shooting for 99%

Someone I respect shared her sense that I still define myself, to a large extent, by family.  

Yes, I do.  Surprised at her mentioning it, because she knows I've been working to cut that down to size since 1976, the year it first struck me that I was a separate self from my sibs & parents.  

Although I am the perhaps the most transparent person on the planet about my search for self & clearer sense of separation from images/imaginings about family, am sure it's a fairly universal human quest.  

Am continually goose bumped by things that seem to come up in clusters, giving fresh insights & new meanings to longtime dynamics & memes.  Over the past couple days, I wrote a posting about a letter from Mike to Mom, reread the e-mail about still defining myself by family & went through the bittersweet joy of yesterday being Siblings Day, with friend after friend posting pictures of themselves with smiling siblings.  

There is no question that some part of me will always define myself by family.  What I've been working on for forty years - successfully - is to reduce it from 100% family, back in '76, to 99% me.

99% makes sense.  My experience of family has been fairly toxic, as has their experience of me.  Defining 1% of moi by family is enough to show the love I have for my sibs without a sicko longing for the more that once ate me up.  Getting it down to 1% is still a ways off, but working on it.

While I believe the family thing is a fairly universal quest, there is no denying that mine has the peculiar twist of defining myself by a family that never included me in their own definition!

This was underscored yesterday, looking at large & small groups of smiling siblings posted on Facebook.  I couldn't post one of our entire family because none exists.  With the arrival of each child, Mom & Dad had a formal studio picture taken - Peter & Mike, Peter & Mike & Mim, Peter & Mike & Mim & Ian (a full family shot).  They had a formal studio shot of me around 18 months or two - alone.  I find that interesting.

Yes, I define myself by family.  Family matters to me.  Always has, always will.   What I've worked to get past is it being all consuming.  Even after John, family filled up as much or more of my practical life as he did.  Mom lived with us.  I married, but my family remained, literally, at the center of my life.  

Having a healthy sense of self & a clearer sense of separation from images/imaginings about family is an active, on-going work in my life.  Have made headway over forty years, significant progress over the past fifteen, especially over the past two, particularly the last twelve months.  

The point to think about is not whether I define myself by family, but how much definition do I give myself as an individual.  Like to think I'm increasingly closing in on 99%!