Many things are going on.
Mainly in myself.
Big things that are happening.
And I am starting to understand it is getting time.
Finally not running out of it anymore.
Just saying this to myself.
It was that when I was in that place where I was feeling that I wasn’t fitting in.
Watching my surroundings.
Something I was writing in my story ‘the box of love’.
A start of finding that place I belong.
But of course, that started much earlier already.
However an end is what is now near.
And it felt like a beginning.
There is no difference.
That is the point.
It is where I am connecting the dots, which marks the ending of things.
I feel grateful, to feel that.
I know people will start to get to know me.
Not just for the sake of myself.
Because there is no point in that.
But what I have done and found.
To become who I am.
That I took a different course in life.
Because there wasn’t a choice.
There was the point of no return.
Not able to go home.
Bound to stay in a system that I never choose or agreed on.
Being adopted.
And everything that comes with that.
But of course I couldn’t know.
Not blaming myself, for things that happened outside of myself.
However it did have a big impact on me as such.
Being invisible due to that system and the road to leave was harsh and cold.
People telling me I was ungrateful for leaving my adoptive parents.
Taking their side, before I even had said anything.
‘Because they were providing me clothes, food and a roof’, is what I was told.
Sounds like a good story.
Just mocking here, what they were telling.
But did my adoptive parents provide me with love and care?
I have asked myself.
Many times.
Or was it just for their own sake?
To tell the outside world how good they are?
Then what is the worth of these basic necessities they provided?
I will leave that up for you to decide.
Something I thought about a lot.
To make me a scapegoat to put all their dirt on?
An easy victim to blame?
It is something I am not identifying with.
But it was something that I had to become.
It is a past I am not living anymore.
Or leaving behind just now.
I believe I am beautiful from the inside.
And I am sure people still have their opinion clear.
Or just some fears that are still haunting me.
I find it funny that people always know it better, when never being in my shoes.
Not giving me space to tell my story.
Telling me what to do, instead.
Advising me on things I didn’t ask for.
Taking my space, filling it with their own incapacities.
Or just that they think they can say everything they feel like.
Simply because I was put in a box that was never mine.
A huge block in my life, you can say.
Being an adopted child.
A problem I needed to solve, for myself.
I went to speak to a doctor, that I wasn’t feeling good about my adoptive parents.
They said that this happens more often with adoptive children.
Like I opposed this on myself.
I hope you can feel how that made me feel.
I will give you a minute to think about that.
But it wasn’t just the doctor.
I can’t even count the times this was said to me.
‘Friends’, or random people I barely knew.
Like it wasn’t something real and I shouldn’t make a big fuss about it.
Not listening to what I was saying.
Keeping me bound to the adoptive system, giving me a feeling I couldn’t get out.
While I had the courage to speak up and actually said what I was feeling.
So I decided to stop talking.
It gave me space, where another path was opening.
It is that I started to dream of a world where there was peace and companionship.
And I don’t have to explain to anyone why I left.
However I was just choosing my own way.
Finding out what was right for me.
That was my choice.
What is making me happy and how it is I feel about that.
Needles to say, it was a dark place I was in.
Not knowing exactly where to go.
Since all roads to go home were blocked.
My real parents who died and my birth country I can only go on a tourist visa.
Also that place to develop and become, was not provided by my adoptive parents.
They wanted me to be something I wasn’t.
And when I refused to be that someone, by not acting that way (not even on purpose).
They became very mad.
It kept me disabled, so I wouldn’t try again.
I can’t tell if that was truly their intention.
This is just my story I am telling.
It made me very sad and afraid from the inside.
One wanted me to only have straight eights in school and perform the best in sports.
The other said I didn’t have to go to school, if I didn’t want to.
‘Dropping out was an option’, so to speak.
But I think it was said, for one of them to say : ‘You see she is a failure’.
‘Told you so from the beginning, I was right’.
It was leaving me so confused and growing on me the fear of failure.
Perhaps even more things I can’t come up with.
I had to be at both ends at the same time.
Just being myself was not an option.
Nor was it ever.
But it did become an option, whenever I made that choice to be myself.
To come back, I did finish my education.
A Masters degree in Social Science.
An interest of my own in European Politics, led me to an exchange in Brussels, even made it work in the European Parliament.
I did pay for own education.
In case you wonder.
To find out it wasn’t a dream of my own.
Just the vortex of one of them and to prove the other person wasn’t right.
Dropping out was never an option.
At least not for myself.
It proved I had brains.
Something I could live from.
It gave me jobs later in life that I applied for.
I am really grateful I never listened to both of them.
However I never understood this competition I had to be part of.
Later I found out that it was part of the system I was living in.
You can understand, there was a lot of work to be done for me, to leave that all behind and start over again.
Starting from a point of love.
Their words were making my life hard, giving me the feeling I wasn’t good enough.
One of them even told me I had mental problems and that ‘taking pills is just ok’.
Saying this when nobody was around, to make sure that I wasn’t going to spill the dirt.
Being open about how this person truly is.
Some kind of powerplay I was too young to understand.
I only found out about this later in life, when I had the time to investigate.
When I was making remarks about it, they said ‘things happen in the best families’.
Like it was ‘nothing bad’ they were doing.
Using it as an excuse to continue with their behavior.
Making me feel so insecure about basically nothing.
A space I couldn’t live in.
I just never understood why.
Why they had to be like that.
But I figured out, a lot was coming from being an adoptee.
Where they could take some form of power.
