Mothers who love their children keep their children. Thats a pretty basic fact. But nothing is basic in the world of adoption. Only in the world of adoption are we introduced, often at a very young age, to the concept of "love= left."

"Your mother loved you so much that she gave you away."

In what other context does that absurd statement make sense?
Your husband loved you so much that he divorced you.
Your boyfriend loved you so much that he broke up with you.
Your cat loved you so much that she ran away to live with the neighbors.

It all sounds pretty damn stupid, right? Well, it is. I am not an idiot. I don't believe that my mothers love for me is what motivated her to give me to another family. I think my domineering paternal family, her own insecurities, and my natural fathers threats to break up with her were the more likely catalysts. At the end of the day, though, my mother DID give me away. You can sugarcoat or rephrase that in anyway you'd like. But I am very sure in my wording.

So where does that leave me? The cast away child, the given away baby... what does that mean for MY existence? For my life?
I am not afraid that my adoptive mother is going to leave me. I am not afraid that one my parents will just stop loving me and pass me along to the next adoptive couple in line. I don't think I'm worthless, I don't think I'm disposable. At least not as the woman I am now. But I am acutely aware of the fact that once my mother gave up her rights to me, I was a commodity. Like a pair of slippers or a Labrador Retriever. I don't believe that I was preordained by God, or anyone else, to end up in my adoptive family. I belonged with my mother- the one who gave birth to me. Once she didn't want me..nobody did. At least not in the way that most babies are wanted. I was merely "a baby". And whomever adopted me did so because they wanted "a baby"..not because they wanted me. Most parents long for THEIR child, for the baby that THEY created.

My friend (whom I live with) has a blown-up photo of her minutes after birth. She looks confused (as do most newborn babies), and is wrapped in a pink blanket. She hasn't even been dried off. Underneath the photo, there is a handwritten message; saying ( In Italian) " To our niece- the beauty who is much wanted, much loved, and much waited for. We love you, thankyou for being born, Love Aunt & Uncle".

I hate that picture. I hate it so fucking much. I am in her room roughly 6 hours everyday. Our kitchen table is in there ( don't ask) and she has the best breeze. I could draw her room from memory..except the wall near the dresser, where that photo hangs. I don't look there. I purposefully avoid it. It touches something within me, a point of weakness. It reminds me so much of my biggest flaw, my biggest hurdle in life. My mother gave me away, and then I was nobody. The identity I have forged with my adoptive family has nothing to do with the baby who I was when I was fresh out of the womb. That child no longer exists.

When people ask me how adoption has affected me...I say "not much". The act of being adopted into my family was not traumatic. I love my family. I feel like I belong with them. The real question, I suppose, is how has my mothers leaving me affected me? How has THAT formed my identity? The answer is: I don't know. I can't know. I don't want to know. I can't bring myself to go there, not on any deep level.

When all of our friends see that photo on my housemates wall, they coo " Oh you were SO CUTE". The fact that I cannot bring myself to look at that photo without crying says something about the effect my mothers absence has had on my life. The fact that I avoid that entire wall says a lot. In fact, I suspect it says it all.

I don't have any pictures from when I was born. They don't exist... I've asked my natural family. The earliest I have is when I am about 2 months old, in the arms of my adoptive mother on a stoop in Brooklyn. I'm sleeping. I wonder what I looked like as a newborn. I wonder who was there, who waited for me. But I guess it doesn't matter. The most telling thing is that nobody had a camera.

Extended Dislocation

2011-05-09T15:18:00.002-04:00

I've never admitted this before. Even now as I type these words..I feel guilty. I feel as if I am risking a lot.... as if typing these words will someone make them more true than I already think they are.

I don't fit in sometimes with my extended adoptive family. My maternal grandparents adore me. My aunts and uncles and cousins...they are all nice to me. But there are many things that have happened over the years that demonstrate to me, sadly, that I am not quite "one of them."

My mother has two brothers. Both of these brothers have children. These children are all very close- they all share a last name. It came to a point once where one of my cousins went to live with my aunt and uncle due to ideological problems with his parents. When they had a graduation party, I was not invited. When they have joint birthday parties, I am not invited. I find out about these mini-parties at bigger ones- Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween. I see pictures of all of them, at their respective homes, celebrating various occasions. I once overheard one of my aunts complaining to my grandmother and grandfather that she gave me too much attention, that I wasn't even really "her grandchild" and that the love should be reserved for her children- the REAL grandkids. I was six. I still remember that day.

My grandparents keep the family together. But I wonder, sometimes, what will happen when they die. Will I still be invited to family dinners...will I still exist? My big Italian/Irish family always goodnaturedly fight at the dinner table. They are 90% Italian and 10% Irish. They argue over which nationality is better. Both my uncles and all of my cousins are members of the NYPD and NYFD...the prestigious and very "clique-y" law enforcement groups in New York City. They all have this bond- they are loud, Italian, New Yorkers. What am I?

This Easter, my cousin announced that he was marrying his girlfriend of 2 months. Everybody at the table knew why...even though nobody said it out loud. They are both 21 years old. Later, my grandmother and I spoke in private. She is, of course, disappointed about the 'early' and impending arrival of her first great-grandchild. But, she said, it will be nice to have a baby in the house again. When someone in my family mentioned adoption ( I dont remember who), she said " No, no. We keep our babies in this family."

I live in Europe..so I heard all of this over the telephone. My grandother apologized to me later, for her "indescretion."

"I didn't mean that bad families don't keep their babies" she said "... I didn't mean that." But thats exactly what she meant.

Another time, while trying to convince her sons to get good grades as I do, my aunt said "Look at Amanda, look how she gets such good grades and is such a good girl! You all had the BEST start in life. Amanda had it rough, her parents gave her away! You all had the best start, cherished from before you were born. Why can't you get good grades like she does?"
Thanks, Aunt Lisa.

I have two nephews. I love them dearly and they love me. I call them all the time, I write them colorful letters from the country where I live. I send them handmade, handstitched bedtime stories. I call their mother on mothers day, my brother (their father) on fathers day. They are nice to me, never forget my birthday, and love me dearly. But... I am afraid I don't matter. I am afraid I am the "adopted" aunt....the "adopted sister" of my brother. An extra. I don't think my nephews know I am adopted. I am simply "aunt Amanda". But what about when they find out? What will it mean to them?

And so I wonder- is this merely another one of the burdens that we, as adoptees, are "lucky" enough to bear? When my parents are gone... what will I be? What will I become? I am a part of this family because they brought me into it. But when they are no longer here to love me, to be my mom and dad.... will I still be Aunt Amanda? Cousin Amanda? Or will my place in this family disappear.... a bastard baby brought into their midst, but who was never meant to stay?

Not with a whimper

2011-05-06T05:16:00.000-04:00

(Me, 7 years old. Looking a lot like the blonde version of my sister.)

My full sister, Nicole, and I were finally talking. After 10 years of silence and bickering and hatred....we seemed to have gotten over our differences. We were "sisters" on facebook. She joined the police academy, she was making something out of her life. I was proud of her. I was always wary, of course. But I cared about her- I maybe even loved her.

And then, she disappeared. And I let her do it. She saw via facebook that I had been connecting with various members of our mother's family- our cousins, aunts, grandmother. Nicole hates our mother with a passion that is sort of frightening. She saw that I was communicating with them, and she deleted me from facebook. She sent me a message, explaining her actions.

"I do not want to communicate with you anymore", she wrote. "I don't want anything to do with our mother or her family- and I refuse to have anything to do with you if you insist on talking to them. They will burn you as t hey have burned me. And don't come asking me for help- because I will be the first one to tell you " I told you so." I'm not trying to be a bitch, but we can't talk anymore. Good luck...you can't help the helpless."

I could feel the hurt swelling in my chest. I ran into the kitchen to find my friend and housemate, Debora. We smoked a cigarette and I explained to her (in Italian) what had happened. She sat quietly on the kitchen table, blowing smoke rings into the air. She told me "Amanda, you do not need her. You are a better person. What has your sister EVER done to deserve your loyalty? She has hurt you for years. I know you've been burned by your mother too...I but think you believe in second chances. Everyone, even your mother and her family, deserves a second chance. Your sisters experience is not yours. Don't compromise your compassion for her hatred."

She was right. I knew that my sisters love and acceptance was conditional. "I will love you," she said, "We are sisters". But only if I do exactly as she says. I wrote her a message, explaining that I will not abandon my love for my mother or her family because SHE doesn't approve. I told her I am sorry, oh so sorry, that she cannot accept me for what I am, that she cannot love me despite her hate. But I won't back down- I won't stop communicating with other members of my family because it annoys her.

I believe in redemption. I believe in second chances. I believe that my sister has asked the impossible of me- she is asking me to choose. I thought, for a moment, about ceasing all contact with my maternal family. But then I realized...what kind of sister would ask me to make a choice like that? She cut me out of her life so quickly..she ignored my protests to have a discussion about it. I was dispensable..but why was I suprised?

My mothers family has never been anything but nice to me. They send me postcards from the USA when I am here across the ocean. They send me nice messages, they talk to me about the past- about the future. My sister has given me pain for years. I will not abandon them for her.

And so I say goodbye- goodbye to the sister who has never loved me, goodbye to the sisterhood that we almost had. One day, Nicole, you will realize what you have lost- you will realize that your hate and inability to forgive will hurt you more than anyone else. I believe in second chances. I believe in redemption. I believe that I owe my mother this.

Nicole- I hope you change your mind one day. I am the only sister you have- the only full-blood sibling. I waited to be your friend for years. I mourn this loss, I am saddened by your callousness. I know you have been hurt, but cutting me out of your life will not save you from harm. It means only one thing - you won't have me in your life. I believe in redemption, in atonement, in trying as hard as you can to make right what has gone wrong. There is always a price for adoptees. And I guess losing you is the price I have to pay to love my family, to love my mother. Though it pains me more than you can imagine...I think I can afford it.

Unintended Victims

2011-05-04T14:41:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about the balance of power in reunions, and the notions that we all "owe" one another.

I cant tell you how much that irritates me. As a disclaimer, I will say that I am very much in favor of respect, cordiality, and common human decency within reunions. I think that in order for a reunion to function, both adoptees and natural parents must treat eachother with mutual respect, understanding, and compassion.

But the notion that the planes are equal is absurd. Of course its not equal. I believe, and am not afraid to say it, that I think adoptees SHOULD hold the cards in regards to reunion. Why? It's simple. Someone decided to place us for adoption...if not directly our parents, our grandparents. The decision to expel us from our families was made by someone. To every decision there is a consequence. And one of them, in my opinion, is that the adult adoptee will get to choose whether or not to include their biological families in their lives. In reunion, I believe that we finally are deserving of the power to say "yes" or "no" in regards to our interactions with our biological families. I don't think anyone will argue that adoptees "owe" their natural parents a realtionship or a visit. But what about the kept siblings? What if they want to know their placed sister or brother?

Well...too bad. I feel bad writing those words, but it's how I feel. My heart aches for the little children who simply cannot understand why their sibling has no interest in knowing them. And I pity the adoptee who alienates their biological families..especially siblings. Because knowing them can be an enormous gift. But are we obligated? Do we owe it to our parents kept children to be their friend? Sorry... no. Let Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa explain why little Johnny doesn't live with them anymore. Even if it wasn't the natural parents choice to place (it happens)- they still need to explain to their kept children about societal pressures, influence, and family injustices. I'm sure the story around the siblings placement isn't a happy one. Relinquishment stories rarely are. But you want to know why mom and dad didnt keep your sister or brother? You'd better ask mom and dad. Because your sibling was itty bitty when it happened. They had no more control than you have.

Asking anything of the sort of the adoptee is ludicrous. I'm not here to explain to my little sister why our parents gave me away 2 years before she was born. It wasn't my decision, baby doll. And had I been consulted, I probably wouldn't have been in favor of it.

It is a SHAME when children have to pay for adults mistakes or decisions. I know...adoptees are the opitome of children who pay for the actions of adults. We are the spokespeople. Sometimes the sum is heavy, sometimes not so much. But there is always something to pay. There is always a price. I ache for the children who want to know their siblings, for the loving parents who want to know their placed children. I ache, and I wish I could shake some of those adoptees, and say "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LUCKY YOU ARE?? GO PICK UP THAT PHONE, IDIOT!"

Personally? I have never denied a sibling. Or a relative. I have been denied over and over...but I have never rejected a soul. I don't understand adoptees who simply don't care about their natural families. But... I cannot blame them. I cannot criticize them. I think it is their right.

I'm tired of obligations. I'm tired of the argument of " the equal playing field". The field has NEVER been even, my friends. It certainly wasn't when I was born, and it never will be. I still have members of my biological family who can't look me in the eye simply because I exist. My kept siblings have always had their love and affection and acceptance. My sister wants an explanation? Go ask Grandma. Go ask Dad. Go ask mom. Your family decided this. We grew up apart because of them. You have a question? A complaint? Don't understand how mom and dad could give away one child and keep others? You wanna know your brother? You want an explanation? Don't dial my number, sis. I don't understand it either.
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Augmented birth certificates and natural parents

2011-04-13T13:42:00.000-04:00

I 100% support that adoptees should have their original birth certificates. I believe that we, as human beings, have a right to know the circumstances of our birth and to have the legitimate document at our disposal should we want to consult it.

Theres been talk lately about whether or not natural parents should have the right to obtain their child's AUGMENTED birth certificate. And to that, I say NO.

And my reasoning is really quite simple. Relinquishment is the termination of parental rights. Just as , under the law, the natural parents are no longer the child's guardians, they should have no rights to the child's augmented birth certificate- just as they would have no rights to the birth certificates of any child they met on the street.

Some people will argue that the open records should go both ways. I don't think that makes any sense. Adoptees deserve their original birth certificates because it is something that every other citizen in the USA has posession of. It represents our original identity. Our original identity was never relinquished by US- it was TAKEN from us. We were never consulted as to our relinquishment- and thus I feel we are deserving of at least a piece of paper that represents who we were and where we came from. Parents who relinquish their child for adoption, regardless of the circumstances, are giving up one of the most important roles nature has assigned to them. That child is now given a new family and a new identity. SHOULD that child wish to find their biological family in the future, I feel that they should be able to access that record in order to help them reunite. Natural family members, obviously, should have the right to the OBC. It is a record that pertains to them directly, as it is the document of the child's birth. However, the augmented birth certificate is no such thing. It is a new version that lists the adoptive parents as the child's mother and father. Therefore, the document does NOT pertain to the biological parents in any way shape or form. It's a private affair between the child and his or her new family.

If the argument is that natural parents should have an ethical right to know where their child is going and their new identity- I feel that is faulty logic. If both parties agree to an open adoption or ongoing contact, so be it. But I feel it is absurd for natural parents to think that they have any sort of right to the childs new and legal identity when their parental rights have been severed. Particularly when they have severed them themselves. I am very much in support of contact, reunion, and open adoptions. I was raised in a semi open adoption myself, and have been happily reunited for over a decade. But once the child is gone and the papers are signed- that's it. I don't think adoption should be an attractive decision. I don't think that relinquishing a child SHOULD enable the natural parents to have unrestricted access to their relinquished children, especially if the adoption is not fully open. Adoptees will have the joy of forever being just that..adoptees: children who were given away to other families who then become adults.

It seems like a fair trade to me. You want to place your child in another family? Good. But you don't get to have complete access to their new, legal identity. We're talking legal documents here....and legally, the child now is a part of another family. Legally, the child has no ties to the biological parents. Legally, the biological parents have no rights to the child. So how is it that people are arguing that open records should be a two way street? Adoption certainly isn't. Only the adoptee gets adopted, and that's a fact. Why is it that in order to be given access to a part of OUR identity- we are expected to reciprocate? When we were born, our natural parents had all rights to us. And they relinquished them. Regardless of the reason, it doesn't change the outcome. WE relinquished nothing. WE signed nothing. WE deserve UNRESERVED access to OUR original documents. And I think that natural parents have the right to the OBC as well. But our new identity is ALL our own. My natural parents chose to remove me from the future of their family....why on earth should they be allowed access to my new life that I was given by my adoptive family? Why does it seem that I, as the adoptee, NEVER get a choice?

We adoptees are having enough trouble convincing people that we deserve to know our original identities. I don't think natural parents will EVER get the right to their child's updated and augmented records. I don't think it will happen. However, I'd be pretty irritated if those who are FOR open records were only in support of them if BOTH parties get access. Give adoptees their original birth certificates and support any other personal agenda separetely.... haven't we paid enough?

Obligation

2011-03-29T11:01:00.001-04:00

   Theres been a lot of talk in the adoption blog world lately about rejection. Natural fathers and mothers rejecting adoptees, and adoptees rejecting natural mothers and fathers. Many of these bloggers urge mothers to accept their relinquished children, and they say the same thing to adoptees. "What could it hurt", they argue, "to just let the other party know how you are doing?"

   While I haven't been rejected by either of my biological parents- I have experienced rejection from other natural family members. And it hurts. How couldn't it? Knowing that the people who would have loved you had you not been placed don't even want to know you is a pretty hard pill to swallow. But then again, so is being placed for adoption in the first place.

   Many bloggers cite the moral responsibility that the natural parent and child have to one another. And I agree...but only for half of that equation. I believe that natural parents are morally obligated to give at least basal information to the child they relinquished. Not just medical information- but information surrounding the conception and placement of the child. Deciding to bring a child into this world, whether or not you raise them, assigns one a certain ethical obligation. I don't think that "giving life" is enough. Every human being, regardless of whether or not their parents decided to raise them, deserve to know the rudimentary facts about their past and their existence. Mothers who, for whatever reason, don't believe they have an obligation to their relinquished children are (in my book) sadly mistaken.

I do not believe, however, that adoptees share that same obligation. And as unpopular an idea as that may be, I stand by it. And my reasoning is fairly simple. As an adoptee, I resent any implication that I "owe" any parent in my life anything. I don't owe my adoptive parents any sort of gratitude or loyalty because they "took me in". I think everybody would agree with that. I respect and honor and am grateful to my adoptive parents... because I want to be. Because they have earned it. I also love and respect and am grateful to my first parents. I *WANTED* to meet them. And 1o years into reunion, they are an important and irreplaceable part of my life.

But what about the adoptees who DON'T want to reunite? Who have NO desire to know their biological parents? Are they obligated to communicate, even if they don't want to? The answer is no. While giving life to a child requires some sort of ethical obligation from the parent, I do not believe that said child has any responsibility. I don't believe that ANY adoptee is morally or ethically responsible for making a first parent "feel better" or "be at peace." Want some sort of guarantee that the child you bore will one day want to know you? Don't place them for adoption. Adoptees, often from day one, are required to incorporate themselves into a family that is not their own. We adoptees, part of a strange and unnatural minority, are thrust into the world of being adopted before we have the words to explain what has happened to us. Sometimes being adopted is a good thing, sometimes it's a bad thing. But its ALWAYS a thing that we did not choose.

Before everybody gets all up in arms telling me that "nobody chooses their parents" or "some first parents had no choice"- stop. I am not saying that PLACING a child for adoption creates this obligation to the child. I am saying that GIVING BIRTH to a child creates this obligation. Whether or not the adoption was a real "choice" is irrelevant. It changes precious little for the child who has been placed. I don't think adoptees owe their first parents anything. Not a letter, not a phone call, and certainly not a relationship. Why should we? We have already payed the ultimate price for our relatives decisions. If an adoptee has no desire..why on earth should they feel obligated? Because the first parent feels bad? Because they want some peace? Because they are curious? Because they are hurting?

Sorry folks- just as reunification cannot be used as a bandage for an adoptee, neither should it be used as one for a first parent. Peace does not lie in the other person, but within ourselves. I believe that an adoptee who is searching has an indisputable right to information from their natural parent(s). I believe we are owed an explanation. Not a relationship, but at the very least an explanation. The decisions of the adults in our lives have radically altered our existence. When we were adopted.. we were given a new name, a new identity, a new family, a new life. We were given all of those things because our relinquishment took them away from us. Our name, our identity, our family- lost. At least gone for us. Forever. No reunion can change that.

"Why the double standard?" people ask. It doesn't seem fair, does it? Well, its not fair. It certainly isn't. Many first parents are fond of reminding us that we don't owe our adoptive parents loyalty..that we should not make the decision not to not reunite to save their feelings. But can't the same be said about natural parents? We shouldn't reunite just to satisfy their feelings. Just as I owe my adoptive parents nothing for adopting me, I owe my first parents nothing for giving me up. In a perfect world, both parties would like to reunite. I would encourage all adoptees to reach out to their natural families. It can be a very rewarding and healing experience. I know some first mothers who are fantastic, loving, intelligent women, whose children don't want to know them. And those adoptees are missing out big time. Although I cannot approve of their decisions to alienate their first mothers.. nor can I condemn them.

Nobody is born a first-parent. For the people who have relinquished children, there is always a chapter before adoption entered their lives. They have perspective, they can look back on a time when they were not a part of the "triad." Adoptees, at least those of us placed as infants, have no such place of recollection. We were never given a chance to "avoid" being an adoptee (it's certainly something I would have avoided, had I been consulted). And on that merit alone, I believe we owe nothing.

I am in a successful reunion. I have spent years of my life trying to juggle having two families..trying to make them coexist within my life harmoniously. It's not easy, but for me it's worth it. For some adoptees, it simply isn't worth the trouble. Some adoptees have no interest, some adoptees cannot face that part of their lives. For some adoptees, its easier not knowing. And I think that's our right.

