Adoption Society

Earlier tonight I found myself discussing my experience with Guillermo and Monica.  Guillermo said that my story is like a movie, and later Monica said that it could help other adopted people.  I never really looked at my story as anything like those things.  Adoption is so unique, yet so many people share the common denominator of being adopted.  I usually say it is like a secret society, that only other adoptee's truly understand what the feeling is like.  At the same time everyone that shares the adoption factor, has also had a completely different experience growing up with their families, and if they choose to search for their bio-families, a completely different experience with that as well.  When you add in factors like biracial adoption, different religion, or adoption by families with 2 mothers, 2 fathers, kids biologically related to the adoptive parents, or other adopted siblings, the experiences and relationships people have with their identity and feelings about their adoption only become more complex.  My choice to write this blog was made to help me remember this experience in the future, to share it with my friends and family, and if anyone out there can benefit from an honest experience of the good and the potentially bad, I wanted to share it for them too.  

This experience for me has been intense to put it lightly.  The first week at every project I kept thinking this could have been me, or these people could be related to me.  I found myself overwhelmed with guilt.  Why did I get so lucky?  Why did I get the most amazing family?  What makes me the baby that got adopted versus the kids that never did or never will?  My best friend and family had to calm me down and remind me that sometimes in life there are questions that we can't answer.  There are so many things that I do not understand and so many things that are beyond my control.  I have made a conscious effort to let go of my feelings of guilt, and I have traded them for feelings of gratefulness and of feeling blessed.  I want to make the most of the opportunities I have been given, on a deeper level than ever before.

My whole life  I have felt a little bit like I do not quite belong, always being the clearly adopted child, the darkest person in my family, the Colombian who isn't culturally Colombian and can't speak the language.  Coming to Colombia, meeting my birth family (turns out I am the darkest person in that family too!) and being around people from my home country for the last few weeks, has made me more confident that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in life.  My parents are my parents.  I am meant to be with them, they get me more than anyone on this planet.  I have always known that I have great parents, and have always felt lucky, but now more than ever on a much deeper level do I know in my heart that they were meant for me, and I for them.  We were supposed to be together.  I have accepted and embraced my uniqueness, I can laugh at myself better than anyone else.  I look for the silver lining in life because there is often one to find, and there are people that are worse off than I am.

So I welcome you to the adoption society, for those of you who do not have membership, maybe this blog has given you some insight to what its like for us.