Be Careful What You Wish For

Many of you who read my blog and know me also know that I was adopted. I have known this my whole life. I was adopted when I was 5 months old, which is actually pretty late for a White baby--even back in 1974--but they thought I had cystic fibrosis and my bio dad wouldn't sign the papers to release me, hence my late adoption date. My younger sister was adopted at 5 weeks old.

My whole life I wanted to find my biological parents. For some reason, I wanted to find my mom a lot more than my dad (I'm sure there's some psychological reason for this, but I have yet to dig it up with a therapist), so when I was 29 years old I contacted Catholic Charities and paid the fee to have some social worker try to find her via the information leftover in my file from 1974. She was found and we started writing letters, emails, she came to visit in June 2008, and she came with my half sister in April of 2009.

Finding my mom has been probably one of the best experiences in my life. It was grounding beyond explanation. I remember walking to the subway the day after she left in June 2008 and I just felt so.....settled. I can't really put words to my feelings, and unless you've been in my situation I don't think it's possible to fully explain the power that comes with having a biological connection with a person when your entire life the good and the bad of you had been explained by the statement, "She's adopted." She and I are very much alike, we resemble each other physically, and we effortlessly connected. It was incredible. I honestly love her, not as a mom, but as a person who had the courage to have me at 18, give me up, and reconnect with me 30 years later.

Well, I guess things with her were going so well I decided to tempt fate and find my bio dad. I had googled him when bio mom had given me his name, but nothing came up. One rainy February afternoon in 2008, as I watched Adam play with Alexandra on the floor of our apt, I thought I should try again. I got an address. I sent a very plain note. And Pandora's fucking box was opened.

From day one of our communication I sensed this was going to be a total shitstorm, and I honestly tried to be open-minded and see things from his perspective. But for over two years now, he has been nagging me, emailing me, calling me 12 times in one day, demanding more than I can give. When he gets mad at me, he sends me emails that say, "I am your dad" which, quite honestly, piss me off. My dad passed away 13 years ago, and the audacity of him to insist that he's my dad is just plain disrespectful to the memory of my father. We met--once--and I seriously had my oldest girlfriends come and check out the place to make sure he wouldn't throw Alexandra and I in the back of a van and try to "make up for the last 32 years" as he kept saying. I made them eat at the diner in a booth next to us and we had a code emergency word in case he started to get really weird and I felt I needed to escape. Evidence that he pretty much terrified me with his demands since email #1.

I have tried to set limits, he has agreed to follow them, and then he just can't. He is single. He is 55, just moved out of his mom's house 4 years ago, and is currently unemployed and has not much else to do but obsess over me and my family. He has no other kids. Can you see where this is going?

To conclude this whack-ass story, he wrote me another "get in touch with me" demanding email followed by another "i am YOUR dad" email to which I had to, AGAIN, ask him to please stop saying that and that I will get in touch when there's something to say (I had just emailed him LAST WEEK). To which he responded,

"how;s bout this lil bitch you got in touch with me,,,,,, i didnn't get with you,"

Well, that's what I needed to end this fucking charade. I wrote him, told him he had crossed a line and that we couldn't/shouldn't be in touch. Then I had to switch all my cyber identities (which were all registered under my real name, a name I like because it is so unique and transparent) so that he can't follow me and my life. I blocked his number from my cell phone and email. Unfortunately, he has my address, and quite honestly, I am scared. He has this 10 year gap in his history that Adam and I are pretty sure he served time for, but even when asked directly about it he never answered. Not that I think he'll come kill me, but I wouldn't put it past him to come up here and stalk me in person. I am jumpy, nervous, didn't sleep last night, and peering out my window. Right about now I'm about to call for some gang back up from my old students. No lie.

So, that's the long of the short, ladies and gentlemen. Be careful what you wish for. Sorry I had to redirect you all this this blog. Thankfully I was able to save all my content from old blog (only after hours of reading blogger directions!). I hope this can dissuade him and he can just let go. What a huge ass mistake I made.

I need a new therapist, ASAP.

Double your Mother's Day

This weekend I was able to spend a day with my biological half-sister and her dad.

For those of you who don't know, I was adopted when I was an infant. My bio mom was that unfortunate (for her, not me) health class story of "All it takes is one time!" and got pregnant with me the first time she had sex during the fall of her senior year with a guy she was somewhat seeing. 40 weeks later, a couple of months before she was to start her freshman year of college, I arrived. I was given up for adoption and adopted by the mom and dad you often hear of in this blog.

When I was 30 years old, I finally mustered the courage to look for her. I just always had this intuitive feeling that we were alike. As an adult, I was finally ready to take the risk and to try to find her. I was scared of initial rejection (in closed case adoptions the birth parent has the power to keep the records closed), scared she would find me unacceptable if she met me, and just plain scared of the myriad variables that go into this process.

But what happened was extraordinary. She is amazing. We are so much alike it's uncanny and we look a great deal alike, too, which, for someone who was adopted and has never had the experience of resembling a family member...that's pretty astounding. She came to visit us last June, then her and my 15 year old half-sister came for a week this past March, and this weekend I was able to hang out with my half-sister for a day with her dad, bio mom's ex-husband.

Bio mom and I are very cautious around each other, still. I do see her more as an older friend, an aunt, etc, than as a mom-figure. Periodically I am struck by the fact that I'm even sitting in the same room with her--Oh my god! That woman carried me in her womb and gave birth to me! Oh my god!--but for the most part we jokingly or awkwardly refer to our biological connection. Finding a parent when you're past 30 makes that "parenting" role almost impossible...it's hard to explain, but those years lost are when you really cultivate your relationship (good, bad, or both) with your parents. Nothing has been more clear to me after finding bio mom that my mom who raised me is my Mom with a capital "M" and bio mom is...well...bio mom. She's my friend, and we have a pretty curious back story.

But having her ex-husband here was an interesting angle. He kept exclaiming how much I looked like bio mom and her sister, how much I was "my mother's daughter," how much I was a carbon copy of her...it was like everything that I did or said was an echo-ing of her. And, while I was taken aback by these statements, they made me really happy. Because I have felt this, and bio mom and I have acknowledged this, but to have him say these comments with such conviction...well, it made them even more true.

I feel really lucky this mother's day. I have two great moms in my life--the one who raised me and the one who just joined me in this journey--both come with baggage and issues and love and they're totally worth it.