the waiting game

a brief timeline of my birth family search:

august 11, 2010 - attempted to initiate birth family search through ESWS

august 20, 2010 - referred by ESWS to local agency, Love the Children

august 23, 2010 - started search through Love the Children

february 9, 2011 - contacted Love the Children for update, no response

may 23, 2011 - contacted Love the Children fo update

may 25, 2011 - response from Love the Children saying they sent my request to Korea in march, 7 months after i requested a search

may 16, 2013 - started search with KAS

sept 5, 2013 - KAS located my birth mother

sept 23, 2013 - contacted Love the Children for update

sept 24, 2013 - response from Love the Children saying they have heard nothing and that I should contact ESWS and KAS directly

sept 25, 2013 - contacted KAS for update and submitted forms to ESWS

dec 1, 2013 - submitted forms (again) to KAS

dec 10, 2013 - KAS notified me that they located my birth mother. referred to ESWS to establish contact.

dec 15, 2013 - contacted by ESWS about exchanging letters with my birth mother

jan 3, 2014 - i sent my first letter (translated, in PDF form) to my birth mother via ESWS

yes, you read that right, KAS located my birth mother in September of 2013, but did not inform me until december, after i had sent two emails to check the status of my search.

i was foolish to trust my agency, Love the Children. i don't believe that they took any action on my search, and what little contact i had from them was very dismissive. KAS seems to be a mess, but at least they did their job. sort of.

the point is, today i am again waiting. and in the grand scheme of things, the three years i searched (or even the twenty five years it took me to start searching) were relatively short in adoptee search time. some people get responses in weeks, months. others like me, in years. others, decades, or never.

i'm waiting for my first letter back. i'm waiting to know her name. maybe see her face. find out something - anything more than the flat black type of my adoption forms that has been staring me back in the face all these years. 

but i am afraid. i am afraid she took one look at my fat body and decided that she didn't want to know me. i'm afraid that another family member found out about me and now she is unable to contact me. i'm afraid of her own shame keeping her from contacting me. i'm afraid of her own fear.

in truth, this delay could be for any number of completely innocuous reasons. i'm terrible at keeping up with letters. and this isn't exactly an easy letter to write. i have had the freedom to be completely open with most everyone in my life about communicating with my birth mother. she does not have such support. i was able to have a dear 누니 translate my letter for me. but my mother's letter will have to be translated by ESWS. the new year just passed. she could have been sick. or just busy. it could be ESWS dragging their feet. anything.

but i do not know how to be the child not abandoned.

and so i am trapped, again, in limbo. waiting. another day, another week, another month. my heart quickens every time i see i have a new email. the let down when it's nothing more than a store newsletter. the dread, that when news does come, it will be bad news. that she will not want to know me. i am waiting for rejection. i am waiting to be abandoned again.

i'm finding it hard to be present these days. i'm finding even scars long healed are aching. it is hard not to fold inside myself completely. retreat to somewhere safe.

i'm working more hours than my body can physically sustain, but it's the only way i will get to Korea. i know it's just another way of hiding. i keep having nightmares that i'm leaving the next day, but that i'm not ready. that i have been so focused on earning the money i need to go that i haven't done any of the emotional preparation. i'm going to bed the night before my flight, crying and saying "i don't want to go" but everything pushes me to leave. it's terrifying.

so here i am, waiting.