I know who I was, now where am I going?

For those of you who don’t know I’m adopted: Surprise. I am.

I had started a long, flowery post about my thoughts on how it’s shaped some aspects of my life, but I deleted all that crap. I’ll cut straight to the chase: I got a hit on an adoption records site where people post search requests. I hadn’t actively searched in a couple of years, and managed to stumble on this as a lark.

I found a record that fit the criteria to a T. It. Was. Me.

For two weeks, I’ve cried about this. I’ve slowly told people here and there when I have the energy to field questions. I’ve tried to write (more tears than words end up on the page). I finally decided to post about it because I can’t keep it all to myself anymore.

I don’t think anyone – anyone – has realized how deeply this is rocking my world. Every time I close my eyes, I’m plummeted to my state of mind at 15 – that raw, teenage angst that doesn’t form words. I’m back to my old friend and enemy: Why? Why? Why?

But now I have a last name for my birthmother, and – hallelujah – being a research analyst means I actually can do something with it. I’ve narrowed her down. I know her name. I know where she lives now … and it’s far, far away. I’m just not sure whether to contact her straight away or go about more … subtle … methods of making contact (e.g., online).

I never had a brother or sister, and I want to meet my siblings. I want my medical history and I want to know why. Again: why.

One of the most frustrating things has been that the people I’ve told have no reaction. Okay, it’s not that they have no reaction. It’s more like … it’s obvious they don’t know how to react, so they don’t visibly react at all. One even questioned why it was a big deal to me. But imagine being told you had a family you never knew about. That’s how it feels.

I had a name, too: Jolene.

Jolene Gibeault Ennis.

(Do I look like a Jolene?) But please don't laugh at it; it's kind of grown on me.

I’m wasting a lot of my waking energy on this. I’m wasting a lot of non-waking energy, too. I kind of black out after taking Ambien, and this morning I woke up to a long, rambling essay and half a poem sitting on my kitchen table on top of a copy of a Billy Collins anthology.

I’m just not sure what to do now. I kind of want to take in and embrace the whole thing, but I don’t want to lose momentum. And yet part of me is scared to gain momentum for fear this all will happen way faster than I anticipated.

::sigh:: I just feel … yucky.

So after two weeks of not blogging about it, there it is. Who I used to be.