I am adopted. No, I was not born in a different country. No, I do not speak many different languages. And no, I do not know my birth parents. These are the questions I get when someone finds out that I am adopted. Some of us (adoptive children), the lucky ones I would say, were adopted before being put in the foster system and into different orphanages. My story is somewhat different from others you may have heard. I was given to my adoptive parents three days after I was born. I have no idea who my birth mother or father is. But yet, I am told all the time how special I am because of being adopted. Don’t get me wrong; I am well aware and so thankful for being adopted. But that does not change how my stomach turns every time someone asks me where I come from. The feeling of not knowing where I came from or if I am where I truly belong is the scariest feeling I have known.

Have you ever been picked last to be on a kickball team in P.E? Have your friends gone to the movies and not invited you? These are situations where you can feel unwanted. The feelings are simple yet so powerful. These sad thoughts have clouded my head since I was able to comprehend words. How scary it is to know that someone, maybe two people, did not want me? It is like being left out of a group. The feeling digs deep into a pit of emptiness in my stomach. I cannot fathom giving up a child, and I can only hope that my birth mother did it for the right reasons, for my sake.

“Getting used” to the feeling of being unwanted might be a way to help some people, but that did not help me. I grew over time. When I was little, I did not comprehend the feeling of being unwanted. I just thought that things happen for a reason and I got lucky. As I got older, I became angry that someone could allow me to feel so lonely and bad about myself. Until recently, I have still felt angry, but I tried to understand it better. Eventually, I taught myself that there are some things we can control and there are some things that we cannot. Being happy and trying not to think about what other people is something that took me a lot to learn. It did not help me get over the feeling of being unwanted, but it made me understand it more. I came to realize that there were so many possible reasons that my birth parents had to give me up. That maybe I was wanted, but it was not the right time for them. I had to take my feelings out of the situation and pretend it was me making decisions. That made me truly understand my past and my understanding of what it means to be unwanted.

Just because you might have been picked last on the team does not mean that you were not wanted on that team. Maybe the captains didn't even realize you were there until the very end or maybe there was a specific strategy to adding you onto the team. If you did not get invited to the movies, maybe it was because your friend thought you had something to do with family. Do not count yourself out because you feel unwanted; remind yourself that there are so many answers to your feelings. Unwanted is defined as not being wanted or needed. However, remind yourself that you create those feelings and you are the only one who can grow away from the darkness.