It’s midday here at the BlogHer Writers conference in NYC. I need to pause in my day and write something that ties writing, and more specifically publishing, to adoption, and more specifically open adoption.
I see so many people — birth parents and adoptive parents alike — who close an open adoption or simply walk away without informing the other party as to why simply because it’s too hard. It’s too hard to deal with the emotional complexities of it all. It’s too hard to balance the time between a birth family and everyday family and, in some cases, multiple birth families. It’s too hard to explain to new friends. It’s too hard to deal with the stereotypes. It’s too hard. It’s too hard. It’s too hard.
Let me tell you this: “It’s too hard” is not even a good excuse. It’s pretty much a non-excuse.
I have been so incredibly inspired by the speakers we have already listened to this morning. But they’ve been honest with us: It’s not easy to get a book published. It’s hard work. There’s a lot of rejection. There’s blood, sweat and tears. And, in the end, it doesn’t pay all that well. Well doesn’t that sound like a big ball of fun? No. No it doesn’t. But the end result? Is worth it. And that’s why writers keep on striving toward that end goal.
Similarly, there are moments in my open adoption that have not been fun or easy or all that rewarding. I am trolled online. In real life, people say horribly offensive things to my face. I miss my daughter so much, but sometimes it’s even harder to be in her presence. The balancing of my everyday life with the open adoption visits and emotions is trying at times; it’s hard to make it all fit. But the end result — a grown adult adoptee who knows that she was always wanted, always loved and has the knowledge she can ask either her mom or me anything she wants to know — is why I keep on keeping on.
I’m not saying I’ve never wanted to give up, to get back in the birth mother closet and pretend that the hard stuff of this open adoption simply doesn’t exist. I keep that end result in mind, at heart, deep in my soul. That end result is what helps factor into the decisions I make, the things that I say, the direction I take.
The book I write.
Open adoption is not easy. Writing that book is not easy. Both? Both are worth it. Don’t use a non-excuse — and your fear — get in the way of that blessed end result.