Embrace the label, adult orphan

Orphan. Adult orphan. The Adult Orphan. My relationship with the label has been a bittersweet journey and it continues to evolve.

When I first started to verbally tell strangers the working titles of my new venture, it raised a few eyebrows. Accompanied by 'Ohhh! That's... nice... (bit dark)'. I pondered the same myself, especially when I looked back through my scrawled notes from a few years ago. Notes that I have come to understand as my 'midway point'.

I had defiantly proclaimed that one should not call oneself an orphan. It suggested that we shouldn't identify with the abandonment. Yet here I am, standing proud as an (adult) orphan, urging others to do the same. So what's changed?

Weirdly, the title spoken aloud has a different effect on people than when presented in writing. I observe a range of emotions passing across people's faces that I don't think they're quite aware of. Confusion, pity, panic, and then finally pained approval. Orphanism sounds like a dark subject. Especially to those who don't know me and haven't lost their sole parent or both parents. But when read, the word – in context of my intentions – it becomes more palatable. Either that, or I just can't see their facial expressions. Ha!

I also recognise that bereavement, like all loss, is an experience that evolves over time. Forgive the cringey analogy, but a bit like a forest tree climbing higher towards the sunlight, continuously growing.

In the healing years that crawled by after my mum's death, I associated with the old adages 'You are what you think' and 'What you dwell on, that you become'. I had gone through the traumatic depths of hell and arrived on the other side, stronger and wiser. In that moment, I understood that if you ruminate on being someone without, you become that mindset. You become the loss. You turn more and more inwards and go out of your way to avoid finding yourself in situations that prompt reactive feelings of loneliness, sadness and resentment.

The connotations of the word 'orphan' are far from positive. And to be honest, if we wanted to nitpick, we would argue that it only applies to children whose parents are lost to them. I accept that 28 is not within the boundaries of childhood, hence the prefix 'adult'. Yet I feel like an orphan, and friends of mine who have lost their parents in adulthood agree. What else can you call yourself when you suddenly wake up one day to find yourself without parents? I am an adult orphan. It actually helps to have a label to associate myself with.

I consider myself lucky that I had 28 beautiful years with my mum, and I cannot pretend to know how it feels for a child to suddenly be without their parents. I mean no offence in borrowing the term. I can only work with my own identity and experience, and try to convince you that I felt like a child when it happened. Twenty-eight is too young to have no parents. I was living back at home with her after separation from my husband just months prior. And I needed her. So much. More than I had ever needed her since graduating from childhood. There goes that associative mindset again. I felt like a child, I became the child.

I argued in my midway scribblings that you should not become The Orphan. Although you have lost and technically have to face the big, bad world without that historical anchor keeping you grounded, it doesn't need to be your defining characteristic. It is just one of many facts about you. Like I have auburn hair. Or I live in London. But then I wondered... How inspiring would it be to have that same fact about you and your loss, to be an adult orphan, but to own it with a strong, wise and open heart? To fully embrace it and in that help others who find themselves lost in the same position?

And so back to that upward growth. In every situation you find yourself in, there are many layers of perception. I have undergone a transformative process and can now see that this will continue to grow and evolve as even more years pass. I have journeyed from abandonment, to familial nomad, to a strong and independent woman. I am an orphan – an adult orphan – and my loss substantiates my strength.

When I was ten, I decided that when I was older I wanted to author a no-nonsense self-help book. It would be called Get a Life and I diligently wrote the synopsis and first chapter. Ahem... But hey, look what quality experiential life trauma can do for those life goals, eh?! It sounds cynical but actually, it has helped me make peace with it.

Your obstacles define you far greater than your high points. What we suffer through, we learn from. Whatever you are going through, or have gone through, let it define you. Rise from the ashes, brush them off, peel back the layers and grow. Be the orphan. Or at least never stop trying to learn about yourself from your experiences. Be open to change and strive upwards to a place of acceptance. That said, if you’re not there yet, don’t force it. But take comfort in the fact that it will come. Your parents would be proud and those surviving in your life will be head over heels to see you shine again.