An honest mistake – part one

I have fucked up a lot in my life. I have made many mistakes,  usually not the same mistake twice, but there are some mistakes that I seem to make over and over again. I figure that I will continue to make them as long as I need to in order to learn what they have to teach me.

Society also makes a lot of mistakes and some seem to be made over and over again. They say that if we don’t learn from history we are destined to repeat it. Well, I believe we are learning from history, but we are also repeating it. That is because society is not a monolithic hive mind. We all have different interpretations of history. We have a variety of values, experiences and blind spots. We don’t all evolve at the same rate, at the same time, or even in the same direction. We are evolving though. I believe that we are getting better. We are also finding brand new mistakes to make. That is also a sign of progress.

To put these thoughts in context, let me just relay soma couple stories from the past few days. I stopped by Club Jager for a happy hour beer and food before rehearsal on Monday. While chatting with one of the regulars I mentioned my ongoing struggles with abandonment. This reminded him of the fact that we are both adopted. While we both grew up knowing that we were adopted, we we born at a time when adoption was a very closed and secretive process.  While we grew up in relatively healthy and stable homes we grew up missing a very important aspect of our humanity. We grew up without a connection to our biological parents. We grew up feeling like something was missing, a feeling that we have never been able to overcome or resolve. This feeling is common among adoptees of the era but difficult for people who grew up with their biological parents to comprehend or relate to.

Fortunately, adoption has come out of the shadows in the years since my friend and I were adopted. Society has learned from the trauma caused by closed adoption and now adopted children are able to have a connection with their birth parents where possible. Society has learned that children are capable of comprehending adoption. Children understand that their parents are the people that are raising them but that the person who gave birth to them is someone different. As a society we now understand that a child doesn’t need be raised by their biological parent but they still need to have some sort of connection with their biological past for healthy human development.

Well great, but that still doesn’t help me. It doesn’t help my friend. It doesn’t help the countless number of adoptees who continue to struggle with feelings of loss emanating from the core of their being.

Nope, it doesn’t, but that is the reality of how societies work. When I fuck up, I can make amends and take immediate steps to prevent future harm. Societies are complex with many moving parts. When societies fuck up, change is slow and amends are inadequate if even possible.

If we truly are all in this together, how does society make amends to society anyway? Perhaps all we can do as a society is learn from our fuck ups and strive for a better future. As an individual in society we need to take personal responsibility for our role in causing the problem, take personal responsibility for fixing the problem and personal responsibility for healing the injured, even if the injured is ourself. I cannot expect society to heal my pain but I can take comfort in knowing that through my pain  society can be healed.

To be continued…