Check in here if you don't know what the heck you are.

[jobycom]

Being adopted, I have hints, but no real definitive answer. Makes me identify with no one or nothing, unless I choose to.

[wildhorses]

1. i moved around so much when i was young

the only place i feel like i really belong is at home:shrug:

[anti-everything]

3. I moved around a lot too...

But I made it back home to Minnesota.

[wildhorses]

4. i had to make my own home

once i grew up and could afford it...i bought a piece of land and made my home

[anti-everything]

5. I knew I would never feel at home in the south

so I moved to a place wheere things make sense. Eventually, I will own a place, but I am at home now, back in the northland.

[wildhorses]

6. ---

:rofl:


exact opposite for me.

the northland makes no sense at all to me:scared:

[anti-everything]

7. Funny how people can have opposite perspectives.

I love the north. What about The Northland makes no sense to you? Just curious. The Heat of The Southland makes no sense to me. I can't figure out, for the life of me, why someone would want 5 months of 90+ temps. But, I can see why someone wouldn't want 4 or 5 months of 32- temps. Not saying I understand it, just saying I can see it. Personally, I love the cold.

[wildhorses]

8. i have all four seasons where i live

i took my nephews snow skiing last month. i think i only saw 4 - 90 degree days here last summer.

i have found some northern friends on this board...

like to visit the north but, no desire to live there:shrug:

maybe montana or arizona

[anti-everything]

11. Are you near Banner Elk, NC?

Used to ski at Beech and Sugar a lot back when I lived in Atlanta. I'd still rather live in Northeastern Minnesota.

[wildhorses]

15. yes, i am about an hour from banner elk

took my nephews to applachain for their ski progam

but, i skied beech and sugar and seven devils back in the day...

did you ever go to wolf laurel?

[anti-everything]

17. Never went to Wolf Laurel,

but the best East Coast skiing I ever did was in Banner Elk, better than farther north and better than some west coast skiing.

[wildhorses]

19. really---?!?!

goody for us!!:hide:

the conditions were excellent the saturday i took my nephews. they are naturals and i can't wait to take them back next winter:bounce:

[anti-everything]

20. Spirit Mt

was great last week after out back to back blizzards. We got over 3 feet of snow here in northeastern Minnesota.

[wildhorses]

23. i think i would like to visit minnesota

from what i have seen and heard from the people on this board...it sounds lovely.

i just don't think it woud 'feel' like home...

[anti-everything]

25. Definitely visit. It is a great place.

Make sure you visit Duluth, and all along the North Shore of Lake Superior, if you do visit. The Twin Cities are nice, but there's way more to MN. I totally understand how people wouldn't feel at home here, what with the harsh winters, but a great place to visit. I would recommend spring or fall for a visit to avoid the state bird, the mosquito.

[wildhorses]

35. ahhh---the 'lovely' mosquito gets around...

:rofl:

[jobycom]

9. That's my reaction, too.

I feel that the South, and Mississippi especially, are my only roots. Even here in Texas, I call Mississippi home more than Texas, and I've lived 20 years in Texas. Hmm. 22, actually.

The north feels like another country to me. They sound funny, they eat weird stuff, their sense of humor is odd... Not bad or wrong, just alien. To me, north is anything above Dallas or Baton Rouge. :)

[wildhorses]

12. my cousins tell me i live in the north

after all it is 'north' carolina:rofl:

most of my family are from alabama and georgia...

[jobycom]

24. When I have to drive several hours north to get there, that seems north to me.

:) I grew up on the Gulf Coast in Mississippi. With a few exceptions, most of the country is the North.

[wildhorses]

36. they also say i have a hillbilly accent--

which is true compared to their paula deen smooth as butter cadence;)

[anti-everything]

13. I lived in Dallas too, and I can relate.

It seems like a completely different country. And I need winter...

[jobycom]

16. Dallas winters were too cold for me.

To me, winter is the month where you have to dry yourself off when you get out of the water, rather than letting the sun do it for you.

[anti-everything]

18. Dallas was too warm for me altogether. I don't like when it's above 70

and I don't like winters that don't get below zero. And I hate winters without snow.

