back to my roots.

I have a few things on my mind right now. Mostly, I've been thinking a lot about the idea of home and where I'm from and what that means to me. I have so many homes that have led me to where I am today. There's Long Island, a place I am fiercely proud of and will always be loyal to. It's the motherland for me, in all senses of the word. I don't think I'll ever live there again, but it's my home, always. I will be a New Yorker until the day I die, cheering on the Yankees, bemoaning the sorry state of pizza and bagels out here on the Left Coast, and daring someone to tell me to stop cursing. Long Island is in my soul. My alma mater is another homeland for me - where I gained my voice, my sexual confidence, and my feminism. It was also the place where I learned about sisterhood. As a girl with three brothers, that was one of the things I didn't know I was missing until I found it. Lastly, my parents' house, a place where I feel so comfortable and supported. I love visiting them and getting pampered by my mother, who likes to cook my favorite dishes, wash my hair (yes, I make my mother wash my hair when I go home. AND WHAT?!), and snark out on everyone and everything. It's fun to shoot the shit with my dad and hear about all of the random stuff he's become interested in while I've been away.

Sometimes I think my obsession with home and belonging stems from the fact that I don't have any biological ties to anything and my life has been about finding love and contentment in a variety of places. People say that blood is thicker than water, but I don't believe that at all. I make fun of my parents all the time and they frustrate me and make me want to scream, but I also think they are the most selfless people I've ever met. To love something that isn't yours, to raise a child that isn't your own, that's a HUGE deal. It takes a big heart and I am grateful every day for them. I have never felt less loved than my parents' biological kids and the fact that I don't even draw that line when I think of my brothers is a testament to my parents' kind spirits. Yet, I'm still super curious about where I come from. I want to know where I get these traits that I don't see in my parents - both physical and mental. I want to know who created me.

So I'm starting the long, arduous process of finding my birth parents. A process made even more arduous by the fact that I can never tell my mother because it would break her heart into pieces. I'm starting slowly, just getting non-identifying info, so I can piece together some picture and then maybe when I'm ready, trying to find out who they are, what they look like, all those nagging questions in my brain. I don't need another parent. The two parents that I have were more wonderful than I could ever have hoped. To be honest, my parents are the only reason I believe in God, not because they are religious, but because I know that the only way a child like me - a black, female bastard child - could end up having such a wonderful childhood with amazing opportunities, would be due to Divine Grace. I know this, but I'm still curious about my origins. I need to know where I come from - it's a basic, fundamental need that I've tried to ignore for so long, but somehow it's gotten the best of me. I just hope I'm not opening up Pandora's Box.