On Pain, and Competition
The last few days I’ve been catching up on reading blogs more than on writing my own. Several of the blogs that I follow are related to adoption. I’ve learned over the years that my experiences as an adoptee were not so unusual as I had thought, and many adoptees have had it much worse.
But here is the thing that strikes me tonight about some of these stories. Read more
Little Things
I’ve been busy with one thing and another the last few days, busier than I usually am. In fact, one of the nice things about being this age is that, for the first time I can remember, I don’t have to be busy, and I don’t have to feel guilty about not being busy. And yet, even when not much is happening, a lot is going on. Read more
Things My Mother Taught Me
There are a few good things one can learn from even the worst parents. Today I was trying to think of what things my mother taught me that turned out to be smart/insightful/good. Read more
Groundbreaking Study
I don’t normally watch the TV news much. I listen to public radio, read The Economist, and monitor some online news sites. That is usually enough. However, part of my weekday morning routine is to switch on the local news while I’m getting ready for work. I tell myself it is so I can see what the weather forecast is — but then I live in Southern California. The weather — will be lovely today. And tomorrow. So really, I guess it just helps me wake up to have some voices talking in the background.
Every now and then, the waking up process is expedited by something that gets my attention. The other day it was a groundbreaking study of diabetes. Here is the conversation I had with the TV:
Anchor: A new study shows that there are more diabetics in Los Angeles county than any other county in California.
Me: Aren’t there more people in Los Angeles county than anywhere else in California?
Anchor: [some blather] Experts say that the prevalence of diabetes in Los Angeles is probably due to its larger population size.
Me: Did my taxes pay for this study? How do I get a refund?
Validation
A cool thing happened to me today.
One of the many things that defines my life, and that I will write more about here over time, is that I was adopted. My childhood was not, for the most part, a very happy one, although I don’t know that being adopted was, in itself, a big reason for that. But I did grow up feeling very different from my adopted family. My mother wasn’t the sort of person who could respect and validate other people’s differences. She was more the sort of person who made me think — in fact she outright told me on many occasions — that there was something wrong with me.
Even with good adoptive parents, or for that matter, good parents of any kind, this can happen. Another blogger who I often read with some interest puts this very well in a recent post — she says it was as if her mother was Jackie Onassis, and had to raise Amy Carter as her daughter. (You can read the whole post here)
A few years ago I heard Ian McKellan — who I’m pretty sure was not adopted — describe a similar experience. Always an artistic and unusual sort of person, he said he felt a little sorry for his family. It was as if his parents, being rather ordinary middle-class suburban Brits, were asked to raise a giraffe.
Anyway, today I was working on my myspace page — part of my midlife crisis, I suppose — and I found my niece’s profile. She lives in the Midwest, and we don’t actually talk all that often. However, her profile featured a quote from a new and rather obscure TV show that is my current comedy favorite.
Now, finding out that a relative enjoys a TV show that you also like may not seem like a very interesting discovery. But when you go the first 30 years of your life not liking ANY of the same things your family likes — and being told that this is because you are a weird and disturbed person — well, I just never get tired of knowing that somewhere out there are some people who look like me, laugh like me, and even like to eat the same foods I like.
Oh, the show, by the way, is called The Flight of the Conchords. It’s on HBO and it’s brilliant, although I had to watch an episode or two before I really got into it.
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