Fear

I've found a new adoption blogs lately. I've had people email and request passwords that I had no idea were following my blog. I can't even describe how good it made me feel to know that there are people out there who actually want to read my ramblings. Anyway, this has led me to some new blogs, which for me is like Christmas come early. I love hearing different ideas and different perspectives. I may not agree with everything that I read, but I respect that people have a lot of courage to put their thoughts and ideas out there.

I was reading one blog that really made me start to think about what made me overcome my fear of searching. I found my non-identifying information in August of 2009. I read the file through three times. I wrote down everything (my mind was in overdrive so it didn't occur to me to just photocopy the pages) on a tissue (yes, you read that right) and brought it with me to school. I put the tissue under my keyboard where nobody could see it and figured I'd start searching. After three months I typed up the information just in case something happened to the tissue.

Yet I didn't search. Sure, I made a few runs at Google, but never seriously. I never even tried my first mother's name and the last name of my original name. This would have given me a direct hit on WhitePages.com, another site I gave a go at 2:30am one morning when I couldn't sleep (the insomnia was killing me). I think that I didn't seriously try for a while because I was scared. My adoptive mother always cautioned me against searching. "What if she doesn't want to be found?" That thought kept going through my head. What if I was rejected? What if I ruined her life? I was so scared, I was paralyzed for months.

I wasn't sleeping. I love sleep. I need eight hours to function properly. I go to bed super early. My dad calls me an old lady. So for me not to be sleeping is a huge thing. What was I going to do? Could I find her? How would I do so? What if she didn't want to be found? These questions kept going through my mind over and over and over. I nearly went crazy from lack of sleep. I was a zombie at work, a zombie in class, and my friends started to notice.

Finally, I knew I needed to make a change. So rather than trying to find my first parents online, I tried to find some support. Over to adoption.com I went. Didn't have all that much luck there. But it did lead me to a few adoptee blogs. And I started reading. And I realized that I could hope. I could hope for a positive response. I could hope that things would go well. And I could hope that things would work out alright in the end. Reading those blogs helped me to overcome my fear. And if things didn't work out, well, I'd be joining a long line of people who went before me. At least I'd be in good company.

So I was able to overcome the fear. And I was able to send that letter. And I was able to start blogging myself. While maybe things didn't work out the way I wanted them too, they have managed to work themselves out in their own way. I have hope for the future. There's a lot of future left for us (I hope, I mean anyone could get hit by a bus tomorrow) and I'm going to try to stay positive about everything. So I guess I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks to my friends for letting me know I was worth it. Thanks to the bloggers out there who gave me hope. And thanks to everyone who has helped me on this journey. I wouldn't be where I am now without you!