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"The
Time Of Your Life"
Standing there
on a road that leads to anywhere
Like a child left in the wilderness, standing there penniless
Wanting to be the best
Here's
a place where life runs at a different pace
Where love is just convenient, none are obedient
And we are subservient
Look
at me, I'm a girl that some may preconceive
Why do they try and generalize, why are they antagonizing me
But something
I can't control that...
I
Wantcha
You know I'll never stop 'til I've gotcha
You'll never be quite the same when I rock ya
I'm not the kind
of girl that you thought I was
You'll have a good time 'cause I wantcha
I'm breaking down the walls 'till I have you,
feel you
Show you the time of your life
Here we are and I wonder how we've come this far
In a world that does
not recognize women are victimized
What does that symbolize
Why do I want the things I usually criticize
It may
be self destructiveness, or maybe it's emptiness inside
But something I can't control that...
You'll have a good time...
It's a lonely
road, and no one knows the way that I feel
I'm not giving up now... I'll never try to justify
They'll never understand,
you'll be a happy man
You'll have the time of your life
It's
something, it's something, it's something that I can't control
The time of your life...
alanis
morrissette
Sometimes love hurts.
I've done some reading about what it's like to give up a baby for adoption
and what it's like to be an adopted person. What I found out was surprising to me.
The reason I was so surprised is that I didn't ever think that someone
who had been adopted would experience so much heartache. I don't know why... maybe it's just an assumption that people make
- thinking that a person would be glad that they were adopted and not abandoned. I was thinking that it must be wonderful
to be wanted and know that it wasn't an accident that you were received into a family.
But what I found out was that sometimes, most of the time, adopted people
have huge heartache in being adopted. They feel abandoned instead of feeling wanted. They want to know why their birth mother
and father gave them up for adoption. They feel hurt and insignificant and defective - like there must have been something
wrong with them - that caused the birth parents to give them up.
  Adoption: An Act of Love
08.21.00
For
years, one of the biggest barriers to overcome in adoption was that birth parents could never see their child after she or
he was placed. This is no longer the case. When a child is placed for adoption today, the birth parents and adoptive parents
often make an agreement that they will share information, pictures, and visits with each other. This is called openness. Openness
occurs in varying degrees depending on each situation, but some level of openness is almost always involved in today's adoption
plans.
In recent years, openness has allowed birth parents to come out of the shadows
and to be recognized for the courageous gift they've given to both the adoptive parents and the child. Openness has also allowed
birth parents to feel better about their decision because they get the chance to show the love
they feel for that child in a physical and material way through letters, photographs, gifts, and visits.
The following is a letter written from a birth mother to the adoptive parents she chose. The two families are
in an open relationship.
When I first found out I was pregnant,
I wondered ... why me? Why now? I was doing well in school, and my social life was at full force. My pregnancy angered and frustrated me. I knew that this meant that some of the things I enjoyed doing all of the time would have to be put on hold for a while.
I knew that if I decided to raise my baby myself, returning to school would have to be put off for a while. I knew that the
wonderful feeling of freedom I was experiencing would have to come to a stop. And being only 20 years old, I felt as though
I was too young to have to give these things up.
Learning
more about adoption and how it is an act of love comforted me and my family, but questions
still arose in my mind. After thinking about it, I really understood that I couldn't give my child the kind of life I wanted
him or her to have, and I decided to place my baby for adoption.
I
have told you both that I trust you to make decisions for this child's life, and I do. He will have the best role models to follow in the two of you. I have
been preparing for this day as much as one possibly can. And I am still unsure of what my feelings will be after today. One
feeling I know will never change is being certain that this is the best decision for me and for my baby. I know that when
I place this child into your arms and watch you walk away, his wonderful life will already be beginning. So, when we leave
today there will be no need to say goodbye — we will see each other soon, and this
child will have so many people to love him as the years go by. A beautiful future is waiting
for all of us, and I am excited to share it with all of you.
