I've grown up in a normal city, with a beautiful downtown, and a high class up town. I'm in the middle. The middle isn't so bad; there are stores and restaurants near by, everything is close. There is the occasional fight within blocks of our house, a meths lab behind for a short time, and all of the young men wear their pants to their knees. However, nothing bad has ever happened to us. We are somehow protected, and I always thank Yahweh for it.
I have three older siblings, two brothers and a sister. These are half-siblings, from my mom's previous marriage. I was the first child she had with my father, though they waited two years, which is understandable, already having three kids. So there is a gap of three and a half years between me and the youngest of my mom's first marriage; everyone else had around 2 years between them. After me, my parents had 4 children. All girls. For a while, they had thought of stopping, but my mom's heart was touched by a young boy my aunt was fostering along with his sister. He was something I had never seen -- completely out of place. My aunt could not handle him all the time, so we would babysit him on the weekends, and he connected. His sister had cerebral palsy, she was 3 or 4, and my aunt wanted to adopt her. The thought of having the pair separated broke my mother's heart, and she decided to do one of the craziest things in the world-- make him part of our family. My dad, of course, was a bit shocked and not at all sure what she was thinking. However, after prayer, they decided, and the process began. During the long and arduous wait for finality, my mom became pregnant with the youngest, a boy. And there our family stopped.
My place in all of this was defined, yet with blurred edges. I have middle child syndrome, as they call it, as I was the fourth oldest with 6 under me; but I also have the oldest child syndrome, as I am a first born. My personality shows both of these at work. I went through a period where I felt I didn't belong and I didn't really know who I was.. or that no one else did. That no one paid any attention. So I became an introvert, mostly entertaining and keeping to myself, always doubting what others thought of me. I became shy, because I felt no one else would understand or care. My older siblings, especially the oldest, my sister, didn't exactly have a talent to manage at that time; they mostly wanted to keep to themselves once they reached a certain age, and only exercised the rights of the older sibling rarely. Therefore, my managing skills could be used, and were. You have to see, though, that my dad has been a manager in business since 17, and it is hereditary.
My siblings respected me naturally then, and still follow me. They look up to me as an example, and at times I don't know what to do with it, except to do my best. Of course, in the early teenage years, there were rough spots, but overall I was 'the good one'. The two oldest, my sister and brother, were strongly opinionated as teens, especially when it came to their relationships with the opposite sex. My sister left my parent's house at 18 to move in with her dad, whom she saw on weekends, and step-mom. She married her boyfriend, whom my parents objected to at that point, soon after. These choices were her own, and she took her life in her hands, making the decisions she felt were best. They now live in another state, with two children of their own, and her husband has had hard times with work. My brother had a good heart, and could be logical if he chose to, but he was very passionate, and that sometimes got in the way of good thinking. He had a few 'problem girls', one that he'd honestly thought of marrying, but he allowed my parents to speak into his life, and saw the light of how things would fall in reality. He fell in love at 20 with a girl he had known pretty much his whole life, his best friend's sister. They married, and moved into our basement-apartment. He graduated a year later, and she became pregnant. Work was scarce, and, though he had a degree in engineering, he couldn't find a job. He worked for my dad until just last year in July, and they moved out Thanksgiving weekend '10. His wife is now pregnant for their second.
So you see, though they were generally good children, they did mess up the good example bit, and I was then the first. The first to do things right.
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