[jobycom]

22. I've seen snow!

It's white, isn't it?

[anti-everything]

26. Yes!

Snow is my favorite precip. I need at least a foot of it every year to feel right...

[jobycom]

27. It hurt my feet when I saw it.

Then I learned that people up north where clothes on their feet! Called "shows," I think.

[anti-everything]

29. Boots, if you go far enough North

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. It allowed me to sorta choose

Supposedly, I'm half Italian; at least, that's what I was always told. But I later found out that the father's name on my original birth certificate (which I've never seen — fucking Kollyforniya adoption laws) isn't the right guy — that my bio mom, in fact, doesn't remember who he was.

But, hey — it means if I wanna be half Italian, I can be. :7

[jobycom]

10. I've never tried to find out anything

Usually if someone asks about my "heritage," I recite my parents' lineage. Now and then someone will mention that it isn't really mine. I don't see how it matters--to me, heritage is in upbringing, not in blood.

Catholic Charities tries to match ethnic backgrounds, intelligence and education levels, and all such things, so supposedly I am close to my parents' background, anyway. I don't want to know more--since I was born in Baton Rouge, I could easily find out my father was Jimmy Swaggart. I'd never be able to smile again, knowing something that awful! :rofl:

[Oeditpus Rex]

14. I'd like to know my lineage

Not so much names, but just where they were from.

Maybe I'm Russian. That'd be cool. :7

I also wanna know medical stuff — genetic predispositions and whatnot. I think I should have the right to know that.

[jobycom]

21. Funny how some want to know, and others don't.

I had a couple of friends growing up who had to find out who their "birth parents" were. Turned out bad for both of them. The worst part was they had wrapped so much of their identity into finding out, that it crushed them. One's "mother" slammed the door in his face, saying he was a memory she did not want to know. He died a couple of years later, having spent most of that time drunk or strung out. Not exactly suicide, but certainly self-destruction. And I've known others who had good experiences with it.

I never even thought about it much, although last year something happened that made me curious. I walked into a tire shop about 60 miles from where I was born (not where I was raised, I was just passing through), and the guy behind the counter was convinced I was one of his regular customers. Called me by his name, and when I didn't answer, rather than realizing I was someone else, he thought I was teasing him. Took me several attempts to convince him I was someone else. Made me curious for, oh, a few minutes. :)

[Heidi]

28. I was adopted when I was six,

but I've never had any emptiness or sense of loss. I've just felt incredibly fortunate to have gotten a new, safe start at six. :shrug:

[jobycom]

30. I was adopted twice. Once at birth, and once in my late 20s, by

(you knew it was coming) MINNIE! (I never felt any emptiness, either. I rarely even remember that I was adopted, except when questions of distant heritage arise.)

[Heidi]

31. MINNIE!!!!!!

Rarely do I wish we hadn't gotten Ginger neutered, but Minnie makes me wish for Ginger/Minnie grandkittens. :7

Hi, joby. :hug:

[jobycom]

32. Minnie is neutered, herself.

So we will just have to imagine what our grandkids from that union would be like. :)

Hi, back at you! :hi:

[Heidi]

33. They would be uber-fluffy grandkittens!

No doubt about that. :)

[jobycom]

34. With demanding, regal demeanors, I suspect.

[JackBeck]

37. I was also adopted.

At birth. And my mom was in the delivery room, which was highly illegal, but if you had ever met her, she got what she wanted.

Anyway, from what she gathered, my biological mother was Italian, and my biological father was Irish. And I was raised in a Italian/Catholic household, so I identify as Italian/Irish, but I still have those days when my curiosity gets the best of me and I think I could be a mutt.

[Richard Steele]

38. I think the name was originally German, but the first 2 Steele brothers came here via Denmark....

There's been a whole bunch of Scots-Irish tossed into the
mix over the last 350 years, along with who knows what else.

And there's some good evidence that my maternal Grandma is a
native American who's been "passing" as white since the 1940s,
but there's little chance of proving it.

Anyway you look at it, I'm a mutt. Fine by me!