Family

The last week has been a very strange one.

I reconnected with an older brother and a younger sister I barely know. We didn't grow up together and live hundreds and hundreds of miles apart, but it seems like we know each other in spite of it.

Eric is eight years older than I, Kasy is sixteen years younger. The only thing we really have in common is our father, who I barely, vaguely knew. 

Strange that I should feel so close to them. We share something that is inexplicable. 

I envied my friends who had brothers and sisters, even as they tried to beat the crap out of each other growing up. 

I'm seriously considering a kind of pilgrimage to the homeland sometime in the spring. Perhaps it's ill-advised, delusional, that I should expect that we will magically have this pre-fab relationship. It's hard to be both cautious and open at the same time.

But when I was little, I sometimes thought that someday my real family would come get me. Weird, because my mom was always my real family and she has always been with me. I never fit in with all the aunts and uncles and cousins on her side of the family. They knew it and I knew it. 

And now, closing in on the age of 36, my real family has reappeared. I'm hopeful.