I can remember little-to-nothing of my life before age 6 or 7. I wonder if that's odd. It seems a bit old to me to not have any memory of anything transpiring before that age. What memories I do have of that age are scattered. Nothing coherant. I remember playing outside, always. Always running around, always building. I remember taking a liking to the word 'contraption'. I would try desperately to use it at least once a day. And if I found good enough reason for it, I would repeat the sentance twice, sometimes three times just to hear that word. Odd. I was an odd kid.
Maybe it's just the analyzer in me, but I couldn't help but wonder if my adoption was revealed to me on some specific day of some specific year prior to what I can remember...and perhaps that is why I can't remember. I've always said that my parents told me all along that I was adopted because I could not remember the day I found out. But really, how much sense does that make? Would you hold your month-old baby, rocking her to sleep, singing her a lullaby and just before you lay her down in her cradle, you kiss her on the forehead and whisper in a dreamy loving voice, "You're adopted. You didn't come from me. You were chosen, you are special." So how early do you begin engraining that in your child's mind? How long had they been engraining it in mine? And is that the reason I cannot remember?
One thing that I do remember - despite its depressing nature - is always feeling slightly out of place. Though my parents did a wonderful job raising me, I always felt like a guest in my own home. I was an emphatic apologizer. I still am. If someone were to bump into me, I would apologize. And it still happens. I tried (and failed) to be the wonder child. I was a good kid, of course. I never did anything crazy...always stayed where I was supposed to - I followed instructions like it was my sole purpose on earth. But my grades were never up to par. My father is a CFO. His father was an engineer. My grandfather on my mother's side is a chemical engineer and holds numerous patents in his field. My aunts are chemists and doctors and my uncles are businessmen and business owners. I - a curly haired, pale skinned non-math brained dancer/artist/general free spirit - was lost in a family of straight haired, olive skinned math brain engineer/chemist/general world changers.
I used to hate it when people said I looked like my dad. They would see my blue eyes and his, and immediately gush over how much resemblance there was. Why is it that outsiders must always attempt to find something familiar in the adopted child? Why aren't her differences celebrated? Why can't someone just say to the adopted child, "my goodness...look at that head of hair. You must get that from your natural mother." The fact is, I looked nothing like my father. Or my mother. Why would I? My sister, on the other hand... [my parents, thinking they could not conceive, adopted myself and my brother, and then went on to have two biological children of their own. Yeah, I said it. 'Of their own'.] ...she looks like the perfect unison between my mother and father. She is the wonder child. Sporty, petite, good grades - straight A's - plays everything under the sun that involves a ball. We jokingly fight over who is the 'favorite', but in all seriousness - I know exactly where the distinction lies. I fall short where she excells because she is their blood.
