Monday, September 22, 2014

In the Mind's Archives

This morning on my way to work I was trying to remember today's date. I could remember that the Thursday while we were on vacation was 9/11. The Thursday after that would have been the 18th, plus Friday, Saturday, Sunday made today's date the 22nd.

My birthday is a 22nd. Each month, if I think about the date on the 22nd, I count ahead to see how many months until I'll turn the next year older. Ticking fingers down to count, I realized that in nine months I'll be 65.

And then it struck me. Nine months = pregnancy. Right around this date 65 years ago, my mother was having an affair or a one-night stand or a loving relationship with or was being raped by the man who provided half of my genetic makeup.

In adoption, those are facts one rarely knows. I was lucky enough to have the obstetrician who delivered me–who arranged the private adoption–procure and release my hospital records to me in the mid-80s. I knew my birthmother's name. From those records, I was able to find her. She wanted nothing to do with me and said she had blocked me and my father from her mind. She had two brothers, neither of whom ever had any children, and I was the only child she ever had. So it's a great big dead end.

But to not know leaves holes in one's soul.

Would my life be different if I knew it was a loving relationship? That's what I like to project. What if I knew I was the product of rape? I don't know. If I were caused by rape, I really wouldn't want to know. But I don't think it would change anything.

The only thing I think would have changed how I developed and grew up would be if I had lucked into an adoptive mother with the emotional ability to make me feel loved and secure.

That's my greatest wish/dream/fantasy. To feel loved.

That would have made a tremendous and wonderful difference.

I wonder who I'd really be.