My brother and I are still on strange footing. The ground is shaky and neither of us are too sure how to take each other in regards to jokes and each other's lives.
We may be brother and sister (half) but trying to build an adult relationship having missed out on each others childhoods is proving tricky.
I knew I was adopted from a young age and knew I had an older half brother who still lived with my birth mother but accepting that fact is a challenge in itself.
When I was 18, thanks to the wonders of the internet, I found who I though was my brother on MySpace. I sent him a message saying my mum knows ur mum blah blah and after a couple of messages I admitted I thought he was my brother.
He replied:
"Yes, you are my sister."
That was about 3 years ago. We messaged each other for a while on and off, then last year we took the plunge and agreed to meet.
I was very hungover as I was petrified and thought the best idea would be to get horrifically drunk the night before I met him.
I got the train up to London on a hot, sticky summers day and met my brother at Victoria station.
I recognised him instantly from his profile picture and recognised his voice from the drunken phone calls we had been playing tennis with at the weekends.
He is a 'Proper Londoner' and laughed at my 'posh' accent as I had grown up down south, by the sea.
We had a few drinks in a bar and in my hungover state shouted that I could see a green man (maybe I was still a little drunk.)
We had a general chit chat about life and probably looked like we were on a date as we were so awkward. Awkward silences (hence the green man comment) awkward looks and awkward questions.
As he lived with my birth mother we both knew I was going to ask about her and we tap danced around the conversation for a while, then with a sick feeling in my stomach I asked if I could see a picture of her. He said he didn't have one, I wasn't sure if I was relieved or disappointed.
We ended our first meeting as a had begun it, a little drunk but happy.
A couple of months later I took my daughter with me to meet her Uncle. Again it was a little awkward but having a toddler nattering away helped fill the silences.
After our second meeting, our goodbye was a sad painful one. My brother is in the RAF and was being posted to Afghanistan. He joked about sending an arm or a leg to me if they got blown off but reality hung heavy in the air around us.
It could be our second and last ever meeting.
He called me the night before he left and we talked for over an hour about everything and anything. When I put the phone down my heart weighed a tonne.
Every day he was in Afghanistan I panicked. I watched the news and scoured the paper, petrified something had happened to him. He called and send letters and postcards when he could but though it sounds morbid, I worried I would not be told if anything did happen to him as no one knew we were in touch. Especially not my birth Mother.
We decided it would be best for her not to know as we needed to build our relationship and to be honest, I didn't have anything to say to her.
I wish her well but when I was about 13, me and my birth Mother sent a couple of letters to each other. Well, I sent 2 and she sent one. Her last letter was from social services and said she didn't feel like she had anything to say to me. I promptly shredded the letter and turned into a tearaway.
Luckily, I have grown up now (sort of) but I have no desire to meet her at the moment.
However back on shaky ground....My brother called me today and said I never answer his calls (he has called me twice in the last 6 months both times I was in the bath and said I would call him back. He said not to bother, so I didn't.)
The trouble with our relationship is that we just don't know each other, we don't 'get' each other. I don't know when he is joking or understand the things that he does and he doesn't with me.
Some say the hardest relationship we have is with our parents, mine is with my half brother. I just hope one day we 'get' each other.
