Family is Hard

Family is hard.  It can be as hard a thing as there is.

When it's good it can be wonderful and when it's bad it's bad.  Some of these resentments and chips-on-the-shoulders are hard-wired into our DNA.  It can be incredibly difficult to brush off actions from family that don't cause us to miss a beat when they come from almost anyone else.

I didn't much enjoy the time I spent with my folks.  I don't like that this is the way it is but what ya gonna do?  I give it my best shot, I pray about it, I practice the principles to the best of my ability but I fall far short of any ideal.  My ma is about 75% there at this point - she has trouble finishing her thoughts and she segues all over the place when she stays engaged.  My pa is not getting enough to drink and he's pissed with a capital P, taking it out on my ma.  She isn't unfocused on purpose.  She didn't decide to start to wandering mentally to irritate dad.  It doesn't help to yell at her. 

So it sucks spending time with them.  I honestly felt like saying to dad a few times: "Hey, why don't you shut the fuck up and let her finish?"  THAT would be practicing some good spirituality on my part. It didn't help that I was there for 10 days, out of my routines, not exercising and eating like I normally do, sleeping in strange beds, being around people way, way more than I like to be.  It was extremely sweet to be by myself at a hotel for that last night - the silence sounded to me like a chorus sung by the holy angels of heaven.

These family dynamics are hard to change.   These are ancient riffs, rhythms from times long, long ago.  I tried to see the situation from the viewpoints of these other people: leaving a home that you've owned for almost 60 years full of stuff you've collected, stuff that has a value to you that may not be shared by other people, an especially difficult fact when those other people are your kids.  What must it be to hear someone say: "I know you've kept that piece of stuff for 50 years, in a box in your basement, because you thought I'd take it some day but I really don't want it."  And this is probably very frightening for my dad, to see his life fracturing and drifting away.

I still didn't enjoy it.  It was work, pure and simple.  I was a laborer, sorting junky stuff in a filthy basement.  It's not how I envisioned my family visits when I was getting sober.  So be it: I did what needed to be done and I'm home now and I'm glad of it.