Normal Sibling Rivalry in a Completely Un-Normal Family

I spent two and a half hours on the phone last night with my birthdad.  It was so wonderful.  I sometimes feel like, since reconnecting with my birthmom, my relationship with him has been put on the back burner.  I’m desperately trying to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I can’t explain how cool he is.  He’s a really interesting person.  One of a kind, I guess I would say.  He has an extremely emotional side (which is where I get it from!).  He’s goofy.  He’s crazy in terms of being fearless and not being afraid to take risks.  Really, he just loves life, takes it all in.  He’s deep.

When I was in high school, we would often have discussions about important things.  It’s not that he didn’t care about small talk, or my day to day life at school, but I feel like we both have this “other” side to us that we share.  And it makes our hearts close and our relationship intense.

We haven’t had a serious discussion in awhile.  And last night, we did.

We talked about politics, religion, philosophy, life, education, people and the way they think…I mean, the list goes on.  We packed a lot into two and a half hours.  It took me about two years to REALLY feel comfortable with him.  I used to sit in my room on the phone with him and we would have these serious discussions and I would just listen.  I can tell I’m growing up.  I actually said some pretty intelligent things last night.  I actually have a sense of being who I am.  There are a lot of things we tend to agree on.  In some things, we differ, but we accept that. 

I think it’s awesome to have someone you can open up to like that.

He spent the day with my sister yesterday and she slept over, but was sleeping during our conversation.  Usually, he has both girls over, but this time, it was just the older one.  I hear she is doing really well in soccer and scored the first goal of the game.  (Her dad is coaching!)  She’s getting artsy.  She’s reading chapter books.  (She’s 5!)  As a sidenote, the girl is incredibly smart.  Always has been.  She loves school and pushes herself very hard to know things.  I’m waiting for her to get bored with school.  She’s just too smart.

I’m bursting with pride over her talents.  I’m excited to see where she’ll go in life.  She is good at so many things, and so interested in trying new ones.  He wants to give her the world so she can develop herself in as many ways as she wants to.  I think this is great.  I’m so proud.

But at nineteen, I still feel like I have to keep up.  Yes, with a five year old.  Isn’t that disgusting??  I know he is proud of me and interested in me.  Clearly, because he spent almost three hours with me on the phone.  Ya know what bothers me the most?  All that time has past.  She’s 5 and I was 5 a long time ago.  Some things I was better at than she is, and some things she is better at than I was.  And I should be mature and say that’s okay.  But it’s not.  And I can’t go back and try to fix the things I did wrong or try to do things better.

It’s always a competition.  Always.  And it’s not that I don’t love her.  I love her to death.  And it’s not that I don’t want to see her succeed, because I do.  Strangely enough, in complete honesty, I guess I feel like my place in our Daddy’s heart is threatened.  And she makes it worse.

Maybe this goes on in normal families.  I mean, I know it does.  There is sibling rivalry.  There are parents who have favorites (as sad as that is, and not that he does, but I feel that way sometimes).  It’s nothing new.  It’s just exacerbated by the fact that I have real, true grounds to feel 2nd best.   

He chose not to be my Daddy.  He willfully chose that for us.

Here I go again, though, seemingly undermining the good.  Believe me, I LOVED the talk I had with him last night.  I am such a blessed girl.  He adds so many awesome things to my world.

But on occasion, it just hits me right in the heart.  I really need to stop giving a 5 year old so much control over me.  I need to just be happy, be proud, be the bigger person, be the big sister, because I am.

Why is that so hard sometimes?