Cafe Hitch-hike

2022-06-14

Keep it simple, again

A colleague and I were exposed to Covid last week, and we tested negative. I'll still keep an eye for symptoms because the infection seemed to creep up on the guy who was infected. He got sick about 3 or 4 days after he tested positive.

I was supposed to go back to the hometown this week and spend Father's Day at the campground. Once I told my siblings I had to see about a Covid test, everyone who was supposed to go to the campground balked. One didn't have transportation, one just started a new job, and another one is out of state. It all just fell apart and it came pretty close to that last year, so I ended up cancelling the trip. Surprisingly, I felt way, way, WAY better shortly after.

I'll still take a little time off work. Rafael wants to do something fun in the summer, so I'll use my time off for that. I need something fun because 2022 has been one big serious matter.

I then decided to keep things very simple whenever I go back to the hometown. I'll just go along with what they plan and have my own schedule, making landings in theirs whenever they make them. The campsite things were too complicated and with a high probability of falling apart. House gatherings and picnics were usually what happened, and I'll stick with that.

My mantra with my family: keep it simple, keep it simple, keep it simple. Accept it, pray they are in the hands of the universe and receive its love, be me and let things be.

Thinking of my estate planning took me into an unexpected space. The fact that I was doing it made me laugh and groan with surprise to even think I had something that could be passed on. It also bothered me to have to trust my family. It led me to look at our relationship since I came of age and I wasn't pleased with the distance between us. Then again, it wasn't such a terrible surprise considering...

...my younger siblings are still their father's kids. Their father's people are all close to the nest and very few strayed from the hometown region. My siblings also adopted this. My sister went to another state for a while to help a daughter but wants to come back after barely a month; she couldn't stand being away.

...as I talked to my younger sis Big Momma (the one mentioned above), she said she doesn't have much of anything to leave behind. She said she could had tried to get work that offered more benefits or retirements, but she didn't want to. She was content with doing manual labor, it was all she knew and she wanted to stay there (and these are her words). She said she didn't want to try something different or learn something new. I've heard others say this over the years, and I guess it's a matter of me accepting that my family is just ok with staying in that situation regardless of the hardships it often brings them.

...I have a different father. Like it or not, some of our personality is genetic. I knew my father was a well-respected athlete in our region, but I didn't know until later that his side were enterprising people. It's easy to see where I got that. I hated living hand-to-mouth as we grew up, but I suppose there was something in me that refused to accept it for myself.

...of course I don't like visiting the hometown or seeing my siblings too often because it's the same as it was 40 years ago and got worse in many ways. It's fucking depressing to go back and see it. It's hard to interact with them when the topic of conversation is about the latest screw-up or trouble someone's in. In short, I made different choices and still do, and that's just the way it is. People have free will and autonomy, and with that, I'm not obligated to assist or fix because they are simply living their own lives.

It makes me think of the people I've known who were in some tough spots, and one thing some had in common was they accepted it was no one's fault but theirs. They also proclaimed no one was to tell them what to do or better dare. My Uncle Joe was one of these people, and so were Remy and also Carlo. I need to find a way to have this mindset with my relatives: they made their choices, they didn't need help. If they really wanted things to be different, they would have found ways but didn't.

Self autonomy is one thing, but ducking various truths, facts or responsibilities won't completely protect people from them. My family could decide to not think ahead or make plans, but it could still happen. When my uncle died, people who lived far couldn't attend his funeral because they didn't have the means and asked to delay it by a month so they can save up; we told them it wasn't possible. It's not possible to plan for everything in life, but it's another thing to just say "I like to keep it simple" when life just isn't. I have to deeply accept this is the norm for my family of origin.

So no, I really didn't have much of a relationship with them over the years because we couldn't connect much after a certain point. Yeah, I left the town but there wasn't much of an exchange. I thought maybe I didn't try hard enough but not much was coming my way, either. We had such different lifestyles that it was just too awkward to interact for too long. We have the root of being from the same family, but beyond that, it went elsewhere. It was a bit similar with my mother although we had been in contact. She probably thought I was weird. I really hated that she belittled me for feeling the way I did about things or really didn't give support (moral support or otherwise) for my goals after a certain point. But, it went with her hands-off and keep-it-simple form of mothering. Other things got her interest.

Someone also suggested, "maybe they also didn't have much to give, like they were poor in spirit along with other things."

Recent things really hit me, and it's almost pushed my face against the wall to accept it. Water is wet, rocks are hard, and that's just the way it is, said a wise person and that's the case with my family of origin. I also think about this because Carlo had been estranged from his family for a very long time, but there were probably valid reasons for that. It was just a little sad to me that he passed away with the way he did, and it made me wonder how it would be for me which kind of freaked me out this past weekend.

The family loves me and I love them, but the disconnect is just so great. I guess as long as we can hear each other's shouts of it from across the abyss, then it's simply the best we can do.

downwind | upstream