The Great Photo Purge

Tags

Adopted daughter, Albums, birthparents, Deacquisitioning, Decluttering, Photographs, Purging, Stuff

 

Last week I bought several books from op.cit, my favorite used book store. The best one turned out to be Barbara Sher’s Live the Life you Love in Ten Easy Step-by-Step Lessons (1996).

In it, I discovered a great chapter titled “Clear the Decks for Action.” Sher points out that we cling to our stuff because we’ have the illusion that it will someday be useful and that a world of projects await us. We hold on to potential projects “so that we’ll never be bored”.
Long before the Marie Kondo craze, this bestselling author told the truth about having too much. To quote, “Clutter is a tribute to indecision” and it “gives the illusion that you’re surrounded by projects just waiting to be done.”
Her description of the seductive power of “stuff”describes my situation perfectly:
Everything in your house calls to you. There isn’t an item in your house that isn’t talking to you. It’s saying ‘clean me, read me, fold me, finish me, take me to Aunt Jane’s house, answer me, write me —get your messages, return this here, take that there — it’s a din…[but] for whatever purpose you were put on the planet, it couldn’t be to organize clutter.

These photo boxes were stuffed. Now empty, they’re headed for a garage sale

After countless garage sales, years of saying that I was going to downsize, and believing that I would someday get organized, I finally admitted that I needed help. Enter Wanda, a professional organizer. With her as co-purger. I began ruthlessly dredging through decades of acquisitions and archives. Donating, pitching, selling or otherwise getting stuff gone for good.
After conferring at the kitchen table for nearly an hour, Wanda and I agreed that photos and scrapbooks would be the best place for me to begin. We went through boxed photos from every decade of my life, beginning with the years before I was adopted. Wanda removed the photographs from envelopes and pitched duplicates and negatives. I reviewed stack after stack of photos, saving only one or two from every vacation, event, outing, rite of passage of my children, every marathon, ski trip or bicycle trek I’d ever taken. I started three small boxes of photos I’d keep – one for me and one for each of my sons.
I’ve discovered some treasures from the past that I didn’t realize that I had. They were buried under layers of the past, and they had to do with my adoption.
Here was an album that my birthfather, Giovanni Cecchini, had kept for forty years. It had photos I’d sent him as an adult (after our initial reunion), clips of articles I’d written, and highlights of my teenage and adult years. I’d had no idea he’d been keeping all of that. My stepmother, his second wife (after Velma, my birth mom) had saved it for me. Attached was a sticky note that read “I believe Elaine will appreciate having this album.”
Another surprise was a collection of album pages from my birthmother.They comprised pictures of Velma’s parents, aunts, uncles and cousins, none of whom ever knew of my existence. She was apparently a woman who kept the various compartments of her life completely separated. It amazed me that I’d never even seen that gallery of pictures. I’m not even sure how they came into my possession. The missing puzzle pieces filled in, but the puzzle still remained.
In previous purging campaigns, I’d mainly shuffled things around. Now, with the organizer by my side, I am actually removing excesses from the house. Photos were merely the beginning. Next frontier: the kitchen. Awaiting Wanda and me are the closets, the garage, the guest room and beyond. My new motto: Dare to be Spare!

*********************************************************************

Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for a fresh look at the world from an adoptee’s point of view. Her newest suspense novel Clara and the Hand of Ganesh, sequel to All the Wrong Places, is nearing completion. Do you have a decluttering story? Feedback invited.

