First, do not adjust your computer screen! Yes, I have blogged THREE TIMES in the last 30 days! I know, I know! I hope it isn’t a sign of the end times!

I turned double 4s (as a friend told me) today. Officially into my mid-40s, and well into middle age. Yikes!

It has been a quiet, rather melancholy day. I typically don’t make a big deal of the day unless it’s a milestone, like 21 – 30 – and 40 all were. But in the past few years, I have always been working on my birthday and it was well celebrated. This year, I was by myself at home. Everyone in my family is gone at activities tonight, so we celebrated early on Sunday. There’s still some cake left, LOL. My husband and I met for lunch but the day mostly was overshadowed, as most “big days” are, with wistfulness and melancholy. Not sadness, exactly. It’s too weird to be sad on your birthday, right? Melancholy sounds much more romantic.

It is so interesting to me to think about the fact that, forty four years ago today, I was born into two families. Neither of which would know about me for quite some time (save, of course, for my biological mother. But she and the social worker, and my bio father, were literally the only ones who knew of my existence). I was born in the dead of winter and my adoption was finalized in the middle of June. I wouldn’t come back into the biological side of my family for over 30 years.

That is a lot of time. A lifetime, for some. I often think about the different path I might have had, if S had kept me. Mind you, I do not think she would have been a good mother, or even capable. But getting to know the rest of my biological family over the last 14 years, I have decided that somehow, some way, I would have been taken care of. There were a lot of family in the town where she was from, and I have to believe that the village would have raised me. Of course, I would be a completely different person. Better or worse? Who can say? But I like to think I would have turned out okay. I have a bio relative who is a poet and a writer, and another who is a musician. I like to think that my artistic side would have been nurtured by them.

I do think about S, my bio mother, on this day. It is impossible not to. S has always maintained that she suffered from PTSD (it is a long, private, sad story) and does not remember being pregnant with me, having me, or giving me up for adoption. Suffice to say that she suffered some intense trauma in her life, and particularly around the time of my conception. I’m a former military wife, so I understand that PTSD is a real thing. However, I am also a natural mother of two children, and it is difficult (to say the least) for me to imagine being able to block out 10-12 months of one’s life, particularly when those 10-12 months included birthing a human. But as I said, S had a very difficult life and I try very hard not to judge her. So, in part because she cannot admit this time of her past, she and I (despite having been in reunion for years) have never talked about it. The pregnancy, my father, the birth – none of it. She is growing old and I do not hold out hope that she will ever be “ready” to talk about it. It is okay. I wasn’t okay with it for a long time, but the older I get, the more at peace I am. I found a treasure trove when I discovered my bio family – it simply doesn’t include her. I want to make clear that this is by her doing, and her alone. I used to work a lot harder at having a relationship with her, but it was pretty clear early on that was something she did not want. She will never be ready, it seems. I had to move on and nurture the other relationships I have in the family, and they go a long way to fill that never ending hole. I have  chose to be happy with the love and support I have received and continue to receive from literally every other member of my bio family. My bio mother was one of eight kids, so there is plenty of love to go around.

And yet.

“Big days” are always a double edged sword for adoptees (Jen Hatmaker has a great article on it). My birthday never really used to bother me the way other holidays did, but this year was different. I am sad melancholy that I spent it alone, for the most part. I live at least a day’s drive from my parents and in laws, and it just sucks. The closest extended family I have is three hours away. I saw some of them just a couple of weeks ago, but it was’t enough. It never is. Ah there’s the old adoptee mantra – nothing is ever enough. We will never be satisfied with the amount of love we have. We need to be surrounded by it and reassured, constantly. Not only in familial relationships but in all relationships – friends, and even co workers. There’s a theory (and book) in Adoptee-land called the Primal Wound, which essentially believes that a baby and their biological mother suffer an intense, never-heal-able wound once the baby raised by someone else. The baby (adoptee) then goes on to suffer damage in future relationships because of this wound. I am not sure I subscribe to this theory in terms of how I feel about the lack of relationship with my bio mother, but certainly this wound seems to permeate how I perceive my relationship with others, and the never ending need for “more”. It’s almost like, with S, too much time has passed and it just will never change. And I am choose to be okay with that. But even before I sought out my bio family, I would feel things on different levels than other people when it came to relationships. Friendships, romantic relationships, etc. were all on a very intense level, very quickly. When those friendships or relationships ended organically, it was soul crushing to me. I really believe it’s due (in part at least) because I’m adopted. I don’t know, maybe on some level my “inner baby” thinks I will be abandoned again. Which is weird to think, let alone put down on paper, because I never felt “abandoned” as an adoptee. And still don’t. But clearly, somewhere my soul is still grieving.

Which begs the question…will I ever be satisfied? Here I am, 44 years into this life and…I still don’t know. All I can do is try to continue to honor and build the relationships from both families, both of whom mean literally the world to me. I would not be the person I am today had I not been adopted into the S family, and I would not be here at all were it not for the O family.

So I will continue to try and sort this all out via my writing. #cheaperthantherapy