Reality

I.

Reality opened fire on me today.

Well, perhaps that's a bit extreme.
I apologize, Reality.
I know you're not out to get me.

It's more like Reality came crashing through the window--covered in shards of glass with a buffoonish smile brandished on its face, and its arms wide open as if to say, Hey! I'm here! Sorry about the mess.

It means no harm. Reality, well, just has never been the best at being very discerning, and tact is most definitely not one of its better qualities. And Reality simply never learned the etiquette to wait for a more convenient time.

It has no intentions other than to simply be there to make sure you actually know what's going on.

My thanks, Reality. Certainly, I would be deceived and lost without you.


II.

I finally broke down in tears this morning--I think my body just could hold back no longer--from the shear overload and the incapacity to process all that is transpiring.

This breaking news--and it is breaking me--that my birth parents are still alive, living in Korea--they want to meet me--how do I even begin to comprehend, to take it all in?


III.

It feels like I'm in a lightning storm. The simultaneous display of utter beauty and terror, power and fragility. The horrific show of dazzling shocks of electricity breaking through and lighting up the sky. The thunderous bellows cracking and rolling as if the entire earth is about to crumble.

Each time the sky explodes, a zing of thrill and trembling bursts into my body sending chills tingling through my chest and spine all the way to my fingertips.

In all its performance of glory and power, it is also ominous and menacing. I am flooded with a sense of awe and inspiration, yet fear and panic, as I gaze into the sky.


III.

This is the most joyous, overwhelming, rousing, perplexing, alarming, unfathomably unexpected news I have ever received.

And when I say that it is breaking me--it's not breaking me like a broken arm kind of breaking. It is breaking me in a butterfly-breaking-out -of-its-chrysalis kind of way. I know that when I emerge, I will be transformed, able to attain to a new and unfettered realm of flight and freedom.

But I know that such an emergence will not take place without painstaking and exhausting strife and effort.

This is like a fairy tale in a sense, but more of an epic fairy tale filled with drama, with tragedy, with affliction. And the conclusion, the "happily ever after" will not come without fighting for it and making certain decisions about how I am going to conduct myself through this journey.

I just need to take one step at a time.

Weep when I need to weep. Laugh when I need to laugh.

IV.

And when Reality comes crashing through that window again, I need not be startled. Rather, I can simply ask Reality to have a seat on the couch. Chat with it for a little while.

Then, when the conversation begins to run dry, excuse myself, get up, and move on with my day.

And as Reality rises to leave, ask it ever so politely, if it could please be so kind as to enter through the front door the next time it decides to pay me a visit.