The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be: Prologue–Part One

by Shannon Gibney
An Educator of the Year of Minnesota State Colleges, the author tells her story of growing up in Michigan as an adoptee by intertwining it with the fictional story of Erin Powers, whom she could've been if she had been raised by her birth mother.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Prologue–Part One, Part Two, Parts Three–Four, Part Five–Afterward
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. relinquish
    part with a possession or right
    The woman who gave birth to me and subsequently relinquished me was named Patricia Powers.
  2. speculation
    a hypothesis that has been formed by conjecturing
    What follows are other ways to tell the stories of Shannon and Erin, the known and the unknown, truth and speculation, to awaken the sleepers, to call forth the living, the dead, and those residing elsewhere.
  3. pathology
    any deviation from a healthy or normal condition
    However, I, over the years, have undergone 3 surgical breast biopsies—the pathology reports from these biopsies and the fact that my mother had breast cancer places me @ a higher risk for breast cancer.
  4. herald
    foreshadow or presage
    Her mother who is dying of a cancer of unknown origin. Her mother who will not submit to further tests that everyone says are necessary, much less treatment. Patricia Powers: a rebel to the very end. Or maybe a rebel heralding her own ending?
  5. revered
    profoundly honored
    The only way for people like me—adoptees—to express the truth of our lives and experiences is to embrace that there are no singular truths. There is no one reality. There are no stories without holes. There are only spaces to be breathed into. Sometimes, rewritten. Always, the spaces are revered.
  6. conjecture
    a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating
    In this way, the speculative is not conjecture for adoptees. The speculative is our “real lives.”
  7. imbibe
    receive into the mind and retain
    I may have imbibed a steady stream of Flash Gordon, Star Wars, and Star Trek growing up, and like so many children, incorporated those fantastical elements of travel through space and time, portals to multiple dimensions and universes, time loops, and whatnot into my sense of the world.
  8. raucous
    unpleasantly loud and harsh
    Like many children, Erin understands the feeling behind the words in languages she doesn’t speak—enjoys their gliding and sometimes raucous flow, even when she does not know their literal meaning.
  9. furtively
    in a secretive manner
    Essie glances back at her house furtively. “Once the bus comes, I’m taking this junk off. They can’t see what they can’t see.”
  10. revel
    take delight in
    She has many friends, especially among the white girls, and all the boys have crushes on her. Which is why Erin revels in the perverse joy of making her question all of her basic assumptions of her self-worth.
  11. surreptitious
    marked by quiet and caution and secrecy
    Erin finds it all unbearably tiresome, which is why she has her Robotech comic under the desk. She thinks she is being surreptitious, but she grunts every single time a robot vaporizes a Zentraedi, and she hasn’t looked at the calculations on the math sheet once.
  12. flourish
    an ornamental embellishment in writing
    But Kelly slides the sheet over to her in a gesture of feminine solidarity, and Erin signs with a flourish and a smile.
  13. reproach
    a mild rebuke or criticism
    She has successfully avoided reproach.
  14. chastise
    scold or criticize severely
    On the screen, Papa Smurf is busy chastising Grouchy Smurf for eating all his sarsaparilla.
  15. feign
    give a false appearance of
    “Watch it, young lady,” says Mom.
    “What?” Erin asks, feigning ignorance.
  16. nonchalantly
    in a composed and unconcerned manner
    But it’s already too late, I can feel the old, familiar fear on the other side of the door inside me, the one that is usually chained shut when I am lying in bed at night and my mind races—the door I either studiously ignore or nonchalantly walk past in daily life.
  17. audacity
    aggressive or outright boldness
    She hates that door with everything in her. Hates its ability to knock her over when she usually has everything in control. Hates its audacity to exist.
  18. figment
    a contrived or fantastic idea
    And now it is flung wide open, the fear leaping out of her in the form of questions she can’t answer, that no one could: You are not real. Because if you were real, who is saying this right now? Who is listening? And what is this “world” you think is so “real” anyway? What if it’s all just a figment of your imagination?
  19. doppelganger
    a person who is almost identical to another
    The tools of mainstream literary fiction are inadequate for investigating my questions. You can get to the edges of them, but not inside them. For that, you need a wormhole. And multiple timelines. Perhaps a doppelgänger.
