Belonging

By Marie Ellen Pacha

When I was six years old a friend of mine got mad at me. She lashed out with the most hurtful comments she could make. She informed that I was adopted and that meant my adoptive parents could send me "back" if they didn't like me, or that my "real" parents could come and get me at any time. My adoptive mother comforted me as best she could when I returned home devastated and told me that they had chosen me. I believed her and most of the time the issue never surfaced. But I never quite felt like I belonged after that.

And there were other times when I was reminded with a vengeance that my ties to many of the people I consider family where tenuous at best.

When I was in high school Biology class we were supposed to do a family tree because we were studying such things as hereditary eye color. The Biology teacher looked at me and said that he would guess I was of Mediterranean descent because I tan easily and have dark hair and eyes. But the family that adopted me was German-Irish, and I was surrounded by blond hair and blue eyes. I questioned how I could do an accurate family tree when there was no blood relationship, but the ancestry of my adoptive family was the only one I had. My real birth records are sealed. Where did I belong?

There was always a sense of hurt at not knowing why my birth mother had given me up. Was I so unlovable? There was a time when I was younger that I was very angry with her for not loving me.

When I got older and moved out into the world the topic came up infrequently. But it came up when I was least expecting it. Anytime I went to a new doctor I had to complete a medical history. You know all those areas that you check if anyone in the family has a history of heart disease or diabetes? Those areas are always blank on the forms I complete. And I was always reminded of the hole in my life.

When my daughter was seven, my husband and I divorced. I had to make a decision as to who could take better care of her, and for a time she went to live with him. It was devastating to me personally but I did come to a new understanding of how difficult giving me up might have been to my birth mother, and why there might be a good reason for such action.

A couple years after that I decided I would try and find out who my birth mother was. By then I had two small sons, and I was hoping to say thank you to her for giving me the opportunity to reach that point in my life. I did find out a great deal about her, and also discovered that I had (have) three older half-brothers somewhere out there in the world. My search for more information was stymied by the need for a court order to release the complete records of my adoption.

Over the years I have found web sites and adoption registries where I submitted my name; hoping that someone from my past would contact me. It hasn't happened. My birth mother would be about 88 now if she is still living, and I doubt after all this time if I am a priority in her life.

Last week I was at my mother's (adoptive) home. Her health has been failing and my brothers and I found it necessary to go through her papers. There I found my birth certificate. I'm 53 years old and I have never seen it before. It was made out in the names of my adoptive parents and provided no answers to all the questions I have, but it filled a lack. And there was more. There was a card...the kind that is posted in the cribs in hospitals that give the last name of a baby and the sex. This little pink card is the oldest memorabilia of my life and gives my last name as Grimes. There was a legal document there too. It stated that Mary Felicia's name was changed to Marie Ellen and it finalized the adoption, a little more than a year after my birth.

I was and am still slightly overwhelmed by this information. And yet it doesn't change who I am or how my friends and family look at me or feel about me.

People I know who have been adopted understand how adoption made me feel. People who have not been adopted could not see why it would bother me. They could see that I hurt, but they don't understand why. The people who do know me best know me as I am and never see that something is "missing". To them I am complete with all my inconsistencies and flaws. It didn't take a person to tell me that; in fact my family and friends have always said that I am silly for feeling distant from them for something as silly as being adopted...for me it took those pieces of paper from my mother's files. Those yellowed bits of papers somehow tied my past to my present and allowed me to be satisfied with the "me" I have become.

Strangely enough those papers have strengthened my family ties to the only family I have ever known and made me cherish them all the more. Family is not about bloodlines, it's about love and for all the life I can remember I have had that in abundance. And I belong where I have been all my life, with the people that know and love me for who I am.

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Journey

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Unpacked Memories

I believe that essay writing, much like life; is a journey and memories are the key to unlocking the door to both. My journey began when I was a little girl and my Dad took my Mom, my brothers and me on mountain lion hunts. We would all pile into the car and drive through the country side on a warm spring evening. As he drove along one or the other of us would spot something at the side of those dusty gravel roads and comment. We never did see a mountain lion of course and we didn't really expect to, but we saw trees with the bark removed by lightning or just by the passage of time and in our imaginations those were evidence that mountain lions had been there. It was our claim they had scraped the bark off with their claws.

I know my Dad took my family on those jaunts to widen our horizons...nature, and weather, and just to spend time with us, and the excitement of spotting a mountain lion was just an inducement to departure. But it became apparent as we moved further into our lives there were other results as well. My older brother learned quickly the back roads and today can still find a shortcut, but I was never concerned with how I got there or even how I got home. It was almost as if I was traveling a different route, and didn't care if I had a one way ticket. I just delighted in the wanderings we took, and the things I saw.

