It’s complicated is just the best way to describe it. Some people will get it and some people won’t. Being adopted can really mess with your mind and your heart. You build walls and try hard not to let anyone in, because they are going to leave you, just like everyone else. You try not to care too much, so it is easier to forget them.
Here is how I know I am a hot mess from it all. I am a single woman mulling my way around the dating scene. I have been chatting with a guy who I am supposed to go out with tonight. Last night we are texting back and forth and I mention I am adopted and that my mother’s side of the family is from the Pennsylvania area and primarily Italian. To which he lets me know that he is adopted as well and was born and raised (by an Italian family) in Pennsylvania. My heart sank. I knew in that instant, we would never amount to anything and I needed to get out of our date.
Sounds weird I am sure? But when he told me he was adopted also, I thought to myself, he is never going to trust me and will never be able to commit because he will always be wondering when is she going to leave. Because that is me, as an adoptee. And could you imagine two of us together, trying to be a couple? I realize I have not even gone out with the guy, we may not even like each other. But what if we do? We will reject each other no matter how much we like each other, it’s what adoptee’s do. We try to be the first one to leave, before yet another person in our lives leaves us.
Believe me, I wish I could set aside my feelings of perpetual abandonment. I wish I did not think to myself, no one will ever love me and want me around so I am not even going to give it a try. I wish for once, I felt like I was good enough for someone to want to keep and hold onto, not brush away and throw out like the trash. I want to feel like I am “a keeper” just once.
I am sure it is not this way for all adoptee’s. I just wish I could be one of those…..
Remember me? 