THE GOLD REMAINS

I had always told myself that I never wanted to have children.

I knew that I didn't have the capacity to give to another human being in the way that they needed and deserved to be given to.

I knew that I didn't have the emotional capacity, the mental stability to be able to handle the highs and the lows, and the necessity of presence that a child needs and deserves.

22 years ago today, my daughter was born in Tokyo.

Six weeks later, we came home with a newborn and my heart opened in a way that I couldn't have planned, and I still didn't have the emotional or mental capacities I needed.

It was a soul-directed choice to adopt.

It was as though something had taken over and made the decision for me. Because when it landed for both my partner and myself, though, I know I felt afraid at times, it wasn't something I resisted. Something else was driving this choice.

But by the time my daughter turned five, day to day life - with the capacity that I didn't have - was taking its toll on my marriage. I was also a child in the relationship, on an emotional level, on a psychological level. Despite therapy and 12 step work and whatever else I could ingest, digest, as far as books, lessons that I did. None of it helped.

When my daughter was 13, I received another soul calling, and that was one that - to this day - still feels painful. Even though it was necessary. It was a part of the scripting that I believe I agreed to prior to this lifetime.

That soul calling required me to remove myself from day-to-day interaction with my daughter in order to heal these pieces.

It took me a year to act on that, and that was eight years ago. I ended up moving an hour away and making arrangements so that I could be with my daughter on weekends, and she could stay where she was close to her school during the week. But it didn't work out that way.

My daughter wanted to have nothing to do with me. She understandably felt horribly abandoned.

Despite this agreement, this soul contract, I spent most of my time in the town where she was living and going to school. But that wasn't the way the script had been written…

Then COVID happened and the separation became forced. At that point, I was not a part of their pod. When I would come to spend time with my daughter, I couldn't even hug her - on top of everything else.

The guilt and the shame that I took on because of having made this choice (that I couldn't fully explain) took over. It was as though it oozed out of me. It was a repellent, as shame is.

But fortunately, I was guided even more deeply - and in what felt like an even more challenging way - by losing my home and my work during COVID and ending up on a journey that I never would've chosen, never could have planned.

Now, eight years later, come coming out the other side of that journey, the gold that I've gathered from these lessons that were so hard, so challenging, is what I know my soul wanted me to receive. Wanted my daughter to receive. Wanted my family to receive.

And though she's turning 22 today (and she is essentially on her own, an adult in life), I know that she will carry these gifts forward.

Whether or not she consciously understands them at this point, I know that having had the experience of living with a mother who made painful choices out of love is something that will be a gift that she can give her children and they will give theirs - That the highest truth, that the greatest gifts that we can give, are not necessarily ones we put on a list. But, when we trust our soul-knowing, we are led to expansion, freedom, and a depth of love we could never have experienced before.