Crumbs

2011-03-22T13:19:00.001-04:00

   (me and my sister)

I recently read a post by Kara, entitled " "I love you, but...."

   In this post, she criticizes various first mothers on their open adoptions- outlining the various discrepencies she sees in their open adoption arrangements. The mother whose family doesn't know her placed child exists, the mother who had another child and kept him only a few years after she placed her firstborn. Her gushing love for her kept child is in stark contrast to the "coldness and emotional distance" she expresses to the child she placed.

   Though I am not 100% agreement with these observations, the post and succesive comments were quite interesting to me. Many of my fellow adoptees are sticking up for these children, highlighting the possible negative feelings they will experience when they realize that they are a secret, when they see that their first parents are madly in love with their sibling and seemingly not them.
   I've been in both of those adoptees shoes. I was a secret for a long time- and I was born in the late 80's! I have a sister who is 1 year and 364 days younger than me. She was never a secret. Born under the SAME circumstances, she is the beloved child of her family- welcomed and treasured from the start.
Does that hurt? You bet it does. I reunited before I was a teenager, and spent many years of my childhood and adolescence trying to find the difference between my sister and I. Trying to figure out what made her wanted. She is my full sister- born 729 days after me. And I know that those 729 days are what made all the difference.
   I guess it comes down to this: what do our biological families owe us? If they promise an open adoption... are they required to tell their families about us? Is it their moral obligation to claim us as their children- in church, in schools, in family functions? Or should we just be happy that they want to know us at all? Should we, along with our adoptive parents, simply accept any crumb of acceptance that we are offered, or should we demand more?
   I know that I am less important than my sister. The given away child, I am painfully aware of my own inadequacy, of my inferiority within my biological family. I, the inconvienence and nasty surprise in their lives, have lived a separate existence. When I express my disappointment in the fact that many of my my biological relatives refuse to acknowledge me, I am told to count my blessings.
   "at least some of them wanted to know you"
   "at least you werent aborted"
   "at least you have a good family that loves you. These people are extra"
   But thats not entirely true, is it? My parents gave me away. And that's a fact. As the unwanted child, am I less? Am I less deserving of my family's love and acceptance? Am I expected to make concessions, just naturally accept the fact that I am less loved, less special? The dirty little secret, the baby thrust from my family of origin.
   As adoptees, we are always expected to make sacrifices to compensate for the fact that our parents gave us to other families. These concessions come so naturally:

   "Well, of course you're less loved, of course you are loved in a different way than your siblings who were kept."
   "Well, it's normal that you are a secret. At least you're alive"
   "It's okay that your whole family doesn't accept you. It was a hard situation. Be happy you have a good family now who loves you."

Natural law and natural circumstances no longer apply to us. The given away children- we are held to different standards, offered different affections. Biology matters to everyone but us. Familial love and loyalty apply to everyone but us. It is natural for a mother to love her child- unless you're adopted. Then you should just shutup and take whatever crumbs your natural family throws your way.

reckoning.

2011-03-13T11:27:00.003-04:00

I'm tired of the rationalizations. I'm tired of hearing that we shouldn't be angry, that we should be compassionate and try to understand the complexity and difficulty of the decisions made for us. I'm tired of being the perpetual infant. I'm pretty pissed- and it surprises me that other people aren't. Throughout my reunion, I've tried to be the happy adoptee. I've tried as hard as I can to incoporate both facets of my family into my life- without minimizing or hurting either side. Both my adoptive parents have been gracious- respecting eachothers positions in my life all the while insisting that theirs is superior. I have no relationship with my birthmother, but my birthfather and I enjoy a simple coexistence- a mundane sharing of facts and daily happenings of our lives- rarely discussing the reasons I call him by his first name instead of "Dad". I maintain a polite distance, feign an acceptable amount of disinterest. But here's what I'd like to tell him:

There is no excuse. There is no reason you could give me that convinces me that what you did was an admiral choice. I don't admire you, and I certainly don't thank you. Why should I be grateful? That you didn't force my birthmother into an abortion? That you gave me life and then gave me away? What? You picked good parents..thanks a lot. But being given away doesn't feel good- regardless of the fact that you gave me to good people. Stop creating babies that you don't want. Stop trying to claim any facet of my identity. Stop thinking of me "as your daughter". Because I'm not...at least not anymore. And you have no one to thank but yourself. I don't believe that adoption is a selfless option..I don't think its an admiral decision to be made except in extreme cases. You had money, you had family, you had a house. What could have made you keep me? A few thousands dollars more in the bank? A son instead of a daughter?
I see what you have done a the ultimate betrayal- the breaking of a natural family and a natural law. Everyone says how they can't imagine living without their children, how they can't fathom giving a baby away. Why is it that you could do it? What makes you different than all of the other parents I've ever met?

You can tell me how much you love me until the day one of us leaves this earth. You can call, you can visit. You can be as cold or as loving as you want. I love you. I care about you very much. I never want to hurt you. Which is why I will never tell you that I will never forgive you. We do what we think is best in life. But I don't agree with the decision you made. I don't think you were nobel, I don't think you had my best interests in mind. You were 27 when I was born. I think you wanted your life back, your freedom, your youth. You got all that. Was it worth it? You kept my sister who was born 2 years later under the same circumstances. You remained unburdened for 2 years. Tell me- was it worth it?

Some people say I got a pretty good deal. And maybe thats true. I have a family who loves me, and relationships with birth relatives. After all, I could be nonexistent- a fetus tossed into the incinerator at an unknown hospital in the Bible Belt. I could have been raised by assholes. I could have been raised by my drug addicted birth mother. Or I could have been like my sister... I could have been raised by you.

I love you. I think we will be in eachothers lives forever. I think this relationship is for life. But it is not natural, this bond we have. It is not what it was supposed to be. And although I am willing to make the best of the situation we find ourselves in... I can't help but look at you sometimes and wonder "why"? I can't help but be angry with the father who wanted me only after it was too late.

atonement

2011-02-28T10:56:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged in a long time. And I suppose theres a reason for that. I've been going through a rough time. I ended an important relationship, grieved various losses, moved into a new apartment, and started taking antidepressants at the urging of my doctor and at the displeasure of my friends and family. I've been on them since December, and have been able to crawl my way back to normality. I've felt, for the first time in months, that I deserve a tranquil life- that I don't deserve the sadness and emptiness that I'd been feeling. I pierced my nose, cut off almost all of my hair, moved into a new apartment with people who I really like, and rescued a puppy who was supposed to be medium sized but who, in reality, is going to be gigantic. I go to classes, spend time with my new housemates who have become like a family, and take care of my dog. I find pleasure in day to day activitioes- the predictability of it all. I don't know if its the pills, or the change of lifestyle and scenery. Maybe it's a combination of both. I've been urged, by almost everyone in my life, to stop taking them. Prozac, they tell me, has made me a zombie. A happy zombie, but a zombie all the same. I can think back on the difficult months I just experienced with a sort of pleasant detachment, a sense that I am no longer the same person. And I'm not sure that's really OK.

Just as I kept my family abreast of my sadness, I tell them about my new accomplishments. My exams went well, the dog is peeing on the newspapers or outside with regularity, and I've discovered tasty and cheap recipes that I cook together with my housemates. I'm glad that the awful experiences of the last few months are behind me. I'm glad that I can update my family and my friends with happy stories, rather than my previous complete disinterest in life. I'm glad I don't have to fake it anymore. But there is someone who I've always faked it with.

My birthfather, despite the fact that we live on different sides of the world, has always kept in touch with me. I share with him only the happiest of anecdotes- my good marks, my new haircut, the day to day pleasures that I think he wants to hear about. Depression, alcoholism and addiction run in his family. My family. And I admit that in my darkest moments, I would open a bottle of wine, smoke a few cigarettes, and sip until my sadness became funny. I know I'm predisposed to all sorts of innaproppriate coping mechanisms. I know that many of my family members have suffered from depression. And yet, I can't find a way to tell him that I too was depressed. Very depressed. I want to. I want to be honest with him and tell him that I've gone through a hard time, that I'm medicating myself, that I'm slowly finding my way back to emotional health. But I wonder- would he want to know? I know my parents did. I wonder if he wants honesty from me, as a father would want from his daughter? Or is he satisifed hearing the banal, fluffy details of my life. I feel the need to share with him, to tell him how some adoption issues reared their ugly head amidst my depression. I want to tell him how low I was- how I saw no hope, how I wished that I could go away quietly, how I walked into a piercing salon and paid 15 euro for a woman with 50 tattoos to drill a hole in my nose. How I didn't even feel it when she pushed in the needle, convinced that I deserve whatever pain anyone could inflict on me. How I felt guilty when I saw the trust and love in my puppies eyes- as if even HE was fooled into thinking that I was a good person.

I've written to him a few times, but I've never been able to press "send". Instead, I buy postcards from the corner store, address them in my neat script, and fill the small space with entertaining anecdotes of my life across the ocean. On the way to the pharmacy to refill my prescription, I'll drop them in the "outside of province" part of the maildrop. Afraid to show him my weakness, afraid to be anything other than the happy daughter he gave away. I was once an inconvienance to him- a burden. I'll never allow myself to become that again.

Going public!

2010-11-04T04:14:00.000-04:00

So, Suz's post "Fourteen" got me thinking about facebook and how it relates to adoption relationships. Her mother acnkowledged her placed daughter as one of her grandchildren on facebook. Which to people who are not involved in adoption might sound common and not at all noteworthy. But in the world of adoption it's a pretty big deal.

Which got me thinking : would I want my birthparents to acknowledge me as their daughter publicly? Would I want my siblings to acknowledge me as their sister, my grandparents as their granddaughter? The answer is without a doubt: yes. And I guess that's not hard to understand. It's a pretty symbolic gesture to me. It would mean, finally, that my natural family acknowledges me as a member of their family, at least to some extent. Publicly. No more shame, no more secrets. For all practical and legal purposes, they "unmade me" their daughter. And it would be nice, after all these years, to feel less like the outsider that I am.

Which leads me to my next question: Would I list my biological siblings as my brothers and sisters? The answer is yes. And at least with one of them, I do. This particular sister was adopted as well...so she (like me) lists her adoptive siblings, and then we listed eachother! It felt nice. I can't describe the feeling when she requested to list me as her sister. I think I even cried a little bit.

And here's were it gets sticky.....

Would I list my natural mother and father as my parents? No. Never in a million years. I realize that this makes me a HUGE hypocrite. But even the thought of listing them as my parents on facebook gives me the heeby jeebies. It just feels so fake. And before anyone asks me :My adoptive parents are NOT on facebook. But my cousins, aunts, and uncles are- and I am sure they would notice. And I'm sure they would tell my parents.

But that isn't my main concern. I can silence my family when they grumble about my reunion, and I could effectively tell them to mind their own business if they ever challenged me about this. That isn't the issue.

I guess it comes down to this for me: my parents gave up their rights as my parents. Which is all milk and cookies, I guess. I can accept that (though it's not easy). What I cannot except is the notion that I, somehow, am expected to renounce my original identity and heritage because *they* didn't want to raise me. I maintain that I will always be their daughter. Though they tried, they couldn't change that. But I have a hard time calling them my parents. I have a special place in my life for them... but it isn't quite that role.

The simple, honest, and utopian thing to do would be to list ALL 4 of my parents as my parents. In real life, and on the internet. But then again, the simple honest and utopian thing would have been for my parents to kick their 25-year-old-asses in gear and raise their daughter. We can't always have what we want.

As of now, no one in my biological family (except that one sister who was also adopted) has listed me as their daughter, their granddaughter, their sister, or their cousin. Not even my full sister who I've known for years (she does list her stepsister). I wonder if they feel the same twinges of guilt when they don't acknowledge me. I wonder if I would have a change of heart if they listed me? Maybe one I'll find out. Maybe one day they will publicly reclaim me as their kin- the daughter, sister, and grandchild who went away but who came back. I think probably not.

Kept.

2010-10-29T10:11:00.000-04:00

Back when we didn't get along, my bio sister Nicole loved to tell me how much our parents loved her.

She was born to the same parents a little over 2 years after I was, under the same conditions. Our father was still working on launching his own business, our mother still had some problems, and they still weren't married. They were in their mid twenties when I was born, and their late 20's when Nicole was born. ikBut while my birth was a family crisis- all members fighting over how to best handle "the problem"- she was welcomed. While my birthfather adamantly refused to raise me, he raised Nicole as a single father when our mother skipped town. 2 years later. She was kept and I wasn't. And Nicole knows it.

She grew up knowing that she had a sister, and met me for the first time when she was 9 years old. I don't know what our parents told her about why they gave me away. I don't know how she was raised in the years before I came back. But I do know that she has always been told she was special. And she is. She is the adored granddaughter, the favorite cousin, the apple of her fathers eyes. Raised essentially without a mother, she is definitely daddy's little girl.

I wonder what it's like to be kept. I wonder what its like to have a sibling who was given up for adoption. How does that affect ones sense of self, or self esteem? How does it feel, I wonder, to know that your parents gave your brother or sister away?

I wonder what is different between Nicole and me. What made my father want to step up when he saw her, and not when he saw me? I wonder what made them keep her and not me. I've asked a few times... but I never can get a straight answer. And maybe there isn't one.

Logically I know that it has nothing to do with me or Nicole as people. I was an inconvienant baby and she wasn't- it's as simple (or as complicated) as that. Had she been born first- she'd have been placed for adoption. But I still was envious of her. I would see her with her family, with our grandparents, our father, our cousins. And she just..belongs there. She didn't have to "reunite" to know her family. She is a part of them, a cherished member of the group. She has not had an easy life. Not by a long shot. But at the end of the day- her family is there for her. At the end of the day, at least she can say that.

I've reunited. I didn't even have to search ( semi open adoption). And so I am always hesitant to complain. Because, hey! I know who they are, I know where I came from, I've seen them in person and I've spent lots of time with them. And a lot of adoptees can't even say that. They allowed me back into their family...at least partially. And I should be grateful.

But I'm kind of not. It's like being invited to someones house and then getting left out on the porch. I'm there, of course, looking in the window. And it feels good to be able to observe, to be able to see what their lives are like. But at the end of the day, there is still that piece of glass separating us. There is always that window.

Nicole and I get along pretty well now. She hated me for a long time. She was not ready to share her family or her dad. Only now is she realizing that I can never take her place. Not even if I wanted to. But now she's older, I'm older. And slowly, we are creating a sort of fragile co-existence. But even now, I am wary. I always remember the times she told me how happy she was that HER dad kept her, that he loved her more, that she was special and that I wasn't- thats why they gave me away. On some level, I guess I still believe her.

Victims and Villains

2010-10-24T08:52:00.000-04:00

I don't often mention my adoptive parents on this blog. Mostly because this blog is my personal exploration of my life before my adoption (however brief) and the affects that having been PLACED for adoption have had on me.

Note that I did NOT say "the affects that being adopted have had on me." Because that is something completely different.

I see a lot of vilinization of adoption parents in the blog sphere. A lot. Mostly (but not exclusively) from natural parents. Obviously I recognize that writing an entire post about how awesome my adoptive parents are and how they don't comform to the typical stereotypes would only validate what the naysayers are writing- that I'm just another silly little adoptee who is stuck in the cycle of loyalty and adopter worship. That I only love my adoptive parents because they've tricked me into doing so, that if I were really educated about adoption ethics, I would realize that "those people" are not my parents and even though they raised me from babyhood, they are nothing more than long time babysitters who I happen to care about.

And (my favorite claim yet) that my adoptive parents are directly responsible for my having been placed out of my natural family, and that they "took me" from my family of origin and should be ashamed.

Here are a few (slightly depressing) facts:

1- My mother and father would have placed me for adoption nomatter what. The people who adopted me were NOT matched with my bio parents from the beginning. In fact, my mother had chosen a completely different couple. They were from New Jersey. The had an on going relationship with my mother for about 4 months, until they were offered another baby who was already born. Needless to say, they dropped my mother immediately and took the other baby. My mother was deeply hurt and offended, because she thought they wanted "her baby"... not just any baby.

2- I was a (very) white, blonde, female infant who was born at over 8 lbs and was perfectly healthy. There would never have been a shortage of people willing to adopt me. If it hadn't been my parents, it would have been the next couple in line. Who might have been better, or worse. It's a roll of the dice.

3- My birthmother changed her mind after I was born. My parents, heartbroken, went back to NY and gave up on the idea of adopting a child. A few months later, my birthmother called THEM telling them that she had changed her mind and asking if they would adopt the baby.

4-My birthmother chose to raise me for a while, and only changed her mind when my father threatened to leave her. He and his (well off, bullish) family pressured and coerced her. Its was a pretty desperate/ despicable situation, but it had nothing to do with my adoptive parents, who had left the picture weeks beforehand. Had they refused to adopt me, my mother and father would have found someone else.

The only people who could have prevented me from being placed for adoption are the people who chose to do it.. my natural parents. Had my father wanted me, they would have kept me. And had my mother been strong enough to keep me despite my fathers outright refusal, she would have. She wanted to, and she almost did. But in the end, he won.

I try and avoid placing blame when it comes to adoption. Mostly because its completely useless. However, the only two adults in the equation who hold NO blame are my adoptive parents- who simply wanted to raise another child, even though they had a bio son of their own. If it hadn't been me, maybe they would have adopted another child. I can't know for sure.

I'm not really pro adoption. I think it's too complex a situation to ever be simple and "good". There is good and bad. And I think the negative aspects of being adopted make adoption something that should be avoided at all costs. I would like to see adoption less practiced. But I don't think that trying to convince potential adoptive parents that what they are doing is the way to go. There is nothing wrong with wanting to raise a child. There IS something wrong with feeling entitled to a baby that isn't yours, but I don't think that wanting to adopt a baby automatically means that one feels entitled. Adoption, is a system, is well received in our society. It will never be seen by the general population as a "bad thing to do". And the reality is this: for every potential adoptive parent who the rest of the adoption community scares away, there are 5 more willing to take their place. There are a lot of people willing to adopt a baby, but very few willing to give one up.

My natural parents are responsible for having given me up. Especially my father, who was the force behind my relinquishment. He knows this, and I know this. He doesn't feel much of anything towards my adoptive parents (his words). Not because they haven't treated him respectfully and welcomed him (they have). Not because they did a bad job raising me or convinced me that I belong only to them (they didn't and they haven't). But he admits that he feels territorial when it comes to me- that despite the family he chose for me and whom I was raised with, he can't help but feel that I'm "his little girl". And I think sometimes those feelings get in the way.

He and I don't agree on everything. We debate a lot of things (the way his family treats me, the way he handled things with my mother at the time of my birth, etc). He advises me, and I consider him a loving and wise man. I care about him very deeply and will discuss most anything with him. But I do not allow him to criticize my adoptive parents. Not to me. Not because they were perfect (of course they weren't). But because he, as the man who was my father, chose to surrender me to a basically unknown future. He didn't want me, and they did. And though logically I know that things aren't that simple...emotionally I am SURE that they are. Whether by divine providence, universal wisdom, or pure coincidence- when my parents weren't there for me, there was another couple who was. I respect my natural father and consider him a father- all I ask in return is that he respect the fact that I am part of another family besides his own (one that he chose, no less), and that even if my family isn't real to him, it's real to me.

Snapshots

2010-09-25T04:40:00.001-04:00

As a general rule, I don't post photos on my blog. But while looking through my old albums, I recently found this photo of myself and my birthfamily. In the picture, I am around 12 or 13 years old, sitting on the couch with my birthfather and birthsister. (I'm in the light pink shirt). They had come to visit us in NY. I can tell by the decorations(cropped out) that it was Christmas time.

Our reunion was still young- the photo was taken long before the day when my birthfamily would shun me- unable to look their shameful past in the eyes. Here, we are still enjoying eachothers company. But the picture is very telling. My birthfather is in the middle of the photo. He has his arm around my sister, who is seated at the left. Though we all look very much alike, it is obvious I don't belong. I am leaning into my birthfather, smiling nervously, trying ever so delicately to make myself a part of the family that is seated on my living room couch. But my birthfather does not place his arm around me. It is glued stiffly to his side. I sit, as I always have, awkwardly on the outside.

It says a lot about our reunion, and our separation.

Having been exiled out of my firstfamily has done some strange things to my personality, to my sense of self worth. Siblings on either side of me were kept and raised within the family. But not me. Understanding the reasons and the logic behind my placement does precious little in the way of making me feel better about it.

When we first reunited, I was welcomed into my birthfamily (though some of the family members, I learned later on, were very reluctant). I visited dozens of times- taking the 4 hour plane ride along, immersing myself back into my family of origin. My adoptive parents accompanied me one time, and then allowed me to visit by myself. They understood the importance of their absence. Their biggest gift to me was their lack of interference. They gave me their blessing, but allowed me the space to explore my old life. It was a journey they knew I had to take alone.

And I was welcomed. Really, I was. My aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents all graciously allowed me back into their circle. Even my little sister, who would one day nearly ruin my reunion with her jealously, initially was thrilled to have me in her life. Slowly, though, things changed. My little sister was not ready to share her family, and she let everybody know it. The adults in her life sympathized. Why should she have to pay for her parent's mistakes? Thus began their second disappearance. Quietly, my phone calls went unanswered, my annual Christmas, birthday and Easter cards unreciprocated. I wasn't invited to their home anymore.

"Amanda has her own family," they said. "Her sister only has one. We owe her our loyalty."

And loyal they were. I didnt hear from them for years. Bewildered, I mourned the family I had lost a second time. My birthfather, powerless to change his family's opinion, spoke to me in secret. The only person who remained steadfast was my paternal grandfather- a docile old man with sparkling eyes, the only one in the family who was not convinced that I deserved a second exile. He called me occassionally, ignoring his wife, my grandmother, who protested when she saw my number on the caller ID.

