Another Voice

Today I attended a meeting that I go to every week. I have been going for a few years now and I have told many stories there. I have told stories about good things and hard things, about being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, about being a redhead, and I have told stories about being adopted. Telling these stories at this meeting, it was not the first time I had spoken the words or told these stories. I have told and re-told them through almost every stage of my life and have no doubt that I will continually tell these stories.

Now, the meeting is over and I sit at my computer writing today's experience, unable to take in a breath and with tears rolling down my face. I have never cried or been sad about being adopted. In fact I have often declared that I have been happy to have been adopted. This is still true. I am happy, but today I heard a similar story to mine told by another person. He spoke calmly and without an excess of emotion, much as I have done in the past. He talked about wondering who he was becoming with new discoveries, what would happen to his relationships, and who was trust worthy of being involved with such personal explorations. I could say nothing to this man, this man who, without knowing it, was speaking much of my story, my thoughts and feelings, back to me. I could only sit with confessing eyes, looking at the others who might know some of my internal struggles.

It is hard, it is always hard to live a life that is only partially known, where the story is only ever partially told, and where the possibility (if that story is ever truly and completely told) might disrupt the very basis of who you understand yourself to be. I sit in my office and only now begin to feel the weight of these stories, told and untold. I weep for the fact that I always must have an answer to the questions because not having an answer would be worse. I weep for the fact that, any time I ask questions, my world quakes a little bit because of the unsurety of what speaking that question might mean. I weep for the unspoken question that I, my family, and my birth family do not dare to speak for fear of what they will do once put into words.

I am also envious. Envious of those for whom it is easy to get some of the answers of which they seek. People have said that I am brave but I am not. I make weak attempts to find my origins. I fear what that discovery might do to the family I love and to who I know myself to be. I make excuses that I am dealing with enough right now and a disruption like that would through my focus. These are true things and will always be a consideration, but I wonder now, will this sudden pain I feel be put back on a shelf waiting for a day when I am not so busy to deal with what it is? Will I make any effort to understand this feeling and what to do with it, or will I once again retreat into other work or just look at my story through academic and phycological eyes so that I might distance myself?

Will I listen to this new voice within me? Will I...

Then She Found Me

I just watched a movie that both is a wonderful depiction of how we as humans stumble through our own lives, often knocking things over and making messes, and also does not even come close to showing what the relationships and experiences of people mean. The movie is about a woman, grown, seemingly with her life figured out, an adoptee. She has a brother who was not adopted. This is not the relationship that gets the most voice but it may be the most important one. He is Her brother. April (the woman of the movie) goes through a marriage, a divorce, the death of her mother (the one who has raised her), the start of a new relationship that is more simple and complicated than one can imagine, the desire to naturally bare a child, and meets her birth mother. Throughout all of it her brother is there anchoring her to who she is always to him. He is the one who allows her to navigate the unknown space between the life and the person she thought she was and the life she is moving into and the person in that life.

There is a moment when he asks April a question that took me by surprise. He says to April that she should adopt a child. April says that he doesn't know what it is like. I thought the moment would then pass but instead the brother asks if she had ever thought about what it was like to not be adopted. I have never thought about this question from this side before. What that must have been like for him? What that was like to have her brother not be adopted? What it means for the way they both understand life?

There are many relationships that I will think about in this movie for a long time but I am so grateful for the presence of the brother because just like April's brother, my own brother grounds me, lifts me, and reminds me of who I am no matter the version of the person I am living at the moment.

He is my brother, and I am grateful.

Bush And Sky And Where I Belong

The dry air prickles my skin with tickling fingers. My hands caress the desert grass feeling the hidden life that flows up through the earth with all of the stories, histories, and people that have been there before me, that I am now a part of. My eyes are closed but I don’t need them to see the blue sky with sparse clouds that are white but also carry the color of the land. The air carries the voices of those who found this land and became part of it. My blood flows like the red rock with the rhythms of the people and animals that have passed.

This is where I am from. These are my people. Many may say that I have no right to say this, as they have. Calling me outsider, pretender, and unbelonging. They have scoffed at me. They call me unwanted because I do not know where I began. They say this place and these people cannot truly be mine because my story starts elsewhere, I do not know. But I have chosen this, this people, this place. I came by way of another but this is where I have found my home. I came from mystery, from magic, from fate. Here is where I hear voices and feel strength. I chose this land and its people and they have chosen me in return. It is here that I return to remember that I belong somewhere, that I have people and a place when others tell me no.

This is my home. This is where I belong. These are my people.

S. Jobs

While riding the public transportation system this morning I was listening to a segment on NPR (National Public Radio) about the biography of Steve Jobs. The biographer was talking about the complexities and some of the stories and issues in the book. I found this interesting enough but was intensely engaged when it was mentioned that Steve Jobs was adopted. The biographer mentioned things that resonated with my own story.

• A feeling of not feeling of this world.
• Mercilessly teased about being "Not Wanted".
• Parents telling him that he was chosen.
• Using all of the above to propel him forward. 

I have not read the book but am now interested. It has been hard to know if what I have experienced and feel is shared by other adoptees because most of the account come second hand. Though this is also second hand I believe that Steve Jobs expressed honestly what he experienced and felt.

I did not morn Steve Jobs death as intensely as others did but I am grateful for what he has shared about his life and for giving the world another figure of adoption.

The more open the adoption . . .

I fear that I have grown up with a natural egocentrism of sorts. I have always thought that the more open an adoption is the more at risk for problems and confusion for everyone involved. Currently, however, I am reading an article titled Adolescents' Feelings about Openness in Adoption: Implications for Adoption Agencies (a full reference will appear at end).

