That needle in a haystack…that feeling of loneliness that is like a thread with no knot that pulls through the eye of the needle?
I can’t really say I never recognized the loneliness…I know it has always been there but I’ve always given it a different name and excuse…but today, TODAY I had one of those revelations that will change me.
As an only child with older parents and with the only first cousins living 2 1\2 hours away with the youngest first cousin being 11 years my senior, I didn’t have the Facebook shared idyllic family….about siblings and cousins…but I had the absolute best neighborhood to grow up in. While so many of those neighborhood friends had siblings to share the disappointment of the street lights coming on in the summer signaling time to call it a day, for the most part I went in the house alone. But because I had Lennie (whose siblings were older and out of the house) and other neighbor kids my age, I didn’t really feel I was missing anything. The first holiday that I remembered I was a lonely, only child was when my bff roommate went camping on the 4th of July in the late 70s and I didn’t have the energy or the confidence to find something to do without her. I felt like everyone else had a fallback…there was always a sibling to glob onto.
I surrounded myself with friends who became family during my adult years. I married into a large family that I didn’t fit into when I thought a large family would be the answer to my loneliness! But, I always enjoyed deep and fulfilling friendships….unlike many of my sibling rich friends who are recovering from their own painful broken relationships with family.
It didn’t hit me until this morning that the silent grudge I held against my parents for not providing me with a perfect sibling nor the loneliness that I was positive I alone owned was all in my head…ego..totally controlled by what I THOUGHT was missing because I made it a thing! Had this life role I’m living played out differently, would I still feel lonely if I had blood siblings rather than my chosen friends who became family? I’m going to post this blog and then take a moment to breath into the reality that I am loved, I am exactly what I am supposed to be in this moment..because this is all there is…right here and right now.
Until next time….
Ninasusan 
My siblings and I often talk about this. We all feel like we grew up in different families. The ages we were, the things we were doing, it’s almost like we were all in completely different worlds. There was me, my brother, less than 2 years younger than me. And my sisters, 7 and 10 years younger than me. For the most part, my 2 sisters grew up together. My brother and I grew up in the same house together but apart. We didn’t hang out a lot.We weren’t into the same things. We more like passed in the kitchen, while the sisters were busy being kids someplace else in the house, we weren’t paying much attention there either. Not that we didn’t interact with them, but we didn’t “grow up” with a ton of shared experiences with them.
So I got married, had kids and my life centered around them.I hung out with ppl who had kids the same age. And I never felt like any of them were my people. It was basically convenience. Today we say hello when we see each other in the store. That’s it.
My sisters grew up, got married, had kids, and we became close. I got lazy and stopped trying to make friends anywhere outside my family. I was busy. Somewhere along the line I started to depend on my sisters for friendship. And that is not always a great thing. They still have other close friends. I don’t. I mean I have friends, but not close friends. So when they annoy me, hurt my feelings, or whatever I find myself thinking, Damn it, I need friends! I think iwe put unrealistic expectations on siblings that we wouldn’t on friends. I don’t think you can even help it. Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful as hell for them. But I do regret not having developed close life long friendships. And you know what? Siblings can be judgey as hell. My brother, the only boy in the house has the best life long friends. They all still see each other all the time.
It’s all weird isn’t it.
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It is all so weird….I attend a spiritual “church” center…Unity. The belief is not in Grandfatherly God out there but more master creator…the birds, the trees, other people are all one…we are just individual in our bodies but without bodies in our free form we are just spirit all together as one. With that some believe in reincarnation that we have everlasting life in our spirit form but we take many forms many lifetimes. I used to put my foot down on that one. But the more I learn about these beliefs, I’ve started questioning everything I’ve ever believed. What if there are things I’m supposed to learn…and I keep coming back…this all of these weird things like my fear of being next to a large grain bin or freaked out by certain large structures like being under a bridge. Weird stuff like that…could my personality habits or likes and dislikes be from another life. Like I say, I don’t really subscribe to these beliefs but I’m starting to be open to new thought. Like if you were to talk to your dad or grandpa yesterday about chickens, would they have talked through your thoughts so you would have known the answer? And boy that was a tangent but you triggered the thought pattern about your sibling relationships. ❤️
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I love tangents! lol And I love that thought process! So I’ve had this off the wall thought…what if we’re like a part of a whole, kind of like you said. Imagine your spirit is a fist, and when you come back, that’s just one finger of the fist and when you go back you’re whole again. if and until the next time. You know what got me thinking about that? My youngest granddaughter is so much like my mother, it’s unreal. And when she was really little, she used to say weird stuff to my son, like “Daddy, remember when you were little and I was big and I used to hold you?” My son was my mom’s first grandchild. If she ever WANTED to come back, it would probably be as Jamie’s kid.
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Wow…see stories like that are what are making me turn my thinking around!
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I love the analogy of loneliness being like a thread with no knot! Having a sibling near your age doesn’t mean you don’t have loneliness. I often feel lonely and frustrated because Aaron and I had such different needs. I needed to be social. He needed to be left alone. Knowing you have a built in playmate that doesn’t want anything to do with you is a very frustrating flavor of loneliness!
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Wow thanks for that perspective!
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I am an only child with brothers. I have three half-brothers who are 5, 7, and 8 years older than I am. You cannot consciously miss what you never had, but there’s still the hole left by the healthy interaction you didn’t get. You are fortunate to have found healthy friendships as an adult. Having blood siblings solves nothing and complicates everything. You are blessed.
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It’s all in perspective isn’t it!
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