That was my first lesson in the conditional state of familial love. I knew my birthfamily still cared for me, but they could not show it. They would ask my birthfather about me when my sister wasn't around. They reveled in my accomplishments secretly and silently. But caring about me and loving me wasn't enough to keep me around. Though that wasn't a surprise. It was a concept I already knew.

But I also know that I could never have belonged. To them, I will forever be baby who was thrust from their midst. My exile was permanent- I just didn't know it at the time.

My sparkly eyed grandfather died a year or two ago. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in the summer, and didn't live to see winter. As he died, he called each of his grandchildren to his side. He said goodbye to each of them personally, sharing with them the story of their family, telling them about the God they loved and that he believed he would soon meet. As the patriarch of the family, he spoke to each grandchild individually, impressing upon them the importance of hard work and family pride. Each grandchild recieved a letter, a special goodbye before he left them.

Every grandchild, of course, except one.

Not quite the Brady Bunch

2010-09-20T18:59:00.000-04:00

I don't write a lot about my brothers and sisters. I think that's because, most days, I don't acknowledge them as my siblings. Most days, I have just one brother- my adoptive parents biological son. But in reality, I share a biological mother with 8 other people on this earth. We range from ages 29 to five. Out of all of us, only 2 have remained within the biological family for their entire childhoods. 4, including myself, were placed for adoption. The rest were taken into foster care when our mother, despite her best intentions, surrendered to whatever demons plagued her.

I have only ever met 3 of my 8 siblings. I know my three sisters, two of whom are older. The younger one, who is now 18, is my full sister. I have a different relationship with each of them- ranging from stellar to nonexistant. We communicate without the intervention or involvement of our mother. And she never liked that. We are honest with one another- speaking candidly about our experiences. Our mother, terrified that we would judge her, bemoaned our communication.

"I am the mother!" she would tell us, "I need to be consulted!"

When we ignored her, explaining gently that we were all adults, and free to have relationships with whomever we choose, she would hang up the phone on us. Or, if she was feeling fiesty, she would give us an earful about what disrespectful little ingrates we were. It was always hard not to take it personally (and these episodes did, in the end, have a profound affect on my relationship with her).

One by one, she burned her bridge with each of us. Only the oldest of her children, my half sister Susan, had any sort of regular contact with her. The rest of us, wounded, did our best to forget. Pippi, who was also placed for adoption, has mastered the art of detachment. Our mother is not important- she could take her or leave her. Nicole, my full sister, has built a wall to protect herself. Our mother left her to be raised by our father when she was three, and then popped in and out of her life. Even mentioning our mothers name unleashes such anger in her that we've all decided it's best not to bring it up.

Me? I rarely talk about her. And I've found, over the years, that people rarely ask. I am merely one of her many children, just another child that she left. It is unrealistic of me, I think, to believe that I am special to her. I am not the only child she gave up. I am not the oldest, I am not the prettiest, I am not the smartest, I am probably not the only blonde. And I'm certainly not the most compliant!

And so, I leave her be. I struggle, from afar, to understand what has happened. My mother's world was one of fantasy. She believed that fairies existed amongst the emerald hills of Ireland, that dragons inhabited the deepest caves of China. Mostly, though, she believed that her children, scattered across the globe in different families, would come back to her. That one day we would all reunite and find her. One day, all of her mistakes would be undone.

And we are coming back together. Without her. Slowly, but surely, we are fitting together the pieces of our family. In a year, Christopher will turn 18. And a few years after that, Samantha will too. And the rest will follow. I wonder if I will ever meet all of them? I wonder if they will ever want to know me. We each have different stories, different families, different lives. But we have one vital thing in common, and I guess I believe that only by coming together can we begin to understand what has torn us apart.

Secrets

2010-08-27T10:13:00.002-04:00

Living in Italy always brings out some strange emotions in me.

As an American who happens to speak Italian, I meet a lot of new people all the time. I often feel like a sort of exotic bird (not necessarily in a good way). Meeting new people has never really daunted me. I move around a lot, and have become adept at putting myself out there, shaking new hands, kissing new faces, and making new friends. The only problem is that, invariably, my new friends will want to know about my life.

I lie for as long as it is feasible. I answer questions about my family honestly. I talk about my brother, his children, my parents and my dog. I tell my Italian friends about American traditions, about the city in which I live, and about my family's heritage. I pretend, for as long as I can, that I am not adopted. In a family of dark skinned Italians, my blonde hair and transparent skin usually give me away. But I can chalk that up to the small portion of my family that is Irish. I am 21 years younger than my brother is. I usually just try and convince people that I was a late arrival. One of the biggest reasons I live and study in Italy has to do with the fact that my adoptive family is Italian. But saying that aloud makes me feel like a fraud. My friends, always fascinated by my american documentation, ask to see my passport, which lists my city of birth. Which is clear across the country from the state and city I was raised in my entire life. I can never think of a feasible explanation for why my parents seemingly moved from NYC to Dallas just to have a baby.

But I can only keep this up this charade for so long. After a little while, I begin to feel guilty. I feel like I am hiding something. And I suppose I am. Sooner or later, though, the truth comes out. And when it does, it's always a little depressing.

Adoption does not exist in Italy as it does in the United States. Which, given the influence of the Catholic church, is rather astonishing. But when I explain to my Italian friends that I was adopted, they assume my birthparents have died. Why else would anyone not keep their own child? When I explain that not only are they still alive, but I have ongoing contact with them...the room goes silent.

As the country that surrounds vatican city, abortion is hotly debated in Italy. But adoption simply is not. The phrase 'tenere un bambino' (keeping a baby) refers not to the debate between adoption and parenting, but abortion and parenting. Here, there simply is no healthy medium. Either you kill your baby or you raise it. During a debate with my friend Cinzia, in which we discussed our oppposing views on abortion, the topic of adoption came up. Cinzia is a vehemently pro-choice, athiest, communist. She supports her right not only to abort, but to abort within a timeframe that most people would find distasteful ( 5 months + ) She said to me:

'If I get pregnant, and dont have an abortion, I will have an unhappy motherhood. Thats the only choice. Why would I condemn myself to an unahppy motherhood? It should be the joy of my life.''

When I mentioned adoption as an alternative to parenting (and hated myself for it) she got quiet. She then stated, quite simply,:

''Well...to me that seems like a terrible thing to do. To have your baby and then give it away. What kind of woman does that?''

While I was tempted to ask her what kind of woman believes that casual late terms abortions are 100% morally correct , instead I answered ''What kind of mother gives away her child? Well..mine!''

In a country where my life circumstances are incomprehensible, I struggle to defend my birthfamilys choice. I tell my Italian companions about drug addiction, about lack of family support, about money issues and about the promise of a better life. Of course, they have all those things in Italy. The same social problems exist. And yet, somehow, they are not good enough reasons to not keep your own child. When I tell them that I have reunited with my birthfamily, and that we speak often, my friends are horrified.

''They do not deserve you,'' they say. '' What right do they have? YOU were their child. They gave you away. To have contact with them is to condone what they have done. They should have wanted you. How can you love the family that has abandoned you?''

And every time, I find that there are no easy answers. I find myself believing a little bit of what they say, subscribing to the belief that my biological family has done the unthinkable. And so I retreat within myself. If last time it took 3 weeks for me to tell my friends the (obvious) truth about my family..next time it will take 4. And the time after that, 5. Because although I can tell the story by heart, mimicking the words like a parrot, I cannot find any good reasons, any good excuses. Why have my parents given me away? I know the reasons. And yet when said aloud they seem shallow. And so... I am left without words, unable to explain what is incomprehensible to me.

Home

2010-07-18T23:40:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking about my mother (birthmother) a lot recently. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is because I will be leaving the country in less than three weeks, and I'll be living abroad for at least the next year. As I prepare to start a new chapter in my life, perhaps it is inevitable that I think of her. She would love where I'm going- the 800 year old buildings arching high above the olive groves and cobblestone streets, the beautiful language, the passion and the sensuality of the ancient city that I'll call home.

Both of my mothers have taught me to appreciate and treasure beautiful things- to find truth and loveliness in their most simple forms, to love passionately and to feel deeply. And it is with this in mind that I try and remember the beautiful things about my birthmother- her sense of fantasy, her spiritual profoundity, her love of animals and music. I struggle, sometimes, with anger towards her. I feel unloved by her, resentful (perhaps foolishly) that she was unable to overcome her addictions and be my mother. But within the past few months I have been trying to live compassionately, to foster only feelings of compassion and love for the mother who, I know, would have given anything to have raised me.

She lived in a sort of alternative universe. When I would spend time with her, or speak to her by phone, she rarely asked me about my adoptive parents, or my life within my family. To her, time had not passed- I was still her baby, her sweet infant who needed and relied on her. She would do most of the talking. She never discussed the past, or my other siblings. She would tell me only about the beautiful things in her life- the stray kitten she found and nursed back to health, the nice man she met at mass, the beautiful flowers that grew outside of her apartment building. She would tell me what a beautiful baby I was, how my skin and hair were as white as frost. I rarely asked questions about the past. I knew that she didn't like talking about it, I knew that she could not bear to face the consequences of the choices she made. The last time I spoke to her,however, she came close to telling me about my relinquishment and adoption. She began the story- described the last time we were together as mother and daughter.She described the blanket she gave me, and the small stuffed cat.

"After you left," she said "I stood by the door for hours. I knew that you were miles away, on the way to your new life. But I couldn't bear to leave the door. I didn't want to see you go. I just didn't want to see you go."

My mother lived in a world of her own creation. One where we were still mother and daughter, one without drugs or prison or sadness or separation. She often talked to me about her dreams for our future- about how one day we would be together as a family. One day she and my birthfather, together with me and my siblings, would all be together- living together as the family we were meant to be. "One day," she told me, " I hope you will come home."

So as I prepare to leave the country of my birth, as I prepare to begin a new chapter of my life in a new city, I cannot help but feel that I am leaving her behind. I cannot help but miss her, as I continue to live my life without her. One of the last times I saw her, my birth mother gave me a small porcelain angel. It is creamy white, roughly the size of my palm- a small cherub on his knees praying. There are a few glue marks where the porcelain has been roughly glued together, due to a few falls. But despite how delicate it is, I know I will bring it with me to Italy. I bring it everywhere I go. It will sit on my nightstand, as it always does, reminding me every evening to stay mindful, to notice the beauty around me. I never told my mother that I would not be coming home to her. I couldn't bring myself to tell her, even though somehow I have a feeling she already knew. But I'll bring the little cherub with me, as a reminder of the many gifts she gave me. I'll bring it so that, in some small way, she's always with me- present not only within my bones and my skin and the iris of my eyes, but within the air around me. In some small way, she'll always be with me- home together.

Loss.

2010-07-07T21:36:00.000-04:00

It took a long time for me to admit that being adopted had caused me to lose something. It took me years- and even to this day, 10 years into reunion, its something that people just don’t want to hear about.

“But you have a family who loves you now,” they tell me. And that’s true.
“But you are better of with the family who adopted you” people say. And there is definitely some validity to that statement.

But in general, I am able to brush off these comments. What could people who aren’t in my situation possibly understand about how it has affected me? But recently, a conversation with my birth sister, Pippi, struck me. She too was placed for adoption, a few years before I was. We share a birthmother but not a birthfather. She is very strongly against adoptee rights, claiming that birthparents should be entitled to absolute privacy, should they choose to request it. If the birthparents don’t want to be found, she says, then adoptees should have no right to seek them out. We often debate this, as my own viewpoints are radically different. But in these conversations, it always comes down to one crucial concept: Loss.

Pippi simply does not believe she has lost anything by being placed for adoption, and thus has no invested interest in knowing our birthparents. After all, she explains, she has parents. She does not feel that her birthparents have anything to offer. She’s happy to be alive, grateful that our birthmother made the courageous choice to have us, and also happy that she made the right choice by placing us for adoption.

I find a lot of aspects of her point of view hard to swallow. Grateful? Courageous choice? She sees our birthmother, for all intensive purposes, as a vessel- the courageous but ill prepared woman who brought her into this world so she could be raised by her *real* parents.

I love Pippi, and though I do not agree, I respectfully agree to disagree. But her words really have me thinking- how can this loss that I feel so deeply completely not affect her? She sees meeting our birthparents as something to do out of mere curiosity, something that can be done without emotional consequence. Whereas I have devoted years of my life trying to fit my birthparents into my world, trying to heal what has been broken. Its not that Pippi likes her adoptive parents and I do not. We both have close, fulfilling families. It’s not that Pippi fits in better with her family than I do with mine. In fact, its probably the opposite! So what is it. What makes this loss so real to me and so foreign to her?

Adoption has given me many great things. But in order to have a family who wanted and could provide for me, I had to lose a great deal. I feel it in BOTH of my families. When my nephews were born and my whole family marveled about who they look like, and I was absent from the conversation. When my family talks about ancestral heritage, of coming from Sicily and Ireland to Brooklyn- and I realize that one some level I am not a part of that history. I feel it when I speak to my birth family, when they talk about times past- dinners tables that I didn’t sit at, love and a sense of belonging that I wasn’t around to experience. I feel the loss when my birthfather recounts the story of my birth, when I read the letters my birthmother wrote to me when I was a baby but never sent, when I see photos of them holding my baby sister- born only a few years after I- loved, cherished, kept. I feel this loss. I feel it everyday. I even feel it when I am with Pippi, and we laugh about some shared joke, or marvel over some shared feature, and I think:

“We could have lived our lives together as sisters. What has happened to our family that we grew up 1,000 miles apart?”

I don’t wish that I hadn’t been adopted. It would be simpler if I could say that I do, but it just isn’t so. And that’s what makes this loss so strange, so difficult to articulate. Because it’s not one that I would change, or do-over. And maybe that’s what Pippi doesn’t feel, maybe that’s what she can’t see. Maybe she doesn't understand that we can love each other, that we can feel sadness without taking away from our joy and our love of our adoptive families.

Maybe I’m just fanciful, or overly sensitive. Maybe I should be a little more like Pippi- able to overlook the bad and focus on the good. But when I am with her, and I look into her face- I see a reflection of myself. I feel happy that we have found each other, overjoyed that we have lived good lives, that we are happy, that we are loved. But I also feel a twinge of sadness- because I spent the first 20 years of my life without her -this spunky, sassy, strong woman who is my sister- and a part of me feels that we should have known each other all along. I look into her eyes, and I feel the loss of “what could have been”, and it makes me a little sad to know that she does not feel the same thing when she gazes into mine.

Regret.

2010-06-17T00:57:00.002-04:00

I am stealing this topic from thanksgivingmom, in response to her post about regret.

And here's the truth: I have always wanted my birth family to regret their decision to place me.

Even as I write those words, I am aware of how they make me sound. The desire for someone else to have regrets is not a proud one, and yet I can’t seem to shake that feeling. I am constantly torn between my wish for my birthparents to forgive themselves and my desire to feel missed by them, to be wanted by them. My birthparents, both of them, have expressed regret over their choice to place me.

And I admit, though not without being ashamed , that it feels good. My birthparents regret over placing me makes me feel good…and is that so surprising? It does not stem from some sort of sadistic desire to make them “pay” for choosing not to raise me, but instead from a desire to be wanted, to be missed, by the family that chose to expel me.

My birthfather particularly comes to mind. He is a large, strong, burly man- and to see him reduced to tears when talking about my relinquishment has always given me a sort of bittersweet feeling. Because if he does not feel regret, if he does not feel sadness- then what does that mean for me? If the family that I was born into feels no sadness over my loss, over my absence in their lives, then I am meaningless- someone who came but who did not belong, someone who has left, but whose absence has not been felt.

I want to know that I meant something, that they thought of me, that they yearned for me as I have yearned for them.

And yet these feelings are complex. I love my birthfather. I want so desperately to take away his sadness. I want to hold his large, rough hands. I want to hug him and tell him that it’s okay, that I’m okay. I am happy, I am loved. I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to feel sad anymore. I want to thank him for what he has given me. I don’t offer him my forgiveness…because I am not sure he needs it. I only want him to forgive himself.

I once lost my family of origin. And even though I am now in reunion, even though we have technically found each other, there is something that we can not obtain. Our roles of parent and child have been lost forever. And although I have tried to deny it, and bury it, it is a loss that I cannot escape. I don’t want my birth family to regret having placed me, because the road of regret is a long one, that has no destination. But it is reassuring to know that the sadness I feel is real, even though I can acknowledge that my adoption was the best choice at that time.

I don't know that I will ever have the courage to tell my birthfather how I feel. I want so desperately to protect him from my feelings of sadness, of loss. Because I know that he will blame himself. Other people have told me that he has revealed to them that he regrets placing me, that he would take me back in an instant, that he fantasizes, even over 20 years later, about me one day deciding to "come home".

We shield one another from our own, private sadness. The regret that neither of us think we should feel.
I do not want him to take on my burden, and I know he does not want me to carry his. One day I hope that we will be honest with one another, that we will share our hurt, our regrets, our feelings on losing one another. Because only once we understand what we have lost can we look for a way to find one another again.

The Space Between...

2010-05-23T23:27:00.002-04:00

It looks as if the visit isn’t going to happen. Surprisingly enough, it has nothing to do with my end. I called my birthfather over this weekend, informing him of the death of my aunt (who he had met on more than one occasion) and he told me that he probably would not be able to make it up North to visit. His work, paired with his stepdaughters wedding, would make it hard for him to get away. I was disappointed, of course. I had finally gotten used to the idea, and was even looking forward to it. I was hopeful about what this would mean for our relationship. But it looks like any visit will have to be put off until next summer, once I return to the USA.

His reasons are totally valid. I get it. And yet somehow I can’t help but wonder if its some sort of excuse, if he is just making up some reasons to not see me. Isn’t that silly of me? He has wanted to have a visit for a long time. He has never done anything to give me the impression that he doesn’t want me in his life. In fact, quite the opposite. And yet I can’t shake these feelings of “Oh God… he’s going to disappear!”

I know that even now, after 10 years, there is still that element of caution in our reunion. My birthfather usually allows me to call him, not the other way around. He tells me that he does not want to disturb me. I always gladly pick up the phone when I see his name on my caller ID, I always respond quickly to his voicemails…and he does the same for me. And yet he is afraid to bother me. He has never been anything but constant in his relationship with me, and yet I am afraid that he does not want to see me again, nervous that he is making up excuses to avoid coming to visit.

How does this happen? Our relationship, that was once so primal, is now so strained. For seemingly no reason! How does this happen- immediate family members struggling to bridge the distance, to close the gaps, to make up for the years we surrendered and lost. I can’t help but wonder sometimes if reunion isn’t just a sad, partner less dance : two groups of people moving in different circles- desperately trying to recreate a link that once existed.

By now I think both my birthfather and I know that it’s impossible- that the bonds that have been broken between us can never be repaired, not fully. I think we both know that the identity I was born into has long disappeared- that the baby who was once his daughter is now grown up, a woman who has created an existence around his absence, one that he can never fully have access to.

This is one of the saddest parts of reunion, I think. I can’t presume to speak for him, but I can speak for myself. It seemingly is not important what we do, how we act. No matter how many times we visit each other, no matter how many long and involved conversations we have, no matter how many beautiful moments we spend together- it seems that subconsciously we return to that one pivotal moment. It seems that no matter how many times we reach out and find the other person waiting for us, loving us- we can never forget that one time when we reached out and were left grappling- yearning for a love that we were never supposed to miss.

Mother's Day

2010-05-11T00:35:00.003-04:00

I thought about my birthmother on mothers day. I really did. I even picked up my old photo album and flipped through the pages. On those pages there are plenty of numbers, spanning back about 6 or 7 years. I would keep her numbers in my photo album, never in my address book- afraid someone would open it and see. There are a lot of numbers, all with different area codes. She never kept numbers for long. She never kept residences for long. She rolled about like a tumbleweed- forever moving, forever elusive.

I though about her all throughout the day. As I delicately wrapped the gifts I had purchased for my own mother- an eclectic middle eastern style necklace, some boxes of 85% cocoa chocolate, and other various knickknacks I had collected over the past month. I thought about her when I baked the mothers day cake, when I trimmed off the edges to make the cake into the shape of a heart, when I iced it with nutella.

I try to imagine what it would have been like to call her, to speak to her. I can hardly remember her voice now, I can’t even tell you what she sounds like. Would she have been high, or drunk? Would she have been happy to hear from me, or angry like last time?

I know my other siblings don’t think about her.
“She was never a mother to us,” said one, even though she was not placed . “She’s not MY mother. She dug her own hole, now she lies in it. Everything bad in her life she created herself.”

And it is, isn’t it? I make a lot of excuses for my birthmother. At the end of the day, she’s just like the rest of us. She lived the life she chose- free of obligation and care. She lived the way she wanted but she paid a terrible price. And so did her children. Every one of us.

We’re getting together now…slowly. 3 out of 9 are over the legal age. In a few months the 4th will join us, and then the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th. By 2024 the last of her children will have turned 18. I wonder if they will try and find me, or one of the other siblings. I wonder what I can say to them to ease their way, to soothe their hurt. How can I explain our mother to them- in all of her radiant, yet disastrous beauty? Love and its weakness. How can I tell them that she loved us but didn’t protect us, mothered but didn’t parent, tried but didn’t succeed, fought but never won? Love and its failure.

