It’s been five years since we entered a global pandemic, a long time to live in uncertainty and upheaval. Navigating through this decade has been anything but predictable, in part because we are somewhere in between who we were and who we are becoming. Often, I have felt as if I am in the middle of a giant snow globe that is constantly being shaken, and all I know for sure is when I can see clearly again, the picture will be different. 

As an adoptee, I have a habit of holding on too long because I fear the pain and finality that comes with endings. But my worldview has shifted, and I have become more deliberate about releasing what doesn’t fit, what I cannot control, what I have outgrown, and what no longer brings me joy. 

It has been a decade since gaining the legal right to my identity and finding my long lost family, and I have grown more in that time than I did my previous 45 years on this planet. I always knew I was adopted and longed to know who and where I came from. I actively started searching at age 20, and exhausted every pathway including applying for my non-identifying information, petitioning the court to release my identifying information, putting my name on registries, and hiring private detectives. My mounting frustration turned to resentment, as I did not understand why people born before and after me could access their original birth certificates, but I could not. I spent years lamenting that I was born in the wrong place at the wrong time and struggled to accept the painful truth that I would never know where I came from. This perception blocked me from developing self-awareness and paralyzed my decision-making skills. I never felt sure of myself or where I was headed and was filled with indecision and inertia. Living in a closed adoption affected every part of me and had negative impacts on various roles that I held in my family, workplace, and community. 

It was not until the law changed 25 years later that I got my answers, found my family, and began to heal. I had lived Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, and like a lightswitch being turned on, two major shifts happened almost immediately. First, the insatiable search, a dark shadow that had relentlessly followed me for 45 years, was over. The ache had finally ceased, and it was only then that I realized how much this preoccupation had taken from me. Second, I recognized that I had never considered the possibility of changing the discriminatory law that oppressed me. I just accepted it as my reality and over time developed a learned helplessness regarding finding my family of origin. I was in the middle of the snow globe and could not see clearly. 

Ultimately, it was another adoptee who changed the landscape of adoption policy and practice for me. It took her 25 years, but she never stopped fighting. On a cold and rainy morning in March, I paid $20 to apply for my Original Birth Certificate, and three weeks later received it. It’s impossible to describe how something so simple for the non-adopted is so profound for the adopted. 

My sole motivation in applying for my OBC was to find my family. Within one hour of receiving my records, I found and contacted my biological mother, and like a row of dominoes, the number of connections grew to more than 20. The experience of reunion was so complex, intense and life altering that in the first year I made two commitments: I would choose to stay actively engaged with my biological family for the rest of my life, and I would pay forward the gift working to change adoption policy and practice. I live in Michigan where we have a similar model as my birth state of Ohio, with archaic policies and government bureaucracy that blocks adoptees access to their information. I was committed to changing that, and dedicated many hours organizing, educating, and advocating. It seemingly paid off, and I started 2024 with so much confidence, hope, and anticipation that by the end of the year we would be celebrating a bipartisan equal rights bill package for Michigan-born adoptees. It was an emotional rollercoaster filled with exhilarating highs and gut-punching lows. In the end, we lost, and the devastation of that broke me, causing me to reassess everything and everyone. 

When my father was 55 years old, he told me that most people come into our lives for a reason or a season, and the number of relationships that last a lifetime can be counted on one hand. Now that I am 55, I believe him. I have experienced a handful of miracles in my life, but few are sweeter than finding my long lost family. I have always known these relationships would be a season. We cannot make up the lost time of a lifetime apart. My elders are between the ages of 70-90 years old, and I will have to release them sooner than my heart is ready, because the truth is, I will never be ready. It’s time to sunset Michigan Adoptee Collaborative, the organization I created to support this work, and let those who were born here carry the movement forward. Instead of spending my time fighting for changes that may never happen for all sorts of reasons, I plan to embrace this season by creating memories with the people I fought so long to know.

One of my favorite experiences of each year is releasing sea turtles in the Banderas Bay. They make it look so easy as they follow their instinct to enter the sea from the moment they are born. Once hatched, their flippers dig up from the nest where their mother buried her eggs. Their heads emerge and they scramble to the water, ready to forsake their short life on land for the unknown life in the water. It is said only 1 in 1000 survive. Those that do spend the rest of their days traveling around the world. The females return ten years later, finding their way to the beach where they were born so they can lay their eggs and continue the cycle of life. I am in awe every time I witness this miracle in nature, a reminder that I can take that courageous leap forward and trust that I will find my way back home.