Weekend with the family...
Jan. 25th, 2007 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moominmuppetSo, belatedly, the weekend with the family was quite excellent. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
musicalchaos (my youngest brother) couldn't make it, due to school, but jajy1979 (my middle brother) and tasharowan (my sister-in-law) were there, as were my parents. Additionally, on Saturday we met up with friends of the family from my childhood and spent the day with them. Aside from missing my pets a great deal (which always happens when I'm traveling), and some very bizarre dreams (which've been happening all week, probably because of my weird sleep schedule), it was pretty mellow and ideal. I also got myself a few new items of work clothing, and jajy1979 and tasharowan got me a little stuffed octopus that's now adorning my monitor at work.
Our annual vacations are generally very chill; we meet up at the timeshare, watch movies, do puzzles, hang out, and wander the mall (it's the one time of year I actually enjoy going to the mall). It's very little about accomplishing anything, and very much about spending time together, which is exactly what I want out of it, but makes it kind of hard to write about. The most notable part was spending time with Dave and Sue. They were parishioners at Holly, where I lived from age 3-11, and which I consider to be my "home". A huge number of our parish events happened on their farm, and several of their kids babysat me regularly. Their farm is the biggest part of my memory of them; I thought it was one of the most magical places on the planet, and I loved being there. They've also been pretty close with my folks throughout the years. As a result, they're very much a part of my memories of childhood, part of the 'extended family' that'd developed from our various parishes over the years.
There were two major 'issues' the weekend got me thinking about; outness, and aging.
In terms of outness, this is one of the stranger things I find about getting back in touch with adults I was close to as a child. It's one of the only situations in my life where I'm already deeply emotionally attached to people, but may not yet be out to them, and may not know much about what they believe, since those aren't the kind of conversations one generally has with adults as a small child. All I do know is that the parish in Holly was a pretty conservative one for the Episcopal church. It's much easier to be out about anything -- being queer, or poly, or being an clinic escort* or a patient-instructor -- if I have some sense of where the person's coming from, and how to approach the topic. Generally if I don't know that much about them, it's also not someone I care all that deeply about, so what comes up, comes up, and what happens, happens. And generally there isn't the time pressure of "person I haven't seen in ages who I want to catch up on my life in a very limited time without accidentally dropping bombshells without preparation". Situations like these are some of the few where I really feel like I get a sense of what many people deal with in terms of closets, since I'm generally very lucky about how my life is and the people in it cope. Last time I encountered that feeling was getting to know my Godfather Tony as an adult, rather than just as a semi-magical character from my childhood (that went exceptionally well, incidentally -- turns out they just don't get much more queer-friendly than Godfather Tony). It didn't really end up coming up explicitly with Dave and Sue, although I wasn't super-guarded about my language either, but it was a topic that was on my mind a decent amount during that day. Incidentally, it turns out that may've been wasted worrying, at least on the queerness front, since my Mom thinks it'd come up in conversation with them at some point in the past, although she's not positive (my folks are selectively out about me -- pretty clearly so with family friends, less so with the parishioners down in AL who've never really known me anyway unless there's a reason for it to come up). On the other hand, I've repeatedly found that people who knew me as a child find me more recognizable than people who knew me as a teenager. This pretty well fits my theory that I was myself as a child, spend a while as a teen trying to be everyone else, and then grew up and went back to being myself again. This was definitely true with Dave and Sue -- I didn't get the impression that who I was as an adult, insofar as we discussed it, was surprising to them at all.
* I find there to be a substantial difference between being out as pro-choice, and being out as an abortion access activist -- people generally find the latter much harder to gloss over if they happen to disagree.
Thankfully, I don't have to deal with those sorts of outness issues at all with my immediate family; these days they're all pretty much just used to the weirdness of my ramblings, whether it's about my partners, politics, activism, sexuality, drug legalization, what-have-you. Even for our family I'm a bit on the fringe, but I got a lot of my tendency to be upfront about my fringiness from Mom anyway, so it seems to work out ok. I've been coming out to them about various things since I first started discovering them, so it's all old hat now, and I think they're pretty much unshockable (although poor Dad's long-suffering tolerance of the rest of the family's tendency toward TMI can be a bit amusing at times). In general, I think I'm really lucky in the family department. It's nice to love my family and like them and get along with them.
