Normal or abnormal? THAT is the question.

Mom, Dad, Brady and me.
1988

Growing up, I could never understand why other kids would ask me, "What is it like to have a mommy and daddy that aren't really yours?" It boggled my mind. What the hell is that supposed to mean? "Not REALLY mine?" I mean, I could ask you the same question. "What is like to have a mother and father that share the same DNA as you? HUH, HUH, HUH!?!?!?" Family is family, and it doesn't require the same blood, bone and flesh. My mother wiped my baby butt just like yours did. My dad let me fall asleep on his chest just like yours did. As for my brother, he protected me just like yours did, if not twenty times better! Now that I look back on it, most of the people who questioned me were kids my own age. I have come to realize that they were simply curious about what it was like to be adopted. But at the time it really messed with my head. I was adopted when I was 8 weeks old, so I grew up with a family that I called "my own." It was completely normal to me. So when I had kids, some of them being my best friends, constantly questioning my lifestyle, it really made me think that something was truly wrong. I had to find a way to start numbing the pain of feeling like a total outcast so I starting smoking pot when I was 15 years old. I would tuck myself away in my room, black wallpaper and all, turn on some Type O Negative (or something equally depressing) and smoke myself into oblivion. I found out real quick that being stoned all the time made the thoughts just disappear. And hey, that worked for me! However, as time went by I started to fall into a deep, black hole. I was sad all the time, I felt like I was worthless, and all I wanted to do was curl up into the fetal position and cry day in and day out. My parents began to notice a very negative change in my behavior. I was failing in school, hanging out with the "bad" kids, and losing my temper at the drop of a hat. There was even a time when I felt so dead inside that I would cut my arms open just to feel something, anything, that meant my heart was actually beating. After snapping one too many times, my mom and dad finally took me to a doctor to find out what was wrong with me. It turns out I have depression. I think we were all relieved that it was nothing more than a chemical imbalance in my brain, and I wasn't bat shit crazy. I was put on a regular dose of Zoloft and was back on track, as far as my emotions were concerned. But that didn't keep the thoughts of who and where I came from away. It was something that I was going to have to deal with for just a bit longer. Well, 3 or 4 more years, to be exact.

Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone..

"Not flesh of my flesh,Nor bone of my bone,
But still miraculously my own.
Never forget for a single minute,
You didn't grow under my heart,
But in it."

-Unknown

Me, 2 months old, camping out with my foster dad.
September 1984

People always ask me, "Gina, when did you find out you were adopted?" I can see them stirring in their own minds, wondering and possibly hoping for that sad story about how my mother and father sat me down on my 8th birthday to tell me, "Oh, by the way, we didn't actually conceive you.. You were adopted. Happy birthday!" Well, I hate to be the bearer of GOOD NEWS, people, but that just wasn't the way it went down. You see that poem up there? "Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone..." My mom used to recite that to my brother and me all the time when we were young. It was her way of letting us know that we were special. And not "little-yellow-bus-to-school" special! We were hand-picked by God to be placed in their family. My mom and dad couldn't have children of their own. They tried for quite some time, but in the end it was obvious that it just wasn't going to work for them. So they turned towards adoption. First came my brother, Brady, in 1978. He was red-headed and smiling from day one. Then, 6 years later, I was born. It was July 1, 1984, when I came into this world. I was born in the Toledo Hospital to my biological mother, who was 18 at the time, and my biological father, who was 19. The only things that my parents really knew about them was that they were young and probably couldn't afford me. That was it. That was all I really knew growing up, and I was fine with that. But I always wondered, "Who do I look like? Do I have any brothers and sisters?" Sometimes I would be at the grocery store and across the aisle I would see a woman who kind of looked like me. Maybe she was kind of short, or had green eyes like mine, or even the same color skin as me. And I would think to myself, "Maybe that's her. Maybe that is my biological mom." The possibility was always there, haunting me everywhere I went. I tried to hide it the best I could, but sometimes I would make my curiosity known to my parents. They told me from the beginning that if I ever wanted to reach out and find my biological family that they would be there to support me no matter what. You see, it wasn't that I was craving a mother and father. I already had a mom and dad, and they were the best ones that any child could ask for. I grew up in a beautiful home, got a great education, had a family that accepted me for who I was, and was loved to the very core. It was the unknown that was killing me. The thought that my own flesh and blood could be just miles down the road from me continued to tug at my brain. I would swat the thoughts away for days, even months at a time. But then, just as a quickly, they would pop back up and flick me in the forehead. I had to do something to satisfy my intense desire to know who, and where, I came from. But what could I do? Weren't those kind of secrets tucked safely away in the bowels of Toledo?