LJI 0 - introduction
Her mother found out that she was going to have a baby only six weeks. Then her water broke while sitting on a pile of tires, and she quietly told her boyfriend that the tires would have to wait. The baby was born the next morning at half past five in the morning.
The two of them signed their rights away.
She told the nurse to tell the new parents they had a daughter. When they rushed to the hospital, their dreams fulfilled after over six years of marriage, the biological mother of their new daughter walked to the nursery. Somehow she knew those people were her daughter's new parents.
Two and a half years later, a baby boy joins the family. Six months after that, a baby boy is born on the day before Halloween. And then, almost four years after that, two weeks to the day after her seventh birthday, another baby boy is born.
She has always known she's adopted. As she gets older, people ask what being adopted is like. It's like asking what it feels like to be alive. How can you explain what something is like when you've never known anything other than it?
She grows up.
She internally battles sadness and insecurity, and hopes the bullies will leave her alone if she keeps to herself.
She loves animals and books.
She tolerates her brothers.
She longs for a sister.
She has trouble following directions and can't figure out why. Her father calls it a "staying on task disorder", but years later refuses to accept the official diagnosis of ADD.
She overhears her father tell someone on the phone that she has cerebral palsy. Because her fingers flip up at the tips. He didn't mean for her to overhear but he doesn't know how to be quiet.
Her tread is heavy. She sounds like an elephant when she walks.
She is painfully shy. Her lazy eye, her overbite, the way she has to go to the resource room at school for extra help with math. The resource room teacher is not very nice to her. So as usual, she crawls inside her shell because it's easier not to create waves.
During her formative years, she deals with crippling loneliness and sadness. She doesn't know how to deal with it. She keeps a journal but never writes anything super secret in it because she doesn't trust her parents not to read it.
The aching pain of loneliness and feeling unloved burns inside her chest but she keeps it bottled up. And she withdraws. She stays home from the sports games her brothers participate in because being alone is preferable.
At nineteen she meets someone. He asks her to marry him. She says yes, in retrospect not because she loves him but because she doesn't expect to be able to do any better. He commits an ugly crime and lies about it. He goes to prison. And finally, summoning the courage that she never knew she had, she files for divorce.
Gradually she begins to think for herself. Her parents still want to control her life. Her father threatens to put her in a group home because he doesn't think the apartment is clean enough. This is the same man who had meltdowns over popcorn kernels on the living room floor. Nothing is ever good enough for him.
She is a walking example of the double bind. They don't expect her to be good at anything, but make sure to make her feel terrible every time she fails at something. Why bother? she wonders, when they storm in and complain that there are dishes in the sink or the kitchen floor isn't spotless. It will never be good enough anyway.
One night she can't sleep and gets online. She meets someone. They begin to talk. They like each other. He flies her out to meet him. Her parents find out and beg her not to go. She is in her late twenties and they still treat her like she's twelve.
She will not let love pass her by a second time. She flies out to meet him for the best weekend of her life and throws caution to the wind. She will take control of her own life now.
They fall in love; she moves to Arizona. They live in sin. She's rebelling and sowing her wild oats ten years later than everyone else. They get married. He believes in her the way no one else ever has. They fit together perfectly.
Washington State opens adoption records a few years later. She swallows her fear and sends in a request. On January 12th, 2015 it comes in the mail. The nameless, faceless woman who gave birth to her has a name. And she gave her a name too. Joy Olivia.
She has a brother, a sister, a half sister, three "bonus sisters". She meets her birth mother for first time on March 1st, the day after her best friend gets married.
She is still becoming her own person. She loves her sisters and brothers, her fraught relationship with her father is all right because of the thousand miles separating them. She babysits two little boys, she and her husband mentor two others who are older.
She loves to cook, her sense of humor is in turns corny and sarcastic. She crochets in church, is addicted to cold brew coffee and her baked potato soup has a cult following. She crunches ice like candy, and everyone wants her on their team when they play Trivial Pursuit. Her mind is like a bear trap, full of music trivia and movie quotes. The neighborhood dogs love her.
