Holidays Can Be Tough

So much has happened in my life since I last wrote. As far as adoption goes, it has been rough. With the holidays coming up, I feel like I am being pulled many directions by many people.

As far as my aparents go, they are glad that I am spending time with them this Thanksgiving. I really believe that my amother is very happy that I am spending the whole Thanksgiving holiday with them. But at the same time, she is hurting inside for me. She is hurting because of the way my nmother is treating me right now.

You see, last year my nmother and I were on very rocky ground. I am not sure if you could even call it rocky ground. The Monday after Thanksgiving last year, my nmother pulled the ground out from under me. She sent me an email that said, "Months ago I thought we could build a great relationship, but now I know that I am not the person you want me to be." She ends up ending the email with "I don't want you in my life anymore. You will be happy with out me." And the real kicker was "you are a good mother." Uh, do what? I am a good mother? Compared to....? And she didn't even really know me.

But since then we have patched things up....so I thought.

Last year in December, her and her other daughter decided to go to a different state for Thanksgiving this year. So she invited my little brother and his family to go. Yep, the whole family is spending a week vacationing in another state. I wasn't invited. Not one word of the vacation was mentioned to me by my nmother. My brother told me as soon as he found out. In fact, my nmother didn't even call to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving or nothing.

I am trying to not be hurt, but deep down it hurts. Even if she had asked me to go with them, I couldn't have gone. But my thoughts are I wished she would have just asked. It makes me think that this is her way of informing me that I am not totally family.

So my amother called me today and asked if my little brother had left to go up and be with my family. (My little brother had to stay at his home for the first 4 days because of his work. He flew to the other state this afternoon to be with everyone.) I told my amother that he was about to leave. Then she asked me if they were having fun where they were. I told her I didn't know and that I didn't even get a phone call before they left. I could tell she could hear the hurt in my voice and that my amother was hurting because of how my nmother was treating me.

Hallmark

I was cleaning my attic today and found a box of cards that I had kept for the last 25 years. I haven't seen this box for 7 years. I wanted to go through it just to see if I kept any of my birthday cards or any letters that my nmother had mailed to me when we first reunited.

In the past few months, I have looked through boxes to find that one thing or two that I might have kept since we first met 19 years ago. I hadn't found one thing until tonight.

As I have mentioned in my earlier posts, I did not keep my nmother's letters or cards because I wanted to keep our reunion a secret. I felt like I could not keep anything for fear that my amother would one day find them and be very disappointed in me or fear that it would hurt her feelings. I really wished now that I had kept everything.

I found a birthday card that she sent me years ago. Unfortunately, I did not write the date on the card, so I have no clue when she sent it, but it has to be at least 10 years old. I wanted everyone to know that years ago there was one birthday card that Hallmark created that was perfect for a natural mother to send to her reunited daughter.

Dear Daughter,

I just want to tell you I love you--

not for anything specific

that you've done,

not for any particular reason.

Just because I like what

you're doing with your life,

I like the person you've become

and I really enjoy the time

we spend together.

I'm proud to have a daughter like you

and grateful for

the closeness we share.

I'll always love the special person

you've grown up to be.

Hope you have a Wonderful Birthday!

No wonder I didn't throw it away. I was not threatened by this card. It pretty much says what I needed to hear and still need to hear.

One Family

This past weekend, all of my adoptive family spent the weekend at my parent's house. I have an older brother and an older sister. There is a total of 9 of us including the grandkids.

Every time my afamily gets together, we end up having more people join us. We ended up having 9 extra people (some kin; some not) join us on Saturday. We ate and visited while the kids played. That is what I remember growing up. When the whole family could get together we did. When someone came into town to visit, we ALL got together. All of us love family and friends!!

I am the only family member that does not live in the same city as my nmother does. I live a couple of hours from her. When I go visit my nmother, it is just me. No one gets together to visit. We don't go visit anyone except her father. Some visits I see my younger brother and some visits I see my younger sister. But we are never at the same house or same place. It is almost like NO ONE wants to be in the same house together.

This past weekend it dawned on me that my life with my afamily is SO, SO much different than my life with my nfamily. It feels like I live 2 different lives. Some days I just wished that I had 1 family.