When you are alone you have less to protect

To nest

To close off

Your embrace can reach around more

It's not great for the ego

Although somehow I manage to get around that--it makes me aloof

I didn't have children. It came about organically. No, I would not have focused on them enough. Aunt Renee's family life may have contributed, I don't know. Her stillborns and miscarriages and live daughter who died. Dad's distant, uncaring parents. Their troubling experiences with parents who could not support them. Ironically, it must have roots. And Uncle V and Aunt A, unable to have children of their own, were generous to all their nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews. So I've missed out, and maybe having that physical connection would have been kind to me. I had a sense I would be unable to give birth, but didn't really have any m3dical reason to support that...But it isn't selfish.