Adjusting Focus

The theme of my blog this year, my motto, is "Bloom." This year is to help me figure out what the heck my life means post-mission. As the middle of the year is here, I'm coming to understand a lot more about myself, about what I believe, and what I want to do with all of that. For my group therapy practice class, we were asked to do something that makes us uncomfortable. The origin for this post mostly came out of anger and frustration, but after really thinking about it, I thought about the importance of this. And sometimes sharing these thoughts on this issue or sharing what I really honestly believe is an uncomfortable thought for me. I don't like making other people uncomfortable. I hate confrontation. But like I said, when I took a step back, I realized that I couldn't sit back anymore. Similar to a  post  I wrote over 3 years ago, I want to share my thoughts about race and respecting differences in others. I urge you to continue reading with an open mind and...

For about 12 years, I've been looking up pictures of Guatemala on the internet, taking every opportunity to do a school project on it, and reading books about the place I come from. I've stared at images of Lake Atitlan on a computer screen, I've studied the culture of my people, and I've tried to imagine myself in a place I've never physically seen. For about 12 years there's been some sort of hole in my being, a longing for a country I belong to less than I do North America. Now, after a little more than 17 years later, I returned back to my birthplace. The images on the internet, the studying, the reading, were all so different from physically being in such an amazing place. And while I would like to say it was also everything I had ever imagined over the past 12 years, it wasn't quite that way. But don't get me wrong, I still love my country and I always will. I will always have pride in the country I came from. It's an extremely culturally rich...

As I write this I want you all to know that similar to my adoption post , this post is from my perspective as not only someone who is adopted, but also someone of color. What I am about to write is from what I've experienced, and I do not speak for every adopted child, or person of color. Also like my adoption post, I would like to apologize for how wordy and perhaps not too coherent this post will be. Of course, I check to go back and edit for spelling and technical things like that, but sometimes my train of thought makes more sense to me than it does to others (sometimes... more like often). Anyway, here it goes. I've been looking for something to write, as usual, and yesterday I found my topic(s): being in between two cultures and being brown. Yesterday I went to a counseling session and one of the things I brought up was my trip to Guatemala this summer. I've had some concerns about the emotional toll that will probably take on me for the first few days I'm back ...

Eighteen years and two days ago, in a land far, far away (Guatemala), in a city, on a sunny day (I assume), I was born. Eighteen years and two days later, I'm sitting at my kitchen table reflecting on my short life. I find it amazing that somehow I've managed to make it this far, because when I was born, I didn't even have a real family, or a place to call home. For eight months I was floating around with some families, until my real one came along and adopted me. As a young kid, I was pretty horrible. I screamed, I slammed doors, I kicked walls, I punched and hit and scratched, I cried. I broke my glasses on multiple occasions out of anger. I was filled with anger and sadness. I couldn't put my feelings into words, and if I could, I would never say them out loud. When I wasn't angry, I was silent. There were times when I was fine to be around, but honestly, I don't remember too many of those times. For the majority of my life I was just confused and depres...

Before I continue on with this blog post, I just want to apologize in advance for how wordy it will most likely be and how it may sound a little disorganized. Also, the post I'm about to write is strictly from my point of view and how I feel about this topic. Obviously everyone's situations and feelings about it are different. So here it goes. After a conversation yesterday and while I was lying in bed, I started to write this blog post in my head. I guess I've never really talked about being adopted to anyone else besides my family, because there are few people who really understand what it's like. It's hard to explain the feelings and half the time I can't even put it into words and it's literally been like that my entire life. But now, I think I'm at a place in my life where I want more people to understand what it's like (and like I said before, from my point of view) to really be different from everyone around you. I was scrolling through my ...