On The First Day

So...this is my first blog.  Weblog, to be precise, but in this hyper energy world, we have to shorten everything to at least one syllable...hence "blog".  I have been inspired to write this by my aunt who has handsomely chronicled the interesting happenings in her life with discipline every Friday.  I doubt I will have such regularity in posting, so if I ever get a following they will have to wait with baited breath for my golden words to drip all over their screens. Ha!

The specific reason for this particular post is to not usurp my aunt's current blog with my own spin, but twirl around in my own personal environment, bringing to birth My Own Damn Blog. Without further ado, here is important information. http://casamurphy.blogspot.com/2011/01/sandpaper.html go ahead and read it now before going any further. Really.  You need to.

Allrighty then.  If you haven't got it yet, I am the baby of my Aunt's blog. This is not a pity party.  If you want to feel sorry for someone, go find someone pitiful, I 'aint yer gal.

I blithely went to live with my adopted family.  My new parents were good about making me aware that I was adopted.  It was never a stigma, there were many other adopted kids in school with me.  My new mom (let's call her Fay, for kicks) told me a few things that I have no memory of.  When they picked me up from the adoption place, my hair was long and curled with ribbons, to make me look more attractive, I guess.  Fay immediately had my hair cut to look like the Pennsylvania Dutch Boy, and asexual.  Her reasoning was that she was going to have to deal with more important stuff than doing my hair everyday.  (I grew my hair down to my butt in my late 30's, she hated it.)  She also told me that when they first brought me to our new home, I said "Ooooh!" at the first sight of each room.  They had had the place designed by an interior decorator of the day and I guess seeing shiny purple satin and red velvet plush wallpaper was cool to a two and a half year old.  In fact I never questioned my mother's design choices until much later when I brought a snobby friend home to visit and she told me my parent's bedroom looked like a bordello.

My new parents also told me that when they came to the adoption place to see the selection, I was the only one there.  The coiffed adoption lady came up to me and said "These people are your new mommy and daddy." Whatever. I think I was more interested in the new toys in the playroom to give a rat's ass. So much for freedom of choice.  I've come to the conclusion that the adoption people were very pushy.

This is what I do remember about adoption day...We had a picnic on the grounds.  I don't remember what I ate, but it was tasty.  I remember there was a fountain with a couple of kids under a big umbrella.  They stood over a pond with real fish in it.  My new dad held me up to see the fishies.

Flash backwards: Other memories, shady but still there.  A dark place where I was hollering; for someone to hold me, because I was wet, I was hungry, I was scared.  Then, a brighter place with a new crib, an awesome toy closet and psychedelic green grass outside.  A lot of external hollering sometimes, but I was too into whatever plaything to care.  A reddish roof.

Flash forwards again: If you're tired of flashing, put your clothes on and stop acting stupid.

There was an ubiquitous letter in the adoption papers my parents gave to me when I was around 12 giving some very "general" explanation of why the adoption happened and basic heights and weights, etc. I knew damn well that there was way more to it, and planned to find out once I reached my maturity. Don't forget, back in 1966 people just didn't talk about those "nasty little details". (And I guess they also made shit up to make themselves feel better) Never had a friggin "Kiddie pool" either! Me and my friends had to sneak into the nearest Ramada Inn to enjoy those chlorinated waters.

My birth father Barry contacted me about 2 yrs after I reunited with my birth mother, Sheri. A mutual friend had told him that I had been found and he called me. Our daughter Marlene was still a baby, we met him and his wife at the Biltmore Hotel downtown. He and I still talk and he came up here once to see me in a play. He's a great guy, takes good care of himself, loves to work (satellite engineer) and still fabulously good looking. He looked like Richard Geere when he was young.

But now we get to the thing that pees me off the most...I don't care who you are or what fabulous family you get adopted into. There are still emotional scars. You may not realise it as a child, but when you hit adolescence it comes out swingin'. I love my adoptive parents very much, miss them alot, grateful for what I have, and what they did for me. In the cosmic scheme I'm sure it was meant to be. But I could have stayed in the birth family and not have been a bother to my grandmother. My father's family had offered to raise me, but grandma would have nothing of it. And they seemed a very together unit to me. They had "family circles" every weekend and were very close. My grandma on Barry's side is 99 and still doing relatively well. So, there's a wee bit of resentment on my part that I was booted out for vanity's sake.

Oh yeah, the wedding should be very interesting...