Only The (Sometimes) Lonely...

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack. Life has been... Hectic. Busy. Insane. Eventful. And I'm a SLACKER. Yes, I admit it. I'm a super-slacker. But I still love ya'll. I'm actually hoping to crank out about four or five posts this week, so keep on top of me about it! So here's a real post after two weeks of non-postiness on my little blog.
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I'll admit it. I have a bizarre life story.

No, seriously.

I know, I know, EVERYONE has a bizarre life story.

But honestly, my life story is seriously complicated. And looooooooooooooooong. I'm not yet thirty, and I've moved so many times I've lost count. And that's just in the last decade. Through my childhood and teen years... Goodness! Lots of moving going on there. If I'm telling a story, they almost always start with, "When I used to live in... Fiji... Beijing... Las Vegas... Nova Scotia..." Or wherever the story happened to take place at that particular time in my life. Not that I've actually ever lived in (or been to) Fiji, Beijing, Las Vegas or Nova Scotia. Well, I have driven through Las Vegas a couple of times, but that's ANOTHER story (it is kind of funny, though, so it may end up on here).

I've wanted to write my life for a long time. If for no other reason than to chronicle the random chaos that has been my life. And so that my girls can one day sit down and, maybe, just a little, get me. But I think my life has been pretty interesting. Oftentimes more interesting than I'd like. *Wry Smile* But interesting, and unique, and possibly crazy enough to publish a book out of.

Anyway. So my life is weird. If you know me, you know that.

But I've been thinking a lot lately, about my life, and the events that (I think) have made it unique, and have helped shape who I am and yada, yada, yada... And one of those things is the fact that I'm an only child. Now, this in and of itself would not be all that unique or unusual. So you're saying, "Yeah, so what, you're an only child. There are plenty of those brats out there..." But then listen to these fun little fact about my onliness:

...I'm truly an ONLY. All of my cousins are either fifteen-to-twenty years older than me, or nine-to-twenty-five years younger. I have a first cousin who is two years younger than KayKay. And his SISTER (one of my closest cousins, being as she's only NINE years younger than me) has a son who is nearly two. So when we get together, it's cousins, nephew and uncle playing together and all within two years of each other. Freaky. And talk about confusing. Good Lord, it confuses me just writing about it!

...My paternal grandmother is an only child. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong, Dad), that my great-grandmother was an only child. My father is the only child of his parents marriage, and was raised as a true only child as all of his half-brothers and sisters were nearly out of the house by the time he was born. In fact, one of his NEPHEWS is the same age as him (again with the confusing-ness of it all).

...On my Mom's side it's odd, too. My maternal grandfather was one of five, four brothers and a sister. Of those five, only one (the sister, my great-great-aunt Alice) had more than two children (I think she had three). All of the brothers had either no children or only one or two. It's not weird yet... But wait. So my mother and aunt are the only two of their parent's marriage. My grandmother had two daughters. My mother had me, and my aunt had no children, so I am literally the ONLY grandchild of my maternal grandparents. And I have two daughters. Even better is the fact that one of my daughters is so much like my Mom that it's truly scary, while the other reminds me SO much of my Aunt.

...And it gets better. I'm MARRIED to an only child. Nice touch, eh? It's rather funny in an ironic, cosmic sort of way. I feel certain that God giggled when He was putting together our life's puzzle. Our poor kids have no aunts or uncles other than the ones that they can sort-of glean through me or the Daddy or from friends that we adopt as "aunts". But it works. We even have a couple of "English Aunties." (More on them to come, actually!)

And of course, I'm like uber-extrovert. I would say that I'm an extrovert on steriods, but actually I met one of those recently (she's in my daughter's class, actually), and I don't think I'd go quite that far. But yeah. Classic extrovert. And oftentimes, no one to be extroverted with. Talk about Only the Lonely. Seriously. I didn't meet my best friend until I was eighteen. EIGHTEEN. And she didn't even like me all that much when we met. It took rooming together in a bizarre little hotel room in Moscow (ANOTHER story) for us to really bond and make our way toward becoming the sisters of the heart that we are now. We laugh about those early days now, too. So being the awkward social outcast I was through most of middle and high school, that basically means that there were eighteen years of imaginary friends and lots of therapy. (I kid... The therapy came later.)

And I'm married to the classic introvert. The introvert who would like nothing better than to move to a private island somewhere with nothing but the internet and maybe some coffee... Forget indoor plumbing or electricity (except how it applies to laptops and the internet)... The introvert who would probably be thrilled to hear that the rest of the world had suddenly disappeared in some random government experiment so that he never had to deal with nagging talky people again. One of those nagging talky people being me. Sometimes at least. Until he needs to come up for air and share some hilarious internet nerdery with someone... Or clean underwear. Sometimes it's for both. I'm not the best for keeping up on the laundry.

So yeah. I drive my parents crazy, calling them all the time. You'd think I was like ten, or an extrovert, or something. And my friends, too, I'm sure, though most of them are too sweet to tell me to knock it off.

I still get lonely sometimes. I have been recently, and I don't know why. Maybe it's because there's something lacking in my life that I am unable to be content with my loving parental relationships and amazing friendships. Maybe it's just because there can never be too many soul sisters for me. Maybe it's because nobody but Adonai really knows me, and most of our conversations are pretty one-sided, consisting of me whining and Him listening and nodding. I'd like to think that it's because He's got so many more wonderful people for me to meet and love that I'm just feeling empty because I haven't met them yet.