 

Advertisements

Poetry Monday ~ For Veterans Day

Tags

Adopted daughter, adoption, adoptive parents, birthparents, Flanders Field, Poppies, Remembrance, Sacrifice, Soldiers, Veterans Day, WWI

NOTE FROM ELAINE: Both my original and adoptive dads were WWII veterans. As an adopted child, one of the so-called “goodbye babies,” I am a product of that bitter combat. Since the publication of my adoptive father’s wartime correspondence (From Calcutta with Love, Texas Tech University Press, 2002) I’ve been studying both world wars. Today, in honor of all our country’s veterans, I bring to you one of my favorite poems from the first global war. World War I ended 100 years ago. The fight involved 32 countries and took the lives of 10 million men. Sadly, the “war to end all wars” did not. Instead the harsh years of 1914-1918 spawned new wars. May we learn from history.
*********************************************************************

Poetry by Lt. Col Dr. John MacRae, Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
between the crosses, row on row
that mark our place; and in the sky
the larks, still bravely singing, fly
scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
loved, and were loved, and now we lie
in Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
to you from failing hands we throw
the torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die,
we shall not sleep, though poppies grow
in Flanders fields.

*********************************************************************

Join author Elaine Pinkerton on alternate Mondays for her reflections of adoption and life. If you are honoring a veteran on this Armistice Day, please let us know. Your comments are invited!

Looking at the world through adoption-colored glasses.

On the Trail Again

Tags

adoptee, Adoptee Recovery, adoptive parents, anger, birthparents, Empowerment, Hiking, Injury, Santa Fe National Forest

As an adult adoptee, I’ve learned that inward healing leads to outward recovery. Along the way, I found that the obstacles in my path cause regression. Whenever life presents a new crisis, I’m thrown off balance. Because of last Fall’s serious injury, I experienced not only a physical but an emotional setback… a “pre-adoption recovery” state of mind.

After all four of my parents died, I found that looking into the past helped me move into the future.

Balance ~ that’s what I lost eleven months ago, when a hiking injury threw me totally out of commission https://tinyurl.com/yb2ruz3k. Months of physical therapy and healing techniques such as acupuncture, Feldenkrais, water aerobics, strength classes at the gym, stationary cycling and neighborhood walks helped lessen the pain from a compression fracture. However, until I faced the main culprit – anger – I would not really get better.

Why anger? I fell during a hike, something that could happen to anyone in difficult terrain. My anger was mainly aimed at myself. For taking my eyes off the tricky uphill path. For a disastrous moment of inattentiveness. For not taking an easier hike, which half of my fellow hikers had opted for on that September 22nd of 2017. My anger was about the injury itself – a compression fracture that would take months to heal and would lead to related lumbar and joint issues.

Anger is a terrible thing. Unless one deals with it, it corrodes. It can seem there is no bottom to the Canyon of Despondency and that one can never escape from this negative emotion. Until I admitted that unresolved issues about adoption were the root of my unhappiness, I was doomed to be under the cloud of angry, hurtful emotions. Only when I looked the demons in the eye could I begin to recover.
I had to admit my sadness that I did not grow up in a biologically related family
Only after meeting my biological parents, (who were not “parent material”) did I fully realize how lucky I was to have been adopted. After five years of being shuffled about in foster care, I landed in a forever home. Adoption adds so much to a child’s life: parents who chose her (or him), security and stability, a room of ones own. But it also takes away: blood ties, growing up with people who share your DNA, a family tree that is connected to you. As a baby, you, the adopted one, resided for nine months in your mother’s womb; you were connected at a primal level.

When I was adopted at age five, which I describe in The Goodbye Baby-Adoption Diaries – I was afraid to ask questions. Instead, I grew up longing to know where I came from, why I was relinquished. Years later, I felt I’d answered the questions and silenced the demons. With my injury, however, the old anger crept back in. Only when I acknowledged my anger and worked to release it did I start to mend. I forgave everything and everybody, including myself. Last week I ended my 11-month layoff. from hiking. With my neighbor Joalie, I hiked up the Tesuque Trail in Santa Fe National Forest to a beautiful lookout point. Because I’d cleaned out my feelings of anger and resentment, the physical knots in my back left me. Being out of pain and back in touch with nature was an incredible reward.
What I learned from my injury and long, slow recovery was the importance of releasing anger. Perhaps it took the injury to make the lesson sink in. I can recommend the following. Do not take a fall, but instead spend time with your inner self to discover who you really are. YOU are worth it!

