Tuesday, April 7, 2009

un-Stifle

I.

I feel a lashing-out coming on.

It's late. I feel angry.

I don't want to think about it. But I know I need to think about it.

I don't want to feel this. But I know that I must.

Not because someone else is telling me that I should.
Not because I feel pressured or forced.

Because

this is who I am.

II.

Those forbidden thoughts can no longer remain oppressed. I cannot ignore them any longer. I can no longer deny them their fair acknowledgment, lest I continue to deceive myself.

This is the only way to merge.
Albeit messy and taxing.
The off-ramps have been moved or closed.
The on-ramps are congested and under upheaval.

I'm on this interstate now. For better or for worse, I'm going to wherever it takes me.

A high speed chase or a ride through the countryside...

I'm in the driver's seat, making my way toward that infinite horizon.

III.

Who would I be? How would my life have been different?

I cannot help but ask myself such questions.

But there are other questions, ones that I fear to utter, even in the privacy of my own mind.

I feel like a betrayer. A traitor.

I mean no disrespect. It is not a sign of ingratitude.

It is inevitable.

It is simply inherent to such circumstances in which adoptees find ourselves. We did not choose these circumstances. We did not choose to find ourselves caught between two worlds.

We can only choose what we will do now.

It is only natural that we would wonder, is it not? It is only natural that we would some day find again those questions that lost themselves in the fear of being misunderstood, rejected, stifled.

(So I stifled myself.)

IV.

I don't want to stifle myself any longer.

But I almost do not know how not to stifle myself.
I am expert and well-trained in the sabotage of suppression.
And yet it seems to be leaving me.
I seem to be losing this art in place of finding another, perhaps.

I still have so much to learn. So much still to understand.

I still have yet a voice that I have not found. How I fear finding this voice, and what it might utter should I set it free.

V.

I hear a distant whisper.
Drawing nearer each and every moment.



3 comments:

Mia_h_n said...

Don't be scared. I'm here with you and for you :) I've thought a lot about all these things through the years, and I'm sorry to hear that you feel afraid. To me, at least the questions you dared to utter, are completely natural. It's like the not knowing vs. knowing. How can you keep from wondering....?
I haven't really found any answers because there are so many unknowns, but thinking about the whole, how would life and I have been different, it just seems natural.

sherinala said...

Hi Melissa! Please - let yourself feel - even though it is terrifying. I empathize truly with your questions and wonder; and unfortunately, it hasn't gone away yet for me. Hopefully yours will dissipate in much quicker time than mine.

But you are at the last stretch of this journey, and about to embark on a new one; and good or bad, it will be what we have always yearned for somewhere inside of us.

So I'm rooting for you to pull the reigns and fly!! We're here for you and always will be!!! You can do it!

Mila said...

Thank you so much, ladies! Your words, thoughts, and support strengthen me.It comforts me greatly to know that you are out there and that you understand! :)