adoption.

This is my brother, Ian. He is about a year younger than I am. This was taken just a few days after meeting him for the first time, two summers ago.


I am adopted. Most people know this about me, but not many people know the (long and confusing) story behind it. What better way to explain it all than through a blog post, but of course?



Let's get some details sorted out, first of all. When I say "my dad," I mean the man who adopted me. He is both my father and my dad. When I say "my father," I'm speaking of my biological father. I'll most likely just refer to him as Tony. I do not and will never call him my Dad, as he is not. 


I was adopted at birth. Dad worked with Tony for a short time at a local restaurant in my hometown. I'm a little unsure of exact details as to how they arranged things, but Mary Beth (my biological mother) was pregnant and they weren't ready for a child. My mom was unable to have children due to stress. The doctor recommended she adopt, and so she did (and then popped out my little brother, Daniel, a year and a half later.) Anywho, so the adoption was arranged. Apparently I almost wasn't adopted, because Mary Beth (who, to my knowledge, isn't that nice of a lady) wanted more money than my parents were willing to give / had, and almost went back on the decision at the last minute. Lucky for me, they went through with it in the end. 


I have always known I was adopted. My parents never hid that fact from me, which I am grateful for. I still have children's books that explain the process, which I'm sure helped quite a bit. I have never once resented my birthparents giving me up for adoption, especially after I got to know them. In my youth, my mom and dad and I would fight, of course, and naturally I would say some mean things, but when it came down to it, that's my mom and dad. My biological parents are not my real parents. (And I hate when people say that. A real parent, to me, is someone who actually parents. Who raises their child. That makes my mom and dad my real parents, not the other way 'round.) 


I had the opportunity to meet my biological father, my two blood siblings, my step-mother (he never married my biological mother, and married Emilie - who recently passed away last year, I'm sorry to say - about ten-ish years ago), and two of my step-siblings two summers ago. Let me make something clear to you. I have a big family. First, I have my adopted family. There's my mom and dad, and my little brother, Daniel. Then, on my biological side, we have Tony (my birth father), Mary Beth (my birth mother), Emilie (my late step-mother), Adam and Andrew (my half-brothers from Mary Beth, who are in their 30s), Ian and Mirielle (my blood brother and sister, a year and two years younger than me, respectively), Scott and Tiffany (younger step-siblings), and Dee, Dawn, and John I think his name is, who are my older step-siblings. So there you go. I have ten brothers and sisters. Whew!


Meeting (part of) my birth family was a big experience for me. My parents had allowed me to learn several details about my biological parent's lives when I was sixteen, but I was only allowed to have the letter Tony wrote to me when I turned eighteen (and they didn't even give it to me until I'd almost graduated!). It took a long time of waiting and a lot of patience, but if and when I adopt my future children, I suppose I'd probably do the same. I called Tony up the afternoon after reading the letter explaining everything and talked to my biological father for the first time. Surprisingly, I wasn't as overwhelmed as I thought I would be. I guess you could say I'd built up this image of them in my head. It wasn't so much of a childish fantasy, that my biological parents were some sort of superstars or world-famous botanists or anything. I just expected...something different. What I got was essentially people who were just like me. From the pictures that I've seen of my birthmother (I've never met her and probably never will), I'm the spitting image of her when she was my age. My sister Mirielle and I look eerily alike, especially when you compare our childhood pictures. Ian and I have the same eyes, hair, and smile. We all have identical personalities. 


Knowing that there are people out in this world who look and act just like me is a little strange to me. I'm sure it comes naturally to you, those of you who are not adopted. It's only natural that you look like your parents, that you and your brother have the same smile. I grew up with people - albeit, my family that I love and accept as my own - that were nothing like me. My mom and dad and brother all have dark, olive skin, and dark hair. There's this family picture of all of us (mom, dad, brother, grandparents, aunt & uncle and cousins), and I stick out like a sore thumb. As pale as the day is long, with light light light blue eyes and bright red hair. Aside from my dad (and even that's only up to a point), my family and I have never really connected. Although I might have been somewhat like-minded in ideas about the world when I was younger, I still stood out in a way. My family doesn't read. I have a whole library of books that I devour on a daily basis. I became an extremely liberal atheist, while they remained conservative Christian republicans. I was the first one in my family to go to and stay at college, and probably will be the only one to get my doctorate (both my parents are on their master's now, and i'm hoping that my dad will go on to get his doctorate, too). Socially and mentally, we're practically on opposite ends of the spectrum. Regardless, they're my family.


