Instagram, Half-sisters, and Lies, Oh My!

Remember the movie The Parent Trap? Young and innocent Lindsay Lohan goes to summer camp and has a chance encounter with her twin sister she never even knew she had. A classic. While I may not be a little red-headed girl trying to get her parents back together, my situation bears a certain similarity. One of my Instagram followers turned out to be the older half-sister I never knew I had. This is how it went down.

Instagram is for uploading pics...and discovering family secrets.

With my first year of university completed, I was enjoying my first week back home, exam and stress-free. House to myself, I made some lunch, sat in front of the TV, and began to mindlessly scroll through my social media—Instagram: an addictive and time consuming app that I regret to admit occupies the better part of my spare time. While the majority of my followers are people I know or know of personally, there are always a few randoms that throw me a follow every now and then. That's who I thought K was; a random follower who joined the list a few weeks prior to me moving back home for the summer. I was so wrong. I remember looking through her pictures and thinking damn she's pretty, I wish my eyebrows looked that good. From her full lips and pretty brown skin, I chalked her up to just a beautiful stranger.

That is, until she Direct Messaged me.

"My name is K...we share the same father...I have never met him...I have known about you and your younger sister for a few years... I'd like to get to know you..."

At that point, my vision stopped working. It's just a spam message, it has to be, I unsuccessfully tried to convince myself. How could that be possible? I know my family. I know my parents, how they met and got married and then had me and my younger sister. My mom, my dad, my sister and I, that is it and that is all. But no. K's message suggested otherwise.

In a state of shock and disbelief, I called my dad at work. As the phone rang, I was shaking. I could hear my heartbeat ringing in my ears. What was I truly and honestly about to ask my dad? I was sure he would think I was joking, though I couldn't just drop it. This girl knew my dad's name, she knew the names of my aunts and uncles, too. Too fucking weird. He picked up and greeted me with his usual chipper voice. I, on the other hand, lost the ability to form coherent sentences. I managed to choke out the name of K's mother, followed by asking if he knew her. My skin went cold during the long silence.

"She is someone I knew a long time ago."

I felt sick while I proceeded to explain the Instagram message I got from K. I did not even realise I was hysterically laughing and crying the whole time. Drama queen? Maybe, but this was all so unbelievable to me at the time, it hit me like bus.

"Calm down. I'm coming home right now. Do not message her anymore," he hung up. What the entire fuck, what do I do now? I turned around and threw up my lunch. Not a great start to my day.

The Closet: Where People Hide Their Skeletons

Imagine if I had waited for my dad in a tall desk chair and, when he walked in the house, I spun around slowly and then demanded he tell me what the hell was going on. Ah, a missed opportunity. Instead I paced around my room for what seemed like an eternity. My mother came home first. I stopped dead in my tracks and immediately wondered if she knew about K. She had to, right? How can you be married to someone for 22 years and not know about a whole child and mother your spouse left behind. Then I did some quick math...K was born in 93. I know my parents got married in 95, had me two years later, but they dated for a couple years prior to tying the knot. There's an overlap. Did he really get a woman pregnant, leave, and then get into a serious relationship right after? If I was K's mom, I'd be infuriated. How could my dad do that? He was raised by the most generous and loving people I know. I would consider him to be just as loving and generous. Maybe not. He finally came home and told me to sit down to talk. My mother joined us, and so my suspicions were confirmed. She knew. Who else knew? Definitely not me. He went through the story.

K's mother was a friend of my dad's family and many of his brothers and sisters know her and are aware of this situation. It was an accidental pregnancy and she wanted to keep the baby. He did not see a future with her, so he walked away and has been paying child support for 22 years. My mother found out early into dating him. He has had very little contact with K's mom. She used to send hateful letters to him and my grandparents, wondering how they could raise him to be such a terrible person. His voice shaking, he said he wanted to tell me for so long, but didn't know how. I went numb, like I was hearing his voice underwater. I couldn't shake the fact that someone else out there has the same dad as I do. Unbelievable. I wanted to scream at him. I was so angry for so many reasons. How the fuck could he do that to someone? He left them. On top of that, he hid it from me. Did he think he could put it off forever? Instead of finding out from him, I found out from his other kid through Instagram. I bet he never saw that one coming. I was exhausted from crying. I couldn't say anything. This isn't supposed to happen to my family. Naive? maybe, but growing up having an image built a certain way in my head only to have it shatter so suddenly had me in pieces. It hurt. I didn't speak to him for a while, all I could do was come to terms with it.

