139 Alison Malee
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/139
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This show is listener supported. You can join us and help our show grow to support more adoptees by going to adopteeson.com/partner.
You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is episode 139, Alison. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Well friend, I hope you're doing well. It can feel like a whole new world sometimes, doesn't it? I will admit, I'm finding it challenging day by day with my little boys at home 24/7, but I also acknowledge my privilege that I'm able to stay home and be relatively unimpacted. I'm really feeling for those of you who have lost jobs or are serving in areas that are causing you fear or anxiety. I see you and I hope that our time together today will help you focus on someone else's story for a bit and bring some insight and light into [00:01:00] your day.
Today's guest, Alison Malee, is the perfect person to do that for us. Alison shares her story of being adopted in the nineties and how she has been processing her recent discoveries via DNA testing. These have brought about great shifts in identity and also allowed her to connect with members of her first family. We wrap up with some recommended resources and, as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are over on adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Alison Malee. Welcome Alison.
Alison Malee: Hi Haley. Thank you so much for having me.
Haley Radke: I, oh my gosh, I say this every time. I'm just so excited. And you were so kind. You sent me your book last year. It's so beautiful and I'm gonna sneak preview for you, but I am showing Alison, I have all these little tabs of things I marked up in her book and it's so beautiful 'cause her book is really beautiful, but we'll get to that in a little while. [00:02:00] First though, why don't you share some of your story with us?
Alison Malee: Sure, so I was adopted in the nineties and as you can imagine, it was a closed adoption because they mostly were at that time. I am a biracial adoptee, which I know now, but didn't for most of my life. So I am black and white and I actually didn't know that until about two years ago now. And I was in foster care for about a year before my adoption went through when I was about 11 months old. And I was adopted into a very white family and while they are amazing and I am very grateful for them, I struggled a lot with identity and culture and race as super missing keys in my childhood because they were just things that I did not have. So I grew up in a really small town in PA and went to a predominantly white school, or was in a predominantly white school system all throughout my years in school.
Haley Radke: [00:03:00] You said you were adopted into a white family. Did you have any siblings in that family?
Alison Malee: My parents got divorced and remarried when I was 10, so I was an only child for all of that time with them.
Haley Radke: Okay, okay. So you were just saying that you were, it was like a very small town and what was that like as you're sort of searching for your identity and you're an only child and you don't necessarily have your genetic mirrors there in place? What was that like?
Alison Malee: It was really difficult. I think, for me personally, I have always known that I was adopted and adoption has always been a part of my story. There was never a point in time that I didn't know. Knowing didn't make that easier for me because I felt so outside of my family even though they loved me and showed their love for me and that was never an issue. I always felt very outside [00:04:00] because I look different and because I am different. We have very different interests, very different opinions on things. I mean even down to politics, we view everything very, very differently. I am very creative and artistic and my parents, almost everyone in my family is either a lawyer or in the medical field. And I am a poet so we really had different views and things. And it was hard. It was definitely hard.
Haley Radke: And you said that you only found out a couple of years ago that you're biracial. What was that like growing up? Did you wonder what's different about me? Or was it more just like well, I'm adopted, so that's sort of the disconnect? That seems really like a challenging thing to me. I can't really wrap my head around it.
Alison Malee: It is one of the wilder parts of my story, I think. Growing up, I asked a lot of questions and maybe not the right questions, but I didn't quite understand why I looked [00:05:00] so differently and why my questions always kind of got shot down or my complaints always got shut down. Because I was often made to seem very dramatic or very emotional when complaining or crying about my hair and why my hair was so curly and my mom had such pretty straight hair and why my lips looked like this and my features were this way and her features were different and I wanted to be like her so much. And I wanted to be like my classmates so much. And I didn't quite fit in with the people that were in my classes and that was really difficult. I think, not even really until I moved out of my small town and I moved to New York, did I fully get to see a wide variety of people and cultures and body types and all of those things that sort of mirrored my [00:06:00] own, without actually being a mirror. But just the kind of melting pot that is New York, I got to be able to see so much more than I was able to see in my small town.
Haley Radke: Okay. I sort of interrupted you, but you were kinda sharing your story. What sort of happened next for you? So growing up, teen years, what was kind of happening then?
