Family - Part 1

I love family.  I'm the youngest of 5 although most of the time it feels like I only have one sister and brother (her husband).  I feel so fortunate that I have one sister who I have such a wonderful relationship with.  Our family is...well, it's kind of like the Brady Bunch with a twist.  Both of my parents were married before and had two children from previous marriages (1 boy and 1 girl each).  When they married each other they adopted me. 

There is a HUGE age gap between me and my siblings.  I'm talking 18 years between me and the next in line.  It makes me kind of sad that when I was growing up only one sister tried to have a "little sister/big sister" relationship with me.  The others were always nice of course but didn't seem to care much about me one way of the other.  I do understand in a way.  I know that the family situation couldn't have been easy for them, but it wasn't my fault.  My parents didn't adopt me to take anything away from their other children.  The other children were adults by the time they adopted me and my adoption came as a bit of a surprise to them too.  It wasn't exactly something they planned to do when they got married, but I'm VERY fortunate that they did adopt me!

I think the reason that I connected so well with that one sister is because she really is a big kid at heart.  She didn't mind doing silly things, watching kid movies, blasting Disney songs in the car and singing along.  It was like having a sister, best friend and second "fun only" mom all at the same time! 

I am so fortunate that I have such a wonderful relationship with her.  I really don't know what I would do without her, especially since mom died.  Now she's the one I call with all of my weird "mom" type questions.  Technically I could be her daughter, she and my (wonderful) brother-in-law were married 2 years before I was born ;)

I honestly don't know why I'm writing any of this.  Maybe just to put it out there.  Maybe because we've been visiting with a lot of family (including them) recently and now I'm sad that the house is empty other than me and David.  Maybe it's just something I needed to talk about.  I know that this post is kind of disjointed but I'm just writing as things pop into my head.  Probably not the best idea, but it's just one of those things that I feel like I need to do today.  Thanks for making it to the end of this crazy post ;)