********************************************

Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections on adoption and life. Guest bloggers with adoption-related stories are invited to inquire. If you’ve ever had an injury that served up a life lesson, we’d like to hear your story.

Lessons of the Labyrinth

Tags

adoptee, Adoptee Recovery, adoptee restoration, birthparents, labyrinth, recovery

“The end is the beginning,” – T.S. Eliot
Have you ever felt blindsided by life’s events? The deaths of people closest to me, all

The Labyrinth dates back 6,000 years.

happening in just a few years, was nearly unbearable. My adoptive parents, birthparents and husband passed away. How could I go on living? Did I even deserve to? In 2007, following the losses, I built a spiral walking path in my back yard and so it happened that the Labyrinth gave me a way.
The simple act of walking in to the center and then back out, helped clear my mind and reset my emotions. The labyrinth, though profound, is also very simple. When you come to the center of the spiral path, you reverse directions and walk back out.
In my case, the rhythm of that slow walking, combined with breathing deeply and feeling the air around me, gradually changed sadness to something like thoughtfulness. The sharp, ragged pain went away, and a feeling of acceptance took over. Through the days, weeks, months, and years, the labyrinth has been a way for me to tap the inner wisdom that is all too easy to ignore.
So powerful an influence was the labyrinth that I studied with Lauren Artress,
President and Founder of Veriditas, The Voice of the Labyrinth Movement. I read her books on the labyrinth, became a labyrinth facilitator, and hosted walks for friends in my own spiral path.
When I “went public” with my adoption story in The Goodbye Baby: Adoptee Diaries, I wrongly assumed that I’d solved the riddle of my adoption. I’d put my heart and soul into exposing my adoptee past. Through writing the book, I was finally able to forgive myself for a lifetime of oversensitivity about being an adoptee. In retrospect, I accepted the fact that reunions with both of my birthparents, while not a total failure, were not what I’d hoped they would be. I learned to accept even that. In the dealing with adoption department, I was done, finished, complete.
A friend will ask me if I’m “cured” or “over” the issues of adoption. The answer is “Maybe” or “Sometimes.” Like life itself, dealing with adoption is a work in progress. Thanks to walking the labyrinth, I am better able to recognize the negative adoption-induced feelings that come back to haunt. I have learned that those emotions are like the weather, ever-changing. Behind the clouds, sunshine awaits.
That said, I am not sure that one ever lets go of the “adoptee” status. For me, it is who I am. Of the hundreds of adoption stories I’ve read, it is as integral as the color of ones eyes. It doesn’t go away. So, while not “cured,”  I am now “accepting.”
Much of my life was shadowed by an underlying victim mentality. Now, I feel that obstacles forged an inner strength I’d lacked and made me more who I am. I have come to regard being adopted as a gift, not a curse. In this journey toward wholeness and self-acceptance, nothing has been a better teacher than the labyrinth.

The Labyrinth brings Clarity and Peace. In 2008, Elaine became a certified Labyrinth Facilitator.

Clara and Dottie go to India

Tags

adoptees, birthparents, Fiction, India, Khumba Mela, roots, Searching

Returning to Fiction

Today, going from the nonfiction world (writing about adoption) to fiction (still writing about adoption), I’m presenting scenes from my longtime novel-in-progress, Clara and the Hand of Ganesha. For months, the book gathered metaphorical dust. A new year, a fresh start, or rather a re-start. The central themes of adoption and the search for authenticity are propelling the book forward. This is just a preview and may not be exactly what ends up in my novel.

