a few years ago, i stopped acknowledging mother’s & father’s day with the people who adopted me. it was a performance that i could no longer participate in, and i told them as much.

it felt scary, and it was necessary. it was just one step toward choosing myself, and it’s created so much more space in my life for peace.

this sunday will be a day of mourning.

i’ll grieve the theft of my childhood, the many years i was forced to parent myself—without any model of what safe, loving parenting could look or feel like. i’ll grieve the life that was taken from me and the parts of me that were severed. the parts that stayed in corea.

i’ll ache as i pray to my 엄마 [omma]. try to remember her scent, the reverberation of her heartbeat, the melody and rhythm of her voice.

i’ll sink into the reality of the layers of violence that we’ve survived, together and separated. and, like on most days, i’ll wonder what she ate for breakfast that morning.

sunday will also be a day of deep rest and pampering, shared with my most precious chosen kin. an honoring of our commitment to re-parent ourselves. a celebration of the beauty and messiness of these emergent processes.

fellow adopted folks, i’m thinking of you and the mothers in our lives who are excluded from this “holiday”—biological mothers, foster mothers, the mothers we choose, the mother within us.

this sunday, for even a brief moment, may you choose yourself.

rest from the performance.

hold and be held by someone who reminds you that you are a sacred, beloved being.

we deserve that.