"It'd be like being in Austin and not visiting your sister. Tobias is family," Sky explains his day trip down to Belzig. Sky has alot of family. There's the biological ones in California and Oregon: an x-twin oaker hippie dad and erratic mad scientist of a brother in Chico, CA. Various aunts, uncles, and cousins in Chico and the Bay Area. His Born-again Christian mom, X-cop step-dad, and half-sister up in Baker City, Oregon. Plus one more half sister and her family further south in California. Then there's the Star family: Paxus, Hawina and Willow...fairy godmother Joy....dog Spot (actually a person with multiple personalities)...Tobias here in Germany....
i woke up this morning in the grips of an intense dream of my own diminutive family. my mom, dad, sister and i have managed to fling ourselves to the furthest corners possible--mom's still in my childhood hometown in michigan's remote upper peninsula, Niku (sis) in Austin, Texas, me in VA and my dad in Iran, with a month out of each year in San Francisco. We couldn't have planned it better if we'd tried; as though we're fleeing from the trauma of the confluence of adolescence and ugly divorce. i certainly played an active part in that (both the trauma and the fleeing), running off to boarding school at 16 and mostly cutting ties with my dad, ignoring my sister's attempts to maintain connection and correspondence, and repeatedly hanging the phone up on my (poor long suffering) mother.
It worked pretty well. My relationship with each of them has limped along pathetically for years, and its only recently that i've really gotten how deeply important these relationships are and begun attempting to repair them. the first 4 meditation courses that i sat, my family dominated my dream life. Repeatedly sitting with myself and my wild monkey mind for 10 day stretches brought up those powerful and damaged emotional ties in a strong way. shoved down in my day-to-day, they were vivid and intense in my night time brain.
Last month i did a Landmark Course, and gratefully followed the coaching and encouragement to "clean up" with my family. Of course this can't be done in a couple of phone calls, but its a start. i called each of them and bared my soul, opened up, fessed up: acknowledged, apologized, and appreciated. over the years, my mother has managed to most effectively overcome my attempts to float off into the ether, and so also it was with her that it was the easiest to start bridging the divide. my dad and sister are further away emotionally and geographically. it will take longer with them, but i am newly committed to repairing these connections.
in last night's dream, i was bathed in the reality of my childhood connections to my nuclear family, before things got awkward, painful, difficult. Without these connections, and others like them, i'm just an alien floating unmoored. a wise woman once told me that i've lived most of my previous lives on other planets, and haven't fully planted my feet on this one yet. that i often feel alien and apart, unsure how to connect. this resonates strongly--though i have a deep yearning to root and connect, there is a lot of fear and anxiety wrapped up in years of failed attempts and self-defeating behavior in this realm. The same woman asked me, "what is it that are you afraid of in choosing a place and putting down roots?" hem, haw, hem haw.....
"of being alone."
...bizarre and frustrating since i also have intense social anxiety and get quickly overwhelmed by inter-personal contact. despite many long hours of self-reflection, my psyche is still a great mystery.
All to say. I miss my family. I miss family. And I'm tired of being an alien.
1 comment:
I was invited to yet another facebook application "We're related" and unhappy with the Open Relationship status in the generic facebook world, which gives only one possible partner to be in your Open Relationship with, i signed up.
I quickly noticed that i had more family than anyone else who had joined the application, not just lovers, but dogs and wives and co-dads and ex-daughters and so. As you say Sky has a big family and it is my family too.
And of course you are listed, currently as "partner out-law". Somehow it did not seem right to call you "sister in law" since i dont consider sky my brother as much as my co-dad.
So you are part of this other big family, which i understand can be a bit had to find a place in. We dont have family reunions and our relationships are so odd, we dont have role models on how to behave.
But the important part of family - support, unconditional love, stability, shared history. These you are offered to you, by me. i am honored to have you as part of my unusual family.
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