[TM] 276 - Are you an only child?
Apr. 3rd, 2009 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elementof_riskAs far as I know, I haven't any siblings. My father certainly didn't divide his fortune among any others when he faked his death. I have no memory of any other children in the brief memories of the time I was home. Then again, my childhood was hardly typical anyway. I grew up at school, in a foreign country, surrounded by other children who'd been sent away from home to get the best of education by parents who were too busy to deal with them. Some of them had the comfort of siblings with them, some of them not. Mostly we formed our own alliances, some surely based upon familial ties or the social avenues of connection that always thrive in the schools of the upper classes, others based upon perceived strengths and weaknesses.
No one knew where I came from, not even me, really. My name meant nothing to them, in terms of connection, though had there been any with more Continental reach, perhaps it might have. I was Russian, Other, suspect in a world that still hadn't healed from the wounds of the Cold War even after the Berlin Wall fell. It didn't matter I'd been in England as long as I'd been in Russia, had no memory of my Motherland and no real affiliation with or affection for Communism--it was enough to set me apart.
So I grew up alone, even surrounded by my peers. I made friends at Eton, I suppose, when I'd learned more from my earlier schooling and Irina's training to blend in, but even there, I was always apart, different, somehow. I was meant for something different than they were, and I knew it. Seeing how families can turn on each other in the worst of ways, I think it was better that way.
No one knew where I came from, not even me, really. My name meant nothing to them, in terms of connection, though had there been any with more Continental reach, perhaps it might have. I was Russian, Other, suspect in a world that still hadn't healed from the wounds of the Cold War even after the Berlin Wall fell. It didn't matter I'd been in England as long as I'd been in Russia, had no memory of my Motherland and no real affiliation with or affection for Communism--it was enough to set me apart.
So I grew up alone, even surrounded by my peers. I made friends at Eton, I suppose, when I'd learned more from my earlier schooling and Irina's training to blend in, but even there, I was always apart, different, somehow. I was meant for something different than they were, and I knew it. Seeing how families can turn on each other in the worst of ways, I think it was better that way.
