One of the more difficult things that I face to reconcile is the fact that I am adopted. As silly as it may seem, until just the past few years I never really took the time to stop and think about what that means and how it influences my actions.
As far back as my memory goes, I have always known that I was adopted. After reading about horror stories of adults discovering they were in fact adopted after decades of being told otherwise, I reflect incredibly thankful that my parents chose the potentially tougher route and explaining that to me early on in my life.
Digressing for a moment to make a latter point I have always been the person that will fit right into most crowds. Charisma has always been my greatest weapon when confronting the unknown and developing relationships. The problem is, that process of "fitting in" has evolved into altering my personality in ways, adjusting my sense of humor or just tweaking my sense of interest; a really scary idea when I stop and examine it in hindsight.
Then what I viewed as an unfortunate realization struck me; fitting into an unknown crowd is one of the first developmental things that I ever learned. Worse still, a prerequisite to the adopted is a painstaking loss of identity. I have only question marks when it comes to my heritage, there is little comfort in learning an adoptive family's lineage and I have no other human to look at and take comfort in the fact I share a physical likeness with. Being charismatic and building strong relationships is not an attribute I inherited, it is a skill I was forced to develop. The day that one of your greatest strengths rings back potentially with a disingenuous tone, oh how the walls can come down.
When you have nothing to attach your identity to, you take shelter in what you do well. Then I realized stronger aspects of my personality were not even organic, so to speak. As much as accepting that fact could have stymied any progress that I have made, it serves as a beacon. Instead of wallowing in another quality that makes me different because I am adopted, I now allow it to help define me.
If I wish to cast away everything that is not congruent with what I am, how could I initially loathe this quality that I perpetuated because of a circumstance that I am? I have come to my mistake; I was only looking for aspects of myself that came about in a favorable fashion. I see now that I have to seek the imperfections within myself or the great qualities that came about under tough circumstances to begin to define myself.
Whether I meet my biological parents or not is somewhat irrelevant. As great as that would be one day, I no longer view that reunion as having exclusive rights to finding some type of peace with myself. I need to focus on myself and not a reunion that I cannot control. I need to turn within and become aware of and embrace all of those imperfections to understand what I am. That journey is one that I can control. That endeavor is one that I can make present. Applying that concept is the path that will lead me to the identity that I have lacked for so long, one in which I can begin to fill the empty within me.
When you have nothing to attach your identity to, you take shelter in what you do well. Then I realized stronger aspects of my personality were not even organic, so to speak. As much as accepting that fact could have stymied any progress that I have made, it serves as a beacon. Instead of wallowing in another quality that makes me different because I am adopted, I now allow it to help define me.
If I wish to cast away everything that is not congruent with what I am, how could I initially loathe this quality that I perpetuated because of a circumstance that I am? I have come to my mistake; I was only looking for aspects of myself that came about in a favorable fashion. I see now that I have to seek the imperfections within myself or the great qualities that came about under tough circumstances to begin to define myself.
Whether I meet my biological parents or not is somewhat irrelevant. As great as that would be one day, I no longer view that reunion as having exclusive rights to finding some type of peace with myself. I need to focus on myself and not a reunion that I cannot control. I need to turn within and become aware of and embrace all of those imperfections to understand what I am. That journey is one that I can control. That endeavor is one that I can make present. Applying that concept is the path that will lead me to the identity that I have lacked for so long, one in which I can begin to fill the empty within me.
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