Thursday, June 11, 2009

Hiding in plain sight.

If you have the right bit of information - it really is amazing what you can find out about people on the net. I mean I knew this, but it never really sunk in as much as is has in the last two days.

When I saw my mothers name along with my name pop up in a search, I knew right away it was a statistical impossibility they weren't looking for me. Yes.. 0.0 chance. I think I've seen three people on the net with my mothers name. It's very unusual. For a person to get all the names involved together in one place. My mothers name, my fathers name, and my complete name with birth date.. I knew this wasn't some sort of false positive. I mean, I'm not named Jones for christ sakes.

It actually has been a pretty intense couple of days. I would have never dreamed of looking for my dads kids. Truth be told I didn't know anything about them. And, other than his full name written on a piece of paper, I don't really know much about him. I had the talk with myself a long time ago, I wouldn't have found it fair to try and interject myself into their family. Maybe they were happy. It just wasn't that important to me. Sometimes the past is better left in the past. I never knew him anyway.

Yet, here they are looking for me.

So I did what any sane person would do. I stalked them all across the Internet. Oh stop. You would too! Oddly, Mr S. already had this idea as well. It's interesting what you can come up with two independent eyes looking for something. I found her myspace page, Mr S. found a ton of other stuff.

Oddly, he doesn't look like me. At all. Neither do the kids. I suppose maybe I'm not his, but he thought I was. He thought so enough that he kept a record somewhere.

I have to admit, one of my early boyfriends - I don't remember his last name. Sometimes it bugs me. I spent a lot of time with that guy, and now I can't remember his last name. And this guy - who I'm not even sure set eyes on me, remembered my mothers name.

I guess he's dead now. Which is all the same to me. He never meant anything to me before. But now, maybe something in my brain would have tweaked if he were alive.

After viewing the pictures of him on her myspace page, the overwhelming feeling I come away with is.... I'm genuinely glad I never hated him. People make mistakes. He looks like he was a really nice guy. He sort of looks a little like Santa. I can't help but feel that if I would have hated him my whole life, that would have made me more resentful.

It seems like a really nice family. And, somehow it doesn't bother me that I wasn't a part of that.

Sure, I've sent her email. More out of curiosity. I want to know how she knew about me. That was totally unexpected. I'm not sure what the purpose is really. I don't feel the need to grasp onto the siblings I didn't have. Which apparently are quite a lot. Sometimes I don't think you can create of bond over just blood.

Plus, I'm grown. I think I came to grips with not having a dad a long time ago. Still the whole thing is really more intense than I ever expected.

4 comments:

  1. Wow! Everything I'm thinking is very pithy and trite. But this is very cool to me, including your reactions. Has she responded to your email?

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  2. Naaa. The post I found is over 6 months old. Maybe it took google that long to send it to the top. Which is the only way I ran across it. Sitting right in the first search position. And, she hasn't logged into her myspace page in days. So maybe she doesn't check her mail that much. Or maybe she's changed her mind. I don't know. Maybe just just was fishing and never expected results. Or maybe part of her email has changed. She's going under the same nym, but maybe she changed providers.

    I'm not even sure why they chose to look for me now. They obviously had enough information.

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  3. Your site has the strangest things on it! How weird this is, and how unexpected. Must be an odd feeling to have so much "unknown" in one's own background. To tell you the truth, Keyser would be happy enough not to know a lot about his own background.

    Keyser's always found the attitude of people who spend their lives wound up about the past puzzling. The past is the past, so it's what's the use of obsessing about something that's unchangeable? Kudos on being so zen about something that could be a lot more "disconcerting."

    Anyway, if you do find out anything more, be sure to tell us, we're all agog to know...

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  4. Wow. Coming from you - that is a real compliment. I'd like to think of it as eclectic.

    I'm not sure it's the unknown that feels weird to me. I kinda did know there were other children. If not in the front of my head, but most certainly in the back. Guys usually have more than one child.

    Perhaps it's the idea that you can never escape your past. Even if you weren't acutally a part of it.

    At any rate, stay tuned. As soon as I can form my thoughts - I'll post the next installment.

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