Adoption

42.

/ Christina Holzhauser / Leave a comment

I’ve never even read the damn book, but I do know the ultimate answer.

I can’t remember a time I liked my birthday. I’m adopted, so that part always made it feel sad. Today is the day I ruined a teenager’s life. And my parents didn’t get me until I was 5 months old. So. What was this day like 42 years ago? I was born. Some nurse probably smoked a no filter Camel while she swaddled me and watched Guiding Light. I probably spent the night alone in one of those plastic baby bins in the room with the window (though, if I remember correctly, my biological aunts, ages 12 and 14, came to look at me after I was born). Eventually, there was a foster home. Not only did I not have a name, but I’m not quite sure they even got my gender right. My legal name was, “Baby Girl” until Mom and Dad came along.

My birthday also sucks because it’s winter. It’s usually the worst part of winter with grey, slushy snow. When I was 12, I wrote in my journal how sad it was to have a birthday in what I called “the coldest month.” I remember, too, pretending I was trying to survive alone in the snowy woods this time of year. I’d stay outside by the creek behind my house until I was too cold to go on.

It’s not exactly a Christmas birthday, but it’s in the time frame of people still recovering from too much socializing over the holidays. I want to invite everyone to drink with me or do sporty things, but, it’s just usually a bummer outside. Today was an unseasonably warm temperature. But. How was I to know in advance? For the past two years and the pandemic, it’s been a huge bummer inside, too.

My birthday also falls on the first day of the semester for higher ed.

Neat.

I don’t tell people it’s my birthday. Why? It’s not like I did anything miraculous to be born. I did no work whatsoever to arrive in this form on the date and time that I did. There are a lot more things I’d like you to celebrate about me.

But it’s been a rough year. A rough two years. I don’t mind if you know now…now that it’s almost over. I just went through a whole day of work without anyone noticing it was my birthday.

To celebrate, I went to dinner with my family, bowled a little bit, and played some arcade games.

I know what I’m writing is not profound in anyway. I’m just telling you. I’m not even trying to be creative.

Look. I know I’m cool and worthy of all the good things that happen. And, on most days, I celebrate and sing myself.

But. Sometimes you just turn 42. Sometimes you just slip very quietly into a newer, sexier, more middle aged version of yourself.

And that’s just as wonderful as slipping as quietly as I did into this world.

Thirty years later. I’m still playing survivor.

Mother, Mother

/ Christina Holzhauser / Leave a comment

I’ve been a mom for eight years and two months and some days that I don’t feel like counting. The journey has been very, very long.

My whole life, I’ve had two mothers: the one who gave birth to me and the one that did the real work of raising me. But really, there is only one.

Gaby was a mom when I met her, so Cyrus has three moms. Poor Erika lives with two moms.

My own mom is a woman most of you have met. You love her. You love her because she is always able to be positive in any situation. You love her because she hugs you, even though she might not remember your name. You love her because she only wants to dance and have a good time.

I love her because she is my mom. And like most people, as I’ve aged, I’ve realized her wisdom, how much smarter she is than I. I strive to be like her while at the same time I try not to be like her. I see this pattern in Erika, who is nearly 14, trying to cling to Gaby and push her away at the same time. It is exhausting, this pulling and pushing of our mothers, ourselves.

Today,  Gaby had to work and Cyrus was at his other mom’s house for the holiday. Erika went to her dad’s for a while. So, I went fishing with some friends; we paddled around a lake, caught fish, or in my case, struggled to catch fish. I spent the day in the sun, on the water, not trying to please anyone, not trying to do the laundry or mow the yard. I got to spend the day mostly in my head, sweating and cussing at the stupid fish for not biting. I think that’s what all moms really need: a fucking break. I wish Gaby could’ve been with me. She needs a fishing trip more than I do.

 

The thing is, Cyrus did not come from my body. The same way I didn’t come from Faye’s body. None of that matters to me. You see, my whole life is about being a part of a family that doesn’t look like me. I don’t feel like him coming out of my body would make him any closer to me, but I know most people feel that way.

When I meet strangers and I tell them I’m a mom, they assume Cyrus is biologically mine. They assume all of the physical pain and sacrifice that comes with giving birth to a child. To be a mother is to sacrifice your body, they think. You might think that, too. But you also may know what else I’ve sacrificed–what matters more than that.

I’m adopted. I’ve never thought of my mom as a lesser mom because I didn’t come from her body. I’ve fought with her for the reasons we all fight with our moms: we are teenagers and they couldn’t possibly understand us, right? It is very true and very not true. But the whole time I knew she was my mom. My only mom.

People have asked me if it was hard bonding with Cyrus since he wasn’t mine. He isn’t mine? So, I’m not Faye’s? So, I’m not a “real” mom?

It’s true, no baby has ever come from my body. No baby has ever come from Faye’s body., either, but can you imagine another mom for me? I can’t.

The fact is, I have no idea what it means to have family that are biologically related. It’s weird to me that you look like your parents. It creeps me out a little that Erika and Gaby look so much alike. But, by some wonderful coincidence, Cyrus and I resemble each other.

