Years ago I went to a psychic. I'm still enamored by supernatural knowing. I think because I've spent my life not knowing.
Not knowing my mother
Not knowing my father
Not knowing where I came from
Not knowing why I wasn't with them
Not knowing if I had siblings
Not knowing if we'd get along
Not knowing who I look like
Not knowing why I felt disconnected
Sitting in front of the psychic that day, she looked at me and squinted.
"Interesting," she said and paused.
The word filled me with both dread and anticipation. The pause was filled only with my heartbeat and intentionally slow breaths.
In 2, 3, 4
Out 2, 3,4
She finally continued "I see something I've only seen once before. I normally see one maternal ancestor on the left, and one fraternal ancestor on the right. One, as a delegate so to speak, comes forward on behalf of all ancestors in that line."
She paused again. I noticed I was fidgeting, while my mind attempted to process and finish her words. Explanations clashing with the emotions they brought forth. I looked down and noticed my hands were clenched.
"Does my mother or father have hands like mine?" I wondered. Wide palms with long fingers. "Piano playing hands" my adoptive mom and dad called them.
I thought of them and all the love I received from them and wondered why that wasn't enough. I imagined the thoughts being pushed away like bugs meeting a windshield wiper. I focused on my breathing.
In 2,3,4
Out 2, 3, 4
In what was just seconds but felt like hours, she resumed.
"For you I see two on each side. So I asked for an explanation, that was what I was doing in the pause, you see." She sighed and smiled. "They told me you agreed to come back to heal generational trauma for four families."
She stopped.
Yet, another pause, shorter, but enough time for me to release all my unknowing in tears.
"I was adopted." I somehow respond.
" Ah, I thought so. The other time this happened, she was an adoptee, too."
The reading continued but gave no identity to these other 2 families that I've been longing for, connected to by birthright. Whatever answer I received from that psychic just led to more questions. Which was an unwelcome but familiar experience.
It turns out that knowing always leads to more unknowing in my life. Even after meeting that mother and father. Meeting those siblings. Meeting those nieces and nephews. It still left me with questions none of them could or would answer.
It still left me feeling displaced.
I'm not quite of them, I'm not quite not of them. I'm in the same not quite belonging space I've always been. The same not quite belonging space I would fall asleep next to and wake up with. We were entwined. While being raised by a different mother, father, and with different siblings, I still held the same space.
The initial soothing of reconnection did not remove the pain of not knowing.
Not knowing if they would have been better parents for me.
Not knowing if my newly found sisters and brother would have become my best friends.
Not knowing if I would have become a teacher like my aunt.
Not knowing how my life with them would have been.
In 2, 3, 4
Out 2, 3, 4
I wonder if what the psychic said was true. I felt like I could use it to explain the deep echo in my soul. The one I would call out to and only hear my own voice repeat faintly. Is this the trauma I hold and will heal from these families? Am I to take the faint repititious voice and turn it into a chorus of connection? But that doesn't feel quite right.
There's a song by Azure Lee called "Displaced". It's a melancholic reflection. In her mollifying voice she sings "Am I making something worthwhile out of this chase? I am displaced. I am displaced". It echoes what I don't know and what I do. I am not quite enmeshed in either my biological or adoptive family and yet I am parts of both families, tenuously quilted together.
In 2, 3, 4
Out 2, 3, 4
And I look down at my hands. They're like my father's.