Lately, my family and I have been drifting apart. I made the decision to tell my mother that Blake and I were discussing getting married, and now our conversations last less than thirty seconds. In the end, I guess I get to choose my own family. I always have been given the opportunity to choose, in a way. These people chose me, and I chose to accept them as my own. I chose to not consider my biological family my family. I choose to call Blake's family my family. I'm coming to terms with the realization that you shouldn't feel guilty for telling your mom you want to get married to the man that you love. That feeling should never occur. You shouldn't regret it. It should be one of the happiest moments of your life, announcing to your family that you are choosing to take a major leap with this person that you've found, that you're basically making a permanent to choose them, and to choose them always. That shouldn't be something a family will yell at you about, or try to change your mind over, especially if they know and understand that you are absolutely happy. Even if your happiness confuses them, or it's not similar to what they would consider happy.

i like to build things.

So Blake and I would like to start doing some major home renovations this summer. We live together in a beautiful early 1900s home in the countryside, on 100+ acres of land. The man who owns the whole shindig (along with his sister's house and plot, about 50ish acres on the other side of the road) is a wonderful, caring preacher that we live with. (Random tidbit, but we plan on naming our firstborn son Arthur Miller, after our dear Arthur Miller Adams. Not for the playwright, although he's cool, too.) 


A.M. is like Blake's grandfather. Although he was married once, he never had children. His sister, Fay, is 92 and now lives with us as well, as her three daughters do little to nothing to help her in her currently deteriorating state. So it's just us three, braving the world alone. Blake's father lived with A.M. for a short time after being divorced from Blake's mother, and Blake essentially half grew up on A.M.'s land. There's baby pictures of him (I need to remind myself to snap some pictures of some particularly adorable and incriminating ones!) everywhere, and lots of old toys. Blake is A.M.'s person. 


Blake's always wanted the house after A.M.'s gone. We wouldn't live in it for quite some time, as we still want to go off to school and see the world and whatnot, but when it comes time to settle down, it's the perfect place for us to live off the land and raise our children. 


Lately, A.M.'s been thinking about doing a few home renovations here and there. We started our garden quite some time ago, and now have plenty of healthy growing vegetables, and beautiful flowers everywhere. We've also bought some tile for the kitchen and bathrooms. This is where I come in. Not many people know this about me, but I apprenticed as a carpenter for a year (and did a lot of roofing work, too!). I can build kitchen cabinets from scratch, and I can rip up carpet and neatly lay tile like nobody's business. We're also considering breaking down two walls that lead into the dining room / library to open up the small kitchen. That and/or extend the kitchen outward onto where the back (unused) porch is.


There's a whole boatload of things that I'd like to fix up in A.M.'s house. Currently, Blake and I don't have a bedroom (or bed), as Fay's temporarily (read: permanently - but I'm not mad, really) moved in with us. And our backs are growing tired of the couch. So we have a few options:


1) The spare bedroom. The bedroom next to A.M.'s room used to be Keith's (Blake's dad) room, and is now just the...junk room, I guess you could put it. Easily clean-outable, but we'd need to put insulation in the walls, as they left that out. Not to mention it's right next to A.M.'s room, and we...well, you know what sometimes goes on at night in bed. Unless we could move Fay into that room, and reclaim ours. Hmm...


2) The attic. Although incredibly small, I could really see potential in this room. It's the room that A.M. claimed for his own when he was a kid (cute, right?). Really, the only things that really need to be fixed in this room, other than cleaning it out, of course, would be replacing the drywall, as it appears to be a bit moldy. Whether or not we move upstairs, we probably still need to get new sheetrock (but that's extremely cheap and easy to do). It's quaint and very cute, and with a new paintjob and better lighting, I honestly think it could be quite perfect for us.


