As a kinship adoptee, it took me a really long time to be able to hear my family of origin—to truly understand my family tree and make peace with the reality that environment and parental choices altered so much of my early learning.
The hardest part of forgiving my parents was understanding why they made the choices they did. Once I understood, I didn’t have an excuse to stay angry anymore. Choosing anger was easy; moving past it was a challenge.
If you’re adopted, I feel like you get what I’m saying. You know what it’s like to carry a deep, quiet rage and feel like it should just keep burning forever. Unless someone has walked in your exact shoes, they don’t fully get it. Many of us are frustrated not just by a lack of access to our origins, but by the lack of empathy from people who’ve never experienced this. It makes it tough to share your story, ask for help, or be open when you feel like you get shut down every time you try.
It took immense inner work to get to a place where I could ask the hard questions. Placing myself in spaces like a family reunion, a church service, or a cookout—where I could talk to elders not out of anger, but out of a genuine desire to understand—was a major turning point.
I just came back from a family reunion in North Carolina for the family my great-grandmother married into. I was finally ready to receive that history. I discovered my 2x and 4x great-grandmothers and traced our origins back to Maryland. I learned they owned land, were crafters, and passed down an incredible work ethic and creative spirit. Seeing that pride reflected in my generation at 32 years old is wild—but it’s proof of what’s possible.
If I had kept carrying that rage into my 30s, I never would have discovered who my family really was.
Adoption is complex, and kinship adoption adds its own unique layers of nuance. You don’t know what to ask, who to ask, or how to ask it. But there comes a day when you leave asking “perfectly” behind and simply place yourself where the answers flow naturally.
I know people have made you feel guilty for asking questions about your story.
I know you sometimes feel like you don’t belong.
But I want you to know: you do. One day, you’ll stand where I’m standing—getting answers, forgiving your past self for how you felt back then, and holding immense pride in the generations you came from.
So go forth, ask the questions you need to ask. forgive and receive.
From my writing corner with love,
Teish
Adopted Black Girl 