It's just so complicated.

Not belonging is exhausting. I was adopted at infancy. My brother was adopted three years later. We come from different places. My family growing up was difficult. My mother was unable to have children, thus, us. It was the early '80's. I remember the day we picked my brother up from the adoption agency. I got lost trying to find my way back from the bathroom. Everything about that day was terrifying. He was a threat to me. Fast forward 10 years. My brother and I were very close- we innately understood the other in a way our parents couldn't understand. He'd listen to me, but not them. He was heavily into drugs, had been on ritalin since kindergarten. Pretty messed up kid. I just did poorly in school and contemplated suicide a lot. Withdrawn. Sad. Outsider. We were a novelty. Everything about us was just fascinating. My love of horses, poetry, art, and the outdoors. His athleticism and rebelliousness. Just fascinating. We still are. I ran away to college to escape the heartache of my brother's addictions. I stopped talking to him so that I could self preserve. I was not his mother. His first mother was a drug addict. His second mother loved him so much she enabled him and had him on anti-psychotics when he was 15. When I was 22 it was decided that he should find his birth family. I had been searching for 5 years and had never been offered any help. It wasn't a secret. They diplomatically asked if I was interested. Sigh. Wasn't it obvious? First phone call was great. First visit was awesome. Things made sense. I felt whole. Families met. The picture was complete. My mother died 6 years ago. We had a tumultuous relationship, but in the end we understood each other. We were finally at peace with one another. The day of her funeral our grandfather disowned my brother saying he wasn't really his grandson. So, I was disowned as well. My father never spoke to him again. I worked really hard to cultivate a relationship with my dad. We communicated as adults do. It was one good thing to come out of that tremendous loss. My brother married. Has a step daughter and two littles- all of whom I love like my own. His wife is deceitful. I can't stand her. My father has a girlfriend who says that she can never replace my mother. But tries to mother me simultaneously. I got married. My other mother was there. My father felt betrayed. There I was, on my wedding day, mourning my mother and trying desperately to straddle two families and have everyone be happy. FOR ME. FOR ONCE. Impossible. My brother I don't speak anymore. His actions towards me are unwarranted and hurt me to my very core. My father has tried to hand off his relationship with me to his girlfriend. Not the same. My other mother tries to connect by summing everything about me to genetics. It is insulting. Why must I be one or the other? Why can't I just simply be accepted for me? I am tired of being in the tug of war. Everyone wants to be my mom. I've had enough of mothers. My life is a timeline of loss. From the very beginning. I carry a grief to old to heal and to fresh to ignore.