*annoyingly happy*

Dear Leigh:

Your post made me feel a lot more at peace with the relationship I have with my family and the physical distance between us. You're right; patience is really the way to handle it (though I'm not sure I'd have the patience required for Mike) and actively keeping up the relationship I have with my parents is the best I can do. No sense worrying about the dynamics--they are what they are.

I'm really sorry to hear about your shingles. At least you get a week off of work, right? Though I'm sure you'd prefer a healthy week at work to a week at home in pain. All I can say is make sure you let yourself rest. A few years ago I decided to "work through" a cold, and I ended up having that cold for over a month.

Now I will talk about myself, something I fear I will be doing entirely too much over the next 5-6 months. Jeremiah and I plan to get married in December, and I'm already boring myself when I listen to the conversations I'm having with my mother about it. Not that I'm not excited--I am--but I remember how sick I got of hearing my roommate talk about plans, and I imagine that in less than a week I've become that girl that won't shut up about her wedding.

Even so, I'm going to continue talking about myself. I'm very sorry. But I just had one of the best experiences of my life in terms of fatherly pride and approval (which is what I strove for growing up and still not-so-secretly want), and I must share:

Recently, (for the past year) my parents have been having issues with their house. The main sewage line had to be replaced, resulting in a huge ditch through the front yard and dirt all over our cul-de-sac for several weeks; the basement flooded, ruining precious belongings like books and baby clothes; the basement stayed wet due to the disturbed ground of the front yard and they had to call in people to dig it up and install sump-pumps; and now the roof has to be replaced.

So my dad's talking to me tonight, and he says "you know, I think your phone call on Tuesday was like the culmination of our luck turning around. On Monday, the electrician came to put the plugs in for the sump pump, which cost us more than we expected. Monday night, I came home and your mom had a long face--the air conditioner wasn't working. Well, Tuesday we called the electrician back in, thinking he must have hit something while he was working, and sure enough he sheepishly pointed out a little switch that he accidentally tricked, flipped it back, and the AC came on. Then, the roof contractors came and gave us an estimate much lower than we expected, and then YOU call to tell us you're getting married!" His voice, at this point, was filled with more joy than I've ever heard in it. "What I'm trying to say is: we're just so happy. We're so happy for you."

It's the sappiest I've ever heard my dad get, and I realized then that whether we can sit around and chat like old friends doesn't have anything to do with the depth of our relationship. Not with my dad...I don't think he'd WANT to sit around with me and talk about clothes or my friends or J.

So I'm no longer lamenting the fact that I don't talk with my dad like I do with my mom. The way we relate is just different...each of us is, I think, eager to see the other happy. We just don't go on and on about it.

Now time to return to the work world. My syllabus is due in a couple weeks and I am stumped...any suggestions for a fun composition topic to cover in the last couple weeks of class? I'm trying to do "contemporary composition" and talk about blogs and graphic novels and funky websites as new ways of expressing with writing, but it's really hard to make it all flow.

I hope you are feeling much better. Write soon.

Froehlichkeit und gesundheit (happiness and health) meine Kusine (I thought I'd try out my foreign language--it doesn't sound as pretty as your French, though).

Kate

Shingles

I have bad case of Shingles.  What does this mean?  It means I am $200 poorer from anti-viral medication.  It means I am missing a week from work on sick leave.  It means I am fatigued and have severe pain on my left shoulder.  I feel as if I have cracked my collar bone, as if I have pulled a major supporting muscle on my left shoulder.  It has progressed into my hairline along the back of my neck.  I feel as if I have paid an untrained acupuncturist to poke around my neck muscles to sooth the pain of an uppercut jab to my left jaw bone.  The number one cause for Shingles: Stress.  Onset date for this “rash”: Tuesday following beach week.

Before I go further, let me emphasize that I love my family very much.  I do not blame beach week stresses on my current condition.  My family means the world to me.  And yes, like you, I do wish I lived closer, or in older times when families lived “a carriage-ride away.”  A friend once said that family should always be close at hand, but far enough away that you would have to put on a hat to visit.  I wish my family were close enough for that Sunday afternoon visit, where the kids would all gather at the folk’s house for Sunday lunch or dinner.  But, like you and I and our other cousins, aunts and uncles, my family is spread thin.  To this day, I do not even know where my brother is resting his head, and I am fine not knowing.

I did not even say good bye to my brother when leaving beach week.  His little attitude and weenie fit on our last day was the straw that broke this camel’s back.  He put my whole family in “dancing on eggshells” patrol.  He had made a big deal about wanting to do something unified on our last day, yet gave only snips and snaps when we tried to get an answer from him regarding what activity sparked his interest. He eventually locked himself in his room refusing to answer to anyone, calling us all stupid because he was supposedly only wanting to watch a movie!  The end result was him blaming me for ruining the vacation because I had some “I’m not putting up with your bullshit” words thrown his direction.

