Three out of four of my parents are gone. Cancer. Cancer. Stroke. Only my mom, my birth mother, is still alive. Stay with me. I promise this is not meant to be a depressing read.

I’m not a huge fan of change. Somewhere along the way, I developed the belief that life should bend to our will and arrive in neat, orderly packages. Beautifully wrapped, tied with a bow, easy to understand, please. But life is messy. Worse, it’s often ambiguous.

We are left with complicated feelings about memories, situations and people we cannot change. If I had any say in the matter, I’d remove ambiguity from the menu entirely. Eighty-six it, please.

Ambiguity is the opposite of certainty. It’s an uncomfortable space where things are unclear, unresolved, murky and emotionally mixed. With my desire for clarity, I’ve often joked that people should come with labels so we know what we’re getting into: Empathic. Narcissistic. Critical. Generous. Funny. Self-absorbed. Kind. But no one is just one thing. Human beings are layered and contradictory. Even people are ambiguous.

For years, I thought life would feel easier if everything were more clear-cut. I love this. I hate that. I can fix this. I can change that. But ambiguity says: Here’s a painful situation, and there’s nothing you can do about it but accept it and move on.

This reality shows up everywhere:

People we cannot fix, and shouldn’t try to.

Relationships that hold both love and hurt.

Emotions that refuse to organize themselves neatly.

Situations where we have little control.

Can we please blame the childhood game Candy Land for any unrealistic expectations that life can be all bright colors and magical pathways? Perfection is seductive, but chasing it contaminates everything because it doesn’t exist. Our brains crave certainty, but certainty itself is often an illusion. Life, as you know it today, will eventually change.

One coping skill I stumbled upon is curiosity. 

It’s hard to be an adoptee and not be curious. You are born with questions no one around you can answer. You grow up not knowing anyone genetically related to you, your background or who gave birth to you. I was an intensely curious child living in a home where adoption was largely taboo, so I was left with questions and my imagination.

Looking back now, I see that curiosity can be a tool for resilience.

Curiosity can illuminate our paths. Mine led me to one of my absolute favorite things to do. I began writing in third grade because I needed somewhere to put my thoughts. I needed a space to be real. Journaling became both an outlet and a refuge, like a child’s hidden fort in the woods. Later it became my career path.

Curiosity allows us to imagine possibilities beyond our current circumstances. Questioning everything entertained my mind and invited my imagination to play. When I didn’t like the life in front of me, I could imagine the life ahead of me. I knew that one day, when I was old enough, I would search for answers. Until then, curiosity helped me dream about what I might someday find. Imagining what we want our future to be like can help us get there.

Curiosity fosters ideas and savors joy. Curiosity helps us create new ideas and plans. We can design lives that feel more aligned with who we are. It also allows us to revisit joy, replaying happy memories like small vignettes we can return to when we want to tap into gratitude or shift our perspective.

Curiosity helps us tolerate uncertainty, allowing us to hold opposing thoughts at the same time. Instead of rushing toward division, what if we approached people with genuine curiosity? What if our goal became understanding or learning instead of annihilating anyone who thinks differently than we do?

Curiosity opens the door to questions and leaves room for answers. We can still hold strong beliefs while admitting there are things we do not fully understand. We can leave space for what we don’t know about people, like a cracked door, letting a stream of light in.

Curiosity interrupts patterns. Anxious minds tend to catastrophize and jump to conclusions. Curiosity gives us permission to say, “I don’t know yet.” Or “that hasn’t happened.” We do not have to deny reality, but we also do not have to become trapped inside our worst interpretations of it.

Curiosity can also become a road map. An insatiable curiosity makes life more enjoyable as you view it with wonder. My discomfort with ambiguity, those unanswered questions, led me toward writing, therapy and difficult conversations that helped rebuild me from the inside out. It led to my search and meaningful relationships with my birth family. If I didn’t do this work on me, I don’t think I’d have what I am most grateful for: The family I have today. What if we don’t simply accept the cards life hands us? What if we shuffle the deck so we have a shot at the life we want?

I believe this is available to all of us.

When we accept that our expectations will not always match reality, we become more capable of riding life’s waves. When we stop demanding perfection from life, we become more resilient in the face of uncertainty. Curious thinking bends and reminds us that we have more choices than we think we do. Rigid thinking limits us and breaks easily. With curiosity we can explore, experiment, question and grow.

Facing ambiguity is learning to live with life’s imperfections and uncomfortable emotions we can’t outrun. Instead of demanding perfect answers or resolved outcomes, maybe it’s better to ask: Who am I becoming in the face of this?