You were seventeen.
Seventeen.
When I was seventeen, I had a terrible boyfriend. One who called me things no girl should ever have to hear. And for some reason, I still kept thinking there was good in him. I thought I was big and brave enough to make my own decisions, and I made some bad ones. Ones that I still pay the price for today. Ones that resulted in a shattered self esteem and ruined friendships. When you were seventeen, you had to decide what life really meant.
You thought it was love, and he ran away. You were left alone to decide what on earth to do with this baby growing inside of you.
Your family wasn't perfect. Your family income and living situation wasn't perfect. And you knew there had to be a better life for that baby inside of you. You knew it was life from the start.
So you decided, at seventeen, that you were going to give me a life that you didn't have.
For nine months, n-i-n-e months, you carried me and still tried to be a teenager.
I wonder if you even went to school after that. I wouldn't have. The shame, the looks, the "advice" I'm sure you received was anything but welcomed or loving. But then again, maybe you were loved on and held onto. Maybe thats why you knew there had to be a better way.
I don't know if I made you sick, or extremely uncomfortable as I grew, or what on earth you thought about when you felt my little baby body rolling around inside of yours. It was anything but normal, but from the day you found out about me you knew that life wasn't about you anymore. You knew that your decisions impacted the future. You didn't know how, why, or what on earth that would look like 5, 10, 15 years down the road but you made selfless decisions that most seventeen year olds would never be able to make.
You recognized that my story was bigger than a moment. It was bigger than an emotion, an event, a birth, or a future you might have wanted to provide for me.
You let my story be bigger than your fears.
You wrote me a letter, and probably didn't know if I'd ever get to read it. Your letter talked about your decision to place me for adoption, and without you saying it with your words you desperately wanted me to know that nothing about my birth was without love. I didn't even know teenagers could write like that, but you did.
So, thank you for giving me a birthday. Without your brave decisions, I wouldn't be in this moment celebrating with my sweet little family today. You are part of my story.
My birthday is a reminder that from day one, even from conception, my story had meaning and a hand in every detail that I would never understand the gravity of until I was older, and maybe not even until I was a mom myself.
Your decisions as a teenager remind me that nothing about anyone's life is insignificant. One decision can change the course of an entire life, or lives for that matter.
Nothing about our days are insignificant. Nothing about our decisions are insignificant. Nothing is insignificant.
So how on earth do we keep convincing ourselves day in and day out that our lives don't leave a mark? Its a lie.
Your life matters. Lets live like we really believe that.
Posts
