365 Days (Part 2) | ✓

356

356. Anniversary: Write about the anniversary of a special date.

I've been so preoccupied with college stuff, but I really need to crack down and get this challenge finished!

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Gotcha Day -- a holiday unique to adopted children. It's the day when you are adopted. In previous years, my parents used to take me to our favorite Chinese restaurant and buy me a toy on this anniversary. Ever since I got into high school, my Gotcha Day has decreased in importance.

I haven't actually spent my Gotcha Day with my family since 9th grade, which is why. I go to a weekend retreat during that weekend, and so it's been years since I celebrated it. This past time, I forgot about it again, although I was around for it. Whoops!

Being adopted is hard to explain to someone who's not. I don't think it's different from being born to your parents, but I wouldn't know for certain. She's just my mom and he's just my dad. I don't even realize I look different most of the times. My family are Caucasian, and I am so obviously not, but instinctively I think I look like them. That's why I'm always so flabbergasted when someone says I don't. People always assume me and my brother are "together" because we look nothing alike, but we're always with each other. I was at a party the other day and someone thought me and Zachary were a couple. That was embarrassing. I remember one time, after an introspective silence, I said, "I just realized -- I'm not white." My family found this hilarious, for some reason.

People used to ask me, "But don't you miss your real mom?"

This question always confused me, because wasn't my mom my real mom? Sure, she didn't actually give birth to me, but she raised me. She taught me how to talk, how to be polite, and how to dress myself. My dad taught me how to ride a bike, how to swim, and how to put on my jacket without my long sleeves scrunching up underneath.

There's someone out there who gave birth to me and who I always will have an undeniable connection to. She is my blood and she is the reason I am alive. However, she is not my mother. I don't know if I could find her -- I was literally left on a street in a remote Chinese village -- but I do have suspicions on who she is. Even so, I don't need to find her. Of course I am grateful to her, but I have my family, and they are more than enough.

We don't celebrate my Gotcha Day anymore, but it is almost the same as someone's birthday. It's the day I met my family for the first time.