Twenty-eight years of being between somewhere and nowhere
The first encounter with a Russian that I can remember was when I was a small child. My family and I were on vacation in northern Michigan, where my parents had a condo. One day we went to a water park, and my parents instantly perked up at the sound of a distinct Russian accent, spoken by a young blonde woman working at the service counter.
They jumped at the opportunity to tell her that the little girl beside them, uninterested and eager to get back in the water, is also Russian. Delighted by the news, the woman shared some of her background in return, how she landed a job in a small resort town here in the States for the summer. I was young and shy, so I didn't say anything.
After exchanging pleasantries, we split up: my mom and grandma went sunbathing, our new Russian acquaintance returned to work, and my father was left to supervise me.
I was never a fan of non-aquatic amusement parks, but I loved water slides. On this day it was all fun and games until I went to use the restroom and the one-piece swimsuit I was wearing got stuck at my waist. I couldn't go outside like that. I was in the stall for what felt like hours trying to pull it up, my weak and wrinkly fingers wrestling with the mesh that clung to my body like a second skin.
What could I do? Surely my father was wondering about me, but he could not come into the restroom. And he couldn't just leave me there and go track down my mom instead to come help me. What if I came out and he wasn't there?
To my surprise, that same Russian accent from earlier was beckoning my name from outside the stall, wanting to know if I was all right.
I can recall neither what became of that interaction, nor the woman's name. I think I somehow managed to solve my dilemma by myself to avoid further humiliation. I certainly made it out of there to enjoy the rest of the day, but I also don't remember what transpired. All I remember is that, well, maybe I actually wanted this Russian woman to come check on me. To hear her voice again.
And that's sort of how I've felt for my whole life, yearning for this undeniable piece of me I have lost.
On this day twenty-eight years ago, I was born at the cusp between Europe and Asia, in the city of Boris Yeltsin — Yekaterinburg, Russia. On this day twenty-eight years ago, a young Tatar woman decided to relinquish her second child because she could not provide for her. On this day twenty-eight years ago, I was without a family. An orphan.
My childhood was spent fulfilling a role for an upper middle-class American couple who wanted a white child they themselves could not have naturally. I was a back-up — better yet, a back-up who could pass as the real thing if you didn't pay much attention beyond a passing glance. That made it even more critical that I keep it — that I was adopted — a secret. I was reprimanded after confessing that I let it slip at recess one day, earning me the nickname "the girl from Asia" for several weeks.
My adoptive mother reminded me that I was an expensive knockoff after I somehow convinced her to let me search for my biological family at eighteen and my search was successful.
"You better not send them any money," she warned. "You don't understand how much time, money, and energy we spent to get you." No congratulatory words.
- They never asked for any money.
- I was a very expensive knockoff.
- I was the "bad adoptee."
My adoptive father has kids from a first marriage. Last year, he reintroduced me to his grandson as his "blood relative."
Until a private investigator working on my case found her about a decade ago, my birth mother had concealed my existence from her family, which consisted of not only my older sister but also my mother's new partner and my half-brother who is only a couple years younger than me. He was kept. They didn't judge my mother for her decision. After all, times were tough in Russia in the nineties.
To this day I haven't come to terms with being kept a secret in both my adoptive and birth family. Maybe not coincidentally, I myself am very good at keeping secrets. Though I never lie, I often withhold information about myself from even my closest friends for weeks to months for no logical reason.
My sister and I were in on-and-off contact when I was in college, but it always fizzled out after some time. Maybe I can overcome some barrier by learning Russian, I thought.
Since 2020 I have been preparing to return to Russia. I hired a native speaker to help me renew my long-expired Russian passport, which my parents had never mentioned to me. I flew to Washington for my passport appointment at the embassy, which proved successful despite my broken Russian alienating me from both the workers and other clientele who looked like me but had no problems speaking Russian at the Russian embassy.
I received my new passport in the mail in December 2021. Finally, I thought. Now I can go back to Russia.
Needless to say, the world had other plans for me. Just like it did when I was plucked from the soil where I was born, planted in a different country where I have had to pretend I could grow normally, even without any semblance of roots to anchor me.
In the meantime, I've been self-teaching Russian like it's my job. I can now hold conversations with native speakers for hours. This inspired me in 2023 to renew contact with my sister, who showered me with reassurance that she and our brother are so grateful to know of me and want to meet me someday.
"Deep down I always felt like I had a sister. If I had been grown up at the time, I would have changed everything," she wrote. We still haven't ever video chatted together.
Even though this contact has again dissipated, our conversations back then inspired me to visit the Caucasus last year to learn more about the origins of my half-brother and his father. It also gave me the opportunity to use my Russian passport for the first time, a weird but pleasant feeling. That deserves a blog post of its own.
Truth be told though, I'm getting tired. It's not just the war — it's everything. I've done everything and more to reclaim my identity, but it's all a knockoff, too.
I can't remember a time in my life not feeling like the world is against me in my quest for things that the average person takes for granted, and nowadays I have extra reasons to feel ashamed for doing so. I have received comments from close ones suggesting that my desires are illogical, incongruent with their perceptions of me.
This past year I have often envisioned myself trapped in a small, dark, and cold room with no windows, in between two doors without door handles. One represents Russia, the other the United States. I am so close to both of them but at the same time in neither one, just stuck in a physical and mental state of almost there-ness.
Russia is like an otherworldly place for me, in some inaccessible dimension. At 28, I'm trying to learn to be okay with this, to be okay with not being able to move on with my life.
A couple days ago my coworker, a sweet older Chinese woman, was curious about my experience.
"It must be so hard," she said. "No biological parents, no adoptive parents..."
I nodded.