Growing Up, Growing Apart
Jul. 6th, 2004 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yellowhordeGrowing Up, Growing Apart
An essay by yellowhorde
You know, I never really thought of myself as a lonely person. I mean, seriously. As a twin I had company from the very moment of my conception. I had a built-in sister and best friend for almost thirty years and it was a great thing, something that I guess I took for granted then and miss terribly now.
As oldest (well, second oldest since Heidi is 12 minutes older) of the six children that belong to my mother, four sisters and two brothers, I never had my own room growing up because ours was a rather small two-bedroom house. It wasn’t until C.J., the first son, was born that my stepfather felt the need to renovate the attic. C.J got our room and up we went into a world of low slopping ceilings and ungodly heat. Summer or winter, it didn’t matter, it was always hot up there.
Bathroom time, closet space, and storage areas were always limited commodities to be divided between us kids, the girls in particular. Beds and dressers dominated our floor plan leaving little room for personal mementos and bric-a-brac, which I have to admit, did cut down on unnecessary clutter. Fitting all of us kids and parents together for meal times was quite the undertaking and required a very large dining table. Not much elbow room, believe me. But if you thought that it would be difficult fitting eight people around the table during regular meals, image how cramped we were during Thanksgiving when our stepsisters, Marcy and Sarah visited, or when we had guests over!
All in all, there was a complete lack of what you could call personal space. I remember desperately longing for some peace and quite, some small space to call my own… my own room, my own apartment, my own LIFE.
I thought I had gotten all I wished for when I moved out into my first apartment with Heidi less than thirty days after our nineteenth birthday. To be honest, in hindsight I realize that the place was a complete dump. But the rooms were large and even if we had to share a bedroom- it was a one-bedroom basement level apartment- having to share the room with only one other sister almost felt like having my own. Almost. Still, sharing with one sister is better than sharing with three others any day.
I had spent that first day at home making sure we had gotten everything of ours out of our room and hadn’t had time to adjust to, or spend any real time in, our new home. After the sun had set and Mom had gone home, we were finally alone, really alone. All of that unusual freedom and empty space proved difficult to deal with. The first night in our new place I was overcome by homesickness. All of the rooms suddenly seemed TOO large. With only our beds and dressers, a television, and an entertainment cabinet to our name, the apartment echoed in a lonesome and disquieting manner. I’m kind of embarrassed to admit it, but I started crying. I wanted to go home. But that was exactly where we finally were, home - a home of our own.
Living alone had proved to be very lonely indeed. To pay the rising cost of rent, utilities, and mounting consumer debt, I had started working two jobs and simply spent all of my time either working or drawing in my various sketchbooks to kill time between one job and the other. I never had – or made time – for friends or acquaintances. But I convinced myself that I wasn’t lonely. In fact, I hated being around people because inevitably they pissed me off. But on many, many occasions over the years I had wished on my days off that I were actually working because the silence of the apartment depressed me and that emptiness couldn’t be filled by the meaningless noise of either the television or the radio. It just wasn’t the same as hearing real people talking to and with ME.
Now, over ten years later, the wheel has come full circle. While we were in our second apartment, my mother finally divorced our stepfather. With three children still at home, the oldest being thirteen, the youngest barely five, she had no choice but to call us back.
And home we went.
We did not go happily, but grudgingly, with resignation. It was our sense of family obligation that made us go. And it is family loyalty and duty that keeps me here long after Heidi has fled and married. But some small part of me knows that although our mother needed us in her time of personal and financial crisis, I must have needed my family on some small level, even if it’s something that I will never openly admit.
C.J is now twenty and out on his own, the troubled and willful teenager now an equally troubled and willful adult. Chris and Shirley are thirteen and twelve respectively. They have their own lives and their own friends. I can respect that, but I also find myself feeling rather jealous at times. Especially on ‘family holidays’ like today.
This afternoon I wanted nothing more than to play tennis with them or perhaps badminton, but it didn’t work out. Chris had gone to see a movie with Cliff and Heidi, and Mom and Shirley went to Bonny and Bob’s (they are like the kids’ surrogate grandparents. All of their natural grandparents died long before they were born and Bonny and Bob treat them just like family, probably because they have no grandchildren of their own. See, it works out nicely for everyone, doesn’t it?) Jen and her family are out spending their Fourth of July doing who knows what, and I haven’t talked –or even seen– Marcy, Sarah, and C.J., in forever.
I am once again left alone. And in the silence created by everyone’s absence, I feel much more lonely than free.
I find myself missing those long ago days when the house was filled near to bursting. Back then, with all of those siblings, I was practically guaranteed of finding someone who was willing to play with me, to spend time with me, to have fun, and scream, and fight with me. We often professed undying hatred for each other, especially when our tempers flared, but I know we never meant it, no more than Chris and Shirley do now when they argue, fuss, and fight.
I want to tell them, these youngest of all of the kids, to put aside their petty differences and to really, truly appreciate each other and the time they spend together. Because time has a way of marching on and someday they may look back with a certain empty sense of longing to a bygone era where they were young and had all the time in the world to torment each other.
Perhaps someday they will look back and wish, as I do now, that they could do things differently, that their bonds with their siblings were stronger, that they spend more time together and less apart. Perhaps, someday they’ll look back on it all and think, “I miss that. I miss THEM.”
Or perhaps I’m giving them too much credit.
THE END
This essay was written to the fond – and sometimes not so fond - memories of all of my sisters and brothers. To our older stepsisters, Marcy and Sarah, and the siblings who share my mother’s blood, Heidi, Jennifer, Carl, (a.k.a. C.J.), Christopher, and Shirley. Step or full, we are still family even if we never see much of each other anymore. My unspoken blessings go out to you and your families on this and every day. God bless.
