Pieces.

For a long time I always felt like I had missing pieces in my life, being adopted only makes those feelings grow stronger. Ever since I can remember I've always felt like I had siblings, and it was always older brothers. About a year ago I started my One Year to Live exercise in hopes of finding a way to fill the void, I was struggling with my identity and where I fit in. A week ago a message was left on my voicemail. I have some information on your birth parents, I'd like to send it to you but I need to confirm your address.
A few days later a packet in the mail arrived for me from San Francisco. I wasn't expecting a big packet, I was expecting a tiny envelope with a letter inside explaining to me how they couldn't find my birth family, and that everyone was MIA. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. Inside the packet was a page long description of my birth mother, followed by a page long description of my birth father. The third page had 7 numbers going down the side with 7 names in front of them. These were my siblings. My family. 6 older brothers and 1 younger sister. My eldest brother was an adult at the time of my birth and my younger sister is 19. All were either placed in foster care and then later adopted.

Now comes one of the toughest decisions I'll ever have to make, should I try to get contact with them? Do they even know I exist? Would they want anything to do with me?

Still a struggle.

Once again I find myself sitting in my African American Studies class grasping with the idea of Identity and how I identify myself. Words are thrown around like Heritage, Ancestors, History, Pride, Art, Culture, Community.


My history is the history of the world. A bastard child, orphaned and left to float from one place ot another. My story so different from the masses but to similar to the few. Placed in foster care from the get go, drugs and alcohol flowing through my veins, born 3 months too early. Arbitrarily named and categorised into the system, set off into the world. At the mercy of young yuppie couples who were in search of an "Instant Family" and couples that just wanted the notoriety for fostering and adopting who could have and did care less about their newest arrival. The same sex couple who wanted to start their own family and prove everyone else wrong falling somewhere in between. And finally the people who actually cared about the child they were bringing into their home, wanting to give them a family and a safe place to live.

21 years later I still yearn for that sense of belonging. It's easy to say it doesn't matter but it's even harder to believe it.

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