Letter From The Foster Girl

I don’t really know where to begin, because this letter feels like both an ending and a confession, both an apology and I guess a form of a love note.

I’ve carried this longing for so many years now… to belong more fully with you and your family, to be close in the ways I always imagined but never knew how to reach. That longing has been the quiet thread running underneath everything, no matter how the years drifted or how far away we became.

From the first moment I entered your home, I carried a severely fragile hope. I was so young, but old enough to know the difference between chaos and stability, between neglect and care. And for the nine months I lived with you, I felt… maybe for the first time in my life… that I was in a place where love could be real. Even after I left, even after life pulled us all in different directions, that hope never died in me. It just turned into longing. I wanted to be your daughter, truly. I wanted to be Charlotte’s and Miranda’s sister in more than name. I wanted to entangle myself into the being of your family so deeply that you would never imagine me as someone on the outside.

But the truth, as the years proved over and over again, is that I never really succeeded.

No matter what effort I put in, no matter what energy or words or love I tried to offer, it always seemed like too little, or too much, or just not right. When I look back now, all I can see are the places where I fell short… the phone calls I didn’t make, the texts that sounded awkward, the silences I didn’t know how to fill, the moments when I misunderstood what closeness required. I see eleven years of trying and failing, of hoping and hurting, of wanting so much and not knowing how to give it.

I think the kindest thing I can do… for you and for myself… is to step back now. To stop reaching for something that I can’t seem to hold. To leave you all alone, not out of lack of love, but out of love itself, because I don’t want to keep disappointing you.

It isn’t that I never cared. It’s that I cared too much, in all the wrong ways. I’ve always had chaos inside of me, even in the moments when I seemed strong. I’ve watched, I’ve tried, I’ve studied how people connect and stay connected, how families bond, how sisters grow close, how daughters and parents nurture one another. And no matter how carefully I tried to copy those patterns, mine always unraveled. I never got it right.

Last I texted Miranda she ended up saying in a way that I always talk about myself. That my words were “advantageous.”… those words cut me deeply, because the last thing I wanted was to seem selfish or self-centered. But maybe she was right in a way. Not because I didn’t love or want to know all of you, but because I simply didn’t know how to speak any other language. I didn’t know how to converse in the way that makes people feel seen and safe and bonded. I didn’t know the rhythm of what to say, or when, or how often. And what I didn’t realize until far too late is that this wasn’t just some personal failing… it was my neurology, the way my brain was wired all along.

I found out, years into our drift, that I am likely autistic. And it’s different on many levels than borderline personality disorder which I WAS diagnosed with…. the reason communication has always been confusing to me, the reason I never knew when to text or what to say, the reason conversations slipped through my fingers no matter how tightly I tried to hold them, is because my mind simply doesn’t work like most people’s. Nobody knew. Not you, not me, not anyone. And that is the saddest part: we were all walking blind.

You thought I was choosing distance or selfishness, and I thought I was choosing closeness, but my efforts came out wrong. Nobody knew.

Now, I am trying to get a professional diagnosis (along with college) but it’s complicated. It takes time, maybe even some money, and a lot of my own patience. I am left carrying both the relief of having some explanation for my struggles, and the grief of knowing that I found out too late.

Too late for the relationships that might have looked different if we’d all had the language for what was really going on. Too late for the years where I blamed myself without mercy, thinking I was just broken, lazy, selfish, incapable of love. Too late to rewrite the eleven years we lost in the spaces between us.

And so here I am, at this strange intersection of love and grief. I love you all more than I can say. I don’t want to walk away… not at all. But it feels like the only way forward. Because the longer I stay trying to force a closeness I don’t know how to sustain, the more it hurts all of us.

Tamara reached for me the most, and that’s why I grew closer to her. But in truth, I wanted to be close to each of you… deeply, equally, genuinely. I wanted to know Tyson, Charlotte, to know Miranda, to be more than just a passing presence in their lives. I wanted to be someone who mattered to them the way they mattered to me. The way they matter to mom…. And I have failed at that, too. Not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t know how to show my care in the ways that would have made sense to them.

The truth is, I don’t feel like I deserve a relationship with any of you. I don’t feel like I deserve relationships at all. Even with my husband… though I love him deeply… there are times I wonder if he deserves someone better, someone easier to understand, someone who doesn’t stumble over every basic social rule. Or have meltdown after meltdown over so many things… If I could, I think I would choose solitude, because being alone is the only thing I’ve ever been consistently good at.

But even in my solitude, I will love you. That part doesn’t go away.

Please believe me when I say I am not leaving because of anger, or resentment, or lack of care. I am leaving because I don’t know how else to stop the cycle of trying and failing, of longing and disappointing, of hoping and hurting.

Life has made me resilient… I’ve been through chaos and trauma and survived things that should have broken me. You know that part of me. But resilience does not erase the ache of knowing that I couldn’t make this work, that I couldn’t become the daughter or sister I dreamed of being. Strength doesn’t erase the grief of seeing how love and longing can still fail to build the bridge I wanted.

I am too much and not enough, all at once. I want too much, feel too much, text too much, complain too much, hurt too much. I am overwhelming and underwhelming in the same breath. And I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.

Maybe years from now, our paths will cross again. Maybe time will soften this distance, or maybe it will only grow. I can’t know. What I do know is that right now, I don’t feel worthy of being part of your lives as I am. And I can’t keep pretending that someday I’ll magically wake up as a different person… someone who instinctively knows how to nurture, sustain, and protect relationships without breaking them.

So I am stepping back with love, not anger. With sorrow, not resentment. With gratitude, not bitterness. I am stepping back because I love you too much to keep failing you.

Thank you… for those nine months where I first learned what stability felt like, for the eleven years of being allowed, however imperfectly, to orbit your family, for the moments of warmth, generosity and care that meant more to me than I ever said. Thank you for trying, in your way, to hold space for me. I know it wasn’t easy.

I will carry you with me always. I will love you always. But for now, I will be better alone.

With all my love,

Aubrey