A case of unmistaken identity
I have brown hair and brown eyes and I love most things Asian. I also love elbow skin. And languages. And chocolate. I was raised in a household with a mom and a dad, and later on we were joined by a brother and a dog. I am a morning person. I love a lot. A lot of people, a lot of places, and lot of things. I love love! I like to make people smile. I've had a pretty easy life, but the past 9 or so years have brought some challenges. Nothing too tragic. Still, things that have affected me and things I'm still coming to terms with... things that have, in small ways, shifted my perspective on life and all that it entails. I've read lots of book and traveled and had some amazing, one-of-a-kind experiences. I feel grateful and blessed for the life I have and for the person I am.
I feel like all of these things play a role in shaping my identity...both in how I see myself and how I think others see/define me.
Being adopted, during a time when closed adoptions were the norm, I know virtually nothing about the people who initially brought me into existence. I'm curious as to who they are and what they are like. But....and maybe this odd, especially from the adoption blogs I've read lately... I don't feel like I need to know about them in order to understand myself and my relation to the world.
I've never known my medical or ancestral background. As for the medical part... on the one hand, I agree with other adoptees, that really it should be our right to have that information... but on the other hand, I'm a firm believer in mind-over-matter, and it's rather freeing not to be walking around thinking, "Oh goodness, I'm at risk for cancer, heart disease, blah blah blah...." I have a clean slate, and I'm a very healthy person. I don't particularly want to be thinking I'm predisposed for various diseases.
The ancestral part... hmm, well... I also believe in reincarnation, so I could very well have been a part of a bazillion different cultures before being born in this lifetime. (Ah, a topic for another day.) Reincarnation aside... I just don't feel the need to be tied to any particular culture or ethnic group. Of course I'm a part of the culture I was raised in... but if I were to find out today that my biological parents were Italian and Irish, I still wouldn't feel particularly drawn to those cultures. Even if I found out that I was part of a different ethnic group- (my aunt is convinced that I have some kind of Middle Eastern in me)- while I would definitely use it to my advantage on getting into grad schools, I still don't think I'd feel a big tie to others of Persian decent. Again, if I had been raised with families that actively participate in cultural norms of the above mentioned groups, then I'm sure it would become a part of my identity...but that would be true even if I wasn't biologically a part of those groups... for example, if I had been adopted by an Indian family that ate dal and naan every night and watched Bollywood videos and spoke Hindi, but I wasn't ethnically Indian, I would still feel a part of the Indian community/culture.
So, I have a hard time relating to other who adoptees feel lost or sad or incomplete... many of them talk about needing to discover their identities...and I can't really identify with that. Which is not to say that there is anything wrong with others feeling that way... I am not trying to invalidate anyone else's experience here. I'm just curious as to why so many others with similar situations feel so differently than I do.
I don't have that identity crisis. I don't need to know why I have brown hair or when my ancestors came to America or if I'm a quarter Persian. That won't change who I am right now, today. Would it be interesting to know? Yeah! Do I wonder about my biological makeup? Sure! I'll probably even contact the adoption agency one of these days and see if my file can be accessed or if my birthparents left contact information.
And if I do meet them, then that experience will also become a part of who I am. But if I never meet them, that's okay, too. I won't feel incomplete or un-identified.
But then I also wonder- to what extent do others identify with their ancestral heritage? Does it play a large role in what you view your identity to be? If so, is it because your family actively celebrates that heritage, or do you feel more of an unspoken connection to your ethnic/cultural background? How do you define identity?
Lots of thoughts flying around my brain... all this blog-hopping I've been doing is making me realize how little substance is in my own journal so much of the time. Eh...whatever! It's my own darn journal and I can list everything I did over the weekend if I want to. But I think it's time to tackle some deeper issues, too.
Note: I truly welcome differing opinions, so please feel free to share whatever is on your mind (as long as it's in a respectful manner). There is no right or wrong here...just a bunch of different people with a variety of experiences and interpretations.