I haven't mentioned that I'm adopted in previous articles because I don't want to confuse issues. In another post I will go into the ways many problems of nonverbal learning disorder (NLD) were confused with "problems of the adoptee." And how focusing on "adoption problems" might have kept my real problems from being worked on.
For the record, I couldn't imagine being a member of any other family than the one I was in, except when I was ages nine through 14 and angry at my mother, like most other teen girls. Then I would romanticize a perfect beatnik mother who didn't make me go to school, who would let me wear my hair down to my waist and would agree that every kid didn't need to wear shoes in The Village where I was convinced we would have lived.
The reality was of course very different.
When I was 30, my father and I were watching a movie about adoption. This reminded him that he had been given my adoption file after the death of his cousin, the lawyer who handled it.
He gave me the file. I found something amazing. My original birth certificate. My father and I were both naturally suspicious and didn't believe that the name was real. There wasn't a father's name. Today, I could have found my birth mother in less than minute after turning on the computer. But back then, it took from 1981 to 1988, when I finally found my birth cousin. (The name is very unique.) I made up a very unlikely tale and asked him for his aunt's phone number. He gave it to me.
Long story short. My birth mother who had been 27 when I was born refused to meet me anywhere but her home in upstate New York. I offered to meet her in a motel halfway or anywhere but her home as I wanted us to meet on neutral ground. Maybe that was horrible of me. Maybe I did everything wrong. I don't know. There's no rulebook to adoption meetings--I can't call them reunions when you don't remember the person.
At the time there were "reunions" often on Oprah. Each one was wonderful and life changing. I remember Oprah saying she was aware that not all reunions were successful but she wanted to focus on the positive ones. Yes, and I want to live in a fairytale.
I think that Oprah and the tenor of the times did more bad than good. I would go to adoptee meetings where people would talk about meeting their mentally ill mother. It didn't matter because "now my life is complete." (An oft repeated mantra at these meetings.) What kind of cult had I wondered into?
Understand this about me. My life wasn't disability focused. Yes, I had gone for testing the year before that indicated I couldn't do anything right, but all the other doctors told me to ignore that as I was successful in my work life. I had been looking for a new job that would incorporate my paralegal skills with my business ones.I went on five interviews and was offered every job. For various reasons I ended up working for the company that had sent me on the interviews.
I assumed that people liked me. I assumed that people considered me a successful person. My friends, family, employer and every prospective one did. I didn't see any shame in being divorced and childless.
When I called my birth mother I was beyond nervous. But I called her and we got along. We talked and talked, and I agreed to her terms though something felt off about them. She had never married after having me nor did she have any significant relationship. Her jobs were menial as she had refused her parents' offer of a college education.
When I arrived we didn't know how to greet each other. It was awkward at best. She didn't want to be seen with me in town in case people suspected something. We look nothing alike. I'm probably the one "ethnic" person to put make up on my nose to make it look bigger.
At the time I was an old size eight--probably considered a four or six now. She was at least a size 16. I only mention this because the first thing she said to me was: "Don't blame me for your thighs." I looked at my thighs. I didn't like them but they were far from heavy. I was wearing jeans, a silk tee and too much make-up. I used to hide under hair or make-up when I was uncomfortable.
She let me know that I didn't live up to her fantasy. In her fantasy I arrived at her home unannounced in my red convertible with my doctor husband and two children. I didn't tell her my fantasy as I hadn't had one since I was 14.
I'm sure we both wanted to get along. I'm sure I did much to make her not like me. I'm not sure what I did or didn't do other than being myself. My prior posts have been a litany of my faults. I tend to blame myself for everything, and am self-deprecating to the max. In reality, I'm an oft-invited houseguest people like to have around. I'm a good conversationalist and have a quick wit. Yet I spent the weekend feeling like a failure and a prisoner.
I didn't tell her I had lived with two men since my divorce as I sensed she wouldn't approve.
Yes. That. Was. Ironic.
Who was she to judge me? I know she kept me in the home for unwed mothers for three weeks and kept in touch with the adoption agency until they told her she couldn't. I appreciate that. But I wasn't a baby anymore. I had gotten in touch with her because I thought I had every right to meet the woman who had carried me. I considered my birth father to be the sperm donor and had little interest in him until she wouldn't answer any questions or gave answers that made no sense.
She told me it shouldn't matter what religion a man was and how sorry she was she hadn't married my birth father, an Irish Catholic, though she told the agency he was English Protestant as she thought it would make me more "place-able." After the meeting she wrote me letters with Xeroxes of cities that had Jewish men. I lived in Manhattan. How much more Jewish could a city be? And why were only Jewish men acceptable for me? I had lived with an East Indian.
I went to the former Soviet Union that spring and didn't tell her I was going. She would have probably sent me a list of cities where people disobeyed the government and practiced Judaism. Or tried to convince me to marry anybody there so he could get his papers and I would have a husband. Actually I was dating somebody (Italian-American) but not interested in getting married. I always thought that was up to me.
Through the years I have written about this experience in much more depth. I have tried to understand it from every angle. I have cast myself in the role of the villain, the daughter who disappointed because I think it's unfair to her to make her a "bad" mother when she never was my mother.
That's just it. I had one mother. A mother I loved very much who was very much alive then. When I got home from the weekend I got a card in the mail. All it said was: "I love you, I love you, I love you..."
I was blessed with two of the quirkiest, eccentric, fun parents around. That they happen to be my adoptive parents is besides the point. They were "real' parents in every sense. I miss them. In the end it doesn't matter how our family was formed. In the end it doesn't matter that I had an unnamed disability. They just wanted me to be happy. We were friends. I treasure and miss that friendship.
I no longer cast myself in the role of the villain. I tried to understand my birth mother; she didn't try to understand me. My parents taught me that understanding is a two-way street. I can no longer apologize for not being the person she fantasized about as I wouldn't expect her to apologize for being far from a beatnik.
Happy Mother's Day up there somewhere!!!
© 2011 pia Savage