I thought about her on Mother’s day. And maybe I shouldn’t have. But either way, wherever she is- I hope she felt it. So here’s a quiet happy mothers day- to the mother who gave me every day of my life.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

Useless.

2010-04-20T23:46:00.000-04:00

In a recent conversation with an Italian friend, a novel concept was brought to light. He knew I was adopted, but we had never really discussed the subject at length. It’s just something that doesn’t exist in the same capacity in Italy, so unless we are discussing my particular situation, it’s unlikely to ever come up. Due to the impending visit from my birth family, however, I felt like talking. Andrea, as always, was willing to listen. Our relationship is mostly academic- we compare and analyze various linguistic concepts- never tiring of marveling over the ways our two different languages break down and compare. I always want to better my Italian, and he is just as eager to better his English. But in that moment, we decided to discuss something far less concrete. Why was I nervous about having my birthparents visit? And perhaps more crucially: why on earth were they visiting in the first place, after they had placed me for adoption?

I couldn’t explain it. Not immediately, not in the way I wanted too. My gut response was “but…they are my biological parents. They made me. How can that not be important?” Andrea didn’t see it. Sure, they created me. But that’s “ALL” they did. People have sex all the time. People have babies all the time. The act of reproduction, in and of itself, is not all that special or significant, at least not on any larger scale. It’s all so common. What’s NOT common, however, is the next step. Having a baby and then giving it away. The act of “giving” is very skewed in an adoption context. It’s not common, and it’s not what is generally considered “natural”. The purposeful separation of mother and child goes against all our primal instincts, all of our hearts desires and innate reactions. What mother or father wants to leave their baby, and what baby wants to be left?

And so it is not the creating or the having or the producing that is complex. It is the leaving. It is the separation. It is not what my birthparents DID, that confuses everyone. It’s what they DIDN’T do. I was conceived and born, just as every other child in the world. But that is where I separate from the rest. That is where we, as adoptees and birthparents, separate. There are some days when I feel like this loss, the fact that the people who created me and whose blood I share did not want to raise me, is so deep that I can never escape it. And on some level I know that it can never go away. Nothing can ever make me their child again. Not even the best, longest, most well planned out reunion in the world. I will forever be that baby- conceived but not wanted, born but not welcomed, with a mother and father but no parent to be found.

And so as the visit with my birth family approaches, and I grapple to understand what it will mean for out relationship, I am filled with a sense of rage, of sadness, of compassion, and confusion. What have they done? What have I done? What could they have done, what could have been different, what quality could I have possessed that would have changed the outcome?

I know that it is not my fault. I know that I was not given away for other people to raise because I was bad, ugly, stupid, or worthless. But its hard, some days, to feel worthy. I know that the life I have created for myself, the life that my adoptive family and I share, has worth. I know that it is special, irreplaceable, and I know that I am loved. But on a primal level, on the level of my being, I feel that I am lacking. And why is that surprising? Was it not for my very existence that I was cast-off into the world and out of the family who brought me into it?

How do we reunite, the leaving and the left? Why do we reunite? Sometimes I feel like reunification gave me the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the piece of myself that I lost. Other times I feel like it is just a superficial bandage on a wound too profound to ever heal completely. Or possibly, as my friend pointed out, I'm trying to heal a wound that isn't really there to begin with.

Possible visit...

2010-03-31T02:36:00.003-04:00

This picture was taken the first time I ever had a visit with my birthfamily. I was not yet a teen when this photo was taken ( and apparently I had never cut my hair??). I saw them many times after that ...but it has now been 5 years since I saw them last. I speak to my birthfather often, and it is very possible that I will see him this summer. Due to my impending move out of the country, he and his wife (not my birthmother ) have expressed interest in seeing me, always indirectly. The other day, he finally came right out and suggested it. A week or so would be perfect, he said.. in early June- just as the weather in his state is becoming intolerable- the relative cool of New York City would be a welcome retreat. He would come for a week or so, stay in a hotel near my house with his wife and daughter, my birthsister. I know that he has asked to come to me because I would not be welcome at their home. His mother, now old and frail after the death of her husband, lives near them- and I know that she doesn't not want to have to face me again before she leaves this earth. She prefers to leave me, along with the mistakes of her son, behind.

I've been avoiding them for years, evading this moment as cleverly as I could- shoving them farther and farther behind me, eager to leave them behind. I understand my grandmother's dilemma- it can sometimes be so tempting to bury the ones who have hurt us, to distance ourselves from the loves that failed us.

I wear my anger comfortably now- the cast out child, the one who, for better or for worse, has to look in from the outside. How would it be to take off my anger for a while, to expose myself? I have reified them- conceptualized them to the point of mere entities. The members of my birthfamily are not real people to me anymore. Ghosts now, they roam outside the peripherals of my life. How would it be, now, to see them in the flesh? My flesh. To look again into the eyes of people whose faces mirror my own, to reunite with the clan to whom I can never fully belong?

The idea terrifies me. They want to see me, they say. Just once more before I leave the country again, just once more before I become virtually in-findeable. I know that their intentions are good, I know that my birthfather wants to see me so badly. I don't understand his love for me, though I find it flattering. But this love that I have not earned, that I perhaps do not deserve, makes me uneasy. I feel guilty for having such a hold on him. How can he want to see me so badly? What is this connection between us? I feel guilty for this nonreciprocating devotion, the eagerness in his voice when we talk about a possible visit. My own hesitance.

I could make up an excuse. I will be busy this summer. Between embassy visits, packing, organizing, studying and apartment browsing- my summer is fairly packed. It would not be a lie to say I cannot fit it in. I could politely decline, make half hearted promises about a visit in a year or two, when I return to the USA. I could escape- leave the country and return to my haven amongst the olive trees and the blood red oranges. I could bathe my feet in the warm waters of the sea, lie on the sand and walk on the stones of a country where I am free--untangled from the short life that I lived before the one I have now. I could escape without ever having to look my past in the face.

What should I do?

Anger..where does it come from?

2010-02-12T16:40:00.000-05:00

I found this post about angry adoptees on a birthmother blog ring on Suz's blog. Needless to say, I was curious, and when I went to read what was being written , I was a little perturbed, to say the least. But not for the reason one might expect.

There are a lot of birthparents out there in blogland, some of whom I have spoken with at length, who really wanted to keep their children, who would have gone to the ends of the earth had they been able to.I’d even go so far as to say that they are the majority. They are seemingly baffled about why their children do not want anything to do with them, surprised when their children retreat, pull away, or disappear. Although I see the injustice of their actions, I am not particularly surprised.

Those birthparents are offended, and why shouldn’t they be? The children they worried about and cared about for years, even from a distance, are not what they expected. They are not receiving the welcome they had dreamed of. But I think they are making the mistake of mixing up intentions with results, logistics with feeling. While my birthparents relinquished me because they truly did not want to raise me, I know that for many birthparents this is not the case. And yet….there is little difference between myself and the children whose birthparents wanted them. We were all placed, we all know the sting of original rejection, original abandonment, even though in many cases there was really no rejection, no real abandonment. But it doesn’t matter. We can hear the story 100 times about how much our parents wanted us, about how hard our relinquishment was difficult, how we were loved. But that does not change the next part of the equation, that does not remove the “but” that invariably comes after protestations of undying love.
“We loved you, we wanted you, you were cherished and special and nothing was wrong with you…BUT we placed you for adoption anyway.”

The people who brought us into this world did not want to or could not raise us- regardless of the reason. The intentions, however bad or honorable, do not change the outcome for us. We were adopted, cut off from our heritage, family of origin, from our roots. And I have yet to see a reunion that can close that gap, that can bridge us back together. And yet we are expected to be grateful, we are expected to be open and unreserved with our love and affection, we are expected to say “thank you” , to include them in our lives, to value them as indispensable people in our lives.

But yet we are eternally aware of our own dispensability, our own sense of inadequacy. I sympathize with birthparents whose children treat them in a bad way. Some of the things I read on that blog disgusted me (guest towels? Really?). I am embarrassed when I see adoptees entering into reunions, and then taking out their anger (however justifiable) on their unsuspecting birthparents. It is not fair and it is not right. But neither is it right to classify we adoptees as cold hearted, insensitive, or uncaring. I know how they feel, those adoptees. I know the anger, the one we seemingly cannot justify.

I care for my birthfather, I might even love him..but I will always hold back a part of myself. I will always be on reserve, be on alert- certain that if I do anything wrong, he will leave me again. It is that insecurity that feeds this anger, the fear of being hurt, of being left again. Sometimes we decide to jump ship first, though I don’t find it particularly admirable. Some of us lash out, while others keep it all inside. I will never tell my birthfather about these ugly feelings I have. It is not his burden to bear. But on some level I never want to let him get too close. He had his chance at loving me , at having me in my entirety. He had his chance to be my dad, and he let it go. He let me go. I ache when I think of his pain, his regret.

But there is a deeper part, a less forgiving part, that remembers how it felt to be relinquished, that is convinced that no matter what my birthparents say, they gave me to someone else, they gave me away. And there’s a part of me, perhaps even a part of “us”, that can never forget that.

Forgiveness.

2010-01-21T01:03:00.000-05:00

At one point during my reunion, my birthfather apologized to me. I was caught of guard. I had never considered that placing me for adoption was something for which he should be sorry. I wanted him to regret it, I guess, on some fucked up level- because I wanted to feel wanted. I wanted to know that my absence wasn’t as easy as he had thought it would be when he signed those papers. I wanted to matter to him, to all of them. I never really expressed my feelings to him, not totally, never in their entirety. He knew that my relinquishment and subsequent reunion had a profound affect on me, but on some level I’ve never felt like it was his burden to bear. So when he apologized to me, when he asked for my forgiveness….I was momentarily silenced.

“I have robbed you of something vital, something irreplaceable. I know that you feel like you belong with your family, and you do. Nurture is just a much a part of you as nature. But… I’ve always felt that even though they raised you, you were still mine. You are my daughter, and I have taken your biological family from you. I have robbed you of something precious. I hope that I have not hurt you too much. I am sorry.

He never uses the word regret. He never outright says that he would change it if he could. He uses a lot of phrases like “ what was best at the time,” and “thought I was making the right decision.”

I want so desperately to understand him. He is a large man, muscular and tall. He has tan skin and a head full of wavy, thick hair. He is gruff and speaks in a gravely voice. And yet, when I see him, when I speak to him, I hear the tones of a wounded man, of a man who can never take back what he’s done, whose life has gone so far off the course that was expected of him- that he expected of himself. My adoption was not coerced, it was not forced- certainly not on the part of my birthfather, who was instrumental in my relinquishment. I know that he did it on purpose, that on the day I was born, he looked at me and made the decision to remove me from his life. I want so badly to reassure him, to soothe his pain, to tell him that I understand. Even though I don’t.

I know that I have lost something, I know that something inside of me is broken, missing…something that not even reunion can restore. And yet, my adoption has worked. I am happy, loved, cherished. But I can’t help wonder -was this how my life was meant to be? In order to gain the life I love- was I destined to lose everything?

I am hurt and angry that I was placed and my other siblings were not. I am sad that I, as his first child, was not loved and cherished and wanted. I am hurt that I feel this never ending sense of inadequacy. I hate that no matter how successful I am, no matter how many people tell me that they love me , I know that I am inherently flawed in some way, that my first parents giving me up has done something irreparable to me. And yet, there is a part of me that loves him, that cannot stand to hurt him. I could never tell him these things. He does not deserve to feel sad, to feel regret. I hear his steely resolve cracking when he speaks about relinquishing me, the pain in the cadences of his voice. I know that he will carry the weight of his choice for the rest of his life.

He was once my father. He gave me up, but he has also given me a gift. I know that I owe him one in return.

“Forgive you?” I say. “Rest easy, Paulo, there is nothing to forgive.”

My Story Part 2- Glimpses

2010-01-04T12:30:00.013-05:00

part II - glimpses of my life before reunion

I am six, and rummaging through the junk drawer in the kitchen. I find a pile of photos, wrapped together with a rubber band. I bring them to my mother, and ask her what they are. They are not photos, she explains to me, but various postcards and funeral announcements. There are small laminated cards with various depictions of the Virgin Mary, some dating back over 75 years. There is a small laminate of Johannes Vermeer's “Girl with the pearl earring”. I ask my mother who this woman is, and she tells me that nobody knows who she really is. She is a mystery. Later on that night, I sneak into the kitchen and find that little card. I take it into my room, and hide it in my top drawer, underneath my white laced undershirts and Barbie socks. It will be years, still, until I see my birthmothers photograph. Until that day, whenever my adoption is discussed, and I wrack my brain in an attempt to conjure up an image of the woman who was my mother.. I picture Vermeer’s famous portrait. I don’t think my mother ever notices that it’s gone missing. I take it out when nobody is looking, and stare into the woman’s eyes, though her gaze never meets my own.

-----------------------

My parents are taking me to therapy. I am uncomfortable discussing my adoption, and they worry. I am eight years old. I sit with my parents in the doctor’s dark office. She is kind to me and offers me markers and a pad of paper. I talk to her while I sketch a lion, a tree, a zebra and a cupcake. She asks me to draw my family. I do it. It is an accurate depiction- myself, my father, my mother, my brother, and my cats. My parents are silent beside me.
            “What about your birthparents?” she asks me, using their first names. I freeze. “Why don’t we talk about them for a while?”
            I shake my head no. She asks me why. I shake my head no again. “This is the elephant in the room,” explains the doctor. I don’t know what this means but I picture a large, pink elephant standing between us. They ask me again, “what about Francesca and Paulo?” she asks. Let’s talk about them. I close my ears and say loudly, “ I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you.” At hearing my birthparents names again, I run through the door, out of the lobby, and outside into the cold. I climb up a small pine tree right outside the office. I expect my parents to show up any moment. I can see them through the office window. They can see me. I turn away, and face the parking lot. The sun begins to set. They do not follow me, they do not demand that I come down. I tree bark is rough against my cheek. I do not say a word.
-----------------------
The bark bench is warm. I am sitting with my mother and some of her friends. I long to go on the monkey bars, where my friends are, but I have to finish my lunch first. I sit listlessly in the heat, munching on watermelon, listening to my mom and the other mothers chat. They are talking about the days their children were born. They go into detail, about the months proceeding, about the hospital stay. My own mother is curiously quiet. She smiles, and listens intently to what the others have to say. I finish my watermelon, and throw the rind to the dusty ground. I almost get up to leave, when I see my mothers face. I sit back down. I scoot a little closer to her, touch her hand. We do not make eye contact. She squeezes my hand ever so slightly, a reassurance.

-----------------------
I ask a lot of questions. What is my birthmother like? She is very beautiful. My birthfather? Strong and handsome. These come easily to my mother, who chops garlic and basil and drops them into the blender. We are making pesto. I pluck the basil leaves off the stems. The air is fragrant, summer time. The fan is on low, gentle breeze that cools us off just enough. My father is in the living room behind us, watching jeopardy. Occasionally, he yells out an answer. “Did they love me?” I ask. My mother does not stop chopping. “Yes they did, very much.” I pluck a few more leaves, my mother tells me to leave the rest on the plant, that we have enough. That if we pluck too many the plant will die. “But they gave me away.” I say. My mother stops chopping. She places down the knife, turns to me. “ They couldn’t raise any baby at that time, they placed you for adoption because they weren’t ready to be parents.” I am silent. I pluck a leaf off the basil plant. My mother does not chastise me.
     “But..you said they loved me,” I whisper.
      “They did”
       “But they gave me away.” I hear that my father has muted the TV in the next room. He is listening.
       “Grownup problems are difficult,” she says, wiping her hands on her dark green apron, “they had grownup problems that had nothing to do with you.” I smile and my mother smiles back. I am unconvinced.
-----------------------

I do not tell my friends that I am adopted. Finally, one day, in my 4th grade class, I let it slip. I tell my 4 best friends. They are astonished, they beg to know the details. Were you in an orphanage? Why didn’t anyone want you? Overwhelmed, I try and take it back, try to convince them that I was joking. They give me a strange look. I insist that it was a joke.

----------------------

I do not watch a lot of TV. I watch a lot of PBS and BBC. One day , there is an Italian production of the play “Romeo e Giulietta.” I am engrossed. My mother comes in and sees what I am watching. I do not understand all of the Italian, so I ask her to tell me the story. She does, and I am astounded grotesquely fascinated with it. Two people who fell in love but shouldn’t have. Two people who made mistakes, who paid the ultimate price. I feel sorry for them. I tell my mother this and she smiles a little bit.
     “Oh Romeo and Juliet….a pair of stupid teenagers!” I am quiet. “They acted rashly,” continues my mother, “ we cannot feel sorry for them- they made their foolish choices. Really we feel bad for their families. ”
     “Still, I feel sad for them. I say, tentatively. I understand that Juliet and Romeo cannot take back what they‘ve done. How would things have been different if they‘d only known how permanent their decision was? How permanent. How foolish.
     “Sometimes it takes losing everything to realize what you had,” my mother says. I have a feeling she is not really speaking to me.
     “I bet the families wish they had just let them be together,” I say, decisively.
     “ Mmm,” my mother murmers, “I bet you’re right.”

-----------------------
I have mentioned wanting to meet my birthparents on more than one occasion. I was always told that I could, when I was a little older. So when I am still in middle school, and my mother nonchalantly asks me if I’d like to know my birthfather while we are returning from the grocery store, I am too shocked to speak.
“He has written you a letter,” she says. “ I have it at home.”
     I think. By now I have a few photos of them, from a few days before I was born. My birthmother is breathtaking, with long , dark auburn hair and creamy skin. Her lips are a deep, red color. Her fingernails are painted to match. In the photo she stands next to my birthfather, who is large and strong looking. He has deep golden hair that curls, and is dressed sharply in khaki pants and a polo shirt. He has his arm around her shoulder. I know that my parents are the ones taking the picture. They photo is at a distance, and I strain my eyes to see them up close. My birthfather stands up straight, he smiles right at the camera. He is confident. My birthmother does not. She is facing the camera, but looking slightly to her right. She does not look directly into the lens, her attention is elsewhere. She is like this in all of the pictures- elusive, always slightly out of reach. She is not smiling.

We are driving and the air is warm and the sun is calm. We pull into our driveway.
     “The letter is here?” I ask, “right now?”
     “Yes,” my mother says, “ would you like to read it? Maybe write him a letter back?” I do not hesitate.
     “Yes,” I say. And I open the door.

My Story part 1- "The Desert"

2009-12-28T14:38:00.016-05:00

My story begins in the desert.

Though I was raised in the hustle and bustle of the most intricate of concrete jungles, New York City, my life did not begin there. I was born in a state of cacti and cracking earth, of smoldering sun and soft, Mexican winds. My birthfather, a broad, blonde man of German and Scottish descent in his 20’s, met my birthmother, a Mexican of the same age, in a bar. She was elusive, beautiful, with light skin and dark auburn hair. They were in love, a true Tristan and Isolde story, or perhaps a Romeo and Juliet. They remained together despite their families' protestations. My birthfathers family was weathy, newcomers to this country, proud of their anglo saxon heritage. My birthmothers family, too, were newcomers . Two foregin familys, one from across the Atlantic and the other from across the border, unwillingly joined as one when the news of my existence came to light in the early months of spring,

The details of my conception are rather ambiguous, one half of the equation will claim it was a welcomed accident, the other felt tricked. My birthmother, who had already given birth to 2 children, one who was kept and the other who was placed for adoption, was thrilled at the thought of becoming a mother again. She told her family immediately. My birthfather, who had never had children before, told only his father, and a pact was made to keep the information from the rest of his family, particularly his mother.

My birthfather insisted on abortion, and when my birthmother refused, adoption. She resisted, but finally agreed to meeting a few couples. They found my parents in a newspaper ad, and a meeting was scheduled 4 months before I was born. They clicked immediately, and the adoption was organized through private lawyers. I have been told that my birthmother did not really plan to go through with the adoption. That she was expecting her boyfriend, my birthfather, to change his mind once he saw me. When she found out that I was a girl, she was disappointed, convinced that the likelihood of him wanting me was less because I was not the coveted male child. Although she continued to correspond with my adoptive parents, in her heart she didn’t want to let me go.

"Do not give up this baby" her mother, my maternal grandmother, had told her. " You do not want to do this, I promise. You need this baby. This baby needs you. Do not give up this baby."

The day I was born, she changed her mind and decided to keep me. My parents, who had flown down at the drop of a hat the moment they heard I was on my way, were devastated, and flew back to NYC empty handed.
My birthfather was furious. He attempted to convince my birthmother to give me up - she refused. His family finally caught wind of my existence, and were upset by the news.. Irate, he broke up with her, and my birthmother took me home alone.

Months and months later, my birthfathers brother called her and tried to convince her to give me up for adoption, that it would be the right thing to do. He talked about money, about being a single mother, about doing the right thing by his niece, who deserved more. Finally, she relented, and my birth uncle came and took me to his house, and called New York City to see if the couple was still interested in adopting me. They were.

I stayed at my birth uncles house for about a week, surrounded by my cousins and the other members of my paternal family. My birth uncles wife took care of me, as she did her own small children. When the time came for my parents to pick me up, my birthmother came to see me for the last time. My birthfather was not present. My entire birth family was there, in that little house, waiting for my parents to come and get me. They finally arrived, and with the lawyers present, the final papers were signed.

My birthfather, who agreed to begin dating again after I was placed, promised to take my birthmother on a vacation in an attempt to make her forget. My birthfather’s family, furious at having been kept in the dark about the pregnancy, were both bereaved about the adoption and relieved to have it all be over. My birthfathers family tried, in vain, to comfort my birthmother who sat despondent on the couch, the pen from signing still in her hand. This is what my birthfather has told me.