Here’s a brief summary: The two central characters are both adult adoptees. Clara Jordan, part Native American, loves her adoptive parents, but feels driven to find out about her origins. Arundati Ragan, known to her friends as “Dottie,” lost her adoptive parents in the Mumbai massacre of 2008. She now longs to go to India to search for her birthparents. Like Clara, she is challenged by the mystery surrounding her origins. When the two adoptees’ paths cross, they become friends and decide to travel together to India.

Scene One:

Arundhati Benet was pushed open the library’s heavy doors. Dot Benet, as she was

Searching for clues

known to her friends, shouldered in a briefcase heavy with articles from magazines, books, handwritten notes. She also lugged a carrying case with a new MacBook Thin and charging device. She headed toward the nearest carrel. Dottie Benet was not her original name. Born Arundhati Rangan, she was one of two adult adoptees in the library that day..

Scene Two:

“May I help you find anything?” The reference librarian’s question pierced through Clara’s reverie.

The University of Virginia Library’s deep silence so engulfed her, she thought rather than voiced her first response. Well yes, my roots, my origins, where I’m from. I doubt that you could help me with that.

The middle-aged gray haired, bespeckled woman stood impatiently, hovering over Clara’s table, awaiting an answer.

Finally Clara answered, “I’m doing some genealogy research. Just browsing…actually, looking for ideas.”

“There are some websites I can direct you to.” When Clara didn’t answer, the librarian continued. “If you’ll tell me more about your search, maybe there are materials right here in the library that you could begin with.”

This woman looked trustworthy. Why not tell all? She was getting nowhere on her own, and the longer she waited, the less likely that she’d discover the truth.

Clara, who usually didn’t confide in anyone – much less total strangers – decided to open up.

Author’s Note: Stay tuned for monthly installments. If you’ve read ALL THE WRONG PLACES (available from Pocol Press or Amazon), you’ll notice that my protagonist is named “Clara,” just like the heroine of my last novel. Not an accident! This new work-in-progress is a sequel.

Join Elaine on alternate Mondays.

Lost and Found

Tags

Above the clouds, adoption, adoptive parents, birthparents, Dealing with Adoption, Gratitude, Hiking, Mother/Son, Mountain weather, Planning, Raven's Ridge, Santa Fe National Forest, Winsor Trail

“Not all who wander are lost.” -J. R.R. Tolkien

(Note: But some are. The good news is that even if lost, the lucky ones will be found.)

My 40-year-old son  was visiting me for the weekend. Since we both love hiking, we

A brief period of sun before the clouds lowered.

decided to climb to Deception and Lake Peaks, located in Santa Fe National Forest, both above 12,000 feet. We had just one day available for the hike. This particular Saturday was iffy, threatening rain and cold mountain top temperatures. An early start was mandatory. Fortified by Starbucks, we drove to Santa Fe Ski Basin and were forging up Winsor Trail shortly after 7:30 a.m.

A few hours after embarking, we’d traversed Raven’s Ridge and were above the treeline. The temperature had dropped from 50 degrees to below 40. Wind picked up; Cloud level lowered. Reaching Lake Peak, which is just beyond Deception, involved scrambling over a rocky ledge. Because my son is stronger and faster, I told him that Deception would be my final destination. I’d wait while he went on to the more technical destination of Lake Peak. Then, when he’d gone the difficult extra half mile, he’d turn around, come back and we’d reunite forces.

He instructed me to wait on a boulder near the grove of trees next to the end of Raven’s Ridge and at the base of Deception. He’d be back, he promised, in 30 minutes or less. Though this seemed like a fine plan, that’s when the trouble began.

Deception Peak lives up to its name.

You might say it was my fault. Instead of just sitting on a boulder near the grove of trees, I decided to keep warm by temporarily joining some hikers who were headed toward Lake Peak. My plan was, after the 20-minute trek to keep warm, to take the same path down to the tree line and wait for my son.

