Genetics

I have five sisters. My step sister and I are closest because we're closest in age and went through junior high and high school at the same time. I love her like I love the stuffed animals I've slept with since before I was one, like everything a Rhode Island trip entails, like the sunshine. She's family, but it's not a genetic link that we share, it's experiential.

I have one full sister. We're not as close as we used to be; time and distance have done what they do best. We share an atmosphere, and we share genetics. The way we've grown up has never really stressed family ties, but there's something much deeper than the sharing of experiences that keeps us connected: it's a physical similarity and genetic being.

Somehow, the physical is meshed with the soul. I am not normal. Never fear; I'm not convinced any of us are. But some of us are abnormal in the same ways as others, and that connection is a soul connection: a family connection. My struggles against my physical existence are the same as my sisters, and that's got something to do with the soul.

I think what I'm learning is that there are different ways to share your soul. Some of them are inherited in the physical with your family, some of them are breed over time with the sharing not the physical existence but of experiences and struggles, and I think this is how a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife: they share experiences and struggles and there's a sharing of the soul in that, but they share the physical as well, genetics, and that's what solidifies them as family.

2/28/11