Everyone is a little dented by life in some way, some adoptees show their dents more than others and some never show them at all, they bury it deep and I can understand why. This sh** is hard...so hard. It is like standing at the edge of the grand canyon, in total darkness, no north star to guide your way and the canyon coyotes are holding up signs, in your face, saying you have no right to your own story...to what is yours and yours alone, what everyone else has freely, what everyone else takes for granted.
And you can't believe that these organizations are opposing you (ACLU, Catholic Churches, various religious and political organizations that "say" they stand for truth, freedom and protection of all...well, all except for you) and why they are so against your very own Chapter 1, when you have done nothing to them, nothing except being born into a "system". It wasn't my choice.
If you're not adopted, yes...you can sympathize and some get pretty close, but you can never truly understand the dull ache and the constant opposition to your rights from organizations that have no business opposing you and your first chapter.
I'm sure from these organizations point of view it all looks so very simple, cut & dry, black & white..."what do you need that for?" and "can't you just get over it?"...but until you have walked in my adoption shoes, please kindly shut up. You truly do not know of what you speak. Your opinions are irrelevant to me...you cannot know...it's an impossibility. Go call your mother...the one who looks exactly like you, the one whose traits you have so obviously inherited, go stare at family photos on the wall and leave me to speak my truth. Better yet, go look at your original birth certificate, hold it in your hands, use it to get any and all legal documents like a passport with ease and then stop and think what it's like to NOT be allowed by archaic and oppresive laws to have what you are holding in your very hands. Then and only then we can have a true dialogue.
Yes, there is support to be had in all of this...but at the end of the day in the dark of night, you are alone in all this. It is yours and yours alone to carry, to reconcile, to understand, to vent, to rage, to cry...it's your narrative, no matter how fast or how far you try to run from it or to it. Like the saying goes, wherever you go, there you are and some days are just better than others in this unresolved world of adoption that we live in.
That unresolved...THAT is why we tell our stories and fight for what is ours and ours alone.
