Remember When

When I was 7 or 8 I had a recurring nightmare. I would dream that I was walking from house to house on Castle Street, one of the streets I lived on as a girl, and would pound on every door. 

"Is my Mom here?" I would ask frantically. 
"No, your mom isn't here," would be the reply from whoever answered the door. 

And then I would see my mom, sitting in the living room, or hiding behind the anonymous resident, or hiding behind the door. 

"Mom, mom, I need you, come out!"

"I'm not your mother." This woman who looked like and sounded like my mother would say.

"Yes you are, yes you are!" I would scream.

"Your mother's not here," and the door would close.

On I would go to the next house, only to be turned away by another woman, who I swore was my mother, but a woman, who in turn, swore she was not.

I would wake up sobbing, wanting to run to my mother's room and have her reassure me. The first time she told me to go back to bed. The second time she told me to go back to bed, dammit. So instead I would just lay in the dark and cry because I wanted to know where my mother was.

I'm sure this dream came from knowing that she wasn't my mother. Despite the book I read as a child, "Why I Was Adopted," I knew she hadn't chosen me...just me...as her special child. It was very clear that if she had to do it over again, she would have made another choice. She told me that. Not in anger or even really to hurt me, but more like it was a bad business decision we were reviewing. "The worst mistake I ever made was adopting you. I think you would have been happier with someone else." 

And this dream has come back to me lately, only this time when I run house to house in tears, I realize I am looking for the IDEA of someone who will own me, who will claim me, who will tell me I am not a mistake.