Tending Wounds…

Les Cils du Loup by Seiskja

There’s a big juicy wound I’m in the I’m in the midst of tending. I feel like I have literally been left sitting in between worlds.

You see, yesterday was my birthday. A notoriously difficult day for us adopted folk. There’s something extra soft, mushy, and kind of grievey about it. An untouchable, unreachable, unknowable pain and longing.

A desire to return. Or to say it another way, “hiraeth” (A blend of homesickness, nostalgia and longing, "hiraeth" is a pull on the heart that conveys a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost.)

For the first few decades of my life, I’d manifest an illness or an injury that would prevent me from celebrating.

As I got older and more conscious, I understood that this manifestation was a way to give unacknowledged grief some room to breathe. To give it voice, and physical expression. I spent so much of my young life under the self imposed hypnosis that adoption was only an unqualified good.

At some point As a young adult my life had become completely unmanageable, and I had to seek help. When therapists would offer to explore adoption with me, I felt like opening that door would annihilate me. It was my own Pandora’s box.

I’ve spent years unwinding my relationship to my adoption. To the to the degree that I now love every thread of my unique Divine Plan. I can see it’s magnificent perfection. AND, my human still gets bowled over by it from time to time.

This year is one of those times. It’s not necessarily the story of adoption that is up. It’s the pattern.

This year I had been experiencing these nagging symptoms for which I finally negotiated some tests. Those tests revealed a potential problem with my heart. And by luck, I was able to quickly get in to see a Dr, on my birthday.

That’s when it all clicked. This is something 1. Rooted to the trauma of separation. (Aka that’s always about our mortality) and 2. Is definitely pointing me towards my capacity to be love, and receive love. They are not currently in equilibrium.

It’s been ten days of existing in the unknown. Of sitting in the liminal. Facing my own extinction. Here, just here. I can’t escape it. And if I tried it wouldn’t be true.

Like an airplane flying with a giant banner, I hear HER asking me… How much do you want it? This life? This incarnation? And what are you willing to break open to have it? If you keep hiding, if you keep yourself armored, and shielded, you’ll miss the evolutionary intention this go around.

It couldn’t be more clear.

And yet, this is the big thing. The super sized spiritual gift.

There is also the human part, where I’ve felt fragile, scared, small, and breakable. Vulnerable and exposed in a way that’s kind of shocked me.

I like to think I’m spiritually fit. But that’s all ego. I’m not one once more “spiritual” than I am human. I’m a jaunty, jangly, loud, and clangy balance of all the things. I am the child, and the parent who mothers her. I am the guru and the student. The immanent and transcendental. Crazy and sane.

It’s been an interesting journey to land so fully in my humanity at the starting gate of 42. And it couldn’t be more glorious and horrifying all at the same time.

Thank you all for the birthday wishes!!

I read them as I sat for an eternity in the waiting room, gunning to escape. The symbolism wasn’t lost on me. That’s what this year is about.

It’s time to leave the waiting room. I’ve got to come all the way out. And I’m going to do it in the middle of the story. Not wait until I can tie a tidy bow around it for you. So that I don’t make others too uncomfortable. That’s just an excuse to stay small. To hide.

I’m going to do this in order to claim the precious gift of my life. Starting now, with this share. By bringing you into the collateral beauty of my birthday week that I’d normally hold tightly to my chest. Letting it suffocate me before I’d let you see it. That’s over.

Without answers I’m here to say, I’m in the midst of tending a wound. And it’s really fucking hard being in the unknown. But I trust. I really do. I’ll know what is really going on with me at the appointed time. In the meantime, I’m just in it.