Since nobody was there and it is widely agreed up, that adoptees behave a certain way.
A blame I was put on, and they used it without my agreement.
They could basically say and do whatever, without anyone knowing.
A silent agreement long before I ever made it to that system.
Not the place you want to end up.
Unsafe is what I call it.
I am glad I grew up.
Now I am able to express it, for anyone who just wants to read it.
I think it was the only way out.
I also think whatever happened and whatever they did and said was for their own ego.
The sad thing is that I think they really thought I was that kind of person.
Everything you can name for an adoptive child.
Even telling stories about me, behind my back.
For people to know, I wasn’t listening or behaving.
And anything else they could come up with.
Something I started to believe at some point, since I couldn’t go home.
Just another story they were telling me.
That it was unsafe and all I would find was misery.
To make sure I was going to stay in that place with them.
For their own ego.
So they could live, while I was dying inside.
Now it has become a place that I used to live.
That it wasn’t fun to be there, is an understatement.
Perhaps now people will understand better why I wanted to leave.
Or trying to make my way out of there.
Not that that is so important.
I just don’t think that is a place to call home.
A finding of my own.
I am happy I have come to a point, that I am not mad anymore.
Not mad at them, the adoptive company or the government.
I just see them as who they are.
Strangers in the dark.
That was an intense journey.
I can say.
But when I started to leave that kind of home.
I found I was left, with less than nothing.
Well that is not completely true.
They did give me something.
Misery, unworthiness and a lot of dark thoughts.
Stress I can add to that list.
Also insecurities, fears and headaches.
An unhealthy self reflection.
And a lot more things.
But that is not the point.
It was just a point I could start from.
I needed to develop everything from the start.
Thoughts and feelings.
Parts of who I am.
The problem was.
I didn’t know who I was.
Another legacy that they had given me.
By telling all these things, even in my face.
To assure that they were superior over me.
That they had the power to continue what they were doing.
It made me wonder if there was a place with less of what I already had been experiencing.
Because I was told for so long that I was someone I wasn’t.
The real turning point was when I consciously stopped doing what I was doing.
I was so tired of having to fight for my right.
Having to explain myself for no reason.
Nobody that wanted to listen.
Being someone I wasn’t, something I was feeling from the inside.
Always being put in a dark space where I had the feeling I couldn’t get out of.
I learned in high school that if you always do the same, the outcome will never change.
And this is where I based my actions on.
I started to change that.
It gave me some control over the situation.
But fun was something different.
Sometimes I was falling deep, not knowing what to do.
I figured out along the way I needed to build myself from scratch.
And I needed to find out how to do that all by myself.
Because there was nobody else around.
Another road I needed to take.
I had to take the long journey home.
Because there was no other option.
However I am glad I did it.
I guess just a part of growing up.
Or just a way I found to do it.
Now I can sleep at night.
And I feel safe in my being.
Nobody undermining me or trying to take my chair, while I am sitting there.
Now there is sunlight and I feel warm and comfortable.
But yes, I cried a lot of tears.
A world I was living in, until I choose that this is not how it is supposed to be.
The realization of the choice I have, or a choice I just created it there and then.
That there should be love and light.
Or at least people that are just nice and kind.
Something I believed in.
But I just couldn’t see it.
It was simply not in my reach.
So I had to find that place.
Something I told myself.
And it lifted me up.
I didn’t ask for many things.
Just the next best thing was good enough.
Because I was.
And then I was standing up.
A sign that it was my way out.
Becoming strong on my own, trusting in what there was and using all I have.
Even if that was just my 2 hands, my thoughts and feelings.
Packing my bags, going to all the places that represented something in myself.
Without knowing really where that was.
However I made is to Lisbon, Portugal.
A nice place to be.
Understanding who I am.
However, lonely I was.
But I told myself that was for the better.
To prevent me from falling into a gap or black hole.
And it became a platform for me to develop myself.
I started using products to grow up.
My food and fashion as a protection mechanism.
Using my jobs to develop myself.
Basing my life, by just doing.
Not an trail and error.
To have that silence and space.
And even time.
Because I found that was all I needed.
Also patience and sometimes a good laugh.
Watching a movie on Netflix.
Drinking cocktails and red wine, for me to take an Uber home.
Coffee is also something I like, but not that strong.
And don’t wake me up, because you will be sorry you did that.
To learn about myself and what was right.
Even when I didn’t even know what that was.
Making my own choices, failing miserable and then standing up afterwards.
Wiping the tears off my face.
Going left, where I should go right.
To find not all is bad, and the world is a safe place.
If I am a leader, I can’t tell.
I am still in that identifying process.
But I think I am a princess.
Because I believe it is about growing up.
Something I have done.
Outside the lines of what is common and known.
I raised myself.
Perhaps you think I am crazy, well I was already called that.
For you to know I am not bothered about you calling me anything.
That I am figuring out things in my own space and time is for sure.
Melting my heart, taking that leap.
Falling deep.
Standing on my two feet.
It all sounds about right.
And that is the journey I am continuing.
Because why should I not?
There is nobody around and it is the freedom I can take.
Most importantly, I feel better every day.
And there is enough.
In that space.
Just something positive I found about life.
That the sun is shining here.
When it rains I take my umbrella.
If there is a storm I crawl in my bed with a cup of tea until the storm passes.
And when winter comes, I put on a coat.
Following the current of the river.
Taking a deep breath.
Or just a cold shower.
So that is where I went.
For you to know the world is not that harsh and I am feeling home wherever I am.
Because I love myself.