Speaking Different Languages

For me, sometimes it feels like I am living in multiple worlds since my NPE* discovery. How differently I share my DNA discovery truth with people is almost like I’m speaking in different languages to each of them.

Without realizing it, I self-censor each time I talk about this.

When I wrote my letter to my new half-sister, I didn’t go into detail about what I knew and remembered about the relationship between my mother and our mutual father, Joe**. And I could have. It is doubtful she knew that her father came over to our house many times while I was growing up. It is a memory I have well into my early teens. I doubt she knows my mother would call Joe throughout the years with life updates on my children – his grandchildren – and me. It felt like I would rubbing salt in a wound I was knowingly inflicting on her.

I really don’t talk about this with my raised siblings anymore since the early days of telling them. I don’t post anything on my main social media (where I know they are) about being an NPE. I think some of them are aware of this blog, but I have no idea if they have read any of it.

The large vintage 1917 photo I had printed of Joe’s family market, with an image of Joe’s father, my grandfather, in front of it, stays on my home office wall instead of the downstairs family room wall where I’d like to hang it because I’m hyper aware at the holidays that they will be in my home. It is not that this topic is off limits, but I can sense they feel uncomfortable.

When I talk to friends, I can’t help thinking in the back of my mind that I am boring them, or they might be thinking, “Can’t she stop talking about this? It’s been 10 years for heaven’s sake.”

When I meet a stranger at a genealogy conference, and the topic of DNA testing comes up, I frequently blurt out my discovery and want to share the grief of losing half my tree because I know they will totally get what I’m saying.

When I speak to my daughters or husband about it, there is levity now. We can have some inside jokes between us about it and it doesn’t seem so heavy for once.

I take responsibility for how I speak, or do not speak, in all these scenarios. No one’s previous reaction has necessarily dictated how I talk about it in the future. But sometimes it does. Whether it is my imagination or projection, no one in my life hears exactly the same angle of this discovery.

It is another example of how this discovery continues to evolve beyond the initial “telling” part. That may be why it is hard to gauge where I am in this journey when someone asks me. I’m telling truths in so many different ways.

 

*NPE is an acronym describing a person who has had a “Not Parent Expected” discovery.

**pseudonym