Laying on my back, staring up at the dogfight eternally raging in the sky’s above my bed. I am pondering a feeling that I have in the pit of my stomach. It’s not a sickness or pain, but rather that of loneliness associated with feeling out-of-place. I turn to my phonograph and lay down some heavy vinyl to sooth myself to sleep. RUSH usually does the trick. Placing my hands behind my head and crossing my legs, my body slowly sinks into the preformed shape that is my mattress. “Fly by night” is playing in the background and I am lip syncing the song.
Fly by night, away from here
Change my life again
Fly by night, goodbye my dear
My ship isn’t coming and I just can’t pretend
You see my parents told me very young that I was adopted at birth. A lot for a young boy to understand, but when the question comes up time and again as to why I don’t look like anybody in my family what is a parent to do? It’s not that I am miserable where I live, it’s not that I dislike my adopted parents, because I don’t. It’s not even that I want to be anywhere else. 
But what bothers me most nights as I lay in a rhythmic trance while music pounds the center of my soul. Is, I know. I know there are more of us out there! Dont ask me how I know, but I know! I wonder if I have brothers or maybe sisters out there somewhere. I wonder what my biological mother and father look like. I wonder if they gave me up because they hated me? Or if I was just too much to handle, I have seen friends of my parents with crying infants and it always left me wondering why someone would want to put themselves through that kind of torture. I lay awake at night wondering if any of them are looking up towards the sky thinking the same thing? Are they lonely too? Do they feel the emptiness inside that I feel? Like a part of you is missing? I live in a house with three other people and I am lonely. And I feel empty.
When you are a 10-year-old kid you don’t know how to identify with emotions that are mentally challenging. You know something isn’t right but you don’t know how to verbally express what you are feeling. So you listen to really great rock and roll, stare up at the model planes hanging from your ceiling, pretending they are dog fighting and pray you can fall asleep before the record player needle hits the label.
Present Day…
I am laying in bed staring at another episode of Law and Order. My tablet and keyboard in my lap. I no longer have model planes to stare at and unless I am looking to start a fight over which band is better “Led Zeppelin or RUSH” to fall asleep too I had better not wake my wife with any loud music! I lean back and place my hands behind my head and smile. I don’t have to worry about whether or not I have any brothers or sisters out there somewhere in the world. I know! Just like I knew then I know now! Because now, I have proof!
Through an emotional, exhausting search I located my brothers in 2006! I reached out to them and they answered my call. They too had a feeling there was someone out there and they had been passively looking for me as well! Man were those boys surprised when they received the call! I met my grandmother not long after! I have been welcomed with open arms into their lives! I am always excited when they call, and I look forward to the times we are able to speak. I have brothers, real flesh and blood brothers! They look like me, I act like them, we feel as though we have known each other our whole lives! It’s what I have always wanted. except for one thing….
Theres one more…
My brother calls to tell me he has information that our mother gave one more child up for adoption. The child was a girl, 18 months older than me. (woo hoo! I am still the youngest!) I am floored! Because just as I knew when I was young there were others, I had a feeling after meeting “the boys”, we weren’t done yet. I love it when I am right! Well everyone, I met her today! We had brunch at one of my favorite little “hole in the wall” restaurants. We met at 10:30 and departed at 2:15. I thought we needed to go before they started charging us rent. She is sweet and funny, well-traveled, opinionated, and has little ways about her that make her one of us! She even laughs like Betty himself! I cant wait to see her again! 15 minutes into the conversation and I felt like I had known her for our entire lives.
Summation
I don’t feel like something is missing anymore, I don’t feel alone in the world, I don’t feel the need to find someone or something. My sadness is gone. I am grateful for all my parents sacrificed to ensure I would have a good home growing up. I am grateful we have all been found. It would be easy to discount my feelings and recount me a fool. Nay say if you will, poo poo if you must, rain on my parade if you feel the need. But in the end a little 10-year-old boy who once felt all alone, in a home surrounded by family, is now all grown up and for the first time in his life he can honestly say;
I no longer feel empty….
They call me Betty 