Teatopia

Sighting (my personal story)

Having a blog is a bit like those dreams where you show up at school naked. You're exposing yourself-- opening yourself up for others to judge and critique. And I think if I was completely anonymous like some bloggers, I'd have an easier time, but I always have to consider the real life family and friends who may be reading, and even then I often open up and tell more than I maybe should. There's something I've considered revealing, but have avoided for a few reasons. First of all, the people who know me in real life may think it's odd that I've never told them, and secondly, it's something that hasn't really affected me, not really. And I don't think about it that often. I was raised not to. And other times, I simply forget until something-- a memory, a possible sighting, something-- makes me remember again.

Ok, so I was adopted by my father when I was seven years old. My mom divorced my biological father when I was four or so because he was horrible to her. My mom is a very Christian woman who has always been ashamed of having been divorced, and especially, of having married a man she didn't see through from the start. She left him when my sister and I were little, and after the divorce, she met someone else. We were about to move to Maryland from Georgia to get away from my biological dad, who only had partial custody of us (he fought for full, but only to get back at my mom), and my mom maintained a long distance relationship with the man she had met. He came to see us often when we were in Maryland. They were very proper about their relationship. He always stayed at my grandma's when he came to visit, and never with my mom, until he proposed to her and they got married. Then he moved into our house in Maryland and became our new dad. It didn't start out that way. We called him by his first name for the first year, but we so desperately wanted a father. My step-dad (I hate even calling him that, but I am trying to differentiate) didn't push it. It was my sister and I who started calling him dad. We sort of eased into it. I remember us daring each other to call him "Daddy" and then we'd run away, giggling and embarrassed. We were silly little girls. Anyway, that's how he became our dad.

Let me back up. After we moved, we maintained little contact with my biological father. We saw him sometimes in the summer, when we returned to Georgia to visit, but inbetween visits, there was pretty much nothing-- cards and presents on holidays, but it eventually stopped. I dreaded calling him when we vacationed in Georgia every summer and I often cried as he drove us away from my mom, but he had partial custody, so we had no choice. I always felt uncomfortable being with him. One time when I visited, he made me call my mom and tell her that I didn't want to live with her anymore. I was scared and so I did it. I listened to her cry and I kept telling her that I didn't want to be with her, that I was going to live with my dad because I was scared not to do what he said. But that night, he brought us back to my mom, and I told her what he had done. I didn't see him for a while after that.

He never paid child support, and in his job, that was terrible and he could've been fired and brought up on legal charges, so my step-dad asked him to pay all the money he owed my mom or sign my sister and I over, and there wasn't a moments hesitation. I got a new dad-- one who loved me and is my dad to this day. I mention my parents a lot on my blog. I always mean the parents who raised me-- the dad who loved and wanted me. That's another reason I hate telling people. Once they know, whenever I refer to "my dad", they always ask "which one?" even though I've explained that dad only means one man.

The last visit with bio dad was when I was 16 and visiting my grandparents for Thanksgiving. That year, he was on his third wife. He'd lost a son in childbirth with wife #2, and then they'd had a daughter together who was 8 years younger than me, but wife #2 was so unhappy with him, she ran off, leaving wife #3 to raise the daughter (sadly, wife #3 left too, so little sis has no mom). Anyway, my sister and I called him, out of habit I suppose, and because we wanted to meet our little sister. We hadn't seen him in years, probably because once he signed away his role as our father, there was little point. I knew he didn't really want us. Anyway, the visit was ok-- akward, I suppose, but ok. I remember getting into his car when he picked us up and hearing Loreena McKennit, a singer who I love, and know few people who've ever heard of her. I remember thinking how odd it was that even though I barely knew him, we had the same unusual taste in music. It was Loreena McKennit's latest CD playing the background when I got the text message from my sister (the one I know and always mention) on Friday night with a picture attached, and the message, "recognize this man?" It was a picture of my biological father. Then, my sister called me and said he'd just walked by their table at Ruby Tuesday. I could actually see the restaurant from where I was sitting in my car, waiting for James to come out of a store. She said she knew it was him because she remembered what he looked like, and also because he's a cop and he was in uniform. Her boyfriend said he would've known who he was anyway because he looked so much like me.

