What your adult self would like to tell your child self

Hello Kitty came out in 1976. I was born 1973.  I feel a kindred spirit with her. Cute, Asian, big head… All of her marketing is adorable and I love it.  The love of Hello Kitty carried me through adulthood.  To this day I have a slight obsession with Hello Kitty that I try to keep to a level below neurotic. But, I read somewhere online that Hello Kitty doesn’t have a mouth.  It never occurred to me until I saw that article. She just sits there. Ornamental. I became conflicted as I didn’t really want that to be representative of adult Heather.  

As I think back to child Heather, it makes sense that I flocked to Hello Kitty. She represented how I felt. Cute, ornamental and without a voice. I didn’t know who I was or who I wanted to be.  Other young girls seemed so content in their skin. They were confident about who they were and what they wanted to be. Or if they didn’t know, it didn’t bother them. Where with me, it was the opposite. EVERYTHING bothered me. I was constantly worried about something. Chaos seemed to be my comfortable state to where if there wasn’t drama to worry about, I would start it. 

I once tried to make a club for people who hated my best friend. She was my best friend, but I was so jealous of her. Why would I do that? I remember getting into a fight in the car with my high school boyfriend and yanking on his arm so hard he swerved off the road. There was a cop behind us and he pulled us over for driving recklessly.  He let us go when he saw me flailing in the passenger seat having what looked like some sort of fit or nervous breakdown. It’s not that I was Hello Kitty in that I never spoke up.  I had no problem speaking my mind. I just never knew what my mind was or who I was. I was nondescript. If you saw child Heather she was this cute little Korean girl who  took ballet and got straight A’s. But inside I didn’t know who I was. One day I wore my cheerleader uniform to school. The next day I wore my animal print wrap around skirt, black leather jacket and a fake nose ring. My algebra teacher looked at me and asked if I thought I was attractive with the ring in my nose. I told him I didn’t care. But that was a lie. I did care. Not about what he thought of me, but I cared about what I was projecting to others. Because others’ opinions mattered more than mine. 

I want to tell child Heather to relax. It’s ok. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be the best. You don’t have to popular or rich and you can stop trying to fit in.  There is this Hulu show called Pen15. It’s written by Maya Erskine and Anna Konkie. It chronicles two young girls’ lives as they navigate being 13. Maya is Japanese-American and Anna is white. It’s completely cringe-worthy as they relive those embarrassing moments of middle school where you want to fit in so bad, but yet you fail at it so miserably.  When I watched that show it spoke to my soul. I got it. I knew that feeling and saw myself in each of the characters. In fact, in the most recent episode they chose to animate the show and accentuated the physical features they hated about themselves.  Anna had a HUGE moon face, just like me. It’s great writing and a show I relate to all too well. 

So when I reflect back on these memories, was I like this because of adoption? Because of the tiny town I grew up in? Did adoption and growing up looking like an outsider in a town with one stop light and corn fields have an affect on the identity crisis I played out day after day? Who knows. There’s plenty of adoptees who grow up in white towns and adjust just fine. But for me, there was just something else, something missing.  I was constantly looking to fit in. And since I never felt like I fit in, I would just over-accentuate that feeling and make sure I could tell myself there was a reason I felt like I didn’t fit in. I changed my appearance outward to match how I felt inward, therefore justifying my awkward treatment.  I feel for child Heather.  I wish I could give her the comfort and peace I found in adulthood. I wish she would’ve had that F OFF attitude I have now and felt confident in my skin.  But only years of living and growing allowed me to find this. 

I’m always in awe of young women in their 20’s who have so much confidence and success.  I always think, ahh these are girls who were raised to believe what they said mattered. These are girls who gained respect by males and were allowed to speak. Most likely early on because they were pretty. These girls were positively reinforced and told they had a voice, and that the world cared what they had to say. The girl who was my bridesmaid did her student teaching a year before me. I was telling her how hard of a time I was having, that I couldn’t wield power or respect in the classroom because of my stature or intimidation. She said she knew the class listened to her ‘cause she was pretty. It’s true. Pretty voices matter.  I eventually learned I had to use humor.

So in essence, I’d love to tell child Heather to she’s doing fine. She will work out her issues and life will unfold the way it is supposed to. Don’t rush it and enjoy the ride. But we know, this isn’t possible. 

Birth Parent Fantasy

Given up at six months old. Found on the doorstep of the Soo Jung Apartments. Found by the apartment manager and sent to the Dongboo Police Station. It’s the only beginning I’ve ever known; it’s all I’ve ever had.  Before I understood the concept of time and history, I thought I was a Korean war baby. Clearly that doesn’t work with a 1973 birth. My hair dried wavy after my bath, so I thought I was half white.  I mean, all the women I’d seen in the media, like all two, Asians had slick, straight hair.  Mine was a dull, dark brown and had so many waves and cow licks I thought there’s no way I could be full Korean. Another misconception I realized as I grew older and was actually exposed to multiple Asians realizing how different Asian women can look.  

