To Thine Own Self Be True

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, daughter, empower, healing, Holidays, national adoption awareness month, national adoption month, separation, writing

How can you be true to yourself if you grew up not being allowed to know who you are?

‘This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. – Polonius in William Shakespeare’s  “Hamlet”

As an adoptee, hiding behind the mask of being “normal,” of masquerading as the “real” daughter, I could never live my life authentically. Early on, I assumed that there was something shameful about not being born to my mom and dad. The best way to behave was to strive for perfection in everything.
No matter how I tried, however, it was never enough. In lieu of facts, my imagination took over. I was competing with that other daughter that my parents couldn’t have: A ghost of a girl who looked like my adoptive parents and resembled them in ways that I simply could not. I had to make them proud, to prove myself.

At age five, I had (symbolically) been “born again.” That old life was just a warm up and I was supposed to forget about it. Never ask about those first parents. Don’t think about those years before being “rescued.” If I wasn’t successful in my role, I could be sent back to careless people who never should have been foster parents. Maybe it was fear that kept me from pressing for answers about my first years.

That said, I had wonderful adoptive parents. They helped me accomplish and excel

Being true to myself meant writing more books!

in many ways. Striving is not necessarily a bad thing. I did well academically, worked at age 16 to save money for college and graduate school, embraced writing at an early age as what I really wanted to do. My ambition was boundless. In many ways, that has served me well.

The downside is that I never “arrived.” Instead of being able to savor my successes, I kept raising the bar. Only now can I relax and quit being an overachiever.

Do I have advice to those who cannot accept their adoption? I can offer only some thoughts I would like to share. Knowing ones parents certainly has value, but if that knowledge must be incomplete or even missing, SEARCH FOR WHO YOU REALLY ARE.

If possible, avoid people who sap your energy. Vow to do something good for yourself every day, even a small act. Try a week of being your own best friend., and see if you start feeling better, especially about being an adoptee!

This above all: to thine own self be true
Read more by clicking here! 

Advertisement

Adoption Wrapped in a Pretty Bow

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, blended families, Christmas, diary, discover, empower, family, friends, healing, Holidays, national adoption awareness month, national adoption month

Note from Elaine: I have two books coming out in 2016!: the “remodeled” Santa Fe on Foot and a suspense novel, All the Wrong Places. Because of current writing demands, therefore, my blogging has temporarily taken a back seat. Hope you enjoy this republished but timely message. Wishing all adoptees an especially fulfilling holiday!

For Adoptees, the holidays can be tough. Not only for young adopted children, but  also for adult adoptees. During Christmas and Hannukah season, we are supposed to be happy, filled with joy, relishing family reunions. Tis “the season to be jolly,” fa-la-la-la-la-ing” as we frantically strive to find the perfect gift for every last person on the list.

As described in my memoir, The Goodbye Baby: Adoptee Diaries, I was five when my birth mom relinquished me. For all of November—National Adoption Awareness Month—I’ve focussed on my own adoption. It’s been an awakening, and not always a happy one. Though striving mightily to make this a good holiday for my own grown children and their families, I suffer from an all too familiar ache of incompleteness. We adult adoptees can become “orphans” all over again.

I’ve lost all my parents, both biological and adoptive. My birth parents: They could not have raised me and my brother, and yet I would have liked to have known them earlier in life. When I finally met them, it was too late for us to really form a relationship. Those wonderful people, the mom and dad who raised me: I feel an even keener sense of emptiness at their deaths.

To better explain why the holidays present this adoptee with a sense of deprivation, allow me to quote from The Goodbye Baby:

***

ABOUT EDGAR

Whenever I think I have finally been healed from the wounds of adoption, life serves up a reminder that I am not. It is the opposite of “looking through rose-colored glasses.” When one looks through the glasses of being adopted, everyday events are reminders of loss, betrayal, or abandonment. Through reading all my diaries, I became very aware of the unremitting prevalence of “adoption bruises.”

