The Boy
While I was one of three children, I never really noticed that I had siblings. One, they were my sisters while I was “the boy,” as I was generally referred to. It made be feel, well, I guess I never really wondered how it made me feel aside from knowing I was not treated in the same way as my sisters. I think it was this that began a wedge between me and my siblings — my two sisters.
Boys, simply put, do boy things. And, therefore, playing with my sisters, in large part, was not something I needed to consider. My sisters did girl things and I did boy things, so why spend time together — I thought. So, as a young kid growing-up we never tried to bond or actually play together. My parents, at the same time, were mostly consumed with their burgeoning “materialistic lives” (the microwave just “arrived”) rather than focused on seeing us bond over an evening walk or a day at the beach.
My days as “the boy” entailed going out on my own mostly where I could pedal — whether it was down-the-road or across the street. I pretty much biked everywhere and anywhere, and felt it was mostly my right to define myself, given my title as “the boy.” In some weird sense I felt it was a title that didn’t expect conformity, because, I was, in fact, the one and only boy in my family, and, as it relates to the notion that I couldn’t be compared to other siblings unlike my sisters to one another. I was “the boy” free to do as I wanted with no expectations either good or bad. Coupled, with the notion that there was nothing that seemed to be “happening” to connect us, the family; I truly felt free, while alone.
As I got older, and now looking back, I feel that “the boy” still exists in me. I never truly feel connected with others in missing out on all the usual attempts to bring their kids together when they are going through their most formative and impressionable years (just born to five, let’s say). As kids grew into adults and seemed so at ease coming together under the guise of holidays and the like, I also seemed preoccupied with thinking, “what will all this achieve?” I’m thinking largely, because I wasn’t exposed to these type of events that are simply a conduit for strengthening ties with your friends and expanding your social network.
Today, I have two young boys of my own, and, I continually seek to unify them through all their endeavors, whether biking or otherwise. I can see now how the lack or absence of this kind of parental encouragement only engenders indifference to one another in siblings. And, frankly put, based on me, I feel this can lead to an indifference in general usually marked by, “why bother.”
I still don’t bond with my sisters some 35 years later, and, I would say it goes both ways in terms of any of us really trying to make an effort. With that being said, it would be even harder to attempt today, given our respective lives — while I feel one sister — neither married or with kids — just doesn’t care to bother in general. Regardless, I am still “the boy,” I still am defining “my title,” as Dad and husband. Yet, in many ways I want to go back to not needing to conform to get on my bike to anywhere and everywhere. I still don’t truly feel connected with life in constant disarray: juggling kids, schedules, household work, and “work, work.” Life, in the end, becomes disconnected. So, in reality I feel we all are “the boy.” We, all, eventually feel, “why bother.” We all eventually feel alone.
