Knocked Out No Longer

Ten Years of Advice

January 31, 2015May 15, 2017by Kim3 Comments

I have this strange fascination with what I can only call “instagram poets*”. There are probably literally thousands of them out there now, but two of my favorites have been around for a while and will both be published authors soon. Imagine my excitement, then, when I found out that one of them decided to create a 30-day writing course.

I signed up right away. I’ve been whining and moping about this epic case of writer’s block I’ve been battling, so I figured this would be the push I needed to start getting over it. The two authors who created this course came up with writing prompts for each day and included other questions and quotes to mull over each day. It’s only been going on for three days as of today, but I think it’s already been really helpful if for no other reason than just delving deeper into my own thoughts and feelings.

The first day’s prompt has been my favorite so far: we were supposed to write a letter to a 10-years-younger version of ourselves. I’ve done a similar exercise before, but you always get something different out of something like this. In an attempt to get my words out of myself, I’ve decided to publish the responses to the prompts I really enjoyed through this blog, starting with a letter to the fifteen-year-old me:

“I know you’re stubborn and aren’t really fond of anybody giving you advice, so I won’t. I won’t warn you about the decisions and choices you’re bound to make because you’ll refuse to listen and you need to learn for yourself.

You’ve got so much ahead of you. You’ve yet to really get to know the friends that will become your tribe of people- the family you’ve dreamed of for years. You’ve got adventures headed your way. In fact, this summer, you’ll fly to Germany and experience your first real love. No, not some boy, but a place and culture that you fit into so well, it’s almost as if you should have been born there.

You’re also going to experience more pain than I can express. I know it would be more practical to tell you to try and avoid making the decisions and mistakes I’ve made, but they’ll be what makes you great. Being an overcomer will be your greatest quality- trust me when I tell you you’ll make it through, even in the darkest of moments still yet to come.

I know you are incredibly boy-crazy right now, but don’t worry about it so much. I’m not going to lie and tell you that the perfect guy will come along any time soon, because I’m not even sure I’ve encountered that magical person yet. Just don’t get so desperate to finally get that boyfriend and first kiss that you settle. You’ll eventually find somebody in a few years, but don’t take the friendship side of it for granted. Be a better communicator. If you don’t, you’ll lose years and years with someone who could be one of your best friends.

Speaking of communication, work on that with your family as well. Spend as much time as humanly possible getting stories from your grandmothers. They’ve lived such interesting lives and are incredibly strong in their own rights. However, age will inevitably catch up to them and their memories are stories will be lost forever if you aren’t careful. Eventually this will also happen to your parents, so soak up time and memories with them instead of avoiding them every second of every day.

College is going to be a weird experience for you. You won’t finish or be very traditional about it, but don’t worry about what that says about your character or intelligence. You’re much smarter than you give yourself credit, you just haven’t found the correct outlet for your creativity yet.

Writing is going to really help you find clarity when your life takes a nosedive. Trust your friends because they will turn out to be completely loving and loyal. Don’t lose your faith in humanity even when some guys down the road treat you without a speck of respect. Hold on to your love for the world and helping others.

When your gut screams that something isn’t quite right, follow the gut feeling. You might still have that pride that’s unwilling to let anyone see you’ve made a bad decision, but you have to let go of that. That pride will be your downfall. That pride will drive you straight to the pits of hell. Don’t let your pride define your decisions”

Lago di Lugano- Paridiso, Lugano, Switzerland (July 2014)

listening to: Portugal. The Man.

*poets mentioned in the beginning: Tyler Knott Gregson and Christopher Poindexter

Adoption, Relationships

Relationship Struggles

January 27, 2015May 15, 2017by Kim2 Comments

I’ve always said that I’m bad at relationships. In fact, I even started a blog post last week with “I’m bad at relationships” as the opening statement. It’s still sitting somewhere in draft form.

I’ve been mulling over that idea for the past week. It’s one of those ideas that tends to float around in the back of my mind quite often, but it’s been closer to the forefront lately.

I think my adoption has a lot to do with the way that I relate and interact with people. I was watching a show earlier this week that has a strong adoption theme interwoven into the plot, and I think it’s the most fascinating part of the story. It shows the strong desire to connect with family and loved ones, but the hesitancy to really get close and let people in.

This has been my main issue: the struggle between trusting others with the most vulnerable parts of me and trying to acknowledge that there isn’t something inherently wrong that people will somehow discover, then choosing to no longer invest any time in a friendship. It’s something I’ve discovered a lot of adoptees struggle with to some degree. I think it has to do with having the knowledge that somewhere out in the world, there is someone who didn’t want you enough to keep you.