My birthmothers story of this day is different. She does not remember the lawers, the papers, or the rest of the family being present. She remembers only the look in my adoptive mothers eyes as she held me for the first time, the emptiness in her arms when she handed me over, the murmers of approval from my birthfathers family. She remembred the letter she had written me a day or so before, promising that she would always love me, apologizing, begging for me not to hate her.

" No one will ever love you as much as I," the letter begins, and she goes on to instruct me to be a good girl for my new mother, to remember her when listening to certain music, to come and find her when I grow up. She even writes me a poem. "New Life" it is called.

".... but soon little one, my heart will open wide, as the magic of your new life is unfurled. Go ahead, little one, I'll wait here to cheer you on."

This letter, along with a blanket and a stuffed cat, were all she gave to me. She remembers placing them in the diaper bag that my parents brought, and asking that they be given to me when I was a little older. But the memory that remains engrained in her mind is not a memory at all, but a sound. She tells me that she will never forget the sound of my adoptive parents car as they pulled out of the driveway. The silence that remained in the room when I left.

Some things too late- adoption denial.

2009-12-12T01:41:00.006-05:00

Adoption denial. What does it feel like? A fellow blogger, Suz, (who everyone should check out ASAP if they haven't already) posed this question on her own blog, http://writingmywrongs.com/ .

This question intrigued me to the point where I had to spend a few days thinking about how to respond. As an adoptee who actively works hard everyday attempting to convince myself that adoption doesn't matter- how do I do it? How do I look into the eyes of my birthsisters and say they do not matter? How can I think of my birthmother and think "she is no one to me anymore?" How do I speak to my birthfather once every two weeks and think, " this man is merely a nice acquaintance with whom I share DNA. A friend. Not a father." Is this so called denial easy for me, does it come as naturally as breathing? Or is it something I have to practice- a mantra that must be repeated, memorized, absorbed.

Perhaps another question could be, "how can I not?"

Sometimes the knowledge of my adoption and the experience of my subsequent reunion is so overwhelming, so deeply engrained in my personhood, that the only thing I can do to purge myself of those feelings is to negate them. To negate myself, even.

"I am one of billions of people. 100 years from now I will be gone, all trace of my personhood returned to the earth. No one will remember my story, the situation in which I was born will no longer be relevant. I have been displaced yes, but also placed. I belong to the clan with which I reside. The past does not matter, even I do not matter."

For my birthmother, I am one of over half a dozen children. All but two have not remained with the biological family. By convincing myself that I am not alone, I have also convinced myself that I am not important. To my biological family, particularly maternally, I am simply one of many. One of many failed parenthoods.

"I do not belong with them, I never belonged.They have proven this to me. "

My biological family, as an entity, chose to expel me from their family. And somehow, I think this essential fact is somehow forgotten, misplaced, brushed aside. But it has not been lost to me. The family to whom I was born pick and chose children- raising some, placing others. But that's not my business. I have no right to question, no right to pick over their decision, no right to make them feel guilty for their choice. But on that some level, I am somehow expected to accept them without hesitation, to love them, to connect with them, to regard them as my family. Why?

"She is not my mother, she is not my mother. He is nice but not my father. That girl is not my sister." I repeat this over and over. I have myself nearly convinced. Some people are astounded at my callous, others applaud me and commend me for not allowing those archaic notions of biology to control my own definition of family.

There are a few members of my birthfamily whom I love. Most significantly, my older sister, Pippi, whom I only reunited with within the year. She is the first one I connected with, the first one whom I can really say I love. She too was placed for adoption- and so we are two women: the cast out, the two biosisters reunited on the outside. But even we know that we are not sisters. And how could we be? We tried the word out once or twice.

"This is my sister, Amanda." or "This is my sister, Pippi." But the words tasted funny, unfamiliar. We dropped the title almost immediately. I care for her, deeply even. But who is she? I have yet to find the correct definition. Perhaps we cannot be defined. I do know, however, with certainty what we are not.

I deny because it is the only truth in my adoption that I can find. The only piece of my personhood that I dare claim.

"She is not my mother, he is not my father, she is not my sister. She is my birthmother's mother, not my grandmother. He is my birthfathers brother, not my uncle."

Selfishly, I ask "why should I acknowledge those who do not acknowledge me?" But truthfully, I ask "Why should I pine for something that cannot be found in it's entirety again?" My reunion is not a look into the past, but a glimpse into something unattainable- into the family that could have been, that might have been, that almost was, but simply isn't.

Pensieri.

2009-10-25T02:12:00.005-04:00

The first night I met my birthfamily, it snowed.

We had the visit planned for months. We decided that they would come over Christmas break. A huge snowstorm had hit New York City only a few days before they arrived. Driving from JFK to our house, they got lost in the frosted concrete jungle, and my father had to take the old Volvo out to get them and bring them home.

My room had never been so clean. I scrubbed the white and blue marble floors, rearranged all of my stuffed animals on my bed, folded my clothes, and even cleaned the dust out from the creases in the blinds. I waited in my bedroom, and stared out the window, feeling the cold glass against my nose and cheeks. When they opened the door, my dad came in first. Julia my birthsister, and then finally, Paul, my birthfather. I stared, frozen to the floor like the ice that clung to our windows.

I remember rushing up stairs to play with the dog and Julia in my room. I remember hearing my parents and Paul go into the living room to talk.

And that's it. I have a few pictures from that visit. Julia wears a red shirt, and smells like vanilla and sugar. I have my long blond hair straightened, I am wearing a knit white sweater and dark jeans. My dog is young, puppy-like. The Christmas tree is still up, adorned with the white lights and antique ornaments.

But other than these few photos and scattered memories, the visit is lost to me. Sometimes, Paul or one of my parents will bring it up, and they will recount moments that I have no memory of.

My mother tells me that I cried for weeks afterwards. I don't remember this. I don't remember any of it. I can't recall how long they stayed, what we did, or what we said.

These memories are buried deep in my subconscious- lost to me forever. It is amazing what our brains will do for us to relieve our pain, to alleviate our stresses, to dress our wounds.

My reunion has not been easy. In fact, it has been the hardest thing I've ever done. This journey, this path to the truth, to my self-entirety, has been long. And it all started on that snowy day when the icicles hung thick from every window pane. When the snow was so deep we could hardly walk, when the air was clear and my mind unburdened. What would I give to return to that moment, anxiously cleaning every crevice of my bedroom, looking out my window, waiting. What I would give to think like I did back then. I ask myself, now, years later if I would have gone through with it. When my father drove to pick them up, to guide them to the sister and daughter they had relinquished long ago, would I have let him had I known that I'd never be the same? I want to return to that moment--with my hand on the doorknob, ready to let the family that left me back into my life. With what I know now-would I have opened the door?

Palombella Rossa

2009-08-17T16:40:00.001-04:00

I have a hard time correlating the words “loved” and “wanted.” My birthparents were not children when I was born. already had cousins. I was not the first child to be born, and I certainly was not the last. My birthparents gave me up, my birthgrandparents and aunts and uncles all watched. Many of them were there when I left. I was loved, perhaps, but not enough. I was wanted, maybe, but not enough.

A few months ago, my Italian friend Giorgia gave birth to her daughter. She is 23, and was unmarried when the baby was conceived. She got married a few months ago at her families urging. Her daughter,Cinzia, is beautiful. I received photos today. She is younger than my birthparents were at my birth, she is less financially stable. I saw that baby today, with her pretty red hair and her family all around her, and I thought to myself, “not me.” I saw Giorgia, and her daughter, and her new husband (also a friend) and her family, and I thought “Why is it okay for them? Why did my family not try like that for me?

Babies who are wanted and loved by their families in their entirety are not given away. My sister was born a mere few years after me, under the same circumstances. She was kept. She is a loved and treasured member of their family, the favorite grandchild, beloved by all.

I accept my adoption. I cannot change it. I am a happy ,well adjusted, member of society. I love my adoptive family. I fit in perfectly. I am the favorite grandchild, the beloved daughter, the loving sister, the “fun” aunt. But there is a part of me, a deep and angry part, that is enraged and hurt at the thought of being cast away. I will never be a part of their family, I will never be accepted back. Not really. I never was meant to be.

I was my birthfathers first child, his parents second granddaughter. They looked at me, the newest, most fragile, and most vulnerable member of their family- and they pushed me away. I live everyday with the knowledge of my original inadequacy, the deep sadness of knowing that all those who were supposed to love me, protect me , cherish me, and never leave me- did exactly that. To this day, even after meeting my birthfamily and understanding the motivations for my placement- I remain astounded at this betrayal. It cannot be contained.

Near the end but closer to the beginning.

2009-08-06T22:17:00.004-04:00

I heard my sister's voice the other day.

There was something achingly familiar in the cadences of her speech, the tone of her voice. I recognized her- though I know that's impossible. Something about her reminds me of someone I've heard many times.

I got her letter and I read it 100 times. Though the social worker who had censored our letter had crossed out a lot of identifying information , there was just enough for me to find her myspace, and then, her facebook.

I felt something with her that I've never felt with my other siblings. Perhaps we are more alike, or maybe it's that we come from similar places, similar families. I couldn't tell you what it is.

She and I have spoken every day since. A part of me is sad to have found her. It makes me sad to hear the voice, to see the photos, of someone else who shares my past. Another part of me is overjoyed- happy because I feel that I can incorporate her into my future.

She and I are different. We grew up in different places, with different families & cultures. We've never been together at Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Easter. Until recently, we didn't even know about each other. I live in the East coast- she the West. We have different color eyes & hair. We have grown up without one another.

I am cautious. I know how badly these things can turn out. I know that blood does not ensure love, does not promise trust, or friendship.

But when I hear her voice, when we talk and laugh and joke- I recognize something in her. A glimmer, a sparkle- a reassurance that this was meant to be. We are different- but there is something vital, primal even- that connects us. I see a thread of myself in her.

The two of us have seen many things, felt many sensations, and traveled very far. We come from the same place. My greatest hope, my sincerest wish, is that we can continue on together.

Briciole.

2009-08-01T12:32:00.010-04:00

This time next week I will have finally had contact with my sister. It’s official. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I’ll have read her letter by EARLY next week.

I got the call yesterday, while I was in the movie theatre seeing “Funny People” (which was actually more sad than funny.. I don’t recommend it.) I walked out of the theatre, and checked my cell phone that had been turned off during the movie. And, lo and behold, I had missed a call from the Catholic Charities. I could have kicked myself. I didn’t , of course, but I did use a bit of profanity when I realized that the office was closed for the weekend and that I couldn’t call back. I immediately chcked my voicemail:

“ Hello Amanda? This is SusieQ from the Catholic Charity- I want you to know that I received a letter from your sister, and forwarded it to you this morning. It should arrive early next week.”

I literally almost cried. It’s still only the “anonymous letters” that the charity is forcing upon us until we iron out all the legal kinks to obtain “direct contact”- but I don’t care! I don’t care if the charity opened the letter meant for me, edited out all identifying information, and then stuck it back into an envelope and sent it to NY. I don’t care if it looks ridiculous after being edited by the charity, just like the letter I sent to my sister surely does.

“Hi sister! My name is Amanda____. I live in ___. I go to ___ university. I am ___ years old. I grew up in ___, which is a borough of ___.”

I don’t care if all the identifying information my sister has shared with me in that letter is crossed out, or whited out, or CUT out for that matter. I don’t care what it looks like! I’m not interested, really, in where she lives, what she has, what her surname is, or what kind of education she’s received ( though I already know that she went to college and has at least a bachelors.) Of course I want to know everything- but these things that I know will have been edited out are not really what I’m looking for.

I want to know what she loves, who she loves, and what her passions are. I want to know what she knows , how she feels, and what she wants out of life. Is she married? She could be! Does she have children? What languages does she speak, what was her favorite subject in school?

I hope that this letter that is already on it’s way is only the beginning. It’s merely an introduction, a greeting, a shaking of hands. Nice to meet you, it may say, and who knows where we go from there?

The title of this post is “briciole”. It is the Italian word for “crumbs,” or “fragments.” That is what this letter will be. Bits and pieces of information, the small, seemingly insignificant fragments of her life that she has chosen to share with me. Tiny windows which I can look through- just to get a peek of what I’ve longed for for months.

You take the pieces and you put them together. Slowly slowly, bit by bit, we reconstruct the fragments of our lives. The briciole of our pasts that, once entwining, will hopefully meet once more.

Fading out under the rain.

2009-07-29T23:16:00.002-04:00

I’ve been having bad dreams lately. Dreams where I am more gutsy- more resilient- than I am in real life. Many of them, if not most of them, involve my sister, “E”. Even typing the word “sister” in reference to her makes me feel disgusting, as if admitting it out loud, or even via computer, is shameful.

Her inability to accept me shakes me to my core. Why? Why do I care? Some days I don’t, and other days it all comes tumbling down like a pile of bricks. I see her as an embodiment of all my fears- the physical manifestation of the rejection I've felt forever even though it has no logic.

Rejection, in any shape or form, from my biological family just hurts me more than I can ever say. It is my biggest fear, it is my most powerful phobia. Logically, I know that the initial rejection, my adoption, had nothing to do with me.

Why doesn’t that make me feel better..?

I have gotten better with my rage. I no longer hate her passionately, I no longer feel ill with anger just at the thought of her. I never knew that I could feel such emotions. I never knew that I could be so awful. It scared me, I think, to feel such anger at someone whom I was supposed to love.

I’ve never let myself feel these emotions. I buried them for years. I know why I was placed for adoption. I know my birth family. I know why my birth sister doesn’t want to know me , I know that it has very little or nothing to do with me as a person. I know all about it. I know everything. But knowing doesn’t help me.

Somewhere, deep inside, their rejection stings. It doesn’t matter that it had nothing to do with me when I was a child, that it isn‘t really about me now. Nothing will make it go away. Why? I have no idea.

In my dreams, I am angry. I confront my sister, I shove her a little bit. I demand to know what her problem is. I demand that she get over it. I tell her every nasty, hurtful thing that I’ve ever thought in my mind. In my dream- there is no regret, there are no consequences for my actions. In my dream I don’t wonder what I did wrong, where things went sour. I am powerful, I am resilient, I am strong- outraged at this betrayal. In my dream I am pure rage- never tiring from fighting a battle I never had a chance at winning.

Then I wake up, and all candor and belligerence float away. I am no longer gutsy, enduring, or potent. I am the hurt child- the child who is sure that if I blink, if I do one thing wrong, they will disappear again. I am the sister who hurts, who is angry and insulted, and who would never have the audacity to be mean. I am the sister who waits quietly for acceptance, knowing it may never come. I am the sister who is not sure if I will ever be able to love her again, trust her again. I’m the sister who wakes up and wants to go back and dream again- to escape to a place where we have no regrets.

la corsa..

2009-07-28T11:55:00.003-04:00

I'm drinking the worst peach iced tea that I've ever tasted in my life. It's some sort of generic brand of "Crystal Light" but dear Lord...it's absolutely horrible.

I should be doing a lot of things right now. I should be reading " Il Gattopardo," or perhaps getting through my endlessly long Italian grammar book that I promised myself I would finish before term starts in August. I should give my dog a bath, I should do some dusting around the house, and I certainly should be studying. Should I say studying once more?

Instead, I'm here. I am waiting for news to come via mail, or via phone. I've been waiting for so long, and the wait never seems to get any shorter. It's just one setback after another. I hardly expect to hear any news. Everyday I do my thing, and while it's always in the back of my mind, I don't get my hopes up anymore.

Sometimes I feel like, as a woman who was adopted, I can never fully "grow up." When in search of information about myself that others take completely for granted,I am treated almost as a common criminal. Proof of identity, therapy sessions to gauge my readiness, months and months of waiting for this bureaucratic nightmare to end. Both adult parties are willing and ready to meet- why am I constantly being infantilized?

I know that this isn't true. Confidentiality issues and waiting are a part of the world. I'm just tired of having to constantly prove myself in an attempt to know myself. I'm not a child. I'm not stupid. I deserve (dare I say it?) to know the truth , the whole truth and nothing but the truth- about myself..

These things all go through my mind until reality seeps in and I realize that this is how the government works, and that these blockades are put into force in an attempt to reduce problems later on. I know this. I accept it and have no real problem playing by the rules. The wait is just torture. It's long. but I have hope that it won't be fruitless.

In other news- I'm happy with my life as it is. I'm dieing for classes to start, excited about the potential of getting some color this summer, and generally happy with my relationships, familial and otherwise.

There's only one thing missing...and hopefully it will come soon enough.

WOOP!

2009-07-20T23:43:00.003-04:00

I have experienced a miracle. I got the call a few days ago, telling me that J wanted to not only tal kthrough letters and phone calls, but that she wanted to MEET ME. IN PERSON. My J wants to meet me. I cannot believe it. I am on cloud nine. Dare I hope for the best?
Things had been stagnant for WEEKS. ALl of a sudden, as if by magic, I got the best news I could hope for. Now, all J and I need to do is get a 1 hour therapy session to prove that we are emotionally ready to know eachother, and then we will finally be given eachother's contact information!

Tomorrow I am going to go to my appointment, and then promptly afterwards I will be attending mass at 5:00 at St. Patricks in Manhattan. God has heard my prayers. For me there is no more explanation than that.

I can hardly believe that after all these months of waiting this will finally happen for me. I hope that this will finally be the peace I've been waiting for. I hope that I can be the person that J needs, that she has longed for.

Tomorrow I will go to Mass, and I will say a silent thankyou for all the things, past and present, that have brought me to this moment, and all that will follow.

Adesso che sei dovunque sei

2009-07-08T14:12:00.003-04:00

I've been waiting what seems like a lifetime. Sometimes the entire institution makes me want to pull my hair out! I sent "J" the letter a few months back, along with all of my identifying information. I did all the work that needed to be done and so the wait begun! Now of course, months later, I'm finally starting to get fed up.

I want to meet her- she want's to meet me? I'm a little confused by what she wants at this point- as I must admit the secrecy surrounding this whole deal is making me nutty. We're both consenting adults... and I wish this was easier and faster. That's the bottom line, I guess. Just faster.

I'm stalking the mailman and constantly manning my cellphone and house phone. I doubt she'll contact me by email but I even check THAT constantly....

Come on time..let's go a little faster..

The dam becomes a river..

2009-06-22T01:22:00.003-04:00

I cannot imagine what it is like to not be adopted. Living and being a part of a biological family is something I will never know.

I cannot imagine not growing up in New York, not speaking Italian, not loving opera and having the family I have. I can’t imagine having different parents, different friends, a different accent, or different experiences. I can’t imagine living a life different from the one I am.

The reality that I almost did is astonishing and disturbing to me.

I do not like being adopted. This makes me unpopular. I know that being adopted changed everything. I know that the outcome would have been very different had I remained with my biological family. Of course, I can only speculate- but I am almost positive that I am better off where I am. Everyone tells me this. I believe it. I know it.

Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?

I want to grow out of these feelings. My whole life, I assumed that adoption would become less and less important to me as I grew older. As a child it was important because I was curious. I thought that by the time I hit this age I would have already worked through all of my feelings.

The thing about adoption is that you never get over it. I tried having contact with my biological family, and I tried not having contact. I’ve tried therapy, I’ve tried journaling, crying, rejoicing, praying, and I’ve tried pretending it doesn’t exist. Nothing I do is giving me that magic sense of peace. Sometimes I feel happy- I feel blessed because of my wonderful family, and blessed that my birthparents had the sense not to attempt to raise me. Other days I feel this loss- this ambiguous feeling of sadness. I don’t so much grieve my biological family- because logically I know that being separated from them was the best thing that has ever happened to me.

That is what makes me sad. How can I even say that? I am ashamed. I care very deeply for my birthfather- how can I say that I am better off without him? I am embarrassed even as I type the words. The knowledge that the worst thing that has ever happened to me was simultaneously the best is absolutely the most mind-fucking emotion there is.

I try to escape my pain with rationalization. I have an amazing life. I really, really do. 6 out of 7 days a week-adoption does not cross my mind. I am out and about- living my life and loving my family and friends and traveling and taking my dog for walks. I will do almost anything to escape my loss.

I will rationalize and rationalize until I arrive at moments like this when my emotions overpower my intellect.

I feel stupid for feeling this way. I feel unappreciative and neglectful. I feel like being sad over this makes me less of a person- less deserving of respect. I feel like I need to just shut up and be grateful and love what I have. I feel like I am grieving nothing.

My life is amazing. I love my family. I love my city , my dog, my house, my friends, my bed my school my everything. Why isn’t that enough for me?

The realization that this loss I feel will never go away is only beginning to dawn on me. With all this joy in my life- who am I to not be joyful?

I'm tired of this song and dance.

2009-06-06T01:20:00.000-04:00

I’ve been searching for a solution- groping in the dark for some sort of resolution in all this bullshit. Even after I “gave up” officially- the fight never stopped in my own mind- in my own life. I never stopped caring or longing or wishing or regretting. I’ve never stopped bouncing the ideas around in my mind- what could I have done? What should I have done? What did I do to make this all go awry?

I am just sad now. Sad and angry. I couldn’t tell you what the percentages of those emotions would be. Perhaps…80% despondent and 20% irate? Who knows? I certainly couldn’t put a number on it- but God knows I’d like to.

