"What? Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!" ~ John "Bluto" Blutarsky, Animal House circa 1978
So the time has come, November is over and we say goodbye to another year of trying our best to raise awareness and advocate for adoption during National Adoption Awareness Month. I accepted a challenge to write a post everyday to advocate, and I did miss one day ... but this right here is the 30th post in 30 days. So I will look at it as mission accomplished! But I gotta tell ya, I have NEVER written this much in all of my life! Not even in college did I sit and contemplate one topic for this amount of time. It has been one bumpy ride with times here and there when I just did not want to say another word about adoption. I admit it, and I will tell you why.
It has been 20 years since I became a mother. I gave birth to three beautiful, amazing children whom I chose to let go. I knew exactly what I was doing and understood that there would be a lifetime of evolving and learning to live life not only without them, but perhaps someday facing what questions they might have for me. In all of those years, I never spoke A TON about adoption. I would have conversations from time to time with friends and acquaintances that I knew, but it was not an everyday thing. Adoption, in my life, was a very personal thing that I went through pretty much alone. My husband has been the one who has heard about it the most, after all he is involved too. But for two decades adoption would come and go for me, not something that I concentrated on every day.
That all changed past year and a half. Adoption has become a very presence in my life, more so than in any other time I can remember. I certainly had never before spoken so deeply, honestly, painfully and joyfully as I have here on this blog. To say it has been a healing for me would be a very true statement. In writing like I have, I also have found so many others who not only have stories to tell but also lessons to teach. There are voices that are so completely different from mine that sometimes break my heart to read, but I take away something from what I have read. I need to listen to these voices and then talk them out with myself to understand better this world of adoption. I need to listen to hear others reflections as a grounding, a tool to help myself realize some things about myself. That is the beauty of it. I keep learning more about other's truths so that I can distinguish what exactly I need to work on in myself and what needs to be done to bring attention to our world, the adoption world. And in that I mean both the good and the bad that happens.
And I intend on doing just that. I think it is a great concept, National Adoption Month. However, I don't think it has to stop in the month of November. I believe it can be done all year through, if for nothing else just to make sure that others out there know what adoption is all about, what it can hold, and what it can become. I will take a few days off, but I am not going to stop raising awareness. I have waited a long, long time to voice my opinion, and I will do my best to be heard.
Now, who's with me?
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3 comments:
I'm with you, sister! Thank you for this post. I am discovering so much about myself and this experience through blogging and reading other perspectives and connecting with all members of the triad. It's truly an amazing thing.
I am with you, too! Thank you for raising a birth mother's voice on the internet - it's a much-needed perspective.
I hope you'll forgive me, but I have many of your posts to catch up on, so you may be getting random comments on older posts. :) Your statement about reading others' experiences and listening to the other voices so you can figure out where you stand is exactly how I feel. Sure, it's hard to read opposing views, but I never would have dug deep and found my inner truths had I not branched out and tried to see from another person's point of view.
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