Back when we didn't get along, my bio sister Nicole loved to tell me how much our parents loved her.
She was born to the same parents a little over 2 years after I was, under the same conditions. Our father was still working on launching his own business, our mother still had some problems, and they still weren't married. They were in their mid twenties when I was born, and their late 20's when Nicole was born. ikBut while my birth was a family crisis- all members fighting over how to best handle "the problem"- she was welcomed. While my birthfather adamantly refused to raise me, he raised Nicole as a single father when our mother skipped town. 2 years later. She was kept and I wasn't. And Nicole knows it.
She grew up knowing that she had a sister, and met me for the first time when she was 9 years old. I don't know what our parents told her about why they gave me away. I don't know how she was raised in the years before I came back. But I do know that she has always been told she was special. And she is. She is the adored granddaughter, the favorite cousin, the apple of her fathers eyes. Raised essentially without a mother, she is definitely daddy's little girl.
I wonder what it's like to be kept. I wonder what its like to have a sibling who was given up for adoption. How does that affect ones sense of self, or self esteem? How does it feel, I wonder, to know that your parents gave your brother or sister away?
I wonder what is different between Nicole and me. What made my father want to step up when he saw her, and not when he saw me? I wonder what made them keep her and not me. I've asked a few times... but I never can get a straight answer. And maybe there isn't one.
Logically I know that it has nothing to do with me or Nicole as people. I was an inconvienant baby and she wasn't- it's as simple (or as complicated) as that. Had she been born first- she'd have been placed for adoption. But I still was envious of her. I would see her with her family, with our grandparents, our father, our cousins. And she just..belongs there. She didn't have to "reunite" to know her family. She is a part of them, a cherished member of the group. She has not had an easy life. Not by a long shot. But at the end of the day- her family is there for her. At the end of the day, at least she can say that.
I've reunited. I didn't even have to search ( semi open adoption). And so I am always hesitant to complain. Because, hey! I know who they are, I know where I came from, I've seen them in person and I've spent lots of time with them. And a lot of adoptees can't even say that. They allowed me back into their family...at least partially. And I should be grateful.
But I'm kind of not. It's like being invited to someones house and then getting left out on the porch. I'm there, of course, looking in the window. And it feels good to be able to observe, to be able to see what their lives are like. But at the end of the day, there is still that piece of glass separating us. There is always that window.
Nicole and I get along pretty well now. She hated me for a long time. She was not ready to share her family or her dad. Only now is she realizing that I can never take her place. Not even if I wanted to. But now she's older, I'm older. And slowly, we are creating a sort of fragile co-existence. But even now, I am wary. I always remember the times she told me how happy she was that HER dad kept her, that he loved her more, that she was special and that I wasn't- thats why they gave me away. On some level, I guess I still believe her.
