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[17 Dec 2008|08:54pm] |
I’m the kid no one wanted. Let’s clear that up right here and now. I was give up at birth by my biological mother and spent my childhood in an orphanage until I was five. Sounds rough right? Well it was so you should pour some sympathy my way and the next time you find me asking what you got on number seven, remember I was in an orphanage. Nah, fuck that. I have it pretty good. I was adopted by a great couple. Judith and Ron. That’s them. The parents that took me home and for a year were my foster parents.
I must admit, it freaked me out. I was always walking on eggshells thinking that if I put a foot out of line they’d ship me right back to the orphanage and all the other little kids would know I had come back stamped ‘rejected.’ One day in kindergarten when I bit a kid (shut up, he totally deserved it, and I’d do it again) and the principal said she was going to call my parents that night, I got off the bus and went to my room and put my stuff in a bag, ready to go for when they shipped me back. They never did.
I stayed with them and soon they started the process of adopting me. It took a while, a lot of visits from social workers, a lot of social workers asking me questions, but it’s all been worth it. I know what it’s like to not be wanted, and to see people put themselves through all that just so I could legally be theirs, it blows me away. I went from the one no wanted, to the one my parents were willing to jump through hoops to keep. I can’t write down how it feels, I can’t express it right and I’ll never be able to because some things just defy description.
Going through school I was in the in crowd. I thought they liked my personality an thought I was cool and enjoyed the way I could dick around during class and then talk my way out of it when the teacher threatened detention. They didn’t give a shit about any of that. Apparently I was in a club. My parents had money. We lived in a nice house, they drove nice cars, nice clothes were on my back. That’s what was important to them and for a while it was what was important to me. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m still rocking those labels, and looking fucking good in them while doing it, but it’s not so important to me. I can afford them I buy them. I don’t have to shop in the dollar section of Target just to understand that clothes don’t make the man, however Taiwanese children do make the clothes.
I’m blunt. Some like it and some don’t. I don’t speak out of a mean place, and I never really truly mean to hurt anyone. But I also think lying to people to spare their feelings honestly does them a disservice. If you have something stuck in your teeth, I’d rather tell you than have you walk around with it all day. I can also be surprisingly sensitive about certain things. What those things are, you’ll have to figure them out yourself.
I hate the hospital. I’ve seen it a lot lately. I’ve seen my mother hooked to machines, tubes coming out of her skin, hydrating her, feeding her, keeping her alive. I’ve seen my mother walk out of the hospital several times, each time thinking that it’s all over, that she’s done, that we, as a family, are done with this. We’d have a celebratory dinner, knowing that THIS time we were victorious. And then later, inevitably, it’s back, and worse, and I don’t know how long I can keep fooling myself that it will go away. I’m a smart person, I know better. But I’m a scared person and I have no idea how my life will go on without her. I may be very independent in some ways, but I’m not ready to lose one of the only people I know truly wants me around. I used to go to church, but I can’t think of a reason to believe in any god when I can see the devastation of the world without seeing any holy intervention. Some people don’t get the last thing they deserve and what God would allow that to happen? And what person would defend a god who allowed that to happen?
My mother was the one who I first told I thought I might be gay. She smiled at me. Once again I had agonize over this realization and feared her reaction, but she smiled. That motherly smile that she’s given in the past, when I learned to read, when I learned to tie my shoes. She smiled at me the same way she smiled when I was finally her adopted son, once all the papers had been signed and the social workers left the house. She smiled like when she looked across the room and saw me, her son. She didn’t say anything, I could figure out that she had known and was waiting for me to know too. It was never a big thing to her, or my dad. I still don’t know how I got so lucky to end up with them. That’s the one thing that made me certain god was in my life, and then, he walked out, like my birth mother. He left and things fell to shit.
You’d never know about any of this, only the closest of my friends do. That’s another part of me, I’m quite private unless I trust you. There are a few people I’d tell anything to, only a few that I know have my best interests at heart. They’re the ones that know this secret. But I put on a smile and walk down the halls the same confident man I’ve been for quite some time, and when I feel upset about it, well alcohol has helped me on more than on occasion forget the problems of the world. There are times I’ve come to crave the blackout, knowing I’d wake up later and the feelings of sorrow would be replaced with the feeling of a hangover. A hangover isn’t so bad, you’re so sick you don’t have the opportunity to think of anything besides how many steps to the toilet you are.
I’m not sure how to end this all, I feel like I’ve said much too much as it is so I’ll just leave you with this thought. Sure, Nathan Lane is rich, but he’s still Nathan Lane. See? Money doesn’t solve everything…
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