the winding road to self: introduction

"What are you hoping to find?"  She was looking straight at me with a slight tilt in her head and a pen in hand. 

I knew she was waiting for an answer, but like many times before I didn't know how to respond.  I thought long and hard about it.  I imagined myself wandering down a dark, beautiful and narrow hallway in an abandoned mansion, flashlight within my grasp, slowly gazing at the walls lined with oil paintings adorned with dusty antique frames and seemingly ordinary faces.  I imagined tracing the corners of each frame with my fingertips as I studied the people whose names I'd never heard, faces I'd never touched, and lives I'd never known.  On and on the hallway stretched, doors on either side with no end in sight.  I knew I could open any one of them if I wanted; it just took one stretch of my arm, a twist of my wrist, and a push with my palm...but I dared not open any of the doors.  After all, it was dark and I was alone.  Inevitably though, I felt a longing, a pit so deep in my stomach that felt reminiscent of intense homesickness, like the kind I'd felt in the middle of the night when I was a little girl staying over at a friend's house and pleaded for my parents to come pick me up.  Or the kind I'd felt when I left home for good and realized no one knew my name in the entire city I had moved to and I was broke and scared.  It was like that, but deeper, and it was in that moment I knew.  I knew that I desperately wanted to know what was on the other side of each and every one of those doors.  But, I also knew I'd have to come back.  I wasn't ready.

"I don't really know what I'm hoping to find," I finally replied as I stepped out of the dark hallway in the abandoned mansion, noticing Carolyn had still been looking straight at me with her kind, dark brown eyes. 

"Well, maybe that's the question to think about this week," she offered as she scribbled notes out of my sight on her notepad.

"Yeah...maybe so."

"So, same time in two weeks?" Carolyn asked with a soft smile and cheer in her tone.

I let out a tiny sigh and replied, "Yep, works for me."  I picked up my phone and opened the calendar to put a reminder note: 3pm - Therapy.

_______

Carolyn had a way of asking me the tough questions, but then again she's my therapist, so I guess it's her job to do that.  I literally pay her to ask me tough questions.  We've spent many sessions peeling back layers one-by-one, contemplating all the questions I assumed would be easy to answer like, "How would you feel if you discovered that you and your biological mother have something in common?" Or how about the question that really made me feel like something was wrong with me, "Do you ever think about your biological father?"  The truth was that I hadn't.  I didn't.  I don't. 

Like many others who have traveled this path before, I am on a journey.  A journey to self as they say. I spent the first twenty-seven years of my life relatively content followed by four years of piqued curiosity.  I peeked around the corner down that hallway and knew it was there, but never let my toes sink into the thickly woven rug that quietly draped itself on the hardwood between the two walls and all of those doors...those many, many doors.  And now?  Year thirty-two?  This is the year I'm finally taking steps onto that rug.  I'm letting my feet rest here for a while as I notice the patterns swirled into the design, admiring the weaving colors of blues and reds and grays and blacks, all from a safe distance.  I know that the moment I begin to step further down that hallway, I can't take any of it back.  I can't take it back when I'm finally brave enough to open a door, any door.  And how can you be certain it's the right decision when there's no guarantee of what you might find?  Or what you might lose?  Or what you might feel without restraint or know without doubt? 

I was born thirty-two years ago, away from all the things and people I presently, deeply know and love and cherish.  I was born across the world, in a land of strangers who look just like me yet speak in a language I cannot remotely pretend to understand.  They celebrate holidays I've never heard of, honor history I was never taught in school, and eat foods filled with flavors my tongue has yet to taste.  I was born in South Korea.  I was born to a person whose name I've never heard, whose face I've never touched, and whose life I've never known.  I don't know what I'm going to find, or lose, or feel without restraint, or know without doubt.  The only thing I know for certain is that this is my journey to self.