I read my six-year-old a book called, "Are You My Mother?". I watch Star Wars with him, and talk to him about what it means that Darth Vadar is Luke's father. I wonder why so many fairly tales feature children separated from their natural parents.
I am adopted, and I am searching for my roots.
I am thirty-one, a mother of one, a wife, and an executive at a multi-national retail company. I love history (I have two degrees in it, and almost went on to do a PhD), literature, art, skiing, riding horses, and hiking. I am not funny but I like to make jokes, and that trait is often uncomfortable for everyone around me. I cover up my vulnerability with a shell of competence and curtness; I am a hardball negotiator who cries at dog food commercials. I feel guilty for being the family historian, and I'm pretty sure my cousins both resent and feel puzzled by the older generation's tendency to will anything of historical significance to someone grafted onto the family tree. I secretly, though I will not admit it openly, feel more as if I am my adoptive ancestors' biographer than their descendant, and in truth I feel more connected to the family of the person I wrote my thesis on.
Academia and business are my defense mechanisms, and I approached the search for my roots the same way I would have pursued an elusive primary source, and probably with less emotional investment. I have reached a point where the search is beginning to culminate, to climax, and where the emotions are becoming ascendant. I feel the need to record the journey for those who will come after me, and I hope that it both comforts and elucidates.
Regarding my natural mother: I have a name, an address, a MySpace page. I have not acted upon the information - but I will, and soon.
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