When we moved back to Georgia five years ago, we moved to the town where my bio father lives, along with all his family. My sister wanted to contact him. I don't remember why we didn't call him, but instead, we drove to his house and left a note. He never responded. But my little sister, who has my online screen name, has contacted me numerous times, but that was after I made the conscious decision that I didn't want to have anything to do with him, and I told her I just couldn't get involved-- that I had a father who loved me, and although I knew he'd understand (he has said so before), I knew it would hurt him, and most of all, it would hurt me. Also, James encouraged me not to. He doesn't see the point. He thinks it would only hurt everyone. I didn't invite any of them to my wedding, even though they all live in this town. I wondered if any of them read the weeding announcement, but no one contacted me.

For some reason though, on Friday night, seeing the picture of him that my sister's boyfriend inconspicuously snapped with a cell phone, made me ache inside. I blame part of my sadness on Loreena McKennitt's haunting voice, on my hormonal menstrual state, and mostly on the fact that I'm now a parent and I just don't get how you can sign away a child who you raised for 5 years. I don't get it. He didn't want me, not then, not now. He has no idea I'm married. Or that I have a child. And he lives 8 minutes from my house. In fact, I pass his house all time time because he lives in the same neighborhood as a friend of ours. A friend who threw me a bridal shower, and later, a baby shower. And he was just a few houses away, clueless. It's not that I miss him. Sure, I'm curious, but it's just the idea that someone who held me on the day I was born, someone who I called "dada" as a little girl, was and is able to just turn off that part of his life. When asked if he was children, does he respond 3 or 1?

I have felt guitly for a long time about not knowing my sister, for not going to see her when she contacted me. After having had 2 mothers leave her, I probably should have, but I just didn't know how to see her without opening myself up for further hurt and confusion. I don't want to play daughter to him when I know he always cared more about himself than me or my sister. But I also wonder, what kind of life must my little sister have had? He's an incredibly selfish, nasty person.

My mom never told anyone she was divorced, not even her closest friends because she said that she didn't need to. She was happily married to a new man, her children had a father who loved them. Heck, it even says on my birth certificate that I was born to my second dad. He adopted me. She saw no point in saying anything, and I guess I never have either. It's always been a secret. It's something that I go a while without thinking of, but also something that hurts when I do really consider the fact that my biological father more or less abandoned me, and as a parent myself, I don't understand it. How? Why? I mean, I'm the better for it considering I scored a better dad, but there's that thought in the back of my head: I wasn't wanted. I know it's his loss, but still . . .

I confided all this in a Christian co-worker who I roomed with two summers ago while at a conference, and she told me I should contact my little sister, that she probably needed me, and I agreed and told her I would. But I never did. It's so much easier not to go there in my mind. She's now 18 (I think) and she lives minutes away, and she gave up contacting me a couple years back. She said she understood completely. Am I horrible?

So that's my story. Not something you really need to know about me, but now you do. I hadn't thought of him in a long time, until Friday. I actually thought of him earlier that day when I saw a guy who looked like him in Olive Garden but it wasn't him. And then my sister text messaged me that night, and it got me thinking about all this again . . .

Maybe someday I'll contact my sister, but then I'd have to explain to everyone. I'd have to tell them who she was and why I'd never mentioned that I had another sister, and then they'd know my dad wasn't really my dad, and I just don't want to have to go there. I like to pretend that none of it exists, except maybe for a few minutes when I'm staring at a picture of his face on my cell phone. Then, I let it all come to the surface, but otherwise, I like to keep it on the down low. Am I horrible?

Posted by Hannah at January 28, 2007 11:01 PM