How!! How do you adopt a little girl and then just change your mind? Why even bother? I'm sure there were plenty of blond haired blue eyed little girls out there. Why did you pick my sister? And why is it that you could love her so much and me not at all? There are people that I absolutely detest as human beings, but I love them simply because they are important to someone I love. I know that the only reason I love these people is that the Lord has worked in my heart...
But how do you justify it to yourself? What do you tell yourself? What did you tell your flock the whole time I was gone? How did you answer when they asked how many kids you have? Did you say three or four? And if they asked where the other was, what did you say?
How do you explain to your family that you just shipped a kid off? You only bothered to explain it to me once, when I was ten. And even then I knew that every word that came out of your lips was a blasted lie.
Arghh!! I'm so furious at the moment that I can't even think straight!! How do you do that to a little kid? How does it even cross your mind? The things you said, the things you did!! And how does bringing two more kids into the mix help things? Did you think that if you had two boys, your two girls would magically become angels?
I know that I blame you more than I blame your wife. And, well, I don't feel bad about it either. Not at the moment. She at least never pretended. She was twisted all sorts of ways from Tuesday, but she never hid the fact that she didn't want me. You on the other hand... You said you loved me. You were sweet one minute and violent the next. You were always sorry... but that gets old after a while. After a couple years, the anger just rolled off my back.
I sit and I look at my son. And I cry at the fact that this poor little boy is allergic to my dog. And I am so sad that the poor kid will not remember a time when he didn't have to take medicine before bed. I cry that this is normal for him, that he doesn't even question it.
I felt that way... after a while, your anger was just normal to me. :D
How did you feel the first time you realized that your anger didn't affect me anymore? How did it feel the first time you realized that I neither loved nor hated you? Did you ever even realize?
You acted so shocked when my caseworker asked you to end the charade. You were so surprised that I wouldn't want to keep talking to you, setting aside five hours every Sunday in the hopes you might remember you had another kid a thousand miles away. You seemed so surprised when I sent back a gift, unopened. It wouldn't have fit anyway.
Complete strangers from two states away wrote me more often than you called. Complete strangers all over the state asked for a Christmas list and sent gifts. Did you even bother to read the list? I remember one year you sent me a robe for Christmas. It was a lovely deep red color, and it was brushed velvet. And when I came "home" for a couple days, the other kids all had brand new stereos and three CD's to go with them. "It cost the same" you said. "We didn't know if they would let you have a stereo." That was when I knew. What does a twelve year old need with a fifty dollar bathrobe!! If you had even glanced at the paperwork that lay in your bottom filing drawer, you would have known that yes, they let us have stereos. And I would have prefered pantyhose to bathrobes.
Do you know... I still struggle with a sense of self-worth. For eight years my Christmas list was always "pantyhose, batteries, pens." Even then, I felt that if someone was going to spend good money on me, it had to be something I needed and would use all the time. Why should they bother spending money on something I wanted when I needed other things?
I'm fairly certain that you only told people you had three kids. I was your dirty little secret, hidden off in the far corners of Indiana. You know how I'm certain? You never sent me pictures of the others. You never asked for pictures of me. And even now... when we're grown up and six years after the fact, you refuse to answer the phone when I call. "wrong number" you told my sister the last time I called!! You don't answer my letters or send pictures of your own. You won't even take the fifteen minutes it would take to pull that envelope out of your drawer and slap a stamp on it. I'll send you the damn stamp!!
Arghh...
And now... all of a sudden I'm just tired and so sad. I want to cry so badly. Why couldn't they love me? What did I represent to them that was so horrible? Why were the others worth the effort, but never me? And how do you do that to a little child? How do you tell them that you wish they weren't there? That everyone wished they were never born? How do you tell a little kid that your life is perfect without them? How do you not even mask your hatred for a small child, except when others are around?
All I wanted my whole life was to be held by his wife and to be told that she loved me. I'm past that. It would be completely meaningless even if she told me that she had always loved me but didn't know how to tell me, didn't know how to deal with it. All I wanted was one genuine hug. One call that wasn't scheduled three times over. One letter in response to me.
And I wonder why I can't identify with parental figures... The parents I were supposed to love didn't love me. They broke my trust and my heart.
How do I get past this? How do I deal only with my present? How do I separate my past from my identity? How do I break down the wall? How do I help my new parents understand the pain that is hidden deep down in my heart -- the pain I carry every day? How do I love them as though it will never cost me anything, when loving them already cost me so much?
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