Forgiveness?

I spent my entire childhood waiting to be loved and accepted by the children of my father's first marriage.  I couldn't understand what I did that was so wrong that they would resent me as much as they did.  I tried to ignore it, because my dad always told me that they DID love me and I wanted to believe him.  When I had children of my own, the resentment carried over to my children.  That's not hearsay or rumour, that was straight from one of them after my dad's death.  That was when I tried to wash my hands of them for all of eternity. 

The one who seethed the jealousy of my children has tried to contact me over the years and I've rejected her every time  In recent years.. VERY recent years... I came to terms with the idea that there were half siblings out there that I would never know, would never care to know, and would never want my children to know existed. More than that, I realized that I did nothing wrong to deserve such treatment.  They hated me merely because I was born, and if  that ruined their lives... well, it wasn't my fault.  I sympathized with their situation, even if they had a warped version of my reality, and I sent the aforementioned one an email.  I apologized for not responding to her olive branches, and explained to her why I didn't.  It felt good, it felt freeing.

But then, the youngest of the sisters rocked my world and sent me an email.  She said she was thinking about me, she said she wanted to know me.  She extended herself in a way that none of the rest of them had... and I had no idea how to respond.  I sat and read the email about 100 times before I made about that many phone calls to figure out what to do.  When I finally decided to reply, I had to have written, deleted, and written again before I sent an email back to her.  The entire situation ignited electrical impulses through my brain that awoke an insecure little girl that lived in the recesses of my subconscious and ignited the anger of a mother bear.

It wasn't until she used the word "sister" in reference to our relationship that I realized none of them can hurt me anymore.  The little girl inside of me didn't jump for joy at acceptance, in fact, it made me a little angry.  I'm not a long lost sister that they just discovered, I'm a 33 year old woman that they rejected... But this particular person has owned that, she's admitted it, and she apologized for it.  Two very powerful feelings, resentment and forgiveness, now weigh heavily on my heart and mind with every moment.  I'm left wondering if people do change.  I'm left wondering "why now?".  I'm left wondering if I'm woman enough to forgive.  I guess I'm just left in a state of wonder.