Alison Malee: So, I guess backing up a little bit, I sort of wanted to touch on just like childhood.
**Haley Radke:**Sure. Yeah.
**Alison Malee:**Not necessarily, piece by piece my childhood, but the parts for me about adoption that I really remember from those years before I fully understood what that meant. And, I think, I remember elementary school and middle school, it not being something that super bothered me, but it made me different. And I do remember parents coming to pick me up at school and friends saying, “That's not what I thought your parents would look like.”
**Haley Radke:**Oh.
**Alison Malee:**And so that was always interesting. And I also [00:07:00] remember feeling like for the longest time my Hogwarts letter was going to come, or I was gonna be whisked away in the night to a magical realm. When I turned 16, when I turned 18, those were the years that I always thought that was going to happen. And I remember when we first got a computer in our house. My parents were already divorced and my mom wouldn't come home from work until after I'd been home from school for a couple of hours and I would spend all of that time Google searching my birth mom's name, because it was literally the only key I had to her and to that world was just her name. And I would Google it and Google it. And I started, I think when I was like 12 or 13, emailing those people. So I would find people on LinkedIn or MySpace at that time and I would send them emails and most people didn't write me back, but some people would be very kind and say, [00:08:00] “No, I'm not who you're looking for.” But I remember for such a long period of time, that was something that I did.
Anyway, it was hard not knowing roots, and I think so many of us and so many adoptees and people who are in this situation realize that it's hard to not have a sense of culture and identity. Even if you know those things starting out and you've known that your whole life and you've walked through things knowing, okay, this is where I come from, if it's not within your home and it's not within your walls every day, it's really hard to feel connected to that. So that was always difficult.
Gosh, I think I touched on all of these things already. We talked a little bit about struggling with identity and struggling with my features being different from the features of the people around me and the people that I was seeing every day. And I know I said before that I was always made [00:09:00] to seem very dramatic and very emotional for questioning things. But now as an adult and now understanding those things were all so valid, and that's really important for me to say and acknowledge because all of those feelings of not fitting in and not feeling worthy, almost, because I felt so different and so outside. That's all so valid because I didn't look like the people around me and I understood on some sort of level that I wasn't like the people around me even though I didn't quite understand where I fit. And the way I look is very ethnically ambiguous and I've sort of always been able to blend in everywhere. I've been all over the world and I've always managed to blend in wherever I am and people think that I am from wherever we are. And there is also the key point in being [00:10:00] biracial, that you're always too much or not enough for each half of you. That now has been difficult, re-reworking my mindset around that.
So I think, not the main points, but the other half of this story, which is like the last couple of years and sort of the entirety of my reunion story, which just started recently. I feel like all of this has come to the surface now that that has begun.
Haley Radke: Because you really, you started your search when you were pretty young just putting in your mom's name, Googling, like the information that you had and reaching out to people. But I'm assuming that never came to fruition.
Alison Malee: Oh, no, no, no.
Haley Radke: Okay. So your 12-year-old searches didn't come to fruition. So what did you do as an [00:11:00] adult to search?
Alison Malee: So I now know the name that I was searching was not even her name. She had given her first name and my father's, my birth father's, last name when she had signed my paperwork. And so the name that I had been searching for ten plus years on Google and Facebook and all of those things was not actually even her name which I think is so interesting now.
But anyway, so a couple of years ago I decided I was going to do a DNA test. Solely, basically because I wanted to know what my genetic and ethnic roots were. And I thought it would be interesting and I didn't even think anything like, oh, I'll find some DNA connections. I really just wanted to know what am I made up of? Where did I come from? I've always wanted to have cultural traditions and things that were [00:12:00] uniquely tied to my culture and my race in that way and I never did. So I really thought, through the DNA test, I would be able to find those things out.