With great love,
Sabrina
Today, Sabrina is achieving her goals and attending
school. Her relationship with her son, Aaron, and his family is a very positive, open relationship. Sabrina is still coming
to grips with what it means to be a birth parent and the losses that come with it, but more importantly, she is constantly
reminded that she made the best decision for everyone when she decided to place her child for adoption. Here are her own reflections
on what it means to be a birth parent:
My son was born on January 6, 2000. Even though
it has been almost six months since that time, it still feels like yesterday. Although it was difficult for me to place my
son with another family after "parenting" him for nine months in my womb, I'm still confident that
it was the best decision for all of us.
The many pictures I receive from his adoptive
family are wonderful. And when I hold him in my arms, change his diapers, feed him his cereal, and occasionally give him a
bath, I know that these are the things that make being a birth parent so unique.
I'm sure many people look at me and wonder how I could have given up my child after
carrying him to term. I wish people could understand how much strength and love it takes
to make that decision. We birth parents are people who wanted more for our child than we could give, and we were strong enough
and selfless enough to face that fact. We looked ahead to the future, and I'm sure for most birth parents being pregnant at
this time of life was not exactly what we had dreamed of.
When
I see him now with his new family, it cleanses me of my sadness. It makes me live one day at a time, doing the things that make me happy. Being a full-time student and working in the human service field are both things that are helping me to reach my goals.
But the goal that's most important to me is seeing my son happy. And knowing that my son will know who I am and that the reason he was placed with his family was because I loved him so much.
I'm thankful for so many things — my life, my family, my personality, my strength, and most importantly,
my gift of a child given to two angels who will see to it that he grows into a man.
"Feel Your Love"
Baby, I've got this thing for you
I'm thinkin'
there's somethin' goin' on now
A wicked imagination
A serious kind of somethin' new
It's drivin' me right out of
my mind now
It's gotta be desperation
Can't feel no pain when I'm thinking about you
Dreamin' isn't black and white
Can't make no gain 'til my vision c-comes true
Give it
to me like I'd like to give it to you
Love I wanna feel your love
Right from the bottom of my heart to your hands
(now baby now) Love
I wanna feel your love
You know this waitin' for you boy I can't stand
Bein' just
who you wanna be and doin' whatever
comes to mind now
I gotta get information
Never knew what to do with you
You're givin' me sometin' to hold on to
My newest infatuation
"People
Power" means I gotta believe you
Can't you hear the voices callin'
Keep your flowers cause their colour will turn blue
Give
it to me like I'd like to give it to you
Love I wanna feel your love
Right from the bottom of your heart to your
hands
(now baby now) Love I wanna feel your love
You know this waitin'
for you boy I can't stand
alanis morissette
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"No
Apologies"
Whenever we talk about sun all I see is the rain
It's like looking for tears in a ocean
I'm hearing
your words like the wind
They blow straight through my heart
Will you ever give in to emotion
And we hurt the
ones that we love the most
Why we do only heaven knows
And
I don't know why I'm still holding on...holding on
I
reach in my heart to see
If your love is alive in me
But now I feel alone
My feelings turn to stone
My heart makes
no apologies
When an apology's made it isn't always
enough
To erase all the past in a moment
Whenever I need you the most
You always leave me behind
With a word from
your lips I'm alone
You've been blind not to realize
All
the love that I hold inside
So tell me why do I keep holding on...holding on
I reach in my heart to see
If your love is alive in me
But now I feel alone
My feelings turn to stone
My
heart makes no apologies
What I need is your
sympathy
Like a light flowing into me
But I will never give up holding on...holding on
I reach in my heart to see
If your love is alive in me
But now I feel
alone
My feelings turn to stone
My heart makes no apologies
...my heart makes no apologies no no
my feelings turn to stone... I make no apologies
alanis morrissette
So I kept reading and talking to people and understanding
just what it meant to be adopted. I think I understand it. I think I can see the problems that are normal problems that teens
have, but are made more intense and more complicated because of being adopted.
I know that I don't know what it feels like
because I wasn't adopted. The reason this information is here is because I want you to understand if you are an adopted teen
that I acknowledge your pain and I want to validate your emotions and feelings and give you a sense that someone is trying
to understand you.
