Heather @ PNR has posted the most recent addition to the OA Roundtable (we’re on eight of them already!!!) so I’ll try to post my most recent addition! (Older contributions to OART found here).

This week’s prompt:

Write about a blogger (or bloggers) who influenced your real-life open adoption, and how. It might be someone who became an offline friend who supports and challenges you. Or a writer from a different perspective who makes you uncomfortable, but gets you thinking. Maybe a blogger who doesn’t even know you are reading. Tell us about them and how they’ve affected you.

I started blogging before I even read blogs. I perused the occasional blog here and there, but basically my introduction to blogging was my own writing. I was using this as my journal – as my outlet – as a place to figure out what in the hell was going on sometimes.

There’s no “how-to” guidebook on being a first Mom.

And I sure as heck haven’t found one about how to be a Safe Haven using first Mom that ended up in an open adoption when she had no idea what she was getting herself into!

Some of the blogs that I latched onto, in the beginning especially, came from people that commented on my posts. Or from the links I found on the blogs of people that commented on my posts. I wasn’t  the most….er…..techie blogger there was. I didn’t “get” GoogleReader (and let’s face it, today I’m not that much better) and I didn’t search for adoption blogs.

But I remember finding Coco.

Posts like her Open Letter to Adoptive Parents, made me realize that it was okay to have, and to talk about my thoughts that are “sad, depressing, or even angry.”

When I felt like society didn’t know what to do with us, Coco’s words made sense to me:

We are struggling to be heard in a society that still views us as “fallen women”. It is incredibly hard and lonely to keep putting ourselves out there, day after day, knowing that there are people who are reading these thoughts and scoffing at them, at us.

I still felt lonely, but I didn’t feel alone…..

Our stories aren’t the same, but her stories made sense to me. We’ve both had those moments, holding the physical representations of our memories, and crying. We’ve both vented about similar issues and hearing her use her voice, I believe helped me to find mine.

And today, Coco doesn’t write about adoption as much. But that’s okay. Because we all ebb and flow with what we write about. That’s part of what makes her so real. And that great writing? Well that keeps me hooked whether she’s sharing a story from her past or posting hilarious/terrifying looks at advertisements from our Dark Ages.

And while she might not write about adoption constantly – the comments she’s made for me when I write about adoption? They’ve led me to email Dee when I was scared to, to think about things and deal with them when I needed to, and to be okay with who I was when I didn’t know how to.

I’ll stop now, before she thinks I’m a crazy Cyber Stalker, but there it is. Coco is an amazing blogger and was someone that I needed in order for me to get to where I am on my journey today.

 

Thanks Coco!!!