Last fall, I felt an internal whisper in my soul. Perhaps you’re familiar with such whispers? For me, they breeze in unexpectedly during quiet, still moments … flitting around during busy times when I least expect them, or when I’m driving and can’t pay them proper attention. Before I can hush doubts or speak the whispers to audible decibels, someone validates the whispers. Someone else often does, too—as if they’ve corroborated with my unconscious’s noodling to say, “Sara, pay attention!”

If you believe in a higher power, you might believe the source of these whispers to be God or The Universe. Some would call it synchronicity. Or Big Magic, as Elizabeth Gilbert would say.

Whatever you or I or Elizabeth would call it, I caught one: a whisper of an idea to start a writing group geared toward, and exclusively for, adult adoptees. Before I could act, two adoptees separately asked me if I might be able to connect them to a writing group.

I ruminated for a few months. And when spring’s season of growth arrived, I said, “Yes!”

And then Jennifer Dyan Ghoston said yes … Ridghaus said yes … Alice Stephens said yes—our facilitating team of adoptee storytellers in place! (And some wonderful friendships formed in the process.)

Almost immediately after that, our first 30 adoptee-writers said yes. And the esteemed Jessica Williams, Executive Editor at William Morrow/HarperCollins also said yes to joining us as a special guest for our fifth meeting.

It seems the time is right to say a big YES to adoptee voices, and I couldn’t be happier.

Because most adoptions take place when adoptees have no voice, we can get used to others speaking for us. We typically first understand adoption through others’ stories that they tell us, making it hard to tap into our own thoughts and feelings. Our culture understands adoption one way (usually as a breezy win-win all around). Books and movies depict it in their way, too (often as a cliché or shortcut to drama).

With all of this as a backdrop, together with emotions that can sometimes be confusing and overwhelming, or tucked deeply away, it can be hard for us adoptees to say yes when it comes to finding our voices … let alone using them. We might feel a prickle that others’ stories don’t feel accurate, that adoption is more nuanced than nonadoptees realize. But where and how to begin when there’s so much external input?

Thankfully, when we put words onto the page to lure the unconscious into the conscious, we gain understanding. When we’re the ones authoring our own adoptee stories—whether they’re personal or fictional, poetic or prose, we feel empowered. When we turn our memories and emotions and whole selves into art, we play our way toward healing. When we turn our lived experiences into stories and share them—whether safely among fellow adoptees or boldly out in the world—we normalize dynamics that have been long misunderstood.

While writing isn’t the only answer, and I’m a strong advocate of therapy or other professional support, there’s no question that writing helps to inspire change. Our first group of adoptee-writers shared ways they’d noticed change, including:

• Rediscovering the joy in their writing;
• Unearthing new perspectives on their adoption stories;
• Feeling encouraged and lifted from isolation;
• Benefitting from the “bum-in-chair” writing time;
• Leaving inspired by the power of our collective adoptee voices.

In response to each of these things, and other changes, which I felt inside myself and witnessed among others, I respond with a jubilant YESSSSSS! The whisper that moved me to start Adoptee Voices seems to be accomplishing good things. As Jennifer, Alice, Ridghaus, and I prepare to welcome our second cohort of writers into the Adoptee Voices Writing Group, we look forward to finding out what else is in store, and we celebrate more and more adoptees saying YES to adoptee storytelling!