Two Things At Once

Somebody once asked me, not long after I reconnected with my foster family, whether finding them again made me grateful or made me grieve everything I'd missed. I remember being frustrated by the question, because it assumed I had to pick.

I was both. I am still both.

I think that's true of almost everyone connected to adoption or foster care, in one direction or another. You can be grateful for the family that raised you and still wonder, quietly, about the one that didn't get to. You can love the family you were placed with and still feel the loss of the one you left. You can be relieved a child found a stable home and still grieve that they needed one in the first place. None of those pairs cancel each other out. They just sit next to each other, which is uncomfortable, but I think it's the honest shape of it.

I used to think I had to resolve the contradiction before I could talk about my story out loud — settle on whether it was a happy story or a hard one, so I'd know how to tell it. I don't think that resolution is coming, and I've stopped waiting for it. It's a happy story and a hard one. Both, at the same time, permanently.

If you're holding two feelings that don't seem like they should fit in the same sentence, I don't think that means you're doing it wrong. I think it might mean you're paying attention to the whole thing instead of just the part that's easier to explain at a dinner party.