Some of us love a good roller coaster ride. Some people just love the feeling of anxiety right before they load onto the car that is going to catapult them out into the wide open space at a very high rate of speed. You never know when the roller coaster is going to drop you causing your stomach to lift into your throat making you either want to vomit, cry, or yell in sheer excitement from the thrill. The car is moving you so fast that you don’t have the time to think too much about what is happening, you’re just forced to roll with it. Welcome to the life of an adoptee… Some people LOVE that feeling and some people don’t. I personally hate roller coasters, that physical feeling of my stomach dropping and the dread before I get on is not something that feels good to me BUT, I do love the possibilities of the unknown. I think that is why I was always curious about my birth family and wanted to search for my birth mother. I may hate roller coaster rides in general but I have enjoyed the ride God put me on in being an adoptee because every new “drop” that I experience is one that makes me reflect and ultimately grow as a person and yes, the proverbial drops keep coming at unpredicted times. People who are born naturally into their families have all their lives to learn about their family, their personalities, and what makes them tick. By the time you’re an adult you know them inside and out but as an adoptee who reunites with their birth family you have only a short amount of time to learn the same type of things and then add the complexity of emotions that have to do with the adoption and bam! You find yourself on a roller coaster ride! I have been on this ride for eight years and I thought there weren’t anymore surprises or “drops” left but I got a message yesterday that turned me upside down. My step-aunt messaged me on facebook to wish me a happy birthday, which is coming up this Friday, and told me how happy she was to finally know who the person was that she would silently wish happy birthday to every year. She told me that one year she was visiting my grandmother (the one who instructed my birth mother to place me for adoption) on my birthday and that my grandmother said to her “don’t think that I never think about my granddaughter who’s birthday is today”. This message blew me away! My birth mother has buried that time in her life so deeply that she remembers very little about it. We rarely ever talk about it. I’m not sure that we’ve ever talked about my grandmother’s feelings throughout the whole process and so to hear that my grandmother thought of me and somewhere deep down loved me both saddened and comforted me. I have to be honest and say that I don’t think of her often because I never met her. I just knew that she was the one that told my birth mother what to do in the situation. I guess I just assumed it was a somewhat easy decision for her and that she only cared about her own daughter’s best interests. I know now that might not be true and I like thinking about how I can mend my heart on that piece of my puzzle. How did my step-aunt know I needed that at this time when I didn’t even know it? This is my roller coaster ride. Maybe I don’t like other roller coasters because I can only handle one at a time!