Gotcha Day 2021

Taken and edited from an Instagram post on my personal account for my 17th Gotcha Day in combination with my Common Application essay that I wrote for my college application.

19 years ago today, I was placed into the arms of my mother for the first time. My Gotcha Day not only commemorates my adoption, but celebrates my patchwork family that was created through this unique process. Through every step of my journey, my parents have shown me unconditional love, proving that families do not have to be generated biologically to be considered normal. I’d like to think that my family is as typical and real as much as any family can get.

Along the way, I have also learned about my identity as an adopted child: that I do not need to be defined by my race or ethnicity to just simply be and exist. My adoption is a piece of me in which I am most proud of as adoption is a choice, not a last resort.

From top left and across, that's me as a toddler with my cousin Brian and sister Joanie.

On the bottom left, me and my cousin Kevin, and cousin Meghan.

"Where are you from?”

A simple question, comprised of four simple words, that always catches me off guard. My heart overrides my brain, the only sensible part of my entire body that really knows what’s going on, and replies, “Livingston.”

“I mean, where are you from?”

The tone shifts and so does my answer. “China,” I quickly retort. I walk away from the conversation discouraged, while the inquirer is satisfied with the answer that they already preconceived.

On January 27, 2002, my family was complete. In the arms of a caregiver, the director of the orphanage and a translator brought me to my family’s hotel room in the Lake View Hotel, located in Nanchung, China. Ever since our eager union, I’ve learned that where I come from is not who I am. I am an American citizen and this country is the only home I’ve ever known. My roots are planted in the foundations of my Livingston home. I am immersed in American culture. I bleed red, white, and blue just as much as someone who was born here.

Unlike most people, I have the rare decision to pick who my family is. It is a conscious choice that I have made every single day for the past nineteen years of my life. My parents, my sister Joanie and I do not share the same DNA, but we rely on one another and support each other. Most of all, the love that echoes in the walls of my home is so profound and sincere.

“But you don’t look like your parents.”

Biology does not equate to love and families do not have to look alike to justify their relationship.

It just so happens that I don’t share my cousin’s fair, Irish skin or my mother’s green eyes, but the love that we have for each other runs through our veins and overshadows that menial fact.

My family includes nineteen cousins and fourteen aunts and uncles, which does not even count our extended family. There is this incredible and unbreakable bond that runs between every single one of my family members. We are stitches intertwined in a permanently growing quilt.

From an outsider’s perspective, when we’re all together, it is most definitely overwhelming. We are loud extroverts who suffocate each other with love and adoration. We share a myriad of memories and endless laughs, but we are always ready to embrace new people into our clan, no matter who they are, what they look like, or where they come from.

My patchwork family constantly inspires me to be a better person. The traits that I’ve compiled from growing up in my family have allowed me to be unique and to pave my own path. I am well prepared for any challenge in the next chapter of my life.