Sunday, July 04, 2004
7:33 PM
An essay by yellowhorde
You know, I never really thought of myself as a lonely person. I mean, seriously. As a twin I had company from the very moment of my conception. I had a built-in sister and best friend for almost thirty years and it was a great thing, something that I guess I took for granted then and miss terribly now.
As oldest (well, second oldest since Heidi is 12 minutes older) of the six children that belong to my mother, four sisters and two brothers, I never had my own room growing up because ours was a rather small two-bedroom house. It wasn’t until C.J., the first son, was born that my stepfather felt the need to renovate the attic. C.J got our room and up we went into a world of low slopping ceilings and ungodly heat. Summer or winter, it didn’t matter, it was always hot up there.
Bathroom time, closet space, and storage areas were always limited commodities to be divided between us kids, the girls in particular. Beds and dressers dominated our floor plan leaving little room for personal mementos and bric-a-brac, which I have to admit, did cut down on unnecessary clutter. Fitting all of us kids and parents together for meal times was quite the undertaking and required a very large dining table. Not much elbow room, believe me. But if you thought that it would be difficult fitting eight people around the table during regular meals, image how cramped we were during Thanksgiving when our stepsisters, Marcy and Sarah visited, or when we had guests over!
All in all, there was a complete lack of what you could call personal space. I remember desperately longing for some peace and quite, some small space to call my own… my own room, my own apartment, my own LIFE.
I thought I had gotten all I wished for when I moved out into my first apartment with Heidi less than thirty days after our nineteenth birthday. To be honest, in hindsight I realize that the place was a complete dump. But the rooms were large and even if we had to share a bedroom- it was a one-bedroom basement level apartment- having to share the room with only one other sister almost felt like having my own. Almost. Still, sharing with one sister is better than sharing with three others any day.
I had spent that first day at home making sure we had gotten everything of ours out of our room and hadn’t had time to adjust to, or spend any real time in, our new home. After the sun had set and Mom had gone home, we were finally alone, really alone. All of that unusual freedom and empty space proved difficult to deal with. The first night in our new place I was overcome by homesickness. All of the rooms suddenly seemed TOO large. With only our beds and dressers, a television, and an entertainment cabinet to our name, the apartment echoed in a lonesome and disquieting manner. I’m kind of embarrassed to admit it, but I started crying. I wanted to go home. But that was exactly where we finally were, home - a home of our own.
Living alone had proved to be very lonely indeed. To pay the rising cost of rent, utilities, and mounting consumer debt, I had started working two jobs and simply spent all of my time either working or drawing in my various sketchbooks to kill time between one job and the other. I never had – or made time – for friends or acquaintances. But I convinced myself that I wasn’t lonely. In fact, I hated being around people because inevitably they pissed me off. But on many, many occasions over the years I had wished on my days off that I were actually working because the silence of the apartment depressed me and that emptiness couldn’t be filled by the meaningless noise of either the television or the radio. It just wasn’t the same as hearing real people talking to and with ME.
Now, over ten years later, the wheel has come full circle. While we were in our second apartment, my mother finally divorced our stepfather. With three children still at home, the oldest being thirteen, the youngest barely five, she had no choice but to call us back.
And home we went.
We did not go happily, but grudgingly, with resignation. It was our sense of family obligation that made us go. And it is family loyalty and duty that keeps me here long after Heidi has fled and married. But some small part of me knows that although our mother needed us in her time of personal and financial crisis, I must have needed my family on some small level, even if it’s something that I will never openly admit.
C.J is now twenty and out on his own, the troubled and willful teenager now an equally troubled and willful adult. Chris and Shirley are thirteen and twelve respectively. They have their own lives and their own friends. I can respect that, but I also find myself feeling rather jealous at times. Especially on ‘family holidays’ like today.
This afternoon I wanted nothing more than to play tennis with them or perhaps badminton, but it didn’t work out. Chris had gone to see a movie with Cliff and Heidi, and Mom and Shirley went to Bonny and Bob’s (they are like the kids’ surrogate grandparents. All of their natural grandparents died long before they were born and Bonny and Bob treat them just like family, probably because they have no grandchildren of their own. See, it works out nicely for everyone, doesn’t it?) Jen and her family are out spending their Fourth of July doing who knows what, and I haven’t talked –or even seen– Marcy, Sarah, and C.J., in forever.
I am once again left alone. And in the silence created by everyone’s absence, I feel much more lonely than free.
I find myself missing those long ago days when the house was filled near to bursting. Back then, with all of those siblings, I was practically guaranteed of finding someone who was willing to play with me, to spend time with me, to have fun, and scream, and fight with me. We often professed undying hatred for each other, especially when our tempers flared, but I know we never meant it, no more than Chris and Shirley do now when they argue, fuss, and fight.
I want to tell them, these youngest of all of the kids, to put aside their petty differences and to really, truly appreciate each other and the time they spend together. Because time has a way of marching on and someday they may look back with a certain empty sense of longing to a bygone era where they were young and had all the time in the world to torment each other.
Perhaps someday they will look back and wish, as I do now, that they could do things differently, that their bonds with their siblings were stronger, that they spend more time together and less apart. Perhaps, someday they’ll look back on it all and think, “I miss that. I miss THEM.”
Or perhaps I’m giving them too much credit.
THE END
This essay was written to the fond – and sometimes not so fond - memories of all of my sisters and brothers. To our older stepsisters, Marcy and Sarah, and the siblings who share my mother’s blood, Heidi, Jennifer, Carl, (a.k.a. C.J.), Christopher, and Shirley. Step or full, we are still family even if we never see much of each other anymore. My unspoken blessings go out to you and your families on this and every day. God bless.
Sunday, July 04, 2004
7:33 PM
