"agony is the easiest": a letter from my Appa

I want to feel peace and resolution over the life I now live--that is, life in "post-reunion."

I don’t want to fester or grow bitter. But, wow, I am beginning to wonder whether it's even possible to process all that has happened and all that continues to happen? Even with all the emotional work I push myself to do, I never cease to hurt. I never cease to grieve.

I have been feeling so restless.

I find myself just wanting to be DONE with being an adoptee. I'm tired. Exhausted. Frustrated. The list is endless. I want to be through with trying to “process” all these maddening emotions that make me feel like I’m being ripped in two, and then the two being pulverized into a heap of innumerable, unrecoverable bits of dust.

Sometimes, I wish that I could just walk away. That it could be as easy as that. But I can’t just walk away.

It's not like someone served me a bad meal, upon which I can send it back and request something else. I think it's evident that I'm dealing with a permanent arrangement.

Lately, I haven’t known how to put into words what I’m feeling. It’s more than just restlessness. It’s more than just exhaustion. It’s this sense that I should simply be at peace and full of contentment. And yet, I feel such turmoil and unrest.

I feel as though something is gnawing at me, but I cannot identify it. I feel on the verge of tears more days than not, but I cannot say why.

Deep down, I think I know. And I think I've tried to say it in more ways than one, and more times than I can count.

But I want so desperately to be through with it all that, at times, I just don’t want to expend any more energy trying to give any more thoughts or any more words to an experience that can feel so elusive and daunting.

I am so weary of trying to "work through it."

I wish I could simply close my eyes, take a deep breath, and when I opened my eyes again, things would be different. I don’t even know in what way.

But perhaps something more manageable. Something simpler.

* * *

In light of all this, I received another letter from my Appa a couple of days ago in which he wrote (keep in mind that these are the words that the translator chose, and I get the sense that in the actual Korean, his words were much more eloquent):

“…agony is the easiest and happiness is the most difficult thing to have in life. Emotional suffering is the easiest performance of human emotions, and to be happy is the most difficult. I hope you don’t get defeated by the emotional stirrings, but to win it over and be free from it. From now on, our goal is to make the right judgments about our actions with higher pride to lead our future.”

There is so much that I could say about what these words of his mean to me. For now, I will say that he and I certainly share the same gene pool (and we have the DNA test to prove it). Even though we barely know one another, his words resonate with me deeply and make me feel known by him and him by me.

And yet, a sadness lingers.

It is true, at least for me, that to feel agony is more natural. I am a naturally melancholy personality with a propensity toward the dramatic. Although it feels good to feel happy, it is not necessarily my default state, while the circumstances of post-reunion lend themselves quite well and very easily to feelings of melancholy and emptiness.

My Appa having a sense of this, wrote later in his letter:

“…let’s laugh a little. Here’s a funny quiz [riddle]. It might not be too funny, but oh well.

Right now, a man from Mars is driving a truck with 100mi/hr on a hwy of Georgia with apples, bananas, grapes, peaches, and watermelons. Suddenly, a police officer stopped the truck. (What do you suppose that dropped from the truck?)

The rest will follow on my next letter. If you are really curious, send me a text message.”

I couldn’t figure it out, and of course, I was really curious to know the answer, and couldn't wait until the next letter. So I sent him a text, and this is what he sent back to me:

“Speed foll down…Speed dropped. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

He does make me laugh--and cry--more than a little...