A "better" life?

While talking with my mom this past weekend, we veered off into "what ifs" for a short while. I told her that in some strange little way, finding out what a wonderful person--what a lovely, fun, successful, vibrant woman--she is has been one of the most heartbreaking aspects of our reunion.

It's hard not to feel like you got screwed once you realize your natural mom is twice the woman your adoptive mom was.

I know that sounds petulant/whiny. Probably because it is. But I still feel it. The feeling is real, and I'm dealing with it as best I can.

I loved my adoptive mother. But truth be told, she and I were complete and utter opposites from day one. She never held a job outside the home, and she didn't really consider "housewife" one of her obligations, either. My older brother (also adopted) and I learned long before kindergarten how to pour milk in a bowl of cereal; make a sandwich; open a can of SpaghettiOs. We cared for ourselves and each other. My adoptive mom? She watched a lot of soap operas and poked around half-assedly in her flower beds. She didn't have any ambition or goals, any passions, any imagination, any friends. She was very solitary and self-superior. She never understood my interest in reading, drawing, music, and other creative pursuits and never wanted to. We never intersected. Never, in any way. To her, I was such a weirdo.

I look back now, and I realize she felt cheated. She didn't get the daughter she expected. She and my adoptive father paid a lot of money for me, and they did not get what was promised: A baby like her; AS IF BORN TO HER.

I was cheated, too.

I grew up assuming there was something seriously wrong with me. My mother didn't like me. She didn't like anything about me. I didn't look like her, I didn't think like her, I didn't walk like her or laugh like her or share any of the same interests she did. I didn't want to marry and have babies. I didn't want to settle down in suburbia. I wanted an education; I wanted a challenging career; I wanted to make lots of money and be independent; I wanted to wear fashionable clothes and drive fast cars and travel the world and experience different cultures and eat all kinds of food and meet all kinds of people and date and dance and paint and learn and laugh and live.

You know where I'm going with this, right?

Guess what my real mom is like? Go ahead. Guess.

Always, Renee XO