Emotions

I have had a lot of emotions about the letter I received on Wednesday. Yesterday I sat at work and wrote 3 drafts to a letter that I was going to send in reply. Everything seemed so odd and strange. That was until I decided to use trusty facebook. I looked up the name of the woman that had contacted me and everything is there, it all matches. This entire 2nd family of mine that let me go 33 years ago is right there. Pictures of the boys that I know are my brothers, pictures of aunts, uncles & cousins that I have never met.

Reading Kathy’s entries (this is my birth mother, so much easier that saying my birthmother every time) remind me of the circumstances to which I was born. A family that was not highly educated mostly earned a living by working in factories and just didn’t get far away from that small town. The boys are both in the military, and I hope they get a chance to get out and see the world and experience those things that I have. I wonder if they know about me – I wonder if Kathy has ever told them that they have a sister out there. Brothers. Wow. I put a picture of me next to one of the boys and we have many of the same features, we resemble each other.

I don’t hold it against Kathy for not continuing to keep in touch with me. Those first few letters that we had written each other were foreign and difficult to write. I got a lot of information from her about medical background, and I got a chance to say thank you for giving me a chance at life when you didn’t have to. I know I have had experiences that she would not have been able to give me, I can recognize that and I am thankful. Even now I am waiting on my masters program acceptance, I know I am doing the things that she wanted me to be able to do.
I do not think of this new group of people as a replacement for the people that I do call family. My mom and dad will always be my parents and that will never change for me. It doesn’t help that my mom and I have the type of relationship that we do. It’s abrasive, it’s draining, and it makes me very sad most of the time. Most people cannot believe when I tell them that my father and I talk every single day, sometimes even twice a day, yet my mother and I can go almost a year between speaking. When my dad will throw her on the phone quick because he is doing something we cannot even find something small to speak to each other about. When I go home for a visit it is my father that I want to spend time with.
I wonder if some day I will regret this. If someday I will wish that I could have changed this relationship into a positive and healthy one. Part of me continues to try, but I don’t feel it on the other end from her at all.

When I was home a few weeks ago for my Aunt’s funeral I was watching my cousin with her daughter I will admit I was jealous. I saw how supportive they were of each other and you could actually see the care that they had for one another. I don’t feel that from my mother. I have never felt that “mothers love” that people always talk about. Perhaps that is why I don’t want to have children of my own, that I am afraid I would treat them with the same callousness and judgmental attitudes.

So now here I am with a family that I do care for, many that I truly love and miss, and then I have this new group of people, some that want to meet me. Some that apparently I have been kept from all these years and a letter that asked if I was the ONE?

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