It Ain't Nothing But A Family Thing

I've been spending time with family lately, and I've come to some conclusions.

My family really is a fifteen ring circus.

I mean, I know everyone says that their family is crazy, but I really don't think this level of crazy is what they're talking about. There may or may have not been a fight in a movie theatre lobby over shoes...

To be quite honest, it's been exhausting attending this circus. I mean the sort of exhausting that a nice nap doesn't even begin to touch.

Whoever enters the rabbit hole with me needs to have a hell of a lot of internal fortitude.

While this certainly applies to my immediate family, I'm also realizing how much it applies to my extended family.

I don't have strong relationships with several of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. I wound up going to see one of my cousins play a softball game, and I was once again reintroduced as "your cousin Alice" to the girls. One of them shyly gave me a half hug, because I was family, and that's what you do when prompted by your mother. For the rest of the game, I sat in awkward silence with my uncle and made strained conversation with my aunt. I was never super close to them when I was living in the same area, but two years and 1,200 miles didn't help the cause any.

These girls have no conception of who I am. They don't know that I'm their cousin. Part of it isn't their fault - they're so much younger than me (there is over twenty years difference between me and the littlest one, and nearly thirty from oldest cousin to youngest). For most of their lives, I've been here, there, and everywhere but our hometown. Still, it stung to be reintroduced with my familial label.

Earlier in the week, I spent some time with my grandma and aunt. It was nice, but again, there were some serious awkward silences. I don't know what to talk about. I don't know what's going on in their lives. I don't know what to say about mine. Again, I've scuttled off into the woodwork to do my own thing. The best conversation I had with my aunt was about tattoos. She just got one, and I mentioned mine, and it started a really great dialogue about the experience and why we chose what we chose.

All of that being said, the silence with family isn't all bad. I spent some time on Lake Ontario, watching the sunset in a camp chair, in front of a bonfire with family I haven't seen in years. My South-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line ass was freezing, but it was comfortable. For the first time in months, I really let myself relax in the silence. There wasn't thoughts of work or commitments or drama. I was just... peaceful. When we did talk, it was real. No small talk, but rather the heavy hitting stuff that actually counts. When there are handfuls of years that separate your visits, you tend to make them count. It is a very real possibility that I won't see that side of my family until weddings start happening.

I suppose this entry is a very long way of saying that when this rabbit hole of dating morphs into a rabbit hole of a serious relationship morphs into a rabbit hole of marriage, I want family to be a part of it. I don't want my child unsure of aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins. I don't want my issues with family to become our child's issues. I don't want my child unable to even make small talk. I don't want years to pass by between seeing cousins. Some of it is out of our hands, but some isn't.

I have a very nice non-biological family, but it might be worthwhile to start rebuilding relationships with the people who have a lot of the same DNA I do.