I want to pack adoption up neatly. I want it to be some event in my past. I no longer want to “be adopted”- I want to “have been adopted.” I don’t want it to define me anymore, in any sense of the word. Not that it ever has, of course. Not for other people. My parents do not see me as their adopted daughter. My friends do not see me as their adopted friend. I am not an adopted sister to my brother, not really. Though technically, I’ll always have that label, it does not define who I am to anyone else but myself. My grandparents do not see me and say “ ah yes, Amanda. Our adopted granddaughter.” Only I place this label onto myself. I’m the one who can’t shake it.

I hate the feelings I’ve developed for the people who brought me into this world. They make me feel so skeevy. I hate being angry, and I hate hating. I will never love my sister. Not ever. I can’t…imagine it. I can’t fathom looking into her eyes and liking what I see. She does not care for me. She has rejected me- and that’s not something I can just shake off. I don’t care if she’s troubled/has had a bad life/is sad/is angry. I don’t care that she rejected me because she has learned to reject other people before they can reject her. I don’t care what the reason is. This is my goddamn blog, and although no one reads it (thank god!) I promised that I’d be nothing but honest about my own inner workings while writing. And even though I know saying this pretty much buys me a one-way ticket to hell- I despise that girl. More than I’ve ever despised anyone- and I’ve met some pretty crummy people. This hatred, this intense dislike that is brewing in my brain, does no one any good. It doesn’t make me feel any better. It only embarrasses me- I am ashamed that the Amanda who felt empathy has left- never to return. I am ashamed because I wanted it so desperately- and my weakness has been taken advantage of by someone who can smell it from a mile away. I am sad because I want to love her. So badly. I am ashamed because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to agan.

And so I’m left grappling. What do I do? I stopped contacting them for a reason- and I never want to forget that. I didn’t one day decide to remove them from my life on a whim. I didn’t make that decision in a hurry. I thought about it, agonized about it even, and when the time came to make that phone call I thought I my heart would fall out of my chest. I’ve never had a “cry” feel that good. To hang up the phone- and realize that I had made a decision for myself- was absolutely intoxicating. To cry so thoroughly and loudly- to really grieve, was so freeing. To let that sadness just pour out of me was so cleansing- so amazing. But then of course, after the water works finished- I was left wondering, “what’s next?”

I am hoping, praying even, that the next few months will give me clarity and maturity. I am hoping that something will change. A lot of things are going to change in the next few months for me. I hope that my intense feelings, that are predominantly negative, will evaporate into the air around me. I want to be clearheaded- and make decisions based on logic rather than emotion. Irrationality annoys the shit out of me. I’ve become my own pet peeve.

Houston..we have contact.

2009-05-28T10:48:00.004-04:00

I got the call at 10 this morning. I slept with both phones next to my bed. I had a restless sleep- the kind you have when you are eagerly waiting for something- the kind you have when you are sleeping only so the next day will come.

I am on cloud nine, even though I know this will not be an easy journey.

I have one wish:

I want her to look back on this day years from now- and be happy that she met me.

above your deep and dreamless sleep- another star lights up the sky.

Being an infant or a bird

2009-05-28T00:20:00.003-04:00

I want this so badly that it almost hurts. I need this. I need this to mean something. Every second of my life has brought me to this moment. Every breathe has brought me to this instant.

I am one person's mistake, another's best decision. I am one man's pain, another's joy.

I am a sibling to many but a sister to none.

I am secret and I am a granddaughter.

I am a daughter but a friend, a am both spontaneous and meticulously planned.

I am everything and I am nothing at the same time.

I have always known what I am. I have always been told, always been reminded. I want everything to mean something. I don't like useless pain. I don't like wasted emotions. And I REALLY don't like poor decisions. The choices they've made, the choices I've made, could all make perfect sense. I long to find someone in this mess- just one person- who makes me feel as if it has all been worth it. These past 10 years- I need to know that they haven't been in vain. Sure I know a bunch of shit that I wouldn't have had I not made the decision to reunite- but mere facts do not make up for the gaping holes that I had so desperately try to plug up. It has been worth it, in a purely informational sense, but I admit that even after years of having contact with my biological family, that part of me feels empty. Part of me knows that nothing can ever be fixed. And that is the part of me that decided to search for Stephanie, my biological sister who was adopted a few years before I was. That was the part of me that searched through all of my old records, read the ridiculous story of my past. That was the part of me that went to the bank to get everything notarized, and the part of me that has waited by the phone for weeks.

Tomorrow could be a good day, or a very bad day. This is my final attempt. Tomorrow I will have some sort of answer. Something will have moved. Something will have changed. I am prepared for a rejection- I've had it so many times before. I am hoping to find something new -something beautiful- coursing through my veins. I am hoping beyond hope and praying to no end that I can look into the face of someone whose blood I share and see love in their eyes. I am tired of seeing anger, jealousy, shame, and guilt. I want to see a face, even if it is not like my own, and know that we have a connection. I want to feel it. If it is not there, I want to build it. I will do the work-I've always been willing to- if only someone was willing to work with me.

I did it with D and E, and D and G, and C and M and EVERYONE. I tried and I tried. I want someone to try for me. I want these past years to have led me here. I've traveled this road, and I want to find something at the end of it. I am not looking for a pot of gold- a few specks of bronze will do. Anything shiny enough to mirror my intentions- and the love I could have for these people, if only they would let me.

I never could see, but I'd do it all again.

2009-05-19T19:53:00.003-04:00

How I will rise up from the waters where I've drowned.You will know me,you will see- your face will light up from the glory that it's found

I am doing that thing again,denying some parts and accepting others- the rationalization that often accompanies loss. You don't want anything to do with me? Good. I don't want you either. It's a little pathetic,really. Mostly because I can pinpoint exactly what I'm doing. There's no shame in the action, merely the inability to stop. My inability to stop.

If the current project doesn't work out, I'll resign myself to it. I'll fade into the background, the woodwork, or wherever it is that people in my situation fade off into. I've already begun the process, of course, but nothing has been finalized. I can't very well write off everyone, because some people have been nothing but steady, nothing but good. Those who are supposed to be the most deranged end up being the most pristine of all. Opportunity cannot make up for heart, so it would seem, but I think I knew that anyway.

I am casually hopeful- I wait for the phone to ring, for the mail to come, for the "you got mail" voice to signal on my computer. I assume that everyone is as eager as I am, but of course that's not the case. I've seen that first hand.

I'm tired of being told that I've lost. In one side's longing to be important, they refuse to be labeled insignificant. It's sad because it's utterly predictable. Sometimes I want to remind them that the majority of them are just bitter. Very few people or situations can make you so something that you don't want to do. Some people are just victims of circumstance, but that sure isn't everybody. I'm tired of being pressured to feel as if I'M unfeeling because I refuse to accept excuses. Anyone can make excuses- it's not difficult. But not everyone can accept responsibility. That's the hard part. I'm tired of this institution being a breeding ground for rationalization.

I have lost, yes. But I have gained as well. I've gained so much more.The gains can't make up for the losses. Unfortunately, nothing can. Nor would I want it to. I stand firmly where I am, sure of my decisions, and accepting every consequence as quietly as I can. I don't want to collapse- crumbling as I have been these past few months. This is my one last ditch effort at a connection- and finding someone who is a part of me who is lacking in crazy. If I fail, I'll pack up these boxes- tape up these cartons and haul them away. Andiamo avanti, as they say. I'll absolutely do so.

you sing into the night now... just sing on for me

2009-05-15T21:07:00.001-04:00

Being notarized is perhaps the biggest pain in the ass ever. I did it, though, in the vain hope that it would be worth it. I want so badly for this to mean something. A door as been closed, and I’m hoping that this is the window that will open.

I hope that she’ll want to meet me-that she’ll be interested in my life and how our lives intertwine. I want to share everything that I’ve learned about our common past with her, I want to encourage her, show her, and help her understand. Perhaps most selfishly, I want to warn her. Things in our past can get pretty freaking ugly, and I want to save someone else the same pain that I’ve experienced.

On that note, I’ve already decided that I will not share any information with anyone else. It may sound selfish- but I’ve done all the work. I’ve made all the phone calls, notarized all the papers, and made all the effort. I am not feeling especially charitable towards anyone right now. I’m tired of letting people walk all over me- and this step has been a positive one in taking control of the situation. I’ve never fully felt a lot of this experience. I’ve tried burying it- it didn’t work. I tried placating myself with contact- that REALLY didn’t work. Unless of course, she asks me to, in which case I will only do so after having thoroughly thought it over. I don’t want to be associated with any of them, (except Mandi, who is absolutely not a problem at all.) I don’t want to be associated with craziness. I don’t want to be a member of that family. I want to be appreciate for exactly what and who I am, and respected for what I have to offer. I would love a friendship, and I am waiting now for a reply.

I am prepared for a rejection. Sometimes, when I think back on my initial contact, I wish I would have known the things I know now. I like to think that I would have run screaming, but I know I wouldn’t have. At least I could have been warned, been prepared. I wish I could have someone who I saw myself in, but who did not embody all of the things I am afraid to become.

How long does the postal system take, anyway?

2009-05-09T23:52:00.002-04:00

The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping I dreamed I held you in my arms. When I awoke,dear,I was mistaken. Please don't take my sunshine away.

Sometimes it all comes crashing down upon me. The silliest things can set me off. I watched an episode of "Cold Case" earlier this evening, and it was so sad. Just absoklutely so sad. And all of a sudden, I realized what I had done. Just like I've realized it at random moments the past few months. I don't know how long it's been. Perhaps three months? Maybe even longer. I don't recall exactly. I'm afraid that by the time I get back to them, it's going to be too late.

I constantly try and tell myself that I did what was best for me, that they didn't really matter. I have to be sure that they are not important, because if they are, then I have lost more than I could ever have imagined. If biology matters, then I need them, and I have made a terrible, terrible mistake.

Another part of me is angry. Angry that I feel such dedication to them, or such a strong feeling that I should be dedicated to them. They were never dedicated to me, were they? Nope. I want to think so, but I just can't wrap my head around it. GAH

I am so sorry. I am standing my ground now because I feel I should, because I feel obligated to make it as if my decision was completely right. I can't back down, because that means I am indecisive. It isn't enough to just change my mind. It isn't enough. It can never be enough.

I miss them a little bit. Sometimes a lot. Choices, choices. I always preach about choices, and how we should consider the consequences. I guess that applies to me too. Which is why I feel so strongly that I can't go back on this. I want them to want me. I never gave much thought to the fact that I might want them.

let's go to the hills where the outlines are clear

2009-04-09T12:29:00.000-04:00

I've noticed that my entries have a tendency to revolve around a common theme. Perhaps it’s because I don’t feel comfortable expressing myself so openly in other places. I have so many outlets- so many safe and understanding outlets, yet it’s sometimes easier to just…write. Sometimes I think people get sick of hearing me bounce around the same ideas in my head over and over. A lot of the things make perfect sense to everyone around me, but I fail to really understand them.

I’ve been feeling a lot of guilt. A whole lot. Perhaps disproportionately so, but either way I can’t seem to stop these feelings of pure culpability. Sometimes I feel vindicated, free and powerful for the steps I’ve taken in my life towards feeling better about my biological situation. Other days I feel like the most selfish bitch on the face of the earth. How could I have made it all about me? I must be a real witch to hurt other people to save myself, save my feelings. It’s not really that I feel unworthy, or that I feel that I am evil. It’s more that I doubt my true intentions. I know that I felt hurt, rejected. This is definitely true. But… what if I did it for the wrong reasons? What if, because I was experiencing feelings of rejection similar to those surrounding my past, I decided to reject them before they could reject me? What sort of fucking psycho would that make me? I know people who do things like this, and I really would prefer not to be one of them. What if, in my sensitivity, I pushed people away who loved me? I know that I’ve destroyed everything we spent 8 years creating. I know that all of it is ruined now, but I can’t seem to truly regret it. I feel guilty, sure, and I question my motives, but I wouldn’t go back and change it and that scares me. The presence of empathy with an absence of the desire to regress makes me uneasy. I suppose you can’t truly regret something unless you would go back and change it. I don’t regret it. I just feel sorry about it, because it’s a sorry situation. I’m sorry that I couldn’t fix things, and perhaps that’s where this guilt is coming from. I failed to repair what had been inexplicably ruined. I couldn’t make it better, and I couldn’t convince myself that it didn’t matter. I couldn’t handle it. Some people say I should have to handle such bullshit, and I know that’s probably true. But where do you draw the line? When should I deal with something just to save someone else’s feelings? When do my needs outweigh someone else’s?

There are the days of silence...

2009-04-05T01:14:00.004-04:00

I think it's a little too late for me to go back. By telling D that I didn't want a relationship, I'm stuck in my decision. I wouldn't change it. No. I wouldn't crawl back to them like the piece of slime I feel I am. Nothing will have changed by then, and it would be ridiculous of me to go back and try and work things about because not only will it not work, I will have lost all credibility.

No, I have to stick to my guns, no matter how it hurts. Still...I can't help but think that I could have prevented this somehow. I could have done something, said something. What could I have missed? There's definitely some guilt here, as if I owed them something. I've been conditioned to think that I owe them indefinitely, for life or whatever. But I don't really believe that. My presence took out of their lives for a little while, and their chosen absence from my life took away from me(regardless of all the gains.) I think we are about even. Thanks for my life, and your welcome for those two years of peace you got before your next daughter was born. End of story, right?

I hope he never calls me. On some levels I want him to because I want to be wanted because I have never felt it from them. You can talk about self sacrificing love and selflessness until the cows come home but no one will be able to convince me fully that you can leave someone because you love them. I understand all the logistics behind it, and I can understand selflessness... but I just don't quite buy it. We do what we have to do when it serves us best. At the end of the day, we all look out first and foremost for ourselves. This rule of nature is supposed to be eradicated with parenthood but I don't believe that it is. Selfishness in this respect is easy to cover up, to hide, to excuse. Irresponsibility cloaked with good intentions is still irresponsibility. I don't place any blame, because it WAS for the best. Thank God I am who I am and my family is my family. I do not regret it, but the ends do not justify the means. Because my life worked out beautifully we can all rest on our laurels and preach about good decisions and best interests. My life is good because of the people who raised me, not because of the people who chose not too. Their loss is definitely felt, but blood is not everything and I have to remember that.

I know that I have to focus on school and my family and my friends and my life. I have so much going for me and I know that I should be thankful and I am... but I suppose on some level I still feel badly for how things ended. I guess only time will make that go away, but I sure wish it would speed up a little bit. I don't see any situation where I would ever need them again. I have all of the information I need, and I don't see a time in my life where I would be able to subject myself to a relationship. If E changes, that's one thing, but if she doesn't (I have a distinct feeling that she won't) when could I ever be mature/callous enough to not care about how she hates me? I just don't see that happening, and on some levels it makes me very sad.

I do know one thing though: we all make our decisions. D and C made theirs, D's parent make theirs, E made hers and I finally had the courage to make my own. We make our decisions and then we live with them.

There- absolved of all guilt. These next few months are going to take me farther and farther away from all this craziness. Time can't pass fast enough.

And if you sing this lullaby..

2009-04-03T02:54:00.003-04:00

I am going crazy in this little room. The more I try to ignore it the more I fuck up.I am forever guilty and at fault.

The air is finally getting warm . It is 3AM, and I wish I could stay awake until 5:30 so I could go outside and listen to the birds as they wake up. When I was little and woke up at ungodly hours of the morning, I would go into the living room and look out my living room window and listen to the silence of the house. I could hear, outside in the trees beside the house, the birds chirping and singing to the dawn. The sky was mostly dark, but just as I would begin to drift off to sleep with my head on the back of the couch, the sky would turn pink. The trees, black against the tangerine and coral of the sky behind them, were still and the grass was slick with dew and everything smelled like rain.

I would run off the school bus into my fathers arms, and my mother would make salad and pesto for dinner. I'd collect little bugs and try and save the frogs we found outside my hot tub. I had an orange hippopotamus and my mom's green apron and my dad's large rings that he got when he graduated from college. I had opera while I took a bath and played with my lion figurines in the water. I listened to Billy Joel cassette tapes and watched the fish in the fish tank swim as I fell asleep.

Now I have 100 different places and things. I am school I am an apartment in New York I am Pennsylvania I am nowhere. I wear a lot of bracelets and rings and my hair is too short and my eyes never a distinguishable color. I am dirty fish tanks and stupid memoirs and different languages. I am never what I am. I am soy milk and white dogs and windowsills with the paint peeling off . I am arugula and rabbits with people names . I am not the very blood that runs through my veins but am powerless to change it.

I am blond and I am light and I am nobody's but everyone's at the same time. I am not wanted, I was but then I wasn't and then I was and then I was again. Now you can't have me and it's all your fault even though I don't believe that. I long to be my own and my children's, but I have not found them yet. I have questions and I am sailing on an emerald bay. I am never far away. I am not weak and I do not hide every two weeks and I am not afraid. I long to have a place to crawl back to.

I love you and you and you and you. You are great with the ducks, and you with the fish. I should love you both but I cannot do so freely and without regret, and I should be in love and I should be angry but I cannot find the strength to be one or the other.

I know that once I am seen I lose my appeal.

ahhh weariness.

2009-03-11T01:05:00.003-04:00

There has never been a simpler way out. Spring break is fast approaching and I could never be more ready. I long to just blend into the familiar smells and noises and comfort of my home. Really, though, I just want to make a new home or go back to the old one, whenever it existed.

I'm embarrassed because I still can't shake it. I try to and I don't think about it but nothing helps. I tell myself that it doesn't matter and I guess on some level it doesn't. Then again at the same time it matters a whole lot and why can't I just fucking get over this bullshit.

I've sort of gotten used to the idea that I am going to need some sort of period, perhaps some sort of mourning period, to sort all of this shit out. I knew that I was going to need it but I've been so crazed with school that I haven't allowed myself to indulge.

Things have gotten easier just as I knew that they would but it doesn't seem to matter because nothing matters.

I'm tired and sleep deprived but I'm still almost happy. It's strange because I shouldn't be but I am.

I have no idea where I am going to school next year but that's okay . I tell myself that it's okay.

Nicolo Piovani makes me happy.

Light.

2009-02-15T00:16:00.002-05:00

I have finally found the perfect solution. I think. In theory, it should work. I will put one in a situation where an ultimatum is necessary. And who doesnt love the ultimatem?Who doesn't love the opprotunity to truly spill it, tell it like it is? I know that, personally, I need this. Only the next few days will tell how we proceed. I am ready for whatever comes next. I think I am ready for whatever comes next.

Ecco, facciamo cosi'. Magari.

2008-12-23T01:29:00.004-05:00

Amongst dogs and christmas shopping and tinsel and large trees and lights and suitcases and coral nail polish and chicken parmegano..lies my inability to make any decisions.

Send or don't send.

I have to think, but thinking get's me nowhere. I simply want to exist. In the midst of my empty, albeit productive day, is uncertainty and dread. All I am able to see is that it will never make me happy. I can't string together sentences.

The christmas tree is too big. The star is crunched against the ceiling, bended painfully,

Praise the odd, serendipitous world.

secondo mè "Back to life" hanno deciso di suonarlo in paradiso..

2008-11-15T00:42:00.004-05:00

I haven't written in while, and I must admit that I found a strange pleasure in the fact that this blog is so fucking old, and never changes. The colors .. I mean. The layout. I've kept it the same for all of these years. It's refreshing that some things remain the same, even if they're only in cyberspace.

I checked to see if my sister was still a bitch the other day. I suspected she would be, and was not disappointed. She twisted the knife, so we say, and I'm not entirely certain that I'll be going back for more. A broken family, I am told. But where do I even fit in? Am I included? I've been taught so long that I have not been broken from one family, but joined into another. Dare I consider the other point of view? I despise her. If only because she represents everything ugly in myself. All of my negative feelings surrounding the issue are ...manifested in her little body. I am overcome with hatred . I am livid. I am on fire. And for what? Fuck them. If only I could say it, do it, act on it.

" GO TO HELL" I want to say " Thanks a lot guys, but you've done your part." . Could I be like tigger and say " ta-ta forever?" Leave them behind, and continue on. Not all of us have the option to opt out.

Even within less dramatic scopes, I find myself unable to let go. I have to stop writing letters ,calling, etc. Why do I bother? Why am I such a fucking pussy?

I want something profoundly different. But what? I want to go away, far away, and forget all of this shit. Form new memories so the old can wither and die on their own. No euthanasia necessary. I want fields and new languages and sunsets and old stone buildings, laced with moss and glazed with moisture. I want history and music and quiet. I want the city; smog filled air with people-filled streets. Lights, smells , and honking horns. Over boiled coffee and cigarettes. Everything is so romanticized, and sexualized. Who can sort through it all?

I want you two to split. I want you to ripen. And I want myself to shrink and grow.

Witchcraft anyone?

Nothing.

2008-10-27T23:51:00.002-04:00

The smell of cherry reminds me of so many things. None of which I particularly feel like listing , or discussing in any great detail. My hands are soft in New Hampshire. What will this next year bring forth I wonder? So many things could happen, so many things could go wrong or go right. Who am I to presume which will be what?

I am tired of being how I am. Go , go , go , go , go!

Something that isn't there.

2008-09-09T01:38:00.001-04:00

I want so many things and yet I do not want any of them. I love Chester, and I love its people and I love my new friends. It is surprising to me, which with all this love floating around, that I am so utterly and strangely …unsettled. Not even that. I am pleased and content where I am, but I know that this sense of security will never last long.
I must organize my life. December I will be in Italy. I must keep my wits about me. That’s all I can say. Why do I always expect the worst? I miss Daniela and I want to go see her in Bolivia. I have the time, and the money, and I certainly have the desire. But is it going to be beneficial? Or am I going to pick open a scab that has just recently crusted over. Gross.

