Road blocks and dead ends...

Saturday, I traveled to Washington DC for the wedding of my best friend C’s sister. The bride and groom have become close friends of mine over the years. I was so excited for their wedding, and especially glad for a reasonable excuse to not worry about anything about myself or adoption-related. We became friends while I was in college, so neither the bride nor groom had any knowledge of my adoption. Therefore, I felt calmer knowing I’d be around their friends and family, none of whom had any connection to my past, other than C and her husband.

It was incredibly liberating to walk into the service because I had begun to have the uncanny feeling that people were staring at me everywhere I went. Have you ever felt the sensation that people are looking at you, even though you know, rationally, that they are not?  I legitimately feel as if people are often pointing and saying “Look kids. It’s the adult-adoptee! Can you believe he had no idea? How ridiculous!”

I fully realize this is not actually happening. In fact, I can even say that I am confident that I do not believe that everywhere I visit that people are even looking at me. But, with so many people who were apparently in on the secret about my adoption, it’s confounding and, frankly, has induced paranoia in me. I feel as if, in retrospect, many have gawked at me in silent horror or abject amusement, and now strangers were joining in too.

So naturally, in writing the blog, I increased my level of distrust, believing wholeheartedly that people were in fact pointing and laughing even more than the concerns I had already developed.

But, in attending a wedding that was in no way connected to anyone who should know about my situation, I felt intense relief.

That is, until mutual friends of the bride and groom, who are also friends of mine, came up to me to express their support. I’d forgotten that I’m connected to quite a few of the bride and groom’s friends through social media. One kindly expressed how heart-felt my first post was. Another simply stated “So, I hear there’s a blog…”

Then, at the beginning of the reception, two of my cousins called from the UK.

So much for an afternoon of anonymity, forgetting what was happening.

Don’t get me wrong—the call from my cousins was great. It was good to hear their voices, to know they cared, to share their support, and to tell me I’ll always be their cousin. That’s huge.

As for the mutual friends who saw me spoke to me, I want to express how much it meant to me that people who aren’t in my direct circle (or even indirect circle for that matter) had read and were expressing their own kindness and support.

And then the wheels in my head began turning… I’ve personally told C and her husband… and at least two have read the blog and told me so… So that’s a confirmed four who definitely know what’s going on with me… Do others… know? Is that why they’re looking at me in that way?

Then the slight (read: intense, core-encompassing) fear began. Should I have waited to publish the blog until after the wedding?

Surely, I’m not doing anything to upstage the bride or groom… right?

I mean, I will still be adopted tomorrow. I could’ve waited.

I’ve clearly made a terrible choice because I’m an emotional wreck. Will my friends understand? Was I a terrible person? Had I ruined the wedding?

So, in writing this, I fully acknowledge the heavy amount of crazy that I am radiating in this post. I can practically smell the weirdness, and I’m the one writing it. Remember, rationality meets irrationality.

As someone who is generally in charge of his faculties and reactions to most things, having intense emotional outbursts is not only out of my comfort zone, it’s out of my realm of understanding. I make plans, move forward, act and react. I am not often the one having to react to decisions out of my control.

But, I think we are all aware at this point that there is nothing typical about this situation. It, sadly, even makes sense that I have constant feeling of people looking at me, while feeling depressed that my presence is the downfall of whatever event in which I’m participating.

I can’t say that I’d fully realized that I was just starting my decent into my own personal emotional chasm, but let’s say that my toe was definitely in the water.

Eventually, I got over my moroseness and had a wonderful time. I stayed in DC that evening with a kind and gracious friend. We planned on getting brunch in the morning, after we walked to American University to look through yearbooks. He lived a few blocks from the school, and suggested we check it out. Maybe we could find pictures of my biological parents?

So, after a quick stop to get coffee, we made our way to the American library. I didn’t realize how excited I was—I might see what my parents looked like!

We walked inside, found the yearbooks in a range of years and started skimming through. I tried to tell myself that this was a long-shot, as they were likely grad students at the time I was born, but the adrenaline took ahold.

They weren’t in the first one… Maybe the next… Or, the third…

After thumbing through eight or nine yearbooks, I started to accept that they either were not students at American University, or were grad students, who are not photographed for the yearbook.

I released a breath, both literal and metaphoric, I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

I was no closer to finding out anything about my parents. I was exactly where I was two days earlier… when I thought it would be so easy to find information. Now I was treading the waters of despair in realizing how difficult finding these people was proving. No birth certificate, no school records… just nothing.

I cannot say that I was devastated, but I was more than a little dismayed by this turn of events. It was another defeat of my plan to find out where I came from. And another tiny tendril of sorrow took hold. If I had a job that I could leave at the office when I clocked-out, or didn’t work with my union many evenings of the week, then maybe I’d have the time devoted to tracking down these people.

But I didn’t, and still don’t.

How was I going to find these people? I knew the university was an unlikely possibility, but it was the last thing I had. Without a confirmation of my mother’s marital status and last name, or an address for where my father lived, I have very little information to search, and it felt like even less now.

What was I going to do now?