I have been wondering a little bit about doing the whole using the giant can opener to open the gigantic can of worms and seeing what’s inside thing that I have been putting off and off and off probably for about ummm 18 years.

Is that the longest sentence ever with absolutely NO punctuation?

Here’s the facts and nothing but the facts.

Adopted as an infant.

Cool with that. Cool parents and all that. Happy with them, too.

BUT…

Whole itty bitty gap in my space/time continuum here… And every so often, the gap opens up and I can look straight down into the abyss of “what if?” and “why did…?” and well, sometimes I want to know about the who and the what and the why that happened in the space immediately before and just after I was born.

I was born in the mid sixties (which makes me the second oldest person on the internet) and that’s just what happened to women who had children out of wedlock. Someone came and took them away. Doesn’t make it right, that it’s just what happened. Doesn’t make it wrong, either.

Ok, for some people, they’re not right without their biologicals. They have a great slashing gaping hole in their continuum rather than a wee gap that opens and closes (but never truly goes away). But would they have been right with their biologicals? Or is the wrongness they feel something they have attached to their adoption thing, where it may be something else all together?

Now, I could go for years without anything adoption related crossing my mind in the slightest. Most of the time, it’s just “I am tall, I am blonde, I am adopted and my eye colour is subject to change without notice”. It’s a part of me that’s important but not – just like my eye colour and my hair and my height. Part of what makes me “me”.

Then the cosmos aligns and the gap opens up. Sometimes it opens a little… sometimes it opens enough for me to get the application form to apply for more information. And just once, it opened up enough for me to not only get the application, but fill it in and send it off.

So now I have enough information to contact the Biological Ancestor. More than enough, as I have discovered there’s a degree of fun and amusement in stalking LIVING ancestors in addition to the dead ones.

I can tell you where she lives now (white pages), where she lived a few years ago (electoral roll), what her married name is (that was a fluke, ok) Oh, and the reason I know I am the second oldest person on the internet is because the Biological Ancestor has a web page, too. With pictures.

So I have seen what she looks like. That’s a weird feeling.

Because one of the things I am looking for is to see if I have a family face. She seemed to have darkish hair and blue eyes. I don’t have either. Maybe it’s not her family I am needing to see… Although there’s a touch about the eyebrows here and there… We seem to have similar personalities – in writing at least; although she loves Lord of the Rings and I don’t. But she’s into Terry Pratchett as well, so some is forgiven.

So do I contact her? Or not? Do I open up the can of worms and see what happens? My own mum doesn’t know I have found what I have found for a start – and Bio Ancestor placed a veto (it expired, hence my ability to get the information I have) so she’s not expecting me to rock up on her door step and say “Hi Mum, you need to update your  profile… You need to add on one kid and a couple of  grandkids, alright?”

I found her name on a genealogical website I frequent, so I can send her a really simple, non-threatening email to suggest that there’s the slightest possibility that she and I may be related in some way shape or form. It’s the kind of thing that should only be seen by her; as when one receives a message from this forum, it directs you *back* to the website in order to read the message.

Do I don’t I, do I don’t I?

As I sit here with the can opener, taptaptapping…