Emotional Interlude

I think at this juncture it’s an appropriate moment to break down the fourth wall for a post, as I think I need to explain some of my thoughts and my motivations for what I’ve been doing and hope I continue to do in this blog.

There are three important points to keep in mind in all that I share, and I plan to explain my current understandings of these things.

First, I’m not letting my parents go, even while searching for my biological parents.
Second, I’m entitled to have emotions (every single one), and rant, if I need to, especially given how I have been handling and how I will continue to handle the news about my adoption.
Third, I’m traveling a road in which I’m stuck between the rational and irrational, as well as logical verses emotional.

I point these things out because I’ve been asked by numerous people a variation of the following question:

“After all this, will you ever speak to your parents again?”

I’m shocked by this, first and foremost, because that comment’s basis involves the same reasoning and logic used by my parents in order to not tell me about my origins.

My mother might deserve to never speak to me again for so many reasons. But, as I have previously said, even with a soul as shattered as hers is, the love she offered me was freely and liberally given to me. I regularly tell my students that I will not ask them to do something which they are incapable of doing, so why would I expect less from my own mother? I cannot expect her, in all her limitations, to have ever told me when it was beyond her because I was, and am, her son.

My father does not deserve the full scope of my ire either. He has always attempted to treat me well, in his way. Not only have so many people reached out to tell me that he spoke with regularity about telling me, but he has repeatedly reached out to talk to me in this maelstrom of madness. His choices are not be the choices I would’ve made in terms of what he said in this tumult (I’m well aware that what my father has sent me is not really appropriate, and much more about him), but his heart was, and is, in the right place.

I will offer this: if you have thought that I would wish anything bad to happen to my father you are mistaken. I do not wish or plan to cut him off and never see him again. I might need space now and then, but he’s an inextricable part of my life. Cutting him off would be like attempting to remove a part of what helped make me who I am. It would be akin to the impossibility to remove my love of coffee.

Much like my earlier statements about not changing who I am, my parents are always going to be my parents. No matter what, they raised me. That detail influenced me in ways I can’t begin to imagine, and it will always be through them that I came to view the world. I’m incredibly thankful that they raised me and gave me so much, even if I can, in retrospection, see their many flaws and limitations. Additionally, in how I was raised, the idea that there could be more people in my life, who could potentially add something, is a blessing, not a curse.

But the question of will I maintain a relationship with my parents is also, singlehandedly, the only thing that has caused me to feel the rage that so many apparently seemed to think they would be feeling. Fury like no other builds in me when I am asked this question, for the exact same reason it flared when my father told me he was scared to tell me. It’s not a choice between my parents or a search for my biological ones. That’s a false dichotomy, and unfair to everyone involved.

I repeat: I’m not, nor have I been, mad at the lack of knowledge concerning what was and was not shared with me about my background. I’m hurt by it, but not angry. I’m angry because the question about whether or not I will abandon my parents implies that I’m a petulant child who will run from the people who love me (even if that love is imperfect) and, more importantly, stings that much more because there’s someone who thinks that I am capable of running from my family.

I am horrified that someone could and would think so little of me that I would turn my back on the people who loved me so much that they sought out a child, were lucky enough to find me and adopt me, raised me to be a compassionate adult, and did everything they were capable of to show me they cared.

Ultimately, the main conclusion I’ve had in this month is that I’m still me. Though the ingredients are drastically different than what I thought them to be, the outcome is still the same. My genetics teamed with my experience, thus far, have shaped me into who and what I am. My parents are part of my experience. I would never consider giving up one moment of my experience, because it would change who and what I am.

And I really like who I am.

Finding out I’m adopted doesn’t really change anything. It can’t take away my accomplishments, or dreams, or favorite things. My memories of the places I’ve visited, the movies I’ve watched, the friends I’ve made, all of these things are not impacted by this revelation at all. In fact, I’m even more proud of all I’ve accomplished, though I didn’t know, because, even more so, I made my life happen the way it has. Again, my parents were, and are, a part of that. They will also continue to be a part of that (that is, if my mother was still in the picture. But my father still is, so why wouldn’t he be a part of my life?)

I suppose that I’ve always believed that biology creates the starting formula for everyone’s individual make up, but, in the spirit of the tabula rasa, what you write on your blank slate helps shape the blueprint into a more fully-realized person.  Therefore, my story wouldn’t have been the same without my parents, my friends, the places I went to school, the countries I visited, the things I’ve done. Any number of situations could have equally affected the outcome of who I now am.

I’m an amalgam of both what I am and what I’ve experienced. And my parents are part of that experience. Therefore, being adopted ultimately changes nothing

Yet it changes everything too.

