In high school every time someone found out I was adopted their mouths would drop. As if it’s so out of the ordinary to meet someone who is actually adopted. Most people usually respect it, ask me a few questions and then we continue on with our days. But then, there are the other people that practically give you the third degree. The ones who ask all the invasive questions and wonder even more who you really are, biologically than you do. And of course, I do wonder about so many things that relate to who am I biologically, but for now, I’m perfectly fine with living blissfully in the unknown.
Some, I wonder if I’m fully Chinese. Maybe I’m part Irish, or Spanish, or even something cool like Polish. I know I could go out of my way and pay a bunch of money to have a needle put in my arm and the get my blood test, but what’s the point? I could end up finding out that I’m just fully Chinese and know what I already know. And even if I end up being part Polish, I would still consider myself as Chinese and Jewish, because that’s the way I was brought up.
There have been so many times when people tell me how weird it must be for me not knowing who my real mother is. Despite how much I appreciate their sympathy and the overdramatic sob story that they like to create about my life, knowing who my real mother is isn’t a necessity. Sure, I wonder who she is and wonder why she may of put me up for adoption, but in the end I’m grateful she did. More so than my real mother will ever know today, I’m not mad at her or disappointed in her, just thankful.
Even though I may not like it, I also occasionally think about what my life would be like if I wasn’t adopted. People sometimes ask me if I ever think about what it would be like if I didn’t get adopted, and of course I do think about it sometimes, but I never want to. A part of me feels guilty for thinking about what my life in China would be with my real mother sometimes. Even through the smallest things in my life, I know I’m privileged. I may not be rich, but I know how lucky I am, so why am I thinking about a life that isn’t my own with a person that didn’t even want me to begin with? This kind of wondering tends to stick by me the most, yet in the end, I know that it’s just a thought in my mind and reality the me today wouldn’t want.
I may not be anticipating a reunion with my real mother and biological life anytime soon, and I know I have a right to want to and to not want to know certain things. And even though I may be “ignorant” to certain aspects of myself, that’s honestly just fine. Even though I may wonder a lot, biology doesn’t mean squat to me. I’m very much OK with coming up with my own little facts about myself sometimes and because of the parents I do have today, I feel OK with not knowing who I biologically am.