Reflections

I have half an hour before our next schedule. Today is going to be packed, so I wanted to get my thoughts on the previous days saved before I start adding to them.

It feels like I have been here for weeks, and yet its been only a few days. Today I only woke up at 3am and then went back to bed. Got up at 6am. So I'm doing better.

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is my birthmother. As I said before I wish our first meeting could have been better. A translator would have been nice. It really makes me sad that my birthmother (and all other birthmothers that I have met/heard of) is still so very sad and apologetic decades after the event. Long ago, I was very angry at her. I thought she had "gotten rid" of me so that she could live a happy life.

This is what my parents were told, and what I subsequently believed for almost 30 years: My birthfather and birthmother had been married for a couple of years before my birthmother became pregnant with me. I was their first child. Shortly after that, my birthfather had died at sea (his occupation was not told to us). Hence, when I was born, my birthmother had come with my grandmother (on my father's side) to Holt to relinquish me. She had relinquished me so that she could remarry.

That was the truth to me for many years. When I was younger I was very upset that she had abandoned me so that she could be happy. Not that being happy is a crime, mind you, but when you are young, you are sometimes angry for a lot of very selfish reasons. I always imagined she had remarried and had a bunch of kids with her new family and had forgotten entirely about me. Sometimes I think of the movie Hook, where Peter Pan goes home for the first time in years, only to find that his parents have a new baby.

I had made peace with my past and had moved on. Until of course, I decided I wanted to look for her. I forget if I already wrote it in this blog, but I did a search in 2011. In June, they told me that there wasn't enough information. As adoptees, all of us know the chances of us finding anyone are very slim to none. Still, I think that when we search, we have this very small bead of hope that we carry on our journey. If we lack that hope, I don't believe we ever intend to search. That was me almost ten years ago. I don't know why or how I had hope to find someone in 2011, but that hope almost crushed me when I read the email... There isn't enough information to begin a birth search. The other thing that email said, is that I had a birthbrother. But at the time I didn't care, since I would never meet him anyway.

I still wanted to know where I came from, so I decided to go on the tour I had heard of in 2011. So, along with my mother, I signed up for the tour that would take place in May 2012. Being part of a Holt tour, the tour came with a built-in birthfamily search. I guess I could have opted out of it, but I figured it didn't matter. I knew no one would have been found, so I just figured I could at least see my file at Holt Korea and see if there was any other information that I didn't know. See if I could find out my birthfather's occupation and/or how he died...

Fast forward, since I know I have written somewhere about this, and I have to go soon. My mom said she had been lied to.  So I just don't understand why she feels so apologetic. She never knew, so why feel sorry? Of course there are a lot things that I don't understand about Korean culture. Why single mother's are so shamed. I feel so sorry for them and wish there was something I could do. But that would require a major overhaul of Korean culture. Baby steps, baby steps.

Also, Sandy, if you're reading this, you are probably going to be happy. You were right. My birthmother gave me money on Tuesday. Along with a bunch of other gifts. *sigh* I definitely appreciate it, but I wish she would keep it. I know culturally its impolite to refuse a gift like this... but... I don't want her to feel like she owes me anything. Or anyone to feel like they owe me anything. I have a wonderful life with family and friends and things I could never dream of if I had stayed. I am so blessed.