#bastard planet

[heartfeltsuckerpunch]

I was born to be abandoned.

I’m immune to this shit.

[aboundlesswombofcultivations]

Alright, au revoir

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and what with everything that today represents, I’m gonna have to log off this website for good. I love learning and listening and interacting with everyone on here, but I need to do some of the work I would like to do and the dash is a counterproductive distraction, especially with my anxiety. I’ll be blogging on WordPress if anyone wants to stop by: Between Thursday and Friday. 

I might link them up so messaging me is still an option, (the struggle of being a historian is a belief in The Archive which means I never delete stuff) but if anyone wants to get in touch it might be best to go through WordPress, Twitter, or my personal website: http://www.megangraceharned.com/. 

I just want to let you all know that I care about you, that I’m sorry for the times when I didn’t think before I spoke, and that if you need anything I’m here. Especially for the class bastards out there if there’s any way I can support you please don’t hesitate to reach out. Particularly if you’re doing on-line dating I kind of ghost write folks profile’s these days??? For real: http://ferndate.com/  Anyways, happy to do that for folks because you all deserve love and happiness and I’m thinking it’s not a bad way to resist this spiral we’re in. 

I will be pursuing radical loving-kindness and ruthless self-preservation and I hope you will too.

Sincerely, 

Megan Grace

[aboundlesswombofcultivations]

Catching up!

Hello again! I've missed you all while I've been away but I'm back for a moment to share some exciting news and reflect on some recent events. First the fun stuff! I may have mentioned a while back that my birthmother had two more children after me and my two younger brothers. The two after us are our half-siblings and I've wondered about them for quite a while but didn't quite have enough information or resources to pursue finding them. Fortunately, one found me! I've recently, within the past week, been able to connect with my half sister Angela, who was also adopted and grew up in the city we were all born in. She and my brothers just barely missed going to the same high school! It's exciting to be able to connect with another young woman I'm related too. She's real brave, having just walked up to her birthfather house to introduce herself out of the blue, which led her to connecting with my birth father, Paul, who then put us in touch. All that in a matter of days! I'm looking forward to continuing to get to know her, and she and I are going to try and find a picture of our birthmother, and maybe even our youngest sibling, together. On top of that, I signed up and was just notified that I'll recieved one of the complimentary DNA kits for adoptees that were going around a few months back I hope those of you who would be interested saw that news and were able to put your name in for one. I'll be excited to share the results when I get them. Finally, I have some somewhat self critical thoughts about the nature of the "adoptee community" in light of the murder of Devante Hart and his siblings by one of their adoptive mothers. Since I haven't been on here in a while I haven't followed any of the conversation that's already played out so I apologize if I end up repeating a refrain that's already played out. I just feel like considering the conversation we had when the picture of Devante hugging that officer wherein folks identified a situation that represented the issues we talk about but we stopped there. At least it seems to me that we stopped at talking about what it represented instead of going further and addressing the suspicion that the picture brought up. That a child was growing up in a coercive environment. That a black child adopted by white lesbians was being used as a means to their political ends. Perhaps I'm remembering incorrectly but was there a discussion about what we could do to address those suspicions that were so unfortunately well founded. I live in Portland, OR. Which is not far from where they lived in WA. I attended a remembrance gathering for him and his siblings. I saw people who were part of the festival scene who had met the family. I heard them say they thought the family was "cute" and I heard their fear to suggest that a LGBT family might end up being abusive because it's bad press for the cause. Welp my adoptive mother is a lesbian herself so I'm here to say that any family of any demographic can be shitty, neglectful, even abusive, and that no ones sexuality has anything to do with the quality of parenting any of us get. I'm getting a bit astray but my point here is that we can't buy into or support these "aesthetics" more than we do people. I'm taking this on myself because surely I could have reached out to someone else in Portland and maybe managed to find a way to connect with that family. I dont know what could have happened. I just know I didn't try. I just remember the question of trying never arising. So that's I guess what I'm trying to challenge myself and this adoptee community to focus on. Using all these connections to try and help the people who are living these struggles in real time. Pursuing the legal side of the adoption and foster industries is so important, but not all of us can do that. I'm struggling to imagine if I can pursue that. But I know I can pursue relationships and I know we can use social media to find novel ways to connect those who want to help with those who might need help. I apologize if that's not as coherent as it could be. I've been ruminating on this for some time now and wanted to get it off my chest. Would love to hear how you all are and ymany thoughts on this too. But if you're not in the mood then let me conclude with something a bit lighter. I've been watching the newest episodes of QEfSG. The original series got me through a pretty isolated time during high school so I really love the show. Here's my question just for funsies: Is Queer Eye for the Straight Guy the purest good capitalism has ever produced? Yes or no and why??? Xoxoxoxoxo