My bubble? Consider it burst.

My dad and I have always been really close. I look up to him. He is the one I go to about my array of guy problems or any other problems, for that matter, to which he always has a fair perspective and sound advice. I can always count on him and I trust him completely. Now imagine coming to learn that a whole entire person shares the same DNA as you through your father and you were blissfully unaware of her existence for 18 years. A half-sister. Four years older than me. I think what hurt me the most was the fact that I was not his first kid. I remember one time he told me about how he felt when I was born. He said he was so happy he was a father he cried. That made me happy. Joke's on me, though; he was already a father. I wondered how he felt when K was born. Was he even there? My image of him changed a bit after that. Was it wrong of me to think less of him?

According to my mom, I shouldn't. She explained how she came to terms with it years ago, but when she found out while they were dating, it broke her. She got sick over it. She has religious views about sex before marriage and illegitimate children. While I do not hold the same religious views, I understand it must have been a hard burden for her to carry. She has forgotten about K and her mom and has forgiven my father. People make mistakes, she said, but they are not defined by them. I understand that, but how easy would it have been for him to just tell me about K when I was young? I would have grown up knowing and forgetting just like my mom did. My dad has been the greatest father and husband to our family, always loving and providing for us. Maybe I shouldn't define him by his mistake, and I get it, casual hookups happen along with pregnancy scares. Been there. But his situation led to a child, whom he left. If I was in his place, would I have done the same? The thought made my skin crawl. My mother begged me not to talk to K anymore and just drop it, but it was like telling a kid not to eat the cookies...the cookies were the only things I could think about.

Curiosity Emotionally Damaged the Cat

While the thought of a secret being kept from me, yet it being known by everyone on my dads side of the family, was a slight slap in the face, I had a pestering desire to find out more about K. If they knew about her, why couldn't I? Against my mother's wishes, of course. I told my dad I was going to talk to her and ask a few questions, but nothing more. He said it was fair, it was my choice. I found myself unable to stop looking at her pictures, wondering what features of my dad we shared. Suddenly, the pretty stranger seemed to look more familiar. Dark, wavy hair, brown eyes, full lips. Her smile looks like mine, does she look more like my dad than I do? We communicated via Instagram DMs only. K was pleasant to talk to. Turns out she went to the same university my dad attended. We shared similar tastes in music and we talked about past relationships and other miscellaneous details. It was like talking to a friend from summer camp that you lost touch with. I decided that I would not take it any further than that.

Two years later, we have kept slight communication, inquiring about each other's lives; what we have been up to, but nothing more. I did not want to hurt my mom by taking it further. I did not want to make a bigger mess for my family. K and I have lived separate lives since the get go, the only difference now is that we both are aware of each other's existence. I can confidently say, knowing about it all does not wreck me like it did that day, however, I still find it bizarre that I have a half-sister and her father is mine too, and I found out because of social media. It crosses my mind every so often: Oh yeah, this actually happened, she exists.

Is there even a moral to this story?

Forgiving and forgetting is sometimes easier said than done. We've all been there. All it takes is time. I judged my dad for a while after finding out about K and what he did, but my mother was right; I don't let it define him. I'm not saying I defend what he did. It was shitty of him and it hurt people, but it was a mistake and he lives with the consequences. If I had to take a shot for every mistake I've made, I'd be dead, and I know I'm not the only one. If the roles were reversed, however, I would have told my kid about something like this. It makes a difference hearing it straight from someone you love and trust as opposed to a stranger on social media. But then again, maybe that's another "easier said than done" situation. Everything has a consequence and, sometimes, it follows you forever. I love my dad, and I still think the world of him. There was a point where I thought I would never get over this, but everyone involved in this has had to deal with it in some way or another and move forward, and now I have, too.