I’ve been delving into a lot more accounts of adoption, and also books that deal with China and Asian American experiences. Growing up I felt a bit like an outsider, not in a conscious way, but knowing that I looked different to most of my peers. I tried to blind myself to this difference and assimilate. I felt resentful and angry towards my birth mother. I rejected the parts of myself I couldn’t come to terms with. So now looking back and trying to re-assimilate, to re-know, to remember, is a slow awakening process. To figure out how I feel.
Something that stuck with me was that these girls felt that there was a lot of pressure to be ‘scarred’ because of their adoption. Something they never felt. I wonder how that would feel. While I cannot piece apart each experience and say where it all came from in certainty, I can guess. I can guess because I know how I have felt in the past, abandoned and unworthy of love. Being so self sufficient that it almost became a curse, a survival mechanism. Almost daring people to leave, pushing because all relationships seem so fleeting. The process of letting people in and trusting they don’t leave, putting work into relationships that fall apart. Feeling invested much more and grasping onto straws.
While things have changed a lot since I was younger, every day new things pop up, rocks turn over. Everyday is surprising in that way.