Anger

One thing that my reunion has done is bring up a lot of emotions that I never really dealt with much before.

I am feeling a lot of sadness and a lot of anger right now. Not at my birth mother. And not at my adoptive parents. All of them did the best they could for me. I have few complaints. (I have some, mind you. What child who was raised by other human beings doesn't have some complaint? We're imperfect creatures, after all.)

But I still feel anger. I'm mad at the situation. I'm mad at the social workers, the nuns, society, and even my birthmom's mother, who didn't giver her a choice. I'm angry about what I've lost, even though I was taken care of. I'm angry at the time that's been lost, and the questions that have long festered.

I also recognize that, while being angry is understandable, I can't let it take me over. I need to do something I've never been able to do before. I have to give myself permission to feel it, without letting it totally consume me. If I bury it, I'm just doing what I've done my whole life. And if I don't rein it in some, then I become embittered. I don't want that, either.

All of this just raises my long-standing ambivalence toward adoption. I don't think I've ever been completely against adoption. (Maybe because that raises too many questions about my own situation that I can't face up to?) But I also have thought it was highly problematic. And I still don't know what to say about it all. I just know that, even if it does sometimes seem like a necessity, that it should never be celebrated. It comes from pain and loss. And that has to be acknoweldged. And I've been really bad at acknowledging it in the past. Now it feels like it's overwhelming.

So for now I just keep on keeping on... I don't know what else to do.