That blog served as a healthy way for me to put my adverse emotions down on a sterile paper canvass and methodically dissect them with words and metaphors until I understood the root cause of how and why that emotionally malignant object makes me react the way I do. The process of recognizing what I need to do to overcome it was always shared with my friends and family through a Facebook post and if you surround yourself with good people, they help support you in those endeavors. I also get to dust off fun words from the English language and moonlight as a wordsmith so there is selfish fun in that as well. Most folks do not prefer that type of transparency. I think humans should be more transparent about their wants and intentions, regardless of how they land morally. Do you want your ego in the way of your decision or could you use iron from someone else for sharpening? What is the worst that could happen? You accidentally inspire someone to join on in your endeavor? I could do worse with less so long story long...
In June of this year, I received my Ancestry DNA results. Turns out there is quite the mental gym with my emotional process around this. It has been very difficult for me to understand. The more I think about it and attempt to encapsulate or explain what it means and feels to me, the better I can deal with it. Let me give you the genealogy of that feeling (I will be taking bonus Dad points for that pun).
I had begun a paid search with Catholic Social Services (CSS) around 2009 to see if they could locate my mother. There are many facts that I am loosely aware of her side and next to zero on his, so we had to start my search there. A few short months later, my phone rang because that search had a hit and the letters from CSS had found her. The representative, Carol, had just spoken with my mother on the phone. On my subsequent call with Carol, she made mention that my mother said she still thinks of me on my birthday and around the holidays. I need to pause right here for a moment. We are all well aware of the fact that parents dwell on children and the opposite is true. However, when Carol said that and I had knowledge that indeed my mother did actually think of me, those words touched a place in my heart that I did not know existed. That was the first time I had felt that feeling. The sensation is heavy, my whole chest gets uncomfortably tight, I involuntarily flex my sternum, doubling me over like a lurch and my heart wants to burst but I am not sure if that is in a good or a bad way. It could be the worse feeling I have ever felt but it is definitely the strongest and most foreign. My adoptive mother, Jean, did as good of a job as she could. I am not afraid to say nor do I do not believe it is disrespectful to acknowledge that if you knew my mother, she was a very difficult woman for anyone to love except my father. Somehow that man did it unwaveringly and may God bless his soul for being that for her. Deeper still in that corner, a part of it was atrophied through an adoption process. My origin was unknown and that small knowledge of her thoughts, reached all the way to that spot and it was a joy to know she was alive, she sounds like she is in good spirits and she sounds like she is a good person.
Unfortunately for me, that brief process of making contact and gaining new knowledge was short lived. A few months later, Carol received a letter from my mother that, to paraphrase said 'I did not think I would ever hear anything about him again. I do not know how I feel about this. I would like to say that I would like to meet him one day but what I have to overcome is too great right now. This will take some time.' I genuinely was happy with that, I thought finding her would be impossible.
That was 15 years ago. That letter seemed to have been written with a lot of thought. She seemed genuinely scared at the prospect of her family or her partner finding out. She has lived with the same man since 1986 and never told him or her family about me. The second conversation she ever had about me was 30 years after the first, when she put me up for adoption. She literally never told a soul. I have come to understand the conversation with Carol is the first time she spoke of me since putting me up for adoption the day after I was born.
By now, Carol retired and Catholic Social Services did not back fill her post-adoption position. That meant I had to work through the court to find out more about him. There was no other information about him other than his common name so they granted it to me; John Taylor. So the last few years, I have dabbled with google and social media but that haystack is too large for me with a name like that not connected to any other identifying details. I had hit a wall and I refused to force myself into my mother's life.
When you get your DNA results back, they tell you what types of DNA come from which parent but there was no way to figure out which came from which. All I knew was my mother was born in Wales and I had zero DNA tying me to any Welch. I had one predominantly British parent and one predominantly Scottish parent. My brain took Wales and thought she was the British one. I assumed my father was the predominantly Scottish side and the only really good DNA hits I had were on that side so I felt 'safe' reaching out. I was always told he had to idea I existed and I knew that my mother had not spoken to him since before her first sign of my life. If he had no idea, there was little risk to mitigate damaging her world, if I reached out on his side.
Within a few days, I reached out to what was looking like an older half brother on my father's side. I found him on FB and sent him a message, saying we may share a father and I have not heard back. I kept searching and reached out to some 2nd cousins on my Dad's side as well. Timelines were not making sense and the little info I had was massively conflicting with the large amount of verifiable information that was I was substantiating minute over minute. Why was this not fitting? Then it hit me, my mother is the Scottish one and my Father is the British. The very next second was horrifying. I just realized that I let the cat out of the bag to the brother of the woman who never told her family about me. There was not a more intimately, and precisely damaging thing I could have ever inadvertently done.
I am also trying to sort out my moral compass on the source of blame for that damage I spoke of. That is something I have wrestled with for days. It keeps me up at night, it ended my day early my first day back from vacation and I am trying to be okay with processing that guilt that I do not believe is mine.
Most likely the ball is in her court, via her brother because of my innocent in nature yet errant-in-delivery direct message. It was rocketed at her with a serve I never meant to have and it was an absolute ace. All I can hear is the fucking bounce of that ball on an echoing court and wondering how bad her world is rocked right now and literally hoping to God she does not slam that door because of my innocent mistake.
I now realize I have worried my whole life about fitting in with people and groups. I am very approachable and accommodating to people because I am stuck with this inherent sense of rejection that I do not want to hold onto anymore. I keep deep circles of friends because I love being welcomed in as many groups as I can. I have two wonderful friends of mine that see me in their family as an actual brother, and I am invited to attend cherished family-only poker weekends, fishing trips, and deer camps with these families. I just do not have the same last name. I have come to realize that I am such an extraverted, acceptance seeking person who prides himself on these friendships because it is the only source of true love that I get outside of my immediate family members. In a few months, I am going to officially marry into one of the most wonderful families that I have ever met. All of these quirks on how my heart works because of all this can be traced back to that original source of rejection. Adoption is truly not rejection but somehow that is how scar tissue reads. Now I find myself thousands of miles away, trying to lock a digital gaze with the source of why my heart is so scared to not be accepted. And after all this, I may get officially rejected by her this time and I am so fucking scared of what that knife twist will feel like if it come to pass.
For now, I have concluded that I am terrified and I am working to intimately understand and ultimately accept that terror. Accepting the ugliest parts of ourselves is the manifestation of our flawed nature. This process truly binds us to our mortality and adds integrity to our character in the form of humility. There is more to this binding process that I am going through and have thoughts on. For now, this feels like a good place to stop. I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to read it and hope this found you well. I wish I could explain the relief acquired by rinsing an old wound with newly crafted words and now-recognized feelings. I am unable to do that justice currently and just say that I appreciate you taking some time to read this because it is also you helping me.