Elaine’s tribute to her Adoptive Parents

There are metaphors I find helpful in understanding the wounds of my adoption, including disease and death at sea. When troubled by having grown up as an adopted child, I let insecurity and self-doubt take root. Reason eludes me. I have given that negative emotional state a name—Edgar. Like burning flames, Edgar is fueled by his own energy. Like fire, he feeds on everything, which he transforms into negative thoughts about my past, present, future. Edgar is a demonic artist who paints the world in stark tones of black and gray. Like a disease, Edgar undermines my physical well-being.  Edgar lurks, waiting to arise when I am feeling healthy and balanced. When my spirit starts to wane, he is poised for the kill.

Edgar is always keeping score. His message to me: To be considered worthy of living, I have to prove myself “good” every day. If I do not, I might, metaphorically speaking, be sent to an orphanage. Never mind that I lived in foster care for only the first few years of my life. No matter that I should be well over the feelings of abandonment from that difficult beginning.

Fire burns everything in its path. Self-destructive memories add to Edgar’s growing stockpile of ammunition. Edgar thrives on drama and misfortune, not just mine, but the world’s… Disappointment appears and then malaise sets in, a pervasive feeling of things being awry. My stomach feels queasy, my shoulders ache, and my limbs are leaden. Uh oh. Here’s Edgar, I think to myself.”

If only Christmas were a holiday one could celebrate quietly and thoughtfully, I would be happier. That is not going to happen, so I’ve taken responsibility for making this season rich and fulfilling.

Loss, want, privation and melancholy are NOT what I want to give myself for Christmas.

I am taking the holidays as a time to deepen and renew friendships. Every day I will focus on self-care, spending time in nature, drinking more water and beginning each day with a morning stretch and hug. As a friend recommended, I will stretch my arms and legs, sit up and notice that I am breathing. For three or four breaths, I will simply pay attention, breathing in and breathing out. I will give myself a hug, saying “Good morning, Elaine, thanks for taking a minute to just be. Let today be about learning to love—myself and others”

Acknowledging my adoption as a gift

Embracing my adoption is a way of nurturing myself. This year, the holidays will be different. After putting “Edgar” into an escape-proof cage, I will wrap my adoption insights in a beautiful gift box. Knowing and accepting my adopted self is the greatest gift. When I do this, I have more to give family and friends.

***

Some questions for my readers:

Why do you personally think Adopted children find it more difficult to enjoy the Holidays?

Do you remember struggling with your own Adoption when Christmas/Thanksgiving rolled around?

Do you ever remember your parents trying to help you deal with this?

What do the Holidays mean to you?

How do you reflect on your adoption during the Holidays?

My Magic Mountain

Tags

adoptee, Adoption recovery, Celebrating Adoption, healing, Hiking, mountains, national adoption awareness month, outdoors, serenity, trails

To celebrate National Adoption Month, I hereby adopt a mountain.

Monte Sol gives me inspiration for writing and a new appreciation for simply being alive.

. Allow me to explain…

Readers may know that my favorite short day hike is Sun Mountain, often called by its Spanish name, “Monte Sol.” Along with three other prominent foothills of the Rockies, it offers a distinctive silhouette. The skyline of southeastern Santa Fe goes like this: Picacho Peak, a near triangle topped by a slanted nipple shape; long galumphing Atalaya, a favorite five-mile hike; and Monte Sol, the most perfectly symmetrical of the three.

Monte Sol is beautiful and convenient. I go there almost every day. When the City of Santa Fe gained permission from landowners for access from the road, they established a trailhead to Monte Sol. It was a landslide victory for local and visiting walkers. The path up Monte Sol became more accessible to not just me (I happen to live practically next door) but to everyone in the world. Often it’s an up-and-down affair, but when I have time, I take advantage of rocky outdoor seating that’s perfect for sunning, meditating, eating a sandwich, writing, or simply watching the clouds drift by.

