Untitled.

I hate being a transracial adoptee right now. Love the mom and dad, despise the world's inability to see us as a family.

Think twice before you adopt kids of a different race, will you please? You'll spend the rest of your life defining your relationship to your children, in a very specific, wearying way. "Actually, she's my daughter." "Oh, well, he's my son." At the same time, your children will spend their lives defining their relationship to you and all of your extended family.

I was complaining today about people thinking I was my cousin's new wife (eeeew!) at my other cousin's wedding last night. A fellow adoptee said something like, "It's hard to have the patience, isn't it."

It is.

I don't want to be patient anymore. I am wearied beyond words of being forced to explain, define, and label my relationship to my parents and family.

Common Labels and Their Meanings:

"He's my dad." means "No, I'm not his wife or girlfriend or whatever you're thinking. (YUCK) Thanks for staring at us, though!"

"She's my mom." means "Yeah, I'm not her foreign exchange student, mentee, accountant.... I'm her daughter."

"We're cousins, actually. I'm not his wife." means "We're cousins, actually. I'm not his wife."

And yet, what are the alternatives to being patient? I'm not a witty or quick thinker. I could be shockingly rude. Blunt yet polite. Resigned. Laugh it off. Ignore the truth and go along with whatever label people want to put on my one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other-exterior. Wear a big fat label on my forehead. "Daughter. Cousin. Niece. Granddaughter. Member of this family via adoption, not marriage. Have a nice day!"

All of the above?

In the interest of being non-self-destructive, I probably have to be patient and see every encounter as an opportunity to educate. People can't help making labels. It's human nature to instantly label the people you meet to determine social standings. It falls to me as an adoptee to make adoption a more common label. Right? I mean, people rarely pull out the adoptee label. And why should they? Sure, maybe they have friends or neighbors with adopted kids - kids who are probably in their early 20s, teens, single digits. What in their experience would make them think an adult is adopted?

So. No way out. Patience. And a rather large attitude change on my part. It's an opportunity, not a frustration. Let me patiently explain and label my relationship for you because you, naturally, have no reference. Please remember this label. File it away in those army green file folders alphabetized in your brain. Bring it out the next time you see a family with unmatched skin.

Will that really work? I don't know.

How I hate these labels, even as I use them every day. Ha ha, irony! Life is funny! Ha!

Small talk consists entirely of these labels and the weather. "Are you so-and-so? How long have you lived here? Are you still in school? Do you have any siblings?" And there's a whole 'nother can o' worms. Do you tell you had a sister but she died, thereby making people uncomfortable and, thus, yourself uncomfortable? Do you decide it's none of their business and lie, thereby making yourself uncomfortable? AND, which do you choose after they've already assumed you were married to your cousin or still in school or a foreign exchange student or some other label? How many times can you correct someone you've just met in a single conversation?

Such choices. And you wonder why I'm a rotten conversationalist. Stymied at the start. These small talk hazards have foiled my navigation skills time and time again, 'til I dread talking with people I don't know.

And that's the worst of it all, that I would let a label - a tiny thing assigned by people I don't even know and may never see again - bother me to the core.

Ouch.