Things Nobody Tells You Until You've Lived Them, Part 1

A running list, added to as I think of more.

That you can love two families completely, without either one being a smaller version of love. That “where are you from” can be a hard question with an easy answer, or an easy question with a hard answer, depending on the day. That people will tell you how lucky you are before they ask how you are. That a birthday can hold more than one feeling at once, and none of them cancel each other out. That you can be the one who wasn't searching and still know, exactly, the moment someone found you. That the paperwork uses the word “placement” for things that were actually people, actually rooms, actually a car ride you don't remember but somebody else does. That grief doesn't check whether the ending was good before it decides to show up. That the people who show up for you when they didn't have to are worth naming, out loud, even just once. That “family” was never as small a word as anyone made it sound growing up.

I'll add to this list as I think of more — and if you've got one of your own, I'd genuinely like to hear it. Some of the truest things I know about this life, I learned from someone else saying it first.