They treated me like family and told me at the end of my stay that during the dolphin trip, they’d all talked and said they felt like they could be a family for me, would love to be that for me. And I cried because I had been adopted like I’d always wanted. But the feeling ebbed and flowed as I grappled with not really being their family, and having that confirmed when I’d later ask when I could come back to see them and they’d say, “Well, the winter won’t work because that’s the holidays, so we’re busy with family stuff.” And I remembered who I was. Not theirs. Not anyone’s.
