My life began with a question, a mystery hard-wired into my identity —and for decades, I couldn’t shake the feelings of rebellion and frustration that came with it, the sense of not fitting in that so many adoptees, especially from my generation share.

I grew up in the 1950s, when adoption was cloaked in secrecy and contact between birth families and adoptive ones was nearly impossible, believing based on the standard narrative at that time that my origins didn’t matter. I told myself it was irrelevant. It wasn’t until I became a parent that my perspective began to shift—my children, full of curiosity about their roots, sparked questions I hadn’t considered in years.

Like many adoptees, I grew up feeling like an outsider, out of context and disconnected from my surroundings. It wasn’t until a therapist once asked me if I felt a “sense of not belonging” that I experienced the shock of recognition—as if a hidden truth had finally been spoken aloud.

Then, four years ago, an unexpected twist of fate and genetic testing revealed a startling truth: I was the oldest of four brothers. This miraculous discovery changed my life, bringing a deep sense of relief, as if a heavy weight I had carried for years was suddenly lifted. I could finally set down the burden of a mystery I hadn’t even realized was shaping my existence.

Despite being adopted into a wealthy family and raised in privilege, I always felt alienated out of place. I was rebellious and painfully sensitized to the hypocrisies of high-class east coast private schools and upper east side New York wasp society. The 1960s gave me both the justification and the space to rebel, and though I was a top student, I was expelled from two prestigious boarding schools. I rejected the Ivy League and headed to university in the Midwest, then to my first job in an advertising agency in Paris, and on to a career in commercial production and then in feature films.

I had many successes, but never satisfaction, and my life—my career, my marriage—eventually unraveled. Yet, from this wreckage, I rebuilt. A new life. A new marriage. A new family—three kids, two stepchildren, and three brothers who came with their wives and six nieces.

Looking back, I realize that reconnecting with my family and discovering my roots freed me from a deep, unspoken frustration. Finding my brothers allowed me to solve the riddle of my identity and rethink and face my history. And that freedom is what allowed me to write this memoir.

If this story helps others—adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, or anyone involved in the adoption process better understand the emotional landscape we navigate, then I’ll consider it a success.

In 1955, the year I was born, nearly 93,000 children were adopted. Today, there are between 4.5 million and 5 million adoptees in the U.S. The average American extended family has between 10 and 15 members, which means this issue could easily encompass 50 to 75 million Americans or more, far more than conventional wisdom would indicate. The rise of 23andMe and Ancestry in recent years has only heightened interest in these personal journeys, making this a timely and universal story.