I'm Adopted

Hello. I remembered my password again. Aren't you proud?

On to the point of this post...I found out on May 17 that I was adopted by my dad.

*insert dramatic music clip here*

My dad told me he was going to come over for breakfast that morning, and that is when he broke the news to me that he adopted me when I was a year old. My mom had been engaged and living with my biological father (aka Andy) when I was born. He decided when I was three months old to kick my mom and I out of his house, and eventually signed his rights over to my dad, after he and my mom married. He never contacted my parents again, until last July.

I had no clue. I had suspicions of course, because my three younger sisters look so much like eachother and nothing like me. They are tan, taller than me, blonde hair, green eyes. I'm pale with freckles, dark brown hair and blue eyes. They all resemble each other and not me. When I was younger I found adoption papers, but my mom told me that it was for me to have my dad's last name. Then I found my immunization chart with my old last name (Andy's) one time and freaked out...until my mom showed me my birth certificate and Social Security card, with my current last name on them. She told me the nurse made a mistake with my immunization card, that was all.

Some people say that I should have figured it out, and yeah I probably should have. But that's hindsight bias talking, right? I mean who does this really happen to? Characters in movies? Someone your friend's mom knew? No one really expects or even thinks it will happen to them. Ever. We all have that childhood thought of "what if" we were adopted and what we would do, how we would react. But I had actual evidence (although I didn't know it at the time) that I was adopted, and I still didn't honestly think I was. It's never something that happens to you. Just that kid on the news, ya know?

I am still really shocked by it all and have no idea how to feel. I have no idea WHY he did it. He says it was because of my grandmother, that he didn't like her and didn't want to have to be a part of her life or whatever. Um...this is the same grandmother I have seen less than ten times in the past five years. I rarely see her ever, and didn't as a kid either. My mom's side of the family is strange like that. None of them get along and none of them really talk to each other either.

Andy wants to meet me and get to know me. His daughter, my biological half-sister, Elizabeth, wants to meet me too. I have been emailing her for a few weeks now, and am flying down to stay with her for a long weekend next month. Just her and me though. Her family (our family?) wants to meet me too, but I am nervous about that. I don't really know how I feel about Andy yet. I haven't even wanted to see a picture of him.

On the one hand, I really want to get to know my half-sister and my new cousins, aunts, etc. But....I don't know if I want anything to do with Andy. I mean, HE walked out of MY life, and said he didn't want ME. He had his reasons, whatever they were, and he made that choice and didn't think twice about them for twenty years. And now all of a sudden, he wants to meet me. I forgot to mention that he hasn't seen me in twenty years, except for one time at the mall last Christmas, when he apparently followed me around staring at me while my mom nearby threatened him to within an inch of his life to go. the. eff. away. and not talk to me.

The ball is in my court. I have reached out to Elizabeth. She lives in Mississippi, which is why it is so easy to visit her; her dad and family live in Ohio. So I know they won't be there. But what do I do about them? Should I meet them somewhere down the line and risk him being there? Should I just get over it and meet him, but make it ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that I will not be having a "Daddy Andy" and "Daddy Todd"? He will always be Andy, and my dad will always be Todd.

I'm also afraid that if I get to know Elizabeth and form this relationship with her, that she will want me to meet him. She is five years older than me and has made it clear that she loves her dad and he is everything in her eyes, but that she will not push me into meeting him. But what if she does??

How sad is that, really? Twenty years of not knowing your own sister? I cry about, because I am so close with my other sisters, and I didn't even know Elizabeth existed. It's so amazing, but heartbreaking. Amazing because I always wanted an older sister, someone to look up to and get advice from, and now I HAVE ONE!! How often do your childhood dreams get realized? But it's heartbreaking that we will be meeting, as sisters, for the first time, when we are 20 and 25.

I don't know how to feel or what to do.

Any opinions out there? Anyone out there?

Blog = Place to Vent?

So I barely use this thing unless it is to vent about the wonderful drama that is my family/future family (aka future in-laws).

It's just a lot to deal with. Why bother getting engaged to somebody if you are going to cheat on them later THAT SAME NIGHT? Why bother letting him raise your baby for her entire life and cheat on him the whole time? Why let him be her father, if you don't love him?

Does she not understand how much she is hurting him? He loves her more than anybody else. Even when they are fighting, you can see it in his eyes the way he feels about her. Why does she want to hurt him? If you don't love him, fine. Leave him. Don't put him through this.

What about your daughter? For her entire life, he is the only father she has ever known. And that means nothing to you? SHE MISSES HER DADDY. You are just too selfish to care.

It kills me to see him like this. He is my future brother-in-law, but he may as well be my brother by blood. He is that important and special to me. And she is hurting him so bad. I hate it.

Finally, a post...

I promise once school is over with for the semester I will come back and update for once.

I have noticed something that is really irritating....I am a 20 year old bride-to-be. Therefore, I am "too young" to be married.

Please people, if you're going to judge me, atleast don't lump me in with the "too young" category. I mean honestly, I agree that a lot of people getting married young aren't ready. But doesn't the same go for a lot of 30 year olds getting married? I have a few friends who are engaged at my age, and guess what? They seem to be in amazing relationships and are well-prepared for married life. So don't judge them either.

Just because I am a "young bride" doesn't mean I 'm not ready. I understand that a wedding isn't all about "my pretty princess day". I'm not going crazy over the white dress and shoes and hair and flowers and bridesmaids and OMG the cake and tuxes and colors and it's all gonna be about ME ME ME and my OH SO SPECIAL DAY!!!!

