12-13-03

As much as I enjoy the company of others, there's always a point where I need to get away. School's difficult because of its social aspects. The chriskwasolikah break is just in time.

Being alone isn't the same as being lonely. The loneliest part of my life was when I was married. In high school they sent me to a counsellor because my grades took a plunge. The counsellor worried that I had too few friends, as if there's some optimum number that every person should have, and woe betide those who have too many or too few. She didn't understand how only kids work. I doubt that there's a lot of information on the subject, and a teen's a teen -- right?

It's a different experience to grow up as an only. Not better or worse, just different. It's easier and harder. Easier, because there's no sibling rivalry. More difficult, because all the parent's expectations ride on just one person. There's no one else to take some of the pressure.

People make assumptions; that I was spoiled, that I'm lonely, unsocial, dysfunctional. Perhaps I am, but no more than a lot of multiples that I know. I am more independent, more self-reliant (sometimes too much, I think), than many of the multiples that I know.

When I was a kid, I wanted a brother or a sister. Sometimes now I wonder what my life would have been like. I'm glad that it was only me when my parents divorced, and I was independent enough that they didn't have to worry. When I was a teen it felt as if I was the adult and my parents were the children.

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