Sometimes, when people break our hearts, the wounds heal over, but they leave a scar. Some of those scars are easily dealt with, as they leave nothing more than a mark to remind you of people lost, but best forgotten. There are other scars, however, that never heal quite right.
My birth family, and their dismissal of me, is a scar of the latter variety. I have moved forward, moved on, since it became very apparent I was nothing more than an afterthought in their worlds. It hurt, but there was a life lesson in it for me. I realized that I never want to live on the periphery of anyone's life. I deserve better than that, I deserve more. I accept that my place in the world is small, and largely insignificant, but I do matter. Or I should. I want to spend my time with people who care about me in a real way, people who bring laughter and happiness into my life.
Having said that, I was so very happy to at last find my birth family. These were people I kind of looked like. These people shared my blood, my DNA, and unless you are adopted, you probably cannot fully understand what a gift it is to find your own people. It hurt that my arrival was not more memorable, and that I was relegated to a place of no importance fairly quickly. I did my level best to be understanding. It is not like I was a bouncing baby girl, I was thirty-nine years old. To love me would be to love a fully grown woman, with a history not shared or experienced by any of them.
I love my birth father, and all of his family. I try not to think about all that I miss out on now, but in moments, those ghosts rise up to remind me, mock me, and those scars on my heart that have not healed ache with a wanting of what my head knows I will never have.
Such is life.
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