No. I understand, and agree, that a wedding isn't about a wedding at all - it's about a marriage. It's about trust and commitment and love. About compromise and being able to work things out. I am not under any false impressions that after we get married it will be "happily ever after" with no work at all. I understand that. I know we will have to work at our marriage every. single. day. I know we will have problems and arguments. We already do. We are normal. But we fix our problems and we leave arguments knowing that everything is okay. We compromise and make the argument constructive - we learn from it. We have seperate lives outside of eachother.


So stop telling me that I will be divorced before I finish grad school. Stop telling me that I don't know what I am doing. Because I DO know what I am doing.

Spring Break and the Drama before it...

I really need to learn to update more often. Anyway.

So, as usual, life is stressful. Matt and I moved out of his mom's house and are currently staying with my grandparents. After one big dramatic argument there (all caused by guess who??) we left. Just packed our stuff and walked out. That was February 27th. And we are still here. My feelings on this are two-fold. On the one hand, it is so...refreshing to not live in a stressful house with arguing and adults who do not want to grow up. On the other hand, we miss our cat and his mom and Bruce. We miss all of our things. We don't have cable in our room at my grandparents, so we miss TV.

Since this week was Spring Break, it is a lot easier to manage. Last week was miderm week, so we were scrambling to get some of our clothes and school books and get all our homework done. It was so much easier to get work done here. By a thousand. Normally we can't concentrate because of all the yelling and noise. But here it is a lot quieter and more peaceful so we were able to get it done and do good on our exams.

But Monday we go back to school. So. Should be interesting to try and balance school and work here.

Also, we kind of feel like freeloaders. And we are afraid we are going to end up wearing out our welcome and have nowhere to go. We thought we would only be here for a night or two. We said we wouldn't come home until Brittney moves out, because we all know she isn't going to change. It's been a week and a half. Things haven't changed at Matt's Mom's house at all, and Brittney is still there. So it's like... what do ya do??

We could go home, but then this whole break away would not have solved anything. Brittney will NOT change, and I doubt she will leave. We can't afford to live on our own unless we quit school and get full-time jobs. We really don't want to do that though. Hopefully things will change soon at his house though, or maybe my grandparents will let us move in permanently.

Well, enough drama-rama for now. How has your week been?

Earthquakes :(

Blegh. Couldn't sleep last night because of more drama at the house. But anyway....

I saw on the news where there was another major earthquake, this time hitting Chile. Just watching the footage from Chile reminded me of similar videos from Haiti. It just makes me feel so sad that people are in those situations.

Earlier today I was in a pretty heated debate with someone who said the government was "wasting" money by helping these people. How can anyone honestly feel that way? It is not those peoples' faults. It was a natural disaster that could not have been prevented, and now they need our help.

Ugh. Some people just have no sense I guess. I mean how could someone argue that it is okay for the government to give free food and shelter to drug addicts who do nothing to help themselves, but not to people who have no choice in the matter?

Dear Fiance...

I just found out that my fiance has a blog on here too. Interesting.

*Crosses fingers that he doesn't find mine*

That's all for now.

Guess who remembered her password?? :)

Ugh. Okay. I finally remembered my password for this thing. And just in the nick of time. For anyone who doesn't want to be bothered with my vent/rant for today (and today only, I promise!) I will provide Cliffnotes for today's post (CN).

CN: Fiance is treated really unfairly at home. We want to move out, but realistically we can't, and it would probably just cause more problems. Therefore, I vent.

Post: Okay, let me say that yes, I do live with my fiance and his family at his mom's house. But before you judge me, I had the worst home life you could imagine, from parents to neighbors to being slave driven by an obsessive parent. So, my fiance's mom let me move in with them when I was 17. We have only recently begun sharing a room, after we hit the 3 1/2 years of dating mark. (Now at over 4 years.) In a sense, living with them has made me such a better person who can handle situations in such a calmer way.

Fastforward to now. My fiance's brother is, for lack of a kinder term, a bum. I know this sounds mean, but let me continue. He will be 21 in less than a week. Since he graduated high school, he has worked a total of four months, and he quit that job over a year ago. He sits and plays video games and does nothing around the house. I repeat, absolutely nothing. Not dishes or laundry or even take out the trash.

Now, fiance's brother is also engaged and they are raising her (but not his) daughter. By raising, I mean they take her child support checks and go by things for themselves (clothes, shoes, video games, junk food, movie rentals, etc.) and then beg the baby's real father's mom for money for diapers and such. She does not work (has lived with us for almost a year; her daughter is 15 months old). She does not do anything around the house either. She sits around and plays on facebook and watches TV. Nor does she take care of her daughter. My fiance and I do most of the time (usually me because he is at work). She tends to send her off to various family members/friends of family members for four and five days at a time (sometimes a full week) and then when her daughter comes home, she complains constantly that she needs another "break" from her. Also, she brought along a charming little dog with her, who is not - I repeat, NOT - house trained in the least. Yet, even though it is not our dog, my fiance and I usually have to clean up said dog's "presents".

Anyway, here is my fiance's schedule for the week. School Monday through Thursday. Work five to six days a week. Homework. And then, along with all of this, the dishes, laundry, take out the trash, etc. I try to help fiance out as much as I can, but this usually means I do some of the laundry and, since we have most of the same classes, I make study guides for him to read over at work.

Now, to give his mom the benefit of the doubt, she does tell them both to get jobs and help out around the house. Do they? Of course not. Does she make them? Not even a little.

Ugh. Just frustrated. I am so tired of everything that they won't do being picked up by my fiance (or me) to do. Because, notice I say by my fiance or me. Not his mom. She says she shouldn't have to do it. Well, neither should he! But that doesn't matter. As long as the part-time mommy and bum are doing what they do best (nothing) are happy, then she is happy. The end of rant.

I feel better now. Sigh.