My trip to the hometown reminds me of the realities of family too. I can't remember who first said my family put the fun in dysfunctional, but it is a great line. I am pretty sure most families can relate in some way. I mean, look at the Brady Bunch. Sure it was a great house, but the kids all needed psychiatric intervention.
I have had some time to consider all the dysfunctions I might identify within my own family. We have a tremendous tendency to retreat rather than state our anger or annoyance. I don't mean temporarily, this is most likely a very wise thing to do. No, I mean, we tend to take our stuff and go home. For a long time. We hardly ever had a fight though. Someone does something we find annoying and we disappear for years at a time. Often leaving the person who has offended us perplexed as to what caused the annoyance. The continued absence is I think our way of making sure someone knows there has been an offense but we do not claim that at all. We just say to ourselves, I am not putting up with that and poof, we are gone. I thought this was unique to my family but I think it is more of a cultural trait either from our heritage or our region, because many of my friends and extended family do the same thing. No declared warfare, just withdrawal. I guess it is a product of avoid confrontation at all costs, but it is really hard to resolve.
Which leads me to dysfunction two, the land where there is no resolution. I had a frank discussion with my brother a couple of years ago when he told me how it was on a Thanksgiving day some where in time memorial, he and another brother got into a fight and I sided with the other brother. I am sure this was a painful memory for him, I just have absolutely no recollection of this. None whatsoever. I said as much which was even more annoying. I suppose if I had been carrying around this painful moment and discovered that the party who made me so mad had no recollection, I would be incensed too. I hope I would also stop and wonder if the problem wasn't me carrying it around...maybe. But this would be certainly running counter culture. I am stunned to hear, no matter where I go, a catalogue of offenses the the party in the first part is recanting about a party in the second part we both know. I am not talking last week, or even last month or perhaps last year. I am talking about high school, or elementary school. Gosh, I have a hard time remembering anything from elementary school except Ms. McGhehee who made me put my desk in the closet and old Lady White who I am sure is still terrorizing children somewhere. I also remember pretty well, I was a wild child and all of them had their hands full with me and my, "I tell ya what" attitude. Yes and Scott Clark kicked me in the nose with his cowboy boots once. I am not still mad though because I whooped him on any number of occasions to even the score.
My mom, bless her sweet heart, crosses back and forth between being an instigator and a peacemaker. It's a full time job, I tell you. I suppose she has had years of practice and had to adjust from being a country girl who was taught that family was everything and you worked out your irritations or let them go, to a city girl who had to deal with folks who thought their annoyance was everything and took their ball and went home all the time. I think I might have gone home myself. Only I was the bridge, I stayed and beat up everyone who annoyed me. Goodness, why didn't they make me a role model?
Dysfunction is reality, I think. Learning to live with it with grace is divine intervention. I hope we remember that, look for that and give thanks for that.
No comments:
Post a Comment