ReUniting At the Reunion
I said to myself for the first time this weekend: “These are my people.” This is after 30 years of marriage, two kids, six step kids, millions of shared experiences, ups and downs, nights thinking I was maybe going to get a divorce in the morning if I had time after I got the laundry started, breakfast cleaned up, the cobwebs off the ceiling, and something in the crock pot for dinner. (This isn’t to imply that I’m the only person in this marriage who’s wondered if they could bear the other’s idiosyncrasies for another five minutes.)
This last weekend was my husband’s family reunion—one a year, relentlessly, since the dawn of time. From the day we get the invitation in June, I feel the dark fingers of dread creep around my heart. It’s not that I don’t like the people; they’re just different than my idea of family.
And it’s not just that they do crafts and farm and square dance, although you have to consider that.
It’s mainly that they all get along. They are comfortable with a group mentality. My family is intensely devoted to personal individuality. The way you rise to the top in my family is to assert your ability to get along without family. We call often to remind each other how different we are and how annoyed we are, but we don’t group together except at holiday dinners, occasions on which we get mad at how complicated it is to get together for holiday dinners.
I’m not saying this is healthy or right or intelligent, it’s just the way we are.
To be honest, part of our family’s “gift,” so to speak, is a desire to get ahead. I’m reading a book about Genghis Kahn and he used to drive the peasants out of the villages surrounding the cities he was attacking and use their bodies to fill the moats surrounding the city walls. They were crushed as his army advanced, catapulting boiling pitch and explosives on the townsfolk.
That way of thinking is not foreign to me.
You’d think that I’d get all teary eyed about belonging to such a blessed group and, in fact, I was, at first. It’s a Little House on the Prairie fantasy come true. All the men are handsome, all the women are chubby, great cooks. Like Aunt Bee
It’s been interesting to try to figure out what’s made me hold back from jumping into the hay pile with these nice people. Fear of losing myself is certainly part of it. Not having enough confidence in who I am to believe that if I give my heart, I’ll be able to keep my soul.
But it’s also fear of being swept away by the size of the thing. There were over a hundred folks the year that KSL came and taped the event at Duchesne campground,. Saturday night’s dance featured my husband’s brother and his band. He still plays for three hours Saturday night with the family band and he’s 82. The rest of the evening is relatives who are professional cowboy musicians and cute little three year olds who lip-synch and wiggle onstage like they were born there. Admirable, but not my family.
Or they weren’t until I capitulated this weekend.
After 30 years, I finally decided it was going to be okay to give in. I like them. I love their ongoing ability to accept my weirdness.
Saturday afternoon I spent four hours hiding on a couch reading (about Genghis Kahn) and napping. We were late that morning and missed the biscuits and gravy they served for breakfast. (Gravy for breakfast! Oh my gosh, why don’t you just kill yourself and get it over with.)
But no one is ever anything but accepting of me and my “tude.” No one has ever called me a jerk although by now everyone has probably wanted to at least once.
And by Sunday I’m always in love with someone. Although attendance has dropped closer to seventy people these days, there’s always someone new I haven’t gotten a chance to connect with, and we talk. And suddenly I want to move to Hurricane and quilt.
Don’t ever tell anyone on my side of the family tree that I’m having a good time. Please. They’ll put me in the moat. At the bottom.
And I’m appliquéing an apron for next year’s raffle that I want to finish.
This last weekend was my husband’s family reunion—one a year, relentlessly, since the dawn of time. From the day we get the invitation in June, I feel the dark fingers of dread creep around my heart. It’s not that I don’t like the people; they’re just different than my idea of family.
And it’s not just that they do crafts and farm and square dance, although you have to consider that.
It’s mainly that they all get along. They are comfortable with a group mentality. My family is intensely devoted to personal individuality. The way you rise to the top in my family is to assert your ability to get along without family. We call often to remind each other how different we are and how annoyed we are, but we don’t group together except at holiday dinners, occasions on which we get mad at how complicated it is to get together for holiday dinners.
I’m not saying this is healthy or right or intelligent, it’s just the way we are.
To be honest, part of our family’s “gift,” so to speak, is a desire to get ahead. I’m reading a book about Genghis Kahn and he used to drive the peasants out of the villages surrounding the cities he was attacking and use their bodies to fill the moats surrounding the city walls. They were crushed as his army advanced, catapulting boiling pitch and explosives on the townsfolk.
That way of thinking is not foreign to me.
You’d think that I’d get all teary eyed about belonging to such a blessed group and, in fact, I was, at first. It’s a Little House on the Prairie fantasy come true. All the men are handsome, all the women are chubby, great cooks. Like Aunt Bee
It’s been interesting to try to figure out what’s made me hold back from jumping into the hay pile with these nice people. Fear of losing myself is certainly part of it. Not having enough confidence in who I am to believe that if I give my heart, I’ll be able to keep my soul.
But it’s also fear of being swept away by the size of the thing. There were over a hundred folks the year that KSL came and taped the event at Duchesne campground,. Saturday night’s dance featured my husband’s brother and his band. He still plays for three hours Saturday night with the family band and he’s 82. The rest of the evening is relatives who are professional cowboy musicians and cute little three year olds who lip-synch and wiggle onstage like they were born there. Admirable, but not my family.
Or they weren’t until I capitulated this weekend.
After 30 years, I finally decided it was going to be okay to give in. I like them. I love their ongoing ability to accept my weirdness.
Saturday afternoon I spent four hours hiding on a couch reading (about Genghis Kahn) and napping. We were late that morning and missed the biscuits and gravy they served for breakfast. (Gravy for breakfast! Oh my gosh, why don’t you just kill yourself and get it over with.)
But no one is ever anything but accepting of me and my “tude.” No one has ever called me a jerk although by now everyone has probably wanted to at least once.
And by Sunday I’m always in love with someone. Although attendance has dropped closer to seventy people these days, there’s always someone new I haven’t gotten a chance to connect with, and we talk. And suddenly I want to move to Hurricane and quilt.
Don’t ever tell anyone on my side of the family tree that I’m having a good time. Please. They’ll put me in the moat. At the bottom.
And I’m appliquéing an apron for next year’s raffle that I want to finish.
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