Posted with permission from my friend Lydia Hollingsworth. She posted this in a private forum where only Korean adoptees are allowed, and it simultaneously broke my heart and inspired me (before I realized it was from someone I knew).
Occasionally I wonder whether I have outgrown the private adoptee forums, as recycled subjects come up, and then a post like this comes along, that moves my soul and pushes it off-balance, shakes up my brain with new thoughts, and bends my heart in every directly. I realize there is so much more to know, and am grateful for those who share themselves, and hope they get as much out of the sharing as I get out of the hearing. This meditation on the unknown, irreconcilable, and sometimes betraying aspects of being adopted, and adjusting and accepting that mentally – learning to live with and make peace with it – is captured here in a way that is both completely vulnerable and also an amazing display of strength.
The art was also created by Lydia and matches exactly what she wanted to say. I am mesmerized by the whole thing.
Thanks, Lydia, for letting me show this to a larger world, and wishing you the best in your new adventures.
Hi everyone, I don’t post much here but I do follow fairly regularly. I wanted to share this with you as it marks a year since I learned my birth mother committed suicide more than 15 years ago. This was after starting a search six years ago in 2012 and being told throughout the years that my birth mother was “not ready” for communication—it was actually her older sister all these years, withholding (and with good reason and intent) the truth of my birth, conception, and what was my birth mother’s very dark and sad life.
Throughout this year, it’s been the hardest to console the fact that I’d been believing in someone so broken and something that was never there. I really thought I felt her in this world and made peace believing she was some version of okay… I had a moment at Haeundae beach last year, shortly after my visit with Eastern: I became so entranced by a white jellyfish surfing the current, yards ahead of me. It was amorphous and free and for a moment I told myself to believe it was her spirit, surfacing for me in some weird way. When it came closer and the sun lost its glare, I was able to see clearly that it was actually a plastic bag, floating garbage, homeless in the sea. How fitting, I thought.
But now that I’m working with and surrounded by the wild minds of children every day, I’m finding comfort in their magical reality. I know what I know, I know what I see, but for the first time I’m wanting and needing to believe in the magic of things and find a certain faith that at least some parts of my birth mother have always surrounded me.
Always thankful for this group and the sense of empowerment you all provide despite the geographical distance