I want to learn Spanish. Next summer I want to go to Guatemala for a month or so to…immerse myself. This also involves money. I’m not afraid.

Oh yeah, and this blog is shit. I never say anything interesting. Even that sentence was monotonous.
I start tomorrow.

writing to no one

2008-08-12T00:48:00.002-04:00

I missed you today.
Seeing the damage you've done to others fills me with sadness ,but also an inexplicable relief that I have been spared. From you, essentially. Does that hurt your feelings?

Maybe I am feeling this way towards you because I am currently in the process of grieving other things. Picking up the pieces, finding myself, collecting and processing past moments and turning them into memories. How beautiful this is, the creation of memory. It's what we are left with when god takens something away, or so I read somewhere once. We nurture these memories, we dance with them.

The pillow you gave me is losing its scent. It smelled of really strong lavander, but now I find that I have to bury my nose in it to detect even a hint of its former glory.

I hear that you still have some invested interest in me. Occasionally you will ask about me, or ask for my number. What is it that you want?

I see others with theirs, and I am so....jealous. So envious of that which everyone I know takes for granted. I want to search in your face, and find something of myself in it. I want to crawl into your arms. I want to know that everything is going to be alright. Tell me please.

I know that it is impossible for us to have anything.

perdoname

2008-08-09T23:18:00.005-04:00

I am harboring a fervent desire to escape.

I need to stop eating, and start school in two weeks.

I want to be happy again with what I have and what I've done and what I am.

I want time to pass.

College starts soon. Not soon enough.

Something wicked this way comes..

2008-08-04T22:20:00.003-04:00

Neither good things, nor bad things, are currently gracing the crevices of my cerebellum.

Everything I am in nothing.

I'm want something to occur. But, as always, it seems that I am waiting for something that is has not intention of arriving. Distractiondistractiondistractiondistraction.

Metamorphasis.

2008-07-26T21:58:00.003-04:00

I made a promise to myself, years ago when I started this blog, that I would write only the truth. Thus far, I've done a pretty good job of it , my biggest offences being only minor omitting of truths. But hey, if I can afford to omit in my own , private blog, whose business is it but my own? And for this entry, which could create significant problems if read by certain others, I would like to start out by saying that I am very often wrong, but sometimes I am right. And it should happen that when I have a hunch about something unpleasant, it often turns out to be dead on. And so it is with a significantly heavy, bored, exasperated heart, that I will share with cyberspace what I knew was coming all along.

I have tried my best. I do everything in my power to keep things happy. To keep connections going. To keep the beast alive, so they say. They also say that you can "bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." I have found that this is true. And as the days go by, I feel my "longing" lessening. I feel things that were once SO important to me becominng less and less so. Moments and snibbits of my life that I treasured so dearly, loved so strongly, are now slowly taking on the form of memory.

I have been trying to fight it.

That part of my life is over, but I didn't want it to be. I accepted that it was done, but at the same time I wanted something new and beautiful to grow out of it. We could never have the same moments again, but maybe we could build on them. Maybe we could make it better! I wasn't going to let the miles, and later, the years , affect relationships at all.

My efforts have been reciprocated enough, but slowly I am beginning to get the feeling that I am the last one hanging on. Perhaps its timing. Familial issues getting in the way of my "readjusment" and so I have not been able to assimilate myself quite as quickly. The bounceback has been more of a ..crawl back. But I am only now beginning to consider the possibility that maybe this is how it is supposed to be.

I will continue what I am doing. Letters, emails, phone calls, etc. But at the same time I have to prepare myself for the almost inevitable. The growing apart that people do. The distance that is not getting any shorter. And of course, the only thing we can all be sure of ; the time that will surely pass. I will take these moments, these months, these weeks, these heartaches and triumphs and confusions and these loves, and I will weave them into memory. Something to look back on when I am old. Something to love and nurture from afar. It never ends you know ,this love, it only changes; takes on new form and energy and meaning as time passes.

I am a small child, looking out of my bedroom window moments before dawn, looking out over the roof of the neighbor house. To my small eyes, it is a mountain. The colors change ; blue, to purple , to pink, to orange. Sunrise approaches. The world awakes.

waterslides.

2008-07-22T22:27:00.004-04:00

I've discovered recently that my main emotions, at least lately, are those of anger and boredom. Which , in my opinion, is an absolutely deadly combination. Because when I am bored, I think, and upon doing that, I get mad.

I feel as if nothing is happening. nothing bad, nothing good, nothing nothing nothing. I am a blob of useless and ridiculous energy. In rarely accomplish anything, and when I do, I get impatient with myself for not immediately accomplishing something else. I don't know where I want to be. I certainly dont know with whom I want to be (as if that could ever be easy) , and I am fairly sure that i am going insane. Slowly. So slowly in fact that no one is noticing, because I am a good faker of sanity. I talk and walk and smile and discuss extra long sheets for my dorm room, and sicilian cooking, and dog hiccups. But really, not belonging anywhere is driving the cheese off the cracker.

I want something so good to happen. Everyone tells me how much fun they are having, how many things they are doing, and what am I doing? I want something good to happen, so all of this seems like a distant piece of nothing. I want to go to bed late, so i wake up late in the morning. So my day is half gone!

The mind has mountains.

2008-07-16T22:57:00.003-04:00

What will the summer bring forth, I wonder? Everyone , including myself, is growing up. Moving on, going away, traveling, etc. I feel left out even though I am not. I want to have a lot of fun, because with fun and distraction, time comes more quickly. And with time, perspective. Which I want very, very desperately.

Off to be social!

i am an artichoke.

Ci troverà la sera....

2008-07-12T19:42:00.006-04:00

Slowly, and painfully, I am readjusting to my life in America. No longer do I wake up in the morning, expecting to be burned intensely by the Sicilian sun. I don't cry anymore, or long to get my ass back onto the plane and speed my way back to Sicily, back "home". Home is here now, and I've accepted it. Now I need only make it real for myself. But with the beautiful reality that my life is progressing, and that I am someone new, there is also the reality that something extraordinary has ended.

My time in Italy was the most trying and beautiful of my life. Hands down. It was not all sunshine and roses and puppies, but what is? I've loved more passionately, and hurt more intensely, than ever before in my life. And so to enter that life was the best decision I've ever made. To leave it, the most heart-shattering. Its embedded in my mind. I stood with my suitcase, munching on a little apricot cake thing. I stood leaning on the bright lime green of my suitcase, listening to my friends talk about something. I cannot remember exactly what at the moment. I had cried on the bus ride there, in the dark, at 3AM, with Daniela the Bolivian girl sprawled across my lap, sick and nauseous. She told me that she was going to miss me very much and then she sort of...crawled on top of me, and slept. She slept, and I cried, because I had grown so attached to her in the past year, and the leaving part of our friendship, the only part we could have foreseen, was approaching all too quickly. And so I stood, with my suitcase, waiting. And the moment that the Bolivian's flight was called, I began to weep. She hugged , told me not to cry, and was gone. I went to my other friend from Honduras for comfort, which she gave. Crying too. And then it was my time to go. And so I did, and here I am. Re-assimilation sucks. my year is done my year is done my year is done. time to move on move on move on move on move on. Grow up grow up grow up. Learn learn learn learn learn. ANDRO' AVANTI! I will always go forward, but it gives me still a feeling of great , powerful sadness to look back. But also , one of extraordinary satisfaction and joy. Which to feel in completion is something I'll have to wait for. My friend Erica's deaf cat named Ice wants to comfort me with his fuzziness. I owe it to my soul to allow him, in all his fuzzy glory, into its crevices. Home never felt so bittersweet.

Nobody expects the spanish inquisition.

2008-07-08T01:17:00.004-04:00

I knew it was going to be rough.

I knew, and yet I wasn't prepared.

I am content, and I feel as if no time has passed.

And yet , there is a whole chapter of my life that I cannot name or catagorize or explain.

I want to wake up tomorrow morning, and die of Sicilian heat. I want to shower in my shitty bathroom in the basement, I want to go to the beach and get burnt , I want to talk to Daniela and take walks in the Piazza. I want to be there,but I know that I must be here. Not only be here, but WANT to be here, because there is no other road to take.

I have so many good things happening right now, none of which I can enjoy because I am still not 100% here.

I am very sleepy, and I still need to wash my face.

What will the next days bring forth I wonder?

Absense makes the heart grow fonder, weaker, and more prone to sentimental hooey.

my chest aches.

Between the Wanting and the Getting

2008-07-01T09:16:00.001-04:00

The reality is finally setting in.

Piano, piano. Slowly. Slowly.

Slowly, and ever so painfully.

And yet, even with the realization that I truly am leaving in 4 days, I have yet to fully..feel it.

Oh I’ve felt something, sure; pinpricks of soreness and little previews of the severe anguish that is sure to occupy the next few days of my life. But to be honest the authenticity that I will, in fact, be boarding a plane in Switzerland whose wheels will touch upon the pavement at JFK international airport in NYC is something that I cannot yet comprehend. Or perhaps I am reacting upon human instinct, and avoiding those agonizing thoughts for as long as I can.

I cannot…imagine what those last moments are going to be like when I am in Rome before I board the bus to go to the airport. That will be the moment I leave my friends from Intercultura, to embark on my long, stressful journey home.
I will cry. This is a certainty. Even as I am writing now, I feel my chest tightening, the first signals of tears that are sure to arrive. If now, I am feeling the beginnings of snuffles, what will it be like when I actually have to say goodbye? I will moan , and cry, and hug until arms are sore and I have to force myself to let go.

It will be especially difficult , I think, for me to leave Daniela, who I’ve grown to love with such fierceness. I’ve seen her every day for a year. She has been such.. a crutch in my life. A crutch in the sense that if I need something to lean on, there she is. Strong, solid, and dependable. I’ve been with her nearly every day, and it will be an adjustment to find my day, suddenly, without her in it. The attachments formed during periods of difficulty are the strongest. And so, saying “adios” to my dear Bolivian friend, is something I am dreading.

I can write, and reflect, and dread and anticipate, but nothing will prepare me for the near future. And this future that I speak of…it is coming all too fast. I am not prepared. I am not ready. And there is nothing I can do to make myself such. I am entering uncharted territory.

Saying goodbye makes me too nervous, so I’m going now to buy a suitcase with Daniela, and then we will watch movies at my house.

I am so sun burnt, you could boil an egg on my thigh.

my back is a desert, and the coyotes are tickling me with their tails.

2008-06-28T17:52:00.003-04:00

My back really itches. So much, in fact, that I want to take some sort of medieval blow torch and sear the skin off my shoulders and upper back.

dont thinkabout it dont think about it dont think about it dont thinkaboutitdontthinkaboutit.

I smell like papayas. So much in fact that I want to take a huge bite out of myself.
Not really.

I also cannot write anymore. have you noticed? every word that shoots out of my fingers is dull, and every . and , and ! and ? is meaningless and tired and trite.

scratchscratchscratchscratch....

i want the future so badly.

change makes me nervous and anxious and sad and happy and insane.

which makes getting to future a little bit difficult.

FLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have solved for "x"

2008-06-23T05:01:00.001-04:00

Dear You,

Okay, so I’ve decided that I am right, and you are wrong. You may think that this is stupid, and that I am a selfish, ungrateful, pretentious child who cannot possibly understand anything. But I understand more than you will ever know. This is the life you chose for me, and now, the life that I choose for myself. May I highlight, for you, the word “choice”? Read it. See it. Understand it. Can you feel the anger radiating off me? You will not unwittingly insult me anymore, and degrade what I have. What you gave to me. What you would have to pry from my arms if you ever thought to take . It is not second best. It is the only thing I’ve ever had. It is not inferior . It is what I want. When I am 18, I will not come to live with you. I will not undo your mistake. I will not help you work past it . I will not help you reconcile with yourself. I understand how you feel, and I cannot fathom doing what you did, but it is not my responsibility. It is not my burden to carry. I will not feel guilty for loving what I have. I will not feel sorry for you for being irresponsible. Or maybe you were responsible, and now regret what you have done and want peace. But I have no peace to give. You can accept your role in my life, as it is now. Or, you can get out of my life. Simple as that. Simple as pie. I’ve worked very hard in my life as not to feel that I am nothing. I belong where I am. Non sono una figlia di un cane, una figlia di un preservativo rotto.

Love,
Me

Surprised by Gravity

2008-06-11T03:24:00.002-04:00

I am at a loss for what to do.

I thought that I had all my answers. I had every fibre and filament inplace, ready to be built upon, ready to be rested and laid upon. But now that they have dissolved, broken into nothing, I find that I am very much without a place to sit. Without a place to breathe or relax or settle down and rest my tired, tired head.

I'm going home soon. Which fills me with a dread and a comfort that I cannot explain. There was never a debate about if it would be difficult. The only question that remains is how difficult it will be.

savemesavemesavemesavemesaveme.

the kitchen walls recieve my sigh.

I don't know what to say to anyone. I have nothing to say . There is nothing to say or to do or to make or to feel. I don't have anything to say to my parents, or to my best friend, or to my grandparents, other than how much I want to see them. I have so much to do. Italy, Rome, going home, parties, NYC, college, college college. And I should be happy. I should be excited about my future, just like everyone else is. But all the looking forward I have to do is destroying me . All I want to do is crawl into bed( I'm not even sure which...) and listen to my iPod and cry and cry and cry until my cheeks are raw with salt and whatever else is in tears, and until my chest is tight and my eyes are burning and my head is throbbing. Then I will sleep, and wake up, and find everything how I've left it. Whatever my everything is.

I comfort myself with the knowledge that affection is only a habit.

I want everything and nothing. I believe in everything in nothing. I am everything, and nothing.

IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!

2008-05-29T09:44:00.004-04:00

I can almost smell home. I can see the faces of my friends, and the fur of my dog, and the color of my bedsheets and the sound of my music. I can smell New York City. Hot dogs and sweat and exhaust fumes and those sugary peanuts that everyone eats even though no one is sure where they come from. I'm just not..quite..close enough to touch it.

School is almost done, and it is so hot.

I have never wanted to go home so badly, nor have I ever wanted so desperately to remain.

I must combine worlds. Sicily and New York. Mixed in a very large mixing bowl to become a new reality, just for me.

Selfishly, I want to combine borders, cultures, languages, and friends.

I want everything and everyone all at once, without losing anything.

I am a child. I want my comfort, and I want it now now now now now.

I want the quiet and peace of Gigi and pepas house, mixed with the craziness that is my friends. I want Daniela and Lisa to tell me to stop smelling all of the lotion in the supermarket, and I want Erica to assure me that it's okay, because it makes me special. I want to snuggle with my dog, and fall asleep watching Dr. House, but when I wake up I want to be able to walk out the door and onto the sandy beach of the Mediterranean. I want to attend school in english, but joke in italian. I want to love un ragazzo, but I want him to live in America with me. I want my parents, but I also want my host brother and sister.

I want to craftily mold my lives into one, and live in this psuedo-reality for ever and ever.

I'll enter my old world, only to mourn my former. The italian amanda is going to die (or at least be brain dead and clinging to life....) The american amanda has long been buried. The only things left are the cold, white bones. I'm gonna create a new frankenstien existance, slabbing together the new and the old parts. Heart from america. viens from italy. languages of bones stringing it all together.

I'm coping as best I can.

runneth over

2008-05-09T12:54:00.003-04:00

Nothing is important anymore .Nothing matters more than the crocus like lust that is blooming within the small intimate spaces between me and my bello, incredibile, ragazzo.

You tell me that my hair looks like tuscany, and that I smell like rock and roll.

I want to crawl into your pores and snuggle within the spaces inbetween your ribs.

We speak in whatever language suits our fancy. We joke in italian, explain complicated concepts in english, we curse in both. Ti amo, i love you, ti voglio bene, sei troppo incredibile, you get better the more I see you.

Our occasional language barrier makes us laugh. Makes us fall to the floor with tears in our eyes. We exchange pleasantries and flowers. Kisses and fingers. Nose to nose. We kiss in a language that is all our own.

Ma vaffanculo!!!!

2008-03-26T14:36:00.003-04:00

These past few days have taken a toll on my body. Really.

I haven't gotten very much sleep at all, I've had a head ache and a slight stomach ache.

And why? Because people are never what they seem.

Non è una causa morale

2008-03-02T11:56:00.003-05:00

Ignorance, in my humble opinion, is one of the humanities deadliest weapons. We could talk
(or ..blog..) all day about what it has done to our world. All sorts of other horrible things spring from “lack of knowledge”. But who is to blame for this unawareness? We laugh at the ignorant among us; but what about the people who are so only because they have never been taught? People who are ignorant about other countries, how are they to know unless they have been there, or someone has bothered to teach them?

Last night, I had the pleasure of spending time with a good friend of mine, who is another exchange student in the same town. Because her language skills sometime surpass mine, I found myself asking her how to say something was “wrong” in italian. Not in a scholastic sense, but in the sense of morally, or ethically wrong. She thought for a moment, and taught me that , in italian, we don’t use the word “sbalgio” (wrong) but instead, we say “questo non è morale…” (this is not moral). Of course, this got us talking . What, in our opinions, wasn’t moral. We talked about assisted suicide, gay marriage, and finally, abortion. Of course. We are both, surprisingly, for it. I say surprisingly only because she is from a very catholic country in South America. Anyway, she told me that if people don’t want kids, abortion is the only option. If a woman who was considering abortion decides against it, and allows her child to live with her, what kind of atmosphere is that creating for the kid?

“I didn’t REALLY want you..but..you know. Abortion is murder. Non è morale!”

I disagreed, declaring that adoption was, in fact, another option. (God.. did I really say it….)She didn’t even look at me when she replied
“ Yes but then I do not think that the child will have a good life”.

I suggested that we buy some crepes.

The Burden of Perspective

2008-02-19T10:02:00.000-05:00

I’ve been told recently about a serious flaw in my personality.

It’s not something most people would consider a flaw, of course. But since I am the queen of self- critical (at least today) I’ve decided to count this little quirk a defect in my character.

This shortcoming, measured by most as mere sociability, is the remarkable ability to be kind to nearly everyone. And I don’t mean just cordial, how-do-you-do-I-like-your-shirt genial. I mean, full on by-the –end- of –the- day- you –think- I –am- your- best- friend-genial.

Let us explore.

When I meet someone( who I don’t find objectionable..which is pretty much everyone) I rush in with full on “Amanda”. I leave nothing out. I give every aspect of my personality. My speech my music my trust my confidence my inner workings and my cheerfulness I am just as nice to them as I would be to say, my best friend. Or my dog. Or anyone else who is important to me and who deserves my affection. I am trusting, and kind, and enthusiastic. I have this ability to make people happy, and to make it seem like I really like them. And I do. This is not falseness we are talking about here. I’m genuine when I say that I like nearly everybody, and I do my best to express my fondness by being warm.

But here, my dear friends, is where the quandary arises.

I do not enter a relationship with caution. I am not a fly on the wall, looking good and hard at the situation before putting myself into it. I do not observe, or evaluate or inquire. The only thing that will make me “step back” a little,(less friendly less trusting less open) is a slight on the other persons behalf. I am wholehearted and passionate and unquestioning until someone gives me a reason not to be. Thus opening myself to inevitable disillusionment.

I give everyone everything I’ve got. I jump head first into friendships and relationships, hoping only for something equally as warm and inviting waiting for me on the other side. Sometimes, however, people don’t respond in quite the way I expected, and I smack onto marble. Or concrete. Or some other chilly, hard substance. They do not respond with the same level of loyalty, or correspond with my expectations. They take my kindness for granted; mistake my gentleness for naivety, or worse, weakness. I become unacknowledged, as everyone is so confidant that I will remain by their side, regardless of how I am treated. And because I didn’t look both ways before I jumped into this swimming pool of closeness , I am left laying at the bottom; skull cracked, brains and plasma seeping out through every broken bone.

Vietato agli animali

2008-02-11T12:19:00.000-05:00

I am caught in a strange web between extreme happiness and extreme despondency. I've been tangled so long, and no solution has come up, that I find I am tired from the struggle.

I am living here, basically on my own. I function here in a way that I have never had to function before. I am beginning to miss my friends, and my family and my pillow and my bed and my dog..and all the things that have always been so ...comfortable..to me.

My brain is cloudy and my nose is stuffy and my eyes are hurting.

5 more months. An experience is an experience. Nobody said it would be a jar of roses.

I feel like that isn't quite the expression I was looking for.

I can speak Italian.

Gentle rain from a cloudless sky.

2008-01-26T10:58:00.001-05:00

I can recall and relive any given moment of that evening.

I remember being nervous. Making mindless smalltalk with the person sitting next to me.
"Don't worry" Paulo said " You'll be able to handle it"

Sure. Great.

I remember staring out the window, watching the sparse trees go by just a little bit too fast.

You called his cell phone.

"Where are you?"you ask. Voice frantic. Anxious. "Two minutes away ", we said. "We're turning into the apartment complex right now."

I remember how my heart raced as my confidence wavered.
Maybe this was a bad idea. I bet I could stay here in the truck, and tell everyone it's all a big mistake.

"I'm not ready! I'm not ready! I can't do it! Don't make me! "My brain is screaming.
But outwardly, I'm silent. I could just turn and run, everyone would understand.

Instead, I get out of the car.

I can't believe I'm actually doing this. How many years has it been? And now, to resurface it all. It seems insane. And yet, I keep walking. I figure I have another 2 or 3 minutes until we locate which apartment is yours. 2-3 more minutes to prepare myself.

