i like to pretend that
i have come full circle.
but there is one more arc
left to traverse.
as much as I try
i cannot deny the
role you play
in the circle of my life.
i don’t know what I am more afraid of:
finding you
or finding a part of me.
* * * * *
When I first considered writing a blog about my adoption and reunion, I didn't expect to takle such a heavy subject on my first post, but he has been on my mind, and I just had to empty a few thoughts. So here goes.
Before anything else though, I suppose that I should lay some ground work about who I am and what I have experienced up to this point. I am a 34 year old guy who was adopted as an infant and have recently been reunited with most of my biological family. It has been quite a journey so far to say the least. I love my Mom & Dad & sister, so I wasn't going out looking for something that I didn't have, but finding out things about my biological family--and, therefore myself--has been a very interesting journey to self awareness. Or perhaps self acceptance. Or acknowlegement. Who knows.
A little about the makeup of my families-
As I have previously stated, I was raised in a pretty close family consisting of Mom & Dad and 1 sister.
My own little legacy includes my wife and two kids, one son and one daughter.
My biological family consists of my mom, 2 full biological brothers, a 1/2 brother and a 1/2 sister. And my dad. More on that later.
This will be the last I will refer to any of them as "adopted", "biological", "birth", "full", "1/2" or anything of the like unless extremely necessary for contextual purposes. They are what they are with or without qualifiers. I will call them by what they are in relation to me. Ahem. Except my bdad, who for now will be "S".
I can't quite put a finger on why I am so apprehensive about meeting S. Part of it, I am sure, stems from the strained relationship that he has had with Mom and my brothers now and over the years (which 1. I won't go into 2. Don't know all the details anyway & 3. Don't know if I want to). I think that part of the apprehension is that I think that he might be lonely. Therefore, I see things happening one of two ways: 1. Things don't go well, maybe I even get angry and "have it out" so to speak, and cut off contact, perhaps making him even more lonely than before or 2. Things do go fairly well, but then since I am geographically fairly close, he would want me to visit more than I would be comfortable doing.
The last time that I visited Mom she asked if I was "angry" at all like she read about some adoptees being. I answered truthfully--no. But after I left, the more I thought about it, I am a little angry at S. Not because of any ill feelings I harbor about my adoption--life was and is so good. But since he didn't make an effort to work hard enough on his relationships with the rest of my family, that makes it extremely difficult for me to have one with him. Right now, I am developing a very good relationship with Mom and pretty good with my brothers (I think). Continuing to develop a relationship with them is my top priority in this journey right now, and I don't know how or if any of that would be jeopardized if I had contact with S.
I have come to realize, though, that although I feel that I need to contact him, it has less to do with him than it does with me. I need to discover for myself those last little clues about who I am. Which brings me back to my poem. I know it is inevitable that there are things about who I am that are a reflection of him. I just hope that when I find those things, they aren't all the things that I already know I don't like about myself.
