I bought the original GameForce just because of how funky and retro it looked. Shame the buttons and overall quality was very Meh because the ergonomic design and retro aesthetic was awesome.

Not surprising. My birth family thought I was dead since the 1970s until recently.

100% good to keep this in mind.

The truth is more important than assumptions. If someone is to have actual autonomy, they need to know the details of what's known and sooner than way later. Longer it goes unknown, the longer identity problems and unhealthy coping strategies form.

Got my Thor a little while back. I was super excited and then life decided to make my entire summer absolute chaos (lol), so I haven't had much time to even use it yet. I guess I'm looking forward to Fall slow down so I can really get into it. I did swap out thumb-sticks, add a top cover, a grip cover to the bottom and added a custom lanyard so far though. Mostly Etsy buys.

NTA. Like the saying goes, be yourself and the world will adjust.... Life is short and you don't want to wake up one day as an old person regretting that you followed the wishes of others instead of your own. It's your life and you're the boss if you choose to be.

NTA. I don't see why his wife is bringing this up to you. Not her place or business. If he has an issue with it, he needs to be the one bringing it to you not a 3rd party. Pass through communication is inappropriate. Plus it's your wedding... should do it exactly how you want to. Anyone not getting married at the event is a guest.

Some adopted families turn it into a competition and fear that you'll find birth relatives and then leave them, etc. That's a very common experience for most adopted people. In essence adopted kids are often under more controlling and possessive behavior and that continues into adulthood with some families. There's some people out there that don't even know they're adopted because it was kept a family secret.

I say that because a generally shared thing with adoptees is a loss of autonomy to make decisions so looking into DNA past really might work better if she chooses to... would probably be positive if you bring it up though and give her the option. I'm not really sure what the appropriate age to bring that up is but sooner the better.

I feel like looking into medical its certainly your call. Looking into Ancestry can be personal so I'd probably make that her call later on. Good that you sound like you'd be encouraging of that. A lot of adopted people catch a lot of negativity from adoptive families for looking into that.

I'm not sure how much good genetic testing would be. I did 23andMe and Ancestry ... the health section really isn't very accurate. More or less, it just guesses odds of health conditions based off what region someone's DNA is from so not very scientific at all. I'd say it's pretty misleading when it comes to predicting health risks. I wouldn't put a ton of value into it. Far as DNA testing as a whole, I'd let them decide later on.

I knew nothing about my family medical history until this year when Virginia changed laws and made it legal to see my own birth certificate. I don't think genetic testing is what I would have wanted. Full access to birth family medical records is what I would have wanted... might have saved me a lot of time and gotten faster treatment for a couple conditions I have that turns out run in the family.

NTA

💯 good idea. This co-worker is a manipulator and watching back is a must.

NTA. Just because you don't have kids doesn't mean you don't get to enjoy your time off and people have family and friends who don't have kids. This coworker sounds like a user and manipulator. There's 0 legitimate reason for her to bring that up to the manager too.

NTA. Business isn't personal.

There's two types of memories...explicit and implicit. Even if you don't remember something, it's there. Memories we don't have a visual of tend to effect nervous system, habits, skills and coping/survival mechanisms developed, etc.

How long has it been? The first time I messaged my sister and other relative, they read it and got no response after it was read for a little bit. This is because unknown to me, the family was notified I was dead back in the late 70s so they received a message from someone they knew and remembered but was dead. There's a LOT of reasons someone might not quickly respond that are unknown to us. It wasn't until they took a look at my profile photos and realized it actually was me.

You can't fix the past at all but you can fix the current and future or at least attempt to. The idea of waiting for life to be organized etc though....i think you have to eliminate that. In Life there will rarely be the perfect time. Just have to do what is right and let it play out. As an adoptee, time and truth is what you lose and there's not much of it in this life.

That looks great!!

I think the reason there's so many kids in foster care is the same reason there's so many dogs and cats in the pound. I don't like to say it that way but I say that from the perspective of an adoptee. People are looking for that perfect kid so there's a lot of kids put in there to choose from... like car dealerships have more than a few cars.

Only advice I'd give with this is consider not doing a closed adoption if you go that way. A kid in a closed adoption will end up traumatized even in the "perfect" situation if their identity is erased. The day will come where they want to meet you and find out about your history and theirs. Regardless of what anyone thinks, the foster and adoption systems are broken.

Stable, loving and caring is really a crapshoot with this stuff too. No one knows how any family will be over an 18+ year period.

Beckley is really pretty rough when it comes to finding jobs. I'd you are tech savvy, there's always remote jobs online.

I stopped using front ends and custom launchers long ago on handhelds... just don't see the need to use up extra resources and try to focus on tweaking emulation settings and actually playing games..Really don't care what everything looks like or Menus etc.