Adoptees: Writing Our Way Into Existence

Most people can never understand the depths of loss an adoptee experiences.

Joy wrote about this with her usual eloquence and creative flair. Please check it out. It made me a wee weepy. www.joy21.wordpress.com. Also, don't miss the comments.

Which leads me to the importance of blogging for some of us adoptees.

We try to explain.

We try to get people to understand.

We're trying to make sense of something we had no control over.

We try not to care about other's quivering indignation that we feel loss and grief instead of gratitude and joy that we were "chosen."

We try to shrug off all that unwanted advice. The "don't get stuck in the past" and the "just get on with your life" crap.

We MUST explore the past before we can embrace the future.

We MUST unlock the grief, the sadness, the confusion, the bewilderment and yes, the anger.

This is NOT getting stuck in the past. We MUST put a framework on it. We MUST define it and CONTAIN it because it's a Medusa of a monster. It's the scary fluttery demons inside Pandora's Box. Otherwise, the snakes or the demons continue to haunt us, attacking us when we least expect. They WILL get us if we don't get them first.

We DO exhaust ourselves trying to explain something some people really don't WANT to understand. It's just too uncomfortable.

In some cases, those who wanted us wanted someone, anyone, but not necessarily us.

On some days, we don't feel real. We feel unreal. Being adopted is a surreal state. We're trapped in a netherworld of being rejected and being wanted.

We exhaust ourselves trying to explain the inexplicable.

We struggle for words where they often fail us. How to capture this nuance? That fleeting feeling?

This is my belated Valentine's Day Love Note to the Blogosphere: Thank you for providing a way for me to write my way into existence. Thank you for providing a community of adoptees and others touched by and interested in adoption. Did I mention I LOVE comments and the genius that went into the creation of that feature? Thank you Blogosphere for making it possible for all of us adoptees to find each other...across state lines and time zones. For allowing us to explore our feelings while still in our jammies.