I haven't written much about my adopted life recently, in part because I don't want to write about my nfamily. Now that they are in my life, the web of relationships is exponentially more complicated. I care very much about not hurting them. The other part is that the landscape is constantly shifting and is sometimes too difficult to describe effectively.
With that proviso, here is where I am right now.
I feel like I live on a ledge. On the one hand, separated by a gap, is my afamily. On the other hand, separated by an equal gap, is my nfamily. Sometimes I can touch them across the gap, but the gap is always there, and will always be there, I see now. It's how I handle living with the gap that is my concern.
I suppose my aparents are on the ledge with me, most of the time. They love me unconditionally, and are black sheep in their families, too. In all my large, extended afamily, there are a few cousins and aunts and uncles who reach out to me and who probably do care for me quite honestly, but I have never been able to reciprocate as well as I'd like, or I've messed up, or I sense that there is something missing. I know that I am very different from many people in my afamily, just as my parents are, and that's okay. But it does leave me feeling that I am standing alone.
When I visited my aparents last weekend (and the Klimt exhibition was glorious, despite scholarship that drove me around the bend), I felt as loved as I could be. They are home to me. They have loved me unreservedly and given above and beyond, since they brought me home in July of 1969. My dad asked me how my trip to Hawaii had gone, and said that he was so happy that I'd found my nfamily because he and my mom are in their 70's and won't be around forever. He wants to know that I will have people around to take care of me and love me when they are gone. He sees it as a growing of family, not a taking away of what's *his*, which is wonderful and kind. As it should be.
I also enjoyed the opportunity to spend five days with my nfamily last month and to get to know them better. It was enlightening to see how I am like and dissimilar to my blood relatives other than C and A. I loved hearing stories about my grandfather, and learning with whom he shared stories, and with whom he didn't. How he gave satirical nicknames to people, which is something I have always done, privately and otherwise. On the other hand, hearing these stories made me quite sad because I realized how much I missed in not knowing him, this man whose temperament and eyes and love of history I share. There's nothing to be done about it, but I grieve the loss profoundly. I also loved having my uncle tell me how much he sees of the family in me, and how proud he is of me and what I've done with the good bits, and how I handle the not-so-good bits. He was the one who said that he was committed to getting to know me, and he has kept his word. That means the world to me. I feel safe that he won't hurt me or leave me, which is saying volumes from a bruised, skittish adoptee.
But I am still on a ledge. Neither side understands all of me, nor accepts all of me. There are ruptures that cannot be mended. What I've realized, and I think this is the most important part, is that it's my job to take care of myself. The experiences I've had, and the opportunity to get to know C, has helped me become a whole person because there's no longer a part of me that feels rejected, or that *I* reject. I have had a chance to begin to integrate my story, such as it is, and see which parts of me are in my blood, so to speak, and which parts are socially constructed.
Thomenon and I had a long talk the other night, and he said that over the past 20 years he has watched me work hard to climb up the face of a cliff, leaving parts of myself behind, finding others, fighting battles all the while, internal and external. I have made it to the top now, lean and sinewy and strong, very different from the dewy-eyed, open-hearted creature who began the climb, willing to accept the cruel words and punishments of others as gospel, internalizing all of it. Time and experience and pain and many other circumstances thrown into the crucible have created the *me* that stands here now; I am so much better off than I was even two years ago because I am no longer struggling to control people and relationships that I truly have no control over, and I am no longer willing to engage with people who are full of shit.
The difference--the most important difference--is that while I might not belong to my family in ways that others take for granted, I have come to *like* the place that I've made for myself. My family is one I've created, which I define very broadly. I am doing the best I can with what was given to me, and I think I've done a great job, considering. If people want to be in my life, they are welcome, but I am not chasing specters anymore, or false promises. I know who loves me, and who doesn't. My adoptee-senses are exquisitely honed to detect bullshit, and I am too old to play games. To be honest, I feel better being alone than around others. Part of it is my rarified education and irritation level running at DEFCON 1, part of it's my hard shell, part of it is having difficulty trusting others and jettisoning the untrustworthy faster than I can hit speed dial. None of this is bad; it's just who I am. The best part? I feel comfortable in my own skin.
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