Regret.

I am stealing this topic from thanksgivingmom, in response to her post about regret.


And here's the truth: I have always wanted my birth family to regret their decision to place me.

Even as I write those words, I am aware of how they make me sound.  The desire for someone else to have regrets is not a proud one, and yet I can’t seem to shake that feeling. I  am constantly torn between my wish for my birthparents to forgive themselves and my desire to feel missed by them, to be wanted by them. My birthparents, both of them, have expressed regret over their choice to place me.

And I admit, though not without being ashamed , that it feels good. My birthparents regret over placing me makes me feel good…and is that so surprising? It does not stem from some sort of sadistic desire to make them “pay” for choosing not to raise me, but instead from a desire to be wanted, to be missed, by the family that chose to expel me.

My birthfather particularly comes to mind. He is a large, strong, burly man- and to see him reduced to tears when talking about my relinquishment has always given me a sort of bittersweet feeling. Because if he does not feel regret, if he does not feel sadness- then what does that mean for me? If the family that I was born into feels no sadness over my loss, over my absence in their lives, then I am meaningless- someone who came but who did not belong, someone who has left, but whose absence has not been felt.

I want to know that I meant something, that they thought of me, that they yearned for me as I have yearned for them.

And yet these feelings are complex. I love my birthfather.  I want so desperately to take away his sadness. I want to hold his large, rough hands. I want to hug him and tell him that it’s okay, that I’m okay. I am happy, I am loved. I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to feel sad anymore. I want to thank him for what he has given me.  I don’t offer him my forgiveness…because I am not sure he needs it. I only want him to forgive himself.

I once lost my family of origin. And even though I am now in reunion, even though we have technically found each other, there is something that we can not obtain. Our roles of parent and child have been lost forever. And although I have tried to deny it, and bury it, it is a loss that I cannot escape. I don’t want my birth family to regret having placed me, because the road of regret is a long one, that has no destination. But it is reassuring to know that the sadness I feel is real, even though I can acknowledge that my adoption was the best choice at that time.

I don't know that I will ever have the courage to tell my birthfather how I feel. I want so desperately to protect him from my feelings of sadness, of loss. Because I know that he will blame himself.  Other people have told me that he has revealed to them that he regrets placing me, that he would take me back in an instant, that he fantasizes, even over 20 years later, about me one day deciding to "come home".

We shield one another from our own, private sadness. The regret that neither of us think we should feel.
I do not want him to take on my burden, and I know he does not want me to carry his. One day I hope that we will be honest with one another, that we will share our hurt, our regrets, our feelings on losing one another.  Because only once we understand what we have lost can we look for a way to find one another again.