Saturday, February 09, 2008

It just is

Had a lovely day yesterday - driving down to Anglesea with a friend. We had lunch in one of my all time favourite cafe's just on the other side of Anglesea.

It was a day of wide ranging mostly unfocused conversation - lovely and relaxing. One of the things that came up only really in passing a couple of times was me being an only child. It came up in connection to me being a CODA and it also came up in connection with mum's estate and the dealing with that.

As I think about it - I can't actually conceptualise what it would be like to have siblings, it's just not the way my life has worked. Really at quite a deep and fundamental level, I'm not sure if I can really picture a family with more than one child - that is all I have known in my own direct experience. For me, nuclear family equals parents and one child. I know other things in my head but the more I think about it, the more I realise how much my mental picture of "family" comes from my own direct experience.

And, as always, I'm aware how much my being an only child shapes who I am - in ways that I'm aware of and in ways that go way beyond what I am conscious of. I can't imagine sharing the journey of what life has and is in my family with another person - it's just not how life has ever been, or ever will be. Am I sad about that? Not really. It's more a realisation that the concept of a sibling is really a foreign concept.

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