Bonus episode 3

It has been ten months (310 days from today, to be exact) since I found my bio father Gus, and
reunited with him. And in those ten months I’ve learned many things too
numerous to list on one blog post. But today, here’s the one I will focus on.

The entire freaking world is obsessed with adoptive parents.  Nothing has changed.  And
before you say, “It’s just the Christian world, not the whole world…” you’re wrong. I
promise you on a stack of Bibles, it is THE WHOLE WORLD.

My story hit the news media without me even trying. The extent
of my “try” was writing Facebook posts about my father and I to my friends
(that were set to public) and made their way into the hands of the media. I was
fine with that, and actually honored. However, it has not been without
frustration.

One of my biggest headaches in this season has been navigating
media inquiries regarding my adoptive parents. One hundred percent of the time,
when any media outlet has contacted me, they have wanted to go there. Sometimes
literally! One media outlet requested to send a crew to interview both my
parents. I said no, that I would refuse to do the interview, if they did. They
backed down once I set that boundary.

One news outlet said that if they did not include my parents
in the story, their readers would, “not be able to handle it.” I pushed back on
this and was told that they (the media) would be bombarded with emails and
calls asking about my parents. I said, “So???” They said, “Well, you might be
bombarded with questions about them, too.” And I said, “And you don’t think I’m
used to that?” I set a boundary by saying, “If you need to contact my adoptive parents to do the article,
then I’m not your person and my story isn’t the one for you.”

Recently, I was interviewed by Haley Radke on the Adoptees
On podcast, and she said that she found the media coverage about my bio father
and I refreshing because it was centered on us, and not my adoptive parents. She noted that this is not typically the case. I
let her know that this was only because I fought for that, and set a strong boundary.  If the media had their way, it would have been different.

I say all this to let you know…nothing has changed in this
regard. Nothing.

They still (even the liberal news media) focus on adoptive parents
first, birth parents second, and IF they focus on the adoptee it is third, but
many times we are not considered. The world is still very much adoptive parents centric.

I was assured multiple times that a story would be adoptee
centric, but in every single case, it was never exclusively so, as they
would push to include my adoptive parents in some regard.

Sadly an adoptee can be 56 years old, and they are still
asking to “check in” with our parents. And they wonder why we say we feel like
perpetual children?

I literally qualify to order off the freaking SENIORS MENU at
a restaurant now and people are STILL CHECKING IN WITH MY PARENTS.

How crazy is this?

Fortunately for me, I am not trying to get news coverage.
I can take it or leave it. Every person who has contacted me has been out of the blue and I have not
sought it. If they want to include my adoptive
parents in the piece, I can drop it and they can find someone else.

This just gets tiring. I really thought when I hit a certain
age, this would stop. But it appears you can technically be in your senior
years and people will insist on talking to Mommy and Daddy.

And nobody but us thinks this is bizarre?

Adoptees often face proverbial brick walls within their birth or adoptive family. These walls are fortified by misplaced
loyalty, secrets, lies, (many of  being lies by omission) and the like.  Many times well-meaning people will take up the cause of those who are committed to live in secrets and lies. Sometimes they are even loyal to the dead, which is the most bizarre of all. 

If you keep secrets, you don’t love.   

If you lie, you don’t love.

If you build a wall with people who have done nothing but seek
the truth and are committed to live in truth, that’s not love.

Why don’t we go where the light is…where the love is? It’ because we may not think we deserve it. That’s how I felt until very recently. 

I am determined to a fault. Giving up is not my strong suit. And, for so long I did not want to
let go of toxic people just because  I
went through hell and back to find them. 

My walking path yesterday

Sometimes we have spent so much time walking
in the wrong direction, we keep doing it just because we are so committed to
it. We started out on this road, and by God we’re gonna finish on it! We feel like we have to keep walking down that same path because we’ve
invested so much.  Do we really expect the wrong direction to suddenly become right?  I did. For a long time, I did. I’m also a believer in miracles, and in people’s ability to change. God knows I’ve changed. I believe other people can too. But sometimes, they don’t. And there we are on the same broken down God-forsaken path that we are hoping beyond hope will change. The difficult truth is that everyone is not committed to truth, change and growth.

