Chasing Junebugg

while my 2016 was less than ideal for just about ANYBODY career and health wise, my village thrived and blossomed. and I owe them everything for being able to push through and remain positive for a better 2017. so here goes nothing. let’s get it!

-Maya Angelou

Getting adopted was/is something every foster kid dreams about. We’re like puppies at the pound. Some of us run to the gate and show you how cute we are…but the longer you’re there, the older you get, the more time you spend seeing people come to look at all the other cute puppies, the more that sparkle in your eyes dims. The less you put yourself on display in high hopes. The more you stay in your corner minding your own business. And then, one day, someone comes in and they see you. They take you out and play with you. You’re happy that they chose you. You’re so excited! You’re not really sure what to think. You think this just might be the one, today might be the day!! And then, as quickly as it happened, it’s over with. You don’t know why. You don’t know what changed their mind. Maybe it’s because they saw one of the younger, cuter puppies? Maybe they just didn’t like you? Maybe they just liked the other ones better? Maybe, just maybe, they thought you’d be too much trouble?? But you never know. You never know for sure. No one ever tells you why it didn’t happen or why it didn’t work out. You go through this process several times. Sometimes it happens weekly, sometimes it’s monthly, and other times you go months on end without anyone coming to see you. Without anyone coming to see any of you.  But you never get the courtesy of closure. It tears you up inside. You start believing that you’re not good enough. You tell yourself that you’ll be here until you age out. That you’ll only be here until the foster parents get tired of you and want you to be transferred somewhere else. You watch your future get more and more bleak. That little kid that used to believe they could be anything they wanted to be, and do anything they wanted to do….that little kid doesn’t exist anymore. He/She is long gone… Then, one day, the process starts all over…again. You know that, by now, you should know better. You tell yourself not to get your hopes up. That THIS time, this time it’s not gonna be any different. What’s the point? You’re just gonna end up disappointed like every other time. And when you least expect it, here they come. They take you out and play with you. They smile at you and tell you how cute you are. And here you go getting your hopes up. You tried to stop yourself but you can feel the excitement building, your heart soars! The minutes fly by like seconds. You try to enjoy it as long as you can because you know this can’t possibly last. And then it ends. And your heart and spirit is crushed. You knew better. YOU KNEW! You told yourself not to do it. You know that the process isn’t that simple. You knew you wouldn’t get to go home with them right then and there but you just couldn’t help thinking about it. Days go by and you haven’t heard anything. You’ve convinced yourself that they weren’t good people anyway. You tell yourself that you didn’t really want to go with them anyway. That you’re better off here…And then one day, to your surprise, they came back! And guess what? They want to see YOU again. There’s just SOMETHING about you that pulls at their heart strings. Hard to believe right? Well this time, THIS time, it’s for real. They’ve picked you! They start coming to see you more and more often. They’re getting to know you. They’re bringing you presents…Months go by and this process repeats itself over and over. And then, one day that cycle comes to an end. You’re leaving the pound. You get a fresh start. You made it out and you’re about to start your new life with people who care about you. People who make you happy. People who you make happy. Nothing can be better than this! This is better than your birthday, Halloween, Easter, and Christmas ALL wrapped up into one!! Everything is better now. You see the world in bright vibrant color. The birds are chirping. You hear the wind rustle the leaves on the trees. You feel the breeze on your face. You feel the sun’s warmth kiss your skin. You watch other kids run around and smile and laugh and for once, for ONCE….you’re not jealous. You don’t envy them in the slightest. Because now, you ARE that kid. Everything is better now. You’re safe now….