Though it’s only 8/10ths of a mile to the top of Monte Sol, the elevation gain is nearly

Almost there!

1,000 feet. The steepness makes for a good workout. The final third of the ascent involves over 100 switchbacks and requires one to step up, up, and ever up.

The hike proceeds in three acts: a beginning, middle and end. The first section of path is curved but gentle. The second takes the hiker up a series of large rocks and to a view less of the city below than toward other, unnamed foothills. The contours became darker as the day advances. The final act, most demanding, requires careful footwork as the path narrows, at times disappearing. One mounts a virtual rock staircase, finally reaching a ten-foot wide rock that looks as though it might have been an ocean floor.

From then on, it’s a mostly dirt walkway until the “Ah Ha” moment of reaching the top. Surprisingly, the summit of Monte Sol is a flat area the size of a couple football fields. A panoramic view unfolds in every direction, and one can understand why early settlers compared the high desert terrain to a kind of inland ocean. The southwestern palate of green, sage, tan, brown and purple stretch beneath one in layers. Huge white clouds billow overhead.

There, with the city stretched out below, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the Pecos Wilderness to the North, the seeker can find peace and serenity. On warm afternoons, it is often tempting to stay awhile, basking in the sun like a lazy lizard.

That said, though one can find solitude here, on this particular Sunday afternoon, I encounter a dozen other hikers. There’s the man with the Irish Setter with a yellow bandana around his neck (the dog’s neck, not the man’s). Along come the mothers of small children who’ve managed to train their little ones to tackle the arduous walk but to make it fun, and the young woman with headphones who is running rather than walking. I can’t imagine how she would jog the steeper boulder sections, but assume she pauses to pick over the rocks before continuing her fast pace.

Then I remember my younger self, a Me who was always running and training for the next marathon. I would not have been daunted by a few precipitous passes. A lifetime ago…I miss those running days. And yet, I’m grateful to be covering the same territory. I’m glad to be out here, slower but still strong.

Enough of Monte Sol musing. It’s time to leave the summit and head back down into the real world. I watch gigantic black birds circling overhead and take a final look at the distant road stretching south to Albuquerque, then hike down to the flatlands. I know my adopted trail much better now, and I feel completely ready for an afternoon of writing.

Do YOU have a path that leads you to serenity and healing? Please let me know about your best hiking trail, and, without mentioning your name, I’ll be happy to share your reflections with my followers.

Elaine at the top of Monte Sol, Atalaya Peak looming in the background.

What do YOU think? /The Adoption Conundrum

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, best friend, blended families, celebrity adoption, david smolin, discover, empower, human trafficking, international adoption, national adoption awareness month, national adoption month, separation, wounded

International adoption: The transaction involves fees and money so whether it a private or agency adoption, it resembles a commercial or market The danger of international adoption being tied to human trafficking cannot be ignored. — David Smolin

Village girl in Rajasthan

NOTE from Elaine:

During part of the upcoming holidays, I’ll be sharing formerly-published posts. Thanks for staying tuned!

Though my birthfather Giovanni Cecchini was Italian-born, I began life in America. After WWII ended, a college professor and his wife adopted me and my brother, giving us love, stability, and advantages that my birthmother knew she could not provide. I tell this story in my memoir The Goodbye Baby: A Diary about Adoption.

When touring India a few years ago, I saw firsthand the plight of gaunt, ragged street children.  Begging in stilted English, they followed us relentlessly through the streets of New Delhi. I felt deep compassion for these small boys and girls. I wanted to help them, but their need was too deep. A few rupees might stave off hunger, but homes were what they needed.

Perhaps they were not all orphans, but clearly  they were not being nurtured by parents. They lacked families, but it seemed unlikely they would find them in their native land. What if they were adoptable? Could international adoption provide an answer? Each country has its own policy about international adoption, and there are many hoops for prospective adoptive parents to jump through. Sometimes it takes years to satisfy legal requirements, and the barriers can be insurmountable.

