Great stuff. Insightful stuff. Lots of it. But as I read, I feel overwhelmed with being validated for my "wonderings" or suspicions. And there's a part of me that wants to put a wall up and say "enough is enough".
Here's what my wall is built of; thoughts, questions, ponderings. Not necessarily making any discernible point or answers, but this is my wall nonetheless:
We live in a broken world. A world where things that are not supposed to happen do happen. And they happen frequently and with little remedy. That's what living in this world involves to varying degrees for each individual. I was abandoned by my birth mother as a newborn in what feels like a foreign country (South Korea), and adopted in another foreign country (USA) because I have no history here, no ancestors that I can call my own. What's a "homeland" anyway? I don't know how old I was. I don't know how it was done (my relinquishment), whether I was left by my birth mother or birth father or someone else. I don't know what it's like to live a life that got off with a good start and not off on the foot of abandonment and trauma. I don't know those kinds of experiences and there's nothing I can do to change all that.
That's life, right?
I don't know what it's like to grow up being mirrored back by physical, hereditary visible markers, yet alone emotionally or physically feeling bonded to any caregiver. I don't know what it's like to be picked up by my parents who look like we belong to each other. I don't know what it's like growing up being told how my mother's labor and childbirth and pregnancy experiences were as it relates to me. I don't know what kind of baby I was. I don't know what it's like to have my mom tell me anything about the first year of my life because she doesn't know either. How would she? She didn't know me during that part of my life. I don't know what it's like to be hugged or shown physical affection by my parents and not feel a very evident awkwardness about it, even though it's a completely appropriate expression of love. It sounds wonderful though.
I don't know what it's like to know that certain medical conditions run in my family history. I don't know what it's like to grow up in a Korean home, even though I am Korean. I don't know what it's like to look at a mother, a father, an aunt, an uncle, a grand-parent and be mirrored back in any way shape or form. I don't know what it's like to feel like I belong in my family of origin. Ancestors? What are those? A family tree? I have none that I can identify with. I don't know what it's like to be able to say, "oh, my temper? My analytical side? I get that from my mom, or dad or grandma or uncle blah". I don't know what it's like to feel proud of my heritage and to participate in it with a clue. I don't know what it's like to be able to fit into any group of people without feeling like I sorely stick out in my own mind. I don't know what it's like to be able to identify with my own name. Whether it's Kristen Fabian or Kristen Lopez. I don't look like either one. What does it feel like to have a name, first or last, that resembles what you look like? It's beyond me.
But, I do know that many of the things I have never experienced, and probably never will...my daughters will and already have with the exception of anything that relates to their biological extended family on my side. And with this, I am eternally grateful and count this as a tremendous blessing.
So...there's a great deal of loss. A great deal of unknowns. But I don't know what it's like to live any other life in which I did have these things either, so it's all things I wonder about but can't say I miss it because I never had it in the first place. It's like an American who was born and raised in the USA trying to miss being a Brit...they never were! But maybe this is different, because I once did know that elusive person called a birth mother...prenatally there is a primal bond that takes place...hence...the Primal Wound title of the book I'm reading...
Anyways...
I do know what it's like growing up with a feeling that I'm in an ocean of emotions called anger and misplaced grief. Hmmm....interesting. Glad I at least had a family given these heart-wrenching emotions as a child.
Well, that's life. And by the way, only I can say that to myself about these things, or another who can personally relate because that's been a part of their own life. If this comes from others who cannot, it's called ignorance.
That's all. Thanks for reading :)
Kristen
PS.
If the solution of closing the door to international adoption (like South Korea is threatening to do) seems like a plausible solution to someone's grief..then please think again. Think hard.
BECAUSE I was adopted into a loving and stable home, I do know what it's like to come home to a mom and dad who I never feared would harm me or leave me. If I was sick, my mom was there to care for me. If I had a math problem, my dad was there to take it to. If I wanted to play, I had sisters to play with. My family life with my parents, despite the abandonment and trauma and all the loss that incurs, was a stable force. They fed me healthy meals, educated me, brought me to church, brought us on lots of family vacations, threw us birthday parties every year etc. They provided a stable home in which I was safe, so safe that I rebelled against them to test them out, and still...they never abandoned me, no matter how much I sub-consciously set them up to do so.
They were not perfect. They were not infallible. They made many mistakes, as do all parents that are of the human race. But none that were so bad that I wished I'd never been adopted by them. They have been a constant and stable force in my life, my parents. They were committed to that from the day we arrived off the airplane and have done that still. My hope is that other Korean babies are not robbed of having a family by the Korean government placing such a life-altering decision for many babies on only partial information of hearing negative experiences without hearing others' experiences which differ greatly. The saying, "Don't throw out the baby with the bath water" translates perfectly here.
peace.
