[Continued from HERE.]


Having done all this work, separating and sorting and generally de-distorting the adoption-related ins and outs of your life, it is a good time to accept unequivocally the fact you were adopted … it is part of the unchangeable story of you.

Here’s an ironic nibble, if you will: once you were officially adopted and became part of your family, the adoption part was over. It’s not like you ARE BEING and HAVE BEEN adopted every day of your life … I mean, not really. Think about it. I know, I know, you are probably stomping your foot (at least in your mind) saying, ‘I AM adopted … I will ALWAYS be adopted’ and raging at me for playing alchemist with semantics, but word choice often indicates or is indicated by some mysterious little keys to understanding and other such nuances. So a-twisting I will go…

You WERE adopted. You WERE once three feet tall. Maybe you still ARE three feet tall. You definitely ARE still a part of your family, which is yours BECAUSE you WERE adopted: but the act of adopting is pretty much over at this stage. Your present is: you ARE Penelope Picklesmith or Jerrod Bingoboffin or Hercules Aspwarrior (um, insert your own name here, please.) You ARE members of the Pickelsmith or Bingoboffin or Aspwarrior clans regardless of blood type. Whether you like it or not is a different story. Whether or not you would have chosen them as your family is not the question on the table (just as it wouldn’t or couldn’t be more than a wistful rage bender for a biological offspring considering the family that raised them if they don’t feel much in common with it.)

On some level, since there is no way of knowing what would have happened if you had remained with your birth mother (and MAYBE father) or if you were adopted by another family, maybe you shouldn’t want to change the family that adopted you. The possible “would have been’s” are really limitless, the very rumination of which is formulated with the stickiest, suckiest form of quicksand ever known or unknown to human kind often known to end in ruination. Enter at your own risk.


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