  20. cleave
    separate or cut with a tool, such as a sharp instrument
    Which is true? That I would have been loved but not cared for as well by my birth mother as by my solidly middle-class adoptive family? That my birth mother was not in a position to be a “good mother” to me, so she “did the right thing” by giving me up? Or that there is no right thing when it comes to cleaving the tie between mother and child?
  21. reticent
    not inclined to talk or provide information
    She is funny, but reticent. She watches, but does not reveal. She holds her stories tightly.
  22. askance
    with suspicion or disapproval
    I am tall and angular, with birdlike arms and legs, and knobby knees that stick out of every skirt and pair of shorts I wear. But I am also surprisingly strong and nimble, and can beat most of the boys in class at sprints. Still, it is not uncommon for adults and kids to look at me askance and ask if I eat.
  23. sullen
    showing a brooding ill humor
    Last winter, Uncle Jim and Susan brought over groceries every week, after they watched me stuff enormous spoonfuls of food into my mouth at Sunday dinner. Later I confessed that I hadn’t eaten anything since the day before. Mom sat sullen at the table, arms crossed, as they dropped things off.
  24. full-fledged
    having gained complete status
    She is a full-fledged nurse, not a nursing assistant like Mom.
  25. sate
    fill to contentment
    She is sweaty and sticky from all her exertions and from devouring the German chocolate cake her grandmother made for dessert, but she is also sated.
  26. bestow
    give as a gift
    But she still wants the ritual of story her mother bestows upon her every night.
  27. assume
    take on a certain form, attribute, or aspect
    Her daughter takes one hand in the other, sitting up straight on the bed. It is a posture she assumes when she feels she needs to be resolute, firm.
  28. windfall
    a sudden happening that brings good fortune
    The car shudders one last time before he turns off the engine. It has been increasingly difficult to get it to stay in gear, but he was hoping it could last at least another week, until he’s sure to get that windfall from the appliance scam.
  29. immaculate
    without error or flaw
    The lyrics are something about moving like God’s immaculate machine.
  30. gangly
    tall, thin, and awkward
    I shuffle my gangly legs and sing a few lyrics as best I can.
  31. gesticulate
    show, express, or direct through movement
    He is pulling at the ends of his shirt one minute, and then gesticulating wildly the next.
  32. gauge
    judge tentatively or form an estimate of
    He glances at me out of the side of his eye, probably trying to gauge how serious my tone is.
  33. sallow
    unhealthy looking
    His hands are chestnut brown, due to his Liberian father’s dark skin. I much prefer it to the sallow yellow color my skin turns in winter.
  34. trepidation
    a feeling of alarm or dread
    The nurse looks embarrassed, across the room. She meets the doctor’s eyes, and with some trepidation, nods.
  35. assimilation
    the process of absorbing one cultural group into another
    And if you ask about any of the particularities of this literature of adoption: who is adopting whom, from where to where, what are the racial dynamics of the transaction, the role that money plays, corruption, the trauma of removal, the burden of assimilation, you are branded an angry and maladjusted adoptee.
  36. epistemological
    of or relating to the study of knowledge
    When most of the literature written about a marginalized group of people comes from white adoptive parents who are psychologists, sociologists, creative writers, and professors who don’t identify themselves as adoptive parents in their “objective” work, what other possible outcome could there be?
    This is how I came to understand epistemological violence.
  37. estranged
    caused to be unloved
    Patricia and I had been estranged for years by this time, but she had met my parents during my college graduation in 1997 and still kept in touch.
  38. facilitate
    be of use
    It was sent to me by the agency that facilitated my adoption, in answer to my request for “non-identifying information,” or information that would not reveal the identity of my birth parents.
  39. omit
    prevent from being included or considered or accepted
    Nothing has been omitted or changed.
  40. emanate
    proceed or issue forth, as from a source
    His eyes are kind, though, and despite the overpowering stench emanating from the Smurfette air freshener dangling from his CB, she thinks he won’t try anything.
Created on Wed May 22 08:42:25 EDT 2024 (updated Wed May 22 11:26:46 EDT 2024)

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