My Birth Mother

I had no idea where to post this to express my wish.

I'm 53 and adopted at 4 weeks old. No one, unless adopted, knows how this feels.

I loved my adopted Mom and Dad. I've always known I was adopted. But there was something missing, like the big elephant in the room. I looked so different, I acted different, I had strange talents, I developed strange habits. My Mom and Dad were like a black and white 1950's TV Series without a laugh track. I am Roseanne Barr to their Nancy and Ronald Reagan.

So for all my life I pretended that I didn't care. That I don't want to know. This life was good enough, why should I search. I should be happy to have a stable home and a Mom and Dad that loved me.

They loved me to a certain extent. But in HS when it became glaringly apparent just how different I really was, they didn't try to help me find out who I was, they tried to turn me into mini versions of themselves. There was a lot of judgment and a lot of resentment. Then after I went to college there was many years of neglect. No real contact even after their grandson was born. My family and I were not "their kind of people".

Anytime I brought up searching for my biological family my mother became an emotional wreck. I think she always thought that I was trying to replace her. So out of respect I never searched. That was until she died one year ago.

Two months ago my husband found this picture on the internet that looked exactly like me...circa 1950's. When I say exactly, I mean dead on. A woman in a photo. The problem is the person that had posted that picture didn't remember where he found it. So I looked and looked and used every skill to find the picture. I was sure I was related to this person, if not my birth mother. I finally found it. It was in an archive photography book of photo booth pictures. I emailed the authors on Facebook and nothing. No response.

But that got me thinking about it. So I went on some adoption sites and found out that Massachusetts, my adopted state, opened all the records in 2007. All I had to do was fill out a simple, notarized document.

Next week I will have my original birth certificate. For any of you who are not adopted, I can't tell you what this means. It's beyond imagination that I will have names and family history....genealogy. I will have roots. I may have siblings. She may be dead. I may have my birth father's name.

What do I wish? My fantasies for 53 years have been all over the place. Now I have to put those fantasies away because I will have reality. A reality that may or may not be positive.

So if she is alive, I have to decide if I'm going to open the reunion box. It consumes my thoughts. The elephant in the room......

I guess you all must be thinking, so what? You are still you. You had parents. You had a good life. True. But to not know anything about your self. You are one big ....?

My wish? I wish for all that I have wished for during 53 years. And at the same time I hear that statement in my head....be careful for what you wish for.

At the end of the day, I wish she were some vastly rich person with no family....LOL. But at the very least, I wish to know how I got this really loud and full laugh. Maybe someone out there can laugh like me. If it is she, then we will be good friends.

Molly Tweet