On Latin Grocery Stores and Tumbleweeds

The woman who gave birth to me hasn’t spoken to me in six months .Today I was talking about it and someone said to me today “Didn’t you get the memo when she gave you up the first time?” Well I guess I havn’t.  Maybe it was because of how excited she was to talk to me when I found her. Or maybe it was her promises of “Mija I thought about you everyday” or maybe it was the way that she sat on her couch for two hours  patting my arm and mumbling over and over  “I can’t belive you’re real”.  As is comman in the adoptee naritive its probably something I’ve done or at least it feels that way.   In the interest of backstory and cohesion here’s this story of how I ended up as a 30 year old mixed race adult adoptee who can’t seem to get her own mother to answer the phone. 

 In 1986 a 24 year old  mother of two with a history of Iv drug use , got pregnant with her third child.  I was born November 20^th 1986 and tested positive for a smorgasboard of drugs. She bounced in and out of my life for the first few months while I was in the care of my maternal grandparents and while I was in and out of the hospital being treated for drug withdrawl and two bouts of menegitis, after yet another encounter with law enforcement that ended with her facing a year long prison term she signed custody of me over to my grandparents.  I was soon adopted by a family who had already adopted twin boys from an international adoption agency in Guatamala. 

One of the questions I often am asked is “when did you know you were adopted?” I think that deep down I always knew and we were always told that we were adopted and that it was all a grand design by God for our benefit.  No matter how many times I was told that it was for a reason and it was for the best it didn’t erase the deep need to know where and from whom I came from.  I spent years searching for my biological family and in 2013 after sending countless facebook messages to potential relatives; I finally found my birth family.  I was able to meet my mom and a few of siblings in 2014. All total I have only spent 1.5 days with my biological family in the last 30 years. There isnt a day that goes by that I don’t think about them and worry if theyre ok.  I have 6 siblings and more neices and nephews than I can count and more than anything I wish I could have the sort of relationship with them that “normal” people have with their families.

I have several theories about why my mom doesn’t talk to me anymore and most of them revolve around things that I could have done to screw up our relationship. The reality is that it’s just probably too much for her for me to be in her life and to be a glaring reminder of her failures. I also know that for a woman already burdened with a mental health diagnosis and the care of her grandchildren, that navigating the complexities of our relationship might just be too much to bear. The truth of the matter is simple though. I miss her, like everyday of my entire life and probably for everyday going forward I will always have a space in my heart that only she can fill. And that is why being adopted is much like being a tumbleweed. It is a constant search for idenity and place in a world that tells you to just “shut up and be greatful”