Blood ties

It's strange to witness the social results of town expansion first hand, but that is one of the things I took away from a night out in my hometown (well, it gets that title only on the technicality of it being the town we lived in until I was about five) with my cousin at the weekend.
I've never really felt any connection to the place, almost as if we never lived there. I'm always surprised that I know my way around and can switch to the accent so quickly. It shouldn't really surprise me as much as it does being that we did live there and a lot of my family still do.
And it does seem like a lot of family to me. There are aunts and uncles and many, many cousins who all now have associated spouses and offspring to keep track of.
Getting back in touch with that branch of the family last summer it took me a while to get to grips with who was who, who was with who, who had left and come back, who had never left.
I don't think I have ever appreciated what a blood-tie feels like until now though. I consider my good friends to be family and there are certain people I feel hold honourary sibling positions in my life but it was a guess, as an only child I have no idea what that link actually feels like when it's made by blood.
The closest thing I have to it really, isn't those people who I have awarded the honourary positions, but my cousin who is also an only child. He is 18 months older than me and while I did live in the hometown we spent as much time together as siblings would.
And now we're both grown there is a very definite sibling air about the way we are with each other. It's weird...but in a nice way...that blood can do that.
So where does the social town planning come in? Well, that our little story is repeated continuously across the whole town.
Expanded 30 or so years ago to make room for young families needing to get out of the nearest city there are loads of cousins there with each other. Out on the town on a Saturday night with my cousin and his friend, we then bump into the friend's cousin who is with his girlfriend, who in turn is with her cousin!
This was amazing to me - to bump into people you are actually related to. If that had happened to me ever before it would have been a complete shock rather than in this town where it was an everyday occurrence. Here I was with one cousin and we had another five in the town that we could just happen across in the next pub!
To me, seeing family was something that had to be planned and even if it was only a for a brew it was an event. Here though it is just something that happens, anywhere, anytime - no planning, no event.
I still don't feel a connection to the town in the way I do with other places I have lived. It isn't in any way 'home', but I got a sense of belonging. That maybe genetically at least it is my hometown.