The one thing I have know my whole life is that the parents that raised me weren’t my blood.
It wasn’t until I took a 23 & Me test as a joke, that my life changed.
My parents were very open with me from a very young age. I very clearly looked different from my ‘Where’s Waldo’ looking brother. Anyone with a mirror would have know.
My brother was a lanky, chicken legged, dark haired white boy. He sported the thickest birth control glasses I’ve ever seen and for some reason our mother thought tube socks were okay. We were totally Gap kids. Legit.
We won’t judge the fashion sins of our mother or the mid 90’s.
As you can see… I am a heavier built, round faced, braces rocking nerd. Yes, that is a dog on my shirt with corresponding beach shorts. I was on point.
Although all 4 of us have the same last name… clearly I am the odd duckling.
This Is My Story
I was born at the no longer existent Lakewood General Hospital on August 12, 1982.
According to what little information I currently have, I was a troubled birth. My biological mother refused me at birth and I was taken straight to the nursery.
Enter, Baby No Name.
My parents, herforth known as Mom and Dad, happened to have a family friend at the same hospital about an hour after I had been refused and considered ‘abandoned’
You read that right. ABANDONED.
I need to drop in a little * right here and say something.
If you go Googling adoptees and abandonment issues you’re going to find a whole host of Mental Health Organizations providing all kinds of relevant generalized information.
Although these generalizations are true, it doesn’t take the train to all the different stops that are available on the abandonment express. Understanding the genetic makeup and possible genetic predispositions of a unknown child can play major roles.
Mom and Dad had me in their car and on the way safely home less than 72 hours after my birth.
They had been given details of my birth and nothing about the woman who had me. I came with the standard newborn hospital manual and a matching baby soft pink hat and blanket. To this day my Mom will still refer to me as her ‘little pink eraser’ every time she sees the photo.
I was a healthy lump at 8lbs 7oz, with enough rolls for thanksgiving dinner. I also came equipped covered in white blond peach fuzz. It wasn’t until my hair started to grow, my Mom realize I had the platinum blond she’d always dreamed of.
She had a doll baby. Check out my smock! Curly blond hair, blue/hazel eyes and dimples grown women pay too much money for.
Admission. I have always been cute.. I just didn’t know it until here recently.
As I grew, I didn’t really pay attention to it. I walked like a duck, quacked like a duck. I was a duck.
I made it my mission to do everything to prove that I had earned and belonged with the family that had selected me. However, there was also a large part of my otherwise rather quite childhood that harbored the darkness that I had yet to discover.
It was all good. I was a happy, energetic, curious young girl. I have an almost primal urge to ALWAYS be outside. I had entirely too much energy, so I played ‘all’ the sports.
Again, we are talking about the early 90’s when sports for girls were just starting to become more mainstreamed. You’re probably saying yeah right – but realize the WNBA charter wasn’t established until 1996. (We will sidestep the face that it took the NBA, a predominatly male entity to let the girls play professionally outside of the Olympics.)
The above photo not only references 5th grade me and my elementary school bestie, but also the extensive trophy collection I had amassed from playing sports.
This was also about the time that I started puberty.
There is nothing like being a young female riddled with hormones on the horizon of the most awkward period in all our lives. This is also the time that most children with delayed mental illnesses or direct impact mental issues tend to rebel against themselves and the system.
One day I woke up and it was like the heavily burdened rain clouds endlessly looming over our house has transferred themselves into my body and my mind. I loathed EVERYTHING. The racing thoughts got almost uncontrollable and I could not understand why I felt the need to be eternally angry about everything. I hated going to school. My parents had switched me to a Middle School across town because they liked the Principal better than the school I was zoned to go to. The one with ALL my friends. This is also when my depression and anxiety really kicked into high gear.
The first day of 6th, it took my mother nearly an hour of dealing with sobbing tears and fighting all the way just to get me out of the car. I pleeded with her, arguing, screaming ‘You wouldn’t do this to your natural born son!’
My clear and apparent abandonment and self worth issues were showing. My mother tried to tell me in the most patient and loving way she could after being degraded and endlessly barraged with ignorance that this was for my educational good and that there was no difference between my brother and myself.
I never got the memo. At least not until much later in life.
In 6th grade my life went from always out of the house, playing with friends, video games and having a life to…. social isolation. We didn’t have the internet yet, well at least as the virtual wasteland it is today. The dial up connection took forever and if anyone picked up any of the other phones in the house – you were no longer connected.
What a supreme pain in the ass. So, if you wanted to talk to someone or see them… you picked up the phone and dialed their house.
(For you youngsters – when we say ‘pick up the phone’ we mean the ancient ones you see in the movies hanging on peoples walls. Households usually had more than one wall phone, and if they were fancy – a cordless. Go google it.)
Being forced to socially isolate because your old friends are all busy and your new friends all live across town really sucks. I was on the search for something to attach to because it felt like my whole world had crashed in and I ‘didnt want to’ a very large portion of the time.
