arrival anniversary - 24

 

this year feels different.

in the dead of night and at the break of dawn, monsoon storms ravaged my body, rattling my ribcage with thunderclaps of grief. sorrow siphoned the air from my lungs. a line from a song pulled the trigger. 

the body remembers what the mind forgets.

the brick walls i've built up have almost all but broken down. i can see the rubble from where i'm standing. there's an infant in a baby carrier & she's crying for her eomma. she's been crying for 24 years. i pretend i don't hear it, but every year, it has only gotten louder.

maybe this is progress. maybe all the panic attacks and crying spells i had this week only mean that i am getting closer to healing. in therapy, i realised that i no longer feel any resentment towards my first mom over what happened. it makes sense, then, that the body's memories have returned. i finally have the capacity to process more of what i've been repressing.

it wasn't just a day. it was an entire lifetime.

i don't like the phrase "gotcha day" in relation to adoption. it likens people to pets and projects a dominant, possessive nature. every year, i hear well-intentioned wishes of "we're so glad we gotcha!" and my mind goes back to when i was a kid, and i thought you got kids from a store like the way people got pets from a kennel. when you think about it, there are so many comparisons one could make between pet adoptions and human adoptions. it's gross.

so away with the discomfort. i've decided to start calling this day my arrival anniversary. i like this phrasing better. it centers the adoptee's voice, my voice, rather than the adopted parent or guardian's. no one "got" me; i am here. i've arrived. 

we always have a family dinner to celebrate. i request Korean noodles, and it all feels like a silly little performance. i ignore the racist jokes. i ignore the bitterness lying in wait, lodged in between my teeth, and refrain from saying anything. they recall how my dad flew to Korea first class as a gift from my godmother. he recounts how he visited the orphanage where i was processed and got to explore the city. they talk about how difficult the quarantining was and how hard it was to bond with me in the first days. they laugh about how, sometimes, i'm still difficult. y'know how funerals are for the living?

adoption isn't inherently evil. it's nuanced. there are layers to the grief and empathy to be had and stories to pay heed to. adoption is trauma, though.

this year, whether i planned it or not, i am honouring and centering myself in the narrative. i am letting the harder feelings find me and expand in my body. these are my memories. this is what i remember. this is how it felt. this is what i lived.

zoom in.

at eight months old, i already knew how to self-soothe with a bottle of ice water. 24 years later, i still find myself self-soothing with ice water. some things never leave you, like the way i hold my right shoulder with my left arm to wrap myself in a hug when i cannot stand the touch of anyone else but need to find closeness in familiarity.

i want to be mad at that. i want to be mad at how i had to forget myself and learn survival. i want to be mad at the erasure of it all. i want to be mad but i only know how to be sad.

zoom out.

his new baby was fussy and wouldn’t take a bottle from him. the orphanage had sent formula with him but it didn’t matter. the only thing that would get the infant to stop crying was a bottle of iced water. he initially thought it odd but was just grateful his new child was keeping hydrated. it was going to be a long flight back.

finally, the plane landed. as he deboarded, he was met with cheers and friendly faces anxiously waiting to meet the newest family member. 

this year, i am choosing the path of least resistance. i will let them have their parties and their celebrations. i will show up, and i will be there. and then, after i have arrived, i will depart as quietly as they were when they erased my name and history.

read my past reflections here:
2020 - Why I Spend My Gotcha Day in Mourning
2021 - other aspects of adoption we don't talk about