She is me.
I am her.
The two of them signed their rights away.
She told the nurse to tell the new parents they had a daughter. When they rushed to the hospital, their dreams fulfilled after over six years of marriage, the biological mother of their new daughter walked to the nursery. Somehow she knew those people were her daughter's new parents.
Two and a half years later, a baby boy joins the family. Six months after that, a baby boy is born on the day before Halloween. And then, almost four years after that, two weeks to the day after her seventh birthday, another baby boy is born.
She has always known she's adopted. As she gets older, people ask what being adopted is like. It's like asking what it feels like to be alive. How can you explain what something is like when you've never known anything other than it?
She grows up.
She internally battles sadness and insecurity, and hopes the bullies will leave her alone if she keeps to herself.
She loves animals and books.
She tolerates her brothers.
She longs for a sister.
She has trouble following directions and can't figure out why. Her father calls it a "staying on task disorder", but years later refuses to accept the official diagnosis of ADD.
She overhears her father tell someone on the phone that she has cerebral palsy. Because her fingers flip up at the tips. He didn't mean for her to overhear but he doesn't know how to be quiet.
Her tread is heavy. She sounds like an elephant when she walks.
She is painfully shy. Her lazy eye, her overbite, the way she has to go to the resource room at school for extra help with math. The resource room teacher is not very nice to her. So as usual, she crawls inside her shell because it's easier not to create waves.
During her formative years, she deals with crippling loneliness and sadness. She doesn't know how to deal with it. She keeps a journal but never writes anything super secret in it because she doesn't trust her parents not to read it.
The aching pain of loneliness and feeling unloved burns inside her chest but she keeps it bottled up. And she withdraws. She stays home from the sports games her brothers participate in because being alone is preferable.
At nineteen she meets someone. He asks her to marry him. She says yes, in retrospect not because she loves him but because she doesn't expect to be able to do any better. He commits an ugly crime and lies about it. He goes to prison. And finally, summoning the courage that she never knew she had, she files for divorce.
Gradually she begins to think for herself. Her parents still want to control her life. Her father threatens to put her in a group home because he doesn't think the apartment is clean enough. This is the same man who had meltdowns over popcorn kernels on the living room floor. Nothing is ever good enough for him.
She is a walking example of the double bind. They don't expect her to be good at anything, but make sure to make her feel terrible every time she fails at something. Why bother? she wonders, when they storm in and complain that there are dishes in the sink or the kitchen floor isn't spotless. It will never be good enough anyway.
One night she can't sleep and gets online. She meets someone. They begin to talk. They like each other. He flies her out to meet him. Her parents find out and beg her not to go. She is in her late twenties and they still treat her like she's twelve.
She will not let love pass her by a second time. She flies out to meet him for the best weekend of her life and throws caution to the wind. She will take control of her own life now.
They fall in love; she moves to Arizona. They live in sin. She's rebelling and sowing her wild oats ten years later than everyone else. They get married. He believes in her the way no one else ever has. They fit together perfectly.
Washington State opens adoption records a few years later. She swallows her fear and sends in a request. On January 12th, 2015 it comes in the mail. The nameless, faceless woman who gave birth to her has a name. And she gave her a name too. Joy Olivia.
She has a brother, a sister, a half sister, three "bonus sisters". She meets her birth mother for first time on March 1st, the day after her best friend gets married.
She is still becoming her own person. She loves her sisters and brothers, her fraught relationship with her father is all right because of the thousand miles separating them. She babysits two little boys, she and her husband mentor two others who are older.
She loves to cook, her sense of humor is in turns corny and sarcastic. She crochets in church, is addicted to cold brew coffee and her baked potato soup has a cult following. She crunches ice like candy, and everyone wants her on their team when they play Trivial Pursuit. Her mind is like a bear trap, full of music trivia and movie quotes. The neighborhood dogs love her.
She is me.
I am her.