What does it mean to be "in reunion"?

We all have different definitions.

As I prepare to leave North Dakota after four days in Bismarck with my biological maternal side, I have reunion on my mind.

What does it mean to be “in reunion”?

According to various dictionaries online, reunion means to rejoin.

I didn’t feel as though I were in reunion (or rejoined) until I was fully accepted by and integrated into my biological families. Sporadic phone calls and contact with fringe relatives doesn’t amount to reunion in my mind. Can it be helpful and is that better than nothing? Yes. Of course… but to be in reunion, which can be harder than people realize, includes maintaining relationships for meaningful periods of time with core genetic family members.

AND THAT IS HARD WORK. HARD.

Feel free to disagree with me.

My biological mother and I met when I was 15 years old and had tumultuous, random on-again-off-again contact following that event for years. I never considered that to be “reunion”. That was me knowing who she was and moving through the spectrum of feelings attached to the situation. Still, meeting her a couple of times was not enough to consider myself rejoined. I would often say, “yes, I know her” when asked, but that was as far as it went. The meaningful, consistent connection wasn’t there yet.

Reunion for me began when I took a road trip 6-7 years ago to meet my grandmother and other family members out west. The ball kept rolling and I found my biological father a year later. I have not fallen out of reunion since. In fact, I am now more a part of my biological families than I am adoptive.

Side note: I did blow up a significant relationship with the man I intended to marry after that trip, which is a testament (in my mind) to how intense reunion feelings/experiences are and how it can detach you from your primary life. I have since learned I need a lot of space after in-person events with family to let myself re-adjust.

Has reunion been a magical healing experience for me? In some ways yes, in some ways no. I feel accepted by my family and that is a wonderful thing, but they were foreign to me for a very long time. I spend a lot of energy mourning losses with those foreigners when I’m rejoined and that is still confusing. My brain can’t always grasp the severity of the situation and at times when I am present, it feels like nothing ever happened.

Also, each time I pass Fargo on my drive to Bismarck, I know that I am from here. Everything about the way I feel inside seems to change. I feel freer. The body keeps the score, I guess.

I still have to learn that I live in two different dimensions now and that those two dimensions can’t ever collide; I exist as two different people and that is a crazier level of mind-fuckery than non-adoptees realize. I have to accept hearing “this is my daughter” at funerals and family functions knowing I still hear that from my adoptive parents. I have to know how to set boundaries and to make sure I stay in my own space when I feel like I need time to let my mind process what is happening around me. At times self-care has to be prioritized over attending dinners or nights out (adoptees will know how serious that can be when all we want is to create memories with family).

When I leave North Dakota or Montana, the parallel timelines have to be acknowledged by me and I have to carefully make sure when I jump between them that I don’t carry baggage over from one into the other.

I have a double life and I am doing my best to find a way to merge them, but I don’t know if that is actually possible. Honestly, I know its not and that’s a true tragedy in my life… and I’m sure many of you can relate.

What I do know is that I am free to be myself when I am with my biological family (specifically maternal) and that I am very privileged to have the level of connection that I do with them.

I never want to return to that other life when I’m in North Dakota and always feel endless possibility to start over when I’m amongst my DNA.

Truly though… the pain of the push-pull causes me to fantasize about a life where I can exist in between. I can’t have children, so there is no “third family” for me.

Adoption has caused me to be at my most comfortable alone.

Emily