My mother would never lie to me when I asked why I didn’t look like her. Instead of feeding me falsities, she would tell me I looked like my birth mother. At the ages when I had all of these questions about myself, being told that I was adopted seemed to satisfy me even when I had no clue what that meant. Now at 19, I know that this is a big deal and I’m very thankful. I wasn’t always, though.
When I was 13 years old, I read a book about a girl who was also adopted, biracial, and 13 years old. Her name was Angel. Throughout the story, she has somewhat of an identity crisis when she finds out her deceased uncle is actually her father. Angel then develops all these questions that no one seems to be able to answer to her wanting.
Reading this made me realize how little I knew about myself, and I began to have the same thoughts. It suddenly hit me how clueless I was about myself, and I felt lost. I just wanted what my friends had. They had their biological history at their disposal, and I was angry because I felt that they neglected that. Then, I decided to find my birth mother. You may think that finding my biological mother would’ve been super difficult, but I found her on Facebook because she was the only search result. When I found her, I messaged her and she messaged back, I sobbed I was so happy. Finally, everything I wanted to know, I could ask.
After corresponding with her for a while, she then notified my birth father that I wished to speak with him as well. I ended up meeting them both the following summer. The experience was very enlightening. I went in expecting very little and received so much. I was amazed! I looked so much like both of them. I have the same chin as both of them, I have my birth father’s hair, I have my birth mother’s feet, her eyes, his nose, and so many other little details. Being able to see where you get part of yourself from may seem irrelevant or annoying to some people, but for me, and I’m sure many other adoptees, it’s magical. To this day, I still have relationships with both of them; I was even my birth mother’s maid of honor when she got married a couple of years ago.
I often joke saying that I’m the Harry Potter of my family because I’m “the chosen one.” As years have gone on, I have found a large part of my identity in being adopted. I am very proud of it and admire my birth mother’s sacrifice so I could have what she couldn’t give me. I also greatly admire my adoptive parents in their choice to bring me into their family and love me as their own. Let me leave you with a bit of advice. Whether you’re adopted or not, appreciate your parents. We don’t really realize how much they gave to have us, and this is something we probably won’t fully comprehend until we’re parents ourselves someday. Love them with everything you have inside of you and never take them for granted.
