The Current Underlaying...

I've mentioned a few times on this blog that I've always had a tendancy towards the melancholic side of things... inspired by Dexter(sorry! You know I'm totally obsessed lately!), a "dark passenger" if you will (only mine doesn't make me kill people - it just makes me overanalytical and slightly woebegone). But like him, it has made me feel isolated, alone, as if I had this secret that the rest of the world didn't understand.  And like him,  I didn't know where this comes from, but I've recently discovered that it might just be genetic.

Before I get into full mode on this post I'd like to say this:  I know that some of the women I follow on Twitter are in the process of filling out adoption papers.  This post is about the other side of that, the side of the adoptee, and I just wanted that to be known up front in case it's too sensitive for some to be reading right now.  

I am adopted, you see, so those forms that you have to fill out at a doctor's office are quite a bit shorter for me - never able to fill in the blank spots where it says "family history". Until now.

In Ontario, until June of 2009, adoption records were closed.  Meaning I knew nothing.  Nothing at all - even though my Mom (though adopted, she's still my mom, 100%) knew a bit.  She kept me sheltered from what little she knew until recently, when I began to express a litte more interest.   Not that I didn't always know I was adopted, but I didn't know the particulars.   But last year, when the laws around adoption in Ontario changed, and I knew that I would actually be able to get somewhere without becoming Nancy Drew (was gonna put Deb Morgan here, to continue on the whole Dexter thing... too much?), I approached my Mom and she gave me the documents she did have.  She had the report from the Children's Aid about my birth parents and their families, and when I read it I would be lying if I said I wasn't shocked at all the similarities.  It was like I was reading a document written about me.  Their hobbies, their tendancies, and what struck home the hardest was my birth mother's "tendancy towards the melancholic".

I had never even used the word melancholic to describe myself before.  I always used "depressed", "down", even "manic" at times, but never that particular word.  It's wierd, because after I read that sentance about my birth mother, I realized that melancholic really is the perfect word for me. It makes me feel not so... depressing! It sounds more romantic, more soft, less whiny. 

So, although I now know my birth mother's name, her birthtown, and how she met my birth father and conceived me, the one thing that I think about and am most grateful for knowing is that I am melancholic - just like my birth mother, and that is ok.  I'm not sure how much farther I will take my curiosity.  She lived in a small town about an hour and 1/2 away from where I live, and I've been playing with the thought of going there to see what I can find out - but again, that's a bit too Nancy Drew for me.

I may just settle with what I've got, which is much more than I had before when I was floating around not having the slightest clue as to why I was the way I was.