A MOMENT IN THE MIRROR

It has taken me three weeks to process something very unexpected that took place at an adoptee event - Adoption: The Making of Me Podcast in Atascadero, California.

If there is one thing that happens in adoptee community, it is this:  the masks we wear throughout our lives, has a really hard time withstanding a room full of adoptees.   This had been weighing on my mind the few days leading up to the event.   Was I going to be able to hide if things got too revealing?

I have many masks.  When one slowly sheds itself, I look in the mirror hoping to recognize the reflection looking back at me.  But recognition never comes; there is just another mask. This is a mixed feeling of relief at my skill to adapt, and disappointment in remaining unseen....very confusing.  Who am I trying to find?

Sitting across the table from me, the night of the meet and greet was an unexpected mirror. A reflection, a reunion, a recognition.  Bear with me, my body is desperately trying to disassociate as I type these words, but I refuse to give in, this is too important.  Excuse my indulgence of indulgence, my ignorance of a formal education.   I am not a writer, I am the observer.

Reflection, Reunion, Recognition.  These are HUGE words in adoptee community; usually describing the meeting of biological family.   Sadly, meeting my biological family, did not produce this experience.  And after 36 years, for a variety of reasons that adoption is trauma, abusive, complex and barbaric, I seem to be left with the familiar masks of:  Rage, Rejection, Rupture.   Or maybe more simply put, indifference.   Indifference is such an addiction when it is wrapped in magical words that say you were given away because you were loved.    I am the gardener at the graveside of indifference, occupied by former lovers, friends, partners, family, co workers, etc...   

I have absolutely no connections to my young life, no childhood friends, no high school reunions.  I disappeared poof from that life without a trace, as well as the many lives that have followed, letting a narrative be told by those who enforced the masks, the bedrock of an identity that fit someone else’s story.   She is crazy, she is a slut, she is rebellious, she is angry, she is dramatic, she is a liar, she is a snoop, she is weird, she is a loner, she is….unwanted.  I start over and over again, owning then shedding, lost in all their stories of my identity.   I am 56, and I am tired.

I am in full blown estrangement from both adopted & bio family.  All the masks one by one, shed, like seasons of an unknown land.  I made peace with never truly experiencing Reflection, Reunion, Recognition - fuck it - maybe it just wasn't for me.   No explanations to anyone, just gone, a life hack that while terrifying to many, is my superpower.  I dig for existence, I float for a landing, I am the OG of ghosting, it was my nursery rhyme, and I take comfort in it’s melody.

My garden of rage became a beautiful world of truth, one that only I tended to, the soloist of my own concerto.  I have been able to cultivate someone there, bouquets of identities co-existing, seen on rare occasions, by a select few.

Who knew that the meticulous planning over a hushed spring garden this year would bloom early and out of my control in Atascadero California, chatting amongst fellow adoptees about travel, weather, books, the strange paths adoptee lives take…..when across from me I heard a woman talk about being institutionalized.

RECORD SCRATCH…..Every voice in my head said:  DEPLOY MASK, CONTROLLED BURN, SMOKE HER OUT, HIDE, DO NOT PLANT HERE, PLAY THE CONCERTO.  But, that question, “who am I trying to find” singed at the edges of a teenage memory and the thousands of cigarettes smoked in the youth lounge of Van Nuys Psychiatric Hospital; where a girl I once knew held the line of her own survival, in a strange place called home, for amost two years.   Worlds were colliding, ones I kept so carefully curated.   I felt hot, and uncomfortable.  I wanted to run.  I wanted to stay.  Names of patients and counselors buried in my garden, memories that watered like ash, dark and heavy demanded laser focus as I listened to this woman describe her life at 15 years old.  REFLECTION.  As we spoke more, sharing where we lived, who we remembered, what hospital we were both in.  REUNION.  The look across that table of someone who knew...abandonment, abuse, alone.  RECOGNITION.  This was a comrade, the closest I will ever get to seeing a childhood friend, going to a high school or family reunion, recalling the absurd experience of being institutionalized.  A detail that brings stigma and shame, one that no one understands is something that both saved our lives, but exposed us to things we should have never known.

I rarely share this particular detail of my life, as it creates more masks that are not mine to wear, but ones that have labeled me:  UNHINGED, UNUSUAL, UNFIT.  An easy out for those unwilling to stay, to gently walk the paths I have worked so hard to clear of the unsafe landmines such as adoption trauma or the barbed wire fence that reads: Adoption with Abuse is Barbaric.  Who would want to go there?   Only a fellow traveler of such a place.

As I said, it has taken me weeks to process this encounter at The Making of Me Adoptee Podcast.  Last night I finally found some words that felt solid and true so I reached out to her, mixing past & present in a way that scares the ever loving shit out of me.  The mirror didn’t fog with indifference, it didn’t crack with rejection, I didn’t pick up broken shards of glass and dig rage into my now old and tired skin.  Her response was again, Reflection, Reunion, Recognition.  However destabilizing that feels, we have done the work, and this moment in the mirror is a small victory in a hard fought battle.

Her words here and there, these past weeks have provided much clarity, the exact climate my rage needed, to grow grief in the soft sunlight of truth.  It feels indulgent.  It feels unfamiliar, unwelcome and despite all temptation to ghost myself; I will do my best to remove shame from this reflection and gaze upon the mirror with a more tender eye.

An excerpt of her seeds of wisdom:  “I literally cry when I write you, but I cry for our awful childhoods and the shit hands we were dealt and had to survive, because of terrible adults.  We deserved better and I cry for all we lost before we ever even got to have any of it. It’s not fair and I am so mad at the unfairness of it.  We survived that fucking war against us. Fuck them.  Yours in the trenches, friend” 🥰

Reflection, Reunion, Recognition / Montaña de Oro