Adoption is absurd. Yes! There's a film I once heard about, don't know what it is , but the idea was so resonant to me. It's an old Soviet film (if it even exists) where a man goes to work in an anonymous factory, returns home to his anonymous identikit flat and has dinner with hi s family. Except he hasn't noticed he's walked into the identical flat next door and this is a different wife and child. Now that's absurd, right? But that happened to us! And the man apparently continues his life as I'd he hasn't noticed that he's moved next door, and nothing much changes. I guess it made all sorts of cultural and political points about totalitarian comununist Russia, but to me it also speaks of the absurdity of adoption, and perhaps there's some intersection between the brutality of a very invasive state system and ideology , as was soviet Russia, and the level of legal intrusion and Big Brother Knows Best-ness that is and was imposed on us adopted people ?
"What makes the predicament difficult is that it is absurd, and it is very hard to live in an absurd reality."
Which is a lifetime, ongoing emotional and social reality for us. It's not enough to engage with the Primal Wound or to open the birth records, though those actions are badly needed. A full understanding of plenary adoption, in all its absurd predicaments and realities, requires addressing all of them. Clearly not enough is known publicly about what it is actually like to be an adopted person navigating internal and external absurdities on a constant basis and having to pretend all of it is not only normal, but a wonderful thing for which we're eternally grateful.
Adoption is absurd. Yes! There's a film I once heard about, don't know what it is , but the idea was so resonant to me. It's an old Soviet film (if it even exists) where a man goes to work in an anonymous factory, returns home to his anonymous identikit flat and has dinner with hi s family. Except he hasn't noticed he's walked into the identical flat next door and this is a different wife and child. Now that's absurd, right? But that happened to us! And the man apparently continues his life as I'd he hasn't noticed that he's moved next door, and nothing much changes. I guess it made all sorts of cultural and political points about totalitarian comununist Russia, but to me it also speaks of the absurdity of adoption, and perhaps there's some intersection between the brutality of a very invasive state system and ideology , as was soviet Russia, and the level of legal intrusion and Big Brother Knows Best-ness that is and was imposed on us adopted people ?
I love this comparison, and now I want to figure out what film it is!
"What makes the predicament difficult is that it is absurd, and it is very hard to live in an absurd reality."
Which is a lifetime, ongoing emotional and social reality for us. It's not enough to engage with the Primal Wound or to open the birth records, though those actions are badly needed. A full understanding of plenary adoption, in all its absurd predicaments and realities, requires addressing all of them. Clearly not enough is known publicly about what it is actually like to be an adopted person navigating internal and external absurdities on a constant basis and having to pretend all of it is not only normal, but a wonderful thing for which we're eternally grateful.
Exactly. I’m planning to connect all this to the concept of gratitude in subsequent writing.