I received my results and I think I was both very excited to know and also disappointed that I wasn't like a wizard or werewolf or something like that, but was actually super human and tied to real people and that they were somewhere out in the universe and it took me a really long time to acknowledge those results because I think it made me really sad. It was a sad kind of grounding thing because it cemented for me that I was adopted and that this was like a real thing that had happened and I don't know how to explain that properly. [00:13:00] I think when it's not real, like when you don't have any information, it feels very, this thing happened, but it's very outside of me. And that was before I had any kind of ties to anybody else that was adopted, to any of the proper education. We never discussed adoption in my household. That was not something we talked about. We never spoke about it. It was never brought up, we never mentioned it. If I said something that was about adoption, it was like quickly shut down and I knew it made my parents equally uncomfortable and equally sad, so we just didn't discuss it.
So it took me a long time to acknowledge the results. So I left them for a couple of months, almost half of a year. I saw them. I read them. I read through them but I just let them be for like half of the year. And then one day I was watching [00:14:00] Coco, I don't know if you've seen this movie, with my toddlers and the movie is so much about family and how important family is and your ties to your family and, it's like about the day of the dead.
Haley Radke: It's even about the generational, like your ancestor, like having this legacy of sorts, right?
Alison Malee: Yeah. By the end of the movie, of course I'm sobbing and I decided I was going to send an email to my top two results on my DNA test, my top two DNA matches. So I sent them both an email, a very vague email, and within the hour a woman had responded saying that she was almost positive I was her niece. She just needed a little bit more information. And I was her niece. She was right. And the woman that had emailed, just randomly, she was one of the top people that came up, was my birth mom's half [00:15:00] sister. So she and I emailed back and forth for weeks and she was able to get some information from my birth mom. Then through that information, was able to track down one of my half brothers on Facebook, and she was able to connect us. She actually put us in a chat room on Facebook. Her, him and myself, and said, “You guys are siblings. Kind of chat it out.”
Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. Wow.
Alison Malee: She was amazing. She did so much digging and she was like such an integral part of this whole story. But she connected us and then from there, him and I were able to discuss things.
Haley Radke: And was he older or younger than you?
Alison Malee: He's younger than me. Yeah, he's much younger than me. He is a teenager still and so discussing all of this with a teenage boy. You know, he's a teenage boy.
**Haley Radke:**Surprise
**Alison Malee:**Yeah, it was interesting. So all of my siblings on my father's side all knew about me and he [00:16:00] had discussed me openly with them. So it wasn't a surprise to him at all. He actually told me in one of our first conversations that he had spent a couple of years googling my name. Because my birth father had given all of them the name that him and my birth mom had given me and had told them about me. And so he had actually spent time searching for me.
Haley Radke: So this brother, the teen brother that you're talking about, was on your paternal side?
**Alison Malee:**Yes
**Haley Radke:**Okay, but the aunt that you found was on the maternal side.
**Alison Malee:**Right
**Haley Radke:**Okay. So they're still interconnected, live in the same community, or is that sort of how they know each other?
Alison Malee: So they don't know each other at all.
Haley Radke: Oh.
**Alison Malee:**My birth mother was able to give her enough information.
Haley Radke: Oh. Okay. Okay.
Alison Malee: That she was able to start searching online.
Haley Radke: She was doing the searching. Okay. Okay.
Alison Malee: Oh yeah, that's what I mean. She dug and dug to find information.
Haley Radke: Wow.
Alison Malee: And she was able to find his profile online.
Haley Radke: Whew. [00:17:00] That's a lot, finding out you have siblings.
Alison Malee: Yeah, so I grew up an only child, like I said, for many years of my life. And then I found I have two half brothers, a full brother, and three half sisters. And I found that out within like a manner of days. So that was wild for me and it was super overwhelming and I was very excited. I always wanted siblings. I always really wanted siblings growing up. But it was a lot to take in because it all happened very suddenly. I started speaking to my aunt online. Within a couple of weeks she had introduced me to my half brother and then the night that we started talking, he was able to help me find an old Facebook profile of my birth dad. So that was the first time that I ever saw him. I didn't know what his name was before then, so that was like [00:18:00] my first ever introduction to him as a person because throughout my childhood, the only thing I ever had was her name and I was always led to believe that he was not present, that there was no information on him. They didn't know anything about him. He had never gone to any meetings or anything like that, and that he was just not in the picture at all. And that she was the only one that was there. So I think just even realizing that he was a solid, real person and that he was there and that he did know about me and did speak to all of these other people about me and it wasn't like a secret that they kept, it was something that was openly discussed, was a really positive thing for me in the midst of all of this chaos.
