Today I started reading "A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love, and Faith in Stages." It's Kristin Chenoweth's autobiography. I may have known before I began, but did not remember knowing, that Kristin Chenoweth is adopted. She tells her story about being adopted in glorious words of praise for her adoptive parents and her biological mother that bravely decided to give her child a better chance at life with a complete family. She describes her feeling about being adopted in a way that somehow makes me feel connected to her:
"However, since the question always gets asked, no, I have no interest in contacting or being contacted by my biological mother. I've never felt the slightest frisson of something missing in my life, and the whole medical-record thing doesn't concern me much. I'm vigilant about my health. (In my profession, you're either vigilant about your health or you're Janis Joplin.) I do vaguely wonder if my biological mother suffers from Meniere's disease like I do.
... The light haze of curiocity isn't enough for me to risk disrupting my life or the life of the woman who gave me up for adoption. She made a difficult choice, and I have profound respect for that. In 1968, abotion was still illegal in the United States, but she apparently had the money (and the flight bennies) to go wherever she needed to go to get it done. She chose to have me instead, and thank you does not begin to cover how I feel. But that's all I'ver ever really wanted to say to her."
Really, I'm thinking aloud and you're reading it, so I go on to say: Aaron and I recently talked (very briefly) about adoption as an option for our path to parenthood. Before, we had spoken (again, very briefly) about it and he wasn't so sold on the idea. He really liked the idea of combining a little bit of me and a little bit of him to create the thing(s) we'll love most for the rest of our lives. Who doesn't think that's such a cool idea!? But all my life (ask my grandma) I thought I'd like to adopt. I told my grandma, back when I was in early high school years, that I will adopt. She said, "I'm sure your plans will change." She was adamant about my ideas changing when I got married and thought about the-little-bit-of-me-little-bit-of-him thing. And... yes... I do like the idea more now... but I can't say I've lost the love for adoption. Anyway, back to "Aaron and I recently talked (very briefly) about adoption as an option for our path to parenthood." We did. And Aaron said to me something very similar to, "we could adopt if you really want to." He doesn't know it (till now, I guess) that his comment broke me open and pulled out all sorts of dreams and images, overwhelming excitement and nervousness, like a clown pulling a colorful, unending scarf from his pocket... except mine came from my heart. I had always wanted to hear that! I always wanted to know we could look into that.
And when I think of my own feelings, and when I read Kristin's (lets go by her first name only, because, without her know, I feel that connected to and inspired by her) memories and feelings about her childhood, I think, I want to be a woman who gives a young mother (who may be too young to care for a child, or too poor, starving in a third world country) a chance to do good by her child. I want to be a mother that my child adores despite the difference in our skin tone or medical-record. I want to be a wife that is brave enough to embark on this journey, carrying the title 'a partner in passions.' I want to be a daughter that honors her father (despite the mistakes) by replicating the choice to be a parent to a fatherless child. I don't know if that's really what will happen. I don't know if we'll adopt and I don't know if we'll even be parents at all. But I do really like the idea of it being an option. I like knowing that, maybe, we could adopt.
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