Family

Just when it seems we have enough familial dysfunction, we marry, inviting a whole new set of relatives onto the playing field.

With Will I was embarrassed at first about the state of what made up my immediate family. He assured me that I had nothing to worry about and after I met his family I would understand why. And I did. My family looked like the Waltons next to his and as I got to know them I realized that the relative normality of my family in comparison to his was a selling point for him.

Rob’s visiting sister reminds me of a cross between my own youngest sister and my late husband’s mother because like them, she needs the mess that is her life. The chaos. The uncertainty. The failure. The isolation. It feeds some basic need. Like them too, she is a turn on the dime type emotionally. So though I was prepared for the worst, we got pleasant and conversational last evening when Rob brought her home. Her. Not the kids. They were at the Super 8 over near the gym where I work out. It seems they were in need of “real” food to eat and unrestricted cable television access. I am guessing here but a day on foot probably didn’t go over well and the hotel was some kind of material “I’m sorry” but that would just be a guess based on my years as a public school teacher. I worked with a lot of families similar to theirs.

She was gone bright and early today and will be staying at the hotel tonight too. We have plans to meet them for dinner out (never high on my list of things to do anymore because of the whole not being able to eat much that is on the menu thing) and then they will take off back to Regina on Saturday morning.

I spent some of the afternoon today re-telling this tale to a friend after we’d taken our kids sliding, and she told me a bit about her siblings. Then her husband got up to get ready to go to his job - as he is working nights this week - and added a story or two about his own family. Perhaps the “good kids” in each family are programmed to look for each other in the wide world and form families. Social Darwinism in action? But I wouldn’t want to presume and call myself the good child. I just paid attention and learned my lessons and everyone else’s too.

The important thing tonight is that our home is now ours again and we won’t be making the extended visitor mistake again. I am not sure what it is that makes us think that people we didn’t get along with as children will make for great friends or guests when we are adults. Perhaps it is a Walton thing. We are fed images of families that love and bond no matter the differences in their natures and world views and we think that could be us. I think it works that way naturally for some as time tempers them and their memories but not for most.