It's been a while since I've written here. It's been a couple of months since I received my birth mom's reply, and I've been unsure how to update this blog since (in the interim, I responded to her email and she replied back, totaling 2 letters we've each sent). Truthfully, I'm not even sure how to respond to her most recent correspondence. Several times I've sat down to respond to her, but I feel a major block preventing me from doing so. Many times I've sat down to blog, but a combination of factors - procrastination, avoidance, protection of her privacy - have held me back. But I know that writing is therapeutic which is why I started this blog to begin with, so this post is a stream of consciousness filled with several disjointed thoughts.
One thing that came up for me in therapy recently is that I'm in denial about the adoption impacting me [in a negative way]. I think a lot of this has to do with needing to feel/being told to feel grateful for my adoption - more on this in another post. When I first started the process of contacting the adoption agency and initiating a search, I stumbled across an article by an adoptee named Holly McGinnis. I wish I could link it here, but it has since been taken down. Her article was, 10 questions to ask yourself before searching for your birth family, which was a great exercise to work through. One of the questions was, "are you ready to face your adoption?"
Call it pride or ignorance, but I thought surely I've faced it in the past, as I first went to therapy for adoption healing 10 years ago. But now I have contact with a real human being and I have pictures. Pictures of little Amy with her birth mom, pictures of me before age 3, both things I've never seen before. And the pictures, they make my heart burst with joy and simultaneously shatter my heart into a million pieces. Now I'm facing my adoption squarely in the face, with true images of my birth mom, with hard to read questions and stories in her letters. And it hurts. I've lived a life of suppressing my emotions so consistently that it's second nature, but it is starting to catch up with me with each passing day. The other night my husband was out, and when he came home he found me lying on the living room floor. I had just cried out, "Jesus, my heart hurts," and I had a long, hard cry.
Forgiveness seems to be a bit of a foreign and elusive concept. I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way. We are told, you can forgive but you [probably] won't forget. Forgiveness is different than reconciliation. Forgiveness is a choice. In her first letter, my birth mom begged for forgiveness, and I told her the truth- I forgave her a long time ago, and I forgive her now. Yet as the correspondence continues, I find myself filled with so much anger towards her, and wow, especially as someone who suppresses [negative] emotions, it is so uncomfortable. So either I suppress it, or I have mental conversations with her where I am filled with expletives. Is my forgiveness still valid?
A friend recently asked, "has it been good for you to find your birth mom? Does it bring a sense of closure or relief, or does it make it more complicated?" ...yes. The real, raw answer is - it's good and it's not good. It opens my eyes to how complicated adoption is. It makes me question some deeply rooted beliefs. It makes me more curious and at the same time makes me want to "run away." It brings more confusion than it does clarity. It's heartwarming and heart breaking. It's less beauty, more ashes (although I believe that one to be temporary). It's watching a movie then realizing I'm the main character...but then realizing it's not fictional. It's somewhat biographical but it's in real time so the ending is unknown, which may be one of the most agonizing parts. It's a little bit of everything...yet, I think that's just how life goes sometimes.
