I was given a key. A meaningless key that opens a door, or a box, or a house, but I do not know where. It is a key without a home. Without a name. Just like me on the day they created my first birth certificate. The one sealed away, ignored, and made into an unofficial document by the powers that be. This unnamed child and her key will go elsewhere, to a new family that will adopt her. It never occurs to anyone to wonder who gave a key to this baby girl.

I was given a key. Randomly delivered, much like me, now a babe, two months of age. A photo viewed by two people who became my parents. They look, they love, and as the story goes, drive four long hours to pick me up. Given only two days’ notice of my pending arrival, they scramble and hurry, filled with joy. I know nothing. The Universe in its endlessly whirling atoms spins and rolls and spits out both luck and horror. I get mostly luck.

I was given a key. My daddy is the center of my world. He loves, laughs, and plays freely, all while giving me safety, shelter, and nurturing. He parents. He is my father. My mother fails to fulfill the potential this label bestows on her. She tries. I give her my key. I want her, need her, to mother me. For many years she tries to open her heart, but her own pains, burdens, and fears block her. The key is lost. Buried in our mutual shame and guilt for what should be, if only we could figure out how. But I cannot bond to her, and she is unable to reach me. The myths of adoption levy their tax, and the price is paid.

I was given a key. Unmothered, I throw myself into the world, saying it does not matter. I’ve molded myself into something that can fit anywhere. Filled with grit and dreams, I, and my untethered soul venture into a world I view as mine. I want to shed my family, my town—to drive away and never look back. Away at college, alcohol-infused nights and newfound promiscuity create layers of self-loathing that engulf me. I strap on my armor each morning and manage to graduate. Onward and upward, I stuff my darker impulses and the lies I tell myself and those around me into the ever-deepening crevasses of my being. Adoption snickers, and hides, knowing I cannot yet face all that it has made me.

I was given a key. The problem with running away is that you bring yourself with you. My needs have never been acknowledged, even to myself. My mother’s insecurities make her unable to help me heal my own. I am an adult with no idea how to claim my own space, my own mind, or my own power. My strength is a façade and I shift and change to meet everyone where they are. This is adoption’s greatest toll: doubting my worth—to place myself first. To be kept. To belong. To be valued and treasured—just as I am.

I was given a key. Someone stops and sees me. The woman I could become if only I can get past this mountain of self-inflicted shit. I listen, stumble, aghast that someone might wish to love instead of merely use me. I have survived much. I still do not know what to do with my key, or who is safe to give it to. Maybe this wild weed that is me could find a proper bed to flourish in. To bloom with my face held high to the sun. But it is not that simple. It takes years of punishing work to find fertile soil that I can recognize as a safe place from which to grow. I uproot myself again and again, not recognizing that this, too, is familiar.

I was given a key. It is not always easy, these newfound afflictions of the heart. I’m flooded. Awash in a sea of emotions, I feel adrift. I learn that first I must listen and learn to feel my feelings, then I can find my voice and put a name to them. Each, one at a time, deserves their moment. This is fear, this is anger, that is sadness, and over here is joy. For the first time in many years, I begin to connect to that child who was once, and still is, me. 

I was given a key. Now, I finally look at it. Able to see it. Hold it dear and press it to my heart as maybe someone else once did. Who gave this to me? Why have I never asked, never understood, what its latent and wondrous powers might be? It is the key to my soul, given to me so long ago in the womb. By my mother, the first one—she who made me before adoption severed us. Promised us that the key would work. That all would be well. 

I pick up the key and unlock my heart. It is safe now to see it, to feel and understand it. I have always had the power but did not know. I have the key to me.