Family

I've just returned from a weeklong visit to family in Michigan.  The main reason was for a surprise 60th Wedding Anniversary party for my grandparents.

It was a troubling visit.  I no longer really 'know' any of the family.  The other cousin who has moved out of state has stayed much more connected than I have.  As a child I always secretly felt that perhaps I was a witness protection baby, sent away from my real family.  I never felt any special bond with my parents.  I didn't hate them or anything, we all just coexisted in the same space, they supported me and were interested in what I was doing.  Self-absorbed as most children are, I never considered my parents as people.

Then I moved away.  I joined the military.  I stayed away years at a time.  It honestly never really bothered me that I rarely saw my family.  We share a past and genetics (aparently that whole witness protection dream was just that) but have nothing in common.  I admit to wondering "WTF?" about a dozen times a day during my trip.  Values, experiences, goals and dreams, you name it, I am totally disconnected from them.

Now, I know they made me who I am.  I look creepily like my mom did at my age, the way I approach projects and arguments is definitely in line with the must-have-drama nature that permeated the party itself.  But I feel bad for thinking that perhaps I have outgrown my family.  I am no longer comfortable in their presence with their comments about people of color (although their descriptions are less PC), their ideas that potatoes are vegetables, and their acceptance of things like non-functional sinks and roofs covered in tarps.

And so, like the coward I am I flew back home and left Lawrence to visit for 10 days...better him than me.  I'll pay for counseling later.