Apologies

So sorry everyone...my hope in catching up this weekend turned into tons of self -care and rest (read: bed to couch, take cold meds, couch to bed, take cold meds...rinse and repeat).  Still feeling crummy but on the mend.  Fingers crossed, I can catch up on posting this week.  Thanks for bearing with me.

xo Two

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(Image source)



I seem to have blinked and an entire week went by...how did that happen?! Please forgive my lack of posting...it's been a crazy week and I am a bit under the weather. I'm hoping to curl up this weekend with a heaping portion of self-care, many hot mugs of soothing tea and catch up on writing posts using last week's NAAM & NaBloPoMo prompts.

 

I'm also looking forward to catching up on reading everyone's most recent posts...from what I've read so far you guys are amazing!

And speaking of self-care...

Loving this post on Adoption Activism, Self-Care & Burnout over at Declassified Adoptee!

 

Have a great Friday everyone.  Hope you'll stay tuned this weekend for my catch-up posts marathon!

 

xo Two

 

 

 

My father's eyes

According to biology, it takes two to make a baby. However, when it comes to adoption often the natural father seems to be left out of the conversation more often than not. Do you feel that’s a valid statement? Were your natural parents treated as equals in your adoptive household? As a child, did you wonder about your natural father? Were you given any details about him? How did that make you feel? What is your view on natural fathers’ rights?

I did always wonder about my biological father, not as much as my biological mother.  I wondered if they loved each other or if I was a product of something else entirely.  Any song that contained the beautiful sentiment of having your father's eyes would literally crush me.  I was told a version of him...a fairy tale story that turned out to be completely untrue...in other words, I was lied to.  It was to become one of the many factors that led to the fallout....the communication breakdown...I could no longer trust what was being told to me.  Being lied to was almost as bad at the truths I had to uncover by myself.  I've grown to understand what a true father is and isn't.  I wrote about the subject of fathers in a previous post entitled "Wanted".  As it turns out, I do have my biological father's eyes but I have my adoptive father's heart.

 

Stay true to you,
xo Two

Blogging adoption and Everday Life

Blogging Adoption and Everyday Life. How is blogging about adoption different from blogging about other topics? Do you maintain a non-adoption blog on top of adoption blogging? If so, how do they differ?

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A bit behind this weekend on the National Adoption Awareness Month and NaBloPoMo daily posts.  Today will be a double-header day with two posts to catch up using the Lost Daughters writing prompts from yesterday and today. Blogging about adoption is different than say blogging about design or gardening, in that I don't think anyone would attack you for talking about choosing the right sofa or when to plant the tulips every year.  Blogging about adoption and telling your story, speaking your truth, is very personal and some may not agree with you and feel its perfectly okay to to attack you for your thoughts and feelings.  I don't mean a healthy debate...which allows room for listening, education and enlightenment on both sides.  What I'm talking about are those people out there that only want to stir up trouble and really get bent out of  shape when we tell our stories.  Like how I feel about my adoption can't possibly be right, because that would mean the precarious "so-called wonderful" world of adoption is built of cards, had flaws back then and it still has flaws now.  It would mean that there are still truths...hard truths...that need to be faced in the business and ethical worlds of adoption.  It means that there are still things happening that make everyone uncomfortable and noone likes to be uncomfortable or hear the hard truths about the losses in adoption...the lifelong losses.

Now mind you, my blog is less about reform and more from an emotional standpoint, I do occasionally touch on the subject, but mainly I blog for myself and others to try and get unstuck.  I've attended lots of conferences, etc. where you can see the pain on faces, you can hear the struggles in their voice and you can see that they are stuck somewhere on the path...in limbo,  if you will.  I got stuck, no going back and no going forward and I decided that I didn't want to live my life that way, to view my life solely as a victim of adoption.  I wanted to be free from all of that, to move the heck on.  To create a life where adoption doesn't control me but on the flip side, I needed to acknowledge that adoption has played a huge role on shaping who I came to be and also who I want to be moving forward.  In adoption, the adoptee has no choice...we are the silent commodity.  We tend to grow up without a strong voice, thinking all sorts of incorrect statements, regardless of how many nice things are said to us, like lucky, grateful, your parents loved you so much they gave you away out of love (my personal favorite that I never did come to terms with...all I heard in that statement was that those who love you and those you love leave).  After hearing so many ambiguous statements, over and over, we start to believe it.  Not worthy, not good enough, abandoned, unloved, must be something wrong with me, different, outsider, outcast, shameful, second class, lucky, grateful, etc.  I blog to take control of these wayward negative thoughts and to give positive support not only to myself, as a journal of sorts, but also for others who may just be having what I call an "adopted day", where you're standing knee-deep in the muck of it all and feeling that you just can't get away from it. My hope is that by coming here and reading something silly or funny or encouraging, even if it's just a quick quote or a inspiring image, it will help in some small way to remind myself and all of us to keep moving and not get stuck in the negative...that tomorrow will be better...that there is so much more to all of us than just adoption.

I don't always blog solely about adoption, sometimes I blog about creativity, spirit, etc., which I touched on it a bit here in a previous post...where if you squint at my posts just right, you can usually relate it to adoption in some way.  I've thought about creating a non-adoption related blog, but for me, I felt it would be too much of a dual/split identity and I have had enough of that in my life...biological vs. adoptive.  Here is where I attempt to integrate all the facets of my flawed, yet beautiful life.  One day at a time, one wish at a time....one blog post at a time.

Stay true to you,
xo Two

p.s. check back later today for a post on the next NAAM/NaBloPoMo prompt on Fathers!