Adopted Black Girl

I’m a writer at heart.

Like… I mean a true writer.

I find peace in pages. I always have. There’s something about being still and letting the thoughts in the veins of my heart spill out. I grew up in a corner writing down my emotions because I was afraid to feel them out loud.

Now let me be clear — my home was nice. It was comfortable.

But I always felt like I had to perform, like I had to put on a show.

And the wild part?

I grew up to realize my adoptive mom didn’t even want a show.

She just wanted me to be myself.

She instilled kindness and positivity in me — things that still carry me today. But what she couldn’t prepare me for were the moments when adulthood broke my heart… the days I felt abandoned… the nights I cried until my eyes burned.

And still, somehow, I smiled.

Even when I felt held together by stitches.

I’m a writer, you see, because writing saved me.

It started as a hobby. I always said I didn’t want to monetize it. But now I feel like my story is meant to be told. I write the things I can’t say out loud. I live in posts and paragraphs because my brain… my brain moves like zigzag, zigzag, zigzag.

And if you’re still reading this — thank you.

I know this feels different from what I usually write, but I need you to know something:

I have so many feelings inside me that I want to get out.

I just want to live.

And there are so many adopted Black girls like me… just trying to get through it. We grow up into women and people start diagnosing us with ADHD, ADD, and a thousand other names — but really? We just want to feel our hearts. We just want to be ourselves.

I’m a writer because the page is the only place I’ve ever truly felt seen.

Blank canvases waiting for me, letting me shape the world the way I feel it.

And I want to be seen.

Writing makes that possible.

From my dimly lit writing corner,

Teisha