I have come across two lines that have given me pause about the perfection of my own adoption. I have always thought that because my life as an adoptee was wonderful, elements of my adoption and life situation must be present for every adoption story to be wonderful. "This active role facilitates self-determination and self-worth, and enables a confirmation that the adoptive parents will be the psychological parents."(p. 5) This line refers to the idea that having the birth mother present in the life of the adopted child helps the adoptive parents the ability to be parents in all of the other ways outside of biology. I am not sure how I feel about this assumption. If the alternative is to be secretive so that the adopted parents can exist as biological parents, then openness is the way to go. However, I don't know that the opposite means secretive.

I must be clear. I do not think that an open adoption is a bad thing. I question the level of openness. How much is to much? It was well known that I was adopted which allowed my parents to be, as the quote suggests, "psychological" parents to me. What I did not have as much of was information on my birth family. It was not until late in my childhood that I received a letter written for me by my birth mother. This was all the information I had. I always thought that if my birth mother were in the picture at all that everything would become much more complicated. I wonder how things would have been different if I had had the opportunity to get to know my birth mother while growing up?

This brings me to the next quote that gave me pause. "The more open the adoption, the more comfortable adoptive parents felt with openness." (p. 5) I would have to ask my parents about this one because it would be much more impactfull for them than for me. This however causes me to reflect on how my parents might have felt. I always thought that they were open but would still feel a little sad if I were to search out my birth mother. Perhaps they were a little frightened that I would choose my birth parents over them. This of course would not happen because my parents are my parents but often emotions and thoughts are not always rational.

I don't know the answers to any of these wonders but it would be interesting to think about them more.

Berge, J., Mendenhall, T., Wrobel, G., Grotevant, H., & McRoy, R. (2006). Adolescents' feelings about openness in     adoption: implications for adoption agencies.Child Welfare, 85(6), 1011-1039.

From Gleek to Glock

Last night Glee aired an episode that brought back some old plot lines. (SPOILER ALLERT) In the first season Quinn and Puck have a baby and end up giving it to Rachel's birthmother. I was so happy when this happened for several reasons that I will not go into now.

When Rachel's birthmother comes back into the picture she invites Quinn and Puck to be part of the baby's life. Puck is able to see the baby but Quinn is seen to be to out of control to see the baby. she is told that if she is able to straighten up she can see the baby. At the end of the episode Quinn is back to looking like the  "old" Quinn. She tells Puck that her looks don't change anything and that she is going to get HER baby back. She wants full custody.

I was watching this with my roommates who were caught up in the drama but didn't get what was really going on or what would soon be going on. I was trying to not yell and scream while holding back tears. I don't fully know why I was so upset. I started to think about my life, I put myself in the place of the baby in the show.

I was lucky as a child. My parents are kind, loving, quirky, educated, and supportive. They are every definition of "parents" and my life has been a good one. I started to think "What if my birth mother had launched a campaign to get full custody of me?" I don't need to be rescued and I was always glad that I was able to have two parents who loved me. That was when the pain hit. I thought about how my life would have been different with this kind of tension infecting my early life. The thought that my parents could have been withheld from me.

An intense anger welled up within me as I thought about Quinn. Wondering why she couldn't just leave this poor happy child to her life while Quinn figured out her own life. Why must Quinn project her insecurities and unhappiness onto this little child who was having a wonderful life?

I also thought about a young relative that I have whose mother decided to keep her. I think about her and I am so glad that I get to know her and have her in our lives, but there is always a little part of me that wonders how her life would be if she were allowed to live with the nice family that wanted her. She would have had two parents and all the ups and downs that come with life without any of the particular pains that she has to go through now. I don't think she would say her life is horrible, and it is not, but I know that what I have gained is so much better than what I would have had.

My thoughts are jumbled but the longer I write the more my emotions overcome my writing so for the sake of all involved I will take a brake and come back to this as I live alongside Puck and Quinn.

Brother and I

Recently I have had the chance to visit my home. I visited family and friends and lounged about. During this time I got to see my brother. He and I were adopted from different families. Growing up we had a, for lack of a word that will not alert the police, rough relationship. All siblings fight but most have a sense that they still love each other no matter how much they fight, or that is the story I have in my head. You fight a bicker and say things like "I hate you" or "I wish you had never been born". For the most part this is said just to hurt the sibling and not stated as an actual fact of true feelings. After the fight love is exchanged and wounds are mended.

For me that was not always true. I knew that my brother and I were adopted and that we had not come from the same birth family. This meant that the facts that everyone else grows up with were not present in my life and not only were they not fact but they were made into questions that might have very horrific answers. I was aware that he or I could decide not to clam the other as a sibling. We could choose to go our separate ways and not be family. We didn't get along and there were times when I didn't know if I even loved him on any level. There were times when I would be worried that he or I would walk away from each other and then I would be an only child.

I remember in High School. I was going to graduate in a year and I realized that the only times he and I would see each other would be when I came home for holidays. This was so worrisome to me because I still didn't know how he felt. For me, he was my brother. I had made the decision that he was my family and nothing would change that but I didn't know if he had made that determination about me. To him I could still be the girl that wanted to take his spot on the couch, or who would sometime eat the thing that he was saving. He could choose to not be my family. I tried so hard to be extra nice to him and orchestrate things that he and I could do together so that I could have as much time with my brother as I could before I left and might not have a brother anymore.

To some this may sound silly, of course he would still be my brother. Of course he loved me and thought of me as family. Of course... of course... of course...  But that was not how it felt. Only recently have I come to understand how much my brother loves me. Now I feel like he and I are siblings. This is a great comfort, knowing that no matter where our lives take us, we are still brother and sister and we will always be there for each other. However, when I think back to the way I felt when that was a question instead of the answer...

I hope no one ever has to feel like that and that those who do remember that family is a choice and we will always have the family we choose. It is not much help but then again nothing is when you feel like that.