Stalker? Who, Me?

My second letter from Catholic Charities coincided nicely with my infant use of the internet. Armed with new ideas (a golf pro, a Cuban emigre, a divorce around 1970), I searched mercilessly. I posted my information on every adoption reunion board I could find, large & well-resourced through small & rarely maintained, keeping track of everything in a big manila file folder. I spent months on paths that never panned out (calling every golf course in downstate NY and NJ, learning about Catholic Church doctrine on adoption & its role in the church, becoming intimately familiar with the foster care system employed by Catholic Charities in the 70s), I joined groups, two of which I became quite active in: NY Adoptees (a yahoo group) and a Catholic Charities Triad group, and more than anything, I kept perspective.


I'm lucky in that way. Many adoptees search because they feel they are missing something in their life. They feel that they are empty, without roots, robbed of a heritage they rightly deserve. Those feelings grow and deepen until the search is no longer a means to an end, it consumes their entire life, they are often depressed and frustrated, and forget to live the life that they actually have. Finding what you are looking for won't change who you are--it just provides more information on where you came from. The reunion may not be a happy one, you may find that you wish you had never searched and if you've put all your eggs in that basket--where does that leave you?

We all have the power to choose who we are. We create our own destiny. How we started out informs our life, but no more than how we were raised or the choices that we made for ourselves all along the way. To believe that you are incomplete with birth information sells yourself short. You are MORE with birth information--you are blessed in a way few can ever experience: You have the life YOU created for yourself, you have the family (good or bad) that you were raised by with all of the baggage, memories, laughs & tears that family brings and then, finally, you may find you have EXTRA, BONUS, ADDED VALUE family that birthed you and all of their accompanying life story. At the end of the day, however, you are you by your own design: take responsibility for the foibles and weakesses and rejoice in your strengths and accomplishments because they belong to YOU.