~Melbourne.....the home of my birth family.....a family until 4 years ago I never knew existed. This was only the third time I had spent time with all of them since the very first visit 3 years ago.......only this trip was so different from the first because my birth mother and I were to meet. I arrived on a Tuesday and Wednesday was to be the meeting day. Stress over the meet weighed heavy on my heart and my nerves were shot. I stayed with my oldest brother and his beautiful family only my brother thought it funny to countdown until the meeting.......this added to my already strung out nerves. I was to arrive with my sister in law and my brothers followed. We had to stop at some traffic lights and for a fleeting second I Contemplated jumping out the car to avoid the impending meeting.....fortunately I thought of the fright to my SIL and decided against. A few minutes later we arrived at my sisters where I was to meet my birth mum. I got out the car only to freeze....tears streaming down my face, I was unable to move. By this point my brothers had arrived and somehow through either gentle coaxing or just pulling me along ( of which I cannot remember) I entered my sisters and through the darkness (as the blinds had been pulled against the heat of the day)....I vaguely made out the shape of my birth mum through my tears, and gravitated ( or was pushed) towards her.....tears streaming down my face. After that everything is a blurr......the floodgates had been opened and every emotion, feelings of rejection and everything I had thought I knew to be true then discovered it wasn't came pouring out. In what felt like an hour but was in reality only a few moments I pulled away trying desperately to get control of my emotions.....to reel them back in. I escaped to the bathroom to splash my face with cool water and recollect my thoughts. I knew I couldn't hide in here forever so I headed outside where I sat quietly sipping on the wine my sister had poured. My thoughts were all over the place matching my emotions in their erratic patterns of logic and illogic. I numbly remember my birth mother coming outside and chatting quite normally with the others and I remember thinking .....how can she be so calm.....my insides where churning, my nerves frazzled....it was all I could do to sit there and not run out the door. Instead I got up and calmly walked and then sat on the pool edge distracting myself, watching the kids splash happily, whom were oblivious to the trauma I was going through. How I got through the rest of the day was beyond me....but I had done it......I had survived the emotional turmoil that was meeting my birth mum and had come out the other side.
Sleep evaded me....so many questions ran through my head...all of which would remain unanswered as there was little chance of there ever being a one on one with her.....that was made pretty clear to me.
The day's rolled by and there would be two more visits by my birth mum...each one ending with her regulation offering of her cheek farewell. Her demeaner was one of calm acceptance....like everything was normal.....but not for me. My stomach flipped and churned.....how calmly she had forgotten all the cruel words she had messaged previously to this visit....I couldn't forget, I couldn't forgive not without compromising my own self worth. Instead I offered respect.....not that it had been earned but more from the manners I prided myself on.
My visit of 8 days was coming to an end and as much as I loathed to leave my siblings it was time to go home and collect my thoughts.
I have been blessed with 5 amazing siblings who have not only accepted me but shown me more love in 3 short visits than I have ever had in a lifetime......and for that I am eternally grateful. I don't know what the future holds with my birth mum or if there even is a future...only time will tell. I won't close my heart but I will guard it carefully.
