The Undercover Introvert

Found on a Doorstep

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All the best kids are adopted. This isn’t just my overly biased opinion as an adopted individual. Popular culture reinforces that assessment again and again with delightful characters such as the nice boy from the Omen, the grown woman pretending to be a murderous child in the Orphan, and Loki, god of mischief, as depicted in the Thor trilogy…

Adopted kids are a bit of a novelty, or so I’ve deduced from the oddly invasive responses I routinely get from folks when they find out how my family came to be. Maybe there’s just something inherent in the word adopted that makes grown folks lose their damned minds, because I’ve fielded some extremely personal and inappropriate questions over the years after casually mentioning that I never spent any actual time camping out in my mother’s uterus.

My personal favorite boundary crossing, none of your damned business because I don’t even know you question is: don’t you want to find your real parents?

I’m a smartass going way back, and my normal go-to when dealing with uncomfortable situations is to apply a hearty injection of acerbic humor. My response to the above question is always: oh, I know where my real parents are. They raised me.

Some folks stop right there, suddenly realizing that the funny taste at the back of their throat is from jamming a foot in their mouth. I get a nervous laugh in response and then we go back to talking about something else. Or they remember they had other stuff to do and boogie without making any further eye contact. But other folks don’t seem able to pick up on subtlety and have to keep pushing further into unwelcome territory.

You know what I mean, they say, smiling in a challenging way that lets me know they intend to get an answer that satisfies. Your real parents.

At this point, I drop the humor and go straight for the jugular. And I’ve honestly heard this exact line of questioning so often that I always say the same thing: oh, you mean the people who abandoned me and never looked back? Yeah, reconnecting with them is one of my top priorities.

Awkward…

I’ve never talked to anyone bold enough to go much further than this, but it’s interesting that people I don’t know feel entitled to that kind of personal information. I’ve discussed my disinterest in finding my biological parents with close friends, but we know one another, and that level of shared intimacy is expected. I give a little of me, and you give a little of you. Otherwise, I keep my personal story behind a locked door.

What makes folks need to probe so deeply into this subject? I blame movies, books, and television.

Hear me out.

In just about every story I’ve ever watched or read that included an adopted character, that person was either a murderous psycho (the antichrist, amirite?) or so heartsick for her ‘real’ family, that she was desperately unhappy and unable to enjoy a single thing about her life. It’s tired and predictable. Despite my rich inner turmoil and murderous fantasies (joking about that last part!), I think I present as a mostly well adjusted adult, and that just doesn’t jive with what we’ve been told about adopted kids. There’s something off about us. Who knows where we came from or what we’re thinking about. Can we really be trusted? On the other hand, a blood bond is strong, right? Surely we must be pining for our long lost biological relatives. Meeting them would fill some hole in our tortured souls that has been plaguing us for our entire lives.

I hate to break it to you, but apart from the tumultuous events that brought me to my parents’ doorstep as an infant, my life is pretty damned ordinary. No empty space in my heart only an absent biological parent can fill. No otherworldly abilities bestowed upon me by my father, god of the underworld (damn it). I’m just a kid whose biological mother did her a solid by letting her go so her real parents could find her. That’s it, and that’s all.

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Learning to Say No

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I have absolutely no skill when it comes to saying no. How is it that I never managed to acquire this ability in the last 37 years? Well, this really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone given the name of the blog, but I’m a functioning introvert. I’ve suffered from low to moderate social anxiety for as long as I can remember. I often have to put a knife to my own throat to go out, even when I’m looking forward to something. Once I get there, I warm up, but I need to recharge afterwards. My ideal evening is spent with my nose in a book or watching something from my Netflix queue. But now I find myself busier than I’ve ever been in my life and I’m struggling.

The political climate of 2016 compelled me to act. I woke up after Election Day in a black, desolate mood. As the days passed, that despair transformed into helplessness, frustration, and finally anger. I needed a way to burn through that fury, to transform it into something meaningful. But how?

I’d never been involved in any political or social activism. So, I joined every group I could find. My typical week went from going out once or twice max to being out every single night of the work week and all day on the weekend. I was organizing, putting events together, making phone calls to strangers (which I absolutely loathe above nearly all else), speaking to crowds, canvassing for the local branch of the Democratic Party, and heading up various local initiatives. Once you become known for showing up and working hard, people tend to call on you to keep doing it, and when there’s so much that needs to be done, you find yourself volunteering and allowing people to set as much as they’d like onto your narrow shoulders. You feel accomplished, but weary. This rush of frenzied activity causes chronic overextension, which exhausts you in a way that even a string of good nights’ sleeps cannot fix.

So, what’s to be done when you want to create as much change as you can but also don’t want to perpetually feel like sinking into bed and pulling the blankets over your head until everyone forgets you exist?

Over the last 12 months, I’ve come to realize that the answer is balance. Don’t accept too many projects and leadership roles. Make a list of priority items and decide how much work you can do without driving yourself insane. Take the recharge time for yourself that you desperately need. Don’t allow anyone to make you feel guilty for saying no.

Have I mastered any of what I’ve just suggested? Oh, hell no. Not even close. But I’m learning as I go, because I’ve never done this before.

During a protest early last year, I saw a sign that read: It’s so bad even introverts are here. I had to laugh at that because it’s true. We’re uncomfortable, but we’re here. Just don’t be surprised if you see us running away from you in a parking lot or something. No offense. We’ve just reached the limit for socializing that day…

And So It Begins…

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This blog thing is brand new, so I feel the need to introduce myself. I’m a writer, reader, runner, activist, and functional introvert. I’m an Air Force brat afflicted with terminal wanderlust. I’m a divorced mother of one who loves dogs, food, and smashing the patriarchy. I’m a black woman adopted by white parents who raised a brown daughter. I’ve fallen in love in Italy, lived in Germany and Japan, learned to dive in Guam, and gone wreck diving off the coast of Hawaii. I’ve been so low I wondered if I’d ever see the sun again. I went to a hippie college on the west coast of Florida for undergrad and then started and stopped grad school in New York City. I’m a freelancer earning a living by the power of my imagination alone. I’m a community organizer fighting for racial justice and reproductive rights. I’m a feminist, rabble rouser, and proud member of the resistance. I have a degree in philosophy—get ready for the occasional cogito ergo sum—and a paralegal certificate. I’ve pressed restart on my life a few times since becoming an adult, most recently after the 2016 election cycle. Instead of curling up in the fetal position and lying still over the next 4 years, I decided to get active. That’s despite the social anxiety. If I can do it, anyone can and should.

That’s one hell of an information dump and it doesn’t even begin to cover what goes on in my head or where I’ve been in the last 37 years. I imagine that will come with time and effort. I have so much to say, and expressing myself in words has always come as easily as breathing. It’s actually my preferred method of communication. In other words, prepare for verbosity on an epic scale. Words are my jam and writing has been much more than a hobby since middle school. The world’s been on fire for a while now but, somehow, most of us are just noticing for the first time. It won’t all be doom and gloom, though. There’s hope too, and humor. What would life be without laughing, screaming, writing, worrying, and dreaming?

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