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Better Life

My mother. No, I don't mean the woman who raised me. I mean my mother.

My REAL mother. Yes, I said it. Gasp and clutch your pearls.

I'm sorry to have to be the one to inform you, since it seems so many of you are so confused about it. The woman who carried me to term and gave birth to me is my real mother. She is me and I am of her. I am her mirror image. Her DNA built me and her blood flows in my veins. 

I have no illusions about exalting her. I have no self-deception about my feelings for her. I wanted her desperately. I wanted her to be a decent human who would love me. 

She wasn't. I mean, I think she loved us in her own twisted way, but she was a fucked up individual. She couldn't really care about anyone but herself, and somewhere along the way someone convinced her (or, more likely, she convinced herself; my bloodline is not easily swayed or coerced,) that adopting out all eight of her children was a better choice for her than being a mother. She seemed to use adoption as a form of "mother control".  She refused to control our births, though some forms of birth control were available; she refused to be our mother, BECAUSE SHE HAD THE OPTION NOT TO.

Had she not, I have few illusions of how our lives would have been. It certainly wouldn't have been idyllic, with the mother we were dealt. I knew her. I saw her. I interrogated her. I spoke to her acquaintences, learned everything I could from everyone I could find who knew her. Several people said to me, "I always wondered what happened to you." But when they asked, she would "change the subject". Fact is, she didn't want to admit she'd abandoned me at four months old when she ran out on my father. 

If we had been kept, we probably would have been nomadic, moving from house to house, man to man, town to town, gaining siblings along the way. I have no doubt the eldest siblings, my older sister and myself, most likely, would have ended up caring for the younger in lieu of our mother a lot of the time. We more than likely would have ended up caring for our mother as well, growing up too fast, and having her drag us through the fuckup that was her life. Chances are I would have hated watching her drink herself stupid or not knowing if she was coming home at night;  maybe I would have resented having to care for so many siblings while trying to get a diploma; maybe it would have sucked never knowing when her next relationship would implode and we'd have to "move on"...

And you know what? We would have been better off than we are now. We would have each other,  siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, history, heritage, ancestry, biological mirroring, names, identities, identifying documents and the legal right to view and obtain them, familial support, agency, self-determination, personhood and the basic respect and dignity that accompanies it... hell, I might even be able to get a passport, even with the recent law changes.

A quarter of my siblings may or may not know we all exist. I have met six, once, 20+ years ago. I have no idea where any of them are save one, who wants no contact so far, because, you guessed it... adoption.

Regardless of how hard my life may have been, I would have had all of the aforementioned losses. I would have had my family.  I was adopted out for a "better life". I got a bed of broken glass lined with razors and nails, disguised by cash and nice things. A life in poverty punctuated with uncertainty, (which I've lived) smells like a bed of roses next to that. And with all this, my hardships would have been legitimate, validated, and supported, instead of belittled and negated as "ingratitude" and "bitterness".

YES. I WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER OFF WITH MY GARBAGE MOTHER THAN BEING ADOPTED.


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