The story in pictures

My bio-mom (our new super-hero name for mothers who gave birth and relinquished children for adoption) is, if all goes according to plan, coming for a visit next week. I've been working on a photo album, a scrapbook really, of my life from my adoption through 21 years of age, and as I always do when I scrapbook (yes, for those of us struggling with the addiction, that is a verb), I've been obsessing over the project and neglecting everything else that I can get away with so that I'll have a few more precious seconds to put pictures and pen to paper. I'm getting down to the short rows now (good old Southern euphemism to be sure) and will finish easily with another hour or so tomorrow afternoon. And that is a good thing, but this time, this scrapbook has stirred up emotions in me that no other scrapbooking project has before. It's no wonder, but as predictable as a storm might be, I've still got to deal with the thunder and hail that is accompanying it.

A few months ago, I made another scrapbook for my bio-mom, this one of my son's life, birth through three, and I was very careful not to include pictures of his adoptive grandparents, for fear of establishing a, "So where were YOU when this picture was taken?" kind of vibe. I figured she'd want to see my son's pictures more than anyone else's images, so I was cautious and put together what I thought was an attractive, informative, not-too-emotional book. She was pleased with it, and I've promised to do more pages to bring her more up to date. But this book, this book of my life, is a lot stickier. I've been torn between brutal honesty ("I was miserable from age eight until I left home at 17.") and sugar-coating everything ("I knew I was loved, and I had all of my needs taken care of.") Neither story is completely accurate, and yet both are true.

How much is too much when we decide to open ourselves up to our newly reunited relatives? How do we balance our need for transparency (confession?) with our desire to protect? Do we photo-shop our past?

And how do we deal with the feelings that bubble up when we look at our lives and begin to tell our stories? I have felt on-edge and nervous all week, hassled and annoyed at the smallest of things. Is this sadness I'm tamping down as I look at my baby pictures and think of what my bio-mom didn't get to see? Or is it anger that I was relinquished in the first place? Or maybe, more simply, am I just plain nervous about seeing my bio-mom again? Most likely a bit of all three.

So it's Friday night and my family is all home, and I can put aside my pictures for the night and enjoy some down time. But sleep may again be elusive as I hash through all of the pent-up energy of 42+ years of questions and, finally, answers. Perhaps the real scrapbooking is going on in my heart as I crop and rearrange my previous sense of who I am and how I came to be here to make room for the new pictures of family that are slowly emerging.