Tune-in Tuesday: Episode 136
Episode 136
Wilson Munsterman & Mike Bila
Host Anna Jinja sits down with Wilson Munsterman and Mike Bila — two men who, on paper, don't have much in common. Wilson is 19, an adoptee from China, and the author of a book that's now part of the Library of Congress collection. Mike is a singer-songwriter and father, the middle child of seven, who wrote a song called "The Man That She Sees" out of something close to imposter syndrome.
But Wilson chose Mike's song for this episode. And once he explains why, the whole conversation clicks into place. The song is about a father trying to close the gap between who his daughter believes he is and who he's afraid he really is. Wilson hears that and recognizes it instantly — not as a parent, but as someone who has spent his whole life navigating the distance between how people assume his adoption story goes and what it actually felt like to live it. The "grateful adoptee." The "success story." Titles that flatten a whole, complicated person into something easier to hold.
The episode sits with that flattening. The Hollywood version of adoption that ends the moment the paperwork is signed, when in reality, that's when the real story starts. The self-doubt that follows someone even when — especially when — they've built something as remarkable as Wilson has by 19.
And the conversation turns to choosing. Not just being chosen — which is where so much of the adoption conversation stays — but choosing, actively, again and again. Choosing the people who show up with no legal obligation to. Choosing ourselves, even on the days it doesn't feel earned. It's the whole reason this movement carries the name it does.
Host Anna Jinja's husband Pete joins the episode on guitar to accompany Mike on the song, and there's something about hearing it performed in real time, right after the conversation that shaped it, that's hard to fully describe on the page.
For anyone who has ever felt the weight of being someone's idea of them instead of just themselves — this episode is for you.
CREATIVE INTERCHANGE:
Song written and performed by Mike Bila
Guitar accompaniment by Pete Mather
The Man That She Sees
by M.T. Bila
Questions abound at this time of life - truth to tell well hell I'm scared
The feel of alone settled deep in my bones begs the question - is anyone there?
Dreams die on the vine - no she wLl never be mine - and Nashville most likely wont call
But the dream I love best so much more than the rest still thinks her dad stands twelve feet tall
CHORUS
The most painful thing about living this life I live is letting her down
I've found new ways to lose - only a child or a fool would ever hang around a ship going down
Yesterday twelve tomorrow thirteen - now one has to wonder how long will it be
until she opens her eyes and the man that she sees is me
I've spent hear after year proving her momma wrong just To find time again she was right all along
I gotta try - I gotta fight - i've got to go on -oh God please make me the man that she sees.
Questions abound black and white all around but I live in shades of gray
In the shadows of life not quite wrong looks like right and not quite right is close enough so they say
At almost forty years old I'm a low budget hero - seems like I fall much more than I fly
But there's a girl in her room thinking dad roped the moon - how much less can I do than try
REPEAT CHORUS