Waking up every day, going to school, talking to friends and then going home to my family seemed like it was normal. Everything seemed normal in my life and nothing was supposed to change. The family I live with and the people who I am told are my cousins, aunts and uncles are my relatives. I didn’t realize that I was different. I didn’t realize that in family pictures, I don’t look anything like my parents or brothers. I kept looking in the mirror and trying to figure out what is so different between me and the rest of my family. Then I started to notice what was so different.

First, I noticed that my skin color is completely darker than the rest of my family. Next, I saw how my eyes are shaped differently. I started to realize all of the things different about me and then I figured it out. I was adopted.

It is hard to think that way at the age of six. It’s hard to think your whole life just got switched up, that what I thought was real was actually fake. I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t know how to talk to my parents about it. I didn’t know how to ask “who are my real parents” to the people who love me and take care of me. How was I supposed to just let this go? I had to ask them. I had to ask them because I needed to know the whole story so I could get closure.

I asked my parents where I came from and how this all happened. I am from China; the reason I was put up for adoption was because my blood parents either couldn’t afford me or they were teen parents. When I was adopted, I was two and the result of that, I have never been in contact with my real parents. I have never met any of the people who are supposed to be there for me to create memories with, to laugh with and to cry with. I will never get the opportunity to create the things that most people have with their family. I don’t know what is worse not being able to make those memories with the people that you are supposed to make them with, or to make those memories and then never see them again. The only thing is that the family that I have now is my real family because they are the ones that love me, care about me and the people that I make the memories I was suppose to make with other people. Blood doesn’t define who my family is. The people who are my family were complete strangers at one point and I didn’t know them. That is why blood doesn’t decide who is family. The blood that I was given was given by people that didn’t love me at all or at least not enough to keep me around.

I will never hear the story of how my parents met or how anyone in my family met. I will not know what my parents look like. I will not be told the memories of them taking me home from the hospital for the first time. I don’t get to hear the things that people really treasure in life. I don’t get to go back in my family tree and see all of the people that came before me. I don’t get to see which genes I got from my dad and which ones I got from my mom by just looking at them. I don’t even get to know my health possibilities. I don’t really get anything with my biological family that I was supposed to. But most of the things that they lacked, my family that I have now make up for all of that because I get to hear the stories of my family and look at their family tree. I get to see everything that came before them and I can understand our family history. I can’t see my history or even know about most of it, but that doesn’t change anything about the family that I have because the family that I have is all about love and not about blood. To me there is nothing special about blood because blood does not tell you who you love and who you don’t.

I understand that I am different, the only thing that poisons me is the fact that I will most likely never get to say a word to my biological family once and it’s not like I have a choice at all. I don’t have the choice because I don’t know anything about them. It is not like I can call them up and talk to them or even write a letter to them. I won’t ever get to see them, but this doesn’t affect my family that I have now because my family is already there for me to see and talk to me every day. The family that I have will always be there and will always love me. I will always remember the memories that I have created with them and I will remember the memories that will be made in the future. I would never want to exchange the family that I have now because that family is the best thing that I can get.

I will never know who my blood family is or what they are like, but that family would never be as good as the one I have. Creating new memories with them would never overwrite the memories I already have with my true family.