i'm not really like this; i'm probably plightless

It's kind of funny how even the smallest things - things that in any other case, to any other person - would be so menial...can trigger the deepest hurt. I've always loved this photograph. This is the photograph that made me fall in love with Annie Leibovitz. It follows me everywhere. Without fail, every semester, someone shows this photograph. And every time, without fail, I feel a little sick. That...kind of tightening in your stomach..that's somewhere between butterflies and nausea...that makes your heart beat strangely and your eyes burn.

Stacey and I have missed the opportunity to ever be like this. 20 years without seeing her face; without ever hearing her voice. Hugs at the airport are awkward. And I've stopped wondering if that will ever go away. It won't. We'll never have a photograph like this. I'll never be in her lap and she'll never have her arms around me. I'll never feel safe enough to just stare at her face and search for the similarities in her features. The best I can hope for is a chunk of time in the afternoon where I can be let to pour over photographs of her when she was little. Somehow it feels so safe to look at pictures of her before she gave birth to me. Maybe because in those photographs - for that split second - there is a fleeting chance that she won't give me away. A fleeting look in her eyes that maybe - maybe she'll keep me. And maybe we'll have this photograph together.

We have the same hair; the same eyes; the same hands. We have the same laugh; we get hiccups when we're hungry; we have the same toes. Our handwriting is impossibly hard to differenciate. And for 20 years I missed it. She made me miss it. I spent 20 years wondering why my hair never fell straight around my face like my family's. 20 years wondering why I could draw and paint and dance - and they could calculate and solve and manage. 20 years of adjusting my laugh to match those of my parents and their families. 20 years of hiding and adjusting and trying to figure out what it was that I had done wrong.

I wanted so badly to look like them; to fit in around them. I thought that when I found Stacey I would finally be complete. That she would scoop me in her arms like I was still a child and she would hold me and rock me and cry with me and laugh with me; and she would be my mirror - and I would finally look like someone and laugh like someone and fit in with someone. I would have forgiven her everything. I would have shown her the endless pages I drew as a child, filled with her eyes and her smile: a child's desperate attempt to find her place. I would have told her that everything was okay; that we found each other and now we would both be okay. We both found our place.

But everything was ruined. An emotionless, awkward hug - one you might give to that distant cousin, who married your uncle's granfather's sister-in-law - where you lean in and wince and already you wait for it to be over. And it's all elbows and crashing cheeks and you hold the rest of you back, careful not to touch, so your just standing a pace back from where your upper bodies meet. And then it's over. And she turns and says, "the car's this way," and you're just kind of standing there, confused, staring at her back as she starts walking away. And you realize you've seen this once before. And your breath gets trapped in your lungs and your eyes sting and you realize you've been dreaming of this - you've been dreaming of her back as she walks away - for your whole life. And all you want to do is sink to the floor like the bones in your legs have just suddenly disappeared. And you just want to be left alone.

You don't care about your similarities anymore. You don't care that when you look at her you're looking in a mirror. You don't want to hear her laugh or play with her hair. You don't want her to hold you while you stare into each other's eyes and let silent regrets swirl around you like the air you're breathing. You want the air to be still. You want to stop breathing.  And you want Annie Leibovitz to take her photograph and shove it up her ass.

sometimes a great notion

I finally settled on a topic for my portfolio grad show...and - shocker - it's adoption related. The whole purpose, I realized, of my going on such a scientific tangent of ideas..was to get as far away from the subject of adoption as possible. And what could be LESS emotional than Quantam Optics? Not much.

Out of respect to my a-parents, I wanted to steer clear of the whole subject...but it seems to follow me whenever I take a photograph. There's just no escaping it. So, I rolled over and let it happen. And it's amazing. You should come see them at the end of March. I even worked it out with the professors so I don't have to display an artist's statement along with the work, just to avoid a repeat of the events that took place with the first adoption project. More to come on that...

it's not some cosmic vending machine

Still no word from Stacey. I was sneaky and checked to see if she read my message - which she did - but it's been a few days with no response. Sometimes I don't know what to make of our relationship. There are some days when I just crave time with her, and I feel like the distance between Vegas and Philly may as well be an entire universe. And then I have days like today, when I feel like lifting a very large middle finger to the west and cutting my losses. I'm sick of the childish way she's handling everything...I'm tired of hearing about how she convieniently forgot the dates of the trips she was supposed to make out here for a vist. And frankly, I'm angry at her for making me feel like a prize fool. I've been talking to the whole family and all of my friends about how Stacey was finally going to come out here for my birthday and how amazing it will be. It's embarassing to have to explain that she says she forgot the date and won't be coming.

Depressing, really.

mama mia

HERE is what I have been DYING to get off my chest since October. I would LOVE feedback, because frankly, I am livid. And of course, wondering if I have the right to be. I think this goes back as far as last year.. though I can't be entirely sure. Anyway, my first mother invited me to go on a cruise.. just me and her. A mother-daughter bonding trip on a boat, if you will. I was thrilled beyond words. I, of course, said yes. In a heartbeat. What could possibly be more fun? We needed the time alone. Every trip I have made out to Vegas has been hectic and impossible to have a moment alone. Her friends, her mother, her job always got in the way of having any meaningful conversations. This was the perfect solution.

Then, in October - right around my birthday - she sends me a message, wishing me a happy birthday.. and just below that, there was a little "PS" message which read, "M* is so excited for the cruise! She's never been on one before! Neither has her daughter, M*. S* and N* have been before, though, but they're still excited!" And then I wanted to die. It's the same as always. I'm going to be alone on a cruise with my mother and her friends. The odd man out. She's got her posse with her, and I've got.. my cabin. And hopefully a working cell phone.

Naturally, I've said nothing. Only that I'm no longer sure I can go because of the timing with graduation/getting a job/fill in the blank. I just.. can't believe it went from mother-daughter bonding to mother-friends-daughter-in-the-room-wishing-she-hadn't-gone without any warning. I'm speechless.

And to display the depth of my patheticness, I watched Mamma Mia! over the break. A ridiculous, fun, nonsense musical that should have elicited every reaction in the world except the one that I had. During the scene where the mother is helping the daughter get ready for her wedding - (below)

she's sitting in her mother's lap while her mother paints her toes. It was the most chill scene ever. And I couldn't stop crying. I want that. I want to sit in my mother's lap while she paints my toes and I want it to be the most natural thing ever. But it's becoming increasingly clear that this will never be the case. Nothing will ever be 'natural'. I would never feel natural doing this with either of my mothers. Nothing close. I feel like I got jipped.