Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

What am I wary of? I don't know.
    There is a big gap between our lives. She is upset about Winterson—world. She blames herself and she blames Mrs Winterso et I would rather be this me — the me that I have become — than the me I might have become without books, without education, and without all the things that have happened to me along the way, including Mrs W I think I am lucky.
    How do you say that without dismissing or undervaluing things for her?
    And I don't know what I feel about her. I panic when my feelings are not clear. It is like staring into a muddy pond, and rather than wait until an ecosystem develops to clear the water, I prefer to drain the pond.
    This isn't a head/heart split or a thinking/feeling split. It is emotional matrix. I can juggle different and opposing ideas and realities easily. But I hate feeling more than one thing at once.
    Adoption is so many things at once. And it is everything and nothing. Ann is my mother. She is also someone I don't know at all.
    I am trying to avoid the miserable binary of ‘this means so much to me/this means nothing to me’. I am trying to respect my own complexity. I had to know the story of my beginnings but I have to accept that this is a version too. It is a true story but it is still a version.
    I know that Ann and Linda want to include me in their family; that is their generosity. I don't want to be included; that is not my hard—heartedness. I am so glad to know that Ann survived and I like thinking of her surrounded by the others. But I don't want to be there. That's not what's important to me. And I don't feel a biological connection. I don't feel, ‘Wow, here's my mother.’
    I have read a lot of overwhelmingly emotional accounts of reunion. None of that is my experience. All I can say is that I am pleased — that is the right word — that my mother is safe.
    I can't be the daughter she wants.
    I couldn't be the daughter Mrs Winterson wanted.
    My friends who are not adopted tell me not to worry. They don't feel they were ‘right’ either.
    I am interested in nature/nurture. I notice that I hate Ann criticising Mrs Winterson. She was a monster but she was my monster.
    Ann came to London. That was a mistake. It is our third meeting and we have a serious row. I am shouting at her,’At least Mrs Winterson was there. Where were you?’
    I don't blame her and I am glad she made the choice she made. Clearly I am furious about it too.
    I have to hold these things together and feel them both/all.
    As a young woman Ann wasn't given much love. ‘Mam didn't have time to be soft. She loved us by feeding us and clothing us.’
    When her own mother was exceedingly old Ann found the courage to ask the question, ‘Mam, did you love me?’ Her mother was very clear. ‘Yes. I love you. Now don't ask me again.’
    Love. The difficult word. Where everything starts, where we always return. Love. Love's lack. The possibility of love.
    I have no idea what happens next.