Breaking: The Dutchess Kate is in labor!!!

[calimary]

168. That's another point, too. History. We don't have that kind of history in this country.

By age alone, we're an unruly teenager in the family of nations. We haven't outgrown the kiddie table or sippy cups in comparison to some of them - that have been around for one or two or three THOUSAND years. We don't have that, here. And sometimes there's something in me that yearns for that kind of long chain of connectivity through the ages.

Maybe it's because I myself am adopted. I don't have a family history, except for one that was grafted on when I was two weeks old (as I've been told). At least until very recently, when I did an adoption search and after almost a year, finally found some information that connects me partially - somewhere.

I have no blood lines connecting me to anyone but my own two children who both came outta me. I can't look back to any ancestors or generational elders who hold any personal connection to me, or who passed on their eye color or the shape of their chins - OR their propensity for breast cancer or bad teeth, or their ability to sing, or their tendency toward personality disorders, or ANY of that. I have no clue as to what "runs in my family" because it's never applied to me. Try filling out a medical history form and having to put N/A (Not Applicable) when you're asked whether your mother, sister, grandmother, aunt, or someone else in your biological family had cancer or diabetes or depression or any of that. Try looking at your personal file in elementary school (that you weren't really supposed to see) and notice that, high up there near the top, somebody typed in "ADOPTED" - in big red capitol letters. A scarlet letter indeed. Seven of them, as a matter of fact. I am a living, breathing, walking, talking sequester, if you will. John Donne once wrote that "no man is an island." But I've felt like one for my whole life (my adoptive parents, who were the only parents I ever knew, told me when I was four, I think - really young).

So I willingly concede that point - about history and connectivity through the ages - and how it resonates with me personally. And pretty deeply, too, if you really wanna know.