By the time I returned back to the NorTac crowd in 9th, they had all had 3 years to bond consistantly. All my Hunt friends were at Wilson, and once again I was at Stadium. The rage came to a point that midway through my Freshman year Basketball Season.. I handed in my jersey. I knew in my soul it had become too dangerous to play a sport that involved direct contact with other girls. I wasn’t nessisarily bigger than the other girls, but I would find myself playing the game while only being able to focus on the blinding rage towards whichever player had talked the most shit to me. You didn’t want to foul me. I played exactly 4 games of that 14 game season. I no longer cared.
I didn’t mind, I was fully focused on Volleyball which I had picked up when losing soccer for basically the same reason in 6th. In my reasoning it was inside where games wouldnt get rained out, and my Mom might actually show up to a game.
I had started to see a talk therapist because my mother felt that our relationship was to the point of no return. A part of me understands that she was seeking help for me because I was clearly out of control. But…
What really should have been going on is I should have seen a child psychologist and I should have been tested on both the ADHD and Autism spectrums. Yet again, in today’s society that is exactly what would happen. We aren’t talking about today society, its 1996.
Freshman year of high school, I began to become very curious about my biological family. I would try to approach the subject very carefully around my Mom, and hope she would pick up on one of them and just take off talking. Spilling the tea without me having to ask. Less effort required of me in dealing with the one person viewed as enemy number one. Sounds like a solid plan.
Of course, it took months but eventually during one of our louder but less proud moments she admitted that she only met Bio Mom once and it was when she had to sign the papers for me. I remember very clearly the words coming out of her mouth. According to this, she didn’t have a reason for giving me away. She had only left the burden to another with the parting words of, “She’s my only daughter, please take good care of her.”
The next day, I got on a plane and left for Israel. Yet another JPK special that I was NOT a fan of partaking on. Not only was I once again leaving absolutely EVERYTHING that was comfortable and familiar with me. I have a award winning track record of getting motion sick, and you’re talking about 16 hours on a plane. Oh straight the fuck no.
Here we are! Downtown Seattle, November 30, 1999. Most native PNW’ers refer to this as the ‘Battle of Seattle’ dubbed by the Seattle Post – but more commonly known as the WTO Riots. I am a 16 year old kid well into a developing identity crisis and I am being tear gassed trying to get to the airport for the first of three flights to Israel.
I know its alot to keep up with, I lived it.. so just a brief recap.
At this point is in 1999, I am 16 years old and about to go international for the first time with my best jew friend.
Internally my anxiety has full control over me. I have been dating the same boy for a year and a half and I’ve totally convinced myself there was no way anyone could love such an unwanted human being. I couldn’t process anything because it all meant saying goodbye. It felt like I had been sentenced to do this because my parents just needed a break. I felt dismissed. It really wasn’t until London that I felt the real true weight of abandonment.
On the plane ride I managed to keep my undefeated record of multiple used sick bags. S managed to find me a McDonalds at Heathrow. I managed a little chamomile and french fries. We had 3 hours until take off to Tel-Aviv. Now I’m sick af, trying to hold it together in a foreign country with no way to call home until we are issued our phone cards at the school. Awesome.
We dont talk about the things that happened in Israel. Not because they are of less merit. I actually had an amazing time, and rarely called home. Its just, I don’t know you that well and those are pretty special times.
Upon returning in 2000, I was going into the summer before Senior year. I had been gone for a year so noone knew what I looked like. I remember gettiing off the plane with nerves going 4000 miles an hour because it was finally home. When we got through international flight security and to the baggage claim I saw my parents and my boyfriend standing there. Something inside of me was so broken, I really didn’t care. I just wanted to go home, have something to eat and sleep.
So, that is what I did. The car ride home was painfully awkward. Here I am with these people I really havent interacted with in a year. All things considering, we really didn’t part on the best of terms and I have no gauge on anything. Plus you’re shoving this boy in my face, whom I haven’t seen in a year and its painfully clear that he doesn’t want to be there. Cool. It only took 24 hours to realize that in his world our relationship ended the day my parents send me overseas. He had moved on far before I had even thought about coming back. He just couldn’t deal with living on memories and the letters.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t actually love my high school boyfriend. I loved him as much as I was capable of the time, and he broke my heart. There was nothing else left in Tacoma for me.
In a super petty effort to get back at my Mom, I started looking into the Navy. I even went so far as to talk to a recruiter at school and then go down to their office at the Mall. Once. That was more than enough for her to come marching down there once she had found out where I went to reclaim me so I didn’t sign my life away. She failed to understand that I would have eventually have to ask for parent permission since I was only 17.
I was so pissed off at her. Angered to my very cord. Within two weeks I was enlisted in the Air Force.
To be continued….🍋💋
🚢💋SEDONA SUNSETS💋🏴☠️ 