The aging issue is harder, but simpler. This once-a-year get-together is also when my obsessive-compulsive father (and let me mention here how grateful I am for that tendency -- he's amazing) catches all of us up on all the financial and planning aspects of the family. For the last few years that's been a rather inevitable reminder of my parents and the older generations of the family aging, and to a lesser extent a reminder of my own mortality. We have four close family members in their late 80s to late 90s and living independently -- both my grandfathers and my great-aunt and great-uncle (who are now almost 100 each, and approaching some ridiculous anniversary that most of the planet never dreams of seeing). Family plans have to acknowledge that these circumstances could change any time. Additionally, Dad is getting ready to retire in just under two years, and a good deal of our planning conversations revolve around that major life change. And it's a bit hard to acknowledge that Dad, who I remember so clearly in his thirties, is really ready for retirement, or that Mom's about to become eligible for medicare. I'm very glad Dad is so practical about all these planning issues, but sometimes the implications are a bit hard to process.
musicalchaos (my youngest brother) couldn't make it, due to school, but jajy1979 (my middle brother) and tasharowan (my sister-in-law) were there, as were my parents. Additionally, on Saturday we met up with friends of the family from my childhood and spent the day with them. Aside from missing my pets a great deal (which always happens when I'm traveling), and some very bizarre dreams (which've been happening all week, probably because of my weird sleep schedule), it was pretty mellow and ideal. I also got myself a few new items of work clothing, and jajy1979 and tasharowan got me a little stuffed octopus that's now adorning my monitor at work.Our annual vacations are generally very chill; we meet up at the timeshare, watch movies, do puzzles, hang out, and wander the mall (it's the one time of year I actually enjoy going to the mall). It's very little about accomplishing anything, and very much about spending time together, which is exactly what I want out of it, but makes it kind of hard to write about. The most notable part was spending time with Dave and Sue. They were parishioners at Holly, where I lived from age 3-11, and which I consider to be my "home". A huge number of our parish events happened on their farm, and several of their kids babysat me regularly. Their farm is the biggest part of my memory of them; I thought it was one of the most magical places on the planet, and I loved being there. They've also been pretty close with my folks throughout the years. As a result, they're very much a part of my memories of childhood, part of the 'extended family' that'd developed from our various parishes over the years.
There were two major 'issues' the weekend got me thinking about; outness, and aging.
In terms of outness, this is one of the stranger things I find about getting back in touch with adults I was close to as a child. It's one of the only situations in my life where I'm already deeply emotionally attached to people, but may not yet be out to them, and may not know much about what they believe, since those aren't the kind of conversations one generally has with adults as a small child. All I do know is that the parish in Holly was a pretty conservative one for the Episcopal church. It's much easier to be out about anything -- being queer, or poly, or being an clinic escort* or a patient-instructor -- if I have some sense of where the person's coming from, and how to approach the topic. Generally if I don't know that much about them, it's also not someone I care all that deeply about, so what comes up, comes up, and what happens, happens. And generally there isn't the time pressure of "person I haven't seen in ages who I want to catch up on my life in a very limited time without accidentally dropping bombshells without preparation". Situations like these are some of the few where I really feel like I get a sense of what many people deal with in terms of closets, since I'm generally very lucky about how my life is and the people in it cope. Last time I encountered that feeling was getting to know my Godfather Tony as an adult, rather than just as a semi-magical character from my childhood (that went exceptionally well, incidentally -- turns out they just don't get much more queer-friendly than Godfather Tony). It didn't really end up coming up explicitly with Dave and Sue, although I wasn't super-guarded about my language either, but it was a topic that was on my mind a decent amount during that day. Incidentally, it turns out that may've been wasted worrying, at least on the queerness front, since my Mom thinks it'd come up in conversation with them at some point in the past, although she's not positive (my folks are selectively out about me -- pretty clearly so with family friends, less so with the parishioners down in AL who've never really known me anyway unless there's a reason for it to come up). On the other hand, I've repeatedly found that people who knew me as a child find me more recognizable than people who knew me as a teenager. This pretty well fits my theory that I was myself as a child, spend a while as a teen trying to be everyone else, and then grew up and went back to being myself again. This was definitely true with Dave and Sue -- I didn't get the impression that who I was as an adult, insofar as we discussed it, was surprising to them at all.