Haley Radke: And how about learning that you have a full sibling? So a full brother. Was the full brother younger or older than you? [00:19:00]
Alison Malee: So we are actually Irish twins. He is 11 months younger than me.
Haley Radke: So they stayed together after you were
Alison Malee: Yes, I think they were only together during that time period where he was conceived. And I don't know exactly what happened afterwards, but when he was born, she gave him to my paternal grandma. And then she, my paternal grandma, is amazing and she raised him 'cause I don't think either of my birth parents were capable of raising him.
Haley Radke: Okay. Yeah, 'cause you had said early on that you were in foster care for a long time. So was it by choice that your parents lost custody of you? Did they relinquish or was it not consensual? Do you know?
Alison Malee: They had been in, where I grew up in my hometown, they had been there in a sober living facility. And they had [00:20:00] me and where they were staying in that sober living facility was a one bedroom, two person max apartment or studio situation. And so somebody had reported them, that there were more than the allotted people in there and that they were pretty certain they were still using. So, child services came and took me.
**Haley Radke:**Okay. Wow.
**Alison Malee:**And I would have been six weeks old when that happened.
Haley Radke: I'm sorry. So as you are getting to know all of these siblings and, I can't imagine, like that's a lot of relationships to be building over such a quick time. Are you in touch with your bio mom or your bio dad? Is that something you even want? Do you know the story? Like, I'm sure you've got all these things racing through your head at that time.
Alison Malee: So after I was able to connect with my half brother, I feel like I need to say half [00:21:00] to differentiate because there are so many siblings in this story. I don't consider them any less my siblings.
Haley Radke: I'm with you. I also grew up an only child and I have three half siblings, but I never call them that either, so I get it. I get it.
Alison Malee: Oh no, never. But I just feel like for the story, I can differentiate.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. That's right.
Alison Malee: Yes. So anyway, after we were able to get in contact and connect, he had added me and I was able to see his friends list and he had connected me to a couple of other people, but I had found my paternal grandma, her profile on Facebook. And I went back and forth for a couple of days, but I ended up sending her a message and after that we exchanged phone numbers. And actually, that first day we exchanged phone numbers, we spoke on the phone for a number of hours and at the end of that conversation she asked if I would be okay if she gave my phone number to my birth father.[00:22:00] To which I think I just panicked because that is such a big step. And that is not how I had anticipated having a conversation with him for the first time. But I said yes, I think out of, I don't even know, just shock.
And within a couple of hours he had called me. And I didn't answer. And then he called again and I didn't answer. I sent all of the calls to voicemail until my husband could come home because I just couldn't imagine having the conversation by myself. So I waited until my kids were in bed and when my husband was home, and then I called him back and he was just sobbing and I was sweating, and I just couldn't even process the fact that this was him on the phone. And he was just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and trying really hard to get words out. And I couldn't say anything. I just, I think I said hello. And then that was pretty much all I was able to get out because it just was like such a panicky moment. [00:23:00] So I don't even remember exactly what happened.
I literally think I blacked it out because he had hung up and then called back. I think he was crying too much. So he said, “Give me a minute.” And he called me back and at that point we were able to exchange a couple of sentences like, “Hi, my name is Ali,” and he was calling me by the name that they had given me, which I obviously don't go by anymore. My adopted parents had changed my name, but he just kept saying that over and over again. And it was a short conversation. But when I look back on my life, I will think about that moment and speaking to him on the phone because it was one of the most surreal moments in this whole adoption story for me, hearing his voice for the first time and somehow deeply knowing that we were connected, even though at that moment I was incapable of getting any words out. [00:24:00] Hearing his voice and how moved he was speaking with me, I just knew: This is my father, and what a wild thing that is.
