Big Girl on Big Families

My whole family, at least my mom's side, right now is sitting at a dinner table in North Carolina celebrating her twin sisters' birthdays.

And I am writing from my computer in Astoria, not there with them.

I hate that.

I could have gone, but three days from now I will be getting on a plane and headed to CA for a wedding of one of my dearest grammar school friends. And seeing most of the family I don't get to see so often. But this weekend I have been depressed and sad, because I want to be there, to kiss those kids faces, talk with the adults and have a happy memory that will last forever.

But too, this is a pipe dream-- see in theory, it is a great idea, the whole family laughing around the dinner table, sharing stories, being together. What really happens is this one gets mad at that one, somone yells at me, I start to cry, and then lock myself in the bathroom, at which time my mother storms in and tells me to suck it up. Well, not quite, but that's what happened when Gramma died. Nothing like breaking down at Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner restaurant over a comment Keith (my brother) made to me about his use of salt. To this day, I swear, I was just looking at the salt going "Should I put salt on my dinner too, it is an old people's restaurant, so it's probably bland." To which my brother, as menacing as can be says "You gota problem with me?" Then, cue the tears.

So yes, it is better that I am here, in my apartment, helping and avoiding Kimi as much as she needs me to do either. I now know that I will not be going back to school for a PHD, wow, the stress she is under has had me break out like a fourteen year old.

But then again, what is family when they are scattered across the country? I consider mom and pop and any relation of blood family, but I consider my closest friends family too-- Anne, Kimi, Dan, Michelle, Christine, Gayle, Desha, Wendy, Kris, Sandhya, et all-- people who are in and out of my life but stay unwavering in their love for me. People I can be filthy with, I can cry with, laugh with, create worlds with. People I actually want over at my house for dinner, or who will, in a moment of sadness, take care of me and let me cry. My family, mom specifically is a big believer in "No one cries alone" unless she is the one that made me cry. Most of my friends have the ability to touch and move me in ways I have never felt before (no, not in that way, you filthy bastard) that have me know that I am completely and totally taken care of.

Family as I move into my thirties has taken on choice of people I want in my life. No longer am I a believer that I need to be well liked, nor that I have to be friends with everyone in the room. No longer to I have to slap on the happy face and do things out of obligation. I can just be.

But then, back to the family around the dinner table. I miss them, I miss the Christmas mornings at gramma's house, eating olives off my fingers (only the black ones, because in my younger days, the green ones were yucky), sitting downstairs opening presents, playing trivial pursuit, laughing and talking, and being together. I miss Church on Sunday mornings with my whole family, and then off to Hoff's Hut for french toast and cocoa. I miss playing marco polo for hours in the pool with my cousins. I miss making up games, pre-survivor survivor, and using what was left in the garage to make up worlds. I miss all that-- the fun, the games, the innocence, the joy. Before I knew who did what to who, before divorces and re-habs, before jail time, before totalled cars, totalled houses, new babies, before we all grew up and left home.

I want those blue skied days of wonder and never ending explorations of what we can create with just our imaginations. And playing together because we love each other, and because we are family. Falling asleep in the sun, watching tv-- four across-- in my parents waterbed. I want to play crazy 8's in my dry-ish bathing suit at the dinner table, I want to eat popcorn with five hands going in and out of the bowl. I want my family back the way it was, when we all lived a couple miles from one another, and I am missed at the dinner table.

I know I am missed at the dinner table. I just had to call to remind them I am not there.