Letters, pictures and a notebook
Just wanted to share this here because I don't think anyone I know in person is able to grasp the backwards pain of this.
Was snooping through some paperwork the other day at my adoptive parents house (I'm a villain of my own making, I know) and I came across a bag of opened and unopened letters and photos from both my birth parents.
Amongst this, I found a notebook. It had a tiny note in the front that had clearly seen better days. It said "I wish someone had made one of these for me".
Anyway, inside the book was pages and pages of photos of my birth family, immediate and extended. They all had little captions underneath explaining who each of them where.
In the second half of the filled pages, there was letters from each of those family members.
They all started with "This is from your uncle" or "This is from your grandparents".
It was an emotional rollercoaster reading those. You could feel the pain coming from them all.
A couple of them really hurt to read. There was one from my grandparents (who have now, since last year, passed away) that had an address in it where I could visit them.
Most of them where a lot of "I'm so sorry this happened".
The truth is, I'm not mad my adoptive parents kept this from me. I understand why they did, to an extent. But I can't help but feel sad I never had an opportunity to read this and process the emotions behind it with someone else. I am sad I wasn't given the opportunity to even CONSIDER reading these.
They where just kept from me. A lot of things are kept from me. RIP my baby photos, I guess..
My adoptive parents would be proper pissed if they knew I was snooping but tbh, things like these notebooks and photos is WHY I snoop. There is so much more I haven't and probably won't ever see.
This is my secret, and now I have to live with it.