So after that first conversation, we spoke on the phone a couple of times after that, and then we had agreed to meet in person. And so my husband and I drove, gosh, like over two hours to go meet him. We met him on his territory. I wanted to do it in a public location. So we drove there and we met him. We went to a local street fair they were having there and it was again, like he was crying and so upset, but also grateful to be there. And I just couldn't, I was just in shock. And I felt that way all of the whole day of being there. When we were driving, I was [00:25:00] anxious and asking all of these crazy questions. What if he doesn't like my hair? What if he thinks being a poet is a weird job? And my husband just kept saying it's gonna be great no matter what. It's just a beautiful thing that you're able to do this no matter how late it is in your life. No matter all of the things that have been missed, just focus on this day and the fact that you get to be there and that he's gonna be there and you have to take it moment by moment. You can't think that far ahead.
So we get there and instead of being overly emotional, I just remember feeling out of body and just shocked and frozen. And I went through the whole day like that, and then we said goodbye and he starts crying again. And I just couldn't even, I just I don't know, I couldn't process any of it. And we get in the car and I just sobbed the whole way home. And I [00:26:00] don't know what it was that I couldn't do it in front of him or do it with him. Like I couldn't partake in it with him because I didn't feel, I think, maybe sorry for him in the way that I think he maybe thought I would, or I didn't feel empathetic in the way that I wanted to. And then when I was by myself, I was able to say holy cow, what a day, what an overwhelming experience, but not in the way that when two people cry together, you're crying with each other. I needed to be able to do that separately by myself. Yeah, so I was able to meet him and I have met him since one more time but mostly our communication is via text messages or emails. Occasionally we talk on Facebook video messages occasionally, but most of our conversation is now via text and all of those [00:27:00] things.
Haley Radke: You have a poem in your book, This is the Journey, “What Happens When You Meet Your Father at 24?”
Alison Malee: Yeah, I do. There's a whole poem dedicated to this one day because, like I said, it was one of the most surreal moments for me.
Haley Radke: You say, okay, where's the line here? “A father who is at best still a stranger. A man who is wearing your face.”
Alison Malee: Yeah. My birth father and I look just alike and it is me. You know what, even just going back a little bit, seeing a picture of him for the first time, even though they were old and blurry on his old Facebook profile, seeing his features and recognizing so much of that in myself was a very eye-opening thing for me. And then meeting him and recognizing even more in person, like we have the same eyes, the [00:28:00] same nose, our faces are shaped the same way. I look just like him. And that is still, even in this moment, as I'm telling you, that is such a crazy thing for me because I grew up not seeing any of myself reflected in anybody, which is how I think most adoptees feel. You don't have any of those mirrors growing up. So to see him and to recognize, oh my goodness, this person is such a reflection of me and I am such a reflection of them, at least on the outside, was really a really cool thing.
Haley Radke: So what point are you at in reunion with all of these people? Did you reach out to your bio mom? Are you still in contact with the siblings? There's so many people in different, I'm assuming, different life stages. There's teenagers and younger, like it's a huge mix of people to be in touch with one-on-one with all of them.
Alison Malee: Yeah, I am in contact with [00:29:00] almost everyone, at least on my paternal side. I have two, again for differentiation, two half brothers and a full brother and I also have a half-sister who is much younger than me. She's actually around the same age as my children.
**Haley Radke:**Really. Wow, that's interesting.
Alison Malee: So a big age gap and I have not had the opportunity to meet her yet, but I have met both of my half brothers and my full brother. And actually over the summer I was able to go to a family reunion on that side, and I met most of that side of the family, my grandma, my aunts and uncles, my cousins. I was able to meet all of them that day. And I had met my aunt and my grandma previously. Being able to get together and all of that was really, gosh almighty, I feel like I am telling this story backwards, a hundred times over. Anyway, I was able to meet them and to meet most of my paternal family, [00:30:00] which has been really lovely and they, most of them, come to my children's birthday parties now. My aunt and my uncle always try and make it and my grandma usually comes, and on my daughter's last birthday, my half brothers were able to come. One of my half brothers has children, so he brought his children and they were able to play with my children and it was a very beautiful day for me.
Haley Radke: I love that. I love that. We hear about so many reunions that fail or they never make it past the honeymoon stage and what does that really look like? And all of those things.