Adopted Teens Face Unique Challenges
By Christina C., 18, Staff Writer
Originally Published: Feb 24, 2004
Revised: Oct 25, 2006
When asked how he feels about being adopted, Bill, a 17-year-old New Jersey teen who
was adopted from Bogota, Columbia, remembers an incident at elementary school in America.
“Our teacher taught us to draw self-portraits with crayons after looking in the
mirror. I drew mine with brown skin, and a kid asked why my mommy had white skin. I replied, ’She just does,’”
says Bill.
That was the end of a small discussion between two preschool children,
but the beginning of a larger issue that will always be a significant part of Bill’s life as an adopted teen.
Growing up is a difficult process for all teenagers, and being adopted, inter-racially
or otherwise, only adds to one’s emotions. All teens struggle every day with who they are, their place in the world,
and how they are supposed to mature in a “socially responsible” way without compromising
their inner selves. Adopted teens can face additional challenges when dealing with these tough issues.
There are many different types of adoption: open and closed, international
and domestic, each of which has different laws and privileges governing its practices.
Open adoption provides the child with every available record of his
or her birth parents, while closed adoption allows the adoptee to see records of his or her parents only
after he or she turns 18. International adoption is faster for adopting parents, because many more foreign children
need homes. Domestic adoptions occur just within the country’s borders.
Questions Remain
Many argue that if you are nurtured in a loving
environment, it doesn’t matter who your birth parents are or were. But adoptees inevitably question their past
and the reasons for their adoption.
“I think about my birth parents every day. I want to
meet them one day, and even though I know there’s always the possibility of heartbreak, I’m willing to take that
risk to discover who I could’ve been,” says Lauren O’Donnell, 16, of Ridgewood, NJ.
“Birth parents occupy an important place in an adopted person’s
life throughout every stage in his or her being,” explains Ronny Diamond, director of post-adoption resources at Spence-Chapin
Adoption Service, in New York City.
It’s natural for a teen to feel a sense of loss whenever a
significant family relationship is missing from his or her life - whether it’s with a birth
parent or a grandparent. If a teen grows up without a grandparent, he or she will wonder about the loss of that relationship.
Adopted teens go through similar feelings of wonder and loss about their birth parents, according to Diamond.
“It’s not only the loss of the actual person but, more
importantly, it’s the loss of the experience of having that relationship that can make
an individual upset. The death or absence of a birth parent, even a parent who didn’t acknowledge any relation to an
adoptee, is a loss within itself - a loss of a dream and loss of an image,” says Diamond.
Adopted teens can also face additional challenges with puberty and sexuality.
“They have no markers or time frames around life-cycle events,
such as the age of onset of menstruation, eventual height, start of
facial hair growth (for a boy), etc.,” explains Diamond.
“Biological parents are the best indicators of these events,
and adopted teens can feel very anxious about not knowing what to expect.”
Some adopted teens can even feel confused about their eventual reproductive abilities.
“On the one hand, they can think their birth parents are ’super
fertile,’ but on the other hand, they can think their adoptive
parents are infertile,” she explains.
The challenge for many adopted teens is to discover where they fit
between the two extremes.
Talking It Out
While growing up adopted can
be emotionally challenging for some teens, it can also present difficulties for their parents. It is important for parents
and teens to communicate in any relationship, but in an adopted relationship, open lines of discussion are vital for all involved.
At first, Lauren and her dad
were uncomfortable talking about how he adopted her and their feelings about the adoption.
“I used
to be kind of sensitive to the topic, and I kept my feelings
bottled up, except for short conversations with friends. Recently I began talking a lot to my dad. Our conversations helped
us discover feelings that we never knew existed between us. I feel so much better talking with him than I do with my
friends, because he and I are in this together,” says Lauren.
From conversations with
adopted teens, it seems clear that adopted parents
love
exactly the same way as birth parents. Bill captures the essence of adoption when he says, “I think I appreciate my
parents more than most kids my age, because they’ve given me everything in the world - by their own choice. I wouldn’t
have it any other way.”
source site: click here
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Homer: Bart, with $10,000,
we'd be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of useful things like...love!
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