I never really fantasized about my Asian mother and father.  I thought about them. I wondered about them. I visited a psychic once who told me my Asian grandparents were with me, looking down with pride for my two Master’s degrees. I always assumed my mother was young and couldn’t support me, or was single.  I thought, maybe she was a prostitute and poor. No matter what she was, I was raised to believe that I was way better off here than any life I would’ve had in Korea.  I was fed this story from day one, that I was to be grateful for my adoption.  That my life in the US was a blessing.  I would tell people how lucky I was and was taught to appreciate all of my American privileges that children in other countries were not lucky to have. While this can be a toxic view to have in adopted families, it was never served with a sense of indebtedness. Instead it was explained with humility. Being raised by a very Christian family, humility was an important quality for us. I was to be humble about being taken in, about being adopted and about being an American now. I am thankful my adopted parents were wonderful and never made me feel like I owed them anything for adopting me, and never made me feel like I didn’t belong.  Yet, the narrative of being grateful was still strong growing up.

When I discovered my birth mother and my birth family, it was nothing like my fantasy of my made up mother. I found out I was the 7th daughter. My mother had multiple children, each time trying to give her in-laws the precious boy that all Korean families want.  Each time a girl popped out, disappointment and shame came with it.  By the 7th run, my family was too poor to care for me and alas, I was another disappointing girl. So as my sister said, one day she left for school and I was there. By the time she came home, I was gone.  Evidently, they had left me in a rich neighborhood in front of a home of a family, they had heard, couldn’t have children.They thought I would be cared for.  However, I was not raised by that family and somehow made it to that doorstep of the apartment complex.  The reality of my family is much more dramatic and grander than I could’ve ever imagined.  How could I have guessed that my mother would have twins right before I was born and that she would try to leave them on the side of a mountain. There’s no way I would’ve known my father had to go and save those babies. How could I have known that one of those twins would then die.  I would not have guessed my father would end up killing himself by turning the car on in the garage, leaving my older sister to find him after school.  There’s no way I could fantasize that I had a younger, biological brother who died in his twenties. 

I’ve often said my life story is a Lifetime Original movie. There’s no Hallmark happy endings in my story. Striking blond, independent city woman does not get the down home cowboy who’s fighting to save his ranch. The reality of my life is far more complex than any fantasy I could have created. But, it’s my story and I’m happy to have a story that is more than: abandoned on the steps of the apartment building.

My face does not match me.

Moon face. I have a really big, round moon face. I never really considered my face until the boys at school wanted to point out that my face was flat. So then I was known as flat face. I added this to the list of taunts that already got fired at me like missiles. Chinese, Japanese, Dirty Knees, Look at these. Ching Chong. I used to wish I could change my face. That it was small and petite. That the large bridge of my nose wasn’t so protruding and my cheeks weren’t fat, flat tortillas on either side of my nose.  I wanted blond hair that was light and fluffy.  You could spray that hair with hairspray and it actually stayed in place. My thick dark hair didn’t stand a chance, always straight an hour after I got to school. Those rag curls my mother put in my head futile. My mom said I was pretty. But no one cares what their mom says. Moms have to think you’re pretty. They are blinded by love. 

My eyes have mono-lids. It’s where the top lid doesn’t roll back into the eye socket. Instead it curls up and under and folds on top of itself like an accordion fan. That means if you put thick black eye liner on, it’s going to smudge and disappear under your top lid and you end up looking like a raccoon.  The discount version of a smokey eye. Oh and Heaven forbid you smile big or close your eyes tight when you laugh. Your eyeliner ends up on top of your fat tortilla cheeks. To fix this, a lot of Asian women get double eye-lid surgery. They get surgery to create an artificial crease on the top lid so they can look more American.

My ears connect to my head funny.  There’s really no distinction between my check and my lobe.  The bottom of my ear just sort of blends into my face like a merge lane on the highway.  There’s no cute round lobe on the side of my head. Just a little triangular flap of skin I got pierced when I was eight at a mall Kiosk in Indiana.  The hold aren’t even. My unicorn earrings always sat weird, with one dipping lower than the other.  

The real crux of the six word memoir is that this face, this awkward, Korean looking face, does not match me.  My face doesn’t represent who I am inside.  People who don’t know me look at my face and make a lot of assumptions.  They assume I am Asian of some sort.  They assume my face is Korean, if they are a good guesser.  Some people assume I don’t speak English, that broken English should come out of my mouth or that I’ll speak a language that sounds like pots and pans falling down the stairs, as the racist joke goes. When I was a greeter at Olive Garden in college, an older woman complimented me on my English saying I spoke English well.  I said, “Well I ought to since I’ve been here since I was six months old.”  

I thought I was American. I grew up in America. I ate American food. My lunch was Chef Boyardee. My family drove through McDonalds. My parents’ favorite restaurant was Cracker Barrel. I spoke English. Yet my face would say otherwise. My face came with baggage that wasn’t mine. My face gave some people permission to think they knew a part of me. When this happens you are constantly trying to prove you are someone or something. How many times did I overcompensate for this? Did I speak EXTRA American like? I tried to do all the American things like cheerleading or ballet to show how white I was. I dated the white boy on high school… although I didn’t really have a choice as there was only one Asian boy in my high school so choices were limited. I think I’ve spent a lifetime trying to combat my outward appearance instead of accepting it’s a natural part of what makes me, me.  Acceptance is what we crave so much in our youth, but yet we tend to find it much later in adulthood. I wish acceptance had come earlier. I wish I had given myself permission to feel like the outsider, but had the confidence to know I really did belong. I know my face does not match who I am inside, but now I know it doesn’t matter. 

Let's do this.

I've joined a writing group group on Monday nights that consists of all adoptees. Some Asian, some not, some knew they were adopted, some have not.  It's a time to force myself to write again. A time to process my life and tell my story.  Hopefully it will help me get to eventually writing my memoir. My Lifetime Original Story.