Realizing that I have no place within my biological family has made me sad. I had hoped for lifelong relationships, but that was not to be. I questioned if I would ever have closure and what that would feel like. The years of feeling as if I had a piece of myself missing and I would only be complete by meeting my biological family were wrong. In the moment of rejection, the hurt seemed like it would go on and on. I wanted something that I was not meant to have, and I could not understand the complexity of it all.

My adoption search has been a process, and it ended by finding many of the answers I was looking for. It had a few good moments and many bad ones. In its own timing, closure felt right. The best thing I could do for myself was to grow from the experience and let it move me through life’s intended changes. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. 

I had spent many years telling myself that I felt connected to my biological family. In my mind, it could not be any other way. It was blood that made us family, or so I thought. Surely this was going to be enough to hold us tightly together. Yet when that was not enough, I felt the pain of letting go.

My biological family is not a part of my life. I no longer could see a positive reason to have that relationship. In my search and reunion, I had lost myself. I have come to realize that. I had tried to be the person that I thought my biological family would accept and love. In that attempt, I had lost sight of the person I am.

Like a switch of a light, I came to realize that I would be ok without my biological family in my life. The intense need to be connected, loved, and accepted by them has been replaced. I realized that they may be my biological family, but they are not my family. They are not the people who are there for me when I need someone to talk to or laugh with. Nor are they the family who is on the other end of the phone for absolutely no reason other than to say hi.

My search, reunion, and rejection journey was a needed process that had waited over fifty years. I had to have the experience to discover that part of myself and to release me to move into my life as it should be. Wanting what was already lost was holding me back from being what I should be. It was keeping me from flying to my highest. And then, one day, I realized it all had a purpose, but it was time to move on.