When I think about my story these days, I often picture a venn-diagram. The way, we swiftly draw the circles allowing them to intersect and cross. There is something so beautiful about the precise information the graphs display showing a rounded visual connection.
My story is full of crossover at these intersections, I am finding my healing. It does not always feel beautiful, but the longer I sit at these crossroads, the stronger I feel. Some of the words written in my circles: Adoptee, Transracially raised, Korean, Adoptive mother, Friend, Aunt, Daughter, Sister… The list goes on. As I draw my wide circles, I can see so much depth and interplay.
There is this vivid memory, I have on one of our visits with my daughter’s first family. I was about six months pregnant at the time. And had been experiencing this deep sense of depression around my pregnancy. The hum of my body viscerally reacting buzzed as I too carried a baby like my birth mother. Big questions echoed loudly, “How could she just forget these moments?”, and, “Doesn’t she want to know me?”. As my brain swirled it was so hard for me to celebrate this life springing forth. Until my daughter’s first mother sat with me while our baby took her nap. We laughed about all the pregnant moments we both experienced and without saying she knew, we also both carried some dark ones. I told her my big feelings and she reminded me that my birth mother had them too. We saw each other in our vulnerability and connected a circle around our family bond. We both agreed that our pain in motherhood directly resulted in our becoming and that we would not shy away from sharing it. And as I watched her play with our daughter with a certain twinge in her eyes, my questions faded as I imagined my birth-mother’s eyes these past 30 years.
There is something so sacred around shared identity. It grounds us to the reality that we are all connected. And the hope is the connection can create new pathways to empathy. For instance when I open my phone, in one swift look at my text messages, my venn diagrams again take shape. In one fell swoop, I am texting with my favorite transracial adoptee friends, and we all are sharing our thoughts around the ways the current political climate continues to shake our own notions of being. Then changing tabs and empathizing as one of my foster mama friend’s laments as she waits for her home study to be processed, while another is anxiously waiting to hear if her child was able to get the services they so desperately need.
Where each of these stories cross, I feel myself rise. It’s in the power of the connection. All these connections can at times feel at odds with each other. But, I find my solace in knowing this is exactly who I am. Though these stories are heavy and broken, they pull me to shore. Each giving me room to show-up with my full-self.
I need my daughter’s first mother to remind me that I have open space to grieve and that someone a world away is grieving for me.
I need my transracial adoptee peers to share in our experience of an ever nuanced internal landscape that gives us power in our advocacy.
And I need my fellow adoptive parent friends to remind me of the deep love and sacrifice it takes to make a family.
My hope for you readers is that you too can draw your big circle and allow yourself to take great pride in the pieces that make you who you are. Feel the beauty of where things crossover and allow it to bring forth so much empathy for those along this journey. There is so much room for gratitude and understanding if we can get still enough to see that even in our fumbling, we are alike.
WRITTEN BY BRANDI EBERSOLE: Brandi is a transracial adoptee, adoptive mama, foster mama, you know just a mama… Brandi lives on the North Shore of Boston. She loves LOVE, people and strong coffee. She feels the weight of balancing many hats with her partner in crime and true love, Daniel.. The two of them own a business together and relish filling their days capturing love behind their lens in all different settings. They also have three incredible kids, the first of whom came to them via adoption. She’s their passionate, bright, and spicy Latina daughter. Her story has brought so much healing for Brandi, not to mention this daughter’s amazing birth-parents, making their “extended” family quite the tribe. Their second child, a son, is currently Brandi’s only-known blood relative and his joyful, and charming ways are making it easy for Brandi to love her Korean heritage. And most recently added their foster-son “honeybear”, a full and mighty personality in a tiny brave body. Brandi is excited to share from her many crossing roles in the adoption triad, and believes as the many stories of this blog wash over each other, we are growing stronger. You can find Brandi and all her “Tribe” is up to at www.ebersoletribe.com along with instagram @ebersoletribe
