For the 30-Year-Old Adopted Man Who Wrote to Me That He Felt Broken After Coming Out of the Fog and Wanted Love

The thing about feeling broken is that “broken” is related to “broke” which is related to “not whole” or “in trouble”. The thing about feeling broken is that you tend to think you are supposed to feel another way. The thing about feeling broken is that it’s hard to hang out at a bar or a dog park and feel hopeful about meeting someone you will get to resonate with in a healthy, fulfilling way because if the other person is “whole”, you’re not going to be able to understand each other, perhaps, and if the other person is “broken”, your edges might cut each other.

What to do?

If adoption wasn’t such a gaslighting parade (She gave you up because she loved you. I love you as if you were my own. You don’t need to know about your lineage—your lineage is our lineage now. You’re fine. You have ADHD—here’s medication. Why do you have to keep talking about the past? Why can’t you focus even with medication? Why do you keep running away when you have such a nice life? Etc.) we might not see ourselves as broken but a natural part of a math equation that is baby + relinquishment + adoption = the body and mind you now have. You are not broken as much as you make sense.

But how do you find love when you don’t make sense to yourself? How can you fully be present for another person when you can’t be fully present for yourself?

I have not had a date in over three years. This is the longest period I’ve been single since I was 16. I have mixed feelings about all of this. One feeling is of spaciousness. I have so much time. One feeling is of being flat-lined (maybe this is stability): no big ups and down of love and break-ups. One feeling is of loneliness. My skin feels frozen or in shock from lack of touch. But that may be a story. My skin may feel fine. I can’t tell. My head has steered the ship of me for so long that the voice of my skin is just starting to get loud enough for me to hear.

I think I’m in that stage where the butterfly is coming out of the chrysalis and if I’m touched, my wings won’t unfold properly. I feel like I’ve gone to soft clay and am being reformed, and so I take the loneliness as a necessary price to pay for coming into being. I think coming out of the fog and realizing you are a person with needs and wants of your own is an all-consuming situation, and, just as babies need lots and lots of sleep, so, I think perhaps, adopted people coming out of the fog need lots and lots of alone time (and sleep) in order to learn to hear and feel themselves.

I don’t know. It’s not like I have a roadmap for where I’m headed. It’s a day by day kind of thing, a make it up as you go along kind of thing. I’m learning that if something makes me feel bad or uncomfortable or like getting the hell out of Dodge, I have to stop and consider: if I stay, is there a good chance I’ll be closer to my goal of being a fully-functioning human being who would be a great partner and who would be able to create whatever she wants to with the gifts that she has?

I have sat through more discomfort in the three years I haven’t dated than I’ve ever intentionally sat through before. My mind tells me, You’re bored: go do something. Spend money. Make a ruckus. Get in some trouble. My body tells me: Please, sweet Jesus. Stay and rest. I’m so tired.

Now that I feel I’ve written enough for today, I’m going to take a nap.

Sweet dreams.