“Don’t we look alike?”, my white (adoptive) mom would boisterously laugh, putting another poor grocery store cashier on the spot. The woman looked at us confused but laughed along. We were often stared at in stores.. it could have been super uncomfortable, but my Mom would just break it up. My skin is brown, my parents are white and It was the late 70’s. I went to all white schools and I’d get the usual comments, “black and white TV, zebra, n-word, kunta kinte”.. I didn’t fully grasp racism and thought something was wrong with me. Finally, mid High school things changed. I got pretty, and this hot popular guy started calling me Whit (Whitney Houston). So I did the lip sync “How Will I Know” in the talent show and got a standing ovation. It was one of those stories.. and High School became great overnight. But, when I went to USC for college, the shit hit the fan. I got a black roommate. I was shocked..it never occurred to me she wouldn’t be white. She had over some exchange students from Howard U and they badgered me about the racially wrong things I’d say. They’d have a ball, bringing me to the brink of tears. I started thinking though.. and after some time acting in LA and not feeling “black enough”, I bit the bullet into the unknown and transferred to Howard. It was the best decision ever. I felt seen. Not me the black girl, me my soul. I didn’t have to stuff something down in myself. I didn’t even know I’d felt that till it was gone. I had met my Birthmother, an actress I knew by name in our state. My adoptive mom figured it out through a friend who sold her a set of encyclopedias, but that’s been a rocky road.. Adoption isn’t “lucky”, It’s complex and can be consuming from many angles. I’ve had to do a lot of work on myself to find that magic wand again and paint a future I’m excited about. I’ll always feel a missing piece, but It’s a piece of the pie, not the whole pie. Some social media are devoted to the forever hopelessness of it all. I decided I wasn’t going down like that. @Stephaniemellosm #adopteevoice #transracialadoption #adopteetrauma #nevergiveuponyou