Letter #4

Dear stranger who gave birth to me,

What an odd way to start a letter I'm sure you are thinking. I'm an odd person. Maybe you are too. I'm guessing you are quite a thinker, and maybe don't subscribe to the norms. I'm imagining you with your silver hair, your sweet Southern accent, something of a Paula Dean meets Sharon Osbourne meets Hilary Clinton. I envision you dressed conservatively, with thick rimmed glasses and no make-up, flats on your size 7 feet. I heard you were 5'7. Hey, that's not fair. I didn't get your height, or the supposed birth father's height either. He was 6'2 I was told in my "papers".
Maybe I was really the milkman's mistake. They probably still delivered milk way back then. Or did they? I'm only 35 for crying out loud.
For being only 35, I sure do have a long recovery time after a night out. Do you suffer from a constant desire to have fun like I do? Do you carry on at work like I do- distracting all your co-workers from their tasks, somewhat of a peanut galley all rolled into one little fiesty woman?
I bet you are toned down now, but I imagine you were a little devilish in your younger years. Surely you would not have the same mentality at age 54 that you had at age 35. Maybe it's the same mentality, but with less action.
Whatever you may be, whoever you might revel, however you might feel, you are still my birth mother. Your blood runs through my veins, and we have the same DNA. I'm not geneticist, but I think it's probably pretty similar. We probably have the same eye color.
It wasn't until recently that I noticed that my eyes are more green than they are blue, which is pretty weird to me. I have stared at the same ugly mug for all these years, messily smudged eye make-up on these same eyelids, always squinting these eyes to see everything. I am legally blind, and without correction, I wouldn't be able to identify a watermelon if it was sitting on my nose. I'm kidding about being ugly. I don't think I'm ugly. Some might differ, but, you know what I say about them? Well, I won't say that word because I want you to think I'm a good person- which I am- depending on who you ask.
Do you know I had a blankey until I was in college? Of course you don't know that. It's just as well. That's kind of humiliating to admit. My first "real" boyfriend, what a fuck-up he was (Oops I said the word,) threw it out one day. He took it and threw it away. I came home to our house one day, and it was gone. Do you know how mad I was at him? Really stinkin mad. I exercised language control just now. I talk like a sailor, and would probably write like one, if it wasn't annoying to me to read things that others have written doused with profanity. It's not necessary, but it's sometimes a good means of letting out some pent up aggression. Who doesn't have that? Even Mother Theresa probably did.
When I was 20, I lost my great aunt, Happy. She was the closest relative of mine, other than my mother of course. Looking back now, I think I may have been closer to Happy than my own Mom. She spoiled me to death- to her death that is.
It nearly killed me. I went through a serious undiagnosed clinical depression. I lived in a dorm room with the most selfish bitch on the planet- she refused to quit smoking in our dorm room, and I had just quit smoking miraculously. My bed was on the floor for some odd reason, I don't understand why, except maybe we were trying to save room for- I don't know-our mini-beer-fridge? That was always well stocked.
I cried myself to sleep every night for months.
And then I lost my brother just four short years later. He was only 20 at the time. I was 23, maybe 24. It's kinda of blurry. Age doesn't mean much to me.
I was a mess at the time. I was on drugs. No one knew. I always had a job though. I worked for a perfume company, and traveled every week.
For some reason though, it wasn't good enough for my parents. They refused to tell their friends of my career choice. I could never understand that about them. Maybe I tried to find comfort through drugs. Not being accepted by my parents, who always backed eachother up, was painful for me. I couldn't understand what they would not be proud of? The fact that their daughter had a decent job, got to travel the SouthEast, saved money (not a lot, but some), wasn't good enough for them. No, I wasn't a lawyer, or a doctor or a regular miserable drone who lived and breathed the florescent white walls of cubicle life. I wanted more. I didn't want to sit behind a desk and stare at a box all day- like I do now.
I wanted excitment, diversity. After all, that was what I thought I was. It's what I am still.
I wanted to travel, see new places, meet people that were not like me, and if I was lucky, have some part of them transcribed into who I would mold into. Luckily for me, I met some amazing and not-so amazing, even worn down, haggard people, which thankfully played a role in fueling my desire to help others.
Then I lost my Dad. I was 33 at that time. He was less than 70- a young age to someone who is still only half of it. That was another loss that cut me.
I imagined him walking me down the isle, when I was 40, because, quite honestly, I never envisioned myself getting married before that age. It never made sense to me. I know the rigamarole. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby carriage.
Not this one. I defied it all. I had the baby first. Have never had the love. Well maybe I did, but it's debatable.
I was looking forward to taking Sarah camping with Dad, having him teach her how to kayak on the Green River, just like he taught me.
I haven't been kayaking since he died. It's just not the same without him. I've never been down a whitewater river kayaking without him. It would be too hard. It wouldn't be the same.
I miss my Dad.
So you see, Colette, I have been through a lot in my short time here on Earth. I have suffered loss. Some would wonder how I've made it. I'm semi-normal. I am a survivor, as I bet you are. I have suffered many losses, and know there are many to come. But I make it through each day knowing that God is with me. I know that I have more strength in my shortest eyelash than some people have stored in basements and locked trunks and bank accounts.
I wonder if my strength came from you. If so, I should not be worried about you rejecting me, because you are stronger than me. You made me from your womb. I am a production of you. And we can't be that much different. One day I will be proven right. You can prove your strength and I can display mine. I hope that day is soon.

With admiration for you and through my own strength I leave you once more,
Brooke