My sister...... She was adopted out when she was 2 and I was 4. I remember her and have missed her my whole life. She was given what a child should have. She was nutured and supported her whole life. We (she and I) both got our mom's raw material, brains and face. She blossomed and I fought. She was raised by loving, finiancially secure parents. I was raised by a crackhead and then by a woman shallow enuff to give her child away because of who her father was. Fast foward. When she graduated high school, I went and saw her for the first time in 17 years. I looked thru her pictures with celebrities and articles about her in the paper (article after article). Her community service, her grades, her performances. She's fucking perfect. When we are leaving to go to graduation, she goes in a bathroom and I go in another. We come out in the same dress. It was then that I understood how close I was to being her and she to being me. It depressed me and I was ashamed that I had not been strong enuff to do better in my life. As I'm leaving, I tell her that I love her, always have, just like we had shared a room all the years that we've been apart. She stares blankly at me. She doesn't love me, she doesn't remember me, and she definitely doesn't want me in her life. I get in my car and leave. Fast forward. For the last year, she has been emailing me. She called once and apologized. She said her parents enfluenced her not to have anything to do with me and that had been fine with her. She said that she has changed. She wants to be my sister. I have just healed and I don't want to give her the chance to hurt me again. So I avoid her. I read her emails and never respond even when she tells me that she lost my number and wants it again. Everyone(except her) knows that I decided to move to Atlanta after I finish school. One day I get an email saying that she is loving living in Atlanta. I was shocked as hell. So after a year, I finally respond and tell her that I'm moving there too. She says that she can't wait ..... My point is this....how can I love her when I hate her? I'm jealous and she hurt me bad 7 years ago. But I can't help but feel that fate is pushing us together. When I found out where she lives, I felt the same as I did staring at her in the same dress. I'm so scared of her. She is probably the only person that can REALLY break my heart. When it comes to her, I'm still a four year old that wants her sister back. I'm still me, school of hard knocks graduate, and she is still her, everybody's princess. I don't see how I don't end up hurt. Sorry about the length of this but this is a subject that I don't EVER talk to anyone about. I needed to get it out.
Fontella, I know your pain and feel it all too well. It takes two people to have a loving relationship, whether it be man and woman, mother and daughter, or sister and sister. Why not try putting aside the bad stuff and get to know her again? It worked for me. Expect the best, plan for the worst and sometimes you'll be disappointed. But it's better than all the time.
Can you forgive her? If you can forgive her not only for hurting your feelings, but just for being who she is (which isn't her fault) and move past it, you can build a very strong relationship with her. You have to try though. It won't come naturally, so you have to actually do the work. My sister and I have the same problem except we actually did grow up together. But for some reason my parents favored her (I personally think it is because she was a planned baby and I wasn't, even though my parents were married 2 years before they had me). My sister got to go to college, and not only did she have the chance to go, but my parents paid for it. They wouldn't even let me consider college, and told me I had to get a job and move out and find someone else to take care of me (ie why I ended up married at 18 and completely miserable). They showed my sister more affection than me and I constantly got punished for things that I didn't even do. My parents still aren't proud of me to this day even though everything that I have over come and gone through. They still think that I'm not good enough. They actually have always called my sister "the princess" and my nick name has been "animal". Guess that shows what they think of the two of us. However, the point is my sister and I are very close. She is my best friend. She knows my parents fucked up and she thinks it is wrong too. She is proud of me and I am of her. She knows what I have accomplished. Even though we are different and chose different paths we are pretty much coming together. Yeah it is taking me longer to find my career and finish school, but in 5 years will it matter what order we did it in? Won't we still be sisters. I simply can't blame her cause my parents were assholes.
missf~i hope that things work out for you both. it sounds like you have overcome many obstacles, and you have a strength to you that most people can only dream of. i bet that you can both learn a lot from each other.
a tru sister would not envy but rejoice that a sibling was allowed a better chance.... seems to me that if you stop wprrying about you so much and realise that the situation involves more than just yourself you might could find a way trough it but what i really get from your article is a heap of resentment that she has had and will continue to have a bettr life than you.... which in fact she hasnt had a better life just a different one... and no matter how bad your childhood was you have the lessons of it that created who you are today, in life i have found that it is better not to complain about things we cannot change but instead make the most of it all and become all the better for it.... so the real question is... who is the bigger person? she appears to have found her maturity and came to reason with her life and made the choice of wanting to get to know.... and although it hurt you, would you rather she LIED and told you she loved you? or explored her feelings and found reason to search for a relationship with her sister that she also has been long without! my opinion here is that you harbor far to much pettiness for a situation that has been out of your control and now that it is within your control you dont know how to react! alot easier when other people make the decisions for you cuz then you atleast have someone to blame.... which you are so good at!
You're right about one thing ....you don't know what my childhood was like If you read what I wrote then you see that I freely admit being jealous. She was my dream growing up. When I thought of her at age 8, 11, 15 or any other, I imagined her missing me as much as I missed her. It was a harsh reality to deal with at 20 when I finally did meet her. And I don't blame her. I blame our bitch of a mother. My feelings, however, are valid. Looking at her seems to magnify my mistakes. Like someone holding a mirror up " This is what you could have been if you had been stronger, if you hadn't let your parent's bullshit fool you" so It brings up some not-so-great feelings. Truth is, I understand the concept of "whereever you are in life is exactly where you are supposed to be" but I'm not speaking of intellect but of feelings which are not rational. Its a complex situation. And as far as her always having a better life than me, I beg your pardon but I'm 6 months from my electrical engineering degree (with honors), have 4 beautiful kids and did it after all I fought to overcome. I worked hard to become a fairly well-adjusted person with decent self-esteem. It just took longer than her or any other person with a decent family life so you're wrong there. As far as people making decisions for me, you definitely have that wrong. This decision was made when I was 4 and left on my doorstep to deal with for the next 23 years.
I thank everyone else for your posts. I was hoping for some positive feedback or a different way outside of my own of looking at the situation. Thank you for giving me that. I'll let you guys know what I finally decide
My point is this....how can I love her when I hate her? When we go from loving anyone or anything to hate. It means we had expectations that were not met. So I would look at what you expected from the relationship and then ask her what she expects. Meet on a common ground in the middle.
Miss Fontella, I FEEL for you, Toots. You see, I am in the same boat, except the other way around. I was adopted when I was 3 months, and only found out I had a brother some 8 years ago. I guess you could say that I was the 'lucky' one; I was raised by a family who were middle class, caring and loved me. My brother was raised by my single Mother and her immediate family in a pretty closed community, in a grim part of the country. BUT, let me tell ya this, when you are adopted, it 'eats' at you every single day, it is in effect a big hole in your life, and you have many questions about your origins, why you were adopted, did your mother love you when she let some stranger take you away, etc etc etc etc. I can guarantee that your sister probably envies YOU, because at the end of the day, you have your 'roots' intact, no matter how unglamorous they seem to you, now. She is probably uncertain how YOU feel about the situation, and is protecting herself by her intitial coldness. I think you BOTH need to get together and move on from this time, now, 2005, not all those years back. I wish you both the best.
