Love Letters to Anne

So I had let go of everyone. No one was reliable or stable and I was alone in this quest. I pushed forward.

Now don’t misunderstand me, I know there are some people who were adopted who had a great experience. Who had been given all the tools and love that was necessary, but that’s not my story. That’s not my truth. And I don’t particularly enjoy going over these memories, but it’s necessary to tell the tale in such a way that you understand where I was and how it was. The burden was crippling at times.

I use that word in seriousness. Crippling.

Anyway, I had no direction. No hope, so I lost myself for years in the blackness of the comforting Void. I gave myself willingly into the Abyss, let it come, let it take me. I would float away on poison rivers. I would pour my pain into the Nothing, and in this intensity, I would find solace in the contemplation of the philosophy of pain and loss. I would seek out the sages of the major religious movements and ask my question: why?

Of course, there was no answer. So, I tried to figure out from my adoptive papers the mysteries of my birth and the people I came from. Whatever it was, it would be mine. Good or bad, it would be real. And I began to run down the leads I had. The agency, and it's location; the city of my birth and the place my mother was from.

How about a birth certificate? An original one, not altered like they have been my entire life. Well, that would be tricky, see, here, I was from a closed adoption, through a private agency. So, where if I had been in the orphanage, at 21 I would have been eligible to get my original birth certificate, but given my circumstances, I was at the mercy of the agency.

And they wanted to get paid for this information and many hoops to run through as well, all under the guise of privacy for the birth parents. My rights are non existent compared to their presumed promise of anonymity. Under the law, I am still an infant who had no rights. No recourse. This is the wall I came up against. And would you believe this is a religious organization? Because it is. All part of the Baby Scoop Era.

Picked out from all the children, I was an only child, to become an only child again with a new family, not of my blood. Not of my choosing. I was only a few months old.

I was exactly what they were looking for: white, male infant; we'll take that one. Think about this for a minute, and try to tell me there is some kind of difference to the way I've gone to the pound and picked out a new friend. Now I'm not asking for your pity. But I am telling it like it is. This is what happened. I have most of the official adoption paperwork.

Requirements and conditions of adoption. Things beyond just being raised a certain way, but being told early that I was adopted. I was to never have a chance at bonding with these people, I was to look toward the Church for my direction, but the way I saw it, the Church was to blame in this whole mess, she had used me for a profit. I saw her corporate fascism for exactly what it is and has been throughout history. So, I rebelled. And God took it on the chin for the sins of the people involved.

Faith wouldn't come for a long time. But there was a day...

So, I started contacting the agency. How do I find my parents? How do I get my original birth certificate? I asked all the things, and got sub grade customer service answers by calloused and unconcerned clergy for the most part, except for Sister Elaine. She had given me more information about my family, nothing that would identify them, but some pieces of the puzzle.

Parents were young 16, 17...and they had been in love. Now this could have been complete bullshit, but I ate it up not having anything to go on. And then they spoon fed me other non-identifying details along with some outright lies.

But it was all I had.