Alison Malee: Yeah, I don't sugarcoat anything because it's not all rainbows and butterflies and it has been really hard in a lot of ways. I try to look at the situation now knowing that all of this is very difficult for everybody involved. And [00:31:00] while I know that, and I now know and understand that while I feel like the person that got the short end of the stick, a lot of people involved got short ends. So I don't wanna make it seem like my end was somehow shorter because in a lot of ways it was not. In a lot of ways I missed out on so many things but the flip side of that is that my siblings did, too. And while I said before, I didn't feel a ton of empathy for my birth father when meeting him and when communicating with him, I feel so much of that for my siblings and I know that they have struggled so much of their lives with a lot of the same kind of things and the same kind of concepts and losing people in that way. So I try to tell the story as [00:32:00] honestly as I can, but also acknowledging as I'm talking about it, but also to myself, that all of us, everyone involved, has struggled in some way and
Haley Radke: Well it's a lot of work to make any new relationship work, right? You're having to remember to call or text them or invite them to your child's birthday party when it's not just been this natural thing, right? Like the way you were talking, like you're integrating families in a really beautiful way and of course that comes with challenges. So thank you for acknowledging that. This is not all sunshine and rainbows.
Alison Malee: Oh gosh. I don't have a relationship with my birth mom and my birth dad and I have a lot of boundaries. I have put a lot of boundaries up, which is why most of our communication is done via text message, over the phone. There are a lot of [00:33:00] boundaries in place and they're necessary for me and my mental health. But also for my children and everyone involved, there are boundaries. And there are boundaries with a lot of my family, but I don't think that they are a hindrance. Should anyone want to take the necessary steps to deepen a relationship, if that makes sense, I would be more than willing to connect with biological family members in a deeper and more, have them play more necessary roles in my life if they wanted to. So I always wanna have the boundaries. The boundaries are very important, but I also know that not everyone understands the trauma that adoption causes and brings and may not understand where I'm coming from all of the time.
Haley Radke: There's one line in your book that [00:34:00] I think really reflects that, and when I read it, I was like, oh my word, I feel like I should put this out on my wall. “I tuck away the grief, but you must understand, It still lives, it still consumes.” And I think that's so beautiful. And I don't know what you wrote it about, when that came to you, but so many of us talk about these complexities in adoption, right? You can think of the gains that you had with your adoptive family and the losses that you had not being with bio family, and same for your siblings, the loss they had not being with you and perhaps their life circumstances were different from yours growing up. And there is always that underlying threat of grief, even in those joyful reunions and having the birthday party where there's family there. It is complex and I think a lot of people have a hard time understanding anything but the, [00:35:00] “Oh, look, Allie had such a good life and she was just such a cute little girl with her curly hair and look at her little family,” and all of those kinds of things without acknowledging the hard experiences that you had maybe not fitting into your town. And it's so multifaceted, right? And it's hard to explain that to people when they just see that glimpse of, “Oh, you must have had it so good.”
Alison Malee: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's so difficult even within my biological family and my adopted family, nobody quite understands the actual aftermath and the actual reality that has been with me, that I've carried with me throughout all of my experiences. When I had my first daughter, I remember being in the hospital and holding her and just crying and crying and I couldn't [00:36:00] stop crying. And the nurse came in and said, “Is everything okay? Are you in pain?” And I just couldn't even answer her because I was just so trapped in this feeling of I just can't imagine anyone ever looking at me like this and not wanting to keep me and looking at my little baby face and looking at me so fresh and innocent, coming into the world and thinking I can't or won't be her mom. And I just couldn't, I couldn't wrap my head around that. My adopted mom was there with me. I don't remember where she had gone, but she came back into the room and saw me crying and I tried to explain it to her and I just couldn't come up with the words 'cause it's such a hard feeling to explain such a lonely feeling. And I, I just couldn't even get the words out or think of what they were, the proper way to explain [00:37:00] that specific feeling.
Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. I am noticing our time is quickly ticking away. Is there anything else that you want to share with us or say to adoptees before we do recommended resources, and then we'll talk a little bit about your book then.