At the top of Deception Peak, all paths are just slight demarcations in the rocky dirt, one resembling another. Shivering from the cold wind and realizing that it had been MORE than 30 minutes since I was to meet my son, I mistakenly started down a path that led to another ridge, NOT Raven’s Ridge. Thus began a scary interlude of searching. I tried my smart phone. No voice reception. Panicking, I decided to start sending texts. Here, transcribed, is our broken conversation….

ME: I’m here at the top
SON: Top of what? Went past treeline yelling and I didn’t see you
ME: I went back down and I’m headed toward the trees on the path…go down the path
ME: I;m headed right to the trees where you told me to wait…down the path
SON: I am already down a ways. Head down and I’ll wait
ME: Okay, I’m coming down
SON: Make sure you are on the right path. Stay on the ridge
I’m down about a half mile on but where it starts to go up again…

At this point, texting failed, and I was practically running, not at all sure I was headed toward the right landscape. When you’re lost in the wild, everything can begin to look alike.

Then a minor miracle! It came in the form of two other hikers, total strangers, who were there when I needed help. The first hiker was a man with a long white beard who looked as though he’d stepped from the last century.

“I’m headed toward Raven’s Ridge,” he said, after I’d explained my plight. Another five minutes and we were at the grove of trees where I’d been told to wait. I learned that the stranger’s name was Paul, then hugged and thanked him for being a Good Samaritan. He went on toward Lake Peak and I hurried toward the path that my son was already partially down. Another hiker appeared from nowhere, a young man named Jason and a few of his friends.
“Are you Elaine,” he called out.
“Yes, I’m sort of lost and I’m looking for my son.”
“He’s looking for you,” said the young man. He escorted me a half mile down the trail where my son, who’d hiked two extra miles, was awaiting. It turned out that Jason and his pals were doing field work to qualify for the local Search and Rescue Team. After thanking him profusely, I made a feeble joke:
“Well, at least I gave you a case study.”

My son was relieved but furious. As we hurried down the trail, it started to rain. “I

At the top of Deception, Lake Peak in the background.

can’t leave you alone for a minute,” he grumbled. “You’re a terrible hiker.” Thoroughly chilled, we reached the car in record time. Fortunately, my son’s a forgiving soul and reneged on his decision never to hike with me again.

In retrospect, the episode reminded me of my adoption, of how I’d been lost but then found. It was fate that my birthmother was not able to be a parent. Figuratively and literally, she lost me. My adoptive parents, by a series of fortuitous events, found me and my brother and provided us with a stable home and good childhood. Above all, what I gained from this memorable day, was a sense of gratitude. Oh yes, and this as well: follow directions. and pay attention to the landscape.

If You Could Whisper in the Ear…

Tags

adoption, adoptive parents, Authenticity, birthparents, Curiosity, self-esteem, Time travel

…of your teenage self, what advice would you offer? Here’s what I would say if I could travel through time and encourage the younger Elaine…

Bryce Canyon, 1970-Smiling on the outside

Dear Me,
Quit feeling embarrassed because you are an adopted daughter!
I notice that your parents Richard and Reva seem afraid to let anyone know that you aren’t their biological offspring. WHY they hide that important truth is anyone’s guess. I’ll keep saying this until you believe it: Being adopted is nothing to cover up.You can tell anyone you like. I give you permission.
Dear young Elaine, why not ask your Mom and Dad (calling them “Richard and Reva” sounds a bit unfriendly) how you came to be their daughter? You might actually be doing them a favor. They will not send you back to foster care, I guarantee. True, when you asked your new Mom about your “real” mother, she got tears in her eyes and said “I’m your real mother and you’re my REAL daughter.” Yes, I know you wanted to die just then. But your question was OK.
Don’t be afraid to keep up with the questions. They might act hurt and disappointed at first but they will get over it! They chose you and your brother Johnny and they mean to keep you.
I know that you have a lot of guilt about snooping in your adopted Dad’s files, trying to find letters from your birthfather, trying to learn what happened during the first five years of your life- the time before you became the college professor’s daughter. You were reprimanded and now no one will talk about it. I know you are afraid, that you feel guilty and traitorous, and I understand that you are very nervous about revealing your curiosity. Believe it or not, this is the perfect time for you to ask those burning questions. Think Pandora’s Box minus the negative consequences.

