back...

i have been away for a bit, i am aware. i was busy. :) busy getting to know susan and meeting members of my family and learning about other members of my family. and telling my friends and my other family all about what an incredible experience this has been. i am happy to report that the anxiety and insecurity moments were brief and have fully relented. thank god! i could not have handled that as a permanent or even semi-permanent state. the fears and worries that i will disappoint or will be rejected are all in the past and the last two weeks have been absolutely amazing! i have met some incredible people, i got to visit the family farm-- where susan grew up. i have had wonderful, easy, beautiful conversations with her-- conversations that feel natural and sweet and normal and nice.



i can't believe it has only been three weeks since we met. the time has gone by in some kind of different dimension-- i feel like i have known her forever and to be near her feels so natural i sometimes forget that this is essentially a person who was a stranger three weeks ago. a blaze of glory, indeed. a blaze of grace, perhaps.



on saturday, while we were at the farm, susan presented me with my original birth certificate. i knew that she had it, and i was very much looking forward to seeing it, but i never could have imagined how emotional it would be to hold it and look at it for the first time. for starters, i was not sure until quite recently that it even existed. i wasn't sure if it would have been destroyed or discarded when the amended one was created. i certainly didn't know whether susan would have wanted to keep it even if she could. but she did. and she gave it to me. and i wept. there it was in my own hands... my original name, her name, her thumbprints, a golden seal and my tiny little footprints. for anyone who has always had the same name, the same parents and access to the document that certifies one's existence, it might not seem like a very big deal to receive it. but for my fellow adoptees, i don't think i have to explain the significance of that moment. i framed it, naturally, and will treasure it more than anything else, forever.


there are a million more things to catch up on... easter, conversations with my parents, the tattoo, etc.-- but that will come later.... for now, i am going to sign off and hug my framed birth certificate and continue to stroll through yet another day with a peaceful, easy smile.