Adopting Yourself – By: Jason C. Cushman
“When I was two years old my mother left me on a street in front of a police station. In the Korean culture this was translated into the mother no longer wanting the child. I was not alone though, I later found out she left me a hand to hold onto. A five year old sister I have since searched for was also left on that street to hold my hand and wait for a mother that would never return for us. She must have had half a heart though because she did come back for my older sister later on… but left me behind. Sometimes in the night I imagine I can still feel her hand. I often wonder if she remembers me.”
This is Jason Cushman writing poignantly about his journey…I too had a close friend who was adopted and suffered intensely…finally, in his 30s, he tracked down his mother and discovered she was a teenager when she had him, in a southern town in America long long ago, when premarital sex and its consequences was considered unforgivable…i tried to track him down recently but no luck…I just hope he is okay today. Thank you, Jason, for sharing your story with us. You are so fortunate to have been been adopted into a wonderful family…and your honesty will help many.
The ironic part about being an adoptee is that the first and final steps of our lives are the same. Just as we must accept being adopted in the first place, we must also accept ourselves for who we are in the end. That acceptance, that journey, can take a lifetime to occur and not all adoptees ever fully accept who they are. Those people caught between the want of “what ifs” and the “hard place of reality” never fully live life as they should because they are stuck living half their life with regret. I have known that place myself and can recount times in my childhood when I wished for anything but what was real. I wished to be someone else.
Adopting yourself is a lot easier when you know where you came from. You have a starting point and regardless whether that position in life is a…
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