My favorite all-time song is “Take Me Home” by Phil Collins.

I first heard this song when I was fourteen years of age, living in Canada with my adoptive family. I didn’t know why this song spoke to me so much, but over the years, I’ve continued to love this song. 

In the first part, Phil Collins sings of “an ordinary man” who is aware that a fire is burning. A fire that he can’t see but it helps to keep him warm. 

This resonated with me because I believe it reflects how adoptees dream about searching and finding their biological family members. Many adoptees create a “fantasy family” that is known as the “Ghost Kingdom,” a term coined by Betty Jean Lifton.

Next, Phil sings about waiting for a long time but not being sure what he is waiting for. He also discusses how others turn off his feelings while others turn out his light.

I can relate to this so much. I feel this part of the song reminds me of an adoptee who gives up on searching for their family and truth. The adoptee is not supported by others around them. 

Adoptees feel our shining light of hope being extinguished. Our voices, thoughts, feelings, and desires bottled up inside of us are constantly being suppressed by those who are not adopted. 

Phil continues to sing in the chorus about not being able to remember and wanting to go home. He also states he is a lifelong prisoner.

This part of the song speaks to me of the dull and boring lives many adoptees live. We live in the adoption fog, surviving, just getting by in life. 

We live inside our emotional prisons created from the trauma of The Primal Wound.

We live a life of adaptation to our adoption experiences.

Others make comments about us, thinking we, the adoptees, don’t hear what is being said about us but we do hear what is being said about us. 

Adoptees constantly hear from society:

“You were so lucky to be adopted.”

“Aren’t you grateful you weren’t aborted?”

“You were saved.”

The song’s chorus about not remembering and wanting to go home really hits home with me. 

Many adoptees, myself included,  have a desire to go home, a home that we never really knew. 

Home to our blood relatives. 

Relatives who look like us, act like us, think like us, and feel like us. 

Most adoptees don’t know or remember where “home” was before we were adopted.

But we crave to know the answers to our past. 

We crave to feel connected to others. 

I craved to feel like I fit in for most of my life until I found my birth mother. And even then, I didn’t fit in. 

I have felt safe around some of my maternal and paternal family members, a sense of acceptance and connection. I wish I could be around my family members more. 

They understand the feeling of connection between us. 

I am thankful they get me.

I am thankful for the chance to be in each other’s lives.