Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Blood is thicker...

I am an only child.

I am acutely aware of this as I grow older, as do my parents. They are all I have of my personal history, the only people who have been there from the beginning. And they are aging at an alarming rate. My parents never thought it terribly important for me to get to know my extended family, and my father's alcoholism and my mother's need for a perfect family facade kept them from socializing much at all. I didn't meet my great-uncle, who lived only half an hour from me my whole childhood, until I was in college. It just never occurred to my dad to take me along when he visited. I have cousins, but they remember me as a precocious six-year-old about whom my mother would babble on and on ad nauseam.

What I do have is very close family friends who lived across the street from us, starting when I was ten years old. They haven't been there from the very beginning, but they've been around the longest. When I think of my family, they and their relatives are part of it, and the children of that family are the closest things I have to siblings. We've rolled our eyes about our parents, wandered freely between our two houses, seen each other through important milestones. They were my best friends, and I'm happy to say that they're still in my life. My children and I spent an afternoon with them two weeks ago, celebrating birthdays.

Oddly, though, when I come home after one of these visits, I feel sad. They are complete in themselves; they don't need me. My "pseudo-sister" has a real brother; my "pseudo-brother" has a real sister. Our children get along like cousins, and we do call them cousins/nieces/nephews even though there is no blood relation. It is clear to me, though, that I see our relationship differently, more intensely. They don't seem to mind, but they don't seem to share the intensity. That's what makes me sad.

One day, my parents will pass, and I will be alone. I have a husband, of course, and children, and in-laws, but that can't take the place of people who knew you when, who can bring up that embarrassing moment that you thought you'd forgotten and share a giggle. I have brothers-and sisters-in-law, but they are mostly Indian, so we've never been on the same wavelength (I feel the strongest connection with my only American brother-in-law -- we can joke about our spouses' odd habits and be reassured that we're not the ones who are weird). We do things differently -- approach life differently, and it's frustrating when my own assumptions, based on a life spent in the United States, clash with my husband's assumptions, and we both feel we're right. I always want to call dibs because we live in my country, after all, and I wasn't the one who chose to immigrate, but I don't want to be completely insensitive. Just, you know, moderately so.

Mostly, that day, I was struck by how comfortable PB's own family and his wife's family were with each other, and how nice it would be to be married to someone from my own country, where our families of origin would have common ground. Now, I feel like I'm constantly on the outside looking in. My mother doesn't much care for my mother-in-law, though of course both are nice to each other. My father doesn't much care for anybody anymore, so he tends to sit in the corner and fall asleep. My mother-in-law and I get along fine now that we don't live under the same roof, and she has stopped pointing out my flaws -- which are legion, I grant, but I don't need to be reminded. I know that she thinks of me as a daughter, and I would do anything for her, as she would for me, but there will always be a gulf between us. We will never understand each other, not in a million years. I and my family can't sit companionably with them on a lazy spring afternoon and talk of nothing at all.

What it comes down to, in the end, though, is this: my husband is a good man, the right one for me. We agree on a lot of things, from tree-hugging to politics to books and movies. We have our ups and downs like everyone else, and we have as many disagreements as everyone else. Everyone has to work through their different expectations, and it never ends. Despite my own feelings of alienation (which are my own problem, dammit!) I do have a husband and children who love me and whom I love. I will not be alone.

Right?

1 comment:

CraftyCarole said...

oh my... although I do have 2 brothers... I completely understand the married to a foriegner and his family thing.... we really should talk more often