Do You Know What Love Is? / Part 2

For my whole life I was told love means one mother gave me away and another mother purchased me.

Yeah it sounds cold to say “purchased” except that is actually what happened.

Do you know what love is?

I am supposed to feel loved by the abandonment from my birth mom.

Do you know what love is?

I am supposed to feel loved by the transaction between my birth country and my parents.

Is that love?

A mom who gives away the daughter she had inside her? The mom who paid for her daughters separation from her first mom?

I don’t think you know what love is, Adoption. You say you are all about love.

I love my baby so I give her to you.
I love your baby so I take her from you.

I’m adopted, Adoption. I don’t feel the love you tell me to feel. I feel sad about being abandoned. I feel sad about being purchased. I just want to feel real love like a regular person. I can only see love through an adoptee lens and there are too many scratches and cracks to know what is real.

Please don’t try to tell me how loved I am, Adoption. Your definition of love doesn’t make sense in my brain and it makes me feel like something is wrong with me. Nothing is wrong with me. Something is wrong with you, Adoption.

Read Part 1: Dear Adoption, Why is it So Hard?

THIS PIECE WAS SUBMITTED ANONYMOUSLY BY A 16 YEAR OLD ADOPTEE FROM SOUTH KOREA.