So I’ve been thinking about my relationship with my various family members over the past few days. We’ve always been a family that ‘doesn’t talk’. Sure, we talked about external issues (often related to one of our fields of study (be it scholastic or professional), but not much amongst ourselves. My siblings, being much older than I, moved away when I was still young, and I really don’t have much memory of them since then – I’d hear what they were up to – but we didn’t talk. Not on the phone, and email wasn’t so much an option then. When I first moved away from home, I didn’t call home much. Now I do. I make a point of calling home at least every other week, to get the updates about what my parents are up to, etc. Which is good. I now (finally) feel vaguely connected to their lives, which has taken about 10 years or so to come to. My siblings are another matter. I often hear about what’s going on in their lives through my talks with my parents. I almost never talk to them. And I’m not sure why. It just feels odd to call and say ‘how’s it going?’, which may be because I haven’t done it before. And they haven’t called me to ask that either. Do they call each other and talk, or is this common between the three of us? They’re much closer in age but my brother and sister have such vastly different personalities that it seems somewhat odd to think that they have much to talk about. Which in part is why I don’t call my sister – She and her life are so vastly different from me and my life, that finding common ground to talk about seems like it would be hard. While I think ideologically I’m closer to my brother, there’s an intensity about him that unnerves me somewhat – perhaps afraid to express my opinions (which is an odd thing for me). So I don’t call him either.
But I’d like to. Maybe I should start with email. It’s a little less personal/intense/etc, but a couple of abortive attempts on my part in the past have fizzled out. But I’d like to be closer to my family. It seems odd that the thought of not seeing them at christmastime, which would once have seemed sad, doesn’t bother me so much right now. Maybe I’ve just grown that far apart from them. Every family seems to have some member who’s less connected; maybe I’m that member in my family?
We’ll see.