Alison Malee: I wanted to talk with you today because I really think it's so important for adoptees to have a platform, and I'm so grateful for this podcast and the voice you have given to so many adoptees who are struggling and don't really have the resources and the places to turn to where people are amplifying their experiences and their thoughts and their feelings. And giving them a space that is safe, that is genuine, and that doesn't sugarcoat the hard parts about adoption. Because, we all have heard a thousand [00:38:00] times adoption is so beautiful and it is, but it is also so hard and so full of pain and grief and so many complicated feelings that we all have to struggle through and fight through and acknowledge and accept and learn to understand. And I hope that by sharing even little pieces of my story, told in non chronological order today, that it's helpful for somebody. So seriously, thank you so much, Haley, for having me, but also for doing this. For all of the adoptees who need people to voice their stories so that they feel comfortable voicing their own.
Haley Radke: Thank you Alison. I appreciate that. Yeah, I agree. It's so important and of course that is one of the reasons that I started the show and I feel like there's [00:39:00] momentum, adoptees sharing their voices. And in fact, I didn't even know who you were as a poet and I think it was a couple of years ago, you just tagged my show on your Instagram and you were sharing it as a resource for adoptees and I was like, wow, that's amazing. And then you reached out when you had published This is the Journey. And so this came out last year, I think. I was rereading it again today and it's just so beautiful and you share so many things about your story, in Reunion, in little snippets here and there. And reading with adoptee lenses on, I think I picked up on a lot of that. I'm struggling 'cause I'm like, how do I describe a book in front of someone who has this magical ability with words? So I'm feeling intimidated. Because your poetry, your writing, it's thought provoking and you can tell it's so carefully crafted and you're [00:40:00] able to capture really incredibly profound understandings in such a few short phrases. That is shown through on your Instagram account and I really appreciate it. I think that a lot of adoptees will read your poetry and just feel understood and like they get it and give them some words for things they've experienced that they might not have had words for before. So I absolutely recommend your book. It's just wonderful. And I know you have a couple of other poetry collections out as well, but the one that I'm really enjoying is This is the Journey.
Alison Malee: Thank you so much, Haley.
Haley Radke: Oh, you're welcome. It's true. Like I said, it's all marked up, but only with these beautiful book pins because I really struggle writing in books.
Alison Malee: Oh, me too.
Haley Radke: But my book darts are like my favorite thing. So do you have anything you wanna share with us about This is the Journey before you recommend your [00:41:00] resource to us?
Alison Malee: So I wrote This is the Journey in the midst of all of this reunion happening, in the midst of discovering family and figuring out about my own race and identity and my ethnicity, and figuring out all of that. I figured all of that out while writing this book. So the book really is sort of a roadmap through all of that for me, but also a really thought out collection of all of the feelings and the immensity of everything that has and is continuously happening throughout the last couple of years. So the book is like my heart and soul. I have written other poetry collections, but this is the most personal because so much of it is [00:42:00] surrounding my adoption story and surrounding my reunion with my father and speaking about my birth mom and my lack of a relationship with her and meeting my siblings. There's a whole poem; it's multiple pages long about my brother and all of those things. So it's a very personal collection and it's very near and dear to my heart. And I wanted to, like I said before, give voice to my adoption story, but specifically for adoptees to have and be able to read through and, like you said, with adoptee lenses on, be able to read through and see my story and hopefully connect to it and see little pieces of their story within mine.
Haley Radke: For sure they'll be able to. Absolutely. The other thing I really liked is you write about your husband and your daughters, and it's like I'm a whole person and I'm experiencing my real life, and then I also have Reunion going on around me, and so it's very well rounded. I don't know, [00:43:00] what am I trying to say? It's very well rounded.
Alison Malee: Thank you so much.
Haley Radke: Okay, if you guys pick up This is the Journey, I want you to make sure you read the poem, “The Back of a Living Thing,” and it's about being in a therapist's office and, oh, my word. The analogy in there is so good. Don't spoil it. Don't tell us what it is. People have to read it. I don't usually do that, but it's so good. I'm like, wow. I'm gonna read that again, for sure.
Alison Malee: Oh gosh. You are so kind.
Haley Radke: What did you want to recommend to us today?
Alison Malee: I found the YouTube channel, “Yes I'm Adopted… Don't Make It Weird”.