International adoption, I am learning, is fraught with debate. 

Here, briefly, I present some of my research about the potential dark side of international adoption…

Orphan boys at Jaipur Children’s Aid

Author David Smolin, in a paper published online by Valparaiso University, presents both sides of international adoptions. Smolin asks “When is intercountry adoption a form of child trafficking?” and comments that “the answer is surprisingly obscure.”

Smolin points out that in international adoptions, the majority of children are transferred from poor to rich countries, “stripping children of their national identity, native culture and language.” On the other hand, he continues, if international adoptions are universally banned, there will be more of the world’s millions of orphans abandoned, killed, left in dismal orphanages or living on the streets.

Journalist Bryce Corbett, in The Australian Women’s Weekly, interviews Leith and Rob Harding and their adopted daughter Zed, originally from Ethiopia. A photo of the beautiful 18-year-old Zed and her adoptive parents radiates happiness and love.

Me (Elaine) at Fatehpur Sikri, India

Zed, studying nursing at Queensland University of Technology, says “I am so blessed to have everything I have in my life…Every day, I thank God that I am here and not in Ethiopia. That I wake up in a warm bed and not on the side of the road. If I had been left in Ethiopia, I most likely would have died on the side of the road without anyone even knowing who I am.”

The article cites a recent press release announcing Ethopia’s attorney-general’s decree: a halt to all future adoptions of Ethiopian children into Australia. In sharp contrast to the Harding family is the couple, Bronwyn and Scott McNamara, who have waited eight years with high hopes of adopting a child from Ethopia. They are in their fifties. The magazine article includes a photo of the McNamaras, arms entwined and looking heartbroken.

Bronwyn laments, “All we have ever wanted is to have a family and the concept of providing a home for children already in need seemed a more rational approach…now the Ethiopia Program is closed…we are in shock, we are grieving. Our whole future has been annihilated by this.”

Me (Elaine) leaving India. Promise, those suitcases are not all mine.

The prediction for international adoption, claims author Smolin, is bleak: Because it operates as a market in human beings, he says, unless reforms are made, intercountry adoption will eventually be abolished.”

A ban on all international adoptions? Will this come to pass? Should it? This needs to be talked about!

What Does Adoption Month Mean To Me?

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, celebrity adoption, diary, discover, empower, family, healing, national adoption awareness month, national adoption month, New Mexico, reading, separation, wounded, writing

Let me count the ways… 

Ever since the publication of The Goodbye Baby: A Diary about Adoption— I am honoring the importance of November as National Adoption Month. This recognition feels positive, and the publication of my memoir is a way of bringing the month alive.

Elaine and her favorite baby.

My November focus on adoption has brought a seismic shift in attitude. Rather than something to hide, adoption is now a status to acknowledge, embrace, explore and celebrate. After years of playing down my growing up as an adoptee, I am now highlighting it. In the process, I have become aware of how many variations exist around the word “adoption.”

First of all, the adoption of a child is usually considered a positive action, bringing a young child from instability to security. From foster care (or no care at all) to a home with Mom and Dad, two Mommies or two Daddies or a single parent. It might be an aunt and uncle, grandparents or even neighbors who take in the orphaned or unwanted. But the point is that the child has a better chance in life with a parent or parents who choose to take on parenting.

I’m not saying that all adoptions are totally successful. Sometimes the child’s invisible injuries, feelings of abandonment, unanswered questions or feelings of inadequacy never heal. Still, there is hope.  I recently attended an adoption discussion group that included members from every part of the triad: birthparents, adoptees, and adoptive parents.  It seemed that participants were disappointed about failed communication, painful misunderstandings or less than wonderful reunions.

The Author with her favorite youngster

On the other hand, the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters in the meeting were supportive and understandingtoward one another. Stories were shared and support was abundant. The group members “adopted” each other and provided comfort.

