Years ago when I was in elementary school, I remember sitting in my dining room talking with my mother. I think I was about six or seven years old. I started telling my mother that there was a school play that I was a part of and she followed up by asking what character I was playing. I told her that I was playing the black sheep. She proceeded to ask about the story line and I replied with this elaborate story line that I fabricated on the spot. I didn’t know where the story was going or how it was going to end so I just stopped abruptly. She acted as though she was interested, but I am sure she was able to pick up on the fact that I was telling a lie the whole time. She played along. The lie continued for a few days until my mothers asked me when the play was going to be performed for parents. I tried to hid and say that we were not going to perform the play because it got cancelled. I felt so guilty for lying to her. I knew that she could see right through me. I am not the best at hiding my lies, especially back then. I eventually confessed and told her the truth.

Felling like the black sheep of the family, like an outcast, like someone else, like a temporary family member is something that I have always carried with me. Why, I don’t know. Again, there is really nothing that my family can or could have done to alter this feeling. Its not a good or bad feeling, its just there and will probably always be there with me.

Its exactly how an authored described it, the phantom limb pain. I am missing a part of me; I’m feeling the pain of not being being completely connected to my family or my birth family.