An iPhone 5c to Some, a 5s to Others
It’s been a little over 20 years now since I was conceived on this planet by a mother that I never knew I wouldn’t know. I was brought into this world in the sweltering month of July 1993, born into a family that was full of love in the outskirts of Detroit; I simply became the new “iPhone” of the family. The reason I say this is because my nephew was born a few months later, I was not there too long until something new came along. I was like the iPhone 5c before the iPhone 5s came out: hip, new, different, and only out for a month or so before there was an upgrade.
I was figuratively speaking “given away,” with hopes that I would find a better owner to take care of me and nurture me. I no longer was the second newest addition to a caring family, but instead I was a brand new addition to a family that at the time didn’t have anything to protect. This family became my Otterbox, protecting me and caring for me for years making sure I didn’t lose my memory or making sure my screen didn’t crack.
Being the shiniest and newest addition to a family isn’t always the easiest. You become overused and are not allowed sufficient time to charge after. Everyone always wants to play with you and see what all of the hype is about causing your energy to be drained faster than normal.
Where am I going with this you may ask?
Well…growing up an adopted child and an only one at that was quite stressful. I always had tremendous amounts of pressure on me to succeed and do better than other kids in my class/family. Since day 1, my parents would try and educate me on principles I had not yet learned in school. My father would teach me multiplication and division while in school we were working on addition. He is the one who really wanted me to succeed, to grow up and do something with my life.
Although they were not the parents that conceived me, not that I knew at the time, they gave me more than I could ask for. I still remember the day my parents told me I was adopted. I had been bullied at school that day. One of my classmates had said “You’re adopted, your parents don’t even love you.” Obviously a statement like this at such a young age made me quite distraught. I had asked my parents if this was true and to my surprise they said yes. What happened next is such a blur, not only because it was so long ago, but because that’s a memory I’m sure I wanted to block out.
I just remember my mother saying she used to write my birth mother about the happenings in my life month after month and she had quite the collection. At this point in my life I had the dream to one day meet the parents that conceived me. This dream continued for years eventually adding to my depression phases throughout high school, but the lessons I learned during those times are for a different blog.
20 years later and my dream was still unfulfilled. Then I received a project in one of my college courses that forever changed my life. The assignment was to figure out our cultural background and obviously being adopted I knew nothing of my family’s past. So my mother took matters into her own hands, spending her own paycheck to find what I was in search for for 20 years. The moment she informed me what she did was bittersweet. I was finally going to be in contact with my parents and my sister, but is this what I really wanted? I was emotionally hurt by the situation, but why? To be honest I think I wanted to live in this fantasy world where I searched for them all of my life, but to no avail would never find them. I became so overwhelmed with the situation, my birth family constantly trying to call, or text, or Facebook me at any free moment that I had, and in my college life, there isn’t many.
A life changing event so shocking left me days without eating because I was unsure on how to handle the situation. On top of a recent break up, 16 credit hours, and a part time job I was struggling to see any light of the situation. So once I got the information I needed, I made the decision to postpone any further communication. This did not go over well at all, leading to them unfriending me on Facebook, because we all know in today’s society if someone unfriends you on Facebook we know and we know it’s because something went down.
So with the holidays in sight and family in mind, I think it is time to mend broken bonds and become the “iPhone 5s” each family needs. It’s time to start communicating and stop running from what was once a dream. As Paulo Coelho said, “What you seek is seeking you,” and I believe we’re all seeking acceptance and love.
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