When I was adopted at seven, I was only beginning the fun of figuring out who I was and what I was interested in. I loved art, mess, blurred lines and loud music, bright colors and my frizzy hair, glitter glue and comic books. Then I was plunged into a family who valued the opposite of most of those things and whom I was desperate to impress. They tamed me. I heard my mother say that to her friends once as they sat around our dining table. “We’ve tamed her.” Like I was a dog they’d gotten from the pound. The other adults laughed in response, not knowing I was on the other side of the door.
