Finding one's self

Here I am...take me as I am.  I am an adult adoptee that lived 40+ years without knowing my heritage/history...anything...when I finally got the nerve to find my Birthmother it happened so quickly that I don't think I really knew how to handle it all.  The emotions were almost too much for me....this is my story, I hope you get something out of it and if you feel like it leave me a comment. I would love to hear from you and hear your adoption stories.  This site is basically just a place for me to spout off my views without getting censored and told to behave.

Because I am an adoptee I write mostly from that point of view but would hope that I never offend anyone else from the TRIAD..because like it or not, we are all in this crazy world of adoption together.  I wish you all well, I wish you all peace and I hope you all get to a place in your life where you can accept your life, your decisions or your fate.  As I always say about myself, I am a work in progress and hope to someday find a life that feels like it belongs to me and that I'm not an outsider looking in.

Love and Respect,  Maya 

This is the phone call that changed everything...

November 7, 2005 - I got a letter from "My Barb*" today.  I am so worried about her.  Her handwriting is messy and I  can barely read her usually neat handwriting.  I know she is ill and I am afraid the end is near.  I really wish I had met her.  I am sure if she wasn't so ill maybe she would let me come and visit her, but I can tell that she is very private and proud and probably doesn't want me to see her this way. 

November 10, 2005 - Jack will be home soon...I can't believe my big boy will be 7 tomorrow.  The phone rings...."yes this is Maya."

"I don't know how to tell you this...but I am your Uncle Jim."  He didn't have to say anything else because I knew who he was and why he was calling.  He was calling to tell me that the woman who gave birth to me 42 yrs ago, the woman I have never met had died from lung cancer.  She died on November 07, 2005 the day I received her letter.  I feel wierd, I feel lost, I am crying because of the loss and the final realization that I will NEVER meet my biological mother.  I am once again consumed by this entire "adoption stuff." I go in cycles....sometimes I think about it all the time and sometimes just a little here and there.  Something that is constant..was constant, will probably always be constant is thinking about HER.  It is wierd that I never really thought too much about my birthfather, until now that I have realized his identity has gone to the grave with her .  It was always about the mother figure.  My "uncle" goes on to tell me how they are all sitting there with their jaws hitting the floor with the realization that Barbara had a child 42 yrs ago and never told anyone.  He wants to meet me and is very generous with information about "My Barb." He is not sure who knows about me, if anyone..but he seems on a mission to find out more about me, my Birthfather and whatever else may come out of this.

I guess at this point I will just go with the flow.  There is so much history from this past year that I want to chronicle here, but I still can't believe she died on me..before I got to meet her.  It feels wierd to grieve and cry for someone I have never met...but I do and I will.  She was, afterall, the woman that gave me breathe, gave me life.  I love her and I talk to her.   I see her on my late night walks..she is a shooting star there to make me aware of her.  I keep staring at the black sky, hoping to see just one more shooting star so I can tell myself it is her winking at me, or telling me she's ok, or that I'll be ok.  And I think I will be ok, but the sadness and emptiness is consuming.

I was born on April 30, 1963 in St. Ann's Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.  This much I always knew to be true. 

I found out I was adopted, I think, quite by accident...if you can call it that.  One of the neighbor boys told me and my brother that we were adopted.  For all i knew that meant I was FRENCH I don't think I understood it the time. After awhile I realized what it meant and felt that I was discarded by my real parents...not wanted.  How old I actually was, I really don't recall.  I do know that I was young and didn't understand what it meant initially.  I am sure that my parents told me the lovey, dovey stuff that we were chosen and loved more than anyone else in the world...blah blah blah.  But, honestly, I don't think that really mattered.  All I knew was that the one person in my life that is supposed to love you more than anyone else in the world...your mother, gave me away.

I think my decline in feelings of self worth began at this point.  I see pictures of myself as a child and I always had this distant, lost look in my eyes.  I remember my 2nd grade teacher telling me that my eyes were so different, that she would never forget me because of them.  I saw her when I was a freshman in college and she recognized me immediately she said because of "my eyes."  

Grade school was difficult for me.  I didn't have many friends and I never opened up to anyone about my feelings of self loathing.  I never felt close to the teachers or the children.  I honestly can say I hated grade school and all the snobby, rich kids at Gesu. 

Highschool was ok, by this time I had made some good friends, through a theatre group at one of the boy's highschools.  We had a lot of fun going to the beach, going on roadtrips to visit friends at Kent and basically just hanging out.  I never told this group of friends "my secret."  I was so embarrassed by it...by being adopted.  I don't know why I felt like there was a stigma attached to it.   I am still close to some of these dear friends, although they live in different states and we just see each other maybe once a year...if that.

Please sign my Guest Book...I would love to hear from you!     http://www.freewebs.com/barbs-daughter/guestbook.htm

Ok whether you like rap or not if your life was touched by adoption you have to listen to the words to this song.  Darryl "DMC: McDaniels and Sarah McLachlan  found out they had a lot in common...both were adopted.  If you haven't seen DMC's

Adoption Journey on VH1...you really need to look for it.  Very touching, emotional and beautiful...it really made me search for  a support group here in Cleveland area. I found one  that meets once a month..it is through Adoption Network Cleveland. I love being able to go and talk to other's who have similar feelings and who honestly do understand what i'm going through and feeling.

 Here's a link for some of the info on the episode that showed on VH1.

http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/vh1_rock_docs/99240/episode_about.jhtml

 my beautiful boy's eyes 

These were the first eyes I ever saw of an actual blood relative.  It meant more to me than I ever

could have imagined!!

God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but HE did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears

and light for the way.  If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.

Check out my Colorado page...June 2006 We spread my Barb's ashes by her favorite casino in Black Hawk CO.

 http://www.freewebs.com/barbs-daughter/coloradoheaven.htm

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