One of the greatest gifts I got from my time working with the winningest coach in Ivy League history, Kathy Delaney-Smith, on her book was the permission to live wholeheartedly while letting people see how hard I was trying. It’s not that I want to win at everything I do; I want to know I allowed myself to try so hard sometimes I thought I might die, to show up and risk failure, loss, embarrassment, or farting in public, whatever was in service to my vision, desire, or need.

Maybe the expression never let them see you sweat could apply to adopted people trying their hardest to not try their hardest, to not let the world or themselves see their true desires, their true selves.

A message I got as an adopted kid was Be you, but not all the way you. Be the you that fits our narrative, which is you are our child. My parents would be appalled and heartbroken to consider their participation in that scenario, since, truly, in their hearts I believe they wanted me to have the best life I could have. At the same time, they wanted me to be theirs. (When I say they, I am talking about my mother. My father’s sense of self did not depend on my being his pretend biological daughter in the same way my mother’s sense of self did, but I say they because they were a team in raising me.) The way I interpreted their need for me to be theirs was to dim my pilot light and to keep myself from bursting into flower. The idea of fully flowered me was not something simply natural and right. The thought of me fully flowering also felt like bursting in a middle finger to my parents, and, really, to life. You don’t want me? Fuck you, I’m here. Easier to stay budded, slowly rotting inside to prevent showing up for real.

Fully flowering for an adopted person could be like being daffodil bulb in a field of daisies and being terrified of breaking into daffodil bloom because everyone would see you didn’t belong. The solution is to stay forever bulbed, to live and die underground. (Yet, oh, the surprise, wonder, and delight of seeing a single daffodil doing its daffodil thing in a field of daisies!)

As a coach of D1 athletes at one of the top schools in the world, Kathy needed her players to be their fully bloomed selves in order to have the kind of team who can win games. What if adoptive parents needed their children to grow into their fully natural selves so that the team of the family could be as healthy and dynamic as possible? What if the idea of family came not just from the adoptive parents’ dreams and visions, but included those of the children they bring into the team? I think this idea would have terrified my now-deceased mom because she didn’t have faith in her own power as my mother. I have the feeling she feared if I fully owned my story, my past, I would not need her in the same ways and that she would lose me.

I needed a mother. I needed the mother who had adopted me because she had become my mom. I might not have the same level of near-constant abdominal distress if I’d been raised by a body that wasn’t deep down afraid of losing me, a body that allowed secure attachment.

Fully blooming at 58 is an interesting experience. It’s like taking a class in deep stretching right after you ran a marathon and all your muscles radically shortened and on fire. Having never run a marathon, I’m reaching a bit here, but I hope you get the picture. Fully blooming really hurts and feels really good at the same time. It involves me trying really, really hard. I’m not holding anything back as I open, and this not hiding from what I want makes me feel like a new person.

I have the suspicion that when I was born, I confused the feelings of being alive and out in the world as bad. If my body was dysregulated and my immediate needs were not being met: mother, breast, skin contact, heartbeat, voice, smell, then that was what life felt like. Uncomfortable. Scary. Maybe painful. Those feelings became home base. Safety and love were connected to the uncomfortable feeling of being alive.

Why would someone want to fully bloom into a life that hurt?

I have been teaching myself that comfort and safety are okay things to feel. Not just okay, good. Normal.

This means part of me is dying, the young part, the part that believes it doesn’t belong and isn’t safe. It’s wild that when good things happen, when growth and positive change happen, they can still be tied to the terror of loss. Who am I when I don’t need to feel bad most of the time to feel like myself?

I’m finding I’m quieter this way. Easier to please. I’m curious. Open. But this is still so much a practice for me. I still want to find discomfort so I can spin my wheels as I’m used to doing. The good thing about being almost 60 is that I’m too tired to spin my wheels with the same drive I used to manage. Now, mostly, I want peace. Meaningful connection to others. A nice meal. Walks in the woods. I want to feel part of the universe when I breathe in and out. It’s so much nicer this way. This adoption journey is not to be taken lightly. It is a fully-body experience with no certainty of a happy ending. I’m glad I survived.