I know there are extenuating circumstances to almost every adoption. I know that in many cases, giving a child up for adoption is the most painful and selfless thing that a mother could ever choose to do. I know that it’s probably not fair to blame attachment and trust issues on a mother who was only trying to make sure her child was given all the opportunities possible. However, knowing these things doesn’t always heal the pain. It doesn’t erase the struggle that I’ll most likely fight for most, if not all, of my life.

I can’t speak for adoptees as a whole, but I know that for me, my relationships have struggled because of my pain connected to my adoption. My adoption story isn’t really one of abuse or despair. I was put up for adoption because my mother was a selfless woman who couldn’t provide what she wanted for me as a single mom, and I think that’s an incredibly brave act. But I see girls who were younger than she was working and fighting every day to give their children every opportunity possible. I see these ladies doing everything in their power because they want to take care of their kids. I see all of this and wonder why my mom wasn’t the same.

Rationally, I know the hurt doesn’t really make sense. I know that my life would have probably been even more difficult. But being given up leaves an emotional scar on your very soul. It’s part of your identity whether you want it to be or not. And unfortunately, it seeps into other aspects of life. If a woman who spent nine months carrying you and essentially nurturing you doesn’t want to continue doing that, how can friends or even a romantic interest think that you’re worth the work and energy for a serious relationship?

So when I say I’m bad at relationships, I think I mostly mean that I’m bad at trusting relationships. No matter how wonderful my friendships are, there’s a tiny voice in the back of my head that whispers that I can’t possibly be worth it for the long haul. Instead of facing the core issue head on, I’ve always tended to just end a lot of my relationships, with friends and otherwise, before they get too close or too involved. My incorrect rationality has always been this: “if I’m not worth keeping around anyway, I might as well end it sooner to avoid as many hurt feelings.”

It’s stupid and ridiculous and probably shouldn’t even be an issue, but your past and experiences can do a lot to effect your subconscious. They don’t have to control it as long as you’re aware of them, so I suppose that’s what this post is supposed to accomplish: acknowledging the issue with the intent to be more aware of it and hopefully more willing to try and change.

Eiserner Steg, Frankfurt, Germany - September 2014 — Eiserner Steg, Frankfurt, Germany – September 2014

listening to: The Kooks

Reflections

A Rising Light

January 15, 2015May 15, 2017by Kim2 Comments

I wrote a few weeks ago about the emerging underground culture in the city I’m in at the moment. I continuously get more and more excited about being thrown into the middle of what’s going on, and I’m not sure if I’m going to want to leave it anytime soon.

See, I’ve always wanted to live in a place where creativity is abundant and has a strong support from the community. When I lived in Arkansas, I was surrounded by people who were involved in music and intertwined with small local businesses. It was enthralling. I saw all of these people fired up and supporting each other in creative ventures. It was a new kind of support system to me.

One of the main reasons I dreaded moving back to East Texas was it was almost the complete opposite to the atmosphere of where I lived in Arkansas. There is a ton of money in this area of the country, but people are geared much more toward big business and appearing as “polished” and put together as possible. There wasn’t much transparency in the people that I knew or the places I spent my time. To be quite frank, it’s exhausting to live life like that, and I feared that moving back to this town would slowly kill the openness and creative drive I had been discovering in myself.

Coming back to this area, I only had a few friends. There are three guys in particular who I’ve known since my early teen years who have always been like family to me. Most of my extra time when I’m in town is always spent with them. They haven’t spent much time outside of East Texas, so they’ve built up a large network of friends and acquaintances. Having a lot of free time spent with them in the past few months means that they’ve introduced me into this network, and for that, I owe them so much.

The people that I’ve met since the end of October are the types of people I’ve always wanted to be involved with growing the culture of Tyler. They are passionate, incredibly talented, and most importantly, transparent with their lives. They are genuinely interested in helping others and being there for their friends. The support I’ve seen them give each other in the short amount of time I’ve been here is so surprising because it’s a selfless kind of support. They want to see each other succeed more than anything, and the joy that crosses their faces when there is a success in the community is brilliant.

Most of all, the atmosphere surrounding all of the people I’ve gotten to know is a living and thriving one. It’s exciting and raw and real and fascinating. This isn’t the dead Tyler I left in 2007. It now has electricity pulsing through the heart of it, and this light of this new community will continue to burn brighter and brighter.

Frankfurt, Germany - September 2014 — Frankfurt, Germany – September 2014

listening to: The Kooks

mental health, Reflections

Learning Confidence

January 12, 2015May 15, 2017by KimLeave a Comment

“It is the bright shine of all the endured sorrow that will make us glow” –Tyler Knott Gregson

Confidence is not something that I’ve ever had in abundance. It’s not even something I’ve had a decent amount of. I suppose part of that is my personality and wanting to be in the background more than the forefront of anything important, but it has been a deeply seeded part of me for as long as I can remember.

