September Perfect Post

Jump to Comments

Perfect Post may be found at Suburban Turmoil and Petroville.
I joined “Perfect Post” b/c I found some inspiring and well-written blog posts last month. I already had one or two in mind to give the award to (by the same author, mind you) and then she wrote this:

We’re sorry, the number you have dialed cannot be reached by this method…

Thordora wrote this exploration of her identity as an adoptee to answer question from her readers (myself included) about the topic. In the entry, she writes a little about growing up with the tag “adoptee.” Her parents had a receipt they used to say that she could be returned if she were naughty (Thordora cost $8.75, which is about $27 today, with inflation and appreciation figured in).

She then wrote about her curiosity and daydreams, which I shared. Thordora wrote about how “Heritage Days” was “hell for me, because I did not know WHO I was.” I had the same feelings and problems when asked to write family trees for social studies class and during the great Pride in Irish-American Heritage surge in the early 1990s. As Thordora wrote, “For a girl raised to be a history buff, it was painful and irritating. I watched my schools be so careful to be inclusive to everyone, and yet I had the choice to either sit and watch or pretend my adoptive family’s history was my own.”

Then Thordora got The Call. Thanks to ParentFinders, her borth mother had found her and wanted to speak to her and would that be okay? My experience was getting The E-mail. Ah, technology! But the sentiment and the emotion is the same. Thordora wrote: “Is anyone ever prepared for that phone call? Hi, we found your PAST, would you like to talk to it?”

She goes on to write about the awkwardness of the subsequent contact and about how it eventually dropped off to nothing. She acknowledged that she & her birth mother didn’t get along very well, that her birth mother had “expectations.” Apparently Thordora didn’t fit her fantasy of long-lost daughter.

The remainder of the post has a certain sadness about it but not regret or “woe is me.” Thordora is never one to wallow in self-pity. She says, Here’s how it is. Here’s what I think. Here’s how I feel. Life goes on. It’s part of the reason I find even her most simple posts to be compelling: they’re all main course, rarely a fluffy dessert or amuse bouche among them. This post fits that mold.

I picked this post over the others b/c it speaks to me personally. I identify with her story, her emotion and her experience. While it’s not identical to my own, it connects my experience and that’s one of the main reasons I read the blogs I do: connection.

So of all the posts I read last month, I felt this one was the most perfect and I wanted to share it with others. Hence, the perfect post award. Congrats Thordora; you deserve it

7 Comments

Filed under Perfect Post