From only child to chosen sibling - guest blog

My best friend, chosen sister, wrote the below one day and sent it to me.  I can relate to so much of this - I would not change being an only child because I have the good fortune to have met people who are my chosen family and she is my sister-other half-bestie.  She knows when to tell me I am better than I am currently feeling I am and when to tell me to cut the crap and get over my own issues.   She is having her recurring 29th birthday soon and I love her dearly for everything she is.  


This morning on the Today Show there was a piece on Sisterhood and the special bond between sisters. They had Hoda Kotb and Savannah Gunthrie and their sisters talking about their special bond and showed images of them playing when they were young. Being an only child and having only one child, I sat there wondering if I missed something not ever having the experience of having a sister or a brother. Is my child missing something never being able to experience that bond? As I sat there looking at the old photographs that they were showing on the TV of the siblings playing with one another at the beach or at a playground,  I think back to my old pictures of just me.

People think of only children as “spoiled”, never learning how to share, getting what they want and maybe even thinking that they are entitled, “it’s all about us”.  So I sat there reflecting on my life a bit. Was I spoiled? Was it all about me? As I thought about my life as a child, I saw a child that was always looking to be accepted. I would give away my toys, books, anything really just to have friends. I was always trying to be with the popular kids and when I made friends, they were the most important people in my world.  I did not fit these ideas of an only child because I was always sharing, giving, loaning my stuff out so that I can be accepted. I now see that sometimes in my child. 

It was hard growing up as an only child because although I made some really good friends along the way, in the end, they always went home to their siblings and I always went home alone. Even in high school where I had many friends and was always invited to different parties and gatherings, in the end, I went home alone. It wasn’t until after college, when I started to realize that it was ok to go home alone. That not everyone is going to like you and that is fine, as long as you are honest with yourself and everyone around you. You need to be who you are and have your own opinions. I think sharing experiences with a special friend made me come to this realization.

When I went to Hunter College, I didn’t realize at the time, but I would come in contact with a person who has grown with me and has guided me to become the woman that I am today.  I took a History of Art class. It was my first semester and I didn’t know many people. I would hang out in the back of the cafeteria, which is where most of the Greek and Eastern European students would hang.  Trying to be accepted again, not knowing my way around school yet, not sure of myself in any way. The class was a lecture class and then we were split into small groups. As I entered the small group, I saw a girl who I knew from HS. We had never spoken in HS, she was friends with some people that I was acquainted with but we never were in the same group. I would always see her in the smoking yard, smoking a cigarette sitting on an old tree stump. She smiled at me, I smiled as her and the lesson in Art history continued. During our break, I found her in the bathroom smoking a cigarette. She looked at me and said “St. John’s Prep, right?”. I said “yeah, smoking yard?” She said yes. Then we walked back to the cafeteria together. She was hanging out with the Greeks in the back also. We started talking and we became friends, not best friends, but friends. We started going to the same college parties, we started going to the same clubs, playing cards together in the cafeteria, studying cafeteriology. 

One year, I think it was my 22nd birthday, I decided to have a party at my parent’s house in the Hamptons. It was a cute little house that my dad had bought with his friends with the thought of later selling it. It was a kooky house with wallpaper on everything. It was November and cold outside. We had a few friends over and we just hung out drinking beer, having fun, and playing cards. As the night wore on, we had one too many beers, smoked way too many cigarettes and my friend from Art class and I got into a game of backgammon. I am not sure who won that game, or if we ever even finished it. All I remember is that we laughed all night long, reminisced about the neighborhood we grew up in, realized that we were both only children and that around the same time in our life we inadvertently stabbed ourselves with a lead pencil, therefore creating a blue lead spot in the same exact point, on the same hand. From that night forward, we became the Blue Spots. I didn’t know it then, but I had just found my sibling. 

This woman has been with me through thick and thin and I have been there for her also. She sometimes tries to hide when she needs help or support, but I pick up on the clues and show up anyway. We have driven cross country together, been on the boat ride from hell together, drank “a little bit” of retsina together, went to a gay bar in New Orleans together, went swimming at night in the Aegean together, peed in the Nevada sand dunes together, ran out of gas in Red Rock WY together, held each others hair back when we were hugging a toilet, held each others hand in support of one another and still laugh together when we hear the name Flouskakos. All of these experiences have given me the strength to overcome obstacles and have given me the self confidence to be myself and to like who I am. There is no question in my mind that no matter where I am in the world, or no matter where she is, if either one of us needs the other, we will be there for each other. I was there for her when her father died and she flew half way across the world to be with me when my mother died. 

We support one another, we listen to one another, we give advice to one another, but most importantly we do not judge one another.  I know that I can tell her anything and she will be my rock. She knows that she can tell me anything I will be hers. She gives advice to me when I need it, and is there to listen to me even if she doesn’t agree with the mistake that she feels I may be making. We both know that if I make that mistake, we will be together to pick up the pieces and move forward. We don’t get mad at one another because our relationship is one of understanding. Her mother said it best when she said “ I made one, and then two years later another woman made one”. This is what it is like having a sibling of choice.

Although I may never know what it is like to have a natural, by birth sibling, I do know that my sibling of choice has helped me become the woman that I am today. We have had a lot of fun and exciting experiences in many different areas of the world. We have had a lot of difficult times, trying times, and challenging times but we take the challenges and make them into opportunities. 

For many years, I was asking, even begging my parents for a sibling, jealous of all the kids who had brothers and sisters to play with. Looking back, I am happy that I found another only child to create my own sibling bond with, realizing how lucky I was to have a choice. Siblings do not have the opportunity to chose who they have as a sibling. They may create a bond or they may not. Being an only child, I have had the opportunity to find my sibling and create a lasting Blue Spot bond. We may not have old pictures of us together playing in a park or at the beach, but we have a lot of experiences that we have shared and a lifetime of memories that have made us who we are today.

I am hoping that my son will be as lucky as I was and find another only child to create a never ending bond withto have his own life shaping experiences with.

I love you Blue Spot.