Thread by @kim_penn, I woke from a dream this morning with tears drying on my [...]

I woke from a dream this morning with tears drying on my cheeks.

I dreamed that I had found my birth family.

#naam

In the dream, I was in Italy, at a small cafe my family owned. I met cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and sisters.

It was in Italy because according to 23&me, my son is almost 27% Italian - and since my husband and his family are absolutely 0% Italian...well, that comes from me, I guess?

Which is funny because in all of my papers that I've ever been able to see over the years, it was confidently stated that both my birth mother and birth father were of 100% British ancestry.

LOL - SURPRISE!

So, italian cafe. In the dream, I kept meeting more and more people. I met one sister at the start; she then kept bringing in more and more people for me to meet, including a second sister.

In the dream, all of us were so, so happy. They were so happy to have found me, at last, the long lost one. The one they believed was lost to them forever.

I was so happy to have found them. A room full of people that all looked similar, and oh - I did too!

You may think if it was such a happy dream, why would I wake with tears drying on my cheeks?

But adoptees already know the answer to this question.

Not just because it was a dream.

But because the dream is likely all that it will ever be, for me and for so many other adoptees.

A dream. A fantasy. A fairy tale ending - or beginning.

A dream most of us have dreamed in some fashion - knowing how unlikely it is to come true.

For so many of us, we will never find our birth families. I'm thinking of my international adoptee friends - those whose records are nearly impossible to get, and even when they can get information, it turns out to be falsified.

See, that's one of the things that all of the happy adoption stories at best, gloss over, and at worst, actively ignore:

So many of our origin stories are lies.

And I do mean lies. Not mistruths, not accidental omissions of information, not innocent mistakes.

Actual lies, told deliberately. Records intentionally falsified in order to make our adoptions go more smoothly.

Everything from our birthdates, to our country of origin, to our birth parents' circumstances, to our health, to our family medical history - in every one of our stories, there is some lie told in order to make us more pleasing to potential adopters.

More marketable.

We grow up, and begin to search. Some of us are lucky enough to have some success. Some of us will never be that lucky, despite all our best efforts.

Even when the system is cooperative, we really, truly may never know the whole truth.

And anyway, even for those of us who do find our birth family - even that so often ends in sadness and in tears.

Reunions are fraught with emotional landmines. Genetically we are related, but as even non-adoptees know, that's not enough to bond us together as FAMILY.

We carry trauma in our bones, as do our birth parents. We carry the weight of being left; they carry the weight of having made the decision to leave us.

Both sides carry wounds, but these are puzzle pieces that may never be able to fit together again.

No matter how much all of us want it - reunion is always complicated.

Each side trying to navigate through the best they can. But good intentions and a heart full of love aren't always enough.

Some reunions still fail, despite all best efforts.

Some hurts are just too big, to deep, too lasting to ever successfully heal, no matter how much everyone wishes it were otherwise.

I woke with drying tears on my cheeks, from a dream that was so lovely, and yet so impossible.

I cried because it may never come true.
I cried because some of it could come true.
I cried because the reality of either event will likely be far different than I can even imagine, good or bad.

I cried because all of these things were, and likely will remain, utterly out of my control, for the rest of my life.

I didn't choose this.

Everyone else chose for me.

So during this month of #naam, when you see happy adoption stories being passed around, when you see adopters and potential adopters telling their stories of their "successful" adoption journeys --

Remember OUR journeys, as adoptees.

Remember that every "happy" adoption story begins in loss and trauma for the adoptees.

Remember our stories. Remember our beginnings. Remember our truths.

Because all of those things are hidden from us, on purpose. And in lots of cases - forever.

As the old song goes, "you would cry too, if it happened to you".

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