“Always remember, you were born to be loved.”
Kyung-hee (second eldest sister) left me the above comment on a photo of her desk calendar, showing that she had marked off the week of November 24-30 when I will be visiting my family in Korea. Her sentiment made me think about the reasons I put so much effort into finding them.
This void I had felt in not finding them, or even before I started searching, had made me doubt things over the years. I felt incomplete in two ways – as if there was a part of me that was missing, and also that I, myself, was missing from another bigger picture.
The omnipresent feeling of unwholeness inadvertently contributed to a lot of… less than wise decisions over the course of my life. It also motivated/drove me to push myself further and be more self-critical, wanting to become a person that they would be proud of if I ever found them.
I realize now that being reunited with my birth family did not make me more loved, or deserving of love. They’ve loved me from infancy, through all my mistakes and searching. This entire time, I was loved unconditionally, not just by my adoptive family, but also by relatives I’d never met– some that I didn’t even know existed.
My heart feels incredibly full right now, and yet glaringly sad that I can’t go to Kyung-hee at this moment and hug her as thanks for making their love for me so palpable in one short sentence.