It’s My BIRTH Day

Published by Heather Louise on November 25, 2020November 25, 2020

My Birthday! I freaking LOVE my birthday. LOVE it. It’s my Heather Holiday.  It usually starts about a week before November 23rd and can roll all the way into the middle of December. I can use this time as an excuse to do or not do things, buy myself presents, and be a little bit extra because “It’s my birthdayyyyyy…” I know you know what I am talking about! 

But last year on my birthday, things were different. I woke up feeling not quite right. Very agitated. Almost numb. I went over and over in my head all of the reasons that could be making me feel this way, but I couldn’t zero in on any one thing in particular. And then…

…I took a shower. I was not prepared for the overwhelming wave of loss that hit me.

This is my writing from a year ago.

November 23, 2019 – Forty-six. Today I turned forty-six. This is the first birthday that I “have known”. I feel like less of a person today, more invisible and unknown to myself as ever.

Today is the first time that I ever pictured the doctor handing Stormie, my birth mother, her baby girl in the hospital. What did she think the first time she saw me? Did she wonder who the father of her child was? Did she think that I didn’t look like my Dad, Greg?  Did she wonder if anyone else noticed? Was she afraid? Who was in the hospital room with her when I was born? I never thought of my actual BIRTH day before. When I made my appearance into this world, Stormie was only 17 and my Dad was 19. I can’t really picture them ecstatic about starting a family at their young ages. I’m even more sure I was cramping their partying lifestyle.

November 23, 1973 – Stormie made a decision that would alter the course of my life. She had a secret. She chose my pseudo future by putting Gregory Cruz as the father on my birth certificate. She chose Heather Louise Cruz as my name. Cruz. Cruz. Cruz. She did what was best, best for HER. How else could she explain to my Dad that she slept with another man within a month after marrying him?  That there was a pretty big possibility that I might not be his child? 

Stormie’s decision on that day laid out a lifetime of feelings for me that I could never explain. Why did I always feel like I was adopted, even though I looked just like Stormie? Why did I feel like I never belonged to anyone or anywhere? No matter how hard I tried, I have always felt like a stranger in my own skin. Today, I know why. I wasn’t really a Cruz. I wasn’t a green-eyed Mexican-Indian girl. 

I never expected to feel all of this today, but that is how these emotions come at me. When they are least expected. The overwhelming panic and anxiety that I felt today, and tried to hold in all day, couldn’t be contained.

I turned off the shower, wrapped myself in my towel, and melted down the wall in a swamp of tears.

The best way to describe this feeling is grief. Grieving a lost part of my own identity, but yet I am still alive.

Today, November 24, 2020 – I belong to several online private support groups for my NPE situation (see Resources tab above for more info on these groups). There is a common theme that I’ve noticed about our birthdays after our discoveries. They are not the same anymore. 

A year later, I am in a different place emotionally and mentally. I am actively doing the work. Daily devotions (I try!), conventional therapy, emotional release, writing, educating myself, listening to solfeggio frequencies, grounding,  a sound therapy session (which was amazingly healing), and more. I choose to have an open heart to anything that shines a light on my path to further healing. Today, I know it’s OK to express what I feel when I feel it.

And to the sweet little girl in this picture, Happiest Birthday! I promise that each year, you will have a better birthday than the one before. I will make sure of that. XO