Normal

I believe that normal is relative. I'm not going to jump all over you because your normal is different than mine. Unless, that is, you are a scientist who tells me that babies don't care if they are taken from their mothers, or that adopted babies are appropriate test subjects because they're malleable little creatures.

That said, what's normal for me over the past 41 years has been feeling pain. When the accounting is done, I am emotionally in the red. There is that pesky problem of not feeling human, or only feeling human as of late, and then not human in other ways. Of being unlovable, or only lovable for my brain. I am disposable. In my mind, everyone I know is running (or planning to run) to the door to get away from me. I know rationally that when people run away, it's their crap, not mine (usually), but the fallout is the same. I have to deal with their absence, and it's not fun.

And yet today I had a surprising, grounding experience that made me feel normal again. For the first time in a long time. I can't say more than that, only that I feel hopeful, at least for now, about really being human.

I am trying to feel normal about my brother's upcoming visit. He arrives a week from Saturday and leaves pretty early on Sunday. I know he's petrified. After all, we adoptees are scary beasts. He still carries around a bunch of guilt for his abandoning me in May and worries my family and I haven't forgiven him. I have forgiven him, but of course he can't move on until he forgives himself. And I can't do anything about that.

Our day together was neatly planned a month ago, although you know it never ends up quite so. First, he and I will go with my friend N to brunch at my favorite Provencal restaurant in Berkeley. We'll spend the afternoon at Crissy Field or Fort Funston in the city with Mark, the kids, and Finn, and we will end the day with a tete-a-tete dinner at a wonderful tapas bar in Berkeley, just the two of us.

We've never actually had sober alone time. What will that be like? I want to ask him all about Afghanistan, but I fear he won't want to talk about it. I know he's planning to apply for fellowships for specialist training in pathology: GI diseases or something like that. I know we can nerd out together and talk about science and BBC television shows, but I hope he'll also be willing to talk about some difficult things. I realize that I know him too poorly to trust him with a whole lot of my hearts of darkness (not to mention he's smashed me to pieces before), but I want to be able to confide in him and build something beyond the superficial relationship we have now. We will see. I have to remember there isn't a rush. We cannot make up for the time we have lost; we can only move ahead. And I can only control myself and what I do.

It is so fucked up to have met my brother in middle age. To love him and be afraid of him. My job is to find some version of normal in this whole tangled mess? Wish me luck!