[adopteefractaltheory]

Are there any other adoptees out of their from LGBTQ homes, maybe particularly single parent homes but not necessarily, that feel as though their parent(s) is/are kind of re-inscribing their own break with their family onto you?

Like, I’ve just been thinking about how when I’ve tried to talk about my birth father with my mom, how she can’t seem to get past her own issues with her step-father (my grandfather), and how it feels like there’s this sort of sub-textual feeling that I ought to feel the same way about Paul. 

I mean, I’m obviously sympathetic to the LGBTQ narrative of building a family with the people you find after you’re kicked out/rejected, but the particular way it feels forced onto me as an adoptee makes me uncomfortable. Anyone else?

[adopteefractaltheory]

For fun I thought I’d tell you why I chose this icon. I’ve always really enjoyed tree of life imagery, so when I was searching for a new icon I went looking for tree fractals. I like this one in particular because it’s a little more fleshed out than some of the similar examples. The lines are thicker and there’s more color. Also I like how it’s asymmetrical. That’s important to me. The idea of asymmetric growth, asymmetric beauty, diverging from the idealized norm are all present for me in this image. As well as the asymmetry that comes from the discontinuity of adoption, and the asymmetric families adoption creates. The connections we’ve lost, but that remain in an abridged form, even when we go searching for re-connections, and how that new growth is still not the same as what could have been; how that search for roots can affect other branches of growth. Leaves might wither, but all things have their season and they may well grow back. Sometimes we have to let go of hoping for new growth on a certain branch, or even learn to live with a dead branch. There are times we have to let a branch fall altogether, to make room for an unimaginable spring. I also wanted a fractal tree of life to celebrate our complex genealogies, relationships, and histories. Adoption is for life, as are growth and beauty, and I wanted an icon that I felt could hold all those ideas together and more in a single glance, but what with being a fractal, could also inspire close looking of the kind I intend to do here. 

Would love to hear what other adoptees out think of this asymmetrical fractal tree of life imagery, if anyone wants to riff?

[adopteefractaltheory]

Adoptee Fractal Theory

“The whole is similar in structure to the structure of its component parts, usually”

“Names are already pretty fractal-y, given that for most people, there’s a good chance you are named after someone in your family.”

The above lines are the texts I got from a new friend, when I was explaining all my names, that are the inspiration for the reboot of my personal adoption blog. Thanks to @bastardplanet for the help in making this space private from my birth father, who has been trying to police how I talk about my life. 

For example, telling me about how feels about me referring him as my birth father given that I don’t have an adoptive father. Like you can have your feelings about it but it’s my fucking prerogative so stay in your lane and out of my tumblr!

Anyways, I’ll be putting my personal reflections on being adopted, being in contact - and the accompanying disillusionment - here, along with personal wrangling with the structural implications of adoption today, and its historical precedents. 

In no way should anything I write about the latter topic be taken as ‘correct’, from an ‘authority’, or be used to invalidate other adoptees’ experiences. This is a place for my personal reflection and learning. If you’re interested in joining me at all in those goals then I’m happy to get messages or respond to respectful reblogs. If you’re wondering what respectful means, first start by asking if you’re being thoughtful. We’ve all mouthed off before thinking before, but that’s no reason to keep doing it. 

If you’re reblogging anything here to shit on adoptees or cast doubts as to the complexities of adoption today and historically then GTFO now. 

[heartfeltsuckerpunch]

Awkward moment when your adoptive mother shows her racists tendencies. .......and The plot thickens lol

[heartfeltsuckerpunch]

Being transracial means constantly fighting to defend your heritiage. Wether it’s from my own family or strangers. Let me tell ya, that shit gets so exhausting. I know who I am. I know “what” I am. It’s no one’s place to erase my identity. Especially not bio spawn assholes.