Music I�m listening to: Black Rain, It�s Been A While, Purple Rain, Like The Rain, I Sure Can Smell The Rain, Every time, Dream Universe, Dream Traveler Time, Knockin On Heaven�s Door, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, River of Tears (live), Amish Paradise, Asshole Son, Beer Song, Bohemian Polka, Gump, Headline News, Hot Rock Polka, Internet Sandman, All About the Pentiums, Polka Your Eyes Out, Polka Power, Polkamon, Pretty Fly For A Rabbi, Saga Begins, Which Backstreet Boy is Gay, Will the Real Slim Shady Please Shutup, Windows 95 Sucks, Yoda

Okay, so another entry tonight. Aren�t you just the lucky ones, hmmm?

I was in the mood to listen to more of my MP3s and since no one was on-line and I can�t listen to MP3s while on-line, I figured I�d just log off and write some more. This might turn into nothing, it might turn into something, but I�m just going to go for the free association thing.

I miss my brother. Not because there are so many pleasant memories from childhood, but... because I spent 16 years of my life having a brother. I miss him. I wish his life were less painful.

It�s not like other people have really placed so much pain upon him, though that�s what he believes. I just.... I feel sorry for him. Does that make sense? I suppose it doesn�t matter. I�ve spent the majority of my childhood feeling sorry for him. I felt like I failed him sometimes too.

Do I still feel like I failed him? *shakes her head slowly* No, I don�t think so.

When I was a little girl, I felt so strongly that if I could just find the right words, he would hear me and not do the bad thing he wanted to do. I thought that if I tried hard enough, eventually I would be someone he gave a damn about. But that isn�t so.

I want, so desperately, to say that he was a good kid. But he wasn�t. I can�t count the number of times I felt terrified because he was doing yet one more thing that was stupid and completely irresponsible. I can�t even begin to fathom the irritation and frustration I felt even as young as six years old, because he was doing something else wrong.

We had such a fucked up family dynamic. There was a period of about seven years or so, maybe only four, my memory is a little odd about childhood things.

Anyway, there was a long stretch where we just stopped having family dinners together. Dad was depressed and had frequent bouts of Gout in his feet and knees. The medication that he started taking for Gout made him... mean. Extremely mean.

When I was a very little girl, I was very sensitive. I was a very kind, gentle and tender child and I wore my emotions on my shirtsleeve. Mom understood that and knew how to work with it. She believed in being tender and kind and gentle at every opportunity. But Dad... *shakes her head* He wasn�t interested in gentle or tender at all.

When he married Mom, he seemed to think he was getting his family back. He had been married to a woman he truly and completely loved. He had two children, a boy and girl, with this woman. He loved her so completely. And she didn�t care. She just up and left him, taking the kids.

I don�t know what the whole story is there, I haven�t ever asked, and Dad hasn�t ever volunteered.

But he loved her and was betrayed by her. I think that he thought getting Mom with Dan and I... we were the same ages as his children were when she took them... I think it was his way of getting his family back. And he expected us to be his kids. Not his kids as in he loved us as became our father, but his kids as in he thought I would be Sherry and Dan would be Bing.

He expected, I think, Mom to be Sharron. I think he was surprised every day to realize that we weren�t them. And I think it frustrated him. A lot. And I think it also reaffirmed the fact that Sharron betrayed him and stole his children.

I don�t know if she actually �stole� them, but I know that�s the way he acts. Or at least, acted.

Anyway... we were really a very fucked up family.

I remember having to compose a family chart showing behaviors. It was an assignment in one of the Drug and Alcohol classes I was taking. We were supposed to do up a pseudo family tree thing, but with behaviors and attitudes and addictions listed.

Let me put it this way, I have no contact, whatsoever, with any of my siblings. None that I lived with, none that I have through blood, none that I have through marriage. I have no contact with any of my cousins, blood, marriage, nada. I have no contact with relatives other than Mother, Step Father, maternal Aunt and husband, and Maternal grandmother.

My biological father married my mother, they adopted Dan, then had me. He left on a run (he was a long-haul-trucker) when I was about six months old, and called Mom from some place I don�t remember the name of, telling her to send his things to some address; in Washington I think. I didn�t see or hear from him again until I established contact in 1987, when I was 16 years old.