OR


3) (Which is kind of what both of us are starting to lean toward) Move into the radio station. Now now, I know what you're thinking. What the fuck? Blake and I run a radio station that A.M. owns. Anywho, there's plenty of rooms (and a full kitchen, although we'd need to invest in a better bathroom), high speed internet, heating & air conditioning, yada yada. Free rent, essentially (although if we needed to, we'd be happy paying rent), and we'd be living at our own place, which would be nice.


So I'll be playing the little carpenter pretty soon, I'm assuming, which pleases me.

job hunting.

so i'm in the middle of hunting for jobs. again. it's unfortunate that there's little to no jobs here in this area, and the few that i do find are basically incompetent to the point where it takes them six+ weeks to even call me about an interview. seriously. 


currently i work at a franchise steakhouse. and, frankly, some days there are great. i love the people i work with (to a point - there's a few unmentionables i'd rather never see again for the rest of my life). rude guests don't bother me. i've never been yelled at or even just slightly chewed out. i've only been written up once (for missing a meeting that was barely publicized and had the wrong date on the online page), and i've never been late. i've also been working there since before opening day. so that's...eight months now? you'd think a promotion from hostess (or service assistant, as they like to put it) to server would be in order. but apparently not.


when they hired me, they insisted that it would only be a short matter of time before i would start training as a server, as i had initially applied as one, but because i had "no experience" (meaning: i had four months of experience, but this girl over here, who had NO experience in a restaurant whatsoever is immediately hired as a server. looking back on this, that should have been my initial warning sign), i would have to wait and start working as an sa first. fine. whatever. i can do that. since the restaurant opened in early september, we have lost about twelve servers and half of our sa's. two sa's were promoted to servers because they threatened to quit if they weren't. the managers have since regretted their actions, as one has already received three write-ups and complains about wanting to leave if she goes ten minutes without having a table / won't pre-bus / doesn't generally do her work at all, and the other is just...herself.


currently, their excuse for not promoting me (as we DO have openings, as t. and w. transferred, and more than a handful are thinking of transferring or just quitting) is that we don't have enough sa's. my head manager told me initially that it was extremely easy to hire sa's, as you don't have to have much experience, and they're much easier to train. currently, there's about ten applications sitting in the host stand. and that's from this past week alone. i can guarantee you there's about 300+ more sitting in the manager's office. and yet they can't pick out one or two out of that humongous pile that are capable of saying hello and seating guests in a booth? really? but yet clearly they can find servers (as they've hired three more already, and likely will hire more.) 


i have begged. i have worked my ass off. i have picked up shift after shift, come in early to do my sidework and stayed late. i have dressed pristinely and showed up with the biggest smile on my face that you can imagine. i have politely asked every month / when another server packs up and leaves to simply start training. they don't even have to put me on the schedule as a server yet, if they don't want to. i'm happy simply training and picking up the occasional shift someone wants to give me. that's fine. it would even be more convenient for them to have me trained, in case they need someone in an emergency. clearly, this is just not possible. for reasons unknown.


so i'm looking elsewhere. got a card in the mail four weeks ago that said my resume at some place or another had been accepted and they would call in the next two weeks to schedule an interview. this was four weeks ago. i'd waited six weeks before that to even get the card. 


this town sucks.

goin' to the chapel and we're gonna get...well, you know.

this is a late-night post. obviously. i can't sleep, because i'm stuck at my parent's home, and unable to get home to blake. well, i could, but i'm trying to repair the relationship i have with my dad. let's backtrack a little, shall we?


my father and i butt heads all the time. seriously. 85% of our interactions consist of arguing on some meaningless topic. he hates the fact that i'm an atheist, or he hates my political views, or he hates my tattoos and my nose ring. he hates my boyfriend. blake's probably the biggest thing in my life that he hates the most. and boy, does he love to hate blake. recently, i got tired of him calling the man i love "scum" and "a bastard," so i politely informed him that he wanted to trash my boyfriend one more time, he could feel free to, but he wouldn't be speaking to me for a long time. he then proceeded to force me to move out of the house (not thati  really live there anyway, but it's a temporary home base for my stuff). we've gotten over this little spat, but the contents of my room (meaning, the entirety of the physical elements of my life) are still packed and in my car.


