FIRST CONTACT

My mom and I sat behind a long table covered with knick knacks. It was my neighborhood's annual garage sale. The perfect opportunity for people to make my crap, their crap. I sipped coffee and enjoyed the crisp October morning. I opened my laptop, a hand-me-down gift from my father-in-law, to read my e-mail.  A perfect way to pass time during garage sale lulls.

I scrolled through my inbox, reading the interesting messages and deleting the junk. Then I came upon the message above from Registry.Adoption.com. Registry.Adoption.com? What even? It was most likely more junk, but I opened it anyway.

It was a message from a person who shared my birthday and was searching for her birth family. At least, that's what I thought the person meant. Did I register on Adoption.com? The details were blurry. I typed Adoption.com into my search engine and pressed enter.

The site was a treasure trove of information about adoption, adoptees, and reunions. I clicked on the link to the registry database and typed in my birthday. Voila, my name appeared. When my father-in-law gave me the laptop, I spent hours surfing the web. I must have entered my information on the site during one those late night surf sessions, never expecting anything to come of it.

My adoption was closed, and the only information I had was on my birth certificate: the day, the hospital, time of birth, name of the doctor, and it was done through Catholic Charities. The chance of a reunion was low. I registered for fun and didn't think about it again, until that October morning.

I read the e-mail, thinking the girl shared my birthday, and contacted me to share the news she found her biological family. Odd. Why was she telling me? She was probably just excited. I replied with a short message, "Congratulations on finding your birth family." 

A new message appeared in my inbox. She explained she wasn't adopted. She was looking for an adoptee with my birthdate. Her aunt and uncle had a daughter and she was looking for them. 

Gulp. I knew I was adopted. I liked knowing I was. It made me feel mysterious. It made for interesting chitchat. A fun idea, that was suddenly not fun, but real. An uneasy feeling began to grow inside me. This was like Pandora's Box. What if I open this and don't like what I find inside? Would anyone be the same after finding the answer to this mystery? 

Do you have a favorite movie featuring adoption?

Last week I posted nada because I was bound for California with the fam, desperately in need of a little R&R. That's rest and relaxation, folks!

This week I'm keeping things lighter than a feather. Hey, I'm still basking in the sun and sand-induced euphoria of my time spent in "The Golden State". 

Last night my daughter and I watched The Royal Tenebaums. I've seen it many a time because I love Wes Anderson films. I figured my progeny would too. I was right. I usually am 56.7% of the time. 

I completely forgot about how funny the adopted character Margot Tenebaum (Gwyneth Paltrow) is treated by her adoptive father, Royal Tenebaum (Gene Hackman).  He makes a point to introduce her this way: 

I love it! Here's a low quality video clip of the same thing, followed by her reuniting with her birthfamily and losing her finger while her pappy chops wood. Stop watching there, as the rest relates to other parts of the movie having nothing to do with the adoption facet. Still funny, though! 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWKcO35ae

Another favorite movie of mine is Juno. The lead, Juno, is a pregnant high school girl who finds a family to adopt her baby after finding them in a local Pennysaver ad. Isn't it dreamy? I think so. Without fail, I get attacked by those stupid onion ninjas during the scene when Juno gives birth and her boyfriend Bleeker crawls into her hospital bed and holds her. She sobs. I sob. Stupid onion ninjas.