i flew all the way around the world to meet two strangers that i would eventually call mom and dad. it was glorious and terrifying and beautiful and chaotic. i was theirs. they were mine. the end. and since i wasn't even 6 full months old yet, it was assumed that i'd never know the difference. "it will be like she was always ours". and so it was.
except life is never that simple.
so in honor of my gotcha day - that day so long ago where i journeyed from the only home i knew to the only home i'd remember. i'm going to tell you about the gritty bits that get left out. because the hard days deserve a voice, as well.
i loved her. i loved the mother that gave me life and then abandoned me to an unknown fate. despite all logic, i loved her. i'd dream up a grown up version of myself and imagine the lines of her face, the warmth of her hug, the timbre of her voice. i'd never tell my mom because i knew it would break her heart. i knew she'd resent the love that couldn't belong to her. so i loved her in secret and time and time again the weight of abandonment would crush my heart. because it was our secret, mine and hers, that we loved each other. except i didn't really know if she loved me. because she left me. and i couldn't make those things marry.
...
i'm different from them in ways that can't be ignored. there are so many ways i am like my dad, anxious and nerdy, and my mom, headstrong and emotional. but i wear it in a totally different way. i have one brother that's a bio kid. the similarities he has with my parents are so striking you know immediately that he belongs to them. no one would ever think that about me. because i'm just different from them. i think, act, process, analyze, and feel in a way that is so me and so not them. some of this is born out of my sheer determination to be different, but some of it is simply the result of genes and biology and science-y things that are beyond my everyday vocabulary.
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when i was younger, i desperately wanted to look like i belonged to my family. being an asian kid in a house full of white folks isn't so bad, until you have to leave said house and venture out into the unrelenting stares from strangers. does she speak english? who does she belong to? how much did she cost? what is she? all questions that maybe were spoken out of curiosity but even as a young child, were like daggers right through my heart. i grew up with constant reminders that my piece of the puzzle just didn't fit for most people. i didn't belong
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some days it's still hard. trying to answer questions about a medical history that doesn't exist. pondering what my newborn will look like when i don't even know what i looked like. growing up doesn't mean the questions eventually fade away. if anything it feels like the questions have gotten harder, my identity more complex. there is her, the orphan baby, and there is me, the daughter of the people i call "mom" and "dad", the wife of G, the mother of the #rowenugget. but don't tell me that orphan baby isn't important. because she is me. and her story matters even if it is unknowable.
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in the hardest moments i cling to the Gospel, remembering that i am fully known by the Creator of the universe. there is not a moment of my life unknown to him. and he loved me every moment. he loves me now in my doubt and fear. he planned the complicated, beautiful, messy, sometimes sad, sometimes joyful story of my life. he planned for me to have multiple people i would know as mother and father so that he could remind me that he is all i need to satisfy my longing for love. because he is love.
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