I’m sorry.
I know that there isn’t anything that will ever fully close the hole in your heart, and I know the lengths you have gone to try. I know that being given away by your own flesh and blood left a wound in your soul so deep that you couldn’t even look anyone in the eye until you were almost thirty. I’m so sorry for the trouble you’ve had relating to people and making genuine friends. I’m sorry that you’ve had to work so hard to overcome the belief that everyone you meet is just waiting for an excuse to leave. I know that deep down inside of you there was an impenetrable wall that you had built to protect yourself from the hurt that abandonment left you with.
Baby girl, by trying to protect yourself from that pain, you actually brought it into your life again and again. I know the loneliness you felt no matter who you were surrounded by. I know the anguish you suffered when you were kept a secret and the bitterness you fought when your birth mother chose to keep her secret over keeping you in her life. There are no words to explain that kind of grief so it simply got filed away with the rest of the pain you’ve endured. I can see how many times you tried to shrink yourself so that no one would notice you and I can see how uncomfortable it made you when someone tried to get to know the real you. It’s as though you worried that if they really knew you, they’d walk away. I’ve seen the many self-sabotaging decisions you’ve made throughout your life as though you believed yourself unworthy of true happiness. I’m so sorry for the things you’ve let happen to yourself falsely believing that you deserved it. You never deserved any of it. It was never supposed to be that way.
Here is the truth. People will walk away and you will survive. Their inability to stay in your life is a reflection of their character, not yours. Your parents’ choice to give you away is also a reflection of them, not of you. Their choices don’t get to define you: not anymore. You are so much more than what’s happened to you. You get to decide how you will live this beautiful messy life and it’s time to stop falling back into the ruts you’ve dug for yourself over the years. Your history does not have to define your future.
It’s time to rise up and be the person you were created to be. It’s time to take chances, believe the best in others, and risk getting hurt in friendships. Don’t just let people walk away anymore. Fight for them! Maybe all they needed was to know that you cared. Not letting people in has never served you well. The truth is we’re all a little broken. By letting each other into those broken parts, we can help piece ourselves back together by gluing the broken pieces of the ones who love us onto our broken parts. It’s not a perfect solution and we’ll never be fully whole this side of heaven, but it’s something.
In order for others to truly love the real you, you have to let them. When you do that, you will truly know what love is.
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