* I find there to be a substantial difference between being out as pro-choice, and being out as an abortion access activist -- people generally find the latter much harder to gloss over if they happen to disagree.
Thankfully, I don't have to deal with those sorts of outness issues at all with my immediate family; these days they're all pretty much just used to the weirdness of my ramblings, whether it's about my partners, politics, activism, sexuality, drug legalization, what-have-you. Even for our family I'm a bit on the fringe, but I got a lot of my tendency to be upfront about my fringiness from Mom anyway, so it seems to work out ok. I've been coming out to them about various things since I first started discovering them, so it's all old hat now, and I think they're pretty much unshockable (although poor Dad's long-suffering tolerance of the rest of the family's tendency toward TMI can be a bit amusing at times). In general, I think I'm really lucky in the family department. It's nice to love my family and like them and get along with them.
The aging issue is harder, but simpler. This once-a-year get-together is also when my obsessive-compulsive father (and let me mention here how grateful I am for that tendency -- he's amazing) catches all of us up on all the financial and planning aspects of the family. For the last few years that's been a rather inevitable reminder of my parents and the older generations of the family aging, and to a lesser extent a reminder of my own mortality. We have four close family members in their late 80s to late 90s and living independently -- both my grandfathers and my great-aunt and great-uncle (who are now almost 100 each, and approaching some ridiculous anniversary that most of the planet never dreams of seeing). Family plans have to acknowledge that these circumstances could change any time. Additionally, Dad is getting ready to retire in just under two years, and a good deal of our planning conversations revolve around that major life change. And it's a bit hard to acknowledge that Dad, who I remember so clearly in his thirties, is really ready for retirement, or that Mom's about to become eligible for medicare. I'm very glad Dad is so practical about all these planning issues, but sometimes the implications are a bit hard to process.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 10:59 pm (UTC)And in my household, the mental illness thing has sorted out worked out as a bonus, oddly enough. Mom's severely mentally ill (as was my grandmother), and her decisions to not be closeted about that, and her experiences with ostracism and such, have made her more understanding of my decision not to just "be polite and keep my mouth shut", ya know?
Which isn't to say that we haven't had rough times (no "we'll disown you" rough times, but plenty of "you're never going to understand me" rough times) with them trying to accept all the various stuff about my life; it's happened, and I'm sure it'll happen again, although the frequency continues to taper with time.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 12:16 am (UTC)It reminds me a bit of something I said when I had to "Birdcage" the house before Amy's mom arrived: "Now I remembered why I'm out about everything -- it's too damn much work to be closeted!"
no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 12:02 am (UTC)BTW Anna and I strongly support your activist work with the clinic. Even if we don't always voice it often enough.
Tony is just wickedly cool. Period. 'nuff said.
Our Aunt and Uncle last I checked will have their 74th wedding anniversary this year. Anna and I are delusionally wishing we'll hit even 50 and be in that good a shape.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 12:24 am (UTC)*nod* I think that's very true.
I'm more subdued than you socially are but much more likely to vent aggressively particularly politically.
I definitely got the "priest's kid, be nice, politician" personality traits -- it's part of what's allowed me to live in relatively conservative areas while being pretty thoroughly outrageous; the "cheerful/helpful/good kid" side of personality comes out pretty strongly pretty naturally, and tends to smooth the way. On the other hand, it makes me relatively bad at conflict, which is hard for an activist. It's part of why I tend more toward education work than protests. In many ways I'm very much a "good girl" at heart, and find it constantly a bit puzzling to negotiate a world in which my life and beliefs mean that I fall in the "bad girl" category to so many people.
BTW Anna and I strongly support your activist work with the clinic. Even if we don't always voice it often enough.
Thanks, I appreciate that.
Tony is just wickedly cool. Period. 'nuff said.
Oh, he really, really is. I went to meet up with him last year worried that there was no way a human being could possibly live up to my image of him from childhood. Aside from being about a foot shorter than I expected him to be, he exceeded all expectations.
Our Aunt and Uncle last I checked will have their 74th wedding anniversary this year.
Oy.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 12:48 am (UTC)I miss reading your stuff, I will back in circulation more over the next months. Although the WEDDING PLANS will be a little distracting!!
Isn't life incredible? wow.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 04:55 pm (UTC)