I am honored to be here and to be surrounded by not only so much talent, but so many fellow adoptees that I admire and respect. I began writing about my adoption experience almost immediately after finding the online (and offline) adoption community thirteen years ago. I have written poetry (past tense there is only so much rhyming you can do with adoption terminology) about my adoption experience. Writing continues to be a great source of catharsis and healing and just when I think I've said, written, and expressed everything I possibly could I find so much more that needs to be realized, acknowledged, and examined.
Writing was actually suggested to me by my marriage counselor, an adoptive mother, who had gone through the scope of questions and lack of answers she had available to her about her daughter's adoption. From my marriage counselor's experience with her adopted daughter I was encouraged to seek, search, and to try and get answers to the questions I had asked since I could remember knowing I was adopted. For the first time in my life, at age 38, I was validated that I had the right to know about my biological family. Not because of health reasons or the need for medical records but simply because I had that right. It was the impetus I needed to find out who I was, where I came from, and why I had been given up.
No one can ever be fully prepared for the depth of emotions you encounter when you began embark on the journey of adoption search and reunion (or no reunion). It is uncharted and treacherous territory even for the most secure and well adjusted adoptee. And, although there are numerous similarities in experiences in adoption, I have also discovered each is unique.
It's our sameness and our individuality in adoption that bring us together. And, although my story is not a happy one the ending is getting better and better. I may have lost two families, one I was adopted into that rejected me and the biological one that has rejected me, but I have gained the companionship, camaraderie, and fellowship, of a community of dedicated individuals working to change and educate the world to the realities of adoption. And finally, found a family that accepts me unconditionally.
For me adoption is comparable to a long, huge enigmatic math problem with too many variables and unknowns and chock full of subtraction, negatives, and inequalities. And we, as adoptees, are the ones that can offer the correct solutions.
Adoption Equations
They say that one and one makes two but I'm not sure if this is true.
In this case one and one made three explaining how I came to be.
Then three came in between the sum, divides them back to one and one.
These equations seem to break all the laws of give and take.
But life not always plays by rules, nor by facts we learned in school.
I know this all so very well, and only hope to "Show and Tell".
When one and one took separate paths that no one needs to do the math.
To know this story problem's mine.
I'm the remainder left behind.
Karen Brown Belanger
Writing was actually suggested to me by my marriage counselor, an adoptive mother, who had gone through the scope of questions and lack of answers she had available to her about her daughter's adoption. From my marriage counselor's experience with her adopted daughter I was encouraged to seek, search, and to try and get answers to the questions I had asked since I could remember knowing I was adopted. For the first time in my life, at age 38, I was validated that I had the right to know about my biological family. Not because of health reasons or the need for medical records but simply because I had that right. It was the impetus I needed to find out who I was, where I came from, and why I had been given up.
No one can ever be fully prepared for the depth of emotions you encounter when you began embark on the journey of adoption search and reunion (or no reunion). It is uncharted and treacherous territory even for the most secure and well adjusted adoptee. And, although there are numerous similarities in experiences in adoption, I have also discovered each is unique.
It's our sameness and our individuality in adoption that bring us together. And, although my story is not a happy one the ending is getting better and better. I may have lost two families, one I was adopted into that rejected me and the biological one that has rejected me, but I have gained the companionship, camaraderie, and fellowship, of a community of dedicated individuals working to change and educate the world to the realities of adoption. And finally, found a family that accepts me unconditionally.
For me adoption is comparable to a long, huge enigmatic math problem with too many variables and unknowns and chock full of subtraction, negatives, and inequalities. And we, as adoptees, are the ones that can offer the correct solutions.
Adoption Equations
They say that one and one makes two but I'm not sure if this is true.
In this case one and one made three explaining how I came to be.
Then three came in between the sum, divides them back to one and one.
These equations seem to break all the laws of give and take.
But life not always plays by rules, nor by facts we learned in school.
I know this all so very well, and only hope to "Show and Tell".
When one and one took separate paths that no one needs to do the math.
To know this story problem's mine.
I'm the remainder left behind.
Karen Brown Belanger
