[BeyondtheRainbow]

I have a little brother 21 years younger than me. How that happened is a long story that I don't want to get into but let's just say some devastating things happened a long time ago. When my little brother's mother (he's really a half -brother) left my father I supported her and she promised never to take him out of my life.

Despite the promise I haven't seen him since he was 4 and haven't heard from her since he was 8. He just graduated from high school. I have been waiting for many years for him to be an adult and independent so that contacting him would be something that would be his own decision what he did with it. But then last month I discovered via facebook that he is going to college on the other side of the country and so I felt like I should do something before he moves and I can't find an address or way to contact him (everything I know comes from an open facebook account so it just takes increasing privacy settings and I'm back to the last 10 years of my life except for knowing a few things about him and having seen his picture and knowing he looks just like our father, yet when goofing off can make a face that is so much like my own when I'm being silly).

Earlier this week I mailed a gift card and graduation card to him. Just a brief congratulations note and a card with my email and phone on it. I figure it is up to him at that point to figure out what he wants to do and if his mother discourages him (which she has no reason to do; he knows that his father isn't his biological father, he might even remember me, and I have no contact with our father and haven't in 17 years). This is a really hard thing for me to have done because I'm just not in the strongest place emotionally right now but I did not want to miss my chance.

He should have gotten it by now. I feel so weird about the whole thing. One the one hand I know that if he never responds a)he's kinda rude b)he probably is confused and c) that's his choice. I never want to force myself on him.

My therapist thinks that it will all work out. I'm much less confident and if it does there are new hurdles that are too complicated to go into here. But I put my neck on the line and now I want to undo it because it's too scary. I hate that I may have used my one and only chance. I hate knowing that I might be hurt by this but I had to do it. And I hate the waiting.

I wish I knew how to just make up the last 14 years. I was a good big sister and he was a good kid. I wish I knew how to make it be like it was back then.

It's just making me sad. And I'm already sad from depression. And now I need to go finish sewing a dress that isn't going to fit my niece. (Long story, boring if you don't sew and probably stupid if you do).

But I can't stop thinking about this.

[CopperStar]

Well it's a very unbalanced situation. You have huge emotional investment in this, while he may have very little or none at all. You have made yourself very vulnerable because of the way this is, and all for the sake of trying to reach out to him and empower him by letting him make a choice. All of this was done out of love, and with courage. Even if he doesn't respond and you have to process the hurt, ultimately it would be his massive loss.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

Thanks CopperStar, that made me teary (which is good, I need to cry and can't thanks to adjusting to meds) but I hope it is true. For him it may just be a connection to pain or he may think it is a way to find out about the father he's never known which isn't really the position I want to be in. (Like I said, he was born a happy thing into something that was very ugly in how it came to be.) I feel like I just handed him my arm and an axe and said "here, be friends or cut this off, your choice".

Waiting the next week or so until the day I figure that I know he's unlikely to respond is going to be hard. I also know this could just trigger an angry message from his mother. I don't think she hates me but she has kept him from me for 14 years so clearly I'm not her favorite person.

Ugh.

[CopperStar]

Well I'm normally the type to try to just give logical textbook-style advice, but with this sort of thing I do understand the madness. Reaching out to someone that you love very much and then getting ignored is extremely painful. It just is what it is.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

No response today. Either he's one very thoughtful 18 year old or this isn't going to end well. I keep having visions of getting my gift card back cut into tiny pieces. And since I don't have the money to give a gift card in the first place (this is my precious swagbucks money) wasting it would hurt me terribly. Probably more than never hearing from him although he has no reason to know I'm living on a very limited budget. (Which I screwed up this month so I have no money and am perpetually stressed about it now).

I guess I keep hoping.

[Crazy Hitch]

((((BeyondTheRainbow))))

I will hold faith that a positive outcome is reached for everyone involved

May you find some comfort soon.