Purchase or Person?

There have been a couple of interviews posted to AdopteesOn since mine.  I’ve listened to all the interviews there and all have had an impact on me in one way or another.  I’ve also heard a little bit of my story in each of them.  The more recent of them, as of this writing, was the second male interviewed, Davis.  His interview was very interesting and parts of it sounded very familiar.  However, he also recorded a reading of something he wrote earlier entitled “Am I blood or am I Water”.  I’m linking it here because I found it to be very powerful.  It also sounded very familiar.

It occurred to me after listening to Davis’ interview and reading that I have always felt like property rather than family when it came to my adoptive “family”.  Something was always wrong there.  It was more than just having a different sense of humor, a different way of looking at things, and not having physical features in common with them.  I never felt like a real member of the family, or any family.  It has taken me a long time to even start to figure some of this out and I have to provide special thanks to Davis and Haley Radke for helping bring it to my attention.

I’ve written before that I had a hard time, and still have a hard time, conceptualizing my birth.  I know logically I must have been born like everyone else.  My mom has told me the story, the story I didn’t have for 42 years, so I know it happened.  Even so, I spent the vast majority of my life feeling like I had just popped into existence at 3 ½ months.  Knowing how it began hasn’t helped that feeling to go away and I think that is part of the reason I always felt like property.  My adoptive mother was (and still is unfortunately) fond of saying that I “Cost $15”.  Given my inability to believe in my birth and constantly being told I was purchased by my adoptive mother I developed this feeling that I wasn’t a person but a purchase.  Purchases, unlike people, get returned or discarded if they don’t work out.  I never felt like I worked out in my adoptive “family”.  I also never felt like I had a family.  Go figure.

Davis can be found here:

Am I Blood or am I Water