During that time, I volunteered for events and connected with adoptees, natural mothers, and adoptive mothers, all who become life-long friends. I learned to mediate and do yoga and vision board, and explore numerous other strategies for healing my adoptee soul.

Over time, I’d linger away from the group, wanting to spend all my energy on enjoying the few years my birth father and I had left. I would blog more and eventually write a memoir about my life as a black-market baby. But the day my birth father died, the floor gave way; and a short time later, I found myself sitting in his bed, computer propped in my lap, attending my first AKA conference in many years. And there, as the little zoom boxes filled with familiar faces, all as warm, welcoming and supportive as they had always been, I knew my tribe still had my back – in my experience, this is the adoptee community.

Sharing the Bounty

I always knew one day I would return to my tribe to support others the way so many in the constellation showed up for me, and still do. After my birth father passed, I dug in and made a concerted effort to reinvest myself in the community. I began the work required to pitch my book to agents, to grow my Adoptee and NPE Support Group on Facebook, to renovate the trailer I was conceived in, and offer it as an adoption-focused writing residency, and I began attending more adoptee events both in person and online.

Then, just this past February, I saw a post about the Untangling Our Roots conference sponsored by The National Association of Adoptees and Parents and Right to Know. When I learned a friend and Fireside Adoptee member I’d met online (Greg Gentry), was also going, I just knew I had to go. It was only two weeks away, I had a ton of travel plans already, I was moving soon, a hundred reasons existed for why it was not a good time to go, but my gut said GO! So I rearranged some things and made it happen.

So how did it go? It was amazing, but not before those old insecurities returned. This was not AKA, these would be new people. It had been many years since I’d attended a live event. I didn’t know all the new acronyms. But I went anyway. And, like déjà vu, as I stepped up to the registration table, I found myself home again, wrapped in the healing power of the adoption constellation.

The landscape had changed, but not the people. Yes, now we had names capturing the variants of loss of identity, donor conceived people, late discovery adoptee, trans-racial adoptee, etc. But the vibe was not just the same, it was better. Before long, jitters passed, and as handshakes gave way to hugs, a feeling of belonging blossomed in a passing of a tissue, a leaning to listen, a seat saved, a knowing nod across the room.

Filling Our Cup

For two nights, a constellation of adoptees and birth parents, some authors, others podcasters and film makers lit up the lobby well past midnight, sharing toasts, tears and stories; and I didn’t want it to ever end. As the weekend came to a close, I wanted to know I would see my people again sooner than later.

That wish came true when I was recently invited by the National Association of Parents and Adoptees to open their Fall mini-retreat “Journeying Together Toward Healing” September 15-16 at the Potawatomi Inn at Pokagon State Park in Angola, Indianna. (See side bar) This fall, the community will come together for a weekend of sharing and healing. This get-away weekend is for anyone impacted by adoption, at any point in their personal journey.

I will share my black-market adoption and reunion story and present on the healing modalities that helped me along my journey. This retreat-like event begins with lunch on Friday and concludes by 5 pm on Saturday. My daughter Victoria will be attending with me, and bringing her perspective on being witness to and participant in my/our reunions. A professional photographer, she will also offer head shots to support NAAP.

Please join us as we collectively explore the healing modalities and strategies available to us as we journey to process the past, shed our chameleon skin, hold space for each other, and venture together along our ever-evolving journey.