When I was 16, I found out that I had a half-sister. I met her. I�ve talked with her a few times and over the past 15 years, I�ve spoken/written/communicated with her less than 20 times. I chose to cease all communication with her in about 93 because she chose to place drugs as a priority over her child.

When I met with Charlie (my biological father) a few months ago, I found out that Heather (the half sister) had given birth to another child which was also a ward of the state because she wouldn�t give up her drugs.

Before Charlie married my mother, he had been married to another woman by the name of, if I�m not mistaken, Doris Wiltsie from Spokane, Washington. To the best of my knowledge, which is through my mother, Doris bore Charlie two children. The first one, if I�m not mistaken, is Douglas. The second, I don�t know his name. Mom doesn�t know his name. Charlie split when the child was very, very young.

See a pattern forming?

OH, Charlie cut out on Andre, Heather�s mother too.

Now you see a pattern forming?

I have two Nieces to which I am blood related. I�ve seen the oldest one twice. I have never seen the younger. I�ve never held either child. I probably never will.

I wonder if my older brothers (half brothers) are married, have children, are happy, are alive.

I have a letter which I�ve written to Charlie, asking him for a little information on my brothers and his first ex wife in the off chance that I would be able to locate them. I have written similar letters many times before.

I keep chickening out when it comes time to send them. This time, however, I have the stamp on the envelope, I have the letter in the envelope and it�s sealed. All I have to do is give the envelope to my Mother to send off into the post.

But I�m still scared.

Do I really want to find these people? Do I want to disrupt their lives? Do I want to possibly disrupt Charlie�s life and open a wound which has long-since scarred over?

I keep telling myself that more than 30 years is long enough for Charlie to either get over it, or deal with the ramifications. But still... What if my brothers don�t want to know about me? What if my brothers don�t want to have me in their lives? And what if my brothers are dead?

What do I have to lose?

Nada.

It�s not like my relationship with Charlie will be damaged. There isn�t much of a relationship there. It�s not like my life will suddenly spin into total chaos. And it�s not like I will lose something I never knew I had.

So, Dan met his biological mother about 10 or so years ago. maybe a little more than that now. I don�t really remember all that clearly. I met his brothers and his mother. It didn�t answer any questions of Dan�s. It didn�t suddenly make his life better. It just made her nervous and confused and scared. It just reminded her of a bad choice she made.

Did Dan understand that if she hadn�t given him up for adoption, he would have been killed by his mother�s husband? No.

What am I trying to say?

My brother spent his young life fantasizing about how much better his life would be if he could find his real mother. He found his real mother and she wasn�t his fantasy. She didn�t open her arms, cry and say, �My son, oh my son. Where have you been? I�ve been looking for you everywhere.�

She shrugged him off.

Am I expecting my brothers to be some fantastic, larger-than-life thing? Am I expecting to be welcomed in open arms? Am I expecting them to say they�ve always known that a part of their lives was missing, they just didn�t know what it was? I don�t know.

How will my life be effected by meeting them, making contact with them, or not ever meeting them? They will not possess some magic answer that will unlock some door in my mind allowing me to have access to all things I dreamed of. They will not be some fantastic, big, amazing love machine which will dote on me and shower me with attention.

Perhaps I�m scared for nothing? *nods* Yes, I�m scared for nothing. My life can not get worse for meeting them. My family can�t get smaller for meeting them. I could lose any and all imagined respect for them, the way I have for my half-sister. *shrugs* But it is an imagined respect, as I don�t know them and they don�t know me.

Heh.

So my brother is still searching for his �real� family. He doesn�t realize that he left his �real� family six years ago. He doesn�t understand that HIS family is there in Brandace and Damian. He doesn�t understand that he�s throwing away his daughter and son the way he was thrown away. He doesn�t see it.

I pray he realizes that he is the only one who can make him happy.

I will send the letter to Charlie. Maybe not tomorrow, but I will send it. This is going to be an incredibly wonderful year for me. Whether I locate family or not, whether I have a great relationship with my biological father or not... I have a wonderful relationship with me. And because of that, I can begin to look at other people from a more... real perspective.

*smiles softly*

Dan, I love you and wish you peace of mind. It�s a wonderful blessing you don�t understand until you�ve had it, then lost it, then found it again. May you have peace of mind and keep it.

Toodles, all.