what the doorways remember
By Erica Livingston
LISTEN TO THE AUTHOR READING:
Threshold One: Birth.
A goodbye spoken before I had a voice.
A goodbye screamed as a birthcry while I stalled in her canal.
A goodbye whispered before my lungs even learned the shape of air.
A leaving that wasn’t mine to choose, yet shaped everything that came after.
A leaving whispered over me like a spell I never asked for.
A leaving sealed in paper and silence,
a relinquishment written in ink before I learned my own handwriting,
My first hello was to aloneness—
the bright white buzz of the fluorescent world,
the sterile hum of machines,
the cold geometry of an incubator.
The ache of being held by no one but the air itself,
air that didn’t remember my name
because no one had given me one yet.
No arms. No scent.
No one leaning close to whisper, “You’re mine.”
Just a newborn learning, far too early,
that arrivals and departures can happen in the same breath.
If I look back now, I can almost see myself—
glowing faintly in the plastic cradle,
like a star that fell into the wrong sky,
waiting for someone to claim the light.
Threshold Two: Childhood.
Goodbyes too long.
Hellos too careful.
The extra squeeze, the “one-more-minute” goodnight.
I didn’t have language for it then,
but my body remembered that first rupture
and worked overtime to make sure it never happened again.
I lingered in doorways like a question mark.
I waved through the rear window
until the horizon swallowed the car whole.
Hypervigilance braided into tenderness.
People-pleasing disguised as Mississippi charm.
Otherworldliness masquerading as imagination.
Gifts and grief wrapped around each other like kudzu,
beautiful, unstoppable, a little choking at the root.
So I became the child who stayed,
and stayed,
and stayed—
as if staying could undo the leaving that came first.
I treated a doorway like it owed me rent.
I could out-linger any ghost on a staircase.
Don’t you dare invite me to a party.
In the quiet moments,
I built whole worlds.
Worlds where doors didn’t slam.
Worlds where voices didn’t evaporate.
Worlds where belonging wasn’t a fragile thing you had to hold with both hands,
like a mason jar full of fireflies you’re trying not to lose.
Threshold Three: Adulthood.
Goodbyes have become their own ritual.
Performance art by necessity.
I can’t leave a dinner party
without three separate rounds of departure.
If you’ve ever left an event with me, I’m sorry,
you know the farewell happens in acts:
Act One at the door.
Act Two on the sidewalk.
Act Three in the text I send from the stairs,
the dramaturgy of departure.
I’ve apologized to strangers for ending conversations too soon—
conversations I didn’t. even. want. to. be. in.
Even the barista gets a ceremonial farewell,
a benediction over a to-go cup.
The truth is, adoptees are incredible shapeshifters.
Architects of atmosphere.
We read the room before anyone else knows a room exists.
We soothe, we sparkle,
We make people feel safe.
Basically, we’re emotional-support animals—
without the vest—
because we know what it feels like to feel unsafe
since our very first moments.
We make ourselves safe to love,
hoping love will stay this time.
We build whole universes in our minds
so we never have to feel that kind of aloneness again.
We carry magic.
And we carry the origin story that built it,
part grief,
part theater,
part Southern summer night where everything glows
and nothing is what it seems.
Threshold Four: Healing.
A new script.
A softer one.
One I write by hand instead of survival instinct—
ink still wet, pages still warm.
Goodbye to abandonment as destiny.
Goodbye to shrinking myself
to fit inside other people’s leaving.
Goodbye to the belief
that I must linger to be remembered.
Hello to chosen kin who stay without ceremony.
Hello to the quiet miracle of self-parenting.
Hello to belonging that grows
even when no one is watching.
Hello to the air that finally knows my name.
Hello to the truth that I was always meant to be here,
not in spite of my beginning,
but in conversation with it.
And now, the final image.
Me, standing in a doorway
not frozen, not bracing for the next disappearing act.
But breathing.
Rooted.
A little haunted, the good kind,
the kind that comes from surviving the story and still choosing the light.
Choosing to stay, not because I’m afraid of the dark,
but because I finally know where the light is coming from.
Learning to savor the arriving—
my own arriving—
as if the whole world has finally opened its arms,
and said,
“Hello.”
