A New Year of Licking Old Wounds

New Year's Resolution #1: Finish painting baby room before he pops out.
New Year's Resolution #2: Spend less money.
New Year's Resolution #3: Look for my biological father.
New Year's Resolution #4: Look further to Paris Hilton for creative and spiritual inspiration.

Let's go back to #3.

So on June 24th about 4:15pm I received the mother of all mysterious letters. Beware the handwritten return address from someplace you have no connection to. I was immediately suspicious. In it was a letter from someone saying that her mother had died recently. When going through her things she found information that she had given up a child for adoption when she was young. The child's information was then given as was the adoptive mother's. The information was my information. Was I the adopted child?

Needless to say, I was a tad surprised. My immediate reaction was that it was a scam. Then I thought it was an honest mistake. Later I wondered if it was true.

I called my family. After a good deal of denial they final admitted it. In addition, my younger sister was adopted too, but by a different family (she, also, didn't know). This, folks, was the stuff trashy talk show producers dream of.

The next day I called the letter writer (my half-sister). She had no idea that I didn't know. My birth mother was only 17 when she had me. My birth father was, presumably, a kid too. I don't even have his name.

So since then I have been struggling with what defines us. So much of who we are is based on our past. What happens, though, when that past is based on a lie? No longer am I an Italian-American (I never really looked the part, anyway). My nose is not my dad's. My thumbs are not my grandmother's. These are things we all think about unconsciously when we look in the mirror. It turns out I look strongly like my birthmom.

So my New Year's resolution is to continue to grapple with all of this and to re-open the wound if I ever find my father.

Oh, and how does this all affect my imminent parenthood? Good question.

This is the stuff of good fodder...