Reactions and Revelations

I woke up and began to cook breakfast for everyone in the house. Again, I’m a fairly practical person. Everyone needed to eat. I like to cook. Being adopted doesn’t stop basic biological functions. It also didn’t stop the need to attend our friend’s wedding, which was lovely, but, I was unsurprisingly distracted. I became more so, when, upon arrival to the reception, I found my name card. It informed me my seat would be at table 12.

I like the number 12. There’s religious significance (I grew up in a stricter, evangelical church environment). Most of my friends have also been placed at table 12.  I joined them, and walked to table 12.

All the seats were filled at table 12.

So, I sat at table 13. A great, super lucky number for someone who has developed slight abandonment issues as a result of finding out he was adopted the day before. It seemed appropriate.

At the table were two friends from my school. Also, there were two younger couples. Next to me there were two empty seats. I soon realized that these were, in fact, “empty” seats, as they were actually occupied by toddlers who belonged to the two couples at our table.

Toddlers. Great. Because I wasn’t fixated on how as a child I was potentially given away. Nope. Not at all.

Also, children cry. I wasn’t really ready to cry, so being around small, crawling children who might cry heightened my anxiety about feeling things.

So, the wedding was really nice, given that there was a potential tropical storm slated to hit the coast where it was taking place.  The sun beamed, the music played, and I made small talk with the appropriate people.

I was pleased with myself for not asking every person of a reasonable age “Are you my mother?” or “Are you my father?”

Don’t get me wrong—I wanted to. I really wanted to grab the microphone and tell everyone my saga, and make them share my pain.

I didn’t want to ruin my friend’s wedding—though she had a second planned in New York the following week. I felt it might be in poor taste to upstage the bride and groom on their special day.

I furiously texted a few people. One of which, was my friend M. Since she’d been with me, digitally, through my break-down the day before, I felt it was appropriate to enlist her assistance. Her family was practically mine. I consider her parents to be like extra parents to me. Therefore, where else would I go to get support?

So, with M’s help, we organized a cookout for the next day, ensuring that her entire family would be there. I even thought to invite my best friend, C, for additional support.

The remainder of our trip was uneventful, and even pleasant. Upon arrival to the rental, we even facetimed a friend, J, just to see her reaction to the news. It was totally worth the facetime experience just to see her speechlessness and facial expressions.

Throughout the evening, we laughed, and talked, and I realized how thankful for my friends I was.

However, I also thought about additional things which bothered me. The first one being that because of this insanity, I would have to come out to people again (yes… again. I’m gay. You didn’t pick up on that from the name of this blog?). Not only that, but I’d been lying to people about who I am.

Well, not lying exactly. Lying implies that there was a knowing consent to avoid the truth, which was clearly not the case. But, for example, I begin each semester by sharing with my students my background. As an English teacher who was better at Math in school, I find it important to emphasize that the different perspectives we might have assist in the greater understanding of a given situation or reading. In telling my students I was ½ British and ½ Portuguese, I was 100% dishonest with them for my entire teaching career.

Rationally, I understand this was not my doing. Irrationally, I am annoyed and furious. Mainly, this is because, as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, it’s really important for me to be honest in everything I say and do. I think it’s partly because once you start telling people that you’re gay, honesty is the only way to continually ensure you live your truth. This, on a fundamental level, was something I’d been denied. For 33 years. Unsettling, to say the least.

So, Monday we arrive home. I go to the store, and get over to the B family cookout. I took my place in the kitchen, to begin cooking, waiting for my friends M and C to arrive. I get one dish finished, C arrives, so I make the request that we gather around to discuss something.

The family listens as I explain the past 48 hours… the email from Xena, the information that I was adopted, the confirmation from E…

I was expecting shock, or an expletive, or something visibly angry at my pain.

K (M’s mom) quietly responded by saying “We knew.”

WHAT?!?!?

“You knew? How?”

M’s sister, only three years older than me, said “I knew too…”

The only emotion I can fully relate about that was intense betrayal. How could these people, who have treated me like one of their own children (and siblings), not have told me that I was adopted?!?

K wraps her arms around me and gives me the hug I initially thought I wanted, but now wanted to push away, and begins to babble apologies… “I’m sorry... We should have told you! I’m so sorry... We really should have told you... You shouldn’t have found out this way… You’re like our son… We should’ve told you!”

And then I did something I continually keep doing in this topsy-turvy experience. I told K it was ok.

And this is where the cognitive dissonance I realized I had been experiencing since I found out became even more real.

See, I know I should be furious. I know I have been betrayed. I understand that there are intense emotions that I should be feeling because people that I love and who supposedly love me have kept this secret from me my entire existence. I should want to lash out. I should want to punch something. I should want to scream. Right?

But, as a person who has an above average amount of empathy and compassion, could I really expect anyone other than my parents to shoulder the burden to tell me? I mean, would you tell someone that he/she is adopted, knowing that they very well could react to that news in a negative way? Can you blame them for trusting in the idea that a person’s parents would do their job, and share the truth with their child?

I don’t know what stage of grief or acceptance or insanity I was experiencing, or still am experiencing, but I truly find myself unable to feel like I can direct my anger toward anyone in particular.

Except, maybe my mother.

Especially as I started reviewing conversations about how I must have inherited my dark, curly hair from her father…

But I digress.

So, I did what I thought and felt I needed to—hug the woman, and the man, who have literally taken me into their family and home, and tell them that I understand why they wouldn’t tell me. And that I know they love me. And that this just really sucks.

In looking at their daughter, M, I’ve never seen such fury. Ever. I thought she was going to fight her family.

“How could you not have told him? I would’ve told you!” she shouts. It’s also slightly directed at her sister. I realize that it might not have been a good plan to do this in the kitchen. There are knives in the kitchen. Because there are knives in the kitchen, there could be bloodshed.

And then, oddly, I know why I don’t harbor anger to anyone in the room. It’s because these people genuinely care about me and my well-being. M feels the anger I can’t for me. K and R feel guilt for hurting someone they love. M’s sister, K, explained that she threatened violence to anyone who might have told me when we were in high school, and there is a wariness that begins to recede in her eyes.  K’s husband, B, literally breaks into tears to experience the tears that have not yet arrived for me (well, other than the one break down. I mean, I am human… as far as I know…).

This is love. This amalgam of emotional response is what a family is, and it is mine. It might not be mine by blood, but it’s mine by choice, and shared experience, and genuine concern for one another.

And I realize that even if a fraction of my friends react this way (and, for the record, it’s pretty much all of them. My friends, I’m discovering, are the most amazing people in the world. More amazing than I expected them to be, actually. And this applies now to anyone reading, especially from your reactions.), then I am truly loved, and will make it through this. Their love makes me strong.

And it also lets me experience emotion that I cannot begin to process yet, so there is that too.

I might feel lost, but I’m definitely not alone. And, for now, that’s enough.