Secrets & Light Episode 4: Karen, Wendy, Cindy & Dawn, Together Part 2

 Angela and I are not a DNA match. (Insert primal scream here.) It’s back to the drawing board.

I spiritually and emotionally prepared myself for it this time
more than any other before this. I didn’t stockpile Razzleberry pies. I’m not bloated today from binging. I am so disappointed but not slayed. I’m not taking off work. I’ll get a lot more done now that I’m not checking DNA results 30 times a day. I’m not laying in bed crying. I’m not feeling as if I want to check out of life and leave this world.  I’m stronger now. This time I’m just taking a big breath and moving forward with everything in life including searching. Regina kept working last night on the next thing. (There’s always a next thing.) Later this evening I will do some paperwork to send out on the search.Looking on the positive side, Angela (who tested for me) is still my friend and is “boots on the ground” in Richmond to help me with whatever I need in continuing to search for my father. Since she’s connected in the Greek community and knows a lot of people  who were living there at the time I was born, she is there to help.I did not share this yet here on the blog, but one of the reasons Angela was so eager to help me when I cold called her is that she is a first mother who relinquished a son for adoption when she was a teenager. They have been reunited in the past few years. She knows how important this is to me. She has experienced it in her own life. She wants to do anything she can to help me. We will always remain friends.Last night I texted with my sister Kim (who is also adopted) and told her I wish I didn’t care so much about this. She said, “why don’t you just pray that? Pray that you won’t care anymore.” I told her I have. It’s true, I have prayed so many times that I just wouldn’t care anymore about my bio father. That I could just let it go. But the gnawing never ends no matter how much I pray. I really have come to the conclusion that God puts an innate desire in human beings to know where and who we come from. I’ve met far more adoptees who want to know — who “have” to know – more than those who don’t care.

The most challenging thing for me on a daily basis is
forgiveness. The bible talks about the number of times we need to forgive someone — 70 x 7. (That’s another way to say — an infinite number of time times.)  Welp, today I’m at 3,009. That’s the number of days it has been since
my bio mother told me my father’s name would go with her to her grave. That was the
day she told me she would “never, ever tell me his name.” Shortly after that, she died. She made good on her promise.  Every day since that
day 3, 009 days ago, I’ve gotten up in the morning each day still looking at this face in the mirror, trying to find his face in mine. And in that frustration, I eek out the words, “I forgive you.” It’s a daily thing, not a once and done. Because the
longing to know him never goes away.  So
neither does the sad feeling about why I don’t know his name or know him.  Her decision affects my life each day and then I make a decision all over again to forgive on the next day and the next day and the next day after that when I
still don’t know who he is.I’m a believer, and forgiving is what we do. Even if it takes forever.

Adoptees often face proverbial brick walls within their birth or adoptive family. These walls are fortified by misplaced
loyalty, secrets, lies, (many of  being lies by omission) and the like.  Many times well-meaning people will take up the cause of those who are committed to live in secrets and lies. Sometimes they are even loyal to the dead, which is the most bizarre of all. 

If you keep secrets, you don’t love.   

If you lie, you don’t love.

If you build a wall with people who have done nothing but seek
the truth and are committed to live in truth, that’s not love.

Why don’t we go where the light is…where the love is? It’ because we may not think we deserve it. That’s how I felt until very recently. 

I am determined to a fault. Giving up is not my strong suit. And, for so long I did not want to
let go of toxic people just because  I
went through hell and back to find them. 

My walking path yesterday

Sometimes we have spent so much time walking
in the wrong direction, we keep doing it just because we are so committed to
it. We started out on this road, and by God we’re gonna finish on it! We feel like we have to keep walking down that same path because we’ve
invested so much.  Do we really expect the wrong direction to suddenly become right?  I did. For a long time, I did. I’m also a believer in miracles, and in people’s ability to change. God knows I’ve changed. I believe other people can too. But sometimes, they don’t. And there we are on the same broken down God-forsaken path that we are hoping beyond hope will change. The difficult truth is that everyone is not committed to truth, change and growth.

Life with toxic people is a one-way street. It won’t lead you back to where you belong. And
it prevents you from spending all the time you can with the people who really care about you.
If they lie to you, keep secrets from you or expect you to play along in any kind of
make-believe world, that is NOT OKAY. 

It’s not normal.

It’s not healthy.

It’s not love.

Through some close
friends who have walked with me on this journey, I finally have it through to
my head that people who treat me this way do not deserve me. Life is too short to pursue people
who don’t have enough respect to tell you the truth and to live in the truth.

Someone who has to hide
their relationship with you doesn’t deserve you. Someone who tells people you
are a “friend” when you are really their son or daughter doesn’t deserve you.
Someone who tells people they have two children when they really have three
doesn’t deserve you. Someone who says they have one sibling and not two doesn’t
deserve you. Someone who takes up for their secretive lying family member to preserve their “dignity” pride doesn’t
deserve you. Someone who lies to you about who your father is, they do not love
you. Someone who gives you false clues about who your father is to throw you off track and preserve your mother’s secret doesn’t love you. If someone says they do not know who your father is, but they really do,
they do not love you. If they say they know absolutely nothing about him or the situation but they know even a shred of truth, they do not deserve the blessing of you.

Life is too short to
live in their fantasy world!!!  This is not as complicated as some people make it out to be. If they
do not speak the truth and if they do not support you knowing the truth, they are
not kind. They do not love you.  They are not a nice person. They are not a good person. It’s as
simple as that. God has more for you than this. You do not have to be a
suffering saint on behalf of your birth family, your adoptive family, or anyone in this world!! No
one has been given the destiny of a doormat and you were not created to be
anyone’s dirty little secret!   

I have finally realized that there are pure-hearted people who actually care, who
love me or have the potential to truly love me (and vice versa) who have been
begging me to meet for coffee and the like but I just haven’t made the time
yet. Guess what, I’m making time!!

I’m so sorry to all the friends who
told me, “you deserve more than this” while I kept banging my head against the
proverbial wall trying to keep a connection with toxic people. 

Welcome to 2019 and a gal who finally knows her value.

My friends and I are still hard at work on my father-search. I go into any potential paternal reunion a different person. This search WILL ultimately result in success
at some point. The DNA databases are exploding. They say it’s only a matter of
time before everyone on the planet has a first or second cousin on both sides. And more people are testing
internationally every day. More Greek matches are coming for me, for sure. I am going
into my paternal reunion in a different head space. My father may be dead by
that time my case is solved, but the rules will apply for any family member I meet. I will go into
this future reunion knowing my value. That will make for a very different
scenario than it did with my maternal reunion. I’m entering this from a place
of strength, not weakness.

Join me, my friend. Let go of what is toxic in 2019. Live in truth and love and make room for all the goodness God has for
you. Wonderful people will line up to meet you for coffee, I promise.