[oakmoss]

I, too, was raised by my grandparents, but on my father's side. I also had a hard time with my grandparents being so old and dressing me funny, giving me bad haircuts and ugly glasses so the other kids teased me; they were so conservative that they wouldn't let me play with any other kids very often and I grew up lonely way out in the country. My grandmother drank too much and was emotionally abusive, and my father is and was a lunatic who played me off against the grandparents constantly in their power struggle. They didn't allow my mother to give me up for adoption - she had been kicked out of her house and had nowhere to go but to my father's family - but I often wish they had. She only stayed until I was around 2 and past the stage of easily being able to attach to another caregiver. All the adoption reunion support things are for people adopted as infants, by people who actually chose to have kids; I was a toddler and didn't come to call my grandmother, or anybody for that matter, "mom" until I was probably six. I was never legally adopted at all. I really don't think I'm a fan of kinship adoption by people who wouldn't be able to pass the screening at a normal agency. My mother came to visit once, 25 years ago, but left without so much as one hug, or even looking me in the eye. I think if I hadn't been such an ugly awkward kid she would have liked me better. We are now about to be reunited. I'm in my late 30s and prettier now. It's hard. I still feel angry with her for abandoning me, for being capable of being so cold and heartless, but I believe that the only way to get through this is to forgive. My father and I don't get along and I may never speak to him again. Although I truly believe in forgiveness for the past he continues to be a jerk into the present. My grandparents are dead and I have no one but my mother's family, and it's hard to be really sure they truly want anything to do with me, apart from guilt. I'm getting to know my brother and sister, and it's such an emotional rollercoaster. I feel like I'm falling in love with them, it's so beautiful and intense, and then I get a dose of cold prickly vibes that you just wouldn't believe, and I don't even know what it is I did wrong. At least my sister lives in the same city now so I'm getting a little bit used to her. Would do anything for them - I'm just crazy about them. But maybe it's too much for them to handle. I know it's hard for me, and I'm older. I'm going to see a therapist but I don't know if it's enough.

Thanks for listening.