Friday, August 6, 2010

iphoto and my adoptedness

When I get all weepy over the Faces tool in iphoto, my adoptee is showing. I had been saving and importing pictures of my nfam. As I tagged several of my aunts, the tool popped up several pictures of myself, and sometimes my daughters as possibly being one of the aunts. And then came the weepiness. After growing up not looking like someone else, sometimes it really gets to me when it hits me that there really are people who look like me, that I have a clan.

From comments from a random stranger at the gym on how much my youngest and I look like each other. Or from family members saying I really look like Grandmama Elsie. Or that one of my daughters looks like cousin so and so. Something that so many take for granted.

There are times where its too much, and in all honesty, I get weirded out by it. After all, its still something I'm getting used to. And I wonder how I will fare in a room full of them when I am finally able to make the trek back home to visit. It's one of those things that will be exciting but so scary at the same time. I grew up with no genetic mirrors. That's my norm, sadly, and having people resemble me on a huge level is something that is partially frightening to me. And that's just looking at photos. How will I feel when I'm in a room full of relatives, many of whom bear a striking resemblance to my daughters and I? Adopted, I suppose.