I tend to read into things far more than I probably should, but I trace a lot of my actions and life decisions back to my lack of confidence on a regular basis. I’ve never thought that I was truly smart enough, pretty enough, worth enough, etc. for some of the things I wanted to do with my life. So I settled. I settled in my relationships, my job choices, and in probably more things that I’m even aware of. The problem with settling is that your soul senses that something isn’t quite right. This leads to unhappiness and uneasiness, which then tends to feed into the lack of confidence again, and the cycle continues.

The funny thing is, the last time I told someone that I have very low self-confidence, they didn’t believe me. They said that I seemed very confident, and I think I laughed at that. I’ve always been a second-guesser, someone who always worried that the decision made was the wrong one. I still overthink practically every decision I make, but I’m trying to take more leaps of faith in my choices. Perhaps it’s this attempt to dive headfirst into decisions that gives me that false air of confidence. Or maybe that attitude is slowly transforming me into a more confident person without me really realizing it.

It’s not that I don’t want to be confident. I want to be confident in who I am and what I’m doing more than anything else in the world. It’s just the struggle between wanting to be a certain way and actually being that way. Just as in everything else though, there has to be a desire for change before that change can actually happen. Like I’ve said before, I don’t really do the “New Years resolution” thing, but I am trying to make it a life goal to build my confidence. I’ve been taking the struggles I’ve worked through and am trying to turn them into something positive. The feedback I’ve gotten back on all of that has probably been the key factor in building whatever kind of confidence I do have at the moment.

I know now that I do have something worth offering and I want to do everything possible to try and share that more and more. I’ve got my life story and while parts of it are incredibly painful, learning to embrace all of the dark and ugliness is what makes it all so beautiful. Like I’ve told everybody I’ve encountered lately, if reliving even part of that pain needs to happen in order to help others through their struggles, it’s more than worth it. Perhaps the confidence will appear as an accompaniment to the peace I feel every time I know someone has been able to relate to my story.

listening to: Damien Rice, Bastille

Adoption, Reflections

Not Quite Resolutions

January 4, 2015May 15, 2017by Kim1 Comment

I’ve never been one for New Years resolutions. In fact, I can’t remember a single year when I sat down and thought to myself, “this is the year that I accomplish this one big thing I’ve been meaning to do.” I have goals and wishes for the year, but it’s not quite the same thing as a resolution.

One goal I’ve made for myself in the past few months is to experience at least one new place a year. Ideally, this would be a new country and a completely different culture, but as I’m trying to be more financially responsible with my life, visiting a new country this year doesn’t seem quite feasible.

A couple weeks ago, I made a big decision. As I’ve written about before, I’m adopted. It’s part of my identity that I’m extremely enthralled by, and I want to learn as much about my past as possible. At the end of June of this year, I’ll be flying up to Washington to finally meet some of my biological family. While this isn’t a new country, it is completely out of my comfort zone, and it’s a trip that will undoubtedly be cause for a massive spike of growth in my life. However, it does occur to me that since I’ll be so close to the Canadian border, I might still be able to cross off another country visited on my list if I figure out a way to make a day trip up to Canada.

This is quite possibly one of the most intimidating steps that I’ll have taken in my life thus far. Meeting my family has always been a dream of mine and after finding them a year and a half ago, that dream has just gotten stronger. My plans to move to Alaska fell through and I found myself with more than enough air miles for a roundtrip flight within the continental US, so I jumped at the chance to scratch something else off of my bucket list.

I’m mostly going to be visiting and getting to know my aunt who was only 10 when I was born. She and I have several things in common, and there isn’t a very big age difference, so I’m very interested to see how we interact in person. It would be a dream come true to meet my other aunt, uncles, and especially my biological mother, but seeing as I haven’t heard from her in over a year, I don’t have high hopes. This will be a great first step in learning about where I come from, so I’m grateful for that more than I can figure out how to put into words at the moment.

This might be a bit strange to admit, but I’m also excited about this visit because I feel like it’ll be a perfect addition to the book on adoption I’m working on. The strange part is this: ever since I’ve started this blog, I’ve noticed that I’ve started to live my life in a way that would make a great story. I’ve always said that at the end of my life, I want to have lived a life full of interesting stories, but it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve begun to intentionally make decisions that will lead my life down an interesting path of growth and change.

As my trip creeps closer and closer, I have a feeling I will equally become more excited and nervous. I am happy that I’m pushing myself further and further out of my comfort zone and that protective bubble I allowed myself to live in for so long. After all, change only happens when you make yourself just a bit uncomfortable.

Potter's Marsh, Anchorage, AK - August 2014 — Potter’s Marsh, Anchorage, AK – August 2014

listening to: Young the Giant

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