They say you must know yourself to make it in life.  Know who you truly are and it will give you the confidence to face the day.  Tell me though, how does someone that is adopted ever truly know themselves.  You walk day to day knowing where you stand, but are forever lost.  Filling a hole deep inside of you with whatever will make the pain go away.  Searching a strangers face for any similarity and wondering if they are the one that gave you life.  You notice your friends faces and how they resemble that of their parents and wish that you knew where the color of your eyes came from.  You smile in the mirror and wonder if the curve of your smile is that of your mother or your father.  You hate them because you feel abandoned and you pity them for how they must have felt to lose a child.  When you’re an adult you hold your child a little tighter than other new parents, because for the first time in your life you are holding your blood.  Something that others will never understand.  Some spend their whole lives searching for answers while others go to their graves never wanting to know.
I searched.  For years I was the one looking into others eyes.  Ultimately I would surrender to my fears and back away.  I was scared that they would have nothing to do with me and send me away again.  That they would have new lives and no one in their new life would know about me.  The search would end for six months, a year., but the hunger was too strong and again I would begin.  It wasn’t because I hated my parents.  Quite the opposite.  I love them for doing something many cannot.  They raised me.  Knowing I was not their blood.  A piece of paper is what made me their child, but they loved me like I was born of them.  I knew that my search would hurt them, maybe even break their hearts, but this was something that I had to do.  I was tired of feeling lost.  I needed to know the real answers and longed to know if I looked like them.  I was put down by many people saying that a true Christian wouldn’t feel this way.  All I needed was Jesus and he would fill that hole.  Easy for someone to say that isn’t adopted.  I prayed so many times, but things never worked out to my advantage.  Then in January of last year I said my final prayer.  I asked God to give me a way to find my parents if it be His will.  I was tired of fighting and just wanted it to end.  I literally gave up.  I walked away and left it in Gods hands and gave up the search. Â
Most know that I do not watch the news.  If I can’t find it on CNN or MSNBC and other news networks I don’t need to see it.  Besides that I’m the type of person that doesn’t believe 80% of what the news says.  Propaganda and propaganda pushers is all I see and yet that day in August, on a Sunday evening, I found myself turning on the news channel.  Just as I flipped to it a story came on about a bill being passed in the state of Colorado that opened adoption records.  ALL records, which meant names of birthparents as well as everything else, and the very next day I was at the courthouse waiting for my answers.  I was sent home in tears with a courthouse refusing to give me any papers.  Telling me I needed to see a judge and ask for approval.  I was confused, I had read the bill myself and it gave me the legal right to my papers and here I was going home, 80 miles away, empty handed.  I vowed I would return and try again and I did.  A week later I was at the courthouse again.  This time my paperwork was waiting for me.  They knew I would return.  They even knew they were wrong, because they didn’t charge me a dime for my papers.  My hands were trembling as she handed me that packet.  I broke down and started to cry.  Something I had wanted for so long was now sitting in front of me.  My husband took the paperwork and we walked out.  We stood in the hall waiting for the elevator and before I had even stepped in I not only knew my name but their names as well and by the time we had walked to the car my husband had found my birth mother on Facebook.  Before we had even gotten home we had sent her a message and she responded.  From there I started looking for my birth father and his family.  I couldn’t find him on Facebook, but I found an eerily familiar face.  It felt like looking at myself only a little older.  She looked a lot like me, but with blonde hair and sitting beside her were two others I resembled.  I told my husband she was my aunt.  I knew it.  I could feel it in my blood.  There was a bond there that I couldn’t explain, but I knew I had just found the final missing pieces.  From there I spoke with family on the phone and through the internet.  I found out that my grandparents were still alive.  I felt so blessed because things actually went my way.  You hear so many horror stories, but this one, this was a fairytale.  Not everything has gone my way.  My birth mother and I have quite a disconnect between us.  My father however, I find myself loving more and more everyday.  He has such an amazing heart and the same rebellious spirit that my son and I both share.  I look in his eyes and see my own.  We both have the same wild and untamed wavy hair.  I look at him and I see me.  The woman I saw in the picture did turn out to be my aunt and what a blessing she has been to my life.  Someone I can talk to and look up to.  I found I have many siblings and formed a special bond with one of them.  Although not everyone has welcomed me with open arms they are my family and I love them.  I’m anxiously waiting till summer to meet everyone and to be in a circle of family knowing that I finally belong and am home.
