Over time, I have managed to collect quite a group of people and animals and things of that nature. Sometimes, I am sure they will pop up here from time to time, since they are part of my life. But, I am trying to keep this generally secret and anonymous, so you don't get to learn their real names.
So, I have a family. A mom and a dad (fairly easy name wise. Sometimes I will group them as parents). I have two sisters. This is trickier. One is two years younger and one is seven years younger. I should give them names to make it easier to distinguish between them. We shall call them... Medium Sister and Small Sister.
Also, a lot of the time, when I am talking about things when I was younger, I will use we. The we is Medium Sister and I. We were generally close in age, so we did most things together.
I didn't run until she did. I just walked everywhere. And then one day she started running. So I had to run to keep up. She ordered food for me in restaurants so I didn't have to talk to strangers. I played with her and her friends a lot. (It was almost better than having my friend over, because then I could walk away when I wanted a break. Because I didn't need to keep her friend occupied the whole time or stay with them the whole time like I did with my friend.)*
Small sister is good, too. She's just a lot younger than me, so we didn't do as much with her.
We also had a pack of cousins.** The pack was on my mom's side of the family. It was lovely because we were all within a few years of each other, lived within two hours of each other, and were all rather strange. So this pack is often included when I talk about my family.
We also have the sort of family that comes along with that. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-uncles, great-aunts, people-we-aren't-sure-how-they-are-related-to-us-but-let's-just-call-them-aunt... On my mom's side of the family they are all strange and lovely.
My dad's side of the family is nice, too, but they aren't as much part of my pack. (But if any of them ever read this and figure out who they are, I love you guys too! You're just all younger than me!)
So with this family, it was ok that I didn't really have friends or that they moved away so frequently. Because there always was Medium Sister (and even Small Sister) and at least once a month, we would see some part of the pack. So it was hard to be lonely. And I think that's part of the reason I didn't pick up my autism as soon. Because I had my family and we were all strange when we were together, so nothing really stuck out about me as being particularly strange.
And now this has rambled on a bit more than I intended, but I think that's ok. My family is a rambling sort of family. There's always something to branch off and pick up and discuss some more. So it makes sense that most posts about them are rambling sorts of posts.
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*Also note the singular friend. I generally had one friend (other than the horrible stretch of years known as middle school). It was all good. However, they had a horrible habit of moving away every year. So that was unfortunate. In high school, I got one that stayed the whole time though. So that was great. I'm still friends with her now. She is in med school.
**We almost were a pack who ran wild in a swarm together doing things with dogs and horses and chickens. (We also have a swarm of pets, having had at one point or another, chickens, horses, goats, rabbits, pigs, sheep, dogs, fish...)Labels: fitting in, me, Medium Sister, my family, my parents, Small Sister