My Brother (or one of them, anyway)

   He was the very first person to read my blog. With the help of some shameless self-promotion on Facebook, I might add. I didn't even have to threaten to push him in front of a bus to get him to read it, either. At any rate, that'd be killing the goose that lays the golden egg, or murdering the brother who reads my blog, at least.

   "I got a mention!" he excitedly told me on Facebook chat. "And so did the windows!" (He was the one who first tried to help me understand my fear of windows after I had a total freak out about them while on the phone to him.)

   Inspired by his enthusiasm (that's ridiculous, he's the most unenthusiastic person I know) at this, I decided to dedicate an entire post to David. Besides, it's another excuse to get him to read it, isn't it?

   Right. So. Let's get started, shall we?

   As I have mentioned, I have four half brothers- three on my mum's side, one on my dad's side. David is one of my younger brothers on my mum's side. So that's how he fits into all this.

   Being adopted, I used to go to visit my birthmother once a year, on what I later referred to as my "annual visits". I remember a few details about these visits. One is that my adoptive mum and my birthmum seemed to get along considerably better than I did with either- I mean, they were both adults, and both had similar interests. I was just a weird little kid with an overactive imagination and no clue as to why I was even adopted in the first place. So I didn't talk to her much. She has a husband, I don't ever remember a time when he wasn't in the picture. He is David's father. I don't think I really talked to him much, either, but this was years ago, so I barely remember what it was like with him back then. I haven't seen him in years either. Ditto my birthmum. The annual visits ceased a couple of years ago.

   I have an older brother, William. Sometimes he would talk to me. More than the others, anyway. So I guess on most of my annual visits, he was the one I hung out with most. He's 22 now, and has multiple jobs and a sleeping problem, so I don't hear from him all that often now. I'm taking a guess at the multiple jobs thing. He did have a few last time I heard from him. But I wouldn't really know now, aside from what David tells me.

   Anyway, I had two younger brothers there as well, David and Rory. On the annual visits, I never learned which was which- it was never really necessary to know, because neither really had all that much to do with me either. They usually just (as I remember) squealed and ran away. David now insists that it was only Rory who squealed, and that he at least stayed to say hello. That is a possibility.

   Anyway, around April-ish this year, my birthmum added me on Facebook. That was a bit of a shock. It was a relief to discover that she's never on anyway. Then he added me. Started talking to me. First thing I remember him saying was, "Um, awkward question, but are you like, my sister or something?" Had no one bothered to explain it to him, about who this weird girl who turned up every year? Well, yes and no. He knew only that I was a sister who didn't live with him. He didn't really know anything else, though to be fair, it was probably because he didn't ask.

  I feel guilty sometimes trying to explain these things to him, because I shouldn't be the one doing so. I mean shouldn't his our mum have told him this? I feel like she wouldn't be happy if she knew I was telling him what I know of it. But I guess someone has to tell him, and why the heck shouldn't I? Oh, I don't know.

   Since April he's racked up a pretty big phone bill trying to stay in touch, and he's still paying it off. But it's nice to have that connection to at least one of them. I mean, Will's busy, Rory's still pretty much at the squeal-and-run-away stage of it all, and it's awkward trying to talk to my birthmum about anything. (I tried to ask her last year about why I was adopted, and I think she tried to explain, but I still have no freaking clue why.)

   I guess this post hasn't been so much about David as it has about a whole lot of my birthfamily, but dammit. I tried. Perhaps I'll write him a better post another time.