Which brings me to the second point.  I’m allowed to feel. More importantly, I’m allowed to feel each and every emotion, and, just so you know I’m in the throes of many, simultaneously. So far, I’ve been describing all the different emotions I’ve been experiencing, as they happened. I’m acutely aware that over the past week’s posts I’ve gotten increasingly frustrated, annoyed, and angry.

You probably would too if you found out after 33 years you were told a lie repeatedly and numerous people (read: thousands of people) were not only complicit in, but helped to perpetuate, this lie.

Part of my emotional turbulence is centered around the realization that I must now reevaluate many different aspects of my life, beginning with the people who I believe have loved and cared for me throughout my existence. What am I reevaluating? In the topsy-turvy world in which I now live, I have been forced to ask myself the following questions as a result of finding out about my adoption:

Do these people actually care about me, or was it the adoption?
Did they initially pretend to care about me because I was adopted, and are they still pretending they care?
Did they initially pretend to care about me because I was adopted, and have they developed genuine feelings?

Could they really have cared about me, if they knew and didn’t share anything with me?

Could I expect them to have shared anything with me, if they truly do care?

And, most importantly,

How could anyone who actually knows me think I would abandon them, when I would do anything for the people I care about?

These questions are mostly irrational and concern my third point, as it is the intersection of rational and emotional thought where I find myself living these days. I honestly feel as if I’m now only able to look at the world through 3D lenses. You know, the ones where one eye’s lens is red and one lens is blue? Through them, the world’s landscape can now be seen as red through one eye, blue through the other, as well as simultaneously purple together. My rational mind is attempting to make sense of this new way of seeing the world in three colors concurrently, but the only answers are only found through asking (often difficult) questions.

But the problem is, while I understand, rationally, that the above questions are likely not true, because the last one is even being asked (and it is so deeply connected to who I am fundamentally as a person), I must ask all the others. If, through some far-fetched and unlikely possibility that even one of these questions is answered in the affirmative, then all of them could be.

This possibility feeds my struggle in understanding everything, because the mere fact that I have to ask these questions leads me down the path of darker emotions where I am hurt and lonely and confused and betrayed, and those are not emotions with which I wish to live. I know they exist, but I’m working to accept and dismiss them so that I can move forward. Until I do, I can’t repair anything.

And all I want is to heal and grow.

However, that is incredibly, unbelievably, undeniably difficult.

And, what complicates my emotions and my experience is when people suggest to me that I should give my dad a break. You’re asking me to ignore myself, and my needs, my emotions, and my truth, and put one, both, or all of the people who helped to orchestrate this nightmare before myself, so that everything can be normal again.

Except nothing will be truly normal again for me. And it’s far too much to ask me to ignore my pain right now.

You all seem to forget, like my father and mother, so many of you knew my truth. You knew it far before I did. And you have all had time to process this information for 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 33 years.

I have had less than a month.

Allow me the same graciousness I have offered to my parents and to you, in terms of not turning my back on anyone, and sympathize with the frustration and rage and sadness and betrayal and loss for being forced to change my awareness of the world I thought I knew my place in.

I need everyone to accept that I am currently confused and frustrated, especially those who have been in my life since the beginning of this saga. I do not blame anyone for what has unfolded, nor am I furious with anyone for not sharing a secret that was not theirs to share. But I am asking you to please remember that I’m still a person who has been forever altered by this information. A person who now knows the words of the origin story, but not the alphabet in which it was written.

Yet even knowing that, I refuse to see myself as a victim, or the lead role in some sort of Greek tragedy (I suppose we honestly have no idea what kind of tragedy this might be). So I will do my best to continue to focus on the good and pure things in my life, and allow them to help me emphasize the best parts of my experience and my journey. The light and love that has been shared with me by so many has helped me more clearly see my truth.

But remember, after years of living in the shadow of these lies, I’m also allowed to bask in the truth. And more importantly, I’m allowed to relay that truth to the world, because I adamantly refuse to not cast my own light onto this situation.

That light will continue to be reflected and refracted back toward me and those whom I love, and it allows me to know, without question, I am loved and that I am stronger than I ever imagined.

I’ve accepted that everyone has their own limitations; but other people’s limitations don’t define me. In fact, I refuse to be limited by anyone’s expectations anymore. That’s why I’m writing all of this.

My story is different.

I may not write everything correctly, I may make some of you uncomfortable, and I may share things in a way which makes it seem that I’m doing fine.

Let’s be kind, and remember that the truth can hurt. But if we walk in the light, at least we’ll see where we’re going…

Together.