Perhaps adoption is only as positive as the adoptee makes it. Personally, I’ve expanded my idea of adoption. When I awaken in the morning, I choose to adopt an “attitude of gratitude.” Most days, I walk for an hour or hike in the mountains, taking in the lovely northern New Mexico scenery. I find myself energized and inspired, having “adopted” nature around me.

When deer wander into the back yard to enjoy apples that have fallen from my beneficent tree, I symbolically “adopt” them. The two magnificent bucks I’ve named “Jake” and “Fred” were recently jousting, heads down, right outside my living room window. I never get over my surprise at these visitors from the forest. Could it be that they have “adopted” me rather than the other way around?

Jake, the deer who came to dinner.

What I have learned this November is that life is far richer than I thought possible. The adoption that happened to me at the beginning set my life in motion. For the first two thirds of that life, I suffered feelings of abandonment. As I’ve mentioned in previous essays, I finally decided to “adopt” myself. I shook off chains of the past and started to live in the present. It may sound overly dramatically, but it’s true.

A question for adoptees, adoptive parents and birth parents interested in a whole month dedicated to adoption: What are YOU learning from this focus? What are YOUR possibilities?

Telling It Like It Was

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, daughter, diary, discover, embarrassment, empower, essays, healing, journal, national adoption awareness month, national adoption month, separation, wounded

American singer Billy Joe Royal recorded “Tell it like It Is” in the 1980s. In The Goodbye Baby: A Diary about Adoption, I tell what it was like to grow up as an adopted person in the 1950s and the decades beyond.

The Goodbye Baby is unique in its focus. As in no other time, the repressiveness of that era made it an embarrassment to be “not the real daughter.” The contrast between outward facade and inner pain could be dramatized only by going back in time. Instead of just recalling my depression, I used daily journal entries—by the younger me—to dramatize the emotional hard times.

The book is framed in essays: about adoption-induced hangups, about my growing acknowledgement of that dark side of adoption, and finally about rising above the destructive part of my adopted self. The heart of my book comprises journal entries I penned from age 13 through my mid-40s.

While there are some excellent memoirs about growing up adopted, only The Goodbye Baby relies so thoroughly on written diaries to tell the story. You, dear reader, might call it “experimental nonfiction,” consider it crazy or daring, label it as eccentric or  egotistical, but utilizing selected diary entries was the only way I could deliver my message. And what, you ask, is the message? Basically this: that my life was my life, and the only way I could accept it was to stare it down. I reviewed my diaries to see where I’d been and to decide where I was going.

The diaries were not written for posterity. At the time, diary-writing was a powerful form of self-therapy. Little did I dream at the time that they would one day be published. Readers have given me feedback. I’ve been told that the diaries describe how they felt as teenagers, that the romantic relationships I describe could have been theirs. The emotions my diaries reveal are universal. As one reader pointed out, you don’t have to have been adopted to have an “Edgar” (my term for the monster of self-doubt that likes to rear it’s ugly head).   Friends who’ve finished my book say that once they started reading, they were riveted. They read through to the end, often staying up until two in the morning. I am amazed and gratified that one woman’s path to healing and wholeness can help others along their journeys.

Diaries from the past directed me to a better future.

There are risks in revealing ones diary entries. Possible embarrassment was at the top of the list. People mentioned in the diaries might be angry or resentful. Over time, I overcame my fear of these risks. I had been trying to write a book about my adoption for 23 years. Originally, my title was “Reunions,” and the book was to include accounts of meeting my original parents. As an adult, I met the “originals”—Velma and Giovanni—and, while valuable, the reunions were not comforting. At long last, I literally had to “adopt” myself.

My self-adoption was extremely beneficial. It was a powerful validation. In “harvesting my journals,” I could finally let the past be past. I could begin to live authentically. It is a wonderful thing, I learned, to be true to oneself.