I’ve spent much of my life hiding my tears. From a young age—too young—I’d proudly declare to peers and adults that I was impervious to emotions. I was a “well-adjusted adoptee.” I’d heard it often enough, and the praise I received confirmed this was the acceptable way to be. 

Yet I didn’t feel any need to reconcile how frequently I found myself trying to will my tears back up into my tear ducts, or, when that failed, seek out private places to cry. Quickly and alone. Where it was safe. Where I wasn’t inconveniencing others. I’d cry in a bathroom stall, doing my best to stifle my heaves with toilet paper; in my room, during the times when I was afforded the luxury of a bedroom door; squatting behind a neighbor’s hedges; or in a classroom coat closet, leaving a trail of dampened sleeves that I’d used to dry my eyes.

Perhaps I was afraid that if I actually let them out, let my tears flow without judging them, they might never stop. And I think I was right. These days, as I attempt to heal from years of grieving in secrecy, I find myself crying in expected and unexpected places, over nothing and everything. This is a watery season—it will pass.

I cry out my seven-year-old self’s loneliness while I wash the dishes; my 19-year-old self’s disappointment as I fold my laundry; my 26-year-old self’s feelings of rejection, while standing in the produce aisle, carefully trying to select the best 참외 (chamoe) through fogged-up glasses.

I feel 14-year-old me longing to be loved while I walk through the arboretum in my new city with tear-stained cheeks and my arm outstretched just enough to graze each tree and leaf I pass; a bid for connection, met by their gentle caresses. My tears feel like tiny, warm hugs, leaving behind a layer of comfort as they follow the contours of my rounded face and roll off my chin. They soften and begin to release a lifetime of stuckness. I don’t wipe them away. Let others be inconvenienced by me. Let others hold me.

The tears of my newborn self poured out of me when a romantic relationship ended in the Spring. Tears that could only be a response to reaching, reaching, reaching for a mother who will never reach for me. Tears that knew I would spend a lifetime seeking out closeness with those who don’t want or choose me.

I sobbed (on mute) while listening to my brother tell me over the phone that he wears his status as an adoptive sibling as a “badge of honor” because he believes that adoptees are rare. That he would never change anything about our family. That he would never change my having been adopted. This was our first attempt at engaging in any adoption-related dialogue in 33 years; a door I opened when I asked if he would consider attending family therapy with our parents. The tone of his voice lets me know that he’s trying to offer comfort and safety, yet every word lands with the delicacy of a sledgehammer, leaving me demolished in a crumpled pile on the kitchen floor. My three-year-old self burst out with the force of a feral toddler, mourning the relationship that he and I have never had. Even so, I did my best to make sure there wasn’t a trace of pain in my voice as I unmuted to respond.

Every part of me wept while watching the recent documentary on Korea’s so-called “adoption reckoning.” These tears burn as they flood my vision and send a heat wave through my entire being, filled with a special kind of rage, grief, and disgust that’s been fermenting for generations; filled with 한 (han). Tears that flow from a deep well of love for and commitment to all adoption survivors—my people—including those of us who weren’t allowed or weren’t able to survive the unsurvivable.

I cry because we are so tired, because we shouldn’t have to do this work. An ocean of tears. These can’t all only be mine. I wonder where they come from and where they end.

Standing in the shower, crying—a favorite place to cry because everything’s already wet—I feel a tightness in my chest and an emptiness in my stomach. I place a hand on each and slowly melt into the shape of a standing fetal position. Breathing through my sobs, I feel my throat close up—a scream that wants to be let out. I open my mouth and am unable to produce any sound. 

Instead, I am gifted a vision of a woman from a different time, on distant and familiar land, holding the same shape I find myself in. Alone in a downpour late at night, she screams out. Her cries are rendered inaudible by the storm though the pain on her face is unmistakable. I see her, and I am her; frozen in place, a willing portal for her silent screams, until we exhaust ourselves. I understand that these tears are ancient; an invitation to surrender.

This is a watery season; a life-giving season. It will pass, though I hope it might linger a while longer.