This has been reposted here to Lemmy as part of the “Curated Reddit Project.”

This is a repost, I am not the OOP_

Edit: it seems like a lot of people are finding this post and thinking I am OOP. To be clear, this is a repost and the OP is u/nodinnerinvite He has been directed to this post though and I hope he is enjoying all the love and support everyone is giving him :)

Original: Posted 5 Days ago on r/offmychest

She had me when she was FOURTEEN. And I (24M) was given up for adoption. My parents told me about her growing up. I still have the letter she wrote me that she asked if they could give it to me if they wanted.

It’s crazy reading it sometimes and knowing it was a literal child who wrote it saying she’s sorry she couldn’t be my mommy but she hopes I’m happy. She was open to having contact but we moved for my dad’s job when I was 11 and then it seemed impossible to find her.

But luckily I did.

She’s working at this small restaurant and I keep going but she doesn’t know it’s me. We talk sometimes. And she seems like a nice lady. Sometime when she says something like “do you want a refill, honey” or uses another term like that I wanna tell her. Idk why it makes me nervous. We talk sometimes and she seems really genuine. If it’s not super busy she’s more open to talking about random stuff. I literally drive 2 hours to come eat at this place just to see her. And it’s like she knows me already because I’m there once or 2 times a week for the past 3 months so she always says hi with a big smile.

But man if only she knew

Update:

Well… I did it I told her. And yeah it was pretty heavy. My heart was even beating fast. i kept trying to think how to tell her. Many of the comments on my last post here mentioned writing her a letter just how she wrote a letter for me. Originally that was the plan but for me it felt like I needed to say it.

Oh, really quick I wanna say thanks to everyone for their love and support. Mostly to all the birth parents out there who shared their stories with me. That’s what really helped push me to have the courage to confront her. It meant so much so thanks.

Everything happened day before yesterday btw.

I did wait for her to be done with her shift and that was when they were closing the restaurant already. And waited in the parking lot. We said hi when she saw me first but then I told her there was something serious that she needed to know. First told her sorry for keeping it from her this long. She didn’t react until I actually pulled out her letter.

And she started bawling from there. Like screaming and crying at the same time, and didn’t even have to finish the whole “I’m your son” speech. She just saw it and knew. It was crazy. Next thing I know she’s hugging me instantly but then she pulled back and asked if it’s okay to hug me. Ofc it is and we’re just there hugging an crying in the parking lot. It hit her hard though. Her legs gave out for a second so I had to actually hold her up while she’s still hugging me for a min.

What really got me was her saying to me look how big you got. also hearing her cry made me cry too. She went back to open the restaurant up (she wouldn’t take no for an answer) we had coffee, ate a slice of their pie inside and talked. Soooo many stuff we talked about. She told me the second time I came to the restaurant she got a feeling but for her it was hard believe it was me. So that feeling she had was pushed way down.

Because she told me for years after I was adopted she saw kids that would be my age and used to think they were me. Then she would be crying in public. It fucked with her mind a lot and made her depressed so she didn’t want to do the same when she saw me, getting her hopes up like that.

She says I look so much like my biological dad when he was younger though. We talked about him too. They stayed in contact with eachother incase I ever reached out to one of them so it would be easier to contact the other. I didn’t have hope about finding my biological dad since he was never mentioned so I’m glad they both planned for this future scenario. She told me about how they wanted to keep me. Especially my biological dad, he didn’t want me to be adopted. But he knew they had to because they were just kids. It took him a long time to get passed it after I was born she told me. That’s why he didn’t leave anything because he didn’t wanna believe he might not see me again.

We talked for hours. Til almost 2 in the morning (they closed at 11). She just wanted to know everything about me but her main thing was “am I happy”. Were my parents good to me. Did I have a happy childhood. And I did. I told her thank you for helping to give me this life. We both cried again. She cried the most. Everything was very emotional for her. Sometimes she would look really happy but then get sad again.

After my 18th birthday she was hoping I would find her that’s why she stayed in the same city. But since I didn’t she always thought maybe I resented her, wasn’t told I’m adopted, or maybe had decided it was better not to have her around. It made me feel bad for not telling her sooner. She told me it’s not my fault and I did right going at my own pace. Honestly she’s so sweet. The way she kept looking at me with the biggest smile, it made me emotional sometimes. Makes you think how can someone who’s been a total stranger ur whole life look at you with so much love. It’s wild. We learned so much about eachother. She asked me if we could have dinner soon to keep talking. And if at some point in the future if I’m interested come over to her house so I can meet her husband. That all sounded really great.

We exchanged numbers. After I left she sent a text telling me thank you for giving her this gift that she didn’t know if it would ever come.

My girlfriend came over and she hugged me while I cried. I wasn’t sad btw these were happy tears. Everything went better than I expected. There was still emotionally heavy stuff but I’m still glad that we got to open up to eachother.

Edit: update where OOP meets his father! https://www.reddit.com/r/offmychest/comments/s9jdy5/met_my_biological_dad_for_the_first_time_ever_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf