Did You Know I Was Adopted?

by Amy Szmik

I think one of the strangest concepts is not knowing who gave you life. You exist in this world because of two people, yet you don’t know who created you. Sometimes I’ll be driving and listening to “Youth” by Glass Animals, and wonder who my parents were, why I was given up for adoption or if it was out of love. I was born in China during the one child policy and many girls were given up for adoption. Some were able to later track down their birth families, but I’ve had no such luck and accepted that I probably never will. It’s strange to me, that I wouldn’t know my parents who look like me. I also wonder about the circumstances of my birth. Was I created out of love? Was I from an arranged marriage? Was it two strangers? Did my parents love me? There are so many questions surrounding my birth that I’ll never know.

I’ve been told by people all around me how much my birth family loved me. I think I’ve always assumed that they did, but realistically I’ll never know. They created me and gave me up. I don’t feel any type of resentment for them, I understand that life isn’t easy. I would love to be able to find my birth family and see whose nose I got or whose eyes I have. But for now, they’ll always be strangers. They’re two people who created me and had to give me up. I don’t know where they are, or even if they’re still alive. I hope they’re out there somewhere and I hope they think about me. I can’t imagine growing a child to give them up so quickly. It’s something I’ll never know, but something I’ll sit and think about. Maybe this is just rambling about how I will never know my birth family, but it also is something that I tend to wonder about. I just hope that they love me and that they know I love them. I’ve never met them, but I’ll always be connected with them. I’ll always hold a special place in my heart for the people who created me.