1980s-A cheery facade hid my inner melancholy

I see that you basically hate the way you look. Stop! Desist! Quit raking yourself over the coals! Even though you think losing a few pounds will make you happier, it will not. You are beautiful from the inside out. Your smile is one that inspires people to smile back. Dry your tears and spend time in nature. It is to become your haven.
In closing, I urge you to shift your perspective from shame to self-respect. Take pride in the fact that you survived the jolt of being “transplanted” when you were just past four years old. You did nothing wrong in being born to a mother who was unable (or unwilling) to parent. It will not serve you well to remain silent about the questions that haunt your every waking hour. Writing about these concerns is good, but it is not enough. Ask and demand answers. Don’t be afraid to be identified as the adopted daughter. Dear younger me, please know that you are lovable just the way you are.

The Goodbye Baby gives an insider view of growing up adopted.

 

Carrying a Heavy Sack

Tags

Adopted daughter, Attitude, birthparents, Family history, Listening, Parenting, Patterns, recovery, Restoration

Carrying a Heavy Sack
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Remembering family history can weigh heavily.

It’s been said that “everyone is carrying around a heavy sack.” The sack, of course, is a metaphor for woes and concerns that come with everyday life situations. Some sacks are heavier than others. Not surprisingly, I feel that the sack of adoptees weighs tons more than most. The issues we adoptees face aren’t the kind that go away easily. As life goes on, the issues simply take different forms.
Such questions as “Why don’t I have a real family tree?”; “Am I repeating the mistakes of my (birth/adoptive) parents?” “If I love someone, will (he/she) abandon me?” and finally, ironically, “If I do not have to solve the problems of adoption, what’s left for me?” I am no longer an “adult adoptee,” but simply “an adult.”
What IS it about being adopted? About not quite belonging and slipping into a feeling of alienation? Picture this. The evening has arrived at last: A fundraiser for Youth Shelters. I’m at the benefit party I’ve been planning for months, and the guests are having a wonderful time. Jean (not her real name) mentions that she knows of a birthmother who had a most wonderful reunion with a son she had to give away when he was just an infant. The meeting, recounts Jean, was completely wonderful and now the reunited mother and son have a great relationship.
Immediately, I recall the not-so-satisfactory meeting with my birthmother and hardly pay attention to what else Jean is saying. Why can’t I be present? After grappling with my adoption angst for so many years, shouldn’t I be less reactionary? Less easily injured and thrown off balance?
Jean is still talking and I tune back in to what she’s saying. She wants to help the mission of Youth Shelters, which is directed toward helping homeless adolescents and young people. Another volunteer! How wonderful. I shove thoughts of my unsatisfactory reunion under the rug and put my cheery facade back into place. The evening is a success and everyone, especially Jean, seems to be having a wonderful time.
I realize that my sack of concerns may never really lighten, but that I am capable of becoming stronger. After all, the family constellation formed long ago. Changing it would be like moving the stars. This is impossible. The only star I can change is

Aspen Vista, Santa Fe, New Mexico

myself.

Longing to Belong

Tags

adoptee, Adoptee Recovery, Adoptees in Literature, Belonging, birthparents, Eckhardt Tolle, Emily Giffin, inner peace, reunion

“Home is where the heart is.”
-Pliny the Elder

The yen for authenticity is a universal quest.  To paraphrase Meister Eckhardt

The Adoptee’s Quest: Feeling at home in the world.

Tolle, “we long to know who we REALLY are.” This knowledge comes from within but also from our environment and the people immediately around us, our families.

