Would I be more confident in myself? Would I have a better understanding of who I really was? Would I still worry that the people I love in my life were going to leave me? Would I still bend over backwards to please people that hurt me the most? Would I be the same me?
No one knows. No one will ever know. Because she wasn't.
She said that she wonders what would have happened had she only been stronger. She said that she could not watch me be raised by my father's family. She said that she did what she thought was best for me. She said that she has been haunted by her choice her entire life. She said that she wishes she had been stronger.
But she wasn't.
Sometimes I wonder, too. If she had only been stronger, who would I be today? But then I realize, it doesn't matter. The past is the past. That cannot be erased. I am me. I am OK with that. I have to be.
We all have issues in our life that leave us to wonder, given a different situation, if your life would have turned out better. You can't dwell on it. It will only eat you alive. You have to move on. However, a small part of you will always wonder. I will always wonder. If she had only been stronger....
I wish that I had been stronger and found a way to keep my daughter, but I too would have been left living with my Dad in unhealthy relationship. I did live with him after each of my sons was born and it was so hard dealing with him fighting with his wife and how sometimes things turned physical. At the most, we stayed six months as adults. Who knows how long I would have had to live with him if I had raised my daughter.
ReplyDeleteI too wonder, what if I had been stronger, wiser, richer..... it is the forever question...
ReplyDeleteI think you would still be the beautiful, strong woman you are. But I know how hard it is to deal with the "What ifs".
ReplyDeleteLove you girl. <3
Hi Jen
ReplyDeleteI am an adoptee and found this post so moving. I think that those of us who have been adopted can't help but wonder what we would have been like had we been raised by our birth moms. You have a wise perspective, though. I have learned to be thankful for the me I turned out to be; but it didn't happen overnight.
Linda
I wonder this all the time now that I have been in communication with my son. Previous to that I always thought I did the right thing for him. I know he loves his adoptive parents and wouldn't wish it another way, but the thing that really haunts me is that a decision I made has caused him grief and pain in his life. Had our adoption been open I think the issues he had could have been resolved immediately, but instead it was closed and he was left to wonder all his life if he was a "regret or a mistake" that I just wanted to forget.
ReplyDeleteThat breaks my heart.
I am in reunion with my daughter. It was a kinda open adoption--I bonded with the parents but I couldn't take contact after 2 years into it. It was only letters and pics but I never knew when I gave her up she would look so much like me--she is the only one out of all my children that looks so much like me. It ripped me apart. I don't know about other birth mom's but there is a primal scream you have when you lose your child--decision or not--nothing readies you for it and I did the same thing when I saw her pic @ 2 years old...screamed and fell to the floor. The only way you can give that baby up is to keep telling yourself "you do not OWN her" over & over again and then to see--she looks just like you...too much. So far so good...it is really hard to reunite...you are so afraid to say the wrong thing...I go in June for her graduation from High School--trying to lose 16 lbs so no one thinks I am the "FAT" birth mom...don't want to embarrass her...as a birth mom--I spend all my time worried when the ax will fall...placating her adoptive mom doing whatever she wants--saying whatever...never want to lose her again but readying myself inside (like I can!) for it if it happens...she is sneaky just like me--she hunted down and found the letter I wrote her when she was 12...she wrote about it for her college essay--it was beautiful & made me feel so proud. Funny but as she was hunting down my letter and more info about me in her parents files I was writing in my diary at the same time..."I hope you know how much I love you and how this age of 12 is so hard but it will pass and I hope you know I think of you every day and always with a prayer of blessing on my lips for you and your parents" Your blog is lovely...
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