Taking Stock

On my website each week, I post blogs and personal essays which focus on identity, family, and life’s quirky moments. I also share recent news and stories from the foster care and adoption world. 

When I’m deciding what to write each week, I have my eye out for stories and topics that address the challenges and joys of the human experience. The ongoing pandemic has taught us so much about the universality of our daily struggles. We are living in times that have provided rich material for writers.

In taking stock of all the writing I produced during 2021, I realize that the topics I chose to write about covered a lot of ground. 

Because I’m an adoptee from the closed adoption era and someone who navigated the adoption search and reunion experience, I wrote a lot about adoption, my struggle for information, and learning to talk about it. 

I wrote about motherhood, belonging, and the power in knowing from whom and where we come from. I shared my thoughts about why the conversation surrounding the adoption experience needs to matter, and the value of seeking support. 

Topics like broken trust, where to leave your troubles, and the merits of finding a quiet place found their way into my weekly essays. So did our need to find meaning, to feel important, and avoid mistakes, and the limits to our tolerations.

For National Adoption Month in November, I featured wonderful voices from the adoption community. Barbara Linn Probst wrote about being an adoptive mother. Laura Engels shared her story as a birth mother reuniting with her secret son. Ande Stanley wrote about the trauma of learning later in life that she is adopted.

And of course, I wrote about books and fellow writers. 

I posted interviews with authors who have written about a range of topics: dating after fifty (Carolyn Arnold), navigating grief (Meg Nocero), mental illness (Willa Goodfellow), becoming her sister’s bone marrow donor (Rikki West), the challenges of an age-gap marriage (Kim Fairley), transforming pain into purpose (Marcie J. Keithley), and how living in a foreign country affected her pandemic experience (Evelyn LaTorre). I also tried interviewing my birth father, a man I never met. 

Sometimes, I set aside serious matters and wrote about family or the inspiration that nature provides, and silly topics such as the dangers of recycling bins and the bonuses of breaking rules.

It was always rewarding to turn over my blog to guest writers. People like Kevin Barhydt, Diane Dewey, and Terry Sue Harms who shared essays about father figures. And Doris Jones Yang who wrote about an American mixed-race family.

Finally, I listened to my readers who shared what they liked reading about. 

Without a doubt, the most commented on post was “I Wish You Enough.” If you missed it or want to read it again, find it here.

The writing continues– I’m not done with weekly blogs. There is already much planned for 2022. 

I have an essay coming about the healing qualities of a hug, another about chicken soup and corny jokes, as well as interviews with a reluctant caregiver (Rachel Michelberg) and an empath (Signe Hovem).

If there is anything else that you’d like to read, send me a message at julie@juliemcgueauthor.com. 

Stay healthy. Be Kind. Be honest.  

Blessings, Julie

PS You made it to the end… I have a bonus for you! Shoot me an email at julie@juliemcgueauthor.com and I’ll send you an early chapter from my work-in-progress, a memoir about what it was like to grow up as a twin and adoptee.

Don’t miss a blog post!

Receive my blog posts directly to your inbox. 

Available on Amazon!