I sat down a few weeks ago and decided to write a blog post about adoption awareness and flipping the script, my journey and the emotions involved, and thought process I’ve been through over the last few years. For some reason, I was overwhelmed and couldn’t do it. Emotions were rushing at me and I couldn’t hold on to them long enough to write about them in any meaningful way.

If you know me or if you’ve read my blog, you know that I’m not usually at a loss for words. I’ve written plenty about my adoption and my journey to find my biological truth But there I was, dumbfounded and feeling something akin to what might be described as the dreaded “writer’s block.”

So I decided to let the emotions back in . . . and I just wrote them down as they came. And this is what I ended up with.

ERSATZ LIFE

Born for no reason; born to no one.
An unending sense of transience
No familiar face in sight.

Identity stunted, limited, inadequate
Shaped by ideas, myth, fractions
Of a history told by well-meaning Others.

Illegitimate; unwanted; rejected; abandoned;
Bastard

Chosen; lucky; thankful; blessed;
Grateful

The utter incompetence
of being.

A saga of secrecy and lies
Stories, justifications and rationalizations
Meant to pacify and soothe
The pain of unacknowledged
Trauma

But serve only to undermine
Truth

That lies in wait.

She nurtures the trust
She has in herself and accepts
That the Truth will be revealed

Quietly, as in a dream, without fanfare
Or like a tempest, with a chaos
Of emotion.

A journey exhilarating and daunting
As the Truth settles
into the cracks of her soul.

Her heart begins to know
Wholeness
Heritage
Family