I know I do not have to tell you about the huge dividing line in my family, with my dad and brother on one side, and my mom and I on the other.  It is a major struggle for my mom, who tries to juggle her nurture towards me, my dad, and Mike.  She sees the way dad greatly favors Mike, and I see the way it pains her to have her little family so divided.  That is why, regardless the situation, there is undue amounts of stress in my nook of the family. Sometimes I blame distance on our family tension.  Sometimes I blame my little brother for his refusal to settle (he KNOWS what he needs to do, but blatantly REFUSES).  Sometimes I blame my dad for enabling (he buys the boy out of so many debts for crying out loud).  Sometimes I blame my mom for trying to make peace when peace cannot be made. Sometimes I blame the death of my older brother.  But most of all, I blame the distance.  It is hard to be 12 hours away from my folks.  I suppose since I have been this far for over ten years, I no longer realize that my annual family visits seem only to need the digits of one hand to count. 

Distance is a struggle, especially in my relationship with my dad.  But my mom and I communicate.  We talk like old friends often throughout the week.  When we do get to visit face to face, that time is not wasted on “catching-up” but rather relishing in continued conversation, in person.  We have a wonderful time: playing cribbage, sitting in the yard, drinking wine, laughing, grumbling, confessing, talking.  During beach week, when Mike hid himself away in his own private pity party, my mom and I decided to embrace the remainder of the day and venture to the lighthouse.  Just the two of us…it was a wonderful time of bonding.  It was a moment that reinforced the fact that we really do enjoy each others company.

Yet with my dad, we seem more on a mission to pass simple pleasantries, then move along in our own private worlds. 

How do I cope?  I mourn silently when I see my family go its different directions.  But I resolve to keep in contact, especially with my mom, so when we are reunited we can continue where we left off without the need to “catch-up.”  Family dynamics are hard, especially in today’s world where relatives are spread so thin.  But thankfully with our technologies (a mixed blessing for sure) connections can be easily made and sustained.

Give it time.  This hurdle you jump is temporary.  You will find your niche in life and will work your family relationship into that nook.  You have your mind set even now to instill this familial connection upon your “children,” the idea alone will spark the reality.  Do not over look tomorrow’s blessings by burying yourself in yesterday’s regrets.  Use life’s experiences and “wish I had’s” to spark growth.  And play the patience card.  I have been for quite sometime.  When I stop and look back, I see the distances I have crossed and am happy where I stand...even if I have a few speckles to suffer every now and again.  It does take time; you are young enough to take advantage of that time. 

Hope this was more helpful rather than another installment of Leigh’s Soap-Box…

Namaste, ma cousine,

Leigh

thoughts provoked by a week with family

Dear Leigh,

I hope you made it safely home from the beach. It was good to see you in person, though I always wish I had just a little bit more time to spend with the family. Sometimes I fantasize about living in the olden days, when everything was just a carriage-ride away.

When I was out kayaking with my mom, I realized...again...how much she is my best friend but also how much visiting with her and my dad feels like visiting. It used to be very easy, but now I feel compelled to "catch up" and be very thoughtful and polite every time I see them, almost as though they are strangers. We talked about where my brother and I might end up in the next few years while we paddled, and my mom mentioned the possibility of moving out of the house I grew up in. Immediately, I felt as though I ought to be upset. In reality, I didn't mind the idea. That house hasn't felt like home since my old cat died, and, in fact, more than feeling upset that my childhood home might no longer be available to me, I was excited at the idea of my parents living closer to where me and Jeremiah and my brother are.

See, I loved Grammie and Grandpa, but I didn't know them, and they didn't really know me. We visited maybe a handful of times per year. I've decided, partly because of my kayaking realization and partly because of the way my dad seemed hesitant to join in playing music (which he loves to do in groups and especially with me), that I want it to be different for my [theoretical] children and for me, as well. It made me sad that my dad felt like he was forcing himself into mine and Jeremiah's world by joining us with his fiddle, and it made me sad to think that I wouldn't be able to have an in-person chat with my mom for another few weeks, at least, and only that soon because it's summer. I don't want them to be a once-in-a-blue-moon part of my life, though I don't necessarily want a return to the involvement of childhood. It'd just be nice to continue to know them well, to visit easily, and to have my [theoretical] kids know them well enough not to feel shy whenever we visit, as I usually felt visiting Hampton and still feel visiting my Grandma in Pennsylvania.

And that's what I came away with from the beach trip, in addition to good memories and some awesome sunburns. How do you cope with living so far from your parents? I wonder if I'm hoping for something most people don't think of...maybe this is just my way of reacting to a tough first year as a self-reliant adult.

Write soon.

Love,
Kate