Wanting And Adoption

I was thinking about all the writers I work with, and I was thinking about how each person holds a narrative inside of their body that is sacred to them. They come to me, largely, because they think I can help them access this narrative which for some reason they find hard or impossible to share with others and maybe even with themselves.

In movies, a character wants something and either gets it or doesn't get it.

I was thinking about how hard it can be for adopted people to allow themselves to want something with their whole being after wanting the mother back didn't work. I was thinking how at an early age I learned to swallow my truest want when my (adoptive) mother said her worst fear was that my mother would come back and somehow steal me away.

It wasn't that I wanted to be taken from my (adoptive) mother. It was that I wanted to be myself, and myself had come from another mother. Did I want a different mother? I loved the one I had.

AND.

And I'd had another first. I wanted to be, to say it again, myself.

I. Wanted. To. Be. Myself.

But if that entailed my first mother coming back and making my second mother's nightmare come true, then I could not want that.

If I could not want to be myself, all other wants become not that important because I couldn't find the will or the way to put my whole body into the wanting. Part of me went to sleep or into hiding when I decided to protect my mother. If I couldn't want myself, then I couldn't really want anything.

That means hope becomes a thing for other people.

I am very interested in how adopted people (me) can allow themselves to tap into full body wants. Into having North Stars with which to steer the course of their boats.

That's what I'm working on these days. I'm going to The School of Want (I'm reading a lot, I mean, and watching videos on how the brain works.) to see just how authentically I can live before my time runs out and I have to leave this body.

What do you want? I mean, what do you really, really want? If the Genie of Want came to you with one wish, would you have the answer handy? What would happen if you said the word and the Genie waved their wand and your want came true?