We took these trips about the same time I learned to read, and once the pages of books were opened to me I became an insatiable reader. All the places I couldn't go physically were exposed to me in the pages. I don't recall writing all that much back then, I was too engrossed in traveling with other people and writers, but my mother saved one little paper in which I wrote about a mouse's birthday party. It seems rather a timid endeavor as I look back on it, and rather an embarrassment; but nonetheless it was probably the beginning of my writing career.

I don't remember much else about my early writing attempts with one exception. I did a paper for English in high school. The paper had to be on a famous poet and I chose Walt Whitman. I liked his poem "Oh Captain, My Captain" and found much of his other work tedious. With the unbridled ego of youth I decided if HE could write poetry, why so could I. Somewhere in this world there may be some remnants of those early rambling free verse attempts to put my thoughts on paper. (I hope NOT!)

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Aimless Meanderings

In my late childhood and young adulthood my life pulled away from the path my Dad had taken me down, and it was not a smooth ride on that detour. I got married at 18 and had a child instead of continuing in college, and any plans I might have had to complete my education and to write were derailed. I was too busy living life to sit back and wonder about where I was going or why. Once in a while I would write a poem about something that had left a mark on me, but for the most part it seemed as though any muse I might have met along the way had decided to no longer travel with me.

That marriage hit a dead end and I departed unexpectedly. Life became a struggle for survival for some time and the road ahead was NOT at all smooth. Eventually I remarried and had two more children, and very little time to write. I did still read and my literary preferences expanded beyond mere fiction to biographies and autobiographies and into historical works. In a way I suppose I was picking up through osmosis the styles and genres of writing that I would gradually adapt to use for myself.

That marriage also came to a complete and sudden halt, at the same time I was dealing (poorly) with menopause and depression which were closely intertwined and fed off one another. But coping with the changes I was being overwhelmed by became the catalyst for change in my life.

It was during this part of my life that I began writing prolifically. I'm not sure where all the words came from. It seemed like a faucet was turned on, and I just couldn't stop the words from pouring out. Gradually and tentatively, I shared my poems with friends who encouraged me, and asked me to share.

I wish I could say it was easy, but it wasn't. It was if the path I was on had suddenly come to a dead stop. It took its toll on me and left me with a lot of baggage. But I HAD to choose a new path, or even build one because my sons were now traveling with me, and while I didn't mind wandering aimlessly I wanted them to have a path with fewer ruts.

Like Mair who I am is tied to what I am, and for all of my life I have been a woman, and most of my life I have been a mother. That role is as much a part of me as my hair color, and my drive to express myself by writing. I couldn't completely leave the route those roles demanded I move down.

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Bridging the Gap

I needed a bridge to a new life and I chose education as the most direct path to take to my future. Oh, I hit a couple of brick walls first. I was going to major in computers, and then realized that I would need business courses and math, both of which bored me. Then I decided that since I was good with words, why not embark on a writing career? Because I had recently tangled with an instruction manual that made absolutely NO SENSE, and because I wanted a writing career that might be profitable I decided that of course I could write it better, (my ego was still intact) and I changed my major to Technical Communications. I was well into my second semester and attempting to choose courses for the third when I hit a roadblock and once again came to a complete stop. I was informed that Technical Communications longer existed as a major and had not for some time. To this day I am still bemused that I was allowed to declare that major and I was temporarily faced with a large crossroad in my journey. Which way was I to go now?

Fortunately two things happened which turned me in what I believe is the right (write?) direction for me. I was offered a contract (not a great one), but nonetheless a contract for publication of a book of poetry. Suddenly I saw light at the end of the tunnel. I really was a writer! People WANTED to read what I wrote! My junior college doesn't offer a degree in writing, but it does in Liberal Arts and I decided that was my direction. Along with that I decided to take every writing course I could and expand the vista.

Rather like Didion I arrived at this profession because it is the way my mind works. Where some people travel a straight road to reach their goals, mine seems to go off at strange junctions and I frequently find myself back where I started. I suspect I would drive Mapquest out of business. In a recent conversation with my Mother she told me I think too much and that I was "weird". But I can't help it. I CAN'T turn off these questions and attempts to find answers. I can't stop myself from taking all those side roads. I can't turn off the desire to understand myself and the world around me. And for me, that quest comes out in writing. Like Didion "I write entirely to find out what I am thinking."

