First of all, I did something very typical for me which is get the dates wrong. Bro-dude thought I was already nearby and messaged me, and I looked back on text thread and I’d given the wrong dates. I could write a very long essay about how I “get things wrong” which I assume means that I am either super anxious or self sabotaging or more likely conflicted but can’t feel that.
Anyway. It’ll work out fine. We are still on for next weekend. I wish I was meeting him and his wife before donor dude, but all good. Plus my niece will be in town—didn’t know that, because, well, I gave the wrong dates.
I am surprised by how anxious and nervous and guilty I feel. I haven’t told my brother because he already told me he isn’t interested. Not for or against, just not. He says he wouldn’t care. But I feel like I’m hiding something.
Last week I talked about this with my therapist. I am always on the lookout for my passive aggressive ways that come up all too easily. Am I being manipulative? (My go-to.) I don’t think I am. I don’t know why I’d tell someone who told me he has no interest (which, as an obvious aside, might or might not be more complex than that.)
But he and I don’t talk much, and I don’t feel I’m intentionally omitting something. On the other hand, I imagine that someday it’d come up that I met donor and half-bro and it’d be weird to say “oh I didn’t mention it?” because that’s a lie. What would be the right way to address this? It’s patronizing and gas-lighty to say “well, you said you didn’t care to know”
If it came up, I think the truth would be that the whole thing is complicated and I was, am, taking it one step at a time while trying to be respectful when and how I should be.
But it’s weird to have all my friends, plus my Substack folks, interested in this, and then my brother and my aunt (my mom’s sister) don’t know? My dad knows I’m meeting half-bro, but not that I now have a plan to meet with donor and wife. I’m not concealing it. I told him it might happen. He told me that I could do whatever I wanted, that life is too short, etc (his wife has her own complicated offspring thing) but also said that he thought it might be hard for me to meet the donor. Is that his fantasy? I don’t know.
My therapist noted how anxious I was about something I wanted, feared wouldn’t happen, and how have on the horizon. How I am worried about how everyone will/might feel (in my family of origin.)
MC, one of my FWSL (friends who save lives) noted, correctly, that I probably wouldn’t have reached out or at least followed through on this visit/connection if my mom were still alive.
So I’m guessing all this worrying about how people might feel is mostly my whole upbringing-turned-into-part of myself, of which my mom was, to me, the captain.
I can do it, but I’m still terrified and doubting.
Thanks for your support, and of course I’ll report back from whatever it might be. (I half think I’ll chicken out, “get sick” as I’ve been wont to do when I cannot bear something. Or do something self-sabotoging like forget my flight.)
On first read...you're too hard on yourself. You've been approaching this as openly and honestly and self-reflectively as you and any reasonable person could, and you don't, IMHO, really owe anything to the folks who have said, in one coded way or another, keep me out of it. They're not yours for this, even though they care about you in their own ways. It's hard to feel like you're not being transparent with family members you care about, but I don't think you have to share further with people who've said, no thanks. They opted out, you know? (And if they opt in, you share what you're willing to at that moment. Also, I get that your bro's and aunt's positions might feel like rejection, and/but it might not be, and/but you can take it that way if that's where you're at. They're not experiencing what you are. They could be open; right now, they are less so.) So, this is your path with these other people, these relatively (UGH, language, no pun intended) unknown folks, who are tentatively interested in walking it with you now for a few or more steps. My 2 cents...very much not a therapist, as you know! Much love.