Finding Christopher, Finding Myself

It's been a while since I have made the time to write anything here.  Part of the reason is that I am so very happy with how things are turning out on my adoption reunion journey.  Another reason is that I am finally comfortable with who I have become after reunion.  It is so freeing to be able to get rid of the secrets.  To be able to stand on the hilltops and tell the world that I have four children, not three.  I am able to live an authentic life, not a life of lies.  The truth did set me free ~ in many ways.  It has been a rough road ~ finding myself again ~ but it was certainly a journey worth starting.

In believing the reasons that helped me make the choice to give my son up for adoption, I didn't realize that I was also taking on some pretty big beliefs about myself as a person.  Beliefs that didn't stay related just to my decision for adoption.  I took them onto my entire self, my entire being.

It has taken me more than two years to shed some of the lies I had told myself for decades.  To shed some of the lies that I allowed others to put onto me.  Lies that I took fully onto myself, so much so that they became Truth.  Truths that were so deeply believed I still find myself beginning to put them back on, like an old comfy sweatshirt.

Society told me I wasn't good enough to be a mother.  I believed I wasn't good enough.  I often heard that I was stupid as I was growing up ~ becoming pregnant at 15 proved to me that it was true.  Society told me I was sinful for having sex outside of marriage.  Society told me I wasn't worthy to be a mother, while prospective adoptive parents were wonderful, capable, married couples who were more than ready to be parents.  I wasn't married, old enough, rich, or ready enough... I simply wasn't enough.

These last couple of years spent trying to find myself again have let me realize that I was and am good enough, smart enough.  I am worthy of everything I have denied myself for years.  I. am. enough.

Take a day to heal from the lies you've told yourself and the ones that have been told to you.
a
Maya Angelou

It has taken my much more than a day.  It has taken more than two years.  I'm not sure that the lies will ever be completely gone.  When a young woman is made to feel unworthy in order for the adoption industry to procure another child, it doesn't just ensure a choice for adoption ~ it effects her entire life.  But mothers aren't told that when they are considering adoption.  That's just one of the things that mothers find out after it's too late...