So I wrote to my bio-dad and suggested I try seeing him while I'm at my mom's. He wrote back that it'd be hard to see each other only a half day when we're two hours apart out there, so suggested he come to Rochester on Memorial Day (my birthday). I started writing back and though: you know. Before I do this again, I better tell him the truth of my feelings. So here it is--the big bang and kaboodle. Any opinions you have would be greatly appreciated. Especially if they are supportive.

That's my birthday, you know. Much will be expected (hehehe).

I have that Monday off, so that's good. Just don't arrive on no 6 a.m. flight on a saturday before I turn the big 2-6.

I'll be ripped.

I'll try my best to be nicer to you than I was last time, but I think I may have hit on something that helps understand why I sometimes feel so angry with you. I feel--whether you do or not--that you've never taken responsibility for just not being there while I was growing up. When I was a kid, no big deal. I'm a kid; it's easy to forgive. But now, after working so hard to do well with no supports, I'm just plain old mad that I had a father out there that could have helped me, if not emotionally, then financially. I worked so hard and was so stressed and anxious and I did extraordinarily well on my own--but I realize every now and then that if you had helped me, I didn't HAVE to work so hard. I could have had a little bit of a break. So I resent that, I think. And I believe, that somewhere deep down there, I want an apology for that.

You understand that? After I can let that go and see that you understand and take responsibility for it... then I can probably start fresh. I was always bothered that it seemed to be on me to contact you, when you're the parent and I shouldn't have had to. I don't want to behave as the responsible person when I'm not the parent. I'm the child. Only I've never felt like I'm the child in this relationship. As a relationship now, I know that it would feel very awkward, very uncomfortable, and incredibly irritating to accept your own attempts to be a father. I'm not sure how that works. I do know, however, that most of the feelings I have on that are based on the relationship that we've HAD. The only person in my life that has ever been able to reach me in that way was Phil and it took him two years. I was just getting comfortable enough to give him a hug when he died. So there is no way in the world that a relationship like that can be made with you, given our history, in anything less than those same amount of years, if not more. I can accept this. I have no desire to push it, but I certainly don't want to live my life not knowing who my real father is. I refer to you as my "bio-dad" because just referring to you as my dad is weird to me. I don't know you that way, and I'd like to, but I�m very afraid to open up that quickly. A father figure is a figure I've avoided my whole life, probably because the two fathers that were responsible for me simply weren't there. I don't care much about the reasons or the factors involved; I was a child who didn't care about that. I saw what I saw and felt what I felt.

I remember being twelve and hating school and being told I was "sick in the head," because I was angry nobody would understand that I just wanted to change where I was. Men in my life have all been BAD men. Not boyfriends; men. Father figures. I admit that I cringe when I see a father hold a toddler, a girl. I can't help that, but I don't know that either. And I resent it because it affects me so much. I miss Phil with all my heart and I'm very sad that I never had the chance to actually tell him how much it helped me. He was teaching me how to trust somebody and he talked to me about you quite often, trying to convince me to relax and to give you a chance. But I felt you were pushing on me way too fast and what I realize now is, I didn't want you in because I wanted you to say sorry.

There's another aspect of this I'm just realizing too. Joey and Laura and Matt. Laura and Matt had Uncle Bruce, who adopted them. Joey and I had each other. We love our mother who worked her ass off. We always had food; and I wouldn't have my moral integrity if I hadn't had the first 12 and a half years of my life with her. But she had a hard time and I forgive her of that because she always loved us and taught us right and reminded us how important family was. And she never talked bad about you or Joe. Not once. And in my mind, if there was an ounce of support, an offer to babysit on weekends, or help us in the mornings for school, it would have made all the difference. So if you make an offhand comment about how my mother raised me or the failures she's had, it only makes me want to tell you to leave. Nobody has a right to judge the family I have except me. Furthermore, when Joey and I were in foster homes, 8 foster homes, neither of our fathers were there. Not only was it obvious that Uncle Bruce didn't want us, nor Aunt Laura, and mom was in rehabilitation, but our fathers didn't show up either. When I found out Joe wasn't my real father, he started treating me differently, as if I couldn�t act like his daughter anymore. So I was stuck with only a mother. No father. And I didn't care anymore. In foster homes with asshole fathers and weird women for mothers, I cared only about me and Joey.

Can you understand this? Quite honestly, that's all I want. For you to say you understand, to mean it, and to apologize. I don't want you to defend yourself because your reasons won't make a difference to me. It's done and now it's just there to be resented, whether it was justified or not. In my mind, you just weren't there and that's what matters. Excuses don't.

So before you come up, you should probably know all this. I hate talking about these things in person or vocally with someone for whom I have such strong feelings, and perhaps it is a bit immature to email it...but hey. It works for me, so I'm going with it.

Anyway--I think that's why I behave the way I do. It's hard for me to not be mad about it. Especially, coincidence or not, you come around after all that struggling is just about done and now I have to work to pay it all off on my own. After I've grown into adulthood and learned to support myself and my own emotions and after I have defined my own family... you show up. It seems to me like a "now I can just hang out with her and not feel obligated to help her cause she's an adult." True or not, it's how it feels, based on your history.

There you go. I'm being honest. This is how I try. I hope you understand now, and I�m sorry I didn't have the guts to say it sooner.