And listen, do not #NotAllAdults me. First of all, way to get defensive and yet again prioritize the bruised egos of grown-ass people who should know better over the lives of kids just trying to survive. Also, we aren’t stupid; obviously we know there are adults trying to do the right thing. The system is mostly broken, but a ton of the people working in it aren’t. I personally know really nice, dedicated foster parents, including kinship-care parents who are blood relatives (grandparents, uncles and aunts) taking care of kids. There have been social workers with huge caseloads who still made me feel safe, and I’ve met loving bio parents who just need some help. All of them are overworked and underpaid. Their existence does not change the fact that adults, and only adults, lawmakers definitely included, are the reason kids end up in foster care. No kid is in foster care because of something we did. That’s not how it works. And adults are solely responsible for the sorry state foster care is in. Until everyone understands and admits this, nothing will ever change for us.

Aging out is terrifying.

Still…I can’t wait.

I can’t help believing I will be okay. Maybe I’m setting myself up for spectacular failure, but all this time I’ve been so lucky; if I am as perfect as I can be, I bet I can stave off the likely possibility of being homeless within a year, or pregnant, or dead. Outcomes for kids who age out with no family are mostly a nightmare, and it makes me furious. I refuse to let the stupid circumstance of my birth ruin me. I am a Muir, for Christ’s sake! Not in meaningless blood, but in what truly matters. I believe that the nurses who held me and named me could tell John Muir’s singular life force is in me and in our shared name, and I will end my childhood the way it began: alone. Finally free to live and take care of myself in the wilderness of the wide world.

I hope.

When I was little and still thought I wanted parents, I used to ask Joellen all the time why she couldn’t adopt me. She had no husband or kids of her own. I’d been with her since before I could remember, she always showed up, she kept her promises, she was never late, she never got mad at me, and she always had gum in her purse.

That was before I understood she stayed with me because she was paid to.

“If I adopted every kid I wanted to, I would have eleven baseball teams,” she always said, combing my little-kid hair with her fingers. “I can’t, Muir. Not kosher with my job; I would probably have to quit. And then who would I be helping?”

“Me,” I said. It was the only time I ever saw her cry.