Adult orphans

Still no finished paintings.

That family stuff was pretty serious. My father passed away a few weeks ago. It will be a few more before he is buried.

I’m middle-aged, but not that close to retirement age yet. My parents were both the youngest in their families, they married late, and got me what was pretty much the last possible moment then, before the age of test tube babies and other modern advances. And because of that I’m also an only child, as far as I know my mother did conceive once after me, but due to her age and some health issues which came up with that pregnancy the doctors talked her into having an abortion (at that time health issues were the only legal reason for abortions in this country).

And I have never married, nor had kids of my own. If I had met a suitable man I would have, but there are several reasons why that didn’t happen (a slightly overweight and painfully shy geek girl growing in a small town at an age when practically nobody of that age had weight issues in this country and there was no real geek culture here, high IQ and all the weirdness issues that can bring – yep, not that many guys were interested to start with, and I would have wanted somebody I could communicate with. Lots of them ran after I got over the shyness and started to talk. And finding other weirdoes was a lot harder before the age of internet, even in a bit larger population centers when I moved to one later. :D)

All that, and now I have no family left. My mother died young, I was in my 20’s, all my aunts and uncles are dead, my cousins were all so much older than I was that we never really got to know each other. Most people in my age group have siblings, at least one parent still alive, nieces and nephews if not children of their own.

Right now I’m feeling rather lonely. I do have friends, but that’s not the same as real family would be.

And the one thing I have been thinking about is this: being where I am is still a bit rare, but more and more people have been starting their families late, often have only one child, may very well be only children themselves… this is going to become a lot more common. Middle aged orphans with no families. What kind of impact will this have on the society as a whole? It will show in some ways, that is certain.