Me and Little Me Were Walking Down the Street

I had the experience the other day, yet again, of catching my reflection in the window of my car and having the startling stomach-drop feeling of wrong wrong wrong. My brain carries the images of my mom and dad as they aged, and, while I can see bits of them in my face—my mother’s deep-set eyes, my father’s…well, I’m not sure what of my father’s, but there’s something—the total package that is my face is not right. It’s not them enough or it’s not me enough or it’s not social media enough. It’s just not right.

(I mean, of course, my mom and dad who adopted me. I hate saying adoptive mom and dad because it feels like I’m taking away the only parents who were active in my life by inserting that one word, and I don’t want to do that.)

This seeing my face that does not feel like my face in the reflection is the kind of thing that makes me wonder how we can truly normalize the adoption experience for younger kids and not have them growing up secretly or-not-so secretly feeling like aliens, especially when they look in the mirror. I heard of one adopted person who had life-size photos of his first mother and father taped to mirrors in his bedroom. I thought this was brilliant. Just imagining walking into my bedroom as a kid and seeing those images makes me sigh. My shoulders relax. I feel hopeful.

My bedroom would have contained truth.

If one daisy is growing in a field of tulips, does it ever get lonely?

When I was married to my first husband and his family and I would go to a Japanese restaurant, the server would almost always automatically give everyone at the table hashi and me a fork. Eating rice with a fork feels ugly when you are the only one doing it. You feel ugly. The rice doesn’t taste so good. (Of course I asked for hashi. I may be white, but I’m not a totally idiot.)

I wish I knew if my face was okay. I don’t know how else to say it.

I had a fantasy the other day that, here in my hometown where I am currently living again, I ran into 12-year-old me as I walked past the junior high school, not my favorite time of life. I got to look into her face and she got to look into mine. “Hey,” I said, putting my arm around her. “How are you doing?” She smelled so familiar to me. Her hair was familiar, the way she walked, her voice. “Hey,” she said to me. “It’s you!” We walked through the woods to her house that used to be my house. I know how she felt about going there, and so I asked her how things were going. I was the first person she’d ever met she could say absolutely anything to, and so she talked and talked and talked. I listened carefully. It was so great to have her open up to me.

I had a fantasy that we went to sleep together that night, and I could look at her face, her eyes, as she looked at me. It wasn’t like looking in a mirror, because when I look in a mirror, it’s my eyes looking at my eyes and judgement leaps in. Looking at her was looking at another body even though it was my body. It’s different when you look at yourself in the flesh, not in a mirror. You get to be a person on both sides. You get to be relational. With yourself!

I really, really, really like little me, and she really, really, really likes me. We’re so kind to each other. We get each other. I have the feeling we’ll always be there for each other, and that my life has changed for the better now that I know she’s out there in the world, waiting for me, looking forward to seeing me.

Now, maybe, when I see my reflection in the car window I won’t just see confusion. I’ll also see her, and, by proxy, me.