 by Jessica Boston Each year, I experience the holidays as a season of buzzing excitement, Hollywood-like nostalgia, and a bit of chaos thrown in for good measure. I navigate big feelings, endless plans, and at the end of a whirlwind few weeks, I find myself returning to the familiarity of habits and patterns that are both healthy and unhealthy; the unhealthy ones soldered to me like shields of protection. Every January, I also find myself bombarded with an onslaught of advertisements telling me how I should change and what goals I should set for myself in the coming year. Whether it is diet plans or meal services, gym memberships, or apps to track my activities—each touting guaranteed results by the way—the message being that with a commitment, and spending a whole bunch of money, I can be a whole new person. For me, being adopted means change can be tumultuous. It’s equivalent to instability, unpredictability, and “little me” gets lost. In birth, and subsequently in childhood, change meant a loss of self, a disregard of my identity, and a command of obedience and performance in what was characterized as “adventure” ahead. There was no room to process the grief and loss that accompanied it. I was expected to embrace change, celebrate it, and in many ways, be grateful for it. Change became emblematic of a metamorphosis, but rather than feeling a little tender but renewed at the end, I felt like the molted pieces left behind. Forced to keep moving, devoid of predictability, I became accustomed to the idea that change was something that happened to me, something for which I held no agency. So, in adulthood, I spent huge chunks of my life resisting change, settling in, and hiding in the familiar just to survive.
Despite what the advertisers have to say, the “new” of the new year in nature is not until spring begins to warm the earth again. And as an adoptee, I am not rushing change. With the passage of the winter solstice behind us and the days continuing to grow longer, I am asking myself: What if I explore change through intentions as a process rather than double-clicking for yet another subscription and the promise of immediate results? During these winter months, what if I explore simply setting the intention and building a practice around finding healing and peace, for myself and for my community? Because the only change I am now seeking is in the form of healing and finding ways to feel whole. I believe healing is a sacred component to my ability as an adopted person to move through this life and to empower me to live my life most fully. So in this month of January, as the ads continue to roll in, I am inviting room for intentions rather than resolutions. I am committed to exploring what I hope to see in the new year, exploring what will feel purposeful as I move through the darkest days and the coldest nights of the year, and allowing the coming light to guide me. The Old Farmer’s Almanac reports that immediately after the solstice, the increase in sunlight per day increases by seconds at a time, but will steadily grow into 3 minutes a day by late February. As each day grows incrementally longer through January, I am also exploring how to bring healing and light into the many places in my life impacted by my adoption journey and story. I am still learning definitions and theory and exploring the research that informs how each of us is navigating an extremely complex system. For example, “integration” in the adoption space very broadly refers to how children integrate into the adoptive family. But for me, and for this chapter in my life, I am challenging and questioning how I am actively bringing my whole self into the life I have built in adulthood, because while I have always been of both a family of origin and adopted, I was never able to integrate both identities at the same time. So while the media and advertisements encourage immediate transformation in just 30 days!, integration for me almost seems to suggest the opposite. With the gradual increase of sunlight, how can I integrate both identities into my life? In this incremental process, what progress is finding me? Most days are humid where I live, even bordering on warm for days at a time, which keeps the bone-chilling temperatures of winter at bay. But on the days when the sun is shining and I feel guilty for hiding in my house on these shortened days, I consider the guilt and shame and the many narratives I feel as an adopted person to perform, to be prolific even. As an adoptee, there are tremendous expectations to be productive, to be grateful, and to make the most of this “gift” that is adoption. Yet, even as the sun shines, it is a practice for me to consider rest - what it is, how it is showing up in my life, and how I am making space for it. But I cannot integrate all of myself into the life I have built if I have to perform for the benefit of others while ignoring myself. So I must have time to rest. In my own healing journey, I am setting the intention of not just naming rest, but seeking rest and unlearning my conditioning to keep working. For all time, I knew—and my body knew—what the car sounded like from inside the house as it pulled into the driveway outside, my body knew what the keys sounded like from inside as they turned in the locked front door, my body knew the sound of footsteps and the mood of the bearer of those feet, and I knew if I wasn’t doing something, I better get up and get to work. What needs to be cleaned? What should I be studying? What should I be “doing?” But what I have come to practice in undoing the childhood conditioning of “if I’m working, you’re working” is allowing for the space and the intention in this new calendar year to invite and integrate rest and healing. Setting an intention does not require me to be superhuman. It is just a few more minutes of sunlight a day, bringing me warmth and healing. This intention gives me the permission I need to integrate light into my life as an adoptee. I am letting this new year be about the revolution of the sun and not the resolution of forced expectations. I am not able to change how I relate to others as an adopted person overnight, but I am working on how I am bringing my whole self into every room with me, and I recognize it will take me many seasons to move from intention to integration. But as I explore this transition and season, I cherish protecting the time, the quiet, and the rest it will take me to bring my intentions to life. So in this season of winter, while the nights are still longer than the days, I am embracing it as a season of pause instead of production, and I am listening. Listening to myself and all the voices within me, waiting for an opportunity for expression. Bringing all of myself into the room with me, boldly mashing those eggshells as I go. Bringing all of who I am into the light and letting the night keep painful parts. Pausing to see what’s out there ahead and visualizing what comes next. Because while advertisers would have me believe this is a time for ambition, I am keeping my eye on those three minutes of sunlight. Sunlight that I am pausing to watch grow, and noticing how it is growing within me. Despite what was dismissed as my identity as an adoptee, the light was there all along. I am who I came into the world as and the person I had to be to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I am adopted, but I am native in my own story, and it’s a story I am writing by the light of three minutes of sunlight at a time. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jessica Boston is an adoptee from Honduras through an interracial closed adoption. She first connected with the adoptee community during the pandemic through resources from Adoption Knowledge Affiliates, which provided invaluable support and connection. Jessica now volunteers as a peer facilitator to help create safe, understanding spaces for fellow adoptees to share their journeys. Jessica holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from The University of Texas at Austin, and has over 15 years of professional experience in health care policy and advocacy. Outside of her professional and volunteer work, she enjoys camping with her spouse and their rescue dogs, as well as attending live concerts. AKA invites you to hear from members of the extended family of adoption and the surrounding community. While we take great care in curating the content, please know
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