It’s taken some time, but it’s finally hit me --- the lifting of the fog that I’ve both intentionally and involuntarily existed in my entire life surrounding my adoption. It’s not that I didn’t ask questions, nor is it the lack of answers. In fact, the fog I speak of has been like a protective force keeping me focused on the horizon --- if only to steady myself.
In 2013 when my adoptive mother passed, I remained in that fog. The fog was as thick as it had ever been, but still, there was something about it that was different. Maybe it was the protective force my mother had always spoke of, saying “I’ve put a protective circle around you, so you should be okay.” She’d often say that before I’d go do something normal but scary for the both of us, like going off to camp as a kid, driving a car or moving out of the house and far from home. I have embraced that fog like it is a part of me, like a cherished appendage.
Something has happened in the last few years. It’s almost like the fog has begun to thin, and I’m starting to see some kind of personal reflection. Maybe it is the idea that my mother is no longer here to influence my level of clarity about who I am. Maybe it's just the nature of maturing. Whatever the case, of late I’m remembering my other name.
I wasn’t always Dorian Spencer. It is in fact my legal name, and I’m very proud of it. But I can remember many, many years ago my Mom taking steps to legalize it. Details are a bit fuzzy to my memory, but I remember the general feeling and the stress created at the time. And then it was done; I was Dorian Spencer. I look back now and see that from then on I really did become someone else. I knew I was that much less apart of my birth mother and that much more a changed person. As little as can be said to be in a name, everything I am now might have been very different with the name my birth mother gave me. As the fog rises I have wondered, what if all those years ago I used my birth name instead of my adopted name. Who would I be? With a name so much more "common" sounding, maybe I would have fit in more. Would the world seem different, would my experiences be different? For all my questions, one answer kept popping up posing as a question: Did I ever have a choice?
I never felt a need to chose while within the dense love of a familial bond. But as a man with a severed past I think about what might or could have been. The question now is not whether I have a choice but rather what does it mean to make the decision now to carry the name my birth mother wanted me to have. Might she have been looking for me this whole time, and now just as technology is able to bring this missive to you, could a name allow us to meet? What would it mean to my music career or even a latent acting career? I’ve come so far as Dorian Spencer. What would it mean to my Mom who gave me everything she had to give. What would Dorian David Jones be able to do that we could not?
