Everywhere You Go

I'm very awkward about (the mere existence of?) my blog and website on adoption when it comes to the "outside world". When I met with a web guy the other day, I found myself warding off feelings of shame. I was trained as an artist which, in academia today, sadly, means that (a)anything that can be associated with sentimentality is a negative, and (b)anything that directly reveals itself as personal (as opposed to intellectualized or quantified) is a negative. Add to that the idea that "outsiders" might consider an adoption site to be self-help for something that isn't even real-- I can be left feeling really icky. It's hard work to shake it off.

But back to my meeting. We had been talking about the website for about 20 minutes when the consultant said, "My wife is adopted, so I'm familiar with this." He talked about how they were well in to their relationship when she told him she was adopted, how working through related issues helped them, and how he was relieved to know that she was adopted. (Evidently it convinced him that there was a definitive distinction between her and her not-so-very-sane adoptive family.)

So, the meeting was a reminder that everywhere we go, we're bumping in to one another (adoptees, moms) and we don't even know it. I think I'll do an intentional meditation on that as I move through a day, encountering people and meeting their eyes, and wondering what kind of weights they carry. We forget that we all are carrying something.