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theme entry #86
... and my first theme entry. So.
Do you have any brothers or sisters? How have they influenced your life?
Ooh boy. But they'd come in sooner or later anyways, so let's get the intros between my Imaginary Readers and the host of siblings I live with/endure over with. Do I have siblings? In a word, yes. Nine. Not all at the same time -- I have divorced parents and a family best expressed with a Venn diagram. For now, I'll leave it with just genders and ages. Eventually I'll come up with clever (okay, maybe not) and totally fictional aliases, but not this instant. Of full-siblings I have two, one M/14 and the other F/11. Stepsiblings come in two sets. The first is two, F/16 and F/13 at the moment. With them comes the complimentary half-sibling, M/one year on Sunday. In the other set we have M/16, F/15, M/13, and F/8.
With this size of a family, I couldn't fail to be influenced by it. Until I was nine, I only had the two full-sibs. Being presented with a pair of new and massive families... was an experience, both good and bad.
To begin with, the influx of new kids left me with less time with my parents. (And, I suppose, the new step-parents and required full-time jobs... but this is about siblings, so we'll blame them.) This isn't an entirely bad thing. I think it's forced me to be slightly more independent from my parents, and less cling-y than I was as a little kid. While I have yet to escape the my-daddy-knows-everything phase (for many reasons) I think the larger family helped me in that way.
I spent three years -- 6th through 8th grade -- in the same school as the F/16 sibling I'll call Rinoa for now (name justification in some other entry), and she is still one of my best friends. While I tended to slip into the follower role when with her in a group, probably ending up more dependent than was really good for either of us... I think even beyond having a built-in best friend for those years, having Rinoa let me become more involved in social activities I'd never have gone for otherwise. We've grown apart some, but still hang out together occasionally. Her influence can be credited with the tiny bit of outgoingness in my antisocial nature.
On the other hand, a group the size of either of my families will always end up becoming cliquey at points, and we are no exception. Watching my siblings in the family social dance -- and participating -- I suppose helps me to accept the inevitable on a wider scale. (*cough*school*cough*) Rinoa and I were inseparable for several years. Now, Rikku (F/11) and the F/15 sibling (who I've yet to come up with an alias for) are best friends and I find myself on the outside. They occasionally include M/16 (no name, yet) but rarely me... and in looking back at my own behavior I realize that beyond being far too proud to mention it, I do my very best to give the impression that I don't want to be included. It isn't, then, most likely surprising that they don't bother, and as much and more my own fault as theirs. Seeing them do the clique thing and trying to examine my own behavior in retrospective is probably a big reason behind what little social and personal insight I occasionally have.
And then we have the ugly. My biological brother, M/14, is... well. I don't like hating people. I really don't. It makes me feel like a really terrible person, like I can't get past the bad parts. My brother may be the only person I find myself hating at times. He brings out every last bit of irritable immaturity in me, and I know I should have more self-control around him, and I don't, I can't, I let myself fall to his level. And I know my vulnerability to his tactics is why he keeps doing it, and yet I can't help responding. By contrast, he makes the rest of the world seem tolerable. I really hate to end this entry on this note, so I'll add something. But what?
Oh yes. My eldest stepbrother, M/16, loaned me his copy of Final Fantasy VII and got me started on my addiction to the series, which has definitely impacted me. (Those familiar with FF will recognize many of the aliases I'm giving siblings...) The M/13 stepbrother is also into some RPGs, though he prefers first-person shooters mostly. Having others around who share my video game addiction makes it harder to get on the TV and actually play, but convenient to share games and thoughts on games. Kind of like a specialized variant on the built-in best friend thing. Plus, it's immensely helpful (and cuts down on searching through gamefaqs when I can't for my life figure out how to, say, get Vincent or where to advance the plot. :)
Do you have any brothers or sisters? How have they influenced your life?
Ooh boy. But they'd come in sooner or later anyways, so let's get the intros between my Imaginary Readers and the host of siblings I live with/endure over with. Do I have siblings? In a word, yes. Nine. Not all at the same time -- I have divorced parents and a family best expressed with a Venn diagram. For now, I'll leave it with just genders and ages. Eventually I'll come up with clever (okay, maybe not) and totally fictional aliases, but not this instant. Of full-siblings I have two, one M/14 and the other F/11. Stepsiblings come in two sets. The first is two, F/16 and F/13 at the moment. With them comes the complimentary half-sibling, M/one year on Sunday. In the other set we have M/16, F/15, M/13, and F/8.
With this size of a family, I couldn't fail to be influenced by it. Until I was nine, I only had the two full-sibs. Being presented with a pair of new and massive families... was an experience, both good and bad.
To begin with, the influx of new kids left me with less time with my parents. (And, I suppose, the new step-parents and required full-time jobs... but this is about siblings, so we'll blame them.) This isn't an entirely bad thing. I think it's forced me to be slightly more independent from my parents, and less cling-y than I was as a little kid. While I have yet to escape the my-daddy-knows-everything phase (for many reasons) I think the larger family helped me in that way.
I spent three years -- 6th through 8th grade -- in the same school as the F/16 sibling I'll call Rinoa for now (name justification in some other entry), and she is still one of my best friends. While I tended to slip into the follower role when with her in a group, probably ending up more dependent than was really good for either of us... I think even beyond having a built-in best friend for those years, having Rinoa let me become more involved in social activities I'd never have gone for otherwise. We've grown apart some, but still hang out together occasionally. Her influence can be credited with the tiny bit of outgoingness in my antisocial nature.
On the other hand, a group the size of either of my families will always end up becoming cliquey at points, and we are no exception. Watching my siblings in the family social dance -- and participating -- I suppose helps me to accept the inevitable on a wider scale. (*cough*school*cough*) Rinoa and I were inseparable for several years. Now, Rikku (F/11) and the F/15 sibling (who I've yet to come up with an alias for) are best friends and I find myself on the outside. They occasionally include M/16 (no name, yet) but rarely me... and in looking back at my own behavior I realize that beyond being far too proud to mention it, I do my very best to give the impression that I don't want to be included. It isn't, then, most likely surprising that they don't bother, and as much and more my own fault as theirs. Seeing them do the clique thing and trying to examine my own behavior in retrospective is probably a big reason behind what little social and personal insight I occasionally have.
And then we have the ugly. My biological brother, M/14, is... well. I don't like hating people. I really don't. It makes me feel like a really terrible person, like I can't get past the bad parts. My brother may be the only person I find myself hating at times. He brings out every last bit of irritable immaturity in me, and I know I should have more self-control around him, and I don't, I can't, I let myself fall to his level. And I know my vulnerability to his tactics is why he keeps doing it, and yet I can't help responding. By contrast, he makes the rest of the world seem tolerable. I really hate to end this entry on this note, so I'll add something. But what?
Oh yes. My eldest stepbrother, M/16, loaned me his copy of Final Fantasy VII and got me started on my addiction to the series, which has definitely impacted me. (Those familiar with FF will recognize many of the aliases I'm giving siblings...) The M/13 stepbrother is also into some RPGs, though he prefers first-person shooters mostly. Having others around who share my video game addiction makes it harder to get on the TV and actually play, but convenient to share games and thoughts on games. Kind of like a specialized variant on the built-in best friend thing. Plus, it's immensely helpful (and cuts down on searching through gamefaqs when I can't for my life figure out how to, say, get Vincent or where to advance the plot. :)