2012 Adoptee Rights Day in Chicago IL
So while I am in Atlanta, and running around today; we have to get to the conference center to get the booth unpacked and set up and THEN it’s the sign making party tonight, here’s last years ARC Demonstration video!
Even though I am writing this a week a head of time, I can hopefully, guarantee that my trip was calmer than last years! If I get stuck in another tornado, I’m NOT going to be happy! But the rest of the trip was good.. I’m sorry my dear daughter could not make it this year, but we did have a great time mother daughter in Chicago!
How to Help Adoptee Rights?
Even if you cannot BE there physically, you can help from where you are!
Go Like Adoptee Rights on Facebook and share the page, share updates. Ask friends and family to like it too.
Follow @AdopteeRightsCo on Twitter
Get some Adoptee Rights Swag and wear it proudly! There is DENIED OBC clothing and accessories and Adoptee Rights Coalition logo wear. Or wear what you got on Monday 8-12-13 and tell folks WHY!
Get your DENIED on! Get STAMPED!!
Please join with me in support of the Adoptee Rights Movement by spreading awareness of our cause through your banner and profile photos. Send a message to the ARC page on FB with a profile image of your face and you will get a lovey red DENIED photo back! Let’s FLOOD AdoptionLand and beyond with DENIED images to get others asking!!
I just turned 54 years old, last month. I was adopted at birth. My story isn’t so happy. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the unfortunate chapters were crafted entirely by yours truly. I don’t really want to meet my birth parents or parent, because I don’t want to have to lie and tell them that I had a wonderful life. And I don’t want to make them feel bad about the decisions that they were forced to make, all those many years ago.
I’m a father. I’m a grandfather. I tell my kids, (kids,. They’re all in their 30’s now) that I’m the root of our family tree. I don’t know our nationality, I don’t know if any medical conditions run in our family, and honestly, up until very recently, I didn’t care. I don’t even know why I’m here, right now, doing this. I have an older sister. She was adopted too. She didn’t have a very wonderful childhood either. My younger sister and younger brother who weren’t adopted, had considerably nicer childhoods than my big sister and myself.
They were the kids that the doctors told my mom she would never have. They were the children that she could hold up to the in-laws and say “here you go! Here’s your legacy!” because both my sister and myself were adopted at birth, we didn’t feel like we were adopted. Mom has always been mom and dad was always dad. We couldn’t understand why all of a sudden we were being regarded as guests that have stayed too long. My sister left home at 13. I stuck it out until 15. I ended up stuck with a manipulative woman who controlled me through a series of lies and ambush child births
for seventeen years. When it was finally over, I fell in love for the first time with someone who also found that discarding me when it became “necessary” was a lot easier than you might like to think.
I’m well-liked by the people who know me. But I’m alone. I make everybody laugh and I keep the mood light, they’re the audience and I’m the act on the stage.
Like I said, I don’t know why I’m here right now. Writing this. Maybe if I can find “my people.” I might find a way to join the audience. Or maybe, I might just be giving them the opportunity to discard me one more time.