Explaining the concept of love to an adopted child.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what love means to me.

Here is something for those who have adopted children.

These are some of my thoughts about learning about love from my adoptive family... 

Growing up, my adoptive mother stressed that "love is trust and trust is love". She talked often about how real Love is a type of trust that means someone will be there for you when things get hard. I realized yesterday, that statements like these hurt me as an adoptee, much more than they helped.

Although, I believe my adoptive mother's intentions were most likely good, it isn't a helpful thing to tell an adoptee whose birth parents weren't able to be there for them when things got hard, that love is equal to trusting someone to be there for you.

Statements like this I think made me feel like...

Maybe I am not lovable enough for my original parents to have stuck around during the hard times. 

Maybe I'm not worth it.

Here's an old painting, from 12 years ago, right before I found my birth father. It's funny how things change, and how art can be a reflection of what life once felt like. 

Maybe I'm not worth loving when things get hard.

I learned that on a subconscious level from my adoptive mom, that love is like a contract, and if you break it, you must not really love me. If you aren't there for me, you must not love me. And if I make a mistake and I'm not there for you, you must not love you enough.

Now I see that the version of love I grew up with left little no room for people to be human.

People make mistakes, and sometimes people can't be there for one another, but that doesn't mean they don't love each other.

In this world, there are all sorts of love.

And trying to wrap up something as big as love into a small memorable phrase, well it seems like it will only bind the truth of it all into a bundle of limitations.

I think worst of all, I grew up believing that I must not have been loved as a baby because my birthfamily wasn't there for me (later I found out that my relinquishment was against my birth father's wishes, and if he could've kept me, he would've).

But growing up hearing over and over that love is equal to being there, really hurt, and in a way, it locked me into an unhealthy belief that until I was adopted maybe I wasn't lovable at all.

I've realized over time that real love for me is about acceptance.

Accepting someone as they are, and loving them not for who you wish them to become or who they once were, just as they are today.

In a world filled with expectations, what greater gift could you give to someone than to embrace them as they are. To love them free of judgement and full of room to be human.

I used to think love was about giving 110% all the time, but now I see that love is all about accepting someone when they have days where they only feel like giving 35%, and other days they give 200%.

It's about being human, and not about unhealthy expectations.