No such luck

I avert my gaze from the ground, and there you are, walking hurridly towards us. At least, I think it's you. You say something, and all of a sudden, recognition slides across my face. At this moment, I can't remember exactly what you said to me, as you rushed over for the longest hug I've ever experienced in my life. Emotion sometimes dulls all of the other senses, I think. But I suppose it doesn't matter anyway.

After the neverending hug, we are ushered into the front door. Susie is there, so are her kids. Nonna as well. Nana rushes in for the kill. Another hug. Thankfully not as long as the last one.

We awkwardly sit on the couch. Paolo sits in between us. I relax, thankful for the buffer. Nonna speaks first." You know, I used to call you snow baby. Your skin and hair were so white. You got all the German in us. I bet you burn easily"

I do.

I nibble on generic brand mint cream oreos. We talk about apartment prices, childhood antics, and school. Anything to avoid whats actually important.There's an elephant in the room. He's big, and angry. Just waiting to surface.

And suddenly, he does.

I hear whimpering from a few seats over. Paulo whispers to you. You nod, and tuck your hair behind your ear. Paulo gets up, and you inch closer and closer to me. I stare at my feet. You falter, but only for a moment, as you start to stroke my hair. I can't take it anymore. Paulo comes back from the kitchen, drink in hand, and notices his seat has been taken over. He sits on the far end of the couch.

You smile and me, or at least I bet you do. I still refuse to make eye contact.

" We're all here, sweetheart. A family."

I feel a lump in my throat, one that is roughly the size of the previously mentioned elephant.

You tell me about your hair. It was longer once, but lately you just don't have the time to take care of such lengthy strands. You cut it a few months back, but you miss it, and plan to re-grow.

Half of me wants to run out the door,and never come back. The other half wants to dive into your arms, and never let go. It's time to leave, Paulo says. We have to meet some people for dinner. You rush into the bedroom, and bring out a little box. It's contents? A little stuffed pillow. Covered in blue satin, with butterflies. It smells like lavender. Or something. I think it's the kind you put in with your underpants, to make them smell nice.I thank you, give brief hugs, and I start to leave. I turn back only once.
You look different than I remember. You look, older. Slightly pudgy. You're hair is still auburn, and you have enough freckles to mimic the constellations. You're wearing a black shirt, and dark blue jeans. Black isn't flattering to such a light skin tone. Someone should tell you. But, that someone isn't me.You hug me one last time. " My baby" you say. Barely an audible whisper. For a second, I embrace this. I buy into it. It's comforting, this bond we are supposed to have. I want to stay with you longer. Listen to you talk. Listen to your stories,your dreams, your life. I want to understand all of this shit. I want to hear it from you! Tell me ! Please, please give me some sort of peace!

But as always, you don't deliver.We ride to the restaraunt in silence. I am overwhelmed. Disenchanted with your reality. Heavy with despondency.

" How are you?" Paulo asks.

Fine.

I open the card that came with my gift.

"Happy belated birthday. Love, Mommy"
The letters seem to dance across the page. As if to gain my attention, if only for a moment.

I shoved it back into the envelope.

to voglio tanto tanto bene.....proprio..

2008-01-14T12:02:00.000-05:00

As I sit here in an internet cafe, sipping vanilla tea and trying to warm ny feet against the heat of the radiator in front of me, I can't help but wonder if I am drinking this beverage to drown out the last bit of emotion I have left in myself.

I stand amazed today, that my life, no matter how confusing and unbearable and insane it sometimes can be, is just what it looks like. Life. I am living my days in between a state of homesickness, and the feeling that I never want to go home again. Part of me wants to return to the states, and snuggle back into the life of my peers. A life of dorm rooms and scholarships and college acceptances and finals. The other part of me wants to buy an apartment near the sea, and live this new life for the rest of my days, speaking any language I want, switching from Italian to English as I please.
“Heyyy whats up! Come stai? Tutto posto? I’m so happy for you! Ti piace tua famiglia? Mine is pretty good. Everyone has their moments I suppose. Tu vuoi andara per pizza opurre.. qualcosa? Ho fame! You too? “

It comes so naturally to me know, this cambiarmente of lingua. This change of tounge. This life of being a foreigner.

I search for comfort in the most obvious of places, but keep coming up empty handed.

I wonder what I must do to live the life I've so maticulously weaved for myself.

Sorry I Missed You

2007-12-12T15:35:00.000-05:00

It’s remarkable how time has the ability to change everything. Memories fade, people who were once important fade into your history. Pain you thought would never heal slowly turns into nothing more than a sore spot, flaring up again when something, anything, triggers your memory. Our lives, our beings, are cast by our experiences. No individual is the same. Everyone is inimitable. This seems trite; a message drilled into our heads as little children in an attempt to raise self esteem, and convince us all that we are as special as our mothers think we are. This phrase, while stale and tired, is completely true. It is a fact that our life occurrences shape us in every single way. Every decision we make, every thought we think, every moral fibre intertwined within us, is there because of something else. Some determining factor. If you look deep enough, really look, you can find a reason for nearly everything you do.
Because I am slowly developing independence, I have been trying desperately to find some time to myself. And I’ve succeeded. I am finding time to sing, time to write, and time to think. This time, these treasured moments of solitude and self reflection, have shown me things I never knew I possessed. Neil’s meticulousness and demand for sincerity in all meaningful relationships. Gloria’s music and passion for history. Dave’s easy going manner, and respect for all those who are deserving. Kathleen’s emotional unsteadiness . Her ability to read people, even if it hurts to interpret. I am all this, and more. A muddle of people. Of blood and exterior influence. Neither more important than the other, but all imperative in making me who I am.
I love you. Despite everything. Really. I tell people I don’t care about you, that you are undeserving of my affection, and therefore you mean nothing to me. You have failed, I tell everyone, and you are nothing in my life anymore. I cringe when compared to you, and I unleash my emotional claws on anyone who is brash enough to make the connection. But inside, I am soaring. Happy to have a connection with anyone. Even if all you’ve never done anything to deserve it. The fragility of our relationship (if it even exists anymore) is profound .We care, but we don’t ask how one another is doing. We love, but we will never see each other again.
Happy birthday.

Sono libero

2007-10-16T14:54:00.000-04:00

I have decided that I am never coming home.
Perhaps you are waiting for a further explanation. She has to be joking. She is going to use that phrase and cleverly blend it into a metaphore to express how much she is enjoying herself.

Except, I'm not. I never want to come back. I never want to leave this Island. I'll stay here forever. I'll become perfect in the language. I'll marry an Italian. Have lots of tan babies. I'll teach English. I'll do whatever it takes. I have never been so completely happy in my life. Perhaps its because nothing matters anymore. I am who I am. I am not tied down by preordained misconceptions. I have friends I have family. I have the sea. I have my wonderful bed. I have freedom, responsibility, and new expectations. I have life, and I love it.

For the first time in my life, I am uninhibited. Who I am is not tainted by irresponsibility and sin and trash and stupidity.

I am only me.

Don't run off in the pouring rain.

2007-10-14T08:52:00.001-04:00

I don’t even talk about you anymore.
Invariably, you come up in conversation. But once again I feel those pangs when I mention your name.
Why aren’t I over this?
I thought we were over this?
Everyone misses theres. “We’re so close!” they say.

Is it cultural, or are we missing something? Something besides the obvious; eachother.

Whats wrong with us?

life is so good i am waiting for the downfall

2007-09-26T15:27:00.003-04:00

As I sit here in Sicily, my life is unfolding around me. Everything is good. Isn’t that odd’ How many people can say that there lives are completely worry free. Everything is happy. I am happy. It is blissful to feel as if nothing is wrong.

What have I accomplished? What have I made of myself? I am here, in Italy. Learning Italian. Bathing in the meditteranian sun. My white skin is slowly turning bronze. My blonde hair is becoming lighter as the sun bleaches and sparkles my dark golden locks. My face is clear, my mind is free. What have I done to deserve this? Neinte.

I talked to Dave yesterday. He bought Ellen a truck. And a credit card for gas money. And he pays for the insurance.

She’s 14 years old.

He calls it being a good parent. I call it being a stupid ass who is going to spoil his daughter right into the fiery inferno of hell.

Ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

Arrivaderci amore, ciao.

I’ll wait here to cheer you on? I’m tired of waiting.

life is so good i am waiting for the downfall

2007-09-26T15:27:00.001-04:00

2007-08-31T13:24:00.001-04:00

This Sunday is going to be amazing.

Conditional Surrender

2007-08-27T21:28:00.000-04:00

Since I was a little girl, I’ve dreamed of contacting my biological family again. Surely, my 6 year old brain thought, they must miss me? They must wonder, they must speculate how I’m doing? What I look like now? What I enjoy, and find objectionable? For as long as I can remember, I’ve been in this mindset. I was sure I was missing something. I was envious of all the other kids. In preschool, while all of the parents would sit around the playground and chitchat about the day their children were born, I would sit with my mom as she shifted awkwardly. She didn’t even know me when I was that age. I could sense the discomfort etched in her face, the longing to just be like everyone else. I could relate t to that feeling.
I hated telling people. When my childhood friends would ask why I don’t look like my parents (at all…actually) I would shrug it off, and tell them I looked like my Irish grandmother. My parents even repeated this lie to people who were nosy. When I was finally gutsy enough to actually tell people, their questions were just as I had feared.
“Were you in an orphanage?” they would squeal, eyes rotund with wonder “ Why didn’t anybody want you?”

Such are the scattered memories from my early days. Not that this obsessed my life . Goodness no. I was regular in so many ways. But there has always been something..different in my way of thinking.

I dreamed about how wonderful it would be to see my mother again, and to finally have someone who I could relate to. Someone who would instinctually be like me. Someone who, I fantasized, would love me in such a profound way that I would marvel how I ever lived without her.

When I sought my mother out, she was just as emotional as I had expected. She cradled me (I was 14...so this was highly inappropriate.) She cried, and tucked my hair behind my ears. “My baby, my baby” she kept murmuring. In the perfect world, we would have fallen madly in love with one another again. We would share letters and phone calls, making up for lost time. I would feel wanted, accepted. She would finally do what she was supposed to.

In reality, I found a drunken immature drug addict who loves only herself. I found a father who, despite his good intentions, cannot separate love from discipline. I found a sister who just wants me to get the hell out of her life, so she doesn’t have to share any of what she has worked so hard to maintain.

The disappointment weighs heavy on me. Heavier than anyone will ever know.

I don’t know whether it is the fact that I’m getting older, or the fact that I am too disappointed to bounce back, but I am finally at the point where I can attempt to let it go.

What I was searching for was closer than I had ever imagined.

You Underestimated Me, Hun.

2007-08-27T09:54:00.000-04:00

Skipper is the cutest thing in the universe.

And everything is falling into place exactly as it should.

For once, I don't feel guilty for being happy.

I am doing what I am supposed to.

I'M THE FIRST ONE DAVE.

It's all ending with me.

2007-08-26T09:44:00.000-04:00

I've been doing a lot of relfection.( Uh oh! I smell a long post) I often do so when I know that my life is about to change drastically. As it is about to do.

Perhaps the biggest perk about leaving the country in 10 days, is that I don't have to interact with my psychopath sister and her father who is in denial about her level of psychoneuroses anymore. When I started contact with them again ( seven years ago..wow), everything was great. I felt so..complete. I felt like I knew what I had been missing all those years. I talked to my mother again, which was emotionally draining and fucking scary as hell, but I'm glad I did it. She gave me some real insight without meaning to. I realized not only am I so happy I have nothing to do with her, but I will never, ever be her. Which quite frankly, I am so relieved to know. I give the woman credit, because I could never do what she does. I could never live with myself knowing that people needed me, and I was powerless to help them. I could never willingly desert the ones who are supposed to be most important to me. She has skewed my whole view of motherhood. I read and hear that your children are the most important thing in the world to you. You'd do anything for them. They are the core of your being. This really..messes with me. I won't lie, I think about it from time to time. And I realize there is always going to be something I am missing. Something that I can't put a finger on, but I know is present.While her unique absence in my life is debilitating, however, it has also made me appreciative.

I'm leaving to study abroad for a year! Fucking take that Ellen you dumb bitch! You are absolutely such a failure, and I hate you more than you can ever fathom. Fuck fuck fuck you! Go hang out with your ponies baby, because they are going to be the last thing thats going to tolerate your bullshit.

I felt every ounce of me screaming out. It's so hard to do what I must.

Lazy days and sexual cats

2007-08-24T17:27:00.000-04:00

I spend my days laying in bed, listening to audio books on my iPod. Occasionally, I'll get up and go for a run, or I'll write a college essay or two. But mostly, I listen. My kitten, Mozart, loves these moments. It is exactly what he loves to do. He spends most of his day sleeping alone up on the rocking chair in my mothers study, so when he has the chance to sleep near me on my comfortable bed, he's all for it. He purrs and nuzzles and does all of those sensual things that cats do. I cover my face with blankets and pillows, and I sit with my little iDog. Yes. I have an iDog. It's a little stuffed dog (that my dad insists is a bear) that has built-in speakers in him. You plug in your iPod to a little wire that trails out of his back, and snuggle/listen all you please.

Today has not been noteworthy in the slightest. I do all the things I always do. It seems a little strange that my life is about to change so drastically, when everything seems so banal.

12 more days. What will the year bring forth I wonder?

The Unbearable Lightness

2007-08-22T22:26:00.000-04:00

Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the skies,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us

Everything I write is psychobabble.
Nothing makes sense. I struggle to string together coherent sentences, but nothing seems to flow.
I chew on the inside of my cheek, bleeding out the wickedness that settles on my tongue.
I am tired, I am anxious, I am ecstatic, I am old.

All I do is watch reruns of House , drink elderberry/pear water, and stress until my brains ooze out every crevice of my face.

Everyone tries to please me, unaware of the fact that I live to please others.
Everyone tries to coddle and appease me; but nothing has any effect.

When I was little, Gale would set in front of me various artistic substances. Clay, scented markers, watercolor pencils, and crayons. She would talk to me, pick apart my brain with her bony little fingers, as I drew ponies and faeries and butterflies and cats.

"Why wont you talk to me?" she would ask. "You can tell me things.You can trust me "

I would ignore her. I would scribble on my paper, crunch the crayons; mash the clay between my 8 year old fingers. I would babble on and on about dinosaurs and pinwheels and the ducks at central park. I would tell her about my teacher, Mrs. Alfano and how she had unusually small feet.

I claim to be older now, well past my childhood embarrassment.

But every time someone mentions the word, I get acutely aware of my surroundings. I am mortified. I could die of shame. I keep it a secret though. I just become quiet and subdued, ignoring the pain that tears through my ribcage.

crack, crack, crack,crack, crack.

Big birds flying across the sky,
throwing shadows on our eyes.
They leave us helpless.

Happy Borthday

2007-08-20T11:43:00.000-04:00

I have a new baby sister.
Which, is nice. I guess.
I won't actually meet her, but it's still a nice thing to think. At least, I like to think that she will be more like me than like Ellen. I'm happy for her in the sense that she is fortunate enough to get the hell out before she realizes that she is trapped.

Trapped trapped trapped trapped. Like one of those cute little fox's who has to gnaw its own leg off to free itself.

No matter what she does, she'll be stuck.

Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't matter how much love is showered upon you. It always haunts you. It always fucking hurts. It sends a pang of grief over you every time you go to someones house. Every time you meet someone who reminds you. Every time someone enters your life, and every time someone leaves it. Rejection is sensitive, you are an alien.

I am a fox. I chew and chew and claw through sinew and flesh and finally bone. The marrow rots my teeth and burns my lips. But I keep going, afraid of what will happen if I stop.

Happy birthday.

2007-08-16T21:44:00.000-04:00

I'm leaving in like..two weeks. And for some reason I am feeling something completely inappropriate.

I am anxious and sad.

I'm excited to go on a plane and pack and get into Rome and have a completely fun and enriching experience. But I'm totally abandoning my comfort zone, and that makes me completely depressed and scared.

I'm not going to have any friends for a while. I won't be able to just call up Erica. I'm afraid I'm going to get there and then be completely sad. And cry. And write letters to people.
Looking back, I've moved a couple of times. So I'm used to relocating. But it's always such a big change. Change makes me so nervous.

I am actually ready to throw my hands up and be like "FORGET IT! I'm staying here and going to LVPA"

Except I can't because we spent money and my parents would get angry and I would miss out on something that is supposed to make me mature and make me more worldly.

i'm such a fucking pussy.

i miss you every single day.

Beating the Bounds

2007-08-15T14:08:00.000-04:00

I spent the better part of this morning curled up on one of the reclining chairs, tissue box in hand, watching TNT and musing about how wrong everyone is.

I was told today, by an ever well-meaning source,that I am the same as Ellen. I am the same as Kathleen, and I am the same as himself.

if only that was even remotely true. I am not some primitive beast. I have never been arrested for assault. I have never so much as beat anyone up. I've never had a drug problem ,or an alcohol problem. I am not a stupid selfish spoiled little bitch who doesn't give a shit about anybody else.I will never go to jail.I will never snort cocaine. I'm not even sure if you CAN snort cocaine. I am not shallow, and I certainly am not Ellen Dave or Kathleen.

You're happy your a Rodger, because the Rodgers are crazy and fun?

Well I'm happy I'm not a Rodger anymore, because you're all too fucked up for me.

Women in Cacti with a Curled Up Rat!

2007-08-14T09:07:00.000-04:00

I have no interest in men.

Now wait wait. Don't get the wrong idea.

I'm not a lesbian or anything.

I just simply, do not have any interest in dating, or getting married.

Isn't that fucking strange as hell?

I see Erica who texts Alex 287410412412's a day. She loves talking to him! And its clear he loves talking to her to. A lot of my friends are dating, and they fall head over heals hopelessly in love with some grubby, horny teenage boy. Then, once the relationship ends, (as it always does), they are devastated. Crushed.

When I date, it's only because someone has asked me, and I have nothing better to do.

We go to a movie, we sit on my bedroom floor, we "sit" on my bed ( or whatever you personally call it, I'm discreet) and then a few months later, we break up. No. We don't even break up. That would require actually saying something. With myself, we always just end up... not talking anymore. Occasionally, he'll drunk dial me. And I'll laugh, and tell him to go to bed/hell. Depending on how much I liked him.

I don't care about dating. I don't mind "being alone". I have other interests, other passions.

But you know the weirdest thing of all?

I don't care if I get married or not. Now off the bat that may not seem too odd, because plenty of my friends don't want a husband. They want to be CEO's of companies! Sex in the City wannabes! Or they want to be in the military, and "kick some Saudi Arabian- Iraqi anyonewhoisntwhiteandhasdifferentvalues ass"

Not me. I don't care if I ever find a husband, but I want children. At least one, but most likely two. I would rather just walk myself down to a sperm donation place , and get me a turkey baster and some smart-man sperm. It would have to be someone intelligent, like a med student from Yale who donates sperm to pay for his ridiculously expensive tuition.

If someones falls into my life, so be it. I'll go with that. It's not like I'm asexual, and I'm not attracted to anyone. It's just not a priority. I want a baby(ies) and a good job. I want to be a mother and an educated woman. And I want a dog. A dog is a must.

2007-08-13T14:49:00.000-04:00

Things are moving at the speed I want them to.

College applications, recommendations, and transcripts are all falling perfectly into place.

I am getting in all my visits with friends before I leave.

I email my host family regularly,and they claim " Già di conoscerti da tempo! "
"We feel as if we have known you for some time now!" . Basically

Isn't that tender?

I want to leave. I keep packing, slowly adding things to my suitcase.

Time is dragging.

2007-08-09T09:47:00.000-04:00

It's impossible for me to have an altercation with my parents without at least one of them psychoanalyzing me.

" But again, truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty you need only look into a mirror. "

2007-08-06T17:44:00.000-04:00

The anger is poisoning my mind, and forcing me to think about it far more than I should.. so in a pathetic attempt to release some of it, I decided I had to write.

I have a sister named Ellen, who hates the very core of me.

Until very recently, I was extremely hurt by this. I hadn't really done anything offensive towards her. I let it control me. I pondered and obsessed over what I had done wrong. I couldn't figure out why her hatred was so strong. I was her sister! I was so nice to her! And she saw me extremely infrequently, so I figured that she was just being immature.

But, as I've gotten a little older, and I've experienced even more of her constant attempts to fuck with my mind, I have developed a new and slightly alarming emotion concerning her. I despise her. I want to beat the shit out of her.

I have never hated anyone so thoroughly in my entire life.

I have had people annoy me, anger me, and even piss me off. But she enrages me. She manipulates everyone around her, and her jealously has made me her constant project.

I am very easily hurt, and she knows that.

And better yet, her father (also mine biologically..sadly enough) lets her do it! He acknowledges her behavior, and yet continues to do nothing! He tries to smooth things over... claiming that we are blood sisters and should love eachother. B it doesn't work! I let things go, I never retaliate, and all i get for it is a HUGE smack in the fucking face. I'm tired of tolerating her constant abuse because " I'm older, and I should". I have run out of excuses for her! I hate her. Shes is the SPITTING IMAGE of our fucking low life no good mother. Who I hate almost as much as I hate Ellen. Almost. Not quite.

She feels no love for me, and I certainly no longer feel any for her. Instead of love, I feel uncontrollable rage that is absolutely so exhausting to keep under wraps. If she fucks with me one more time, I don't think I will be able to control my self.

If she wants her family and her father all to herself, I am totally willing to arrange that.

It certainly is not worth this aggravation.