She's Wanting to Meet me...

I post rarely. I should be more active, here, all things considered. And to those who have PM'd me over the years, I'm sorry for my neglect. This is a rant, probably a fairly wandering, aimless one that accomplishes little. My thoughts aren't very coherent on my best days, so I apologize in advanced. I gave up a daughter in 2009, which is when I began posting here ( albeit sparsely, ) and have only made one update, which seemed to occur at the very start of a downward spiral. She's 6 now, very nearly 7. The AFamily has been very open with her about being adopted, and she is very familiar with her birthfather, and maternal great-grandparents. She has visited with them numerous times, both at their home and at my grandparents' home. I, however, have not seen her again since the second day, or so, after she was born ( I can't remember if they left with her the day after or two days after. ) A couple weeks ago my grandmother dropped by to beg me to see her. She sprung it on me that they were going to be in town, and had requested my presence, then she began mercilessly guilting me into attending. And when I say mercilessly, I'm not exaggerating; she berated me for twenty minutes about how appalling it was that I should even consider not meeting with her, specifically because she was requesting to see me, herself! How could I turn The Little One down? How could I reject her so? And on and on... My mother soon followed suit, regurgitating the same thorny argument my grandmother started, trying desperately to appeal to some motherliness with me that, quite simply, doesn't exist. Both of them were wildly disappointed that I requested to think about it--that I wanted to consider the longterm effects. And they wouldn't hear it from me that maybe, possibly, I didn't want to see The Little One. Then the adoptive mum sends me an e-mail very respectfully and gently asking if I'd attend their get-together with my grandparents and The Little One's birthfather. She kindly offered to meet me somewhere away from the get-together, in a park or at a coffee shop, just me, Adoptive Mum and The Little One. She's a very thoughtful woman, very kind and VERY respectful. I legitimately felt quite bad that I was going to refuse. The Little One wants to meet me, and apparently, quite badly. Adoptive Mum told me, in the e-mail, that Little One asks quite a lot about me now, including why I'm the only one she hasn't met yet, considering she's met my mom, my brother, my grandparents, my uncle, her birthfather, and her birth-father's mother... and yet not me. She's at that age, I guess, where the wide, flowing world of color and thought mesh and amalgam into a brilliant tapestry that must be explored down to the individual threads that bind this to that, and I'm apart of the picture but hidden somewhere on the vaguest outskirts, behind the rest, and concealed from her view. I am the myth she wants to discover behind the truths she already knows. But I refused. They came for the weekend and I kept my distance, feigned a sickness and took the cowards way out. I didn't respond to her e-mail when I meant to not due to lack of effort--I wrote and deleted the response five times. Then they left and I breathed again, but the inhale after the sigh of relief was full of guilt. Naturally. I had to write Adoptive Mum--I had to explain myself and my cowardice, because the last thing I wanted was to make them believe I didn't appreciate them, or their efforts to remain in contact with my family. So I wrote an explanation which was probably wildly confusing because for some reason I felt that I should bare my soul. I felt that Adoptive Mum deserved to know why I would refuse to see The Little One despite her pleas. I am the most atrocious of wrecks; a train crash, utterly derailed and lying smoking in some remote woodland where no help can go. The fires have burned out, starved by time, and I lie wheezing death throes in a hazy twilight, disappointment even to myself. I'm fearful, I'm useless, helpless, goalless, fruitless. I am jobless because my anxiety makes me self-destruct and fly at the first sign of discontent, no matter how small. I am at odds with my family that I used to adore, I am pessimistic, reclusive to the point where I won't see day-light for days at a time. I'm unhealthy, I eat very little but very badly, because we are poor ( mostly because of me, ) and I barely sleep anymore, so my eyes are dark, my skin is ruined, my teeth are rotting, my body is rejecting my ill-treatment but clawing my way up out of the pit just seems like an utter waste of time, because all I'll find at the top is just more responsibility I don't want. And this is who I don't want The Little One to meet; I don't want her to know me as I am. I prefer that she conjure up some fantasy of who she might want me to be, and just learn to be content with it. Oh sure; the pang of curiosity might haunt her all her days, if I deprive her of satisfaction, but disappointment is something that we as humans must inevitably learn to stomach, because it comes at us in waves, ceaseless. Unless I can fix myself, and heal the grievous wounds I've opened, myself, then I fear I'll have to deny ever meeting her. Much to the ire of my mother and grandmother, I could, if I wanted to, convince myself that The Little One doesn't exist, that she was a dream-child in a dream-scape that my mind simply birthed, but not me, not in real life. I've already half convinced myself of this. I don't think of her as mine in any way anymore. I guess I needed counseling after all. But I didn't take it. What irreparable damage must have been caused, by now, I can only guess at.