Don't shake the pop!

I often wonder how to process my emotions and feelings without hurting others. I tend to stuff my feelings and than like a pop that has been shaken up I explode, and it never comes out correct. I am not going to do this anymore. I am going to express myself and own my feelings, right or wrong, they are mine!

SEPARATION
I miss my family. I miss having a close connections with brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews. I miss looking into someone's face and seeing a piece of me. It is harder the older I get to not have the biological component in my life. I see myself in my children. I see my brothers and sister in them too. I long to be able to tell them "Look at Conner, he has your eyes and he laughs like you did when you were his age. I remember us when we were children through my children."

I can tell this to my adopted family and I do talk to my mom about it, as she has met my biological siblings on a few occasions. She listens but can not understand the emotions, as truly only someone adopted can understand.

LONELINESS
I am lonely. I have several adopted siblings and all of the extended family. They were all grown and out of the house when I was adopted. I love them and we get angry at each other, but in a lot of ways the connection isn't there. It comes across when I am introduced to people as a sister and the people look dumbfounded for they have never heard of me, or when I look at family pictures and I am not in any of them from 30 years ago, because I wasn't in the family. It is in the published family trees and my name isn't included (my mom did add my name in marker). It is there when people discuss having family get-together's and forget I am family. It isn't done out of spite or anger, it is just the way it is. I have in the past separated myself from these hurts in an attempt to cease the pain, it only hurts more though and increases the loneliness. I don't fit into my family and don't know where I fit on this earth.

EXISTENCE
The truth is I haven't been asked about my childhood or why I was adopted, or what happened to my family which resulted in our removal from the home. I think this is a hard conversation for people to have due to the sensitivity and politically correct nature of society. What most people don't understand is that by not talking about 12 years of my life it is as if I don't exist, or as if I don't matter. I can't wish those years away as much as I longed to for years. They happened and they influenced who I am today, and I NEED to acknowledge my past. I have a bond with the people from my childhood that cannot be broken, even after years of trying.

GUILT
I wanted to be adopted separate from my siblings. I asked the judge to be separated. I knew this was my only chance to be adopted and not continue with the stigma of my childhood. What I didn't understand at 11 years-old is the stigma follows mentally. It is an invisible rope in my brain, pulling tighter and tighter the more it is ignored.It doesn't go away unless it is acknowledged. I carry guilt in my heart for asking to be separated. My oldest brother and I both effectively severed the relationship between us four with one conversation to a judge. I wonder if he carries the guilt too, as he doesn't have contact with his birth or biological family now. It might be too hard. I know for me the weight becomes heavier by the year. I am going to mentally begin to put this weight down. I have decided to begin the search for my siblings.


SICK ADOPTION HUMOR
That was deep. I will end this post with some sick humor from my childhood, and it is sick, mind you:

I had an adoption fail. Do you want to know why it failed? Of course you do.....My first adoptive parents felt that God was calling them to adopt, and they felt the calling was to adopt a child with disabilities. This calling came after watching the Jerry Lewis telethon. They contacted the state and there were NO physically disabled children available! I was the closest match in age, and they gave them me. The parents tried but ultimately decided it just had to be a disabled child. I couldn't get a family because I could walk and had no mental deficits!!!! I actually thought about trying to limp some or dumb myself down to have them change their mind! The humor may come across better when it is spoken. Let me tell you, when I talk about it to colleagues at work they get a good chuckle out of it!