Maybe I should have titled this "The Mystery of Being a Sibling" because that's really what I'm talking about, I suppose. Growing up, I was alone. I mean, I often had people around me, cousins and grandparents and whatnot. But my nuclear family unit consisted of my mom and me. I was the only child of a single mother.
At the salon the other day, I overheard a conversation at the next chair over. I'm not sure if it was client or stylist speaking, but the woman said she was the baby of the family, by close to 20 years. So by the time she was born, her siblings were grown up and moving out, and she got to live like an only child, which she proclaimed was so ideal that she wouldn't change a thing about it. I hear this sort of thing a lot. People who are onlys, going on about how much they loved being the singular child. And I think to myself, "really?" Because I'm not sure I thought it was so great.
I moved a lot, as a kid. Which meant repeatedly going through the exhausting process of meeting new friends. I adapted and it's just what I did, but coming home to a sibling at the end of the day, someone who knew me before and I didn't have to work so hard for, well maybe that would have been nice. Maybe that would have helped me be more confident and less lonely. Because yes, I was lonely. I always made friends, and for most of my childhood we weren't far from our extended family, but at home it was usually just me.
As an adult, I'm still lonely...surrounded though I am, almost 24/7. I've come to think of life as a lonely state of being, as a general rule. We are each in this thing alone, no matter how many friends or children or sisters we have. Perhaps that sounds somber or melancholy. I just think it's the truth. Maybe I found this truth sooner because of my upbringing.
I grew up with quiet and privacy and solitude; craving chaos and noise and people. And now that I have very little quiet, privacy, and solitude, and plenty of chaos and noise and people, I find that I need to be alone, in silence, to think straight. If you're thinking, given the circumstances of my life, I must never think straight, well you wouldn't be far off. (Weak laughter. Because it's true.) Is this a detriment, to be blamed on only childhood? Or would I still be a person who needs quiet to think, even if I had grown up under noisier circumstances? Hard to say, but I think I am who I am.
After 30 years of being an only child, my world turned on its axis and the sun shone on a part of my life that I didn't know existed. I met my father and learned that I have four (half) siblings. I was a sister.
Something like this is hard to process, if I'm being honest. And the thing is, I don't know how to be a sister. It's not the kind of thing you learn, as far as I can tell. It's more something you're thrust into and is a part of what defines your being. But I was 30, and my being was already more or less defined. Wasn't it?
They have each other, and their shared memories and upbringing. I have my own memories, worlds apart from theirs. We share a parent, but is that enough to make us siblings? This is the new world order of siblinghood, undefined and unrefined. It's been eight years and I still don't know how to do it.
1 comment:
I was an only child for 10 years. In that span of time, I always consider myself alone and lonely. When I had my first sibling, it was really hard at first knowing that I had to deal with another child and I had to deal with my parents giving attention to the new member of the family. But you'll get used to that in the long run.
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