The 61 Year Old Turns 18 and Leaves Home or Why I am Moving to Substack
I had to go to the store and buy a bag of cashew granola so I could eat it all while writing this. There was no way I could tell you this stuff without feeling full, and maybe even a little sick.
If you hear chewing, that’s me.
Before a few months ago, the last time I fully paid my own way in the world was my first year in graduate school. I’d gotten a fellowship and was in the incredible space of getting paid to learn. The second year I discovered student loans and lived a little more comfortably. (My mom, who clipped coupons, and dad, who taped his shoes, had paid for my entire college education so student loans was a new concept for me. A fact I did not at all fully appreciate until my own daughter went to college.)
I have always had my parents, my husbands, alimony, and the kindness of friends to keep me afloat. My entire adult life I have not both paid rent and my car payment and all my bills (except for the one year in my late twenties mentioned above—but, full disclosure, I did not have a car then).
Could I argue that adoption = failure to thrive? Could I put my own shortcomings or weaknesses or lazinesses or whatever you want to call them on adoption, yet again?
Yup. Fucking right I could.
It’s embarrassing to not be able to take care of yourself, or to believe you can’t. It’s scary. It’s belittling. It’s also sort of nice—getting adopted over and over again, being given keys to house after house with love and kindness and startling generosity. Being a child can be so rewarding until you’re hungry or feeling trapped.
Why was paying my own way not exciting to me? Why did I always have to go running to my parents, even when I was married, for money? Why did I always spend more than I made? Why did paying my own rent seem like a stupid idea? Seriously? Why? Why would I not be thrilled that I had the tools to go out into the world, earn money, and create a life that I was excited to call my own? Why did having a savings account seem like a truly dumb idea, like putting your youth in the freezer?
I have some theories.
My parents adopted a child. My job was to stay a child so they, my mother in particular, would not lose me to adulthood and independence.
I was not fully “in” my life. I was living as the child of Margery and Frank Heffron, but the truth was the “real” me was the child of people whose names I did not know for most of my life. Part of me had the foot on the brake. Part of me was saying, I’m not all in.
When you are born and your mother disappears suddenly, it creates a child who knows anything can disappear at any moment. Why work hard to create a life when you could blink and it could all be gone?
Part of me has a deep hatred/mistrust/confusion about money. Money was the reason my mother could not keep me and the reason my new parents could have me. Mothers love their babies. Mine, essentially, put her baby up for sale and my new parents used their money to buy me. Is money a monster? Is money love? Why would I want a healthy relationship with it?
If I am able to support myself, if I thrive, I am saying, It worked. Adoption was a good idea. I wasn’t damaged. Good job. Thank you. I have parts of me that know that adoption was a good idea in my case, but the damaged part is real and still unacknowledged in general. Parts of me are in deep tantrum, and they will take me to Target and empty my wallet before I know what hit me.
That’s enough for now.
But guess what happened? My parents died. I lost the will to ask friends and others for help. I just don’t have it in me anymore. I’d rather sit on the street and be hungry. Better, I’d rather get clever and figure out how to take care of myself. I have paid for everything for months now. In many ways, I am an entirely new person when it comes to money. I don’t need as much, for one, because since I downsized and moved into the Airstream, I see all the ways I don’t have to spend it. I don’t need to buy a grater so I can use the Parmesan cheese. Truth is, I don’t need either. I can eat my frittata with greens from the garden instead. I also notice that I used to use the panic I’d get at a low bank balance to keep me in a familiar state of deep anxiety. I’ve been working at calming the fuck down, and, baby steps, it’s working. I don’t need to get all revved up so I can feel bad. This means I don’t do stupid things to make my bank balance suddenly low, as if someone else had gone out and bought that new coat or car or dog bed or whatever it took.
When I left home for college, I was not prepared. I did not know how to leave my parents and be myself. My life starting to spin out of control as soon as I left home, is what I can see now. I kept going back, but the out of control kept happening. I did not know how to grow up. I did not know it was allowed. I knew I could grow up into the person my parents saw me to be, but that wasn’t me. I was someone with a lineage that was not invited into our house, and so instead of confronting head on what I could not even name, I just kept fucking up, decade after decade. Anything to avoid becoming the person none of my parents had invited to their table: me.
I have to support myself now. My parents are dead and so I am officially no longer their child.
It’s all so complicated. I think my mom and dad would have loved me no matter how I lived, no matter what I did. They would have had opinions, but I could have stood up for myself and had my own, as they did, as I did. But I could have been bolder with my voice, with my decisions. I could have worked harder to grow and been less prone to collapse. I could have been better at learning that it was okay to be terrified and to still keep moving forward. Etc.
I don’t know what to do with this information I have in my head about how adoption affected me and how things could have been different. That’s not true. That’s why I write. It’s just that sometimes it all feels so overwhelming. But we who were adopted have to keep talking so the adopted kids coming up behind us might not feel so alone and confused. So their parents have access to more information. So we as a world can see more clearly the repercussions of mother-child separation and take bonding and culture and race and love much, much more seriously.
All of this is to say, that after eleven months and 332 days of being on this website, I’m leaving home and going to college. What I mean is I’m pivoting and choosing Door B. The me door. I’m changing. For one thing, I’m moving my blog over to Substack because I need to grow up and make money where I can. I have bills to pay. Dreams to chase.
I hope to see you there. Bring your checkbook.
Hahaha. Old habits die hard.
