I said I love adoption because I’ve come to the conclusion that hating adoption is the same as hating myself, and I’ve decided that before I die I’m going to love me the same way I love the sky. Without question. Purely.

I think my birth father is a hero for flying here to meet me. He owned his part in the dance. He hugged me. He is the one talking about future Thanksgivings, not me. That stuff will work itself out. But we did it. We connected the dots. And I am proud of both of us. It’s what should have happened. We are not born to be alone in the world. We are born to connect. It’s what keeps us alive. 

What I see is that when people realize they carry these limiting beliefs and laugh at how ridiculous they are, magic happens. People are amazing, and what I’ve seen, again and again, is that amazement springs from honesty. When you hit onto the truth of who you are and what you believe and what you love, you turn into light. Anything is possible.

After twenty years of teaching writing, I think the biggest hurdle a person faces in feeling free to exist on the page (and in life) is his or her mother, regardless if said mother is still breathing. People are afraid of hurting their mothers, outshining their mothers, revealing their real selves to their mothers. People can’t write because they feel they don’t fully exist since they are still so busy trying to please mothers who aren’t even alive any more.

Many things were strange today. My car drove down the 101 like it was riding waves. I pulled over and looked to see if there was a flat tire and then got back in the car and drove to Palo Alto, waiting for the engine to explode.

This is the first week of The Dream Posse and The Year of the Impossible Dreams. In order to be in fighting shape to sing with Run DMC and Aerosmith (after they say yes and after I learn to sing) I have to figure out how to 1. sleep soundly and 2. not poop my pants in public. Or anywhere.

I have decided I now live in The Year of Unreasonable Dreams. I want you to ask for more than you think you deserve, more than you think you can deliver, more than you think you can handle. I want you to scare yourself. I want you to let go of the safety bar and feel the full glory of the ride. Why? Because I want to do it myself, and I need help.

I am here to tell you there is nothing wrong with you. That if you feel shame about something, in my eyes, that means you have a story to tell. And story is opportunity, opportunity for connection, for art, for beauty. For redemption. Rebirth. Mayhem. Peace.

I’ve come to understand that I could go crazy trying to heal from adoption. The more I listen to the stories my head tells me: your mother left you; there must be something wrong with you; maybe you can get her back if you are a good girl; you will never get what you want in life because this life isn’t even really yours, the more lost and more hurt I feel.

So this is what I have started to do: I think about where I put my marbles.

No one (that I know of) is grading or ranking your turds. Why does writing get such intense evaluation? Both are forms of creation. Neither makes you special: they are just byproducts of who you are in the world. Proof that you exist.

Once in a massage class, we were given small cups of water, and we were asked to slowly lower one finger to the surface of the water, slowly, more slowly, even more slowly. What we saw was that before we touched the water, the water reached up to touch our finger.

I am going to meet my birth father in a few weeks. In adoptee language, this is a reunion. How many of you out there have had a reunion with a person you have never met?