Moon People (Cont'd)​

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In truth, most of us who were put up for adoption were wanted by our birth mothers. But because they had no support from our birth fathers, our birth family, and society in general they felt trapped with nowhere to go. Our birth mothers were shamed by society for being unwed mothers and labeled their children as illegitimate bastards and even stamped our birth certificates with the words “illegitimate birth” at the top of them. They wanted to keep us, but when you have nothing, nothing to support yourself with let alone a newborn baby, you are not really left with much of a choice.

 

As we grow up in another’s family, we are told that we are one of them. But it never really feels that way. No matter how much we try to fit in, we always feel that we are on the outside looking in. We know that we are not one of them.  But we also know that we don’t know our original identity or any information that could possibly point us to where we once almost belonged.

 

I have heard many adoptees say that they sometimes feel like they were never truly born. They were instead dropped on this planet by aliens. Forced to fend for themselves if they could not fit in with the natives who were born here. We were dropped on this planet without a story of our beginnings. We don’t know where we came from. We don’t know our true identities. The only identity that we do know is the identity that we were given by the natives so we could try and blend in.

 

When we look at our book of life, we are faced with the harsh truth that our book does not start on chapter one. Many of us don’t have pictures of ourselves as small babies. There are no stories of our birth. Only stories of when strangers brought us into their home. This is where our stories start in both words and pictures.

No one who is not adopted can understand the feelings of what it is like to be adopted. The closest story that we found was what Neil Armstrong once said.  Neil Armstrong once confessed that on returning from the moon, for the rest of his life, he felt a profound loneliness. He felt as if no one outside his fellow voyagers, not even his closest family, knew or fully understood what he had experienced. Only in meeting up with Buzz and other moon people did he feel understood and at peace.

This same feeling is what is felt between fellow adoptees. It is said that only another adoptee can truly understand what it is like to be adopted.

 

So, I wish to say hello to you, my fellow Moon People, and welcome to a place where you will find others who truly understand.