To Love Unconditionally

Discovering you’re adopted will always be a shocker, like looking in the mirror after a bad haircut, running out of vodka during a holiday party or loosing your keys during a 75% sale at Macy’s—and nothing can take that away. But when you’re surrounded with love and an environment in which you’re allowed to flourish, well, it softens the blow, at least it did for me. I don’t remember my parents sitting me down and telling me I was adopted. I can’t say it was on a Friday at 4pm, per se. I just knew I was “adopted,” and it wasn’t a big deal. They never allowed it to be an issue. And because of that, I learned that you can love someone without limits, no matter the race, the size, the color, the sex, the keratin hair treatments they get — it’s all love. And it’s best when you love freely and don’t expect anything in return. When my father passed away two years ago, as I read the eulogy at his funeral, I understood the greatness he and my mother possessed, because they adopted at a time when adoption wasn’t cool. They did it because they had so much love to give and needed another person to give it to: me.

Everyone’s Story is of Value

I now realize that everyone has a story, and it’s valuable —from the homeless people on the street to the Wall Street hustler earning his check on the trading floor. We all have a story. And they’re all of equal value. Being adopted, I learned to respect everyone with whom I came in contact. Now that doesn’t mean I have to like them, but I respect everybody’s history. I had my own inner monsters I had to attack: overcoming the word “adoption” or “blood related” or “real mom vs. adopted mom,” for example. These small battles took me years to overcome, but I did it. And because I don’t know someone’s struggles or what price they paid for their current sanity, I put a high price on their story, and I’m always in listening-mode.

I Was Created For Greatness

As I got older, my ego knocked, and my narcissism answered. That’s when I needed to get answers: the whos, the whys and everything in between. I wanted to know where I came from, and my parents, never standing in my way, encouraged me to learn about my beginnings. In the end, however, my origins didn’t matter because I realized that I was created for greatness. That’s when my true path began. Instead of spending time looking for answers to who I was, I began to focus on who I wanted to become. That search took me from Texas to Iowa to New York. When I was younger, I felt incomplete, like a piece of my history was missing—but all that’s so cliché. I do know where I came from. I came from love—and from love comes greatness. Life just works that way.

Originally Posted on http://www.aninfertileblonde.com/

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