As alluded to in my previous post, my bio brother and I had a meaningful text conversation last week. It seems a little strange to say that texts can be meaningful, but we all know that words hold a tremendous amount of power. The manner in which they are delivered is less important. Of course, you cannot “hear” tone in a text but sometimes, you don’t need to. The words are enough.

I won’t share verbatim what he said here, because the nature of it was private. But suffice to say he said things that all adoptees long to hear in their searches.

“You are family.”

“I am so glad you found us.”

“I feel so connected to you.” The truth of the matter is, I feel more connected to my bio brother than almost any other relative I have (my cousin N comes in a very close second, and we are not bio related). The first time I met him and my sister, I felt instantly as though I had known them my entire life. It is a strange feeling to explain, if you have never felt it. I explained it to my brother this way: we all have soulmates (emphasis on the plural) in our lives. I don’t believe they are limited to just our “significant other”. They can be friends or family members, too. N and his wife are my people, plain and simple. He is creative and goofy like I am, and we have the same taste in music and the arts. Even our mannerisms and the way we speak is similar (which freaks me out a bit, to be honest!). I try not to dwell too much on the pangs of lost time. There is so much of it, and the sadness of “what ifs” can be overwhelming. I try instead to focus on the future, and the fact that our families are a part of each other’s. Still, I can’t help but wonder what growing up with him and A would have been like. What stories we would have to tell.

Time to write some new ones.

“I could go crazy on a night like tonight, the summer’s beginning to give up her fight. And every thought’s a possibility…the voices are heard, but nothing is seen. Why do you spend this time with me? May be an equal mystery.” – The Indigo Girls