It’s been said that the road to adoption recovery is a search for authenticity. Adoptees must choose from two family trees, one biological and another through adoption. In writing my memoir The Goodbye Baby-A Diary about Adoption, I realized that neither family tree was the answer. My feeling of being “at home in the world” had to come from a source within, a gradual unveiling, a stripping away of masks I’d assumed for a lifetime.

Much of my healing has come from reading. Not just nonfiction books about adoption, but novels. Not surprisingly, adoption runs as a theme through much of literature. One of the best contemporary novels I’ve read about adoption is Emily Giffin’s Where We Belong. In this beautifully told story, a birthmother and birthdaughter meet for the first time when mom is thirty-six and daughter is eighteen.

Author Emily Giffin captures the nuances of adoption reunion.

Marian Caldwell is a television producer fulfilling her dream in New York City. With a jazzy career and picture-perfect relationship, it would appear that her life is just as she wants it to be. But her daughter Kirby Rose’s inconvenient appearance produces the key to a past that Marian thought she had locked away forever. For Kirby, the discovery of both her original mother and father bring about a reevaluation of her adoptive family and her thoughts about the future. In other words, the reunion changes everything.

As Marian and Kirby embark on a quest to find the one thing missing in their lives, each comes to recognize that where we belong is often where we least expect to find ourselves. A place that we may have willed ourselves to forget, but that the heart remembers forever.
Giffin’s characters ring true, from the first knock on the door by Kirby to Marian’s final comment about a life transformed by the reunion: “It is not what I planned — this day, this moment, these unlikely relationships, both old and new. Yet I feel overcome with peace and certainty that, for once, I am exactly where I should be.”

Join Elaine every Monday for insights on adoption and life.

The Rocky Road to Adoption Recovery

Tags

adoption, adoption stories, adoptive families, birthparents, Family history, Internet adoption community, rocky roads, stumbling blocks

You may walk a rocky road.

“Emergence” by Candyce Garrett- Santa Fe Botanical Garden

My road may twist and bend.
We’ll share all our stories when we get together,
Together tomorrow again. -From Tom Chapin’s “Together Tomorrow”

Traveling the Internet for the past year, I discovered an online community of adoptees dealing with perplexing questions similar to my own. “Why was I given up? How can I fit together the puzzle pieces of my past?”
Thanks to online magazines such as Adoption Today, perceptive blogs about adoption, and excellent sites such as Don’t We Look Alike and Adoptee Restoration, I am, at last, staring down issues that have plagued me for a lifetime. What a world of difference this confrontation has made!
And yet as Deanna Shrodes of Adoptee Restoration said, “You wake up and you’re still adopted.”
Setbacks can occur any time, at the slightest provocation. For example, when I watched a program on public television about finding ones family tree, my outsider status syndrome immediately kicked in. How fortunate, I thought, to even possess a genealogy that you could call your own. Growing up as an adoptee, I longed for a so-called “family tree.” I’d been to Italy with my birthfather Giovanni Cecchini. After our reunion, we travelled to Abruzzi, where he was born. I met my non-English-speaking cousins, aunts and uncles. Following the journey to Italy, my birthfather’s second wife (not my birthmother) helped me secure a detailed listing of paternal relatives. And yet, I had a written copy of my adoptive family’s genealogy. How could they both be true? Did one cancel out the other?

When I was young, I made up a myth about why I was adopted.The underlying theme was “Oh, poor me.” That was a way of reacting to everything, seemingly as fixed as the stars in the Big Dipper or the belt of the constellation Orion. However, I was not a fixed star and I could shape a new truth.

Walking that rocky road can help one develop resilience. Online networking has the ability to turn emotional boulders into the beginning of wisdom. The harder the adoptee road, the more strength it takes to move forward. Even boulder fields can lead to emergence. As we approach November, National Adoption Month, how will you turn obstacles into opportunities?

Elaine is the author of 5 fiction and nonfiction books, including The Goodbye Baby-A Diary about Adoption