I've always wanted to be a mother. My main goal in life was to start my own family: find a husband, have a baby, and adopt a few hundred dogs. It's not that I don't want a career or that I wish to be some boring house-wife who mooches off of her husband. I've always wanted a family, because I feel like I've never really had one. I can't wrap my head around the bond that family members seem to have with each other. When someone is upset that their parents are getting divorced, the distress they feel is unfathomable for me. Mourning family members you barely knew is confusing to me. "Family" is essentially an abstract concept for me.

I guess you could say I'm one of those girls who has "daddy issues". I don't recognize them, but I did grow up without a father. The first eight years of my life I had no one but my mother, and occasionally we would make the drive from Minnesota to Ohio to pick up my half-brother (although I've never considered him to be "half"). I had no clue who my father was, and therefore I was already missing half of my family. As for my mother's side, they were all either dead or on the other side of the United States. My mom and my occasional brother were all I had.

In 1999, my mother and I moved to Ohio to live with my brother's father. While I consider him my father, we've never had a strong bond. I'll admit that eight year-olds are very young, but those years without a father had a big impact on me. During those years I had been molested by a male babysitter, and I had witnessed one of my mom's boyfriends beating her. My relationships with grown men hadn't been promising, and I had no clue what a normal father-daughter relationship was supposed to look like. I withdrew from any hint of affection given to me. When his family tried to accept me as their own I pushed myself away, because I felt like I was an intruder. Even though they never gave me a reason to think this, I always felt like in the back of their mind they were thinking of me as a stray cat that they were forced to take care of.

I suppose that's how I've viewed myself in most social situations. I've always felt like an intrusion. I've always been afraid that I'm a burden, and everyone is just too polite to tell me. I don't know where I come from. I don't know my culture or have traditions. I have very, very little tying me to anything. On a good day, it feels freeing, knowing that I have nothing and no one to hold me back. Overall though, it feels a little sad and empty. I know some people feel bad for me. I'd rather not wallow in self-pity. I'm just really looking forward to my future family.