i'm really not mad anymore. and frankly, neither is he. we'll fix things. i invited him to the restaurant tonight and had dessert with him after i got off work. there's a few things i want to tell him, though. the only problem is, i'm afraid he'll get extremely angry.


you see, blake and i have been talking about getting married. i know what you're probably thinking. you're only twenty-something, and you've known this guy for less than a year and you already want to marry him? my answer is a firm and resounding absolutely, without a doubt. we'll consider this the post where i go all mushy and gushy about this boy, and then it will only be mentioned rarely in only occasional tidbits in random posts, to spare you from the embarrassment. i've always imagined meeting a boy so compatible with me that it seems like a fairytale, but until blake actually entered my life, i never dreamed that that dream would ever become a reality. i am the luckiest person in the world. i'm extremely picky, get bored easily, and if i'm not bored, i push people away when i need my "alone time." which is why, in the past, my mostly long-distance relationships have worked extremely well, and when i visited, i was the one to visit, so i could quickly jet if i felt that need to be a recluse and profuse my love through texts instead of actually talking face-to-face and...hugging and things like that. not with blake. in the nine+ months we've been together, not a day has passed where i've felt the need to get away and be alone for a while. i basically started living with him about a week after we met. it only felt natural to the both of us. we're literally inseparable. even doing different things at opposite sides of the room is nice. it's not that we feel the need to be constantly around each other, it's simply more natural, more comfortable, to have one another around.


but back to this marriage thing. blake and i have talked about it before, but we'd always envisioned us getting married several years down the road. even getting engaged several years down the road. blake, while not uncomfortable with the idea of being engaged / getting married to me, had had a terrible experience being engaged at an early age with his first major relationship. so i was careful to tread lightly around the subject, never wanting to make him feel like i was pressuring him into it. lately, however, his thoughts towards gettin' hitched have changed quite drastically. mutual friends have revealed to me that he's been talking about it a little more and more lately. last night, he mentioned even asking for his family's heirloom wedding ring, passed down through four generations. this boy is for serious.


and i would like to talk to my dad about it. even just mention it briefly. it's not a big deal to us, really. it's a major decision to make, yes. but getting legally married to us has never been and never will be a big deal. it's simply...another step to take in our relationship. our vows to each other aren't more meaningful or more validated (in our own eyes, at least - which, in a marriage, are the only eyes that matter) by the existence of a legal document. the only things that would really change is financial things, my last name, and what we'd call each other instead of "boyfriend" and "girlfriend." and please, spare me the "marriage changes people" speech, if you had planned on giving it to me. i'm not the type of person to ignore sage advice, but relationships and marriages are a very personal, individual thing. every one is different, and blake and i are the epitome of unconventional. we don't approach the idea of marriage traditionally, and never will. that's simply not who we are.


this is getting extraordinarily long. in the event that this was too long, and you didn't read it: blake and i are discussing the possibility of getting married. my angry father, who hates my boyfriend, will probably have an aneurysm and die at the mention of it, so i guess that'll at least spare me the screaming raging fit that will surely come afterward. if i ever bring it up to good ol' dad, that is.

introduction.

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/2531441/oui-je-suis?claim=b4afpkdgv66">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

(sorry for that - had to do it to actually claim my blog, as i just realized i have yet to do)

if you're reading this, you probably already know who i am. but in the rare event that you don't, i suppose an introduction is in order.

my name is adelaide, and this is my...blog. thing. i don't have cute little cliche stories of living in new york city, or anecdotes about my three children (that i don't have), or even a super-fancy camera to load this place up with pictures. what i do have is a wonderful boyfriend named blake, a beautiful house in the countryside, ten dogs and nine cats & kittens, dreams of making it big with music, and exceptional video gaming skills. i'm a third year student in biology and anthropology. we haven't yet decided where we're going to transfer to. (blake's thinking ole miss, as he now has his fancy-dancy anthropology degree and needs to go get his master's, and he'd be a fourth-generation student. and you know how big ole miss is on consecutive generation students.)

and (for right now, at least), i suppose that's all you really need / care to know!