Adoptee in the sun

You never know when the topic of adoption is going to sneak up on you.  I've come to expect it on TV shows, in books or splashed across the front of magazines.  Given my involvement online with forums and groups I do think about adoption pretty much everyday, I just don't always think about my own adoption.

So I was really caught by surprise the other day when I sat out on the deck for my lunch and my thoughts turned to my adoption all because of a glance down at my leg.   I have a skin type that tans rather instantaneously.  After only 10 minutes in the sun, I came in with this tan line:

*

And what do tan lines have to do with adoption you ask?

I don't know where my skin colouring comes from.  I grew up around some pretty pasty people who burn, peel and repeat all summer.  I've never had what I would call a sun burn.  Genetic Mirroring is a term that gets tossed around in the adoption community.  It refers to children being able to see themselves in the people they grow up with.  When babies are born some of the first comments people will make are "oh look he has Uncle Ralph's nose" or "he's a spitting image of his father at that age".  I never had any of that growing up.  I was taller and more tanned then everyone around me.  Luckily for me, my parents never kept my adoption a secret from me.  If they had I would have probably figured thought that my mom had been stepping out with the milk man.

So even after  **cough** 40  years, the fact that I am/was adopted still sneaks up on me.

*this picture and story is actually from the end of May but has been sadly lost in my drafts. My tan lines are far more noticeable now!