I remembering being as young as three or four and know I didn't belong. The adage of "children should be seen and not heard" the epitome of how my life was structured and was repeatedly echoed until it was the only thing that echoed in my head when my extended family came to visit. Well, that was with my first adoptive family.

So as a child I learned not to linger too long, or speak loudly, and in essence distance myself from people. And THAT is how I believe I began existing as another. Early on I was not given the privilege of building bonds with those who I was supposed to call family. I remember so many memories from the first part of my life on the outside looking in or more accurately, listening from the other side of a wall or a door. Because when people want you to be seen and not heard their first inclination is to not include you.

This "otherness" would follow me into adulthood. This otherness shows up often, it helps fuel my adoptee consciousness.

As I navigated into adulthood I found that people wanted to define who I was in a neat box. And that's just not possible as a transracial adoptee. From childhood through high school was dubbed as an outcast regardless of the fact I was intelligent, well behaved and well-liked out of the walls of my house. After high school, I discovered I was just as much as an outcast. I was labeled as the black girl who wanted to be white by my cultural group.

While still facing the subtle racism that I swear the Midwest has perfected.

Neither of these I was fully prepared for and just like when I was a kid I was fighting someone else's perception of who I was. Sick of it, I promised myself to never be apologetic of who I was and the experiences that defined me.