With that being said, I don’t remember much of my life before landing in foster care but I do remember bits and pieces like my biological mother and her boyfriend. I don’t have any happy memories of that time, and the few that there are, are clouded with bad memories. One of the last memories I have of that apartment was being left alone for days under the care of my sister who was probably no older than 4. I don’t remember what happened in between but my next memories are being under the care of my grandmother for a period of time. Something that always stands out when I think of her was her black toy poodle who was mean and would bite if you got too close to him. To this day, I still don’t care much for black poodles. I don’t remember much of my grandmother herself but that she spent a lot of time in her bedroom and didn’t like for us to go in there. However long or short that period of time was, it ended with her passing away. Sadly, I don’t even remember her funeral. And then, into the system we went. Like I said, we were one of the blessed ones to be able to remain together and not be separated from each other. It was around this time I remember following my sister around practically everywhere she went. And I would hold on to her. I was super shy back then, I rarely spoke to anyone. I don’t remember the foster parent(s) except for “Aunt Ola” and that’s probably because she left the biggest impression. She was around the most, she had rules, but she also cared about us. What I can remember of the other foster parent(s) we did have was that they didn’t really care what you did as long as you didn’t get into trouble. The kids in foster care with us were “damaged goods and broken” like many of the stereotypes depict us to be. But you have to understand, most of us didn’t end up there because everything had been hunky dory. We had been abused, neglected, teased or bullied. We were taken away from our parent(s) or abandoned. We were told we were unwanted, that no one would ever come for us. That we would bounce around from home to home until we aged out. The longer you stayed in the system the more bleak your hope became. And it was almost fun for the older kids to tease any of us who were newcomers. Some kids got moved around frequently and other kids had been at that same foster home for years. They would always tell us that we would be split up, that we would never see each other again if that happened. Altogether, I think we were only in 2–3 foster homes and trust me, for the time we spent there (2–3yrs), that’s really not bad. The last home we were in, which happened to be Aunt Ola’s, there were a group of older kids. Two girls in particular, Sharheela and Sharhonda, who I’m guessing were twins but don’t remember for sure, were older than my sister who was….6 or 7? I’m pretty sure they were teenagers. Anyway, my sister started spending a lot of time with them which meant, guess what? I wasn’t allowed to tag along. It was hard for me because I was used to following her around everywhere. So I started spending more time with my brother. I was only 4 or 5 which meant my brother was only 2 or 3. He was young enough that the adults still liked to carry him around because there weren’t many, or any, other kids that young so I really didn’t spend too much time with him. Sharheela and Sharhonda liked to play jokes on me. This one time, they were really nice to me and “let” me watch a movie with them. I was young and there weren’t any other kids in my age group so of course I jumped at the chance. The movie we watched was Candyman and I was made to stay and watch the entire movie. They teased me weeks afterwards by whispering Candyman three times in the dark. Cruel, right? They even went to the extreme of waiting until I fell asleep one night and hid in the closet while whispering my name and scratching on things. I woke up and no one was around. I looked under the bed, nothing. I looked in the open closet, still nothing. Scared, I went downstairs, which was all dark because everyone was in bed already, to try to find where everyone was and found no one. I go back upstairs and lay back down in my bed and the noises started again. I remember getting up, looking out of the window and didn’t see anything. I went back to bed, AGAIN, scared. I fell asleep and it all started again. They were whispering my name and scratching on something. Finally they crawled out from under a pile of clothes that had been in the closet. They were so happy with themselves and it was like it got my sister brownie points. Some time later, that’s when the visits started. There was this interracial couple that could come take us on “play dates” sometimes with our social worker and sometimes just the two of them. We usually went to a McDonald’s with PlayPlace and if it wasn’t there it was at the social worker’s office. My brother was still pretty young and wasn’t speaking much. When he did speak, my sister and I usually finished his sentences for him. The visits went on for some time and the kids at the home were jealous. The older kids were meaner to us the more visits we got from them. And then one day, we were told that the couple was going to come for us and that we weren’t coming back so we had to take all our stuff with us. I didn’t really understand what was happening. But they said it was a good thing and that we should be happy. I remember going to the social worker’s office and there the couple was. They sat down in front of us and said they were our new Mommy and Daddy. She cried and hugged us a lot. Then we went to McDonald’s and played. Instead of going back to the home with our social worker, we got in this olive green Pinto. We asked where we were going and they said “Home”. The ride lasted for hours and like all kids, we probably asked, “are we there yet?” a million times. And that’s how we made it out of foster care.

I want to start by sharing my own story and then use it as a platform to share other’s stories. So, here goes nothing... I hope that you take this journey with me, and enjoy it along the way while we all learn and grow.

Karen Salmansohn