I don’t feel like a lesser mother because I’m not a biological mother. And I hope that my mom has never felt that either. I don’t feel that way toward Erika, but maybe she has trouble understanding that since she looks like her mom and comes from her mom.

One of the women I went fishing with today was, at a certain point, my daughter. She was already adopted. Then, adopted again. There are too many layers in our lives to even dig through.

All of this is to say:

All of the children in my life are mine.

Being a mom means giving all of yourself, all the time.

Being a mom means kayaking around a lake trying to forget, for just a moment, you are a mom.

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To Be and To Become

/ Christina Holzhauser / Leave a comment

There are a few shows I’ve binge watched since the miracle of Netflix began: Orange is the New Black, The Office, and The Walking Dead.

But there is only one show that comes on regular t.v. that I tune in to watch in real-time: Finding Your Roots

Of course, I’m a sucker for any Ken Burns type documentary with sappy music and panning and zoom-outs of black and white photos, but the part I really stick around for is the DNA result. I don’t care who the celebrity is. I just care about that family tree. And I picture my own with a million question marks.

When people ask me why I write, or what made me start writing, I usually don’t have a satisfactory answer. But tonight, I think I have it. My whole life I’ve been searching for my own narrative. My own place in the story of the human experience.

If you know me, we’ve probably talked about this. Or, if you know me a little less, maybe you’ve read about this. I’m a Holzhauser. I emulate all of those characteristics; I’m stubborn, competitive, sarcastic, and a smart-ass. I am proud of my German heritage, whatever that means, and for me, it means growing up close to Hermann and being able to pronounce your last names. It means knowing what happens in October and May and loving meat and potatoes and having cuckoo clocks chiming at my house.

But, of course, my whole life I’ve known I’m not really a Holzhauser. I don’t look like them. Genetically, we are nothing. Am I even German? My mom’s side is Polacek, a Bohemian name. My grandmother wore scarves like any Eastern European immigrant. I am also not her. I’m neither my mom nor my dad. Their stories live through me, but not the way your family’s stories live in you.

I know that’s hard for you to hear. It’s hard for me to remember. Every. Single. Time. But this wanting to know, this knowing that there was another, distinct path my life didn’t take, is what made me start imagining. As a child, it seemed there was another me living in a parallel universe. With people who looked like me. In my mind, they were all blonde.

As it turns out, they really are.

I met my biological mom in 1999. I’ve tried so many times to write about it in a coherent way, in a way that people might be able to read it, but it’s hard. I also met my two half-sisters. I know their names. In fact, we were friends on social media for a while. Until my bio mom unfriended me and the family followed suit. Why? I think because I date women. She never really told me.

From the magic of social media, I’ve found out recently that one of my half-sisters is now a student at Mizzou. She looks like me…if I spent a lot of time in the mirror each morning. She was a high school athlete. From what I’ve seen, we shoot a basketball exactly the same. And though we hung out once when she was 7, she has no idea who I am. I always told myself I’d tell her when she was 18. I haven’t yet.

If you’re curious, I have 5 half-siblings from what I can research. One brother, the rest sisters. As an only child, I can’t even.

You’re probably not adopted. You probably have no idea what I’m feeling. I mean, you’re trying to imagine, but you probably can’t. The same way I can’t imagine growing up with people who share my DNA. Who look like me. Siblings who say, “you’re adopted,” as some strange insult.  I never understood why that was bad.

It is because of my adoption, and that curiosity of a life that never was, that I started imagining the life that could’ve been.

Growing up, I suspected EVERYONE of being my relative. I kept and open mind and wild imagination. Both Laverne and Shirley were once, in my mind, my biological mom.

Maybe that is what fueled my interest in people and cultures. In the living and dead. In evolution. We all come from one African mother, anyway. We’re all related somehow.

For my birthday this year, I bought myself a DNA test. I’ve been wanting to and putting it off for years. This test will tell me exactly how white I am. From which regions of Europe my relatives come.

Which I’ve just realized might be the opposite of what I want. Right now, there are possibilities. I could be from anywhere. Somewhere, way back there, we come from the same people. Until the results arrive, I am an Everywoman.

I’ve done some digging with the little information I have. From what I can figure, casually, and through a website, there are a lot of Patriots and Irish in my bloodline. From what I’ve seen, I’m as white-American as a girl can be.

Maybe you’re wondering why it even matters. I know people who are adopted who give zero fucks about their biological history. I know people who aren’t adopted who feel the same way. I know there are others still whose paper trails ends and begins in the 1860’s. And some even, have no papers at all.

 

I, and two other writers, gave a presentation last night about our anthology. A question was asked, what it meant to be Southern. For me, it means to love and hate the place I come from. To be a part of the landscape of a flooding river and the smell of deer blood in November.

Maybe the cells in my body are the first in my genetics to experience these things. Maybe that’s why I can’t let go. Or maybe my cells hold the memories of everyone before.

Maybe I’m already rooted firmly in place.