Lost and found, part one
A two-part exploration of losing and finding ourselves, over & over
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A song I’ve been enjoying listening to:
I was just a few hours old when I was found behind a rock near Muir Woods in Northern California, wrapped up in a blue blanket with no evidence of where or who I had come from. A couple who happened to be birdwatching heard me cry and initially thought I was a wild animal before realizing I was a newborn, alone, trying to stay alive. It was morning, and it was Mother’s Day.
My life started with loss. The loss of my birth mother, the loss of identity, the loss of lineage and family history, the loss of knowing parts of who I was. I lost the person I knew most — the home I was grown in — the one human I was meant to stay connected to. That loss wove its way into my very bones, into the roots I grew from, into my sense of self. It was what I became a home to. It was the lens I saw from. It was part of me. It still is, to some degree. Even though I was found, I’ve always felt a little lost.
When life starts with loss, it becomes hard to trust it won’t happen again. It becomes hard to imagine anything other than the story you’ve been holding inside of you. It becomes hard to see yourself clearly when you never had the mirror you needed — when you’ve never felt truly real. It becomes hard to believe that the loss woven into your very bones can shift, can lighten, can stick to you a little bit less. It becomes hard to find yourself. Lost becomes comfortable.
I found my biological family on ancestry.com in 2015. When what felt like the impossible happened, I thought everything would magically (and finally) heal. And yes, some of that loss was soothed. Some of it was tended to, cared for, and held. Some of it dissipated, morphed, released. Other parts of it became more complex, more complicated, more confusing. Some of it healed while other parts hardened. Some of it became much more clear while other parts still felt fuzzy.
One of the most important lessons I have learned in the last seven years of integrating my past, my history, and the process of the unknown becoming known is that some of us might always feel a little lost. The thing we think will “fix” us might not be a magical eraser. We might always have wounds to tend to, stories to keep unraveling, things that don’t make sense to try and make sense of. We might always experience pain in sharper ways during some seasons, lesser in others. We might not find complete and total healing in every area of our lives. I know this goes against so much of what we’re told — this idea that perhaps we aren’t Before and After stories who suddenly overcome every single part of our experience of being human and make it to the “other side”. It might sound bleak at first, but hear me out because I promise it isn’t.
I’ve also learned this: we don’t need to get rid of all our pain, all our wounds, all our lost parts and grieving parts, or all our hardships in order to live a whole, meaningful life.
We can cultivate a life of nourishment and beauty, even amid the pain. We can create deep connection to life, nature, and ourselves, even with wounds that will never fully go away. We can learn to let love in, to embrace imperfection, to alchemize what’s hard into more than just hardness. We can be with what hurts instead of letting it become who we are. We can find clear mirrors. We can weave new stories into our bones. We can see through brighter lenses while not denying the difficulty we may always carry within us. We can do all of this even when we’re a bit lost. Even when we’re missing something. Even when we’re searching for whatever might be next.
We can find ourselves in the midst.
We lose and find ourselves over and over. We know and un-know ourselves in various stages and phases of life. We toggle between clarity and confusion not because we are somehow lacking, but because to be human is to be constantly shifting and changing, becoming and unbecoming, learning and unlearning— never being just one thing.
For a long time, I thought I’d only be lost. I feared I’d never be more than what hurt — that my pain was stuck in the on position. But just like waves and leaves and clouds, I change. My inner landscape shifts. It is never just one thing. Remembering and living from this place is part of what has brought me to where I am as I write this. Being lost now doesn’t feel so scary — it feels like an initiatory part of being alive. Even when I’ve been lost, I’ve been alive.
I was born on Mother’s Day so this time of year is always complex for me, for many reasons. This year in particular, as I approach my first Mother’s Day as the mama to my little babe, all of it feels extra tender. I feel extra tender. I’m in another space of feeling lost, untethered, uncertain of who I am. Some of it feels familiar, some new. It feels tender even writing anything at all this week because everything feels wordless. Yet it also feels important to put even the most lacking words to this space I’m in.
All these years of mothering myself have prepared me to mother my daughter, but I didn’t know mothering her would become another way of confronting my own loss, of sitting with grief, of holding a lifetime of wondering while nurturing the wonder in her. I also didn’t know it would create another level of healing — another way of feeling a little less lost — another way of seeing myself, mirroring and mirrored to, feeling part of a lineage, feeling a little more real. She is finding herself for the first time and I am finding myself again, in this new version and season, and the tenderness of it all is almost too much to comprehend.
But there are things I’ve discovered in this underground season I’m in that are anchoring me, reminding me of what’s true, and supporting me in trusting I will find myself again. There are things I’ve come to feel in an even deeper way — about being with the unknown, about losing and finding ourselves, about letting love in and allowing grief to be what it is and finally creating a home within us.
Next week is part two of this letter, so stay tuned. Thank you so much for being here.
△ 20 famous writers on being rejected
△ This twitter thread
△ Similarly: 103 bits of advice from a 70-year-old.
△ A moment from yesterday morning’s hike that is still swirling in my mind
△ My book Already Enough has been out for three months and I can hardly believe it.
△ Young people are on my mind.
△ Mary Oliver, reading some of her medicinal words.
△ Epiphany in the Baby Food Aisle: Motherhood is a hero’s journey.
△ The next movie on my list to see
With care,
Lisa
A portion of this month’s paid subscriptions are going to The Trevor Project.
So much of what you write resonates with me and always sends me into deep reflection, thank you. I am in a period of my life where I feel very lost and have many doubts I can ever find myself or heal. Or maybe it's more of getting to know and being comfortable with myself. I feel like I have lost so much of who I used to be, and I want that person back desperately sometimes, but I try to hold onto the idea that whenever I get through this torturous time, I will be more whole.
I really liked this part, "We lose and find ourselves over and over. We know and un-know ourselves in various stages and phases of life. We toggle between clarity and confusion not because we are somehow lacking, but because to be human is to be constantly shifting and changing, becoming and unbecoming, learning and unlearning— never being just one thing."
I’m not even sure what to say. I’m at a loss for words but deeply appreciate your work. Thank you so much for sharing yourself with the world through your writing. Sending lots of love this Mother’s Day season. 🤍