**Haley Radke:**Oh yes, yes.
**Alison Malee:**A couple of years ago, and gosh, I love the way that they speak so candidly about adoption and nothing is sugarcoated. They don't try to make it very professional or incredibly stuffy in the way, I hate to say that about [00:44:00] other adoption resources because all adoption resources are wonderful and I'm grateful for all of them, but some of them can feel very stuffy and like it's not real and coming from real people who have experienced adoption firsthand, who are adoptees firsthand. So I am grateful for their candid and unapologetic conversations about what they have experienced.
Haley Radke: Yeah. Brett and Davo, they're pretty funny. They do a lot of good joking around together for sure.
Alison Malee: They do. They do. And for so many of us that talk about adoption, and I love that we're able to have these conversations together, but not to make light of anything, but I think it's important that we have dialogue that isn't necessarily like “I'm drowning in my emotions and I need help.” We have to also have the dialogue that is, “Hey, you know what? I've been there. Let's talk about it. Let's figure it out together.” [00:45:00] Let’s have more of an open conversation that doesn't necessarily need to be as weighed down as I think it tends to be.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that. All right.
Alison Malee: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Did you wanna share something else or should we wrap up?
Alison Malee: I'm like, yeah. So the other resource that I wanted to talk to you about is called @adoptwell. So where I found them was on Instagram but it's really just a community for everyone that has been touched by adoption. So they discuss from adoptee point of views, from all different perspectives, from adoptive parents, and I've seen from biological parents. I've seen all of the above and they share stories and just give little glimpses of real people experiencing adoption. [00:46:00] And I love being able to see and to learn more about all sides of adoption because, for many years, I didn't see anything about adoption. The only adoption stories I knew were in books and movies and were often very unrealistic. So it is so good to see people having these conversations where everything is real and the people are real, and the experiences are real, and you can learn from the ways that they have maybe fallen short or the things that they have learned that allow everyone in the triad to feel seen and heard.
Haley Radke: Thank you. Okay, so I found their Instagram is @adoptwell. Is that right?
Alison Malee: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Okay, perfect. Thank you so much Alison. It was just a real pleasure hearing your story and hearing from your heart. And I just, I really loved our time together today. I'd love it if you would share where we can connect with you online.[00:47:00]
Alison Malee: Lovely. So like I said, Haley, thank you so much for having me today. I am such a fan of your podcast and all that you are doing and have done for the community. You can find me online. My Instagram is just @alison.malee and on Facebook it is just Alison Malee, on Twitter it is just Alison Malee and if you Google search Alison Malee, my website will pop up.
Haley Radke: Perfect. Thank you so much. And you gotta follow Alison on Instagram. It is a highlight in my feed for sure.
Alison Malee: Thank you so much.
Haley Radke: I just want to, again, reiterate how much I appreciate that you listen to the show, that you share it with your adoptee friends, and that is one of the best ways you can help the show by just telling one person about this episode. If there was something that you learned or you [00:48:00] just had a real connection to Alison's story, I would love it if you would share this episode with an adoptee friend who you know would be encouraged or inspired by hearing from Alison.
Another way to support the show and to help keep it going and say that you want Adoptees On to exist in this world to support other adoptees, is to go to adopteeson.com/partner and there you can find all the ways you can connect with adoptees who are supporting the show. And there is a secret Facebook group. There's another weekly podcast for supporters. There's a few different levels of support to choose from and we actually did a Zoom call in our Adoptees On Facebook group this week, and it was so good to connect with people, via social, no, not via social distancing, via physical distancing, but bringing in social intimacy and just talking about what's going on for us right now. [00:49:00] And so that's been really special. So we're trying to find different ways of connecting.
Another fun thing we're doing right now is an adoptee reading challenge, and we talk about the books that we read over on the other podcast: Adoptees Off Script, which is for monthly supporters. So if you have lots of time and you wanna join up with the Adoptee Reading Challenge, you can sign up to support the show adopteeson.com/partner or just pick up a book that is written by a fellow adoptee and share about it on social media. I would love to connect with you there, and I'm so grateful for all of those of you that already support the show. Thank you so much. I couldn't do this without you. Thanks so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.
