So What's Going On With Embraced Identity?

A few years have gone by and I have only written a few chapters of my personal adoption memoir, Embraced Identity. I have been waiting for the most opportune time to write about the relationship that I have with my birth mother. The mere fact that I am calling her birth mother would have her in an uproar. But what else would I call her? She isn't my mother because I have a mother that raised me. I can't call her mom as I called my mom that too. I even called my mother "mommy" up to the day of her being on her death bed. Betty Peters Porter was my Mom, Mother, and Mommy. She was so right in saying that she was my best friend.

I tried to be cute and warm with my birth mother and give her the title of mom, but it never really stuck because she always seems to find a reason to distance herself from me. I am pretty sure that she is that way with her other children that she raised, but of course they have the benefit of being more familiar with her twerks, personality, loyalty, and love. I was the one she gave up. Oh, I am alright with that, but it just puts me at a disadvantage. Well, that's how I see it.

I really do feel blessed that I have had a relationship with her, but It doesn't set well with me that we can't have a steady friendship. I didn't have this issue with my mother, who raised me. Oh yes we had arguments, and very stressful times with each other, but it never caused me not to speak with my mom. I called her daily even after an argument because of my love and respect for her.

I have lots of irons in the oven right now. However, I am choosing to do more on my "To Do List". The rest of 2014 and all of 2015 is going to be about forward movement and taking my life to the next level. Life changes constantly, so I figure that it does not matter if after I have written the book Embraced Identity, that my birth mother decides to have this very close friendship. If this happens, then there could be a book two.  I have known my birth mother since I was twenty-one. I am forty-six, so if we haven't gotten it all together yet, then I am not sure if we can in another twenty-five years. By then I will be seventy-one.

Rejection is not an easy thing, but hey! As long as I embrace myself, I will be alright!

"Don't Let Anyone In When Your Parents Aren't Home!"

This is a sneak peek into my memoir "Embraced Identity."  The insert is from the chapter titled, "Don't Let Anyone In When Your Parents Aren't Home!" This very rule I disobeyed and the consequences of being defiant changed my world forever....

..."One thing I have learned over the years is that rules are rules for the very reason of keeping one from danger, out of trouble, and guiding one in a direction where one will benefit from their very own actions. If you are not doing what you are not supposed to do, the likelihood is that you are doing what you are supposed to do.

The basic rules around the house were to do our chores and have them done before my mother got home; Be in the house within one hour after school (we would stretch it to being home before my mother walked in the front door from work), Don’t answer the phone unless we hear our parents on the answer machine telling us to pick up the phone, No watching television during the week (They literally had a chain and lock around the TV! That did not stop us from watching though), Do your homework, be polite and never be rude to your parents and, “Don’t Let Anyone In When Your Parents Aren’t Home!”....

When I was just a few days short of my fifteenth birthday, I came home from school as usual, and started washing the morning dishes. There had been April showers that afternoon, so the distraction of wanting to be outside was not appealing. As I continued washing the dishes, I heard the door-bell ring. I turned off the water, and went to the front door. ...

I did not consider Brian just “anybody.” We had been neighbors and our families were good friends. I grew up with Brian, so my idea of the rule; “Do not let anyone in when your parents aren’t home” did not apply to him. I was very attracted to Brian and had a crush on him since I could ever remember. Teenage hormones and familiarity can be a mixture for disaster.

...I could hear Brian coming down the hallway, as he was taking his time to enter into each room and looking in the closets and under beds. ..As he went in each room, he called my name as he said, “Yvette, Where are you?” I began to get nervous as I heard him enter the restroom. I was trying to think of ways of escaping the restroom without getting caught. I thought if I jumped out and scared him, I could run out the restroom and be free. 

... I was in a dilemma. There was no way out and he was pushing beyond my own power, and I could not make him stop....

Summary of Embraced Identity

     My publisher FreedomInk gave me an assignment to write a summary of what my memoir was about.  I have been reluctant to put too much out until I am finished writing the book, but I think it is alright to do  it now.

Embraced Identity

     Embraced Identity is a memoir about a girl raised in an upper middle class African American family, whose life-style conflicts with the values that were set by her parents and society.  Yvette Porter grew up in Del Cerro, A largely Jewish & White neighborhood in the Suburbs of San Diego, California.

     At the age of eight, Yvette mistakenly finds out that she is adopted, and that her birthmother is Mexican and her father Black.  Through many incidents in school, she has an identity crisis.  Yvette trades in her hopes of being a debutante to the reality of being a teenage mother after being raped by her brother’s best friend.

     With the internal struggles of survival and the black balling from the upper middle class social society, Yvette defines herself by discovering who she is as she journeys to finding her birth-family, and realizing that God’s plan for her life began before she was conceived in the womb.  Yvette has an epiphany that in order for her to know herself is to uncover not only her biological roots but her adopted roots.

Daily Journal: Embraced Identity

I did not get the chance to work on "Embraced Identity" today.  I have written about 16 pages of the book so far, and will be inputting the chapters I started into the "Writers Block 4" program tomorrow.  For each chapter, I will write a quick summary of what the chapter is about, and then expound on each one at a later date.  I think this will be my beginning process.

I feel that I must write every day, but as I have three other blogs going..sometimes it will not be possible.  I hope to write at least 3x a week on the book, as I am believing that this is the one I need to complete first.

Keith @ 8 months & Me @ 15yrs old
In Santa Barbara, CA: Family Summer Trip
August 1984

As always, I look forward to a productive tomorrow.

Brainstorming My Chapters: Embraced Identity

The Process of writing: Embraced Identity


An outline is important when deciding what a writer wants to include in their book.  At this time, I have not put together a well developed Outline, but I have decided on a Table of Contents, which I realize may change over time, or during my writing and editing process.


Table of Contents

1. Dedication
2. Acknowledgements
3. Introduction
4. Don’t let anyone in when your Parents Aren’t Home
5. Alone
6. At the Playground
7. Who am I
8. My Parents
9. The Search
10. Ermalinda
11. Johnny
12. My Father’s family
13. Felipe Espinoza (Full Circle)
14. Acceptance
15. Embraced

Every week to two weeks, I will develop each chapter until a full manuscript is in hand.

© Yvette Porter Moore-All Rights Reserved

Embraced Identity

As I was digging through boxes and folders of papers and pictures that I inherited, I came across this photo of me that I frankly do not remember seeing before. My mother snapped this picture of me, without me realizing. I had thought she was taking a picture of the lovely scenery of Maryland's lush summer landscape, as in San Diego, CA, our weather does not allow for such greenery. I realize now, my mother meant to take this picture of me. She had taken me to the East Coast to cheer me up, because she sensed something was wrong.

This was supposed to be one of the happiest times of my life, but it wasn't. I was holding something so deep into my soul, into my heart and could not, and would not share with anyone. It wasn't that I didn't want to, I was scared.

At 15, I had always been a happy person, always smiling, and always playing around. This time something was quenching my spirit. I was not myself. Oh, how I wanted to be my free go-lucky self, but what had happened to me and how I was reacting to it, would never allow me to be the same.

This was the turning point in my life where I had to make some grown up decisions, where I questioned who I was, and what I was going to be.

In my book, "Embraced Identity," I will show how one incident could have me searching for my true self and embracing what I discover.

Over the next few months, I will be writing my story, and will be posting my process through blogging until my book is completed...Please come along with me..as I develop the story.

© Yvette Porter Moore-All Rights Reserved