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Seeing a picture

January 18, 2011 By pia

I met my birth mother in the 80’s.  I have many great things to say about that decade.  Meeting her isn’t one of them.  It took me years, until I wrote a newspaper article about the experience to remember what she called me the entire weekend.  I was “my mistake.”  “Why hi.  How nice to meet you.  Just call me her mistake.”

The word guilt was invented specifically for me yet I felt no, OK very little guilt when I stopped corresponding with my birth mother.  She had told me how sorry she was she didn’t marry my birth father (I wasn’t as I wouldn’t have had my family) yet she would write me letters listing cities where I could meet Jewish men.

Hello.  I lived in Manhattan.  It was a bit hard not to meet Jewish men but I was looking, half-heartedly, for love and religion played no part in that.  Actually I was in the midst of a two year, get together for sex and fun–friends with benefits, before the name, with an Italian-American character actor.  But I had no desire to talk about it.

We had met at the Iggy Pop concert where I was carried in a rave, and somehow got my friend a job with Iggy who I had never met before the after party.  Being friends with doormen, managers and/or club owners all over downtown had certain advantages.

I’m not proud of a lot of things I did but I’m not ashamed either.  I didn’t expect my birth mother to approve of everything I did nor did I feel the need to tell her.  As I didn’t tell my parents everything.  I was a self-supporting adult who didn’t need a new mother.  Mine, adoptive, was everything I wanted in a mother.

So I let the relationship die a natural death.  I’ve googled her maybe a total of four times in the entire time I have had access to the Internet.   I was shocked to see a picture of her still alive and sharp looking.  She looked very different than she had 22 years ago.  Old but better.  Nothing at all like me–we have totally different noses, eyes, and mouths.  But the face shape, yes.  When I saw her she had a round face.  Mine hasn’t been round since teen years.

If I met her now I would handle the reunion very differently.  But I don’t know how.  It’s something I think you’re never prepared for no matter how “prepared” you go.

The picture stirred up feelings in me.

Feelings of needing family.  Feelings of being somebody’s child.  Unfortunately I can never be her child.  I had two of the best parents, and this year I know I will think of them often.  My Mom’s tenth anniversary and my Dad’s 20th.  Bookends I called them and they were.

I have incredible family and friends.  But I don’t think you ever stop wanting to be somebody’s child.  Even when they’re old, frail and maybe dependent, they diapered you.  They love you for the flaws, not in spite of them.  Well, a bit of everything.  It’s their job to love you!  They even pay you for the privilege.  Room, board, toys, clothes, vacations, college if you’re lucky.  And all the things you take so for granted.

This is an article making the FB rounds on quitting blogging.  Seven to ten hours a week on blogging?  At my height when friends mentioned above called me “lost to blogging,” rather melodramatically I might add, I was spending 70-100 hours a week on two or more blogs.  And paid for mine!!!!!!!!

Filed Under: memoir, space chick with the electric hair Tagged With: Adoption, Aging

« Some last thoughts on this week–just my last thoughts
Seeing A Picture: Part Deuce »

Comments

  1. Bone says

    January 18, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    Feelings of needing family. Feelings of being somebody’s child. Unfortunately I can never be her child. I had two of the best and this year I know I will think of them often. My Mom’s tenth anniversary and my Dad’s 20th. Bookends I called them and they were.

    This. This… was just perfect.

  2. pia says

    January 18, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    @Bone
    Thank you Bone. Thanks. Means so much

  3. cooper says

    January 18, 2011 at 10:19 pm

    A thoughtful post Pia, and written as only you could write it, and as Bone has already noted the perfection I won’t bore you with repetition.

  4. Nathalie says

    January 19, 2011 at 7:36 am

    Wonderful. You are amazing. A very lucky mistake indeed.

  5. pia says

    January 19, 2011 at 10:01 am

    @cooper
    Bore me Cooper. Thanks 🙂

  6. pia says

    January 19, 2011 at 10:01 am

    @Nathalie
    Nathalie you’re making me cry. Thanks!

  7. EsotericWombat says

    January 19, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    Not even “my favorite mistake”? weak

  8. pia says

    January 20, 2011 at 6:13 am

    @EsotericWombat
    Wombat–actually not weak at all. That would have made me laugh and the whole tone would have been different

  9. Doug says

    January 20, 2011 at 6:45 am

    As I often do, I second Cooper. @cooper

  10. pia says

    January 20, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    @Doug
    You’re second to nobody Doug, but since I adore Cooper….and thanks 🙂

  11. EsotericWombat says

    January 20, 2011 at 1:52 pm

    Fair enough. I thought I’d said this before, but this was remarkable Pia.

  12. pia says

    January 20, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    Thanks Wombat. That means more than I can say. I put this post up in an org I belong to where I assumed all members can post and they pulled it. Made me wonder if my writing has become horrible. If I’m too offensive, and a whole lot of other things

  13. sage says

    January 21, 2011 at 10:05 am

    Nicely written. I can’t imagine just how awkward such a meeting might be. Thanks for sharing.

  14. TC says

    January 30, 2011 at 8:38 pm

    Feelings of needing family. Feelings of being somebody’s child. Unfortunately I can never be her child. I had two of the best

    I wish your parents were still alive to read that. I guess I just have to think they must have known.

    You don’t need her, Pia. You don’t need to be anyone’s “mistake” when you were so much to your parents.

    Eggs don’t make a Mom any more than sperm makes a Dad.

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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