By a.m. baker
Because I am:
misfit
mistaken
miserably confused
misplaced…
i write this thing about what i think i might be/could be: i write about
beginnings and endings without endings…
To be adopted:
given away
taken in
abandoned
found
lost
forgotten/remembered
We try to define our adoptions by the fact that we were
1. “given up”
and
2. “taken in.”
This is a ridiculous dichotomy that tries to define something that
becomes bigger than the adoptee or the adopter or the biological
mother/father/sister/brother (and so on). Let me say:
I was adopted at birth, essentially—my twelve days of limbo in foster
care were brief, and I was called Peanut because of my preemie size. If you
ask me who my family is, I will tell you “these people,” referring to the
people who adopted me. Chances are, I won’t give much thought or
consideration to that biological family. I think so often we think the story
of an adoptee must be really dramatic, really horrific in order to be valid.
My story, strictly pertaining to my adoption, is not at all dramatic or
horrific. My birth mother, at some point, realized she would be incapable of raising me. I found out later that she had a son before me, and he was taken away by social services when he was two (which would have been in the late 1970’s). And I, born in the mid-eighties, was carted off, I imagine, immediately.
I once wondered if I would remember her smell, or her voice; now I know: she most likely never held me. I was a decision made by the collision of love (or something like it), and my destination was a decision made before I was ever cut from her womb. I sometimes wonder if the c-section line means grief, anger or loss to her—but I don’t give the woman of my birth much thought beyond that, to be honest.
More often, I consider my birth father. So often, like the idea of the adoptee being “given up/taken in,” we associate the journey of an adoptee with finding his or her mother—maybe siblings—but we certainly shift to conclusion of maternal ties. In my case, though, all non-identifying information was handed to me for medical-history purposes and I learned:
my birth mother : short
my birth father : tall
his : green eyes
hers : brown.
she : small
he : thin.
I imagine that, in this way, I look like my mother: I am short and have brown eyes… but beyond this, I am the picture of my biological father:
artist
musician
There were other words, defining factors that intrigued me about this figure, my biological father. One word used to define him that hypnotized, stung and terrified me:
schizophrenic
At fourteen—or any age—this is a terrifying and mysterious word, something we usually don’t understand except, perhaps, by way of stereotype or fictional sketches. Van Gogh and his ear—these are the things we think of. I was secretly terrified of the day the voices would visit me.
and then they did
At nineteen, after too many drugs and too much trauma, the voices came and insanity swallowed me whole. I did not eat or sleep or speak except in manic phrases that made no sense. I cannot remember much of it: the days in the psych ward, my family learning that I might not ever function wholly again. The next year was spent learning to live again. The next year brought these words to the surface, like dead fish rising:
Bipolar Disorder
rape
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
manic/psychotic
suicidal (tendencies)/depression
I remember very little in that timeframe, circa 2004/2005. I do remember, though, suddenly thinking of that schizophrenic birth father. The doctors brought him up when looking at my vague history, too, and one psychiatrist said, “He’d be considered Bipolar I now.”
“Back then—in the eighties—if there were psychotic features, it had to be schizophrenia. But, really, you’re just like your biological father,” the psychiatrist said. And there: it made sense. I was given up, taken in at birth but there—that day I vaguely remember being told, essentially, you are your (biological) father’s daughter, I felt that I was, somehow, finally remembered and found.
I felt taken in.
My adopted family took me in: they signed the papers, went through the steps and hoops necessary to take me home. They didn’t know that I would be a wreck nineteen years later. They had no idea that I would bounce through psych wards, that I would disgrace the “good” family name.
At nineteen, with those dead-fish words rising, my adopted family stood by me. They could have said we give up, but they wouldn’t give in. They kept me, and again, I felt taken in. But still, something pulled me toward that thing of my unknown and misfit father. I didn’t speak of it: how could I tell my family that, for all their kindnesses, all their forgiveness, I really wanted to know the artistic addict that genetically founded one-half of my being.
After the Bipolar spiral, the medication zombification and the journey to living with Bipolar Disorder as a functional adult, I briefly played with the puzzle pieces of my unknown misfit father. As I said, my adopted family welcomed me back, though I was the artistic and crazy outlier in a family of religious and mostly rigid people. But this caused me a great deal of guilt–and then I wondered… where did my father end up, because wasn’t he the same crazy outlier in his family? I knew he belonged to a wealthy family in Chicago, that his family was riddled with doctors and lawyers and that he, though literally classified “genius,” was an artist who denounced academia:
musician
painter
bohemian
addict.
If I were told that I must find some genetic link in the chain of my biological history, I would choose to find my biological father. However, I know that, in reality, I would never begin to turn the page of that story: I could find a man on the street with holes in the soles of his shoes, no socks and no teeth. I might find something akin to that—better or worse—but most likely I would find something that gives me no hope.
The search of the maternal is expected—maybe encouraged. The paternal link is often put aside, dismissed. However, I cannot do that, because when I conjure the image of my biological parents, I imagine him vividly. I think he, too, is:
misfit
mistake(n)
miserably confused
misplaced
And I, given up/taken in, find it is not so much a thing of my having been lost or found. To find myself, I think, has nothing to do with knowing where my nose came from or where my mother’s mother came from. For me, it becomes not a thing of identity. I believe that, knowing what I know, it is better that I let the Unknown remain Unknown. My genetic father, the
artist addict Bohemian
caught in pits of dreams:
I am his reflection, and if we were to meet, I believe we would stare and see us both crumbling. I could never be what he hoped for, and he could never fit the photograph I’ve snapped in my imagination. It is best, then, to let myself be given to the life of my adopted family who took me in despite my faults and failures. It is better, then, to let my biological past be a mystery. In dreams I see him watching me while I play melodies that come from nowhere; sometimes, when the invention of a melody slips from my fingers, I wonder if my father’s fingers played this same song.
——-
a.m. baker lives in a too-sunny climate where she can often be found writing in her garage with geckos to keep her company. she is the single mother to a very active tot, and she often enjoys things that involve string and sticks (like knitting). her fiction work can be found at 3:AM Magazine, and forthcoming at Opium Magazine. Her nonfiction can be found in GRIT Magazine and in the upcoming issue of Spin*Off Magazine.
you can follow a.m. baker on Twitter or contact her by email at baker.angelam@gmail.com
