Birthdays...

There was a big event yesterday. The twin nephews were born. Everyone is healthy and well.

But the thing that makes this stranger is they were born on my birthday.

My birthday has always been a day that makes me feel anxious and out of sorts. Why I don't really celebrate it in any big way.
Its a day that reminds me of the fact that I exist in some sort of cross ways point between one family, another and one that I know nothing about.
That also my existence is a problem for many. I am a secret, shame, something best left buried. By even asking a question I cause issues.
Lately there have been many programs and articles on the subject of 'identity', also more coverage on adoption. I have at times struggled in my life with 'identity'. I grew up in one family but I was a produced in another environment under not so great conditions. I have a biological mother and somewhere out there a biological father that no one will talk about.
A photo was posted onto Facebook this morning and it popped up in my feed through one of these strange connections an adoptee has. It was a family photo. There was my half biological sister and brother. My biological mother standing behind them with her husband. The photo also has 2 other families. The children linked to me by this connection. I could have been in that photo. Sitting there in the group shot taken possibly on christmas day. Are they my cousins? I am the oldest sister. The oldest of all the kids in that photo and I am not there. I was having a christmas day with my family.
I don't have any images of my biological mother. I enlarged the photo and had a good look, trying to find links. Trying to see a likeness. I can see the likeness in my bother of his father. The twig didn't fall far from the tree.
I look at her sharp face, the only one in that photo not smiling, standing back from the group. It tells me a lot about her in a way. But I am only assuming, but something about that photo answers some questions for me. It's a pattern, people don't want anything to do with her. My aunt doesn't and my brother doesn't either. But because of this, some people want nothing to do with me as I am a product of this. I am part of the problem.
As an adoptee you grow up with so many questions. You wonder where you fit. I never felt like I fitted in with my adoptive family. I was too creative, out spoken, head strong. Things my parents never really got the hang of. I was never close to my adoptive brother so I felt pretty much alone in the whole thing. At the time, I didn't know that much of my tense feelings about it all was anxiety, but anxiety is common amongst adoptees. I have battled with anxiety most of my life. I have learned to cope with it now but I still have my bad days. The days when you take a deep breath and pluck up the courage to take another step into this crazy world that I have been thrust into. That by asking a question you never know what level of hurt or trouble you are going to cause while all you want to do it find out about who you are. So I don't fit in one, i'm absent from the other but I do have my own 'family' the one I have created. My wonderful friends, my amazing husband and his lovely close knit family, I am a part of this one and I don't have to ask any questions to find out where I fit as I just know that I fit and I am accepted for who I am, the good and the bad bits. No one is trying to hide me or silence me from speaking. No one is telling me I ruined their life. No one is wishing I never existed.

So now, we have 2 new little lives born on this day. They are born into a new family, one that my brother has created with his partner. One that they are creating without our biological mother.
My birthday has taken on a new dimension, it it now a day that is happy because it is celebrating these 2 little guys.