What are you going to do with them? From the challenges of accepting the latest tattoos to carping about taking out the garbage, nursing a sick child in the middle of the night, carpools, schedules, and money issues living with others no matter the relationship is messy work. How do you describe your family–Mom, Dad, kids, the dog, and cat, maybe a grandparent or two? Do in-laws, out-laws, neighbors, good friends, goats, and horses fall under the umbrella of a family? Or does the designation constitute just blood relatives? The Latin word familia where our word family springs meant the buildings and contents including the servants and the livestock more like a homestead than actual blood relations as our definition states.
Is your familia defined in as broad in terms as in ancient Roman? Is it a happy conglomeration of folk glad to see each other and wildly supportive of one another? Is a particular disease a part of the scenario like the unspoken guest at the table? Does dysfunction rule? Or is your family unit nonexistent or wholly broken?
To explore different aspects of life is a perennial curiosity of mine. What is human life other than relating to one another? The crucible where we first interface with the world, learn how to be, what to think and how to define the other takes place within the family. The pressure cooker of living with others only makes things more fascinating. Though I know in my heart that every tribe has its problems, crazy aunts, or brooding teenagers, and despite writing three novels focused on family dysfunction, I fear to broach the topic of kith and kin because I believe mine might fall short of the ideal.
Would Norman Rockwell be interested in painting the vignette of your family sitting around the table chatting about the day’s events or maybe a holiday with a steaming turkey front and center? By the way, The Saturday Evening Post did no one any favors with their idealized family covers. Are there fantasies, vestiges of 1950-era sitcoms, surrounding your family’s interactions—Hallmark moments? Is there an impossible standard the glue that holds the whole sloppy thing together? When failing to meet the benchmark, do things go south in a hurry? In my nest, holidays while compelling are fraught with anxiety. Even while I ask the question, are we the only ones? I am confident we are not alone. But so afraid are we as a group that someone might meltdown, as soon as the last dish is safely ensconced in the cupboard the place clears as if someone yelled fire in a theater.
Having been a member of several different clans due to the odd particulars of my life, I am aware appearances rarely represent the goings on when the camera ceases to roll, the last guest leaves, or the cat pulls the Christmas tree over on Great-Aunt Luella’s exceedingly delicate table and your only heirloom. A social worker friend once told me, “if you were able to peel back the roof and gaze into houses unseen you would be shocked at what goes on.” Since I’m not much into hopping up on rooftops and looking for the appropriate corner to start peeling, I can’t say. I suspect, however, that what goes on in the bosom of your family is a far cry from what we would have the world see. We, humans, want to present in the best possible light. A little something we learned from where else other than our parents. And as critics we are our worst, even more so when it comes to our families, they being extensions of ourselves.
Hubs, a funny man said when asked when he exactly had he arrived at a long resisted decision, “While floating down the Nile.” His Irish accent makes the joke more amusing since he pronounces “the” as “de.” Denial is often at play when matters as dear to our hearts as kin arise. Because the topic can be overloaded with guilt and regret retreating to the assumed safety of denial is an oft-employed tactic. The problem with denying unpleasantness is it doesn’t work. The grumpiness almost always gives way to more troublesome feelings.
Often, I find myself mewling either to a child or the noise in my head, had I known better, I would have done better. The guilt that suffuses families, the ones of origin and the ones we later create, keeps therapists in business while taking a tremendous toll on both parents and children for generations. James Hillman, a Jungian therapist, suggests that the family is rich in mythology and if we allow ourselves to define family thus, we can build in moments of awareness rather than taking on the angst of having done it wrong, been a bad parent, or child.
Taking a cue from Shakespeare and Hillman, I am looking for the active mythology afoot in my household dynamics. Nothing else I’ve tried in the past has proven to be anything but exhausting! I have so many and any other way has proven time and again exhausting. Rather than getting caught up in the drama and blaming the actors, I going to sit back and take stock of the happenings on stage, the world is one. I might learn something about the myth that is me and get a little entertainment in the bargain.