Days That Are Complicated on Purpose

Birthdays. Gotcha days. The anniversary of a placement, or a reunion, or a day nobody else in your life even knows the significance of. Some days on the calendar just come loaded, for people whose stories started the way mine did.

I don't think there's a right way to feel on those days. I've had birthdays that felt like pure celebration and birthdays that felt like grief wearing a party hat, and most of them were somewhere in between, shifting by the hour. I know adoptees who love “Gotcha Day” and mark it every year, and adoptees who can't stand the term and don't observe it at all, and I don't think either group has it wrong. I know foster parents who quietly note the day a child left, every year, without ever saying so out loud.

What I'd want anyone in this life to know is that you're allowed to decide, year by year, what a complicated day gets to mean to you. You don't have to perform gratitude on the days that are supposed to be about gratitude. You don't have to perform grief on the days that are supposed to be about loss, either. You get to just feel whatever actually shows up, and let that be enough of an answer.

Mine changes most years. I've stopped expecting it not to.