Life with toxic people is a one-way street. It won’t lead you back to where you belong. And
it prevents you from spending all the time you can with the people who really care about you.
If they lie to you, keep secrets from you or expect you to play along in any kind of
make-believe world, that is NOT OKAY. 

It’s not normal.

It’s not healthy.

It’s not love.

Through some close
friends who have walked with me on this journey, I finally have it through to
my head that people who treat me this way do not deserve me. Life is too short to pursue people
who don’t have enough respect to tell you the truth and to live in the truth.

Someone who has to hide
their relationship with you doesn’t deserve you. Someone who tells people you
are a “friend” when you are really their son or daughter doesn’t deserve you.
Someone who tells people they have two children when they really have three
doesn’t deserve you. Someone who says they have one sibling and not two doesn’t
deserve you. Someone who takes up for their secretive lying family member to preserve their “dignity” pride doesn’t
deserve you. Someone who lies to you about who your father is, they do not love
you. Someone who gives you false clues about who your father is to throw you off track and preserve your mother’s secret doesn’t love you. If someone says they do not know who your father is, but they really do,
they do not love you. If they say they know absolutely nothing about him or the situation but they know even a shred of truth, they do not deserve the blessing of you.

Life is too short to
live in their fantasy world!!!  This is not as complicated as some people make it out to be. If they
do not speak the truth and if they do not support you knowing the truth, they are
not kind. They do not love you.  They are not a nice person. They are not a good person. It’s as
simple as that. God has more for you than this. You do not have to be a
suffering saint on behalf of your birth family, your adoptive family, or anyone in this world!! No
one has been given the destiny of a doormat and you were not created to be
anyone’s dirty little secret!   

I have finally realized that there are pure-hearted people who actually care, who
love me or have the potential to truly love me (and vice versa) who have been
begging me to meet for coffee and the like but I just haven’t made the time
yet. Guess what, I’m making time!!

I’m so sorry to all the friends who
told me, “you deserve more than this” while I kept banging my head against the
proverbial wall trying to keep a connection with toxic people. 

Welcome to 2019 and a gal who finally knows her value.

My friends and I are still hard at work on my father-search. I go into any potential paternal reunion a different person. This search WILL ultimately result in success
at some point. The DNA databases are exploding. They say it’s only a matter of
time before everyone on the planet has a first or second cousin on both sides. And more people are testing
internationally every day. More Greek matches are coming for me, for sure. I am going
into my paternal reunion in a different head space. My father may be dead by
that time my case is solved, but the rules will apply for any family member I meet. I will go into
this future reunion knowing my value. That will make for a very different
scenario than it did with my maternal reunion. I’m entering this from a place
of strength, not weakness.

Join me, my friend. Let go of what is toxic in 2019. Live in truth and love and make room for all the goodness God has for
you. Wonderful people will line up to meet you for coffee, I promise.        

 I got this text today from Angela. (The person who DNA tested for me that I hope is my cousin.) As you can see, DNA results can come in at literally any second
now. I am a mix of excited and apprehensive. In my experience as an adoptee, this moment in time where you are waiting on a DNA result is so unique. In
one sense, I love this moment because hope is alive. Never do I have as much hope as when I’m waiting for those results. When results come back as not a match as has happened to me numerous times, I
do get the feeling for a while that hope is dashed on the rocks into a million
pieces. It’s that, “oh my God, we are back to square one…” sinking feeling.  In my experience when that happens, hope is slowly regained through the
encouragement of others.   

I am in a really good headspace right now regarding the
results. I can’t say that things have always been that way. There have been
times I have hoped against hope and known that if it wasn’t a match I was going
to be rather emotional about it for a while.  I am not sure why, but I am not
feeling that this time. Perhaps it’s because I’ve gone through this so many
times. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten stronger emotionally. This isn’t to say
that it isn’t excruciating mentally or that adoptees shouldn’t take it hard when that happens. I
realize this is totally subjective as well. People handle things differently.

I’ve developed even more of the attitude that relinquishment,
adoption, sealed records, secondary rejection, failed reunion, and everything
surrounding it has already taken so much from my life and I don’t want it to
take any more from me.     

I want this to be a match more than I could ever
express. But if it’s not, it will not slay me. I’m done with being knocked down
and I am going to win. I don’t know exactly when I will win, but I know I will.