Since that first book of poetry a small fantasy book I wrote has also been published. And a year ago I completed a contract to ghostwrite a book of fiction for a woman in California. It's in print now as well, with a sequel planned to start in April.

I'm still taking baby steps on this journey and feeling my way with more caution than I did when I was young and reckless and so very sure the road would never end. But I also know that because of what I have lived and who I have become, I have plenty more to say, and a lot more journey left in me.

Bartkevicius compares essay writing to a landscape, and I compare it to a journey. The base on which we both write is our memories and experiences. Those are our starting points. And I deliberately attempted with this essay to segment it as she did hers. That's my ego again, MY I, that believes because others have done it successfully, so can I.

So here I am, combining my memories with my ego and presenting it as literary nonfiction. I offer you my thoughts and my ideas and lay myself open to your criticisms or your understandings.

***
Destination Unknown

I haven't clearly mapped this out yet and my destination is not been predetermined. Part of my life is still tied to my sons who are nearing college themselves. I am planning to continue on in a four year college, but I haven't decided if I should major in Communications or English. I want the degree for my resume, and to enable me to know enough about the different genres of writing to get on track for a profitable writing career. And I want these writing courses simply to learn more about this field that I have chosen and either degree will work for that.

I am independent enough to at times wish I could run away from home and simply be a gypsy, responsible for only the now and myself, and who knows? Maybe in the not so distant future that's what I'll be.

I do know my laptop will go with me, so that I can write about my travels wherever I disembark. This class has opened a new direction to me as a writer. Orlean states that an essay can be a number of things, "a meditation, a memoir, a written inquiry...absolutely individual." I think it might be interesting to write a memoir of my travels. Maybe someday, someone else will read it. And I hope that my Dad has been watching this journey he started me on.

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On Being a Mom

I have a resume. It lists my current position as self-employed writer, and author. It lists many of my accomplishments; the books I have published, murals I have painted, periodicals I have been published in, and the fact that I have ghostwritten a book, and am working on a second.

It doesn't list the position I have held for the longest period of time, nor does it list the job duties required for that position. And it doesn't mention how important that "job" is in my estimation. That job...that position, is being a Mom, and I have been one for almost 35 years.

Of all the things I have ever done, or will ever do being a "Mom" ranks at the top; both in effort expended, and worth. Not financial worth, mind you...Mom's don't get paychecks. We don't get sick pay or retirement funds, or vacations. What we get is a feeling of pride and accomplishment when our children let go of our apron strings and fly from the nest, and move out on their own, and succeed because we gave them the chance to do so.

What were my job duties as a Mom? I cooked, I cleaned, I played nurse, I tutored, I cajoled, I comforted, I nagged, I sacrificed at times, and yes, I cried. My hours were 24/7, 52 weeks a year, and those duties didn't let up when I was tired or even ill.

I guess I am reminded of this now as my next-to-youngest boy; my oldest son prepares to leave for college. His brother will leave next year. But this son, the one leaving soon, is a landmark for me. I'm going to miss him. We've always been close and are very much alike temperamentally (at times that wasn't a good thing!) But in his preparations for college I see a young man prepared to meet his future head on with no hesitation. And THAT is what I worked for the past 18 years.

He has no intention of "needing" me again, and that also was my intention...to see him that independent. I know, better than he does just yet, that the ties that bind us won't ever be totally severed, and he knows deep inside that if he ever does need me I am only a phone call away. But I am not going to worry about him. I gave him all the resources within my scope in order to prepare him for life. It's time he explore it on his own.

He's going to check into to his dormitory with his roommate (already leaving me behind!) And he shopped for the necessary items on his own. Oh he did allow me to assist when he applied for financial aid, but when a question arose I was very pleased to see how professionally he corresponded with the University. His wings are strong enough to carry him, and I am sure that he will soar.

I will cry when he leaves, but not where he can see me. And they won't be tears of sorrow; they will be tears of joy and celebration.

I have one more year with my youngest boy. For the first time in his life he will be an only child. But I don't anticipate that we will spend more time together than we do now. I know from experience that as a senior in high school he'll have all kinds of events to attend with his friends and classmates. That's the way it is supposed to be.

And then about a year from now he'll leave too. I will send him off knowing that I have prepared him in the same way for his future.

And I will cry when he leaves, but not where he can see me. And they won't be tears of sorrow; they will be tears of joy and celebration.

The rewards for being a Mom aren't in a paycheck. They are in the hugs and kisses and love we shared and still share. Every sleepless night, and every tear I shed was more than worth it.

And of all the jobs I've ever held I did this one the best.