Permission to Speak

I was forty years old before I ever honestly spoke about my adoption feelings. Why you may ask? I was loyal to my adoptive family. They had taken me in after all, and I should be grateful. The truth is I am thankful and full of love for my family, but no differently had I'd been their biological daughter. I kept all of my feelings to myself, because I'd rather spare my family any pain than be honest with my emotions. And then reunion happened and all of these bottled up emotions were like a dam that burst. What to do with this hurricane of emotion? I sat down and wrote. I gave myself permission to let the words come out, and it felt so good to be honest.

I felt this desire to let my wounds heal not only myself, but those who know what its like to sit in these adoptee feelings, and also to help those raising adopted children. I would never go jump out of an airplane thinking I know everything about skydiving because I love and desire to know how to skydive. No! I would seek an instructor who has actually been skydiving, right? 

I've spent the last couple of days in some heavy conversations from each side of the adoption triads, We've talked about God's plan, open adoption, birth mother's rights, relinquishment. Conversation is GOOD, but so often we let our own hang up and insecurities stifle the progress of the conversation. I'm guilty of this myself and I'm trying to stop, take a deep breath and think before I speak. Seek to understand, and know that my junk is my own. How someone relates to or doesn't relate to my junk is out of my control.

Today in a post it was said by an adoptive mom " lately in the adoption community, it feels the adoptive parent voice is silenced." I know when I read it, I saw red. I'll admit I'm still unpacking this statement.  For so long the adoptive parent voice, was the ONLY voice you heard, and still today it's the only voice that is fully accepted by the outsider looking in.  This same adoptive mother was featured on the well known social platform Love What Matters telling their journey of adopting their girls. Do you know how many times I'm scrolling through Facebook and another story of adoption is being featured on Love What Matters?  And whose voice do you think they are featuring? I took a deep breath, took a pause, and thought about how this mother must be feeling to write a post about how she feels as an adoptive mother, that she can't say anything right or has to push her feelings aside, and I began to see another side. A mother desperate to be understood. We may not see eye to eye on everything, but this I could look her straight into her eyes and say I SEE YOU.
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How do we get to a place of putting down our white flags of surrender, and say how can I seek to understand? I've had beautiful, open conversations full of grace and understanding from all walks of adoption and some not so beautiful conversations. It's exhausting, isn't it? Many of us would never choose to be in the role we are had we been given different choices...different paths to walk. The adoptive mother who knows life would be less complex for her child and herself if they were born from her. The birthmother who would never plan motherhood looking the way it does. And the adoptee who wished she didn't know what it feels like to wrestle with what it means to be "placed." Sometimes sorting all of these emotions feels like sifting through a litter box, and you're just left with sh#t. I can't stay unpacked in that sh#t!.There's work to be done, and it begins with ME

The badass in me, sees the badass in you- Namaste!

I give you permission to speak
I give you permission to have gratitude
I give you permission to grieve
I give you permission to be loved
I give you permission to be understood
I give you permission to lament
I give you permission to unpack that sh#t and keep moving
​I give you permission to say it OUT LOUD