It’s not about you (and that’s the work)

There I was in Oklahoma, stuffing a swimsuit I didn’t want to wear into my suitcase. My daughter was about to meet her birth siblings for the very first time, and I kept reminding myself, “Meridith, this isn’t about you.”

Adoption is complicated.

My daughter has her story, and it’s hers to tell.

What I can share is mine.

I feel grateful every single day to be her mom. And I carry deep gratitude for her birth parents, who faced a decision no parent takes lightly. From the start, my husband and I promised we would weave her adoption story into her life and not tuck it away.

When she was three, we visited, and she has her first memory of meeting her birth parents and her youngest birth sibling. This summer, at fourteen, she met her two older birth siblings. For the first time ever, all four kids were together.

And my job?

To be present.

To hold the space.

To remind myself that it wasn’t about me.

That reminder came up in small, funny ways too. To start, I am not a water park person. But when I heard this might be a thing, I packed the suit, smiled and told myself, “This isn’t about you. You’ll show up for her.”

In the end, the water park didn’t happen because of slight rain and the cloudy day, so we went to an amusement park instead. But the lesson stuck: it wasn’t about me.

And the reality of it all, it rarely is. Not in parenting. Not in speaking. Not in leadership.

When you step on a stage, it’s not about performing perfectly. It’s about creating the conditions for your audience to step into something bigger.

To see a vision more clearly.

To feel more connected.

To walk away changed.

That’s exactly what I watched in Oklahoma. Four kids, meeting each other for the first time, creating a moment none of us could script. My role wasn’t to direct it. It was to hold the space, to stay present, and to let them walk away changed.

And that’s the work for all of us. ✨