Featured

My First Blog Post

A Letter to Adoptive Parents Struggling with Supporting their Child to Explore His/Her/Their Past

Dear Parent,

            Do not be afraid if or when I want to discover a part of who I am – the part of me before we met.  If you do fear it, ask yourself why.

            Is it the unknown? Is it horrible?  Is it to protect me? Is it because you think that I will love you less?  Do you think that I will leave you?  Is it because you are afraid that you will not be able to love that undiscovered part of me?

            Examine your fears.  Examine your judgement, assumptions, and I ask you: please examine why you adopted me.  Why did you want me in your life?  Wat expectations did you have for me, your child?  What expectations really?  Deep hopes?  For me?  For you?  For our relationship?  For our family?

            Can you be honest about those expectations?  Does it shame you?  Does it embarrass you?  Because I want you to know that if you can look inside and answer those questions, it is the first step to a better understanding of who I am to you… and to who I am as a person.  If you don’t think that your expectations, realized, unrealized, voiced, or dashed – shaped me as a person, you are not in reality.

            Can you tell me why you so desperately wanted me?  Can you tell me why you named me ________?  Can you tell me that any other boy or girl would not have had the same name – or expectations placed on them if they arrived in your house?

            The truth may shock you.  It may not.  It may shock me.  It may not.

            But please listen when I tell you that this is part of the reason that my beginnings matter.  So much.  They are the seed of my identity.  And right now, they are feared or not allowed to exist.

            Do you have any idea how that feels?  I need you, more than ever, to be okay with who I am.  All of me.  And acknowledging my beginnings – and all that that entails is a huge, unavoidable, massively important elephant in society.

            So let’s talk about it.

            Please.

            I need to know.

            Help me honor and discover and honor again who I am and where I am from.  If you make me feel like it is not important, you are opening the very wound that brought me to you.  Instead of opening it, help me gently examine it.  Let’s be brave together.  Let’s discover.  Let me go at my pace – and tell you what I am ready to tell you when I am ready to tell you.  I need space and time and support for this journey.  And so do you.  It’s uncharted territory; To discover as much or as little as I hope or wish.

            It may hurt me, but it is the kind of hurt that ends up, with proper support, making you feel stronger and healthier.  And more whole.

            I have imagined so much.

            Have you?

            Some of it is scary.  Some of it is lovely.  Some of it is tragic, and honestly… I would rather know it all that not know anything.

            So let me go.  Knowing that I have you as my rock and hearth.  My soft and hard place to return to when I need… that way, I will travel with more confidence and happiness.

            Acknowledging my adoption and what preceded it as part of my story is essential to my identity and acceptance of self.  Knowledge can burn and light and heal and hurt.  But it is my story.  My unknown story – like a hole in my center.

            I have tried to fill it with other things.

            But there is only one thing that fits.

Love,

Your Adopted Child

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

  • Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
  • Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

  • Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
  • What topics do you think you’ll write about?
  • Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
  • If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started