I dunno...I just needed to channel some feelings that didn't fit anywhere else. Hope you enjoy.
My beloved Jane,
When I was a child and first discovered that I was adopted, I didn't understand why my birth mother and father didn't want me. I tried my hardest to put myself in their shoes, but not once did I ever succeed in coming up with a reason as to why they would do such a thing. As I got older, the feeling and longing to know remained, but it wasn't until recently, as you know, that I first came to know the story of my adoption.
I never felt unwanted by my adopted mother and father, but I certainly didn't feel like I belonged. My father was always traveling, always busy; he never had time for a child. My mother, while lovely and warm in her own reserved way, loved me deeply, I knew, but it wasn't the same. Her biggest love was art, and even at a young age I knew it. Sometimes, I believe, adoptive parents really never do understand how to truly love a child who isn't biologically theirs as if it were their own. While I don't feel like my parents didn't love me, I often wondered had they had a biological child, would they have treated he or she any differently? My ponderings eventually drove me mad and I had to force myself to stop wondering such things.
Learning that my own biological grandfather would surely have had both my biological mother and me killed was startling, and finally I was grateful for having been given the life I was, the childhood I had. I could never truly understand why one human being could kill another in cold blood. Despite my career, I don't believe I ever will.
Then, of course, there's Ian, a man who I think in many ways truly did want me, and likely still does, but not completely. He always left. Each and every time I let him back in, he broke my heart and I simply let him. I knew his real love was helping people in Africa. That was his only consistency and I was clearly a fool to think at some point his love would ever be directed elsewhere.
For much of my life, you see, I have felt unwanted, at times a great burden on those around me.
Until I met you, that is.
Every moment of every single day, I know. I can feel it deep inside me somehow. You want me. You love me. You always have and you always will. I see it when you look at me with your dark, mischievous eyes. I see it in your smile. I feel it in your touch, in your kiss, when we make love. Every cell in my body seems to know and at times I become overwhelmed at just how much you love me.
I never really understood that I could be wanted until I was wanted by you.
Thank you for wanting me.
Happy Anniversary, my love,
Maura