{ the hard things }

before you begin to read this post, know that a.) it's long, b.) it's very roughly written, and c.) when i found myself at the point where the writing ends, i knew there was so much more to say but i simply couldn't go on. i knew i needed to write some of this out after a conversation i had earlier today, and i almost didn't because i think i knew i'd be starting on something that wouldn't necessarily find a timely (or easy) end. but i started anyway, and found myself having stumbled to a raw and ragged place, unable to go any further. this is actually my favorite kind of writing --- the kind that brings you to a place even you couldn't have known you were going, a place you absolutely needed to go, and couldn't have gotten to without just sitting down and letting the words pour out --- but it's also the most revealing and painful kind of writing, for me. all this to say, my thoughts end somewhat abruptly, sadly, and without a redemptive final paragraph. if you're here, and if you make it to the end, you're a dear enough friend or kind enough soul that you will understand...thank you, really, for being here.

--------------------------------

{ TODAY }
today has been a good day, full and also full of quiet.

i organised a matinée with close friends followed by a meal together which started with small talk about our respective holidays. one of the things that puts me at odds with the typical way most people navigate social situations is that i'm only mildly interested in chronological retellings and factual accounts. i much prefer to know what people were feeling and thinking during events. but i recognise that most people need to warm up to deeper subjects, so i do my best to ask appropriate questions and nod in the right places. i'm probably portraying myself as disinterested and rude, and people who know me superficially very well may think me abrupt and detached. it's a common criticism of INTJs: seemingly aloof. but i promise i'm quite interested in people and care deeply about them --- i'm just not a gushy, bubbly, touchy, readily open person. but don't mistake my disregard for social rituals (another INTJ quality) for a disengaged or uncaring spirit. whether i let you see it or not, i am always engaged, constantly processing, and if anything, i care too much about too many things. i'm usually processing and decompressing from any social encounter for hours, even days, after it's happened.

where were we? oh, today.

i came home and went about a few household tasks in complete silence as the early winter darkness dripped slowly from the sky like paint over the edge of the world. when i was ready, i lit a candle and completed today's yoga practice (a 30-day, new-year-new-start project by a yogi i started following earlier this year). it was good. it felt good.

{ 30 DAYS OF YOGA }
i'm not a person who usually makes concrete resolutions (see explanation for that and much more in last year's first post), and although this year is no exception, i do have a few loose ideas about directions i'd like to continue moving in throughout 2015. more on this later.

i never would've decided in advance to embark on any sort of fitness challenge to begin the new year (way too bandwagonny), but when i saw that this particular instructor who i happen to really enjoy (i've determined that at least 65% of sticking with any fitness session depends on whether you jive with the instructor) was doing a 30-day fresh start sort of thing, i decided to join. she's forgiving enough in her presentation not to scare me off ("this is not a challenge") while maintaining enough structure (videos posted at a certain time each day) to keep me attracted. because i'm that difficult person that can usually figure out what she wants once someone tells her what to do (and yeah, i usually end up doing the opposite of what i'm told i should), this is a hard balance to strike.

anyway, enough over-explaining. as of day two, this is what i've learned:

• i don't breathe properly, or nearly enough. in fact, over the past several (very stressful) months, i've found myself on multiple occasions not to be breathing at all. my chest will tighten, my jaw will begin to ache, and i'll become aware that i've literally been holding my breath. i haven't gotten to the bottom of why. i'm an intense person and sometimes i think i'm just concentrating so hard that i forget to exhale. as simple as it is, it's been helpful to have someone encourage me, multiple times over the course of a forty-minute period, to "find my breath."
• i store more tension in my body than i knew. it's a well-known fact that we all hold tension in our bodies in different ways, and apparently holding my breath and clenching my jaw are two of my favorites. in any case, lifting weights and yoga are helping me to breathe, and therefore manage and release tension in my body.
• awareness is key. even at day two, i can feel where i'm consistently tight and also where i'm already starting to release and lengthen. i think a general un-awareness of my physical self is a side effect of having been brought up in a conservative evangelical environment (and i say that without bitterness --- it just wasn't a subculture where close attention to the physicality of self was cultivated or encouraged). i also think my brain, heart, and soul are over-used (i'd even say abused) in my current job, so i'm often focused on restoring those parts of myself and the body falls by the wayside. if only i'd realised sooner just how integrated we all are --- all parts of us. as i've focused more on the health of my body over the past six months, the health of my mind and heart have grown by leaps and bounds. maybe it's just timing, or the result of years of seeking and trying, but health in these two latter areas is something i've been pursuing for a long time. i don't believe it's pure coincidence that tending to my body has launched my mind and heart to better places.

{ THE HARD THINGS }
i found myself sharing some truth with my friends today about what it means to be adopted. one of them, a woman my mom's age who has four adopted children of her own, received my words with emphatic understanding. the others sat quietly, sometimes with quizzical looks on their faces. i'll be the first to say adoption is incredible. and right on the heels of that, i'll say there are things i wish i knew, things i wish my parents knew. adoption is wonderful but, like any big important things in life, it's not to be taken lightly or perceived one-dimensionally. like anything else, it has its ecstasy and its fucked-upedness (please pardon my profanity and my made-up words, sometimes nothing but those two things will do).

i've referenced this before, but being given up for adoption leaves what i've come to think of as a shadow, or a bruise, on a person for his or her entire life. it's a void whose depth and darkness is unfathomable. i believe we can learn to manage and live with this void, but i don't believe there's anything on earth that can fulfill it.

this causes all kinds of complications for reasons you can probably figure out on your own. in particular, it puts stress on your relationship with your parents as well as any romantic relationship you may have.

the way adoption is in our world, people who hope to adopt are usually saving money and undergoing inspections and agonizing on waitlists for months, maybe years, before a child becomes available. everything about this is one-sided. potential adoptive parents build expansive and elaborate mansions of longing and expectation --- how could they not? they place unbelievable hope and love on the idea of their potential child.

meanwhile, the child is being given up, abandoned, fostered, transferred, maybe neglected, quite possibly loved, in one or more environments, none of which are with its biological mother or family. i don't care how young the child is, this has an irreversible and lasting effect. i was adopted as an infant by loving parents and fostered by a caring woman before that. i still believe that being separated from my biological mother in the first few months of my life bruised me in a fundamental way that has shaped how i understand relationship, attachment, and love to this day. in fact, the younger the child, the more primal i believe the bruise to be: how does an infant process or articulate how unwanted, lonesome, and lost it feels?

so you throw these two opposite things together. you put a tiny child in the echoing palace of a complete stranger's hope and expectation (and if it's a couple, that palace is twice as monstrous and unfamiliar). at this point i'm painting quite a dismal picture of adoption, aren't i? to be clear, i don't resent being adopted. i'm thankful beyond expression for my parents. but now that i'm older and have the tools to process and articulate myself, i think there are unavoidable truths about the whole thing that need to be given voice. it's not to say it shouldn't be done. but i'm a person who believes thought and truth are power. had my parents known any of this, might they have handled me differently? hypotheticals don't really work in reverse. but i believe that applied constructively, they can help us as we look forward.

i can see as i begin to type that i have a lot to say, and i didn't share all of this with my friends earlier today, but i did say this: when you have a child without a family, you'd think that child's response to being wanted and loved would be pure bliss and acceptance. finally! someone to hold and keep and love me! while this might prove true for some, for me it did not and has not. i've never really enjoyed being touched. displays of physical affection often feel smothering and embarrassing. (i think part of it is just how i'm wired; touch doesn't make me feel connected to others. or is this a result of what i've been through? i'm not going into the "nature vs. nurture" argument here.) but the void i spoke of --- wouldn't you think that if love came flooding into that empty space, it would be received with relief and gratitude? finally! give me more! fill me up! but it isn't, and it's something we can all understand: when you're struck somewhere, you protect and shield that bruised and wounded place. cleansing and applying salve to it --- things that are meant to heal --- don't feel good. they cause stinging, searing pain. the thing with physical wounds is that as you see and feel them get better, the constructive and lessening pain of healing encourages you to stick with it. emotional wounds are different, and the painful process of healing, especially as a young child and even a young adult, is not as easily accepted or embraced.

moreover, even if your primal bruise recovers enough to the point where it's not crippling, the scar isn't something you want to expose. it's a shadow, a puckering on a part of your soul so deep that it's beyond words, beyond feeling, beyond sound and silence. and when someone (a parent, a lover) tries to see it, to touch you there --- the instinct is to cover yourself, to gasp, to flee.

now you can see the fuck-upedness i talked about: all you really want, more than you want just about anything, is to be seen and touched and loved. but anyone who tries to get close enough to do any of those things, anyone who says i see you, is shut out and pushed away because it just hurts too much. what i must protect my already-bruised self from above all else is further bruising in that same exact spot. the way of the world is to (in all likelihood) love and be loved by more than one person, but that means allowing attachment (at great cost) and surviving separation (deepening the wound and widening the void), probably multiple times. no wonder falling in love the first time, and eventually being discarded by that person, almost broke me. i wasn't built for it. love of any kind dives straight into that darkness where i can't breathe.

the worst part? even if i could let you close